Gates: Don't Limit U.S. Mission in Iraq
Associated Press | April 05, 2007
Limiting war funding to only certain training or counterterrorism missions could pull troops from Baghdad neighborhoods, which have been the focus of the latest military buildup in Iraq.
"One real possibility is, if we abandon some of these areas and withdraw into the countryside or whatever to do these targeted missions, that you could have a fairly significant ethnic cleansing inside Baghdad or in Iraq more broadly," Gates said in a radio interview Wednesday with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week said he will propose legislation to cut off funds for combat operations, and provide money for only three missions: targeted counterterrorism operations, training and equipping the Iraqi security forces, and to provide security for U.S. personnel and infrastructure.
Gates and other military leaders have argued that quelling the violence in Baghdad is necessary to give the fractured Iraqi government time to come together and ease widespread sectarian violence.
Recent Pentagon and U.S. intelligence reports have characterized some of the suicide bombings and other attacks by Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents as a "civil war," a description that members of the Bush administration had been loath to use.
Some members of Congress have argued that U.S. lives should not be lost trying to quash an Iraqi civil war.
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Robert Gates official photo.
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that limiting funding for the United States efforts in Iraq could lead to more bloodshed in the Middle Eastern country. In an interview with radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, he said it might even lead to ethnic cleansing in Bahgdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

Gates' comment followed a proposal from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to end most spending on the Iraq war in 2008, limiting it to targeted operations against al Qaeda, training for Iraqi troops and U.S. force protection.

Sec. Gates also said that the duration of the troop increase is not clear and that evaluating whether the Administration's new strategy was working will have to wait till mid-summer. The Army general charged with day-to-day operations has suggested that the increased deployment may extend to early next year.