Major General Mark Hertling (Usa) Holds a Defense Department News Briefing
Political Transcript Wire › August 27, 2009
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Major General Mark Hertling (Usa) Holds a Defense Department News Briefing
GENERAL HERTLING HOLDS A DEFENSE DEPARTMENT NEWS BRIEFING, BAGHDAD, IRAQ, AS RELEASED BY MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ
JULY 27, 2008SPEAKERS: MAJOR GENERAL MARK HERTLING (USA), COMMANDER, MULTI-NATIONAL DIVISION-NORTH[*] HERTLING: As-Salamu 'Alaykum and good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been about three months since I last spoke to this group down here in Baghdad, coming down from Tikrit which is where we are stationed. I know many of you are interested in the security conditions in the north. But I know some of you are interested in some of the other things that are going on in the north so I'll try and cover both of those things in an opening statement. First of all, in terms of security, since June of last year, the significant activity in the northern provinces as we measure them have been reduced by about 75 percent across the board. It's gone from about 2,600 reported events a month in June of 2007 to about 650 in June of 2008 and that's continuing to decline so far this month in July. The number of IEDs that we have seen in the northern provinces have decreased by about 50 percent since February of this year from about 950 to about 430 as measured in June and those also continue to decline. That's not to say we still don't have threats. The largest threats that we are seeing from both terrorist and criminal organizations are suicide vests in the southern province of Diyala and vehicle-borne explosive devices throughout the provinces but spe...See the full content of this document
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