Bush Highlights Tal Afar as Example of Progress in Iraq
Says Iraqi and coalition troops employed "clear, hold and build" strategy
| President Bush in Cleveland, Ohio, March 20. (© AP/WWP) |
Washington -- President Bush expressed his confidence in Iraq’s success by highlighting Tal Afar, a city in northern Iraq with an ethnically mixed population that Bush described as “a concrete example of progress in Iraq.”
Speaking March 20 to the City Club of Cleveland, Bush said Tal Afar once was “a key way station” for al-Qaida’s operations in Iraq, and the terrorist group soon returned to control the city after being driven out temporarily by coalition forces in September 2004.
The president said al-Qaida employed “deliberate and highly organized attempts to maintain control through intimidation,” sending a clear message to the citizens of Tal Afar that “anyone who dares oppose their reign of terror will be murdered.” As a result, the residents effectively became “prisoners in their own homes” until Iraqi and coalition forces recaptured the city in 2005, Bush said.
The president said the Iraqi government and coalition forces adopted a new approach called, “clear, hold and build,” in which terrorist forces would be driven out, trained Iraqi soldiers would remain in the city and the soldiers would “work with local leaders to build the economic and political infrastructure Iraqis need to live in freedom.
“This new approach was made possible because of the significant gains made in training large numbers of highly capable Iraqi security forces,” Bush said.
Tal Afar was one of the first tests of the new strategy, and Bush said the first step in its implementation was meeting with tribal leaders and local residents to listen to their grievances. That meeting resulted in the building of “a professional police force that all sides could have confidence in.”
Iraqi and coalition forces also began to win trust by careful focus on securing the safety of the population in their military operations against terrorists.
Tal Afar today is “a city that is coming back to life,” he said.
“You see that the terrorists who once exercised brutal control over every aspect of your city have been killed or captured or driven out or put on the run. You see your children going to school and playing safely in the streets. You see the electricity and water service restored throughout the city. You see a police force that better reflects the ethnic and religious diversity of the communities they patrol. You see markets opening, and you hear the sound of construction equipment as buildings go up and homes are remade,” he said.
The president added that election results from Tal Afar demonstrate that “Iraqis respond when they know they're safe.”
When the city was under al-Qaida’s control in January 2005, only 32,000 out of 190,000 registered voters went to the polls, the second-lowest participation rate in the country. In contrast, in the December 2005 election held after Iraqi and coalition troops implemented their “clear, hold and build” strategy, “the number of registered voters rose to about 204,000, and more than 175,000 turned out to vote,” Bush said.
The president also said the city’s reaction to the February bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra was relatively subdued, with few reports of sectarian violence. (See related article.)
“Actually, on the Friday after the attack, more than a thousand demonstrators gathered in Tal Afar to protest the attack peacefully,” Bush said.
The president said that even though the progress made in Tal Afar is not matched in every part of Iraq, “The example of Tal Afar gives me confidence in our strategy.
“[I]n this city we see the outlines of the Iraq that we and the Iraqi people have been fighting for, a free and secure people who are getting back on their feet, who are participating in government and civic life, and who have become allies in the fight against the terrorists,” he said.
Following his remarks, President Bush also took questions on Iran, India, Pakistan and immigration reform.
The transcript of the president’s remarks and a related fact sheet are available on the White House Web site.
For additional information, see Iraq Update and Iraq's Political Process.