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Training of Iraqi forces slows

WASHINGTON — Major military offensives and a changed focus on increasing security have slowed efforts to train Iraqi forces to take control of Iraq, the top U.S. training official said.

Army Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard said Thursday that the major U.S. priority has changed to protecting civilians and providing security instead of building Iraqi security forces and shifting responsibility to them. Pittard recently returned to the U.S. after heading the Iraq Assistance Group.

A White House report this month on the increase of U.S. forces in Iraq and the American-led security plan concluded that the Iraqi government has not made satisfactory progress in increasing the number of Iraqi security forces capable of operating independently.

“Transitioning [to Iraqi control] is not a main priority, but it’s still a priority,” Pittard told USA Today in an interview.

Iraqi security forces have been fighting in major offensives around Baghdad and in Diyala province, which has given them combat experience but slowed their progress in other areas, such as logistics.

“I think it’s just temporary,” Pittard said. “We’re not seeing the kind of progress we’ve seen in the past. ... I think we’ll see it in the future.”

A Pentagon progress report to Congress last month said 346,500 Iraqi police and soldiers have received training out of the objective of 370,000. The report cautioned that not all of those trained are the same “as those present for duty.”

Pittard said U.S. troop levels could start to decrease next spring, but the Iraqis will need U.S. support for at least two more years.

In January, President Bush ordered the addition of at least 28,500 troops to U.S. forces in Iraq. The last of the extra troops arrived last month, and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, will report to Bush and Congress in September about the security plan’s progress.

Pittard said the extra U.S. troops will probably need to stay in Iraq through the spring.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow, but that’s the truth as I see it,” said Pittard, who has been assigned as commander of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. He cautioned against a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces, saying it would cause a “bloodbath in Iraq.”

Pittard’s comments reflect concern among U.S. officials in Iraq that pressure to withdraw American forces may undermine Bush’s new strategy before it has time to work.

The strategy is aimed at protecting the civilian population by building combat outposts throughout Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.

Military leaders in Iraq are frustrated because they feel they are being held to “unrealistic” standards, said retired Gen. Jack Keane, a chief architect of the strategy and longtime friend and mentor to Petraeus.

The White House is under increasing pressure from both parties in Congress to begin withdrawing forces. Senate Republicans blocked a vote last week on a Democratic proposal to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by April, but Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said this weekend that he would continue to push for withdrawal.