commander in chief would require. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thanks a lot. [applause] . . [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> president obama commented on the milestone at the white house.

>> today american troops have transferred control of all iraqi cities and towns to iraqi government and security forces. [applause] this transition was agreed to last year as part of our agreement with the sovereigns iraqi government. it is part of our strategy to irresponsibly ended the war by removing all american combat regrate -- great. we want them all of the 2011. the iraqi people are rightly treating this day as a cause for celebration. it is an important step forward. it continues to take control of its own destiny. with this progress comes responsibility.

the future is in the hands of its own people. chirac's leaders must now make some hard choices. -- iraq's leaders' summit some hard choices. they need security for their towns and leaders. america will be a strong partner to the iraqi people on behalf of security and prosperity. make no mistake, there will be dismal days ahead. we know that the violence in iraq will continue. we see that already in the bombing earlier today. there are those that will test iraqi security forces. the iraqi people will see more bombings in the murder of innocent civilians. i am confident that the forces will fail. the future belongs to those who build it, not those who destroy it. today's transition is further proof that those who try to hold iraq into the abyss are on the

wrong side. finally, the very sad said they are -- they are celebrating capability and commitment of every single american who has served in iraq. that is [applause] very tour after a tour of duty, our troops have overcome every obstacle to extend this opportunity to the iraqi people. these women and men are not only in the headlines, but they are in the hearts and prayers. we will forever honor their selfless service and sacrifice as will as the sacrifice of their families. there is more work to be done. we have made important progress in supporting a sovereign, stable, and self-reliance iraq. everyone who serve their in

uniform and civilians deserve our thaks. but now the commander of the multinational forces in iraq, ray odierno, spoke to reporters in the a satellite from baghdad. this is 45 minutes. >> good afternoon. we are privileged to have general odierno is joining us this morning. as you will recall, he took command in september of last year. he was a multinational corps commander in iraq previously. he was a frequent participant in this format. this marks his 12th appearance in this format.

we certainly appreciate you for giving us some time today on this important occasion. it is a historic day in iraq. it is a real milestone in iraqi progress. to give us a brief overview, and then to take your questions, general odierno, welcome. >> thank you. good morning. i want to make a quick statement. then i will get on to your questions. as brien said, today is a very important today. we are continuing to move toward our objective of a sovereign and stable iraq. 2009 march is the big milestone for iraq, as security forces assume responsibility for security within the cities across the country. it is a day when the rockies -- when iraq's practice their

sovereignty. in accordance with the security agreement between u.s. and iraq, forces have completed the withdrawal of iraqi cities. a small number of u.s. forces will remain in cities to train, and buys, coordinate with iraqi security forces and enable them to move forward. we will also support civil capacity efforts led by the embassy, baghdad, and the united nascent -- united nations assistance mission. outside the cities, u.s. forces will continue to conduct a full spectrum operations by and through our iraqi force partners. our efforts will establish a layer of defense as iraqis secure the cities. we will secure the belts and borders in an attempt to eliminate safe havens and sanctuaries and to limit freedom of movement of insurgents and prevent the facilitation of

foreign fighters through the borders. the u.s. is committed to full transparent, and continued implementation of the security agreement in the spirit of partnership with the sovereign nation of iraq. the iraqi people should be very proud of the dedication, progress, and sacrifice of the iraqi security forces and the government of iraq. their accomplishments are commendable. the american people should also with very proud as well of the shoulders, sailors, airmen, marines, and coast guard, and civilians who have worked so hard over the past years tiresomely to sacrifice so much in helping the people of iraq progress toward a peaceful and democratic society. with that, i am happy to take your questions. >> you talked about a small

number of u.s. forces remaining in the area. can you put a figure of how many u.s. forces will remain there? >> people have been trying to get me say figure for about a month. the reason i will not do it is because it is going to be different every single day. it will be based on how much training, advising, how much coordination is required. that will change every day. i will put the i will not put a number on it. it is a smaller number than what we have had in the cities now. it has very specific missions. it has trained security iraqi forces to enable them to come if they need help with aviation, coordinate and help us continue our situational awareness of all situations within iraq. that will help us to better support the iraqi security forces.

