U.S. military sees little progress in Baghdad security crackdown

? The U.S. military issued a sober assessment Tuesday of the Baghdad security crackdown, saying violence had decreased slightly but not to “the degree we would like to see” in the two weeks since 75,000 Iraqi and American troops flooded the capital.

The evaluation came as 18 more Iraqis fell victim to sectarian and insurgent violence, including five people whose bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. The U.S. military also announced the deaths of a Marine and three soldiers; three of the deaths were west of the capital in volatile Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said the overwhelming security operation launched two weeks ago to rein in violence in Baghdad was moving more slowly than hoped.

“It’s going to take some time. We do not see an upward trend. We … see a slight decrease, but not of the degree we would like to see at this point,” he said at a news conference in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

However, Caldwell added, “we don’t see this as turning into a civil war right now.”

U.S. deaths

As of Tuesday, at least 2,528 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

U.S. officials hope the willingness of leading Sunni Arabs to withdraw support for the insurgency will help heal the nation.

On Tuesday, an influential Sunni Arab cleric endorsed the Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s 24-point reconciliation plan.

Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, the head of the Sunni Endowment, the state agency responsible for Sunni mosques and shrines, applauded the provision that calls for the release of all prisoners who have not been charged with crimes.

He called on the government to implement the plan quickly, but emphasized that it should include the disbanding of armed Shiite militias. Minority Sunnis have accused Shiite-led militias of random detention, torture and killing.

Other developments

¢ Saddam Hussein and six former military commanders will be indicted on charges of genocide later this summer in the killings of Iraqi Kurds during a seven-month operation in 1988, the court trying him announced Tuesday.
¢ Iraq’s deputy prime minister Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie met secretly with exiled Sunni leaders to win their support for national reconciliation and to try to quell the insurgency, community leaders said Tuesday.