Thursday, May 26, 2005
Iraq peace "at least five years away"
Richard Norton-Taylor and Michael Howard
Militants' ability may throw U.S. plans awry
IRAQ: It could take at least five years before Iraqi forces are strong enough to impose law and order on the country, the International Institute of Strategic Studies has warned.
The think-tank's report said Iraq had become a valuable recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda, and Iraqi forces were nowhere near close to matching the militancy.
John Chipman, IISS director, said the Iraqi security forces faced a "huge task'' and the continuing ability of the militants to inflict mass casualties "must cast doubt on U.S. plans to re-deploy American troops and eventually reduce their numbers."
Militants have killed 600 Iraqis since the new Government was formed. The IISS report said: "Best estimates suggest that it will take up to five years to create anything close to an effective indigenous force able to impose and guarantee order across the country." The report said that, on balance, U.S. policy over the past year had been effective in emboldening regional players in the Middle East (West Asia) and the Gulf to rally against rogue states.
But it warned that the inspirational effect of the intervention in Iraq on Islamist terrorism was "the proverbial elephant in the living room. >From Al-Qaeda's point of view, [President] Bush's Iraq policies have arguably produced a confluence of propitious circumstances: a strategically bogged down America, hated by much of the Islamic world, and regarded warily even by its allies."
Iraq "could serve as a valuable proving ground for 'blooding' foreign jihadists, and could conceivably form the basis of a second generation of capable Al-Qaeda leaders ... and middle-management players'', the report said. The think-tank report points to U.S. estimates that there are between 12,000 and 20,000 hardcore militants in Iraq. It says that Iraqi politicians have been keen to blame the rise in sectarian violence on foreign jihadists. "But they may have overstated their case."—
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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