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)

Departing US troops pack millions of items in Iraq

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq Everything from helicopters to printer cartridges is being wrapped and stamped and shipped out of Iraq. U.S. military bases that once resembled small towns have transformed into a cross between giant post offices and Office Depots.Soldiers who battled through insurgents and roadside bombs are now doing inventory and accounting. Their task: reverse over the course of months a U.S. military presence that built up over seven years of war.”We’re moving out millions of pieces of equipment in one of the largest logistics operations that we’ve seen in decades,” President Barack Obama said in a speech Monday hailing this month’s planned withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

The orderly withdrawal is a far cry from the testosterone-fueled push across the berm separating Kuwait and Iraq, when American Marines and soldiers pushed north in the 2003 invasion, battling Saddam Hussein’s army while sleeping on the hoods of their vehicles and eating prepackaged meals.”I think it’s probably more challenging leaving, responsibly drawing down, than it is getting here, because you just have to figure out where everything is and getting it out of here. Are there enough airplanes, ships, containers, and do we have enough time to do that and meet the president’s mandate?” said Col. David F. Demartino, who is responsible for infrastructure and support services at Balad, which is home to 25,000 troops and civilians.

In essence the drawdown has been happening since late 2008. That’s when the U.S. started to reduce its numbers following the surge, which raised the American presence to about 170,000. Now the U.S. has just under 65,000 troops in the country, and the withdrawal is reaching a more furious pace as the August deadline approaches.Only 50,000 U.S. service personnel will remain after August. All troops are supposed to leave and all bases close by the end of next year, unless Iraq asks the U.S. to renegotiate their agreement to allow a continued American presence.In mid-July, JSS Mahmoudiya – once a U.S. position just south of Baghdad in one of Iraq’s most dangerous areas – was a ghost town. Tents were abandoned, covered with foam to retard fire, and the white-walled cafeteria was barren except for a few refrigerators holding drinks. The joint operations command was stripped of almost everything, including the big-screen TVs on which military personnel once watched operations.

The next day, it was handed over to the Iraqi government to become an army facility.Each handover involves a painstaking process of inventorying everything on the base that the soldiers aren’t taking with them. Every item is assessed to see if it can be moved and if so, whether it is needed anywhere else in the country. Many of the materials – water tanks, generators, and furniture – are eventually donated to the Iraqi government. As of July 27, $98.6 million worth of equipment has been handed over, most to the Iraqi army and Interior Ministry.More than 400 bases are being closed down or handed over to the Iraqi military. By September, the American military will have fewer than 100 bases in the country, down from a high of 505 in January 2008.

Some of these bases look somewhat like small towns with elaborate dining facilities serving tacos and crab legs and gyms with rows of treadmills.About half the vehicles – what the military describes as “rolling stock” – that have left Iraq have gone to Afghanistan. More than 180,000 items like weapons or communications equipment have also been sent to Afghanistan over the past year.In the past, when troops rotated into Iraq they brought some weapons and other equipment with them. But they inherited most of their equipment – including Humvees and other armored vehicles – from the unit they replaced.But now as troops aren’t being replaced, the last guys out must leave their equipment at the door to be redistributed, whether back to the U.S., other units in Iraq or to Afghanistan.

That makes places like the Central Receiving and Shipping Point at Balad “the center of the universe,” as one visiting officer nicknamed it. Equipment such as howitzers and helicopter blades or shipping containers and pallets arrives for redistribution.Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Latch runs the CRSP. He spent his first tour in Iraq with the infantry kicking down doors and hunting down members of Saddam’s regime. The only time he really thought about logistics was to wonder when his ammo and food would arrive.Now he’s at the center of the logistical version of a major offensive, helping ensure that the equipment goes south to Kuwait, the main exit point. Most material is driven down the heavily guarded main highway from Baghdad to the border, a more than 300-mile route. So far there have been no reports of significant attacks on any convoys.

