Cold War Veterans Blog

Iraq official calls for U.S. forces to stay

By Riad Kahwaji - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Aug 11, 2008 9:37:37 EDT

DUBAI — The situation in Iraq has improved over the past year, but Iraqi security forces and military are not ready for multinational forces to leave, said Hussein Safa, Iraq’s deputy national security adviser.

“I think by 2012-13, Iraqi military and police would be capable of handling the internal situation on their own,” Safa said. “But as for external threats, Iraq will need to depend on the presence of U.S. forces, especially air and land forces, for a longer time.”

He declined to elaborate.

Abdelwahab al-Qassab, a de¬fense analyst and a retired Iraqi navy rear admiral, said the Iraqi police and army lack sufficient logistical capabilities and firepower.

“There must be more internal reforms within the security and military establishments, more training and better quality arms and equipment,” he said.

Al-Qassab said Iraqi forces were being equipped with old and obsolete arms and equipment when they really need more helicopters, better logistics and a wider communications network.

“I believe if there [were] faster efforts to properly arm and train the military and police,” he said, “they will be ready to operate independent of any U.S. support within three years.”

Violence is down in Iraq. July saw 11 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, fewer than any month since March 2004.

The month also saw the departure of the last of the five so-called “surge” brigades, leaving about 140,000 American troops in the country.

“Al-Qaida is on the run and armed militias have been hit hard,” Safa said.

For the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq brought down the Baath Party regime in 2003, “the initiative is in the hands of the Iraqi government.”

This is a result of three main factors, many Iraqi analysts say: the extra troops provided by the U.S. surge, a more aggressive approach by the Iraqi military and government in dealing with armed groups, and a shift in public opinion against nongovernment fighters.

“There is a great deal of progress on the ground that is mostly due to the changed perception of the Iraqi people of the insurgency or militias,” al-Qassab said.

“The Sunnis became sick of the actions of the al-Qaida and extremist groups and turned against them in the Anbar province and other areas, and on the other side, the Shiites could no longer tolerate the terror of Iranian-backed Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s efforts to mend relations with Sunni political parties and bring them back into the government will help the situation, some Iraqi analysts said.

But they also said the Iraqi government must quickly disband militias, then find jobs for insurgents who lay down their arms.

The U.S. and Iraq have yet to define the short- and long-term role and number of U.S. forces in Iraq, a hot issue in the American presidential campaign.
Candidates’ plans

Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has said he intends to bring combat troops home by mid-2010. Republican candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona has long called for keeping troops in Iraq as long as they are needed — 100 years or more if necessary — but more recently endorsed Maliki’s suggestion that troops could withdraw as soon as mid-2010, depending on the situation.

Safa said the official Iraqi government position is that there should be a time limit for the presence of U.S. troops in the country, but a period is not yet set.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, has said that he will consider further withdrawals this fall.