(06-21) 20:27 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
A top U.S. general in Iraq said Tuesday that reductions in American troops there could be possible by early next year despite the recent spasm of violence, but he said he was not ready yet to recommend any significant reductions.
Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the No. 2 U.S. officer in Iraq, said creation of democratic institutions in Iraq could accomplish what American troops and Iraqi security personnel have been unable to achieve: The defeat of the insurgency.
If the new Iraqi government drafts a constitution that gains wide acceptance, "My assessment is the insurgency could dwindle down very quickly," Vines told reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference from Iraq.
During an ebb in violence earlier this spring, several top generals expressed confidence that the U.S. presence in Iraq could begin declining by March 2006, either through withdrawal of units or by sending fewer troops to replace those who are rotating home.
Violence has increased again. Still, Vines suggested a drawdown of four or five brigades — less than a quarter of the U.S. presence of 135,000 personnel — was possible if Iraqi elections later this year are successful and Iraq's security forces continue to grow in ability and size.
In recent weeks, members of Congress, including some Republicans, have been introducing resolutions urging President Bush to formulate plans to begin taking U.S. troops out of Iraq.
Vines said he would oppose announcing any timeline for doing so because it would be based on arbitrary dates, not an assessment of the success of the U.S. mission. Other generals have also opposed such a move.
The general said the insurgency has become static in size and capability, despite U.S. and Iraqi operations to combat it, frequent reports of mass arrests and the disposal of weapons caches. Attacks across Iraq have returned to between 50 and 60 a day, roughly the same level as much of last year, Pentagon officials say.
"We don't see the insurgency contracting or expanding right now," Vines said.
He said there were four classes of insurgents in Iraq, fractured by motivation. But, given their origins and ideologies, he did not explain how members of those classes would be pacified by a constitution or a representative legislative body.
The group of foreigners led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has declared allegiance to al-Qaida, is behind many of the spectacular suicide bombings on civilian targets.
"Foreigners that are brought in typically do things that Iraqis won't do to each other," Vines said. Foreign fighters are chiefly Sudanese, Saudi, Yemeni and Egyptian; many enter Iraq through Syria, he said.
Some Iraqis also follow a Sunni Islamic extremist ideology, he said.
"Their opposition to the new government is based on religious objections," he said. "That group is quite small, but it is very violent."
Another group, which Vines numbered as a "few thousand," support the regime of deposed President Saddam Hussein. A fourth is composed of Iraqi nationalists opposed to any foreign presence on Iraqi soil.
Last month was the most violent for Iraqi civilians since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to remove Saddam from power, Vines said.
Many insurgents conducting attacks in Iraq are primarily motivated by money instead of ideology, he said.
Citing interviews with captured detainees, the general said some simple attacks, such as placing a bomb or mine, are performed for as little as $100 or $150.
"So we believe that this insurgency is driven in large measure by money," Vines said, suggesting the insurgency's ideological supporters are funding the attacks. Some bombings cost hundreds of dollars or more, he said.
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Lt. General Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 ranking US general in Iraq, has made the assertion that providing jobs for the Iraqi people is key to ending the insurgency and stabilizing the country.

In a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon he said, "by creating jobs and opportunity, the Iraqi government would take away a major source of support for violent movements -- aimless, underemployed, young men who would otherwise rather be gainfully employed and supporting their families, but are laying IEDs, shooting RPGs and fighting Iraqi security forces and the coalition because they lack alternatives…. In areas where unemployment is the highest, as I go out and talk to people in those areas, and they tell me the one thing that you can do to lower the number of insurgencies is find jobs for the people. And we're committed to help both the Iraqi government and the PRTs as they go about the business of doing exactly that."

The General also said that the insurgents were taking advantage of political disputes within the Iraqi leadership as they are attempting to form an inclusive government.

Chiarelli's assertion is similar to a claim made by Lt. General John R. Vines in 2005 that insurgents often attack US forces out of a desire to earn money instead of ideology. Simple tasks, such as placing a bomb or mine, are often done in exchange for amounts as little as $100 to $150.

The estimated unemployment rate in Iraq for 2005 was 25-30%. 

Opponents of the Bush administration's handling of the war say that Iraq's unemployment crisis is partially a result of decisions made by the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 to disband the Iraqi army and purge the Iraqi civil service of high-ranking members of the Baath Party. Both of these moves led to an estimated 500,000 Iraqis losing their jobs, about one out of every ten Iraqi workers at the time.