The new Iraqi government
talked up the prospects of its security forces taking over from U.S.-led troops
on the eve of talks between George W. Bush and Tony Blair that could chart the
allies' next steps in Iraq.
Iraq's Sunni vice president, who has supported "legitimate resistance" to
occupation, said on Wednesday that British Prime Minister Blair had promised to
discuss setting a timetable for withdrawal with the U.S. president when he
visits Washington.
But the White House slapped down any talk of schedules.
Nonetheless, the rhetoric in Baghdad reinforced suggestions by Iraqi
political sources that the new government is stepping up efforts to reach out to
moderates among the Sunni insurgents.
Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, keen to show Iraqis the days-old
national unity government can deliver independence, said his forces could be
running all of Iraq by late next year.
"Our forces are capable of taking over security in all provinces in Iraq
within a year and a half," he said in a brief written statement after talks with
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, another foreign leader with troops
in Iraq.
Two days earlier, when Blair was in Baghdad, Maliki said all but the capital
itself and Sunni Anbar could be under Iraqi control by the end of this year.
Bush, Blair and officials in Washington and London played that down but said the
150,000 foreign troops would go once Iraqi forces were ready.
British Defense Secretary Des Browne continued the theme on Wednesday, saying
a planned handover of responsibility shortly for at least one of the four
southern provinces controlled by Britain would not mean an immediate reduction
in British troops:
"We want Iraq to take full responsibility for its own security ... But we
cannot go too fast if we want the progress we are making to be sustainable," he
said.
Critics, especially in the Arab world, suspect the United States and the
allies who toppled Saddam Hussein in the invasion of 2003 of seeking to maintain
military leverage indefinitely in both oil-rich Iraq and on its Middle East
neighbors.
While many Iraqis believe the presence of foreign troops may be holding back
a larger-scale sectarian conflict at present, most are also keen that they
should go, and Maliki, from the majority Shi'ite Islamist bloc, has been talking
loudly of that.
Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi told Reuters he hoped Bush and Blair,
who have warmly welcomed Sunni involvement in government, would reverse their
position that withdrawal can only be conditional on Iraqi capabilities and not a
fixed date.
He said he and Blair had discussed a possible compromise, involving setting a
date for the completion of Iraqi forces' training rather than for the end of
occupation itself, and said it could draw some insurgents to the negotiating
table -- though there would be no talks with the likes of al Qaeda.
"The suggestion made two days ago was to combine the need for a timetable
with the condition that Iraqi forces must be rebuilt. There would be a U.S. and
British commitment to rebuilding them according to a set timetable," Hashemi
said.
"Blair promised to study this with Bush in their coming meeting ... But no,
there is no withdrawal timetable for now."
White House spokesman Tony Snow ruled out any public change of tack on
Thursday: "I do not believe that you're going to hear the president or the prime
minister say we're going to be out in one year, two years, four years ... I
don't think you're going to get any specific prediction of troop withdrawals."
Washington and London are anxious not to see Iraq descend further into chaos
after a war billed as fostering a model democracy for the Middle East. Some
security experts see U.S. troops spending many years in Iraq, albeit in smaller
numbers.
A British official with Blair in Baghdad said all foreign troops could be
gone in four years.
Many question the quality of the quarter-million troops and police Iraq has
recruited, and the cohesion of the army and police. John Chipman, director
general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in a speech
in London:
"The rank and file of both forces are neither well enough trained to be fully
effective on their own, nor sufficiently loyal to the national government to
remain above the sectarian struggles gouging Iraq's sense of national identity."
So intense are sectarian struggles in the government that it still lacks
interior and defense ministers. Maliki has said he hopes to have broadly
acceptable nominees sworn in on Saturday.
Gunmen shot dead a police general in Baghdad. Tribal clashes south of the
capital killed 16, police said.