>> just to follow up. i am disappointed he did not give us [unintelligible] can you of these give us -- it is a few thousand? can give is a ballpark? are we talking about several thousand? is that reasonable? >> again, there are hundreds of cities around. we have hundreds of, you know, for me to give a number -- it would be inaccurate. i do not want to do it. there will be trainers helping throughout all of the iraqi cities where we continue to support and advised iraqi citizens. >> whatever the number is, how are you going to convince them not to jump in and be helpful where perhaps you would prefer

them to have the rockies -- have the iraqis take the lead? would in their first and sing be, we can do that better? >> we are working on changing their mind set. i equated to when we first started the search. we had to change your mind said to pushing our soldiers back out in getting into the communities, really parting with the security forces. today it is the same kind. we have detained a mindset. we are in the cities, there are specific things we can do. we have been out to the cities now for the last eight months. it is really only modal and the last remnants in bad debts that have been helping out over the last few weeks. we have been -- and baghdad that have been helping out over the last few weeks. they understand their mission. they understand what we expect them to do. we have more to this very

closely with all the leaders in iraq. i have worked very closely with the minister of defense, and the operation's commanders, the operational commanders, in order to work this out. i feel very comfortable with where we are at. >> you are reluctant to talk about how many trainers and mentors are in the city. it raises the question of whether or not this is just a show or not, whether this is just semantic. you want shoulders with guns in the cities. you call them what you want. how different is what we sell to two or three years ago -- weeks ago? what is this? is this a show for the american people? >> i would say you did not listen to what i said. what i just said was, having the italians and a great inside of cities is different than having trainer, and valiantadvisers.

we are offering run the belts in baghdad. i have been very clear about this. we had to search forces. we had to the people in the city. we had to live in a safe haven center where. it is the same thing. the iraqis will take responsibility in the cities. we will do full spectrum operations outside the cities to work the safe haven and sanctuaries around the cities. we will continue to do that. it is legitimate operations that we will continue to conduct. in baghdad, you would know there is a significant change. there are thousands of soldiers that have pulled out of baghdad. there have not been any soldiers in the cities in southern iraq, rahm body, there have not been any soldiers in fallujah

. we have been executing this very well. you would see for yourself. there is a significant change. >> if you are going to be so transparent, why cannot tell tommy trainers or mentors are in the city? >> it would be inaccurate. i do not know exactly how many are in the city. it varies day today based on the mission. >> you must have a ballpark. >> how many times you want me to say that? i do not know. what i'm telling you is training and advising teams that we made in baghdad. it will be different every single day. we have worked three closely locally with the commanders to figure this out. it'll be different tomorrow than it is today. that is why i do not want to say no.. it will be inaccurate. if i say no. today, it will be different tomorrow and the next day.

it is significantly lower than it has been so far. >> all right, general. right now there are 101 u.s. people in iraq. in august, it is going to be between 15 and 35,000. can you talk about how is this going to work, a time line, from 131? >> what i would say first is it has gone down. vader nine months ago, we were at about 165,000. we have with john about 35,000 soldiers in the past eight months. we will do this through the end of the year. it will be not as many. it will slowly drawn down. i have been given flexibility by my chain of command to make

decisions based on the situation on the ground. you want to make sure you have enough forces on the ground to shore would elections -- to assure good elections. we will see a bit of a drawdown between now and then. i have points that i established that will make some decisions for the end of the year. i will make further decisions after the election. i expect you'll see a significant drawdown of soldiers between march and april of next year and september. >> when he is a significant, i hate to say this, can you quantify that at all? >> we are going to get down to the thousand people by the end of september. i think that is what -- 50,000 people by the end of september. i think that is what you were asking. >> when it to win?

-- when to when? >> again, i several decision points. i will make those as we go forward. we have 131,000 on the ground. there will be some left between now and december. probably i expect we will be around 120,000 by december. that could change, because i have some flexibility based on how things go here on the ground. then what i expect is between, after the elections are over, we will reduce our presence further, probably going somewhere between 115,000 down to 50,000. >> can you give us your latest assessment of iranian influence in iraq? training, funding, weapons, have you seen any change in that

streak processing in a run? >> we continue to still see training going on inside of a run. we still see weapons moving from iran into iraq. we have not seen any adjustments made sense the problem with the elections in iran. they are maintaining themselves in a steady state. >> you have a sense that the iranians are positioning themselves for further action? there is the dramatic instances over past years. what appears to be the running game plan? >> -- to be the i iranian game plan? >> what we have seen is a bit of a slowdown of support. i would like to say that has to do with the pressure that we have put on.

we have made it difficult. we have been able to go actor and reconcile with some of the groups said they initially were supporting. we unable to go after some of the sarah gets. i think that has contributed. they realize that in february of this year that some of their strategy was failing. they fought against the security agreement. it was signed. the candidates that they were looking for support did not do well. following that, they have done a bit of review of their strategy. however, they are still training and providing some weapons. i believe they might also be tried to do more sought influence in iraq as well. >> what kind of concerns to you have regarding the situation in the north?

