By Fredrik Dahl
Reuters, 23 May 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's new government and Britain sent upbeat signals this week about foreign troops leaving, but security experts voiced doubt on Tuesday about the ability of the country's fledgling security forces to take over.
The United States and Britain say the Iraqi army and police they are training are gradually assuming control over more and more territory, three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq war has become a political liability both for U.S. President George W. Bush and his ally Tony Blair. They want to see progress so they can start pulling out their combined 140,000 troops, under daily attack from insurgents.
The national unity government sworn in on Saturday appears equally keen to show Iraqis it can move towards full sovereignty without depending on Western soldiers for security.
"As conditions improve ... we will, province by province, pull back troops," Blair's spokesman said on Tuesday, a day after the prime minister visited Baghdad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave the most optimistic timetable yet during Monday's meetings, saying Iraqi forces could be in charge of most of the country by the end of 2006.
But while Iraq's 250,000 troops and police have improved their capabilities, they are still not strong enough to combat on their own the guerrillas and militias that have killed thousands of people in postwar Iraq, analysts said.
"I don't see them being able to function independently and effectively without the help of the Americans," said Iraq expert Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre.
"They are not really a mature force," he added.
He and others questioned the cohesion of the Iraqi forces, set up virtually from scratch after Saddam's army was disbanded in 2003, and their loyalty to the government based in Baghdad's heavily-fortified and U.S.-protected Green Zone.
U.S. commanders say the Iraqi forces comprise mixed units of majority Shi'ite Muslims, minority Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds to create a truly national army for a fractured country.
But it remains to be seen if their discipline will hold in the face of worsening communal conflict and possible civil war. The U.S. military said a soldier was killed earlier this month when a mainly Kurdish army unit clashed with a mainly Arab one.
"There is always a danger that they factionalise into ethnic groups. In part it is already happening," said Simon Henderson, a senior research fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
TRAINING, EQUIPMENT NEEDED
Maliki, who has vowed to use "maximum force against terrorists", acknowledged that Iraqi forces scheduled to expand to 325,000 this year needed more training and equipment.
He still has to fill the defence and interior ministry portfolios, left temporarily vacant due to sectarian wrangling.
Yet Maliki suggested Iraqi troops could take over security in all of Iraq's 18 provinces, except Baghdad and the western Sunni Arab heartland of Anbar, where an insurgency that erupted after Saddam's overthrow is still raging.
He said two British-run southern provinces, Muthanna and Amara, could be handed to Iraqi forces next month.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq analyst at London's Queen Mary College University, dismissed Maliki's plan. "It is wishful thinking, propaganda, and not a realistic timetable for handover."
Henderson said he was puzzled by Maliki's failure to mention Basra in the south, where security has deteriorated sharply over the past year as armed Shi'ite factions tussle for power.
A British official with Blair in Baghdad said he expected all foreign combatant forces to withdraw within four years.
Some of Britain's 7,200 troops were likely to leave in the next few months, he said. But Basra, where most of them are based, remained too dangerous to begin pulling out forces.
Henderson put it bluntly: "An imminent withdrawal would be catastrophic for Iraq, catastrophic for Basra and a poor reflection on British diplomacy now and in the future."
Washington has resisted setting a timetable for drawing down its 133,000 troops, though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday much territory was now under Iraqi control.
"That notorious highway between the (Baghdad) airport and the international zone (Green Zone) is now controlled by Iraqis," she told U.S. television. "And, in fact, it has been much more peaceful since they've taken control of it."
While attacks on the road are less frequent, suicide bombers killed 14 people near the main airport checkpoint a week ago.
Henderson said he expected the United States to remain militarily engaged for at least a decade. When Washington was talking about withdrawing, he said, that meant leaving a less visible but still powerful military presence in Iraq.
Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in London
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Citation: Fredrik Dahl. "Iraq not yet seen ready to take charge of security," Reuters, 23 May 2006.
Original URL: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-05-23T141832Z_01_L2330011_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-SECURITY.xml&archived=False
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