US President Barack Obama is confident security conditions are sufficient to proceed with withdrawing US soldiers from Iraqi cities next week, but remained less satisfied with the country's leadership. During a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, Obama said Prime Minister Nuri-al Maliki needed to make more progress on the political front by resolving contentious issues between Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.
"I haven't seen as much political progress in Iraq - negotiations between the Sunni, the Shia and the Kurds - as I would like to see," Obama said. The Iraqi government is still struggling to overcome differences over how to share oil revenue and how much power Baghdad should share with provincial governments, issues that are considered essential to alleviate the tension between the groups.
"The biggest challenge right now is going to be less those attacks by remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq or other insurgent groups, and the bigger challenge is going to be, can the Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds resolve some of these major political issues?" Obama said.
Former president George W Bush and al-Maliki reached a deal last year that calls for the withdrawal of US troops from cities and towns by Tuesday, raising questions about whether Iraqi forces are capable of taking on the task. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Wednesday that not all of the American troops will pullout. Some will stay behind to help out, he said.
"We are going to have some complement, albeit in much smaller numbers, of troops still in some Iraqi cities and towns in an advisory and assistance role," Morrell said. Baghdad and other Iraqi cities have been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the last week, raising eyebrows ahead of the pullout. Iraqis have witnessed two massive bomb attacks recently. At least 62 people were killed and more than 150 wounded in a bombing of a Baghdad market on Wednesday, and 65 people died in a bombing in Kirkuk on June 20.
Al Qaeda and other insurgents are seeking to carry out high profile attacks in advance of the pullout, a tactic that is typically employed by terrorists ahead of key dates, Morrell said. "Our forces have been alerted to the possibility that we will likely see an uptick in violence leading up to the June 30 deadline for US combat forces to leave Iraqi cities and towns," Morrell said.
"Based upon the pattern of behaviour that we've seen over the past few weeks and frankly, historically in Iraq (there has been) an uptick in the operational tempo of terrorists and insurgents," he said. Obama said he has consulted closely with his top people in Iraq, ambassador Christopher Hill and General Ray Odierno, who have given him "positive" assurances "about the trend lines in Iraq" when it comes to security.
"If you look at the overall trend, despite some of these high- profile bombings, Iraq's security situation has continued to dramatically improve," Obama said. In addition to an agreement with the Iraqi government, the withdrawal from the cities also keeps with Obama's eventual plan to pull all of the US combat forces out of Iraq by August 2010. There are about 130,000 soldiers there now.
Obama has continued to press al-Maliki, a Shiite, to address the dispute with the Sunnis and Kurds with national elections scheduled for later this year. The president said Iraq will be dealing with violence for some time, and reducing the political tension will provide a more secure environment. "If those issues get resolved, then I think you will see a further normalisation of the security atmosphere inside of Iraq," Obama said.
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