As Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb prepared to hand his command in
southeastern Iraq to another British general last week, he
said that Saddam Hussein's capture, and progress in restoring
oil installations, power stations and running water, as well
as the Iraqis' fast-rising prosperity, and some other factors
had led him and others to conclude that the American-led
occupation force can eventually hand a politically stable
Iraq back to its people.
Gen. Lamb, a 50-year-old Briton, arrived in June to lead the
mainly European force in an area that has been much quieter
than the American zone. Summing up his feelings, he said: "I
think we're in great shape."
Western reporters, he implied, had come to an early
conclusion that the allied undertaking in Iraq would not
succeed and had failed to adjust. He compared this with the
first stages of the spring invasion when resistance stalled
the drive to Baghdad. The plan provided for 125 days to take
Baghdad but it was accomplished in 23 days. But, he told
reporters, "you had us dead and buried in seven days."
The general is finishing his six-month command of an 11-
nation contingent of 13,000 troops based in Basra, that
controls an area covering about a quarter of Iraq, home to
five million people.
The general said Mr. Hussein's capture on Dec. 13 in an
underground bunker near Tikrit had lifted the shadow cast by
his months as a fugitive. For the insurgents, this removed a
figurehead, if not a cause; for other Iraqis, particularly
Shiites, the country's largest single group, it lifted a
widespread fear of Mr. Hussein's restoration, that had acted
as a drag on the allied forces' prospects.
The general spoke from his experience in the south, where the
population is 85 percent Shiite. Saddam Hussein is Sunni. But
he also based his conclusions on first-hand knowledge of
conditions faced by the American generals who command 120,000
American troops in military districts that account for 20
million other Iraqis, including Baghdad and the Sunni Muslim
regions north and west of the capital.
It is in these regions that more than 90 percent of the
attacks on allied forces have occurred. The south has been
far quieter, though General Lamb said 20 British troops had
died since he took command.
Progress, he said, has been rapid in meeting grievances in
the south. He told of more than 1,000 repair and rebuilding
projects involving oil installations, water-pumping stations
and pipes, power stations and cement plants, as well as
schools, hospitals, clinics and cultural institutions.
Spending could soon rise to $250 million on infrastructure
that had deteriorated disastrously under Mr. Hussein.
He noted that Iraqi civic leaders approached him claiming
that "before the war, everybody in Basra had running water,"
and that many had lost it as a result of allied bombing. But
he said that Water Department charts showed that a third of
the city never had pipes to carry water in the first place,
typical in areas not favored by Mr. Hussein. Pipes were being
installed now, he said.
At one point he said that drawing from his experience in
conflicts elsewhere, it was "slightly simplistic" to use the
declining number of daily attacks by insurgents as a measure
of progress, because it measured only a part of the challenge
facing the occupation forces.
American commanders often use the number of attacks as a kind
of barometer. In November there were an average of 40 a day
across Iraq, and as many as 55, with more than 80 American
soldiers killed, half of them when their helicopters were
downed. After the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the attacks
fell to an average that American commanders have put at
slightly fewer than 20 a day.
