By NNN-KUNA
Washington : A US Commander in Iraq expressed on Friday deep concern over growing Iranian influence there noting a premature US withdrawal from Iraq would amount to a giant setback for security efforts in the embattled country.
“We believe there are elements from Iran who are doing whatever they can to undermine our collective efforts in Iraq,” said Commander of the Multinational Division in central Iraq, Major General Rick Lynch.
In a briefing via video conference from Iraq, Lynch added there were three forms of Iranian activity in Iraq, first US soldiers “are coming under attack from deadly weapons originating from Iran,” second Shiite militants are trained in Iran to conduct operations in Iraq, third and last the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps “are facilitating training as well as transfer of weapons and munitions.”
Furthermore, he noted that US forces captured over 117 Iran-made munitions since last April and nearly 50 Iranian and Iraqi operatives “working for Iran” in central Iraq, and the US forces are “actively targeting” 20 of them, pointing out that even Sunni insurgency “are getting their hands on this Iranian technology,” either directly or in the black market.
“We are also bolstering the government of Iraq’s efforts along the Iranian border,” said Lynch adding that his forces were training and assisting the Iraqi army to do this job in Wasat province and in the near future 2,000 US soldiers will be mandated to secure six check points for inspecting trucks coming into the province from Iran.
Lynch defined three types of “enemies” in Iraq, Sunni insurgents, Shiite extremists and Iranian influence, surprisingly excluding al-Qaeda, while affirming that killing of Americans and Iraqis “got to stop” and that he has “no idea” if the Iranian government is directly behind those activities or not.
He argued there is “a struggle for power and influence” in his area between Sunnis and Shiite groups and not “a civil war,” and the Iranians are weighing in to provide Shiite militias “with more capabilities.”
The US Commander linked the US withdrawal from Iraq to three factors, “the level of insurgency, the capability of Iraqi security forces, and the capability of the Iraqi government at the national, provincial, and local levels” and warned that in the event of a premature withdrawal “the enemy would start attacking the locals again and we would take a giant step backwards.”
Republican Senator John W. Warner called on President George W. Bush yesterday to begin the process of withdrawing troops from Iraq by the coming winter after the National Intelligence Estimates report released yesterday raised doubts about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikis ability to overcome sectarian divide in his country.
Lynch said that the transfer of authority was ongoing in his sector and it would not be possible to move troops out by December, as Warner suggested, postponing the deadline of withdrawal till next spring or summer.
The US Commander said that since the surge of operation started on June 15, the US forces expanded their presence “throughout areas that had been previously insurgent strongholds,” affirming there was “an interesting shift” as Iraqi citizens were providing security information for the coalition forces to prevent acts of violence.
Lynch, who took over the central sector last April, said that local citizens are more and more seeking to be “legitimate members” of the Iraqi security forces, assuring that the empowerment of security at the local level would strengthen not undermine “the authority” of the Iraqi government.
“When the politicians in Baghdad actually come together, they are going to find out they got a stable base from which to build on,” he concluded.