US training mission in Iraq faces hurdles: Experts

BAGHDAD: Iraq may have announced a willingness to hold talks with the US over a military training mission beyond 2011, but any such deal still faces popular opposition and political hurdles, analysts say.

On Wednesday Iraqi leaders said they would open negotiations with Washington over keeping a contingent of US forces in Iraq to train domestic security forces, after months of appeals from American officials for Baghdad to make a decision.

The agreement came after an hours-long closed door meeting hosted by President Jalal Talabani in Baghdad, with political leaders largely agreeing to open talks, except for representatives of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's parliamentary movement.

The decision is a key first step, but any final deal still needs to resolve contentious details such as the size of the US force, the duration of its stay and whether its members would enjoy immunity from prosecution.

But while Sadrists are alone in their open opposition, none of the Iraqi leadership wants to be seen as responsible for an extension of the US presence, which is deeply unpopular, said Ali al-Saffar, an Iraq analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.

"The decision will be hugely divisive, and I suspect this is part of the reason the executive and the legislative were so happy to leave it to each other to make it," Saffar said.

"Many of Iraq's main political parties would welcome an extension of US troop presence as they see them as being a guarantor of at least a semblance of security. However, none will come out publicly to declare this stance as it will be perceived by many Iraqis as being unpatriotic."

He said that if Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki decides on a continuation of the US presence, "he will jeopardise his alliance with the Sadrists," who could withdraw their ministers and put the fragile national unity government at risk.

Approximately 47,000 US troops are currently stationed in Iraq, all of whom must leave by the end of the year under the terms of a bilateral security pact signed in 2008, which remains in force if a deal for a training mission is ultimately not agreed.

Joost Hiltermann, a Washington-based Iraq specialist and Middle East and North Africa deputy programme director for the International Crisis Group, said the agreement to hold talks was just a move to defer the main decision, in hope that resistance to a continued US troop presence fades.

"This is a way of kicking the ball down the lane, hoping that with time, any resistance from Sadrists and others can be overcome or at least marginalised," Hiltermann said.

"It is the most Washington seems to be able to extract at this time."

Reidar Visser, an Iraq specialist and editor of the gulfanalysis, said any agreement permitting a post-2011 US training mission would likely place strict limitations on American forces.

"Any use of the US forces that goes beyond what can plausibly be described as 'instruction' leaves them potentially vulnerable to criticism and indeed attacks from Sadrists and others," Visser said, adding that "retaining regular bases would be exceedingly difficult."

US and Iraqi military officials assess Iraq's security forces to be capable of maintaining internal security, the country is lacking in terms of defending its borders, airspace and territorial waters.

"Certainly we need training forces; we have contracts to import weapons from the United States and we need trainers for this," said Ali Mussawi, media advisor to Maliki.

"We are rebuilding our military right now so we need trainers for all the units."

Baghdad has restarted talks with the United States on the purchase of 36 American F-16 fighter jets, double the figure that had originally been mooted.

Iraq and the US had been close to a final agreement on the F-16s deal earlier this year, but nationwide protests forced the Baghdad government to divert funds earmarked for the war planes to programmes to help the poor.

Over the weekend, the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, warned in a report that the country was less safe than one year ago and that security was deteriorating.

Saffar said that an extension of the US presence could cause a short-term increase in attacks on American troops, but would likely aid long-term stability.

"The short-term effect will likely be an up-tick in attacks on foreign troops, which we have already seen since the beginning of the year, but which will accelerate," he said.

"In the longer term, however, the training of the armed services should result in an increasingly competent force which will be more able to control the security situation throughout the country."

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011