White House eagerly highlights the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq

WASHINGTON As the White House eagerly highlights the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, the small army of American diplomats left behind is embarking on a long and perilous path to keeping the volatile country from slipping back to the brink of civil war.Among the challenges are helping Iraq’s deeply divided politicians form a new government; refereeing long-simmering Arab-Kurd territorial disputes; advising on attracting foreign investment; pushing for improved government services; and fleshing out a blueprint for future U.S.-Iraqi relations.

President Barack Obama also is banking on the diplomats – about 300, protected by as many as 7,000 private security contractors – to assume the duties of the U.S. military. That includes protecting U.S. personnel from attack and managing the training of Iraqi police, starting in October 2011.The Iraq insurgency, which began shortly after U.S. troops toppled Baghdad in April 2003, is why the U.S. only now is entering the post-combat phase of stabilizing Iraq. Originally, the U.S. thought Iraq would be peaceful within months of the invasion, allowing for a short-lived occupation and the relatively quick emergence of a viable government.Although the insurgency has been reduced to what one analyst terms a “lethal nuisance,” it will complicate the State Department’s mission and test Iraq’s security forces.Much is at stake as the department negotiates with the Pentagon over acquiring enough Black Hawk helicopters, bomb-resistant vehicles and other heavy gear to outfit its own protection force in Iraq.

“Regardless of the reasons for going to war, everything now depends on a successful transition to an effective and unified Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces that can bring both security and stability to the average Iraqi,” says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In his view that transition will take five years to 10 years.

The question is whether progress will be interrupted or reversed once American combat power is gone.The U.S. will have 50,000 troops in Iraq when the combat mission officially ends Aug. 31; they are scheduled to draw down to zero by Dec. 31, 2011. Until then, they will advise and train Iraqi security forces, and provide security and transport for the diplomats.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he believes Iraq’s security forces have matured to the point where they will be ready to shoulder enough of the burden to permit the remaining 50,000 U.S. soldiers to go home at the end of next year.”My assessment today is they – they will be,” Odierno said, according to an excerpt of the interview released Saturday by CNN.”We continue to see development in planning, in their ability to conduct operations,” he added. “We continue to see political development, economic development and all of these combined together will start to create an atmosphere that creates better security.”

Once the U.S. troops are gone, the State Department will be responsible for the security of its personnel.Obama administration officials say the diplomats are well prepared for what the State Department expects to be a three to five-year transition to a “normal” U.S.-Iraqi relationship.”We are fully prepared to assume our responsibilities as we move through this transition from a military-led effort to a civilian-led effort,” department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

Iraq watchers have their doubts.Kenneth M. Pollack, a frequent visitor to Iraq as director of Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution, says the administration is in danger of underestimating the difficulty it faces.”One of the biggest mistakes that most Americans are making is assuming that Iraq can’t slide back into civil war. It can,” Pollack said. “This thing can go bad very easily.”Pollack, who does not consider himself a pessimist on Iraq, said the historical record on civil wars around the globe shows that about half repeat themselves.

“So it is a huge mistake to assume it can’t” happen in Iraq, whose civil strife in 2005-07 was so violent that many Americans assumed the war was lost and believed U.S. troops should give up and go home.Pollack considers the State Department ill-suited for its new tasks – starting with the police training mission and including the complex developmental problems such as improving Iraq’s water system.”What the State Department is being asked to do isn’t in their DNA,” Pollack said.The department has been strongly criticized for its past work in Iraqi police training. An October 2007 report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., said the State Department had so badly managed a February 2004 contract for Iraqi police training that the department could not tell what it got for the $1.2 billion it spent.

In May 2004 President George W. Bush put the Pentagon in charge of all security force development.The newly departed U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Christopher Hill, says he sees brighter days ahead for Iraq, but he also laments “woefully low” supplies of electricity and deeply ingrained tensions among the three main competitors for political power: Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.”There is a mountain of mistrust,” Hill said.The diplomats’ postwar task would have been much easier if, as the administration once hoped, Iraq had formed a new government by now, nearly six months after its March 7 national elections.Instead, the political stalemate   with no end in sight – has created another hurdle to the central U.S. goal in Iraq: translating hard-fought security gains into stability.Still, there is optimism in some quarters.

