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IRAQ: REPORT CAUSES MIXED REACTIONS December 7, 2006
Zainab Osman
(SomaliNet) The prime minister and a handful of his senior officials gathered on Wednesday evening inside an office in the fortified Green Zone, awaiting word of the report that could shape American policy toward their embattled country.
Former secretary of state, James Baker III, laid out the basics of the report to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Mr. Baker listed three conclusions that the Iraq Study Group had arrived at: the United States should continue to support the Iraqi government, the Iraqis should engage in high-level diplomacy with neighboring countries, and the 140,000 American troops here should switch from a combat mission to a support role while drawing down significantly.
The prime minister had been relieved because the report seemed to affirm an argument that Mr. Maliki and other Shiite leaders had been making to President Bush — give the Iraqi government more control over the security forces, and the war could be won. Mr. Maliki was also glad, that Mr. Baker had insisted on a regional dialogue and not a full-blown international conference, which Mr. Maliki fears could lead to undue interference here by foreign powers.
Not all Iraqi politicians were as optimistic. Reaction to the bipartisan commission's recommendations on how to salvage the American enterprise varied among Iraqi politicians, who expressed appreciation, anger and ambivalence at sections of the report. Much depended on whether the study's 79 points seemed to support their ethnic or sectarian group's interests.
That is all the more important, the Sunni politicians said, because if American combat units withdraw over the next year, as the report urges, then Shiite-led security forces could commit more atrocities against Sunni Arabs.
Some of the report's proposals are clearly intended to assuage the fears of Sunni Arabs, like a recommendation that the Americans try to shift control of the elite police units, suspected of being rife with Shiite militiamen, to the Sunni-led Defense Ministry from the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. But Shiite leaders would almost certainly balk at any such move.
As Iraqi politicians debated the merits of the report, violence around the country underscored the Baker-Hamilton commission's conclusion that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." Ten American soldiers were killed in four separate incidents on Wednesday, the American military said, without giving details. The military also said a soldier was killed Monday in Baghdad. Officials said at least 34 Iraqis were killed on Wednesday and scores were wounded in mortar attacks, bombings and assassinations.