By Elaine M. Grossman, Global Security Newswire
© National Journal Group Inc.

In his testimony before House and Senate panels this week, Army Gen. David Petraeus urged a deliberative approach to shifting security responsibilities to the nascent Iraqi army, but it is not clear he will have the last word on timing.

Some top military and civilian officials are privately advocating that the Iraqis be given greater control over the primary U.S. mission in Iraq — securing the population from insurgent and sectarian attacks — on a faster timetable than Petraeus appears ready to embrace.

This twist in the debate comes as the top commander for the Middle East, Adm. William Fallon, and some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have pushed for the Iraqis to step up their own political and military efforts to reduce violence and achieve reconciliation, according to informed sources.

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Elaine M. Grossman
© National Journal Group, Inc.

The United States holds nearly 20,000 suspected insurgents in detention at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and, on long days in the desert sun, the inmates can get restless. On May 14, restlessness turned into a riot.

Detainees corralled inside huge compounds — where the only refuge from the sun is a rudimentary tent — decided it was time to move. Virtually every captive in a 1,000-man compound pushed up against the fence and chanted in Arabic.

The number of agitators actually was several thousand, “if you count somebody cheering them on,” says Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, who oversees the detention camps in Iraq. “I guess if they wanted to, they could have” pushed the fence down, he says. The inmates, though, still would have had to run a long way to reach Camp Bucca’s heavily guarded outer perimeter.

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