http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/239801/cs/1/People in Baghdad are being tortured and killed by "death squads" and a precipitous withdrawal from Baghdad at this point would result in "a significant increase in violence," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said this week.
"These are targeted killings by relatively small numbers of people in an attempt to stoke the sectarian violence and, frankly, to try and make the Baghdad Security Plan fail by hampering the reconciliation process," Gates said.
In a joint briefing at the Pentagon, the defense secretary and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described current U.S. military operations in Iraq, and also Afghanistan.
Operation Fardh al-Qanoon, an Iraqi phrase that means Enforcing the Law, is under way in Iraq. It includes an initiative to put five additional U.S. brigades into and around the Iraqi capital.