Even with a public commitment to bringing the occupation to an end, the future of the US presence in Iraq still seems undecided, writes Salah Hemeid A few days after the surprise visit by US Vice-President Joseph Biden to Baghdad last week to discuss the future of the American presence in the country following the formation of the new Iraqi government, four American soldiers were killed and one wounded, raising to six the number of US servicemen killed in Iraq since the beginning of the year. Biden arrived in Baghdad for talks with top officials in the new government, including Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, on the future of the American troops in Iraq amid growing speculation that the two sides might be having second thoughts about the 2008 agreement that calls for all American troops to leave Iraq by the end of the year. Under the US-Iraqi security agreement, the US ended its combat mission in Iraq on 31 August 2010, and during his visit Biden reiterated the US's commitment to the schedule to withdraw completely by 31 December this year. Until now, neither Baghdad nor Washington has talked about extending the US troop presence, but with growing perceptions that stability and security in Iraq are unlikely to be realised by the December date, questions are being raised about whether a full American withdrawal is feasible. The new American deaths have implications for the future of the US troop presence in the country because two of the American soldiers were killed by an Iraqi soldier who opened fire on his American instructors during a training drill on Saturday. If Washington hopes to keep US troops in Iraq after the December deadline, it will be under the pretext of training the fledging Iraqi army. Biden's discussions, however, come amid continuing violence and political uncertainty. This week explosive violence, including bombings and killings using guns with silencers, continued across Baghdad and other Iraqi towns and cities. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of police recruits, killing at least 45 people, wounding scores of others and undercutting security efforts as the Al-Maliki government struggles to show it can secure the country without foreign help. Nearly four weeks after he was reappointed as the country's prime minister, Al-Maliki has yet to name his defence and interior ministers and other top security officials. An agreement to set up an important security and policy-making council has also not been honoured. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last month, Al-Maliki said the only way for any of the remaining 50,000 American soldiers to stay beyond 2011 would be for the two nations to negotiate a new agreement with the approval of Iraq's parliament. Sami Al-Askari, a lawmaker close to Al-Maliki, has also cautioned that despite the prime minister's public pronouncements the latter has not made a final decision about an extended US military presence. Al-Maliki would carefully weigh his options, including the military need for troops and the political expediency of such a move, Al-Askari said. Iraq's Sunni Arabs may not be entirely opposed to a limited extension of the US troop presence, and Al-Maliki might ask a small number of American forces to remain in Iraq for the time being. However, he is also coming under increasing pressure from hardline Shia members of his coalition government not to extend the US military presence past the end of the year. Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr has warned that his powerful mass movement will resist any attempt to let the Americans stay. "The government had pledged that the US presence will end, and it should fulfil its promise," Al-Sadr told a rally of his supporters last week. On Friday, Al-Sadr loyalists took to the streets in the movement's stronghold of Kufa after the day's prayers in order to condemn Biden's visit and demand that US forces leave the country. This will make it more difficult for Al-Maliki to contemplate an extension of the US military presence beyond the end of the year. Nevertheless, Biden has given indications that some US troops could stay in Iraq beyond the deadline. He said that Iraqi soldiers and police may still need American training and equipment beyond the end of this year, when US troops are scheduled to leave the country. At a stop-off at an American military camp in Iraq, he told US troops that while Iraqi security forces, trained by American soldiers, were continuing to improve they were still likely to need US assistance in the future. "Our mission has now fundamentally shifted since September," said Biden. "But it is going to shift again at the end of 2011. We will probably be in the position of still maintaining and giving support. We will probably be in the position of still, in certain specific areas, having to train and equip" Iraqi forces, he said. The country's Kurdish media has also reported that Kurdish leaders had told Biden when he met them on Saturday that American troops should stay beyond the schedule. At the end of his meeting with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, Biden assured him of the US's commitment to the security of the Kurdish people in Iraq, a statement by Barzani's office said. There have also been other signs that the end of this year will not witness a total US withdrawal from Iraq. On 14 January, the Washington Post reported that despite the insistence of Iraqi leaders that the United States meet its deadline of withdrawing all its troops by the end of 2011, the US troop presence could take a different shape after this deadline. The newspaper said that planning was underway to turn over prominent symbols of the US's role in the war, including several major bases and a significant portion of the Baghdad Green Zone that hosts the offices of the Iraqi government, to the State Department. Quoting US officials, the paper said that ongoing negotiations between the United States and Iraq would determine the number of contractors and bases, as well as the number of uniformed military personnel, that the United States hoped to keep in the country to continue training Iraqi security forces. According to the paper, the officials said that the number of US "private security contractors and support staff" who could stay in the country under the auspices of the US embassy could reach between 7,000 and 8,000. The 2008 agreement that set this year's deadline for the US troop withdrawal allows the State Department to establish an Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq, which the officials said they expect to resemble similarly robust US military offices at embassies in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and elsewhere. Neither Iraqi nor US officials have spoken in public about an extension of the American troop presence in Iraq, but many observers believe that this could eventually take place because Iraq is not yet ready to defend itself against internal and external threats. They said that if the US military leaves, Iraq could spiral back into sectarian violence, and they have also argued that even if the country were able to hold itself together internally, its weak army and security forces and porous borders could leave it vulnerable to neighbouring nations. There seems to be little doubt about the Obama administration's determination to see US forces out of Iraq by the end of the year, in accordance with the wishes of the Iraqi people. However, the debate over the withdrawal of American forces from the country seems bound to continue until security conditions improve.