“While there are no guarantees, the prospects for Iraq’s security and stability beyond 2011 look as good or better than they have at any time in the recent past,” John Negroponte, who was U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 2004-05, wrote Thursday in a ForeignPolicy.com blog.Another complication is the shake up of key U.S. players in Baghdad.Odierno leaves Baghdad on Sept. 1 for a new assignment in the U.S., and Gen. David Petraeus, who was Odierno’s boss as head of Central Command, switched last month to take command in Afghanistan. Hill was replaced in Baghdad this past week by James Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey.(AP)

Iraqi police say a car bomb targeting a police building has killed three people in the capital of Iraq's western Anbar province

RAMADI,  Iraqi police say a car bomb targeting a police building has killed three people in the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province.The bombing comes as Iraq is preparing for March 7 parliamentary elections. Insurgents have been repeatedly targeting government institutions in Anbar and the rest of Iraq in an attempt to destabilize the country ahead of the vote.Police officials say a suicide bomber exploded the car outside the Internal Affairs office in the provincial capital, Ramadi.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Anbar province was considered the hotbed of the insurgency until many fighters turned against the insurgents in what is considered one of the key turning points of the war.Three mortar rounds hit central Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Monday, injuring at least six people and damaging homes and cars, in the latest attack on government targets ahead of March 7 elections.

A police officer in the nearby Kharkh police department said he did not know whether Iraqi or American military personnel were among the injured. He and an Interior Ministry official who also confirmed the blast spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.The U.S. military said it had a report of an indirect fire incident in the Green Zone, referring to a rocket or mortar attack, but had no further information.Government targets such as the Green Zone, a sprawling area where the Iraqi government compound and U.S. Embassy are located, have increasingly come under assault as insurgents attempt to destabilize the Iraqi government ahead of the March 7 parliamentary vote.

Iraqi citizens who live in areas such as the Green Zone sometimes find themselves caught in the fire, hit by mortar rounds or rockets intended for government targets.While violence has fallen dramatically in Iraq since the height of sectarian tensions in 2006 and 2007, sporadic attacks still occur. Hundreds of people have been killed in attacks on government and other targets since August, angering many Iraqis who accuse their government of being unable to protect Iraqi. (AP)

BAGHDAD A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men

Shiite Muslim men

BAGHDAD  A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men and damaged the historic building Wednesday, a day before Christmas Eve services that will be heavily guarded for fear of more attacks on the country’s Christian minority.The bomb in the city of Mosul was hidden under sacks of baking flour in a handcart left 15 yards (meters) from the Mar Toma Church, or the Church of St. Thomas, a police officer said.

The officer said the two men killed were Muslims and that five other people were injured. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to news media.

“Instead of performing Christmas Mass in this church, we will be busy removing rubble and debris,” Hazim Ragheed, a priest at the church, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.The blast damaged the wooden doors, windows, some furniture and one of the walls of the church, which is more than 1,200 years old, Ragheed said. Services will be moved out of the church, but Ragheed did not say where they would be held.

“We demand that the government put an end to these repeated attacks,” Ragheed said.The blast occurred in an area where streets have been closed to cars and trucks to protect Mosul’s dwindling Christian population.

Iraqi defense officials warned earlier in the week that intelligence reports pointed to attacks during Christmas, leading the government to step up security near churches and Christian neighborhoods.Most of the increased security will be in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, said Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari.

Christians have frequently been targeted since turmoil swept the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, although the attacks have ebbed with an overall drop in violence. Still, tens of thousands of Christians have fled; many who stayed were isolated in neighborhoods protected by barricades and checkpoints.A coordinated bombing campaign in 2004 targeted churches in the Iraqi capital and anti-Christian violence also flared in September 2007 after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be against Islam.

Churches, priests and businesses have been attacked by militants who denounce Christians as pro-American “crusaders.” Paulos Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was found dead in March 2008 after being abducted by gunmen after a Mass.

Also Wednesday, Iraqi forces increased security around the Shiite religious observance of Ashoura, which coincides with Christmas.Insurgents have routinely targeted pilgrims on their way to the southern holy city of Karbala during Ashoura, which marks the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.More than 25,000 Iraqi police and soldiers have been assigned to protect pilgrims, said Karbala police Capt. Alaa Abbas Jaafar, a media spokesman.

