WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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US hopeful about exit after a quiet July in Iraq
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-31 09:32 He concluded that Iraq's Shiite-dominated security forces are capable of defending their country despite corruption, poor management and the inability to resist political pressure. "The massive partnering efforts of US combat forces with ISF (Iraqi security forces) isn't yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition," Reese wrote in a memo early this month to US military officials in Baghdad. Reese argued for ending the US military mission in Iraq in August 2010. That is the date when President Barack Obama has said all combat troops will have withdrawn. A residual force of 35,000 to 50,000 troops will remain to continue training and advising the Iraqi security forces until a final pullout by December 2011.
The rationale for leaving a fairly large residual force beyond August 2010 rests on an expectation that the Iraqi government will require continued American military assistance even after the combat mission ends. US commanders say security gains are fragile and reversible, and the Iraqi government needs years of assistance in developing a force capable of defending against external threats. The Iraqi government says it wants the US troops to leave as fast as possible but that its troops need more weapons and equipment. Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Americans would leave behind a "significant amount of equipment and arms" and the government would buy more "either from the US or from any other source we choose." Violence has fluctuated throughout this year, but overall levels remain low compared with previous years when sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites pushed the country to the brink of civil war. More than 111,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the US-led invasion, according to figures compiled by the AP. The number is a minimum count because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records. An average of at least nine Iraqis have been killed in war-related violence each day this year compared with an average of 50 Iraqi deaths per day in 2007 at the height of the conflict. "Every month that goes by with a substantially diminished level of violence creates the presumption that the Iraqi government is stable and this is not going to fly apart," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which follows security and defense issues. But obstacles remain, including the possibility that violence will re-emerge over the refusal of the Shiite-led government to satisfy demands of the minority Sunnis as well as Kurdish-Arab tensions in the north. US commanders have also warned attacks could escalate ahead of national elections next year. The United States has about 130,000 forces in Iraq, with current plans calling for most combat forces -- or more than 100,000 troops -- to remain in the country until after the Jan. 16 vote. In the latest examples of the dangers still faced by Iraqi civilians, a bombing in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, killed at least seven people, while a suicide truck bomber targeting a police station killed five other people west of the capital, according to police. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, said seven people were killed when it seized control of a camp housing an Iranian opposition group north of Baghdad on Tuesday -- its first confirmation of casualties in the bold raid that defied US calls to avoid force. The People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran raised its toll to 12 people killed. About 3,500 ex-Iranian fighters and relatives live in the camp, first set up in 1986 when they helped Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, American troops disarmed the fighters and confined them to the camp, but the Iraqis assumed responsibility for them under this year's security agreement.
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