Latch said when he started his deployment last summer, they moved an average of about 2,500 items a month. Now he’s moving almost six times that amount, and it’s mostly going south.And people want it faster. It used to be something could sit in the CRSP yard for 45 days before heading to Kuwait, Latch said. But now if it’s there for five days, people start calling and want to know why.”We have a very, very aggressive attitude,” Latch said. “Everybody knows the stuff is going south. It’s going to move no matter what. You can either fight the current or you can just push as hard as you can to get that stuff down there fast.”The drawdown has not been without hiccups. The military was embarrassed by a report in the Times of London that contractors did not properly dispose of environmental waste removed from U.S. military bases.But U.S. commanders say they are addressing problems and are confident they will be able to meet the president’s deadline.

Demartino said that while going through shipping containers, buildings and offices at Joint Base Balad, soldiers have been stunned at the materials hoarded over the years in nooks and crannies all over the base.The biggest surprise was the thousands of printer cartridges tucked away by soldiers worried they would one day run out.”I walked through a few of these buildings, and I was thinking this is like Office Depot, and it’s just people going ‘I don’t want to run out. Let’s get them!'” he said. “I think it’s the mindset of ‘We’re never going to leave.'”(AP)

Iraqi prime minister's bloc says it has started laying the groundwork to form a coalition government after preliminary election results

The Iraqi prime minister’s bloc says it has started laying the groundwork to form a coalition government after preliminary election results showed it winning in at least two southern provinces.Friday’s announcement that Nouri al-Maliki’s alliance has created a committee to open talks with other groups signals growing optimism about a strong showing in the parliamentary balloting.

Partial tallies have only been released from only five of Iraq’s 18 provinces, excluding Baghdad. They show the prime minister and his secular rival, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, locked in a tight contest amid fraud allegations.

But Al-Maliki supporter Abbas al-Bayati says the alliance has already reached out to other parties and believes it will need at least two allies.
First results from Iraq’s parliamentary election showed the prime minister and his secular rival locked in an extremely tight contest Thursday amid fraud allegations by rival parties and a chaotic, unpredictable vote count.The partial tallies came from only five of Iraq’s 18 provinces. However, Iraqi officials who have seen results from across the country said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition appeared to have a narrow edge, though not an outright majority.

That foreshadows tough and lengthy negotiations to build a government and choose a prime minister.The partial results, posted on TV screens in Baghdad to crowds of reporters, were the first in an election that will determine who governs the country as U.S. troops go home – and whether Iraqis can put behind them deep sectarian tensions that once brought their nation to the brink of civil war.

The initial tallies from Sunday’s vote suggested an exceedingly tight contest between coalitions led by al-Maliki, who gained popularity as security improved, and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who sharply criticized the prime minister for failing to boost reconciliation efforts between Iraq’s factions.The emerging picture was a setback to hard-line religious Shiite political leaders who saw al-Maliki make gains in two southern provinces deep on their turf. Allawi appeared to be drawing on Sunni support north of Baghdad.Results did not include the race’s big prize – Baghdad – which accounts for 70 of the parliament’s 325 seats.

Thursday’s announcement set off a wave of fraud accusations, largely from Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition which said it uncovered dozens of violations. It said these included soldiers not being allowed to vote, interference in the electoral commission’s work and some polling stations failing to post results.In a statement, the group said it found “rigging to an extent that would render the elections useless for reflecting the voice of the Iraqis.”Election commission officials did not respond specifically to the allegations, but said the commission had received more than 1,000 complaints about potential violations, all of which would be investigated.

Al-Maliki gained ground against hard-line religious parties in two southern provinces. In Babil, where about a third of the ballots had been counted, the prime minister’s State of Law coalition won some 69,000 votes. He also came out on top in Najaf, where his bloc won some 56,000 votes.The tallies were a blow to al-Maliki’s main Shiite competition, the religious Iraqi National Alliance, which includes a party led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Since rising to prominence as part of a Shiite coalition that won the 2005 elections, al-Maliki has tried to recast himself as an inclusive leader for all Iraqis.Allawi’s non-sectarian Iraqiya list, which included Sunni candidates, fared better in central Iraq, where there are more Sunni voters. In Diyala province, Iraqiya received almost 43,000 votes, more than four time’s al-Maliki’s take. In Salahuddin, Allawi’s list had more than 34,000 votes, about five times that of al-Maliki.

Analyst Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group said the initial results were largely what he expected. He cautioned that final calls are hard to make without knowing about Baghdad.”Who gets Baghdad is still the most important thing,” he said.

