BAGHDAD // Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al Maliki said today that Iraq had gained independence with the end of US combat operations and that its security forces would now deal with all threats, whether domestic or from abroad. "Iraq today is sovereign and independent," Mr Maliki told Iraqis in a televised address to mark the US military's transition into a force that assists and advises rather than leads the fight against a Sunni Islamist insurgency and Shi'ite militia. "Our security forces will take the lead in ensuring security and safeguarding the country and removing all threats that the country has to weather, internally or externally," he said.
The US President, Barack Obama, was due to mark the symbolic end of combat operations in a speech from the Oval Office at 8pm US time (3am UAE time), after visiting a base in Texas where he was scheduled to meet recently returned Iraq veterans. He was also expected to speak by telephone with former president George W. Bush, who, backed by the UK, took the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, ousting dictator Saddam Hussein within weeks. More than 4,400 US troops have died in the country since, a number that is dwarfed by the estimated 100,000 civilians that have been killed, according to Iraq Body Count.
A major troop pullout in past months has left fewer than 50,000 American soldiers in Iraq while a simultaneous surge in car bombings and shootings, many of which have targeted local security forces, has raised security concerns.
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, President Obama's point man on Iraq, landed in Baghdad last night and was due to meet the president Jalal Talabani, Mr al Maliki and the former premier and the winner of the recent Iraqi election, Iyad Allawi as well as other top politicians on the first full day of his trip, the White House said. The vice-president will take part in a ceremony today to mark the start of Operation New Dawn, the US military's new "advise and assist" mission. Six US military brigades will remain in Iraq ahead of a full withdrawal by the end of 2011 agreed in a bilateral security pact between the United States and Iraq, but their focus will be on advising and assisting Iraqis, not on fighting. Iraqi citizens seemed unconvinced that the official end of combat operations would herald an improvement in security. "The situation will get worse especially as the withdrawal comes amid a political vacuum," said Salah Abu al Qassim, 36, a trader in Shorja Market in central Baghdad.
"If the politicians continue fighting on the chairs, the situation will get worse." Mr Biden's trip comes almost six months after a closely-fought general election that was followed by protracted coalition negotiations which have yet to usher in a new government, causing alarm in Washington. Tony Blinken, Mr Biden's national security adviser, said the current caretaker administration in Baghdad was not a durable solution.
"There is some growing sense of urgency that government formation move forward and certainly the vice president is going to urge the leaders to bring this process to a conclusion," Mr Blinken said. Although unrest is not on the same scale as in 2006-2007 when sectarian conflict raged alongside the anti-US insurgency, about 300 people have been killed monthly this year, and July was the deadliest month since May 2008. Mr Obama declared shortly after taking office last year that the US combat mission in Iraq would end on August 31 this year, after which American troops would take on a training and advisory role prior to a complete withdrawal in 2011.
There are now 49,700 American soldiers here, less than a third of the peak figure of almost 170,000 during the US "surge" of 2007, when the country was in the throes of brutal Shiite-Sunni violence that cost tens of thousands of lives. The departing commander of US forces in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, has said the new force strength will be maintained "through next summer" before troop numbers fall towards zero by the end of the December 2011 withdrawal deadline. He told the New York Times that failure to form a new government could undermine Iraqis' faith in democratic rule. "The longer that takes, the more frustrated they might get with the process itself," Gen Odierno said.
Iraq's top army officer, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, warned on August 11 that a complete withdrawal of US troops at the end of next year would be premature, and urged a change of tack from the country's politicians. "If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020," Lieut Gen Zebari told AFP. Mr Biden last visited Iraq in July, when he urged politicians to resolve their differences, but there was no breakthrough. Mr al Maliki was narrowly defeated by Mr Allawi in the March 7 election, but the vote was shared between an array of rival blocs forcing both men to look for coalition partners.
Neither Mr al Maliki, a Shiite who heads the State of Law Alliance, nor Mr Allawi, also Shiite but leader of a broadly secular coalition with strong Sunni Arab backing, has managed to secure a majority in the 325-seat parliament. * Agencies
