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US plans to aid Iraq in the event of civil war
The U.S. military will rely primarily on Iraq's security forces to put down a civil war in that country if one breaks out, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers yesterday.

Sectarian violence in Iraq has reached a level unprecedented since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and is now eclipsing the insurgency as the chief security threat there, said Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, who appeared with Rumsfeld.

"The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the . . . Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to," Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee when pressed to explain how the United States intended to respond should Iraq descend wholesale into internecine strife.

If civil war becomes reality, "it's very clear that the Iraqi forces will handle it, but they'll handle it with our help," Abizaid said later when asked to elaborate on Rumsfeld's remark.

The sobering assessment of sectarian tensions in Iraq shows the extent to which the Feb. 22 bombing of a holy Shiite shrine, and the ensuing revenge attacks that left hundreds of Sunni and Shiite Muslims dead, has shifted military calculations on a range of fronts, including what constitutes the top security challenge and prospects for further reductions in U.S. troop levels this year.

Yesterday's statements suggested that the imperative to curb sectarian violence, and the risk that it will evolve into civil war -- a risk commanders have long warned was real, if remote -- has now emerged as a central consideration for U.S. strategy in Iraq.

"There's no doubt that the sectarian tensions are higher than we've seen, and it's a great concern to all of us," Abizaid told the Senate committee, adding that the situation in Iraq is "changing [in] nature from insurgency toward sectarian violence." Asked about that comment after the briefing, Abizaid said that "sectarian violence is a greater concern for us security-wise right now than the insurgency."

Abizaid and Rumsfeld voiced the belief that Iraq is not currently engulfed in a civil war and expressed confidence in Iraqi security forces, saying they had performed generally well after the recent wave of sectarian unrest. The country "is not in civil war at the present time, by most experts' calculations," Rumsfeld said.

The key to averting a civil war, they told lawmakers, is the quick formation of a unified Iraqi government that is broadly representative of the main Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish religious and ethnic groups.

"The situation, to the extent that it's fragile and tense, is as much a governance issue as it is a security issue," Rumsfeld said. "The need is for the principal players in the country to recognize the seriousness of the situation and come together to form a government of national unity that will govern from the center and do it in a reasonably prompt manner," he said. "That will be what it will take, in my view, to further calm the situation."

Rumsfeld's testimony included some tense exchanges with Democratic senators, who pressed to know what the latest violence in Iraq would mean for the presence in the country of U.S. troops, who currently number about 132,000, down from 138,000 earlier this year.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) repeatedly asked Rumsfeld whether 2006 will be a year of transition to Iraqi security forces, allowing the withdrawal of significant numbers of U.S. troops by the end of the year. Rumsfeld declined to discuss troop levels, saying it would be "ill-advised for me to make a prediction," but he said that Iraqi security forces are "doing a good job" and that Iraqi leaders are taking responsibility for conflict in the country.

"Proof positive the Iraqi security forces are as good as you say is when American troops can come home," Durbin responded. "That's proof positive. Every year we hear about growing numbers and growing capabilities, and yet . . . our best and bravest are still there in danger today."

Other Democrats called "unrealistic" Rumsfeld's decision to rely primarily on Iraqi security forces in an outbreak of civil war. "The real issue here is, where will those security forces place their loyalties, and will we be caught in the middle of a situation in which it's unclear to us who the enemy is," Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said after a closed Senate briefing on Iraq operations by Abizaid and Rumsfeld after the public session.

Reed, Durbin and other Democrats urged Rumsfeld to tell the Iraqi leadership that the United States would soon begin to withdraw troops, as a means of gaining leverage to compel the Iraqis to form a compromise government. "If that real government doesn't materialize, we might be stuck" taking sides, Reed said in an interview.

In Baghdad, tit-for-tat sectarian attacks continued yesterday, with a bomb targeting a Sunni mosque and killing five civilians. In all, car bombs killed 16 people in the capital. Another car bomb targeting a police patrol killed nine civilians, news agencies reported, citing police.

Iraq's government announced the hanging Thursday of 13 people convicted as terrorists. The hangings marked the first court-ordered executions of insurgents, although three other people -- convicted murderers -- have been legally executed since Iraq reinstated the death penalty in 2004. The Cabinet statement that announced the hangings identified only one of the condemned, Shuqair Fareed, a former Mosul police officer. State television had trumpeted Fareed's confession last year in about 90 killings, including the shooting of two colleagues as they gave him a ride home from work one day.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=144994