BAGHDAD — Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion, finally opening a window for reconciliation among rival sects, the second-ranking U.S. general said Sunday as Iraqi forces formally took control of security across half the country.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the man responsible for the ground campaign in Iraq, said the first six months of 2007 were probably the most violent period since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The past six months, however, have seen some of the lowest levels of violence since the conflict began, Odierno said, attributing the change to an increase in American troops and better-trained Iraqi forces.
“I feel we are back in ’03 and early ’04. Frankly, I was here then, and the environment is about the same in terms of security, in my opinion,” he said. “What is different from then is that the Iraqi security forces are significantly more mature.”
Violence killed at least 27 Iraqis on Sunday — 16 of them members of a U.S.-backed neighborhood patrol killed in clashes with al-Qaeda in a province neighboring Baghdad. Thirty-five al-Qaeda fighters also died in that fighting, Iraqi officials said.
Odierno said Anbar province, once plagued by violence, recorded 12 attacks in the past week, down from an average of 26 per week over the past three months.
“The violence last week was the lowest ever,” he said of Anbar. “So that kind of defines 2007 very simply. A long, hard fight and a lot of sacrifice by a lot of soldiers, Marines and airmen to get there.”
A planned reduction of troops to about 130,000 at the end of next year from a high of around 165,000 at the height of the “surge” should not derail that effort, but Iraq’s government must take advantage of the improved security, Odierno said. There are 154,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now.
One of the most important policies to get in place, Odierno said, was a draft bill to ease curbs implemented against former supporters of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
Iraqi lawmakers are debating a draft law that would pave the way for the creation of an independent body that would screen former Baath members. Many Sunnis have complained of overzealous purging of low-ranking party members who had in many cases joined the party under pressure from Hussein and been following orders.
“Reconciliation must continue,” Odierno said.
The U.S.-led coalition has been gradually transferring control of security to the Iraqi government, and Britain’s hand over of southern Basra was the latest in a series that began in July 2006.
The coalition retains control over half of Iraq’s 18 provinces, including Anbar and central areas where violence has waned but not stopped.
“This is a step toward resuming security responsibilities in all of Iraq’s provinces that is due in the middle of next year,” Iraqi National Security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said in Basra.
He represented Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the hand over ceremony in the capital of the oil-rich region.
The 4,500 British troops remaining in Iraq will now take a back-seat role, focusing on training Iraqi forces.
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in a video posted Sunday on the Web that the U.S. is trying to hide its failures in Iraq and warned that the mujahedeen there are increasing in strength.
U.S. forces were “defeated and looking for a way out,” and Iraqi forces were unable to keep security, al-Zawahri said in the 90-minute videotape.
