BAGHDAD — Six years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the end of America’s costly mission is in sight, but the future of this tortured country is much less clear.
With violence down sharply, most Iraqis feel more secure than at nearly any time since the war began March 20, 2003 — March 19 in the United States.
But violence still continues at levels that most other countries would find alarming. Last week, suicide bombers killed a total of 60 people in two separate attacks in the Baghdad area, and an American soldier was fatally injured Monday on a combat mission in the capital.
Fighting still rages in Mosul and other areas of the mostly Sunni north. Competition for power and resources among rival religious and ethnic groups is gearing up, even as the U.S. military’s role winds down.
Both the Sunni and Shiite communities face internal power struggles that are likely to intensify ahead of national elections late this year. Sunni-Shiite slaughter has abated, but genuine reconciliation remains elusive.
“If Iraqi leaders don’t reconcile and work together, the situation will deteriorate,” veteran Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said. “There is no harmony among Iraqi leaders. Their work depends on their mood.”
At the same time, U.S. combat troops are due to leave by September 2010, with all American soldiers gone by the end of the following year.
In the final stage of the war, America’s challenge will be to prevent ethnic and sectarian competition from exploding into violence on the scale that plunged the nation to the brink of all-out civil war two years ago.
U.S. commanders successfully lobbied President Barack Obama to maintain a substantial combat force in Iraq through parliamentary elections at the end of the year in hopes of curbing violence as the country’s religious and ethnically based parties compete for power in the national balloting.
Damage control is a far less ambitious goal than the Bush administration foresaw when the U.S. launched the invasion.
A nationwide survey of 2,228 Iraqis last month for ABC News, BBC and Japan’s NHK found that 85 percent believed that the current situation was good or very good, up 23 percentage points from last year. About 59 percent felt safe in their neighborhoods, up 22 percentage points from last year.
“We feel there’s been a significant security improvement during the past months,” said Ahmed Mahmoud Hussein, a health ministry employee in east Baghdad. “If sectarianism is wiped out and the security forces are equipped in a proper way, I think the country will see stability within five years.”
