Three-year strategy to bring stability to Iraq

IRAQ: National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie announced a three-year plan to bring stability to the country and achieve national reconciliation.

The announcement came a day after a brief visit by President George W. Bush to Iraq and a week before the U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top commander Gen. David Petraeus are to report to the Congress on security and political progress since Bush dispatched 30,000 extra troops to Iraq to curb sectarian violence.

“This is an Iraq national security strategy for the years between 2007 and 2010. This strategy will provide, for the first time, the Iraqi government a ... coherent top-level direction toward the government in its efforts to establish security, promote prosperity and self-reliance,” al-Rubaie said in English during a news conference.

He added that the strategy, called “Iraq First,” will be linked to the Iraq compact that was launched in May in Egypt and outlines international aid for Iraq, including debt relief. It also sets tough commitments for the government, particularly measures aimed at granting Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority a greater role in the political process.

He added that the strategy was put together by 23 experts during three months of hard work.

“It also affirms principles of federalism, the rule of law, human and self rights,” al-Rubaie said.

He added that it guides Iraq’s development of human and natural resources, protects the freedom of media and expression, terrorism, insurgency, corruption, crimes, armed forces, militias, foreign interference, ethnic and sectarian violence.

It is the first time that such a long-term strategy is announced in Iraq, a country where tens thousands of people have been killed by violence since the 2003 U.S. invasion that ousted then President Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile President Bush said Wednesday that he saw security and political progress in Iraq and vowed to “hang in there” despite steep pressure to pull US forces out of the war-torn country.

“Again, I repeat, there’s plenty of work to be done. There’s more work to be done. But reconciliation is taking place,” he said at a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

“And it’s important, in my judgement, for the security of America, and for the security of Australia, that we hang in there with the Iraqis and help them,” Bush said ahead of an Asia-Pacific summit here.

Howard, one of Bush’s last close allies on the war, declared his firm opposition to setting a timetable for Australian troops to withdraw from Iraq, insisting that they “will remain at their present level in Iraq, not based on any calendar but on conditions on the ground.”

The embattled US president also worked to downplay speculation — which he repeatedly fuelled one day earlier on a surprise trip to Iraq — that he may announce a US troop reduction later this month.

Bush urged observers to wait until the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and the US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, report next week as part of a critical White House assessment of the situation in Iraq.

“Why don’t we see what they say, and then I’ll let you know,” said the president.

Meanwhile the Iraqi government has failed to take the political and military steps needed to cut sectarian violence, a U.S. congressional report said on Tuesday and a U.S. general said the next months were critical for creating security in the country.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said Iraq had failed to meet 11 of 18 political and military benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress in May, including elimination of militia control of local security.

“Violence remains high, the number of Iraqi security forces capable of conducting independent operations has declined, and militias are not disarmed,” the GAO, the investigating arm of Congress, said.

Despite the deployment of 30,000 extra U.S. troops to Iraq, raising force levels to 160,000, it said the number of attacks on civilians remained unchanged from February to July 2007.

In Baghdad, the head of day-to-day U.S. military operations said the next three to four months would be vital to determine if violence could be cut further and security maintained with fewer American troops.

Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno, the number two U.S. military commander in Iraq, said last week had seen the lowest number of violent incidents against civilians and security forces across Iraq in the past 15 months.

“I think if we can continue to do what we are doing, we’ll get to such a level where we think we can do it with less troops,” Odierno told a small group of foreign reporters at a U.S. military base near Baghdad airport.

He said attacks in August were the lowest in 13 months. Odierno gave no detailed numbers, but he said the attacks included all violent incidents such as bombings and shootings.

In fresh violence on Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi army major and four soldiers in the volatile oil city of Baji north of Baghdad. The Electricity Ministry also said eight workers had been kidnapped and killed in Baghdad on Monday.

Baghdad, Wednesday, AP, AFP, Reuters