Results from a fifth province, Irbil, showed the Kurdish Alliance, representing the two main Kurdish parties, defeating the upstart Kurdish party, Gorran, in the self-rule territory.Iraqi officials who have seen wider counts from across the country said al-Maliki’s coalition appeared to be coming out on top.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera TV, Ammar al-Hakim, who heads the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, said al-Maliki’s bloc was ahead “by some seats.” He said the assessment was based on information supplied by 40,000 observers from his alliance.Almost all Iraqi political parties and coalitions post observers at polling stations and counting centers across the country, serving as a check against fraud.Chaos reigned through much of the day before the first results were posted on large TV screens, with election officials offering different explanations of how much information would be released and when.

The officials said they had no deadline for releasing final results and were undecided about whether they would make public more results Friday.

Leaders from competing political parties visited the counting center during the day, which officials said helped ensure the count’s transparency. Others questioned the appropriateness of candidates getting so close to the counting process.Al-Maliki underwent surgery Wednesday but was quickly released from the hospital and back at work Thursday, according to a statement from his office. An adviser, Yassin Majid, said the surgery was “simple,” but refused to say what it entailed.

Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad

Iraqi traffic policeman inspects a car destroyed by a Blackwater security detail in al-Nisoor Square in Baghdad

BAGHDAD  Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge’s decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge’s decision as proof of what they’d long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.”There is no justice,” said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. “I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square.”What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the U.S. relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.Blackwater had been hired by the State Department to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said they were ambushed at a busy intersection in western Baghdad, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said the Blackwater guards let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

“Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force,” Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement Friday.He did not elaborate on what steps the government planned to take to pursue the case.The shootings led the Iraqi government to strip the North Carolina-based company of its license to work in the country, and Blackwater replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

Five guards from the company were charged in the case with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms, but a federal judge Friday dismissed all the charges.U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina cited repeated government missteps in the investigation, saying that prosecutors built their case on sworn statements that the guards had given with the idea that they would be immune from prosecution.That explanation held little sway with Iraqis outraged over the case.Dr. Haitham Ahmed’s wife and son were both killed in their car during the shooting.”The rights of our victims and the rights of the innocent people should not be wasted,” he said.Iraqis have followed the case closely and said the judge’s decision demonstrated that the Americans were considered above the law.

“I was not astonished by the verdict because the trial was unreal. They are using double standards and talking about human rights, but they are the first to violate these rights. They are killing innocents deliberately,” said Ahmed Jassim, a civil engineer in the southern city of Najaf.Dozens of Iraqis have filed a separate lawsuit alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. That civil case was not affected by Urbina’s decision and is still before a Virginia court.Mohammed al-Kinani, whose son was killed, said he had been invited once to the U.S. by the Justice Department as a witness but said he went two more times after that to follow the case.”I will not despair,” he said.Gen. Ray Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, said he understood that people would be upset with the decision.

“Of course people are not going to like it, because they believe that these individuals conducted some violence and should be punished for it, but the bottom line is, using the rule of law, the evidence is not there,” he said. “I worry about it because clearly there were innocent people killed in this attack.”Of all the private security companies that mushroomed in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion, Blackwater was the most well-known and vilified.Their employees were at the center of what is considered one of the key moments of the war. A vehicle with four Blackwater employees driving through the western city of Fallujah, a center of the Sunni insurgency, was hit by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in March 2004. Their charred, mutilated bodies were dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates river.The bloody incident was one of the key reasons the U.S. military attacked Fallujah in April 2004.

Another Blackwater guard, Andrew Moonen, was accused by the family of a guard for an Iraqi vice president of shooting and killing the guard without provocation on Christmas Eve of 2006 after Moonen got drunk at a party in the Green Zone and then got lost. Moonen’s lawyer has described the incident as self-defense.An October 2007 report by a House of Representatives committee called Blackwater an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties. Blackwater chairman Erik Prince told the committee that the company acted appropriately at all times.

Were the incident to happen again today, the legal outcome might be much different. The U.S.-Iraqi security pact that took effect Jan. 1, 2009, lifted the immunity that foreign contractors had in Iraq. A British security contractor accused of shooting two colleagues is currently being held in Iraq and could be the first Westerner to face an Iraqi court since the immunity was lifted.(AP)

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.