One reason they're thinking about it now: the new assertiveness of Iraqi soldiers such as Brig. Gen. Sabah Fadhil Motar al-Azawi. His brigade helped chase militants from Ramadi and wrest control of Basra from the once-feared Mahdi Army. Now, it's helping to push the U.S. out of Iraq.Several factors have helped bring a withdrawal deal closer. Tribal leaders from the Sunni Muslim sect turned against the terrorist group al Qaeda in Iraq; the Mahdi Army called a cease-fire; and the U.S. began a new counterinsurgency strategy, deploying units to small outposts in Iraqi towns and neighborhoods.
But above all, the Iraqi army has needed to reverse a track record of high-profile failures. In earlier years, Iraqi forces often fled and left heavy fighting to the U.S. Now the Iraqis are mounting large-scale operations in restive areas like Diyala Province, a longtime stronghold of Sunni insurgents, and holding large swaths of territory -- 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces -- largely on their own.
"History is replete with armed forces having to get bloodied a little bit before they get better," says Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, who commands U.S. forces in central and southern Iraq. He says the Iraqi forces have improved from five years of fighting and from mentoring by U.S. military advisers. The recent surge in U.S. troop levels allowed senior commanders to deploy larger numbers of American trainers, accelerating the Iraqis' improvements, U.S. officials believe.
The U.S. gives Iraqi troops access to American air power and helps them resupply their forces, but many of the Iraqi units plan and conduct their operations independently. In many of the Iraq army's 10 provinces there are no U.S. troops at all, and where there are, U.S. troops coordinate their operations with the Iraqis. When the former Soviet country of Georgia unexpectedly recalled its 2,000-soldier contingent to fight the Russians, Iraqis, not Americans, were sent to replace them.
The Iraqi army's growing capabilities bolstered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's insistence on setting at least a rough timetable for U.S. withdrawal. The preliminary security pact calls for the Iraqi army to take responsibility for all major cities next summer, with most U.S. combat forces withdrawing to the outskirts and then leaving the country altogether by 2011.
The pact still has to be formally approved by the Bush administration and several layers of Iraqi government. Some of its provisions -- including the target dates -- could still change before it's final, and the draft also allows for U.S. and Iraqi officials to jointly change the withdrawal goals later based on security conditions.
Senior American military officers in Baghdad say, however, that the final agreement is virtually certain to retain the U.S. commitment to gradually withdraw its combat forces and turn missions over to the Iraqis. "Everyone understands that the clock is ticking," one senior officer said. "We're not leaving tomorrow, but it's the beginning of the end."
The prospect of major U.S. withdrawals comes at a pivotal moment in the five-year-old war here. The recent numbers of U.S. and Iraqi casualties are down; the 13 American military personnel killed in July were the lowest monthly death toll since the 2003 invasion. Iraqi troop and civilian casualties also have been falling steadily for months, to a fraction of their peak about 18 months ago. The Iraqi economy is growing sharply because of soaring oil revenues, and Mr. Maliki's political standing is at an all-time high.
Many potential pitfalls, both military and political, remain. The Iraqi government has spent little of its oil windfall to improve basic services for its citizens. Most Iraqis only get roughly 12 hours of electricity per day, despite billions of dollars in U.S.-funded reconstruction projects. A long-sought law setting up provincial elections remains bottled up in Iraq's fractious Parliament. Corruption remains endemic.
There is no guarantee that Iraqi forces will continue to improve -- or even maintain their current levels of performance. Iraqi units in many parts of the country complain that they are chronically short of fuel, ammunition and spare parts for their vehicles. The army's performance can vary widely across the country, says Colin Kahl, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University who studies the Iraq war and visited Basra this summer.
"You have new units fresh from basic training that sometimes desert and then you have older units that have had years of American advising and fight quite well," he says. "There's no doubt they're a lot better than they used to be, but there's still tremendous variation from unit to unit."
Internal Tensions
Some U.S. officials warn that the army also is still vulnerable to internal sectarian tensions. Baghdad recently ordered a Kurdish brigade operating in Diyala to move elsewhere, but the Kurds refused, saying they would only take orders from the semi-independent Kurdish government in northern Iraq. Earlier this week, Mr. Maliki ordered a government probe into a bloody army raid in Diyala that left one provincial official dead and sparked fears of new sectarian violence there.
See continuing coverage of developments in Iraq, including an interactive map of day-to-day events in Iraq and a tally of military deaths.Iraq can't bomb insurgent targets or conduct aerial reconnaissance, so residual U.S. forces in Iraq will include a heavy air component from both the Air Force and Army.
Still, American commanders are increasingly confident they'll be able to withdraw tens of thousands of personnel next year, reducing the manpower strain on the armed forces and freeing up more troops for Afghanistan. The gains in Iraq are even reshaping the U.S. presidential campaign, with some Democratic strategists acknowledging that Iraq may no longer be as powerful a political issue for them because of perceptions of progress here.
Gen. Azawi, 46 years old and a veteran of Saddam Hussein's military, now commands one of the most decorated units of the new Iraqi army, the 26th Brigade of the Seventh Iraqi Army Division.
Gen. Azawi is a Shiite, part of the Iraqi majority who long were repressed by minority Sunnis like Mr. Hussein and his top aides. He was sent to the front lines of Mr. Hussein's bloody war with Iran in the 1980s and was wounded five times, he says, once by a sniper whose shot to the chest almost killed him. "We didn't care if Saddam was right or wrong," he says. "I was a military man, and I served the nation."
Gen. Azawi was serving in the northern city of Kirkuk when U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003. He left his unit when Mr. Hussein was toppled and drove home to Baghdad, passing burning cars and charred bodies along the way, he says. He hoped to resume his military service when the fighting subsided that summer but was stunned when American administrator Paul Bremer issued a decree disbanding the army, effectively firing him and hundreds of thousands of other soldiers.
