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October 22nd, 2006 - U.S. to Hand
Iraq a New Timetable on Security Role |
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U.S. to Hand Iraq a New
Timetable on Security Role By David S. Cloud New York Times October 22, 2006 Washington, Oct. 21 - The
Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to
address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country,
senior American officials said. Details of the blueprint,
which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the
end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are
still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was
likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like
disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic
and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country. Although the plan would not
threaten Mr. Maliki with a withdrawal of American troops, several officials
said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and
other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical
benchmarks within it. A senior Pentagon official
involved in drafting the blueprint said Iraqi officials were being consulted
as the plan evolved and would be invited to sign off on the milestones before
the end of the year. But he added, “If the Iraqis fail to come back to us on
this, we would have to conduct a reassessment” of the American strategy in
Iraq. In a statement issued
Saturday night, a White House spokeswoman, Nicole Guillemard, said the
Times’s account was “not accurate,” but did not specify what officials found
to be inaccurate. The plan is being formulated
by General George W. Casey Jr. and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the top
military and civilian officials in Iraq, as well as by Pentagon officials. General Casey has been in
close consultations with the White House as the debate over the way forward
in Iraq has intensified in recent weeks. And he and Mr. Khalilzad took part
by videoconference on Saturday in a strategy meeting with President Bush and
senior administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney,
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American
commander in the Middle East, and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. “We’re trying to come up
with ways to get the Iraqis to step up to the plate, to push them along,
because the time is coming,” a senior administration official said. “We can’t
be there forever.” Until now, the Bush
administration has avoided using threats of deadlines for progress, saying
conditions on the ground would determine how quickly Iraq took on greater
responsibility for governing the country and how soon American troops could
withdraw. CBS News has reported that the Pentagon was studying these
questions, but the broad scope of the steps under consideration and the
benchmarks that are being contemplated have not been disclosed. “We’ve been coordinating
with the Iraqis for months on a series of measures they can take to assume
more control of their country,” the White House statement said, “and to form
the basis for a national compact between all communities in Iraq on the way
forward.” The idea of devising
specific steps that Mr. Maliki would have to take was described by senior
officials who support the plan but would speak only on condition of
anonymity. Their willingness to discuss a plan that has not been fully
drafted appeared intended at least in part to signal renewed flexibility on
the part of the administration, and perhaps also to pre-empt the recommendations
of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a commission led by James A. Baker III
and charged with formulating a new strategy in Iraq. It is expected to issue
recommendations late this year or early next year. The plan also moves the
administration closer to an idea advocated by many Democrats, who have called
for setting a date for beginning phased withdrawals of American troops from
Iraq as a way to compel Iraq’s government to resolve its internal divisions
and take on more responsibility. Frustration is growing among
senior American military officers and civilian officials in Iraq and at the
Pentagon with Mr. Maliki for his failure to move decisively against Shiite
militias and on a wide range of other fronts. Even the implied threat that
the administration would reassess its presence in Iraq may not be enough,
senior officials said. In Baghdad, Iraqi leaders
have been watching the discussions carefully and expressing uneasiness over
the growing political pressure in the United States for a troop pullout. Tensions between Washington
and Baghdad reached a new point on Monday when Mr. Maliki, who took office in
May, used a telephone call with Mr. Bush to seek assurances that the United
States did not intend to oust him. The White House said after the call that
Mr. Bush had pledged full support for the Iraqi. Mr. Rumsfeld alluded to
discussions about benchmarks on Friday at a Pentagon news conference, noting
that Mr. Khalilzad and General Casey “are currently working with the Iraqi
government to develop a set of projections as to when they think they can
pass off various pieces of responsibility.” He emphasized the urgency of
transferring more security and governing responsibilities to the Iraqis.
“It’s their country,” he said. “They’re going to have to govern it, they’re
going to have to provide security for it, and they’re going to have to do it
sooner rather than later.” But Mr. Rumsfeld was quick
to play down expectations: “There’s no doubt in my mind but that some of
those projections we won’t make; it will be later, or even earlier in some
instances. And in some cases, once we meet the projection, we may have to go
back and do it again.” Mr. Maliki’s government has
already announced its own set of benchmarks, including the establishment of a
mechanism to disarm private militias. This week, the government removed
commanders of the special police commandos and the public order brigade, both
widely criticized as being heavily infiltrated by Shiite militias, in the
first broad move against the top leadership of Iraq’s unruly special police
forces. But the surge in violence in
Baghdad and other places recently has prompted consideration of even more
far-reaching steps. An American official said that one proposed plan was to
give the Iraqi Army the lead role in domestic security, downgrading the role
of police units. The Bush administration has
emphasized building up the police this year so that they can take on the main
role in providing security in many cities. The move would be another
acknowledgment that the increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad and
elsewhere has exposed deep problems with some police units, which have been
blamed by Sunnis for carrying out sectarian attacks. The American strategy in
Iraq was thrown into disarray this week by attacks carried out by a Shiite
militia in Amara, a town south of Baghdad, and by the acknowledgment from an
American military spokesman that the latest plan to secure Baghdad was faltering. In his radio address on
Saturday, Mr. Bush emphasized that the administration was staying flexible in
its planning and would “make every necessary change to prevail.” Saying the goal of victory
was “unchanging,”” he added: “What is changing are the tactics we use to
achieve that goal. Our commanders on the ground are constantly adjusting
their approach to stay ahead of the enemy, particularly in Baghdad.” Officials said they were
still debating which benchmarks to include and how long the Iraqis should be
given to achieve them. The plan is likely to cover a number of Iraqi
ministries, including Finance, Interior and Defense, which have struggled to
varying degrees with corruption and with delivering even the most basic
services, officials said. General Casey said this
month that he hoped by the end of the year to have six or seven provinces
under Iraqi administrative control. Currently, there are only two. But the
plan is also likely to include timelines for turning over American-run
military bases, an official said. The decision about how
far-reaching to make the blueprint is likely to be influenced by what Mr.
Maliki and his ministers say they can reasonably accomplish. But American
officials are discussing if they should specify whether Iraqi officials
deemed incompetent or corrupt should be replaced, one official said.
Officials are also considering a timetable for the Iraqi Defense Ministry to
have in place systems for paying, feeding and equipping its units, jobs that
are still overseen to a large degree by American advisers and by contractors,
some of whom have not performed well, officials said. External link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/world/middleeast/22policy.html |