GEN DAVID Petraeus, the head of US central command, has called on Iraq to step up its operations against al-Qaeda and other sectarian extremists after bombings in Baghdad left almost 100 people dead and injured more than 500.
Speaking to reporters in London yesterday, he signalled concern about the challenge of maintaining security in the capital and the north of the country, which has also been subjected to a spate of recent bombings.
“There is a clear need to keep the pressure on the extremists and that has to be continued through the kind of targeted operations that we carried out,” he said.
“The operational tempo in these targeted operations has been up and down and there is a desire on the part of all to increase the pressure on the extremist elements.
“In the vast majority of Iraq, the security forces . . . are more than capable of performing the security tasks that are needed. Having said that, there clearly are concerns among the Iraqis about the challenges in northern Iraq . . . and in Baghdad.”
In line with a consensus in the US and Iraq itself, he argued there was no need to reconsider overall strategy, which saw US troops pull out of Iraqi cities in June ahead of a scheduled departure from the country at the end of 2011.
US officials say they expected a spike in attacks to test Iraqi security forces after the handover and that so far, the country’s Shia majority has resisted the provocation.
“Iraq is not facing an insurgency as it used to, but a terrorist problem represented by the reduced capability of al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremists,” Gen Petraeus said. “They are still quite capable.”
Before this week’s bombings, Iraq’s government had expressed confidence that it could manage its own security. Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki had ordered the removal of blast walls and barriers from sites such as the foreign ministry – a step that is now being reconsidered. He has also backed a referendum timed to coincide with legislative elections next January on bringing forward the date of the complete withdrawal of US troops from 2011 to 2010.
US military authorities are also interested in freeing up resources at a time when Gen Stanley McChrystal, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, is expected to ask for 10,000 or more troops. US defence secretary Robert Gates said last month there could be a “modest acceleration” in the pace of the US drawdown in Iraq.
That shift in focus is now backed by large swathes of US political opinion, with John McCain, US president Barack Obama’s former election rival, supporting both the timetable for Iraq – originally agreed between Baghdad and the Bush administration – and the call for more resources for Afghanistan.
While sectarian killings in Baghdad alone totalled 1,600 in December 2006, the number of such deaths has declined sharply to fewer than 100 for the country as a whole by May.
However, ahead of the handover to Iraqi forces of responsibility for the cities, the Pentagon had reported an increased number of attacks.– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)