U.S. commander says no quick fixes in Baghdad

By Dean Yates

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. commander cautioned that even with thousands more American troops streaming into Iraq, the fight to stabilise Baghdad would not be over by September, which is looming as a key juncture in the four-year-old war.

Major-General Joseph Fil, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said he will have deployed all his reinforcements by the middle of June under a security offensive launched three months ago. That would have a "huge" impact on spreading a security footprint across the city, he said.

"(But) just having them arrived doesn't just turn things around," Fil said in an interview on Tuesday at his headquarters at a military base near Baghdad's airport.

General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, will make an assessment of the American "troop surge" in September.

That timing coincides with when Washington expects Iraq to have met benchmarks aimed at healing sectarian divisions, such as passing a law to equitably share Iraq's vast oil wealth.

A lack of significant progress on either the security or the political front by then could give Democrats more clout in their fight to set a timetable for withdrawing troops.

Some 30,000 extra American soldiers are being sent mainly to try to pacify Baghdad in what is seen as a last ditch attempt to pull Iraq back from the brink of sectarian civil war.

Fil said his measures for determining success would be further cutting sectarian violence, having Iraqi security forces take on greater responsibility and restoring essential services.