The Unted States forces could embark on a major troop reduction by as early as next spring, General George Casey, the senior US ground commander in Iraq, said on Wednesday.
But the process will be contingent on improved political and security conditions, Casey added, as he offered for the first time a tentative timeline for withdrawing multinational forces from the country.
”If the political process continues to go positively, if the developments with the [Iraqi] security forces continue to go as it is going, I do believe we will still be able to make fairly substantial reductions after these elections — in the spring and summer of next year,” Casey told reporters during a surprise visit to Baghdad by the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
At a press conference with Rumsfeld, Iraq’s prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, called for an acceleration of the training of Iraqi security forces, saying that the Iraqi people ”desire speed” in the matter of US troop withdrawal.
”The great desire of the Iraqi people is to see the coalition forces be on their way out as they [the new Iraqi security forces] take more responsibility,” he said.
The remarks come in response to growing pressure inside Iraq — as well as among coalition partners — for transparent commitments on troop withdrawal.
A leaked defence ministry memo earlier this month detailed a possible scenario whereby US troop numbers in Iraq would be cut from more than 170 000 troops to 66 000 by the middle of next year. Casey made similar noises last spring, but since then, shaken by the insurgency that has raged since the Shia-led government took power on April 28, US officials have remained silent on the issue.
But plans to whittle down the multinational force remain dependent on the security situation in the country, which appeared unchanged on Thursday: two Algerian envoys were killed by militants, while a suicide bomber killed at least five outside a Baghdad hospital. US and Iraqi officials estimate that it will be several years before US troops will disappear completely from Iraqi soil.
Troop withdrawal is also dependent on political progress. According to the timetable for Iraq’s transition to full sovereignty, a referendum on a new Constitution will be held in October and general elections in December.
The US regards the new Constitution as an important milestone in the transition to full democratic rule, and a safeguard of its exit strategy.
”We don’t want any delays,” Rumsfeld said. ”Now’s the time to get on with it.”
The Iraqi national security adviser, Mowfaq al-Rubaei, said on Wednesday that a joint US-Iraqi commission had started to prepare the ground for the swift transfer to Iraqi control of security in at least 10 cities, as well as certain neighbourhoods in Baghdad.
He said these included those in the relatively quiet Kurdish self-rule area, where there are fewer than 200 US soldiers stationed, as well as the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala and the southern city of Samawa.
Rubaei said the commission, which includes officials from the Iraqi ministries of defence, interior and foreign affairs, would present its final plan in 60 days.
”The pullout [of US troops] from the cities is a very important step, just to show the hotspot areas that the existence of the terrorists and the violence only makes the coalition forces stay,” Rubaei said. ”We want to show the people that if their areas are calm, then the coalition forces will withdraw.”
The US military has plans to build four giant airbases across Iraq, to which its troops would redeploy as and when they pull out of the towns and cities. Rubaei said Iraqi forces ”were trained and ready” and ”up to the job” of handling security in areas unaffected by the insurgency.
However, a flurry of US military and government reports over the last month have concluded that Iraq’s fledgling forces are still not battle-fit and, worse still, may be heavily infiltrated by insurgents.
A poll for USA Today published on Wednesday showed that most Americans now think the US will lose the war in Iraq.
An independent panel headed by two former US national security advisers, Brent Scowcroft and Samuel Berger, said on Wednesday that chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate planning for the postwar period. ”A dramatic military victory has been overshadowed by chaos and bloodshed in the streets of Baghdad, difficulty in establishing security or providing essential services, and a deadly insurgency,” a report said. – Guardian Unlimited Â