By IRNA,
Baghdad : The top American commander in Iraq said Saturday that some soldiers would remain in a support role in cities beyond summer 2009, when a new security agreement calls for the removal of American combat troops from urban areas.
The commander, General Ray Odierno, said American troops would remain at numerous security outposts in order to help support and train Iraqi forces.
“We believe that’s part of our transition teams,” he told reporters in Balad while accompanying Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrived on an unannounced trip Saturday.
General Odierno declined to say how many American troops might remain in Iraqi cities past the summer and said the number still remained to be negotiated with the Iraqi government under the terms of the so-called status of forces agreement.
“But what I would say is we’ll maintain our very close partnership with the Iraqi security forces throughout Iraq even after the summer.” Later on Saturday, a spokesman for General Odierno, Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton, reiterated that the soldiers staying in cities would not be combat forces but rather “enablers,” who would provide services like medical care, air traffic control and helicopter support that the Iraqis cannot perform themselves.
He said that all their actions would be closely coordinated with the Iraqi government, and that all tenets of the security agreement would be followed.
Gates met with Odierno for an hour and then was scheduled to return to Washington.
Before the meeting, Gates held a question-and-answer session with American soldiers and repeated the Bush administration’s pledge to the Iraqi government of a complete troop withdrawal by the end of 2011.
Odierno said, as Pentagon officials have said previously, that the agreement might be renegotiated with the Iraqi government.
“Three years is a very long time,” he told reporters.
Gates came to Baghdad from Manama, Bahrain, where he warned that foreign powers should not try to “test” President-elect Barack Obama with a crisis in his first months in office.