Marine Corps Colonel Patrick Malay, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5 of Multi-National Force - West, briefed Pentagon reporters and the bloggers roundtable this week on success against insurgents in the western portion of Iraq's Anbar province.
U.S., Iraqi Forces Winning in Western Anbar Province by Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service
Increased security brought about by military success against insurgents in the western portion of Iraq's Anbar province is enabling a drawdown of U.S. forces there as well as enhanced regional reconstruction efforts, a senior Marine commander told Pentagon reporters today.
"The insurgents, by and large, have been marginalized in western Anbar," Marine Corps Col. Pat Malay, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite-carried news conference from Camp Ripper, Iraq. Malay's area of operations comprises about 30,000 square miles, an area about the size of South Carolina.
During a previous Iraq tour in Fallujah two years ago, Malay recalled, multitudes of foreign fighters were entering western Iraq from Syria. Today, there are very few foreign fighters in his area of operations, he observed.
"Quite frankly, I think we've killed a lot of them, and I think that the enemy is having a more difficult time recruiting to the numbers that they have in the past," Malay said. In addition, foreign fighters no longer are transiting across the Syrian border into Anbar province, the colonel said.
With insurgents "on the run" in western Anbar province, the resultant reduced violence has enabled a drawdown of U.S. forces in his sector, Malay said. Three of his command's five battalions have rotated home over the past three months, he noted...
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