Iraq troop shortage cited

WASHINGTON — The commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq said Friday he does not have enough troops to deal with the escalating violence in Iraq's Diyala province, an unusually frank assertion for a top officer and a sign that American military officials may be starting to offer more candid and blunt assessments of the war.

Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. "Randy" Mixon also said that the Iraqi government has failed to help the situation in the restive province, adding that it has been a hindrance at times by failing to support local army and police forces.

Diyala is an eastern Iraqi region bordering Baghdad, where many insurgents are fleeing in the wake of the ongoing buildup of troops in the Iraqi capital.

Mixon, speaking by teleconference from Camp Speicher outside Tikrit, told a Pentagon news conference Friday that he did not have enough soldiers to deal with security in Diyala province, adding that the local government is "nonfunctional" and the central government is "ineffective."

Mixon said the Iraqi government was hamstrung by bureaucracy and compromised by corruption and sectarian divisions, making it unable to assist U.S. forces in Diyala.

The province is ethnically mixed and has long been home to elements of the Sunni-based insurgency. As the number of American forces has increased in Baghdad and western Anbar province, radicals in the Sunni insurgency and in Shiite death squads have moved into Diyala, which is comparatively undermanned.

There is one U.S. Army brigade now in the province, or about 3,500 troops, compared with 10 brigades in and around Baghdad and four in Anbar. Sixty-three U.S. soldiers have been killed in Diyala so far this year, compared with 20 last year, according to the independent Web site icasualties.org.

Mixon emphasized that he had asked for more troops shortly after arriving in Iraq last September, well before the U.S. troop buildup was started in Baghdad. Mixon said he saw that violence was rising and the region was becoming a stronghold for Sunni extremists tied to al-Qaida in Iraq.

He said he had been given a battalion in reinforcements, or about 800 soldiers, and that Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the day-to-day commander in Iraq, has said he would send additional forces when possible.

It is rare for an officer of Mixon's rank to publicly call for more troops. When Donald Rumsfeld was secretary of Defense, there were intense pressures on officers to not make such requests, even privately, according to officers who served in Iraq.

One recently retired Army general close to the northern Iraq commander said his frankness likely stemmed from a new "command climate" under the new commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, that is more conducive to blunt evaluations.

Many Army generals also have been stung by disclosures by lower-ranking officers.

A recent article in the Armed Forces Journal by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq war veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, accused the Army's top generals of botching the war and misleading the American public and Congress.