General says U.S. attack likely on Iraqi rebel area

By JIM KRANE
The Associated Press

GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD / GETTY IMAGES Iraqi Shiite militiamen search for U.S. tanks in the Shiite area of Sadr City east of Baghdad yesterday. Sadr City has been labeled one of Iraq's three main trouble spots.

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Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the No. 2 American military leader in Iraq, said the U.S. military will work to regain control of rebel strongholds and turn them over to Iraq's fledgling security forces so elections will be seen by Iraqis — and the world — as free and fair.

"I don't think today you could hold elections," Metz said. "But I do have about four months where I want to get to local control. And then I've got the rest of January to help the Iraqis to put the mechanisms in place."

A U.S. military offensive will be needed to bring the toughest places to heel, Metz said.

The rebel-held western city of Fallujah is the biggest obstacle, he said. The next biggest problem, in U.S. military terms, is Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad and also in guerrilla hands.

Metz says the easiest of the three major trouble spots in which to regain control is Baghdad's Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City. Parts of the neighborhood of 2 million remain the fiefdom of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters have wired it with hidden bombs and booby traps, U.S. officials say.

Besides those centers of rebellion, large sections of Iraq remain beyond government control and out of reach of elections. They include Sunni Muslim areas north and west of Baghdad and, perhaps, southern Shiite cities such as Basra, where sections resist U.S. or British troops.

Assaults to retake those areas could be done consecutively or simultaneously, Metz said. He said one or more of the situations might be solved through negotiations, with leaders warning that their cities face a devastating U.S. offensive if the insurgents don't stand down.

"If you're a leader in a town ... do you want to have to go rebuild it because it got destroyed, because foreign fighters came to hang out in your city? They can help us make these decisions," Metz said.

The presence of large numbers of foreign fighters among Iraqi insurgents remains largely unconfirmed.

The general also said the Americans' August siege of Najaf could be considered a model for subduing rebel-held areas.
 
U.S. and Iraqi officials consider the battle a success, although it left the Shiite holy city in ruins with hundreds of Iraqi fighters and civilians dead and nine Americans killed. Al-Sadr's militia left the city but did not disarm. U.S. troops also withdrew. The city is now under control of the interim Iraqi government.

Metz didn't rule out allowing elections in Iraq's government-held areas without participation by voters in rebel strongholds such as Fallujah. He said polling was critical in Iraq's three biggest cities, Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, but that smaller cities could be left out.

"That's not our intention," he said. But "I'd envision the Iraqis could have an election. And if a piece of cancer in the country like Fallujah didn't participate, it would still ... be a legitimate election."

Metz's statements are among the strongest to date by U.S. or Iraqi officials conceding that the security situation is so perilous that some areas may not be pacified in time for elections.

While bypassing some cities could allow officials to stick to their planned January timetable, doing so could detract from the election's credibility, foment discontent in Iraq and leave other countries reluctant to acknowledge any government chosen in the vote.

One possible option, officials say, is to allow voters from places such as Fallujah, with an estimated population of 280,000, to cast their ballots at polling places in designated safe zones outside their towns.

Material from The Los Angeles Times is included in this report.