BAGHDAD: The United States will reduce the number of troops in Iraq by around 12,000 by the end of September, the US military said yesterday, a step in President Barack Obama’s plan to end combat operations in August 2010.
“Two brigade combat teams who were scheduled to redeploy in the next six months, along with enabling forces such as logistics, engineers and intelligence, will not be replaced,” the US military said in a statement.
Reducing the number of US combat brigades in Iraq from 14 to 12 will cut the number of American troops, currently around 140,000, by 12,000, said Maj. Gen. David Perkins, spokesman for US forces in Iraq.
Six years after the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Obama plans to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 support and training troops as Washington shifts its military focus to Afghanistan.
Last month, Obama ordered 17,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, part of his plan to tackle the troublesome insurgency there and fulfill his campaign promises to wind down the unpopular war in Iraq.
Under a US-Iraqi security pact negotiated by former President George W. Bush that took effect Jan. 1, the United States must withdraw all its troops from Iraq by end-2011.
Perkins told a news conference that 4,000 troops from Britain, Bush’s chief ally in the 2003 invasion, would also leave Iraq in the coming months.
The sectarian and insurgent violence that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,500 foreign troops since 2003 has fallen off sharply.
Perkins said violence was currently at its lowest level since around August 2003 and Iraq was in a “stable situation.” Yet Iraq remains a dangerous place and insurgents still stage regular attacks in places like the northern city of Mosul, seen as a last urban stronghold of Al-Qaeda.
Just hours before US officials announced the troop reduction plans, a suicide bomber killed 32 people as recruits gathered at a Baghdad police academy, the first large-scale attack in the capital in almost a month. “What happened today will not undermine overall security improvements,” Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said.
Perkins said that most attacks similar to that in Baghdad yesterday “have the typical Al-Qaeda signature.” Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, has advocated a cautious approach to removing troops from a country that many fear could tip back into rampant bloodshed.
Perkins said the military would re-examine its allocation of troops as the overall force dwindles. “We will reposition assets through the country ... based on the threat level,” he said.
“We are by no means complacent. We know that Al-Qaeda, although greatly reduced in capability and numbers, still is desperate to maintain relevance here in Iraq,” he said.
Ongoing violence raises doubts about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take charge months before better equipped and trained US combat forces are due to withdraw from Iraqi cities.
Perkins said US troops would still conduct operations in cities after that if the Iraqi government asked them to.
US forces across Iraq are increasingly focused on training local forces, whose ranks have swelled by hundreds of thousands since they were disbanded by US officials in 2003.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has suggested the United States should be prepared to maintain a “modest” military presence to help Iraqi forces beyond 2011 if Iraq requests it.
But Al-Dabbagh, speaking alongside US officials yesterday, appeared to rule it out. “The Iraqi government has no intention to accept the presence of foreign troops after 2011,” he said.
