US President George W. Bush will cut US force levels in Iraq only modestly over the rest of his term, pulling 8,000 troops out by February, when his successor will have taken over as commander in chief.
Bush, an unpopular president managing an unpopular war, was expected to say yesterday that a dramatic drop in violence in Iraq allowed the Pentagon to bring troops home and shift more forces to Afghanistan, where attacks by militants have soared over two years.
“While the enemy in Iraq is still dangerous, we have seized the offensive and Iraqi forces are becoming increasingly capable of leading and winning the fight,” Bush was to say at the National Defense University, according to his prepared remarks released on Monday by the White House.
“And if the progress in Iraq continues to hold, General [David] Petraeus and our military leaders believe additional reductions will be possible in the first half of 2009,” the notes said.
A cut of 8,000 would leave 138,000 US troops in Iraq — still more than before Bush ordered a “surge” of extra forces last year and also more than in November 2006, when his Republicans lost mid-term congressional elections largely due to voter anger over the war.
Bush’s plan follows recommendations from top US defense officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq.
But any large-scale shift in US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan will be left to Bush’s successor — either Republican Senator John McCain or Democratic Senator Barack Obama. Bush will leave office in January after the Nov. 4 election.
In his speech, Bush was expected to highlight data showing violence in Iraq had dropped to levels not seen since 2004.
But he will caution that progress in Iraq, which US-led forces invaded in March 2003 to oust Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, remains “fragile and reversible.”
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government promised on Monday to continue paying salaries of thousands of mostly Sunni fighters who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq, but said the US figure on their numbers was too high.
The dispute over the number of Awakening Council members, also known as Sons of Iraq, could increase tension between Sunnis and Shiites at a time when the US is pressing the Iraqis to take advantage of the drop in violence to forge power-sharing agreements for a lasting peace.
Emergence of those groups, which include former insurgents and former Saddam loyalists, was a key reason behind the decline in violence, especially in areas where al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni militants once ruled.
But the Shiite-led government remains suspicious of the awakening councils, believing they are little more than armed Sunni militias that could turn their guns on the Shiites someday.
The US military has been managing and paying the volunteers to help provide security in neighborhoods, towns and villages, but plans to transfer that responsibility to the Iraqi government next month.
In an order issued on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to integrate about 20 percent of the volunteers into the army or police and find government jobs for the rest as vacancies appear.
“We will keep paying the salaries until jobs are offered,” al-Maliki’s order said.
Despite that pledge, the government has questioned US figures on the number of Awakening Council members.
The US military says the figure is about 99,000 based on a head count this year. The US gathered iris scans and other information on each volunteer fighter to make sure the list was accurate, US military officials say.
“We think the publicly announced figure is incorrect and there are bogus lists of members who get salaries from the Americans,” chief government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Al-Arabiya television late on Sunday.
He said the government believed the real figure was no more than 50,000 — or about half the US count. He also suggested some members may be purged.
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