Agence France-Presse,
The US military should cut its presence in Iraq to look less like an “occupying force” but Congress should not impose a withdrawal deadline, a new report on the unpopular war said Thursday.
The appraisal overseen by retired Marine General James Jones said that Iraq's military is at least 12-18 months away from assuming combat duties from US soldiers, while its police force is so corrupt that it should be disbanded.
But the sprawling US military footprint should also be reduced to give Iraqis a better signal of US intentions, Jones's blue-ribbon commission of veteran military and police chiefs said in its report to Congress.
“The unintended message conveyed is one of 'permanence,' an occupying force, as it were,” said the report, the latest in a flurry of progress updates to come during a pivotal 10-day period for US policy in the war-torn nation.
“What is needed is the opposite impression: one that is lighter, less massive and more expeditionary,” it said.
“We recommend that careful consideration of the size of our national footprint in Iraq be reconsidered with regard to its efficiency, necessity and cost.
“Significant reductions, consolidations, and realignments would appear to be possible and prudent.”
However, Jones also said that he did not believe that Democratic troop withdrawal timetables were the way to reduce the US military presence.
“I think deadlines can work against us, and I think a deadline of this magnitude would be against our national interest,” the former top US commander in Europe told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
President George W. Bush's administration has made training and equipping Iraqi forces a key goal in Iraq, seeing their capacity to eventually fight alone as the pathway to US troop withdrawals.
In its report, the Jones commission said Iraqi forces were improving, “but not at a rate sufficient to meet their essential security responsibilities.”
The congressionally mandated assessment was scathing about Iraq's police force, saying it was crippled by sectarianism, and said the force's overarching Ministry of Interior was “a ministry in name only.”
Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said the Jones report added to a body of evidence which he said proved that Bush's military “surge” in Iraq was failing.
“It is discouraging that the president stubbornly claims his failed policy is working even as this latest report describes many Iraqi security forces as focused more on fostering civil war than on suppressing it,” he said.
Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 race for the White House, said the report added to her concerns that little progress was being, or would be made, in Iraq.
“I am deeply concerned that we're not going to see any different in 12 to 18 months, but we'll see more American casualties,” she told Jones at the hearing.
The clamor for an early withdrawal of US troops has grown as General David Petraeus and Baghdad ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top two Americans in Iraq, get set to testify in Congress next week just ahead of a White House report seven months into the surge.
The Jones report said that for some time to come, Iraq's military will continue to rely on the US-led coalition for combat duties, logistical support and training.
“The commission assesses that in the next 12 to 18 months there will be continued improvement in their readiness and capability, but not the ability to operate independently,” it said.
The commission concluded that the 26,000-strong police force needs to be purged of corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings, and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization.
“Sectarianism in its units undermines its ability to provide security; the force is not viable in its current form. The National Police should be disbanded and reorganized,” it said.
Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday the Pentagon did “not believe it is necessary to disband the national police force,” but wanted instead to weed out officers tainted by sectarian rivalry.
