- BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's transitional
Prime Minister called Wednesday for a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops
and the top U.S. commander here said he believed a "fairly substantial"
pullout could begin next spring and summer.
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- Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said at a joint news conference
with U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the time has arrived to
plan a co-ordinated transition from American to Iraqi military control
throughout the country.
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- Asked how soon a U.S. withdrawal should happen, he said
no exact timetable had been set. "But we confirm and we desire speed
in that regard," he said, speaking through a translator. "And
this fast pace has two aspects."
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- First, there must be a quickening of the pace of U.S.
training of Iraqi security forces, and second there must be closely co-ordinated
planning between the U.S.-led military coalition and the emerging Iraq
government on a security transition, he said.
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- "We do not want to be surprised by a withdrawal
that is not in connection with our Iraqi timing,"' he said.
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- Speaking earlier with U.S. reporters travelling with
Mr. Rumsfeld, General George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq,
said he believed a U.S. troop withdrawal could begin by spring 2006 if
progress continues on the political front and if the insurgency does not
expand.
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- Mr. Rumsfeld was planning to get a firsthand look at
the training of Iraqi security forces by watching a demonstration by a
group of Iraqi special forces soldiers using live ammunition at a training
range run by American troops.
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- U.S. officials describe a variety of security forces
being developed. Foremost is the Iraqi army, comprised mainly of infantry
battalions, although there also are to be four tank battalions. The army
now has about 77,000 soldiers, and it is scheduled to expand to about 85,000
by December. It includes "intervention forces," to lead the Iraqi
effort against the insurgency.
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- There are now about 94,000 police, most for standard
traffic and patrol work. That is to grow to about 145,000 by December,
and it includes "special police" commando battalions as well
as a mechanized police brigade that will be a paramilitary, counterinsurgency
unit intended to deploy to high-risk areas using light armoured personnel
carriers.
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- The organization in charge of training and equipping
Iraqi security forces is the Multinational Security Transition Command,
headed by Lieutenant General David Petraeus, who last week was announced
by the Pentagon as the next commander of the Army's Combined Arms Center
at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He is to be replaced in Iraq by Major General
Martin Dempsey, who spent more than a year in Iraq as commander of the
1st Armored Division.
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- The effort to build a reliable Iraq security force has
been slowed by a number of problems. One that can be traced to the earliest
days of the U.S. military occupation was the virtual disintegration of
the Iraqi army that existed when American troops invaded in March, 2003.
Some say this was made worse by the decision of L. Paul Bremer, the U.S.
civilian administrator of Iraq starting in May, 2003, to formally disband
the Iraqi security forces.
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- Another problem has been infiltration of the security
forces by insurgents. In its report to Congress last week, the Pentagon
acknowledged that this remains a problem and it still is unable to say
just how much infiltration there is, despite efforts to improve vetting
of recruits.
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- Mr. Rumsfeld said en route to Iraq on Wednesday that
Iraqi leaders must take a more aggressive stance against what he called
harmful interference from neighbouring Syria and Iran.
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- He said he would be pushing the Iraqis to provide more
people who can be trained by U.S. personnel to handle the growing number
of detainees in the country, now estimated to number at least 15,000.
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- With a permanent Iraqi government scheduled to take power
in January, following adoption of a constitution and an election in December,
they need trained prison guards "so that as soon as it is feasible
we can transfer responsibility for Iraqi prisoners to the Iraqi government,"
he said.
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- Mr. Rumsfeld has often criticized Iran and Syria for
meddling in Iraq's affairs. In his remarks Wednesday, he put the main onus
on Iraqi leaders to do more to fix the problem.
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- "They need to be aggressively communicating with
their neighbours to see that foreign terrorists stop coming across those
borders and that their neighbours do not harbour insurgents and finance
insurgents," he said in an in-flight interview with reporters accompanying
him from Tajikistan.
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