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Iraq army will not be ready to take control until 2020

12 August 2010 01:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The Iraqi army will not be ready to take control of the country for another decade and the US must stop its pull out of troops, which is due to begin at the end of this month, Iraq’s top army officer has warned, APA reports quoting â€œTelegraphâ€.
Lt Gen Babakir Zebari said that Iraqi troops will not be fully trained until 2020 and that the army would not be able to cope without the support of the Americans.
Thousands of combat troops will leave Iraq at the end of the month under President Barack Obama’s exit strategy, it will leave a small force of 50,000 troops in a support and training role but they will leave by the end of 2011.
However, it comes as violence in the country has escalated sharply and there are signs that al-Qaeda has stepped up its activities with a series of attacks.
Speaking at a defence conference in Baghdad, Lt Gen Zebari said: "At this point, the withdrawal is going well, because they are still here.
"But the problem will start after 2011 â€“ the politicians must find other ways to fill the void after 2011. If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020."
His comments, which came after eight of his troops were killed in a suicide bomb attack, are his starkest yet and put him sharply at odds with the country’s politicians.
The main backing for the bilateral security pact under which American troops are to leave comes from the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. But he is facing calls from all sides of the political spectrum to step down, as his personal unpopularity is regarded as the main obstacle to the formation of a new coalition, cross-sectarian government.
Lt Gen Zebari belongs to Iraq’s Kurdish minority, and so stands apart from the in-fighting between the country’s Arab Shia and Sunni factions.
Nevertheless, his outspoken intervention points an accusing finger at the political leadership, which has failed to form a new government five months after inconclusive elections.
It will also add to growing fears that America is seeking to "cut and run" from the country as the US focus switches to Afghanistan.
Mr Obama was last night holding a summit of his senior security advisers to discuss the American drawdown of combat troops due for the end of the month but has been unwaiving on plans to push ahead. British troops left the country in May last year.
President Obama’s foreign policy ever since his election campaign in 2008 has depended on transferring attention and resources from the so-called "war of choice" â€“ that in Iraq, which he always opposed â€“ to the "war of necessity" in Afghanistan.
With ground troops in Afghanistan facing strong Taliban resistance and Congress already moving to restrict funding as part of Washington’s wider budget squeeze, President Obama cannot afford to make major changes to his plans for Iraq.
The Pentagon has also so far refused to agree to a request for dozens of military vehicles and helicopters to remain in Iraq following the army pullout at the end of the month.
Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq specialist with the International Crisis Group who is preparing a report on the readiness of the armed forces, said the police in particular faced problems with sectarian divisions, discipline and corruption.
But he said President Obama was unlikely to be swayed in advance of midterm elections. "Unless there is a catastrophe or a civil war that breaks out overnight they are not going to change their plan," he said.
Mr Hiltermann said that there was "great concern that the Americans are not going to provide the equipment and support that the Iraqis need.
"Of itself this is not enough to say that the Iraqis will collapse. But we are highly concerned about the stability of Iraq in the light of the American withdrawal."
Iraqi authorities say violence is increasing and claim that more civilians were killed last month, 553, than at any time in the last two years. The rate has surpassed that in Afghanistan. However, the US, which had 170,000 troops in the country at the height of the war, disputes those figures.
In the most recent incident, gunmen shot three adults dead in a house in Diyala province north of Baghdad, a regular sectarian battleground yesterday. They sent two children they found in the house to report the deaths of their parents at a nearby army checkpoint.
In the meantime, they booby-trapped the house so that when the soldiers arrived, it exploded, killing eight and wounding four. In a separate incident, a woman doctor, head of a Baghdad maternity hospital, was shot dead.
All such cases give the impression to ordinary Iraqis that without the American presence, Iraqis troops, even with western training, are inadequate to the task of returning normal life to the streets.
Last week, Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein’s former vice-president, called for American troops to stay, saying their departure was "leaving Iraq to the wolves".