there is the al qaeda presence, the central government in baghdad? >> one of the problems are the arab tensions. what we have seen is that we do have a un process that has begun. if they have had several meetings already between the kurdish government in the government of iraq. they have been trying to go through this disputed territory. that is a positive step forward. that is being led by the united nations here. we think that has some potential. in the meantime, we are trying to continue to make sure they understand that they solve their problems through negotiation, not to the use of violence. we have stayed in contact with all parties to ensure that tensions do not rise. we spend quite a bit of time on

that. i still believe that al qaeda has been significantly degraded here in iraq. as we have seen, over the last few weeks, and they are capable of attacks. there are attacks -- there is one of the casa -- one up in kaza -- they are not been in -- they went to some stock places in iraq. that will backfire over them in time. the iraqi citizens have really raised their intentions. al qaeda continues to kill innocent people for no apparent reason. this is just to it and to incite more violence. what has been positive about this is the iraqi people have not moved to any type of retaliation. we have not seen any movement toward secretary in the strike between any groups.

government leaders in iraq have come out and made very clear statements condemning these attacks, blaming al qaeda, blaming these extremist elements. frankly, their support will continue to wane. we continue to work very hard working with the iraqi security forces. they are going after al qaeda who is attending to reestablish themselves in a bigger way in northern iraq. we are working there. we are working with them. part of that is out in the jazz era desert and other places. we continue to work that very hard. we are also working hard to shut down the borders to make it difficult for them to flow in from syria. that has been reduced significantly. we worked very hard to make sure that continue to be very difficult for them to execute. >> talking about the tensions between the central government of baghdad, how you see the future? >> it is a regional force.

it is a force that right now is responsible for security for the krg. there is discussions that it will be two divisions. that is part of the negotiations of iran going. we are looking to see how that goes out. that will be part of the discussions that the krg has with the government of iraq. >> i have a couple of questions. what mr. >> did the american public use in july as the view iraq to decide whether it was reported move? and then i have a second question. >> the master >> i look at our,

is live looking at overall stability -- the metrics i look at is overall stability. it is a combination of high- profile attacks that occur. it is a combination of some political progress. eight is the ability of the rockiraqi force to take stabiliy and initiative. may was the lowest among the incident here. june is going along similar lines. the problem with june is over the last 10 days, there were a few high-profile attacks. that changes is a little bit. if you compare back to the dark days of 2006 and 2007, there is no comparison. there is not widespread violence here and i iraq. there are points of high-profile attacks.

the unfortunate part is that if has inflicted some high casualties and the civilian population. we still have hard work to do. >> on the most recent violence, forgive me if you are misquoted, but there are reports saying that you attributed some of the most recent violence in iraq to iranian influence. if that is the case, what specific evidence is there that iran had a hand? >> what i said was that the event has been aqi. there has been in ian increase in project has over the last few weeks. these are two signature elements

of groups that have been trained in iran and to have been equipped money to perform these attacks from iran. that was the basis of my comment. in fact, in the high-profile attacks that occurred -- what i said is, there is some indication, that might have been an accident, where some surrogate groups are trying to move ammunition around inside of solder city. it blew up all their moving it around. -- inside of cedar city -- sader city. if low of while they were moving it. >> it is no longer the war in iraq that is the priorities. what is your concern specifically about the potential for troops understandably getting a little demoralized over the next 80 months, feeling that they and i

rack are now fighting the forgotten war? >> i look at it differently. i look at it as a positive. i believe it is because of the progress that we have made here. because of the progress, we solve bilateral security agreement with the government that outlined the way it did this. the first step was today, the withdrawal from the cities, which follows up with our complete withdrawal of our troops by the end of 2011. as president obama came on and be conducted another review, a decision was made that will and combat operations on the 31 august of 2010. i believe those decisions were made because of the progress that we are making. the progress and security and progress of the iraqi security

forces. our soldiers look at it as progress. the fact that our insistence are way down, we are seeing iraqi's get more and more control. they are doing more and more. we see it as a very positive development, not one of a forgotten war, but one of success that we have had over the last couple of years. hopefully, we will continue that success as the transition that is the challenge we have between now and the end of 2011. we continue this success as we transition. >> there is a school of thought that the war is far from over and military invasion will be

necessary through 2011, that we are a long way from political stability. i seem to recall that earlier in the year you were quoted, perhaps incorrectly, to a similar effect. i am wondering what your prognosis is going forward in terms of the ability of the country to become more stable. >> i believe the country is moving in the right direction. i think the election is coming up at the end of january -- in january and it is very important. that government that is formed will be during very formative ties. those four years will define where iraq is headed over the next four years ago. i believe stability will move forward. that is an important milestone. the iraqi people choose the next

government. if we continue twith the progress, i believe if the conditions are set, of they will continue to move forward. they could potentially reach what we consider to be a secure and stable iraq by two dozen 11. the statement is a bit of a lglu external capabilities to defend its neighbor against any foreign influence here. i am very confident that they are on their way to being able to defend themselves internally by 2011. what might take a little bit longer is the development of the navy in the air force in order for them to protect their air and their territorial waters. that does not mean we have to help them. th