Baghdad, Iraq – Iraq’s new prime minister has made security his top priority, but violence is so pervasive that it may take months – if not years – before he can keep that promise without help from American troops.
That’s not the impression sometimes created by upbeat statements from U.S. and British leaders, who are eager to bring their forces home.
President Bush hailed the new coalition government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds as a turning point in the war, and Prime Minister Tony Blair said there was no longer any “vestige of an excuse for anyone to carry on with terrorism or bloodshed.”
In Baghdad, however, American diplomats and senior military commanders say they’ll reserve judgment until the government installed last weekend has been in place for at least six months.
Some analysts believe even that is still too little time to know if it will succeed.
“Americans need to understand that it will be well into 2007 before the final system of government in Iraq is both defined and actually operating, even in the best-case scenario,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
That means probably another year of car bombings, kidnappings and suicide attacks – with substantial numbers of U.S. troops in harm’s way. At least 275 American service members have been killed this year, including 51 this month.
Tuesday, a bomb went off in a motorcycle parked in the courtyard of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding at least nine – the deadliest of the attacks across Iraq that claimed 40 lives.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, appears personally committed to halting violence, promising “maximum force” if needed.
Plans are in the works for U.S. and Iraqi troops to launch major operations to pacify Baghdad, Ramadi and several other cities.
To do that, however, the prime minister must confront not only the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgents but fellow Shiites as well.
That will require significant numbers of U.S. forces to play a major security role.
