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Maj. Gen. Hertling briefed reporters (view full transcript) on the situation in Iraq. Diyala was cited specifically. Excerpt:
About six weeks ago, I informed all of you in the press room that we had started Operation Iron Harvest in Diyala province and the rest of our three provinces here in the north, and that's part of the MNC-I Operation Phantom Phoenix -- don't mean to confuse you on that, but two different names for operations that are ongoing. I've been asked to give you an update on that, as well as answer your questions on what is going on in the four northern provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin, Nineveh and Kirkuk. And when I talked to this group last month, we were in the early stages of the campaign throughout the province. To date, coalition forces and Iraqi security forces have had successful operations throughout the north, but especially in Diyala. Diyala is much safer today than it was a month ago. Citizens are less afraid to go out on the street, and markets are opening. Al Qaeda has gone to ground. We are hunting them out, where they have gone to ground, or they have dispersed and we are pursuing them to new areas. But there is still much work to be done to bring normalcy to Diyala province.
A major part of the ongoing -- excuse me -- a major part of the reasons for the ongoing success is Diyala's -- is the -- Diyala and the Iraqi security forces' capacity to work with us in these very complex operations. And then it's been our combined ability to establish with the Iraqi security forces enduring bases in the province, and finally the improving ability of the government at the national and the local level to serve their citizens. And I can answer some questions on that, if you'd like, later on. I know, as reporters, you're interested in numbers, so I want to give you just a few of those, too. From 24 December, which was the start date of Operation Iron Harvest, until 10 February, yesterday, we have conducted 74 different operations at the company level and above, most of them combined with Iraqi security forces. We have captured or killed over 70 high-value individuals, and we have captured or killed hundreds of enemy fighters. We have found over 430 caches, many of them with tons of explosives and weapons that would have killed or injured Iraqi citizens or coalition forces. We have found in some of these caches computers which have led us to other cells based on the intelligence we found on the hard drives, and communication devices and DVDs with things like AQI training videos, which some of you saw last week, videos with men teaching young children how to use a variety of weapons and some even with pornography --all indicators of the type of depraved enemy we face. During operations, we also have found and cleared 653 IEDs; 42 house-borne IEDs, many of them in the middle of neighborhoods with children; 35 vehicle-IEDs and three VBIED factories. But we've also had a few incidents where HBIEDs or IEDs or VBIED that we didn't find kill or injure coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and in many cases Iraqi civilians who were only trying to reestablish a peaceful standard of living. The VBIED that exploded yesterday east of Balad in the town of Yathrib, killing and wounding dozens of Iraqis, is an example of this. I'll report to you tonight that our campaign is on track and we will continue to pursue al Qaeda in our area. We may shift our forces soon, but we'll continue to conduct intelligence-driven operations and link our actions with the provincial governments and an increasingly capable government of Iraq as security and economic potential in our four northern provinces improves. But I know all of you have specific questions, so I'll stop now and take those questions.