Agence France-Presse,
Baghdad said on Tuesday it expects US forces to cut back on combat duties in the near term after the top American general in Iraq signalled the start of a troop reduction from this month.
“We anticipate in the near term a relaxation of the requirement for coalition forces to be in direct combat operation,” Iraq's National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie told reporters as he welcomed the testimony to Congress by General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Baghdad.
“We will work with the coalition partners to ensure that coalition requirement in Iraq will take into consideration the growing Iraqi capability and security condition on the ground,” he said.
But he cautioned against a quick withdrawal of US troops, echoing Petraeus in his testimony on Monday.
Rubaie said Iraq needed the coalition forces until its own security forces are self-reliant.
“We know that for some time we will continue to need the support of coalition forces for assuring the region's security and stability and for completing the task of Iraqi forces in achieving capability and readiness.
“Our aim is to achieve complete security as soon as possible.”
He said by the middle of 2008 the Iraqi army's “combat units will be organised, equipped, trained and in operation,” and that 500,000 trained soldiers and policemen were already on the frontline.
Shortly after Rubaie's remarks, the US military announced that American forces had killed 23 militants, including nine in the Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad.
US military spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said in an email to AFP that an air and ground raid targeted Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite slum where most residents are loyal to radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Tuesday's raid killed nine militants while eight others were detained, he said, adding 14 more militants were killed in other strikes.
Iraq's defence minister said its troops killed 18 foreign fighters on Monday, including a militant leader from Al-Qaeda.
Iraq's parliament, meanwhile, also welcomed the Petraeus-Crocker report, with deputy speaker Khalid al-Attiya saying it was “positive in general” and cognisant of the reality on the ground.
The report is aware of “the difficulties that the government faces towards fulfilling the national reconciliation process and in fixing the security in Iraq,” he said in a statement.
War-weary Baghdadis, however, expressed anger at the presence of US troops.
“The Americans have brought us nothing but hardship. We want them all out of here immediately,” said 60-year-old Zahra, her eyes blazing angrily.
“We want them all to go now, not later.”
Petraeus in his testimony virtually laid out a plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq starting as early as this month.
He said a marine expeditionary unit of about 2,000 troops would depart Iraq later this month, followed by the redeployment of an army combat brigade of around 4,000 troops in December which will not be replaced.
Petraeus also said that four more combat brigades and two marine battalions would return home by July 2008, reducing US forces to pre-surge levels of 15 combat brigades or 130,000 troops.
Currently there are 168,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
The general said he will make new recommendations by March for a fresh reduction in the troop level, arguing that the purpose of President George W. Bush's “surge” strategy was being achieved on the streets of Iraq.
“As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met,” Petraeus told a rare joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.
The testimony opened a pivotal week for US Iraq policy in a four-year war which has killed more than 3,700 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Democrats argued that the surge of 28,500 troops had failed in its prime objective of driving political reconciliation in Iraq.
But using graphs and coloured charts, the general, accompanied by Crocker, warned “a premature drawdown of our forces would likely have devastating consequences.”
Echoing his view was Crocker who said abandoning Iraq at this time would make America's arch-foe Iran the “winner.”
On Tuesday, the US Senate's foreign relations committee chairman and 2008 presidential candidate Joseph Biden insisted the surge must be stopped.
“We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home,” he said at the start of a second day of hearings with Petraeus in Congress.
“The one thing virtually everyone now agrees on is that there's no purely military solution in Iraq. Lasting stability requires a political settlement among the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds,” the Democratic senator said.