"We all hated America because of that decision," Gen. Azawi says, pounding his desk for emphasis. "It was a stupid mistake." He took a job selling cars and trucks in his family's auto dealership in the southern Iraqi city of Qut until the Iraqi government rescinded the decree in 2005.
The 26th Brigade
He returned to the military and one year later was given command of the 26th Brigade. At the time, it wasn't a job that he wanted. "I'd heard so much about its problems," he explains. "To be honest, the brigade had been a joke."
The roughly 2,000-soldier brigade was dominated by Shiites loyal to their tribes, not the Iraqi government. Many soldiers moonlighted as active members of the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Senior officials at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense talked openly about disbanding the brigade and firing or arresting many of its members, according to Gen. Azawi and two U.S. officers who advised the unit at the time.
Gen. Azawi says he "renovated" the unit by firing or transferring 280 of its worst soldiers. He filled the brigade's officer ranks with other veterans of Mr. Hussein's army. He also opened a recruiting station in Ramadi to ensure that the unit had large numbers of Sunnis.
Its first test came last year in Ramadi, a violent city that was a stronghold of al Qaeda in Iraq. The unit helped American forces clear the city, say the two U.S. officials. They said they were surprised that the brigade didn't crumble when it started taking casualties: The unit had 85 fatalities, while 28 of its soldiers lost limbs in suicide bombings and other attacks. The unit also was able to quickly transition from combat to reconstruction and humanitarian work, the officials said.
Last year, Gen. Azawi became one of the first Iraqi officers to implement a version of Gen. David Petraeus's new counterinsurgency strategy, which focuses on clearing areas of militants and then immediately launching humanitarian projects there to win over local residents. His brigade used American money to purchase oil, sugar and rice, which the army distributed to families from areas where fighting had taken place, recalls one of the U.S. officials there at the time.
The Iraqi unit also helped to capture or kill 35 high-ranking militants in Ramadi. In intercepted radio traffic, insurgents began calling the unit the "Desert Scorpions," and the name stuck.
Today, Ramadi is one of the quietest places in Iraq. The downtown Qatana market, once the site of near-daily gunfights between U.S. forces and insurgents, is crowded with shoppers and merchants.
Gen. Azawi's brigade was ordered south in March when Mr. Maliki decided to launch his assault on Basra, taking American and British officers by surprise.
Basra looked like it would end in another humiliation. Mahdi Army militants prevented the Iraqi army from pushing into the main insurgent strongholds. Jubilant militants posed for pictures with burning Iraqi army vehicles. But out of roughly 18,000 Iraqi soldiers who took part in the assault, the only ones who fled were members of a brand-new unit rushed to the fighting straight from basic training, according to British officials here.
With the Iraqi troops persevering, the battle broke decisively in their favor when American and British attack helicopters and warplanes began striking insurgent positions across Basra. Gen. Azawi's 2,000-member unit, assigned to a former Mahdi stronghold that was long a no-go for U.K. or Iraqi forces, helped mop up any lingering Sadr influence by forging relationships with the tribal leaders in the area.
"The change since March is that it's the Iraqi security forces in the lead," says British Maj. Gen. Barney White-Spunner, the top U.K. commander here. "The difference now is that it's us supporting them and not the other way around. They are not going to let Basra slip back."
Rebuilding Basra
Basra now is beginning the hard task of rebuilding itself after years of fighting and militia domination. Roads are open and markets are crowded, but the city's infrastructure is a mess and many buildings lie in ruins. Gen. Azawi's forces are arrayed across Hayyaniyah, a sprawling Shiite slum that was once the Mahdi Army's stronghold.
Taking a page from Gen. Petraeus, the Iraqis live and work out of small outposts throughout the neighborhood. Hayyaniyah is one of the poorest areas of Basra, and local residents say that government services are basically nonexistent there. That leads many Basrawis to lobby Gen. Azawi and his men for food handouts, jobs and other forms of aid, which Gen. Azawi doles out after hearing individual pleas.
On a sweltering evening, an elderly woman in a long black chador that covered her entire body came to see Gen. Azawi in his office, furnished with overstuffed couches and a television, which that night was tuned to a boxing match. Dispensing with the typical pleasantries, she asked Gen. Azawi for money for food and medication. "Yes, yes," he said, impatiently.
Gen. Azawi pressed a buzzer on his desk, summoning an attendant. The younger officer returned a few minutes later and handed the woman a thick stack of Iraqi dinars bound up with a rubber band. The woman slipped the money into her tattered purse and began to cry. "Please, sir, something for my children," she whispered.
Gen. Azawi pressed the buzzer again and called for the unit's doctor. The physician handed over a foil-wrapped sheath of epilepsy medication.
A House on the Grounds
Gen. Azawi's office is in a Ministry of Agriculture building completed shortly before the 2003 invasion. He brought his wife and several of his six children to Basra and the family lives in a small house on the grounds. Gen. Azawi's 6-year-old son walks around the base in military fatigues, and the U.S. soldiers jokingly refer to him as "Mini-Me."
Lt. Col. Chris Degaray, who leads the advisory team that works with Gen. Azawi, lives in the same building. He said the U.S. helps Iraqis maintain their vehicles and provides them with money for small reconstruction projects. He has had a dispute with Gen. Azawi over the need to investigate the brigade's shooting of an unarmed man near a checkpoint, and has expressed concerns over the unit's handling of prisoners, some of whom he says were badly beaten. The general acknowledges some harsh treatment but says it is reserved for those who resist arrest.
But Col. Degaray says he's confident the Iraqis can basically operate independently. "If we picked up and left tomorrow, this brigade would be just fine," he says.