Elsewhere, gunmen stormed a checkpoint Wednesday in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi police officers, two police officials said.

A bomb planted on a minibus killed two people and injured five in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Another bomb in Fallujah targeted an Anbar University professor but missed and killed the man’s brother, police said.

– A man who was presumed dead in this week's string of attacks in Baghdad stunned neighbors

BAGHDAD

BAGHDAD  A man who was presumed dead in this week’s string of attacks in Baghdad stunned neighbors Wednesday when returned to his toppled home – and then he drew more stares as he cuddled his pet dog that was remarkably unharmed in the blast.”Lots of neighbors thought I was dead,” said Farouq Omar Muhei after his dog, Liza, was carried down to the street and began lapping at a puddle.

The ginger-colored dog was spotted chained to a roof railing and standing on a wall ledge over its collapsed home after Tuesday’s huge blast near Iraq’s Finance Ministry leveled shops and houses. The attack was part of coordinated bombings around Baghdad that claimed at least 127 lives.

Iraqi police and rescue officials said Muhei and his family were among the victims. But he stunned neighbors when he returned with his 14-year-old son, Omar, after being treated for cuts and other injuries. They were the only family members home at the time of the attack and all his family survived.

Only a few portions of the home remained standing – including one section of the roof where Liza was chained. The dog’s water bucket also remained by its side, but was empty when Muhei’s brother, Fuad, climbed over the rubble to unchain the dog and carry it down.

The dog was waiting calmly and even yawned as he approached. But it appeared to be shaking with joy as it was reunited with the 46-year-old Muhei, whose face was laced with cuts and had a bandage on his head. The thirsty Liza then began to lap water from a puddle.

“After we crawled out of the rubble of our home, I said to my son, `The dog is dead,'” said Muhei, who sells candy and small items in the local market. “But my son said, `No, I saw him.’ I came back today to rescue my dog.”

Muhei said he purchased Liza as a puppy six years year in Baghdad’s main pet market. The site was hit by two suicide bombers in February 2008, killing at least 100 people.

BAGHDAD Iraq's parliament is asking security officials to appear before a special session

Iraq's parliament

BAGHDAD  Iraq’s parliament is asking security officials to appear before a special session to answer questions over security lapses that allowed bombers to strike government sites.The spokesman for the parliament speaker says lawmakers want Iraq’s ministers of defense and interior to appear at Thursday’s session, called over the attacks the previous day that killed at least 127 people.

It was the third large-scale attack against prominent government buildings in the Iraqi capital since August.Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani agreed Wednesday to attend the session under one condition. A statement from his office said al-Bolani would appear only if the session isn’t held behind closed doors.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is also expected to attend the session.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below. An Iraqi police official says a bomb hidden in a garbage heap has killed two people in northern Baghdad.

The official says the blast occurred Wednesday at about 8 a.m. as street sweepers were cleaning in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah. He says two street sweepers were killed and three passers-by were wounded.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.The explosion comes a day after a series of bombings targeted government buildings in Baghdad, killing at least 127 people and wounding more than 500.Lawmakers have called top security officials to appear in parliament to answer questions over security lapses.Meanwhile, funerals were starting in Baghdad for the bombing victims.

34 people killed at baghdad by bomb exploded

exploded at a school

BAGHDAD  A bomb exploded at a school in Baghdad’s Shiite district of Sadr City, killing five people, including four students, Iraqi officials said.The bombing took place at about 1 p.m. in an area where large attacks have been infrequent because it is encircled by U.S. and Iraqi security forces and has its own neighborhood security.The blast also wounded at least 34 people, said an Iraqi police official. A Ministry of Interior official confirmed the casualties.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

There are an estimated 2.5 million Shiites living in Sadr City, a stronghold of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.Violence has decreased dramatically in Iraq, though insurgents continue to target civilians and security forces. The U.S. military has expressed concern of a possible rise in violence ahead of next year’s national elections.

Also Monday, gunmen stormed a checkpoint north of Baghdad, killing five members of a Sunni anti-al-Qaida group, according to a police official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason. The U.S. military confirmed the attack.