US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad added an international dimension to the
picture, accusing
Syria and Iran of fomenting instability by providing extremists with
sanctuary, arms, training, and financing.
Both countries are also key backers of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia
in Lebanon, whose kidnapping of two Iraqi soldiers in a raid this week
sparked a blistering Israeli retaliation.
.
AFP:
US hopes of Iraq troop reductions deferred by sectarian violence
by Jim Mannion
Sat Jul 15, 4:22 PM ET
United States' hopes of bringing troops home from Iraq in significant
numbers this year appear dimmer than ever now that Baghdad is in the
throes of a new wave of sectarian violence.
Death squad massacres, bombings and attacks on both sides of the
country's Shiite-Sunni divide overshadowed a lightning visit to Baghdad
this week by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The question of how to deal with armed militias and restore order in the
capital had climbed to the top of Rumsfeld's agenda even before his
arrival in Iraq Wednesday.
On plans for US troop reductions, Rumsfeld told reporters: "We haven't
gotten to that point."
"I don't talk deadlines. It's things I can't control. Why should I try?"
General George Casey, the commander of the 127,000 US troops in Iraq,
said just last month he was still confident that US troops levels could
gradually be reduced over the course of this year.
His strategy for shrinking the size of the US force involves building up
Iraqi forces to the point where they can take over the fight against
insurgents from US-led coalition troops.
US forces would gradually hand over their operating bases to the Iraqis
and pull back from the cities, while remaining poised to intervene in a
crisis.
The Iraqis would rely on US airpower, logistics and intelligence to
support their operations.
Four Iraqi army divisions, 20 brigades and more than 70 battalions have
been rated as capable of leading counter-insurgency operations,
according to Casey.
And despite the violence in Baghdad, US forces this week handed over
responsibility for security of an Iraqi province to Iraqis for the first
time. The province was Al-Muthanna in relatively quiet south central Iraq.
But the story in Baghdad, the densely populated, confessionally-mixed
heart of the country, is entirely different.
There some 8,000 US troops patrolling the streets of the city alongside
Iraqi security forces, in what has so far proven an unsuccessful
crackdown by the new government to restore security.
The US force in the Baghdad area has grown from about 40,000 to about
55,000, according to Rumsfeld, and commanders may put more US troops on
the streets to stop the violence.
But death squads and extremists have flouted the security measures,
rekindling fears of a civil war with one of the worst rounds of
sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra in
February.
Al-Qaeda has long sought to ignite sectarian violence in Iraq, the US
military says.
"What we are seeing now, as a counter to that, are death squads
primarily (run) by Shia extremist groups that are retaliating against
civilians," Casey told reporters this week. "And so you have both sides
now attacking civilians."
"What we are doing and have been doing is continuously adjusting the
plans to target the death squads and we continue to roll up the members
of the Zarqawi network in the aftermath of his death. And that will
continue."
The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US
air strike on June 7 near the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad.
Rumsfeld insisted that the problem was political and that al-Maliki's
government needed to persuade the Shiite militias to back off and join
the political process. Iraqi and US forces should be turned on those
that do not, he said.
But there was little evidence of political headway on the subject of the
militas.
US Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat who recently visited Iraq, said he
thought Maliki was prepared to stare down fellow Shiite leaders over the
militias.
"But I think they'll most likely stare him right back, and he could
blink," he said in an interview with PBS television. "It's not quite
sure that this is someone with a real plan and a real determination who
will carry through, regardless of the course, to his own political
coalition."
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad added an international dimension to the
picture, accusing Syria and Iran of fomenting instability by providing
extremists with sanctuary, arms, training, and financing.
Both countries are also key backers of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in
Lebanon, whose kidnapping of two Iraqi soldiers in a raid this week
sparked a blistering Israeli retaliation.
Zhalilzad said Maliki had about six months to get the sectarian violence
under control. "And if it doesn't, then I think we would have a serious
situation," he said.
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