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Top iraqi candidates wont press for US withdrawal Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10731286.htmhttp://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10731286.htm
Posted on Tue, Jan. 25, 2005
Top Iraqi candidates won't press for withdrawal of U.S. troops
BY HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - Politicians from the two leading tickets in Sunday's Iraqi elections backed away Tuesday from earlier campaign promises to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American forces.
The decision not to set a deadline underscores concerns that Iraqi troops are nowhere near ready to police their violence-wracked country and removes one possible point of friction between the new government and the Bush administration.
Militants continued their campaign to derail the elections, releasing a video of an American hostage and gunning down a senior Iraqi judge in Baghdad.
The U.S. military also announced the deaths of five 1st Infantry Division soldiers near the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad and said two others were injured in the incident. The military was investigating, but the incident appeared to have been a traffic accident.
Both interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who heads a secular slate, and his chief rival, the Shiite Muslim-based United Iraqi Alliance, are calling for a gradual transfer of responsibilities from U.S. troops to Iraqis. The switch coincides with a U.S. military report that some 120,000 American troops would remain in Iraq through 2006.
"I will not set final dates (for troop withdrawal) because dates now would be both reckless and dangerous," Allawi told journalists at the heavily protected Baghdad Convention Center.
The change is especially significant for the United Iraqi Alliance, favored by many to dominate the balloting. Until this week, its campaign materials listed its No. 2 promise as "setting a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational forces from Iraq."
But the alliance rewrote its campaign materials this week, revising its platform. The second item now reads: "The Iraq we want is capable of protecting its borders and security without depending on foreign forces."
The alliance, led by a prominent Shiite cleric and tacitly endorsed by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking cleric, is expected to garner millions of votes.
With only five days remaining before Iraqi voters choose a national assembly, the decision by leading candidates to forsake any plan to press the United States troops to leave means the next government will face the same conundrum that plagues current leaders: Iraqi troops can't fight a sophisticated insurgency without the help of U.S. forces, but the United States' presence only fuels the insurgency.
Iraqi transitional laws authorize U.S. forces to remain in Iraq until full democratic elections at the end of this year. Though a clause states that an earlier withdrawal could occur at the request of the Iraqi government, that scenario is improbable, given the widespread instability of the country.
Sheik Homam Hamoodi of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Iran-backed driving force of the United Iraqi Alliance, said the change came with the realization that Iraqi troops weren't ready to take charge - and probably wouldn't be for years to come.
"The item on the first platform called for a set time for U.S. forces to leave Iraq, without taking into consideration the urgent circumstances," Hamoodi said. "The addition calls for an environment when Iraqis will be able to protect themselves and, when we reach that point, there will be no reason for U.S. forces to stay in Iraq."
Amer Hassan Fayadh, a political science professor at Baghdad University, said the changes probably came about as a result of American pressure on candidates and increasingly sophisticated insurgent attacks that revealed how unprepared Iraqi security forces are to respond.
"The promise of putting U.S. troops on a timetable is not out of sincerity, it's only for campaigning. These major lists know their existence is linked to the presence of the troops," Fayadh said. "Whenever the security situation gets worse, the issue of troops departing becomes less of a priority in their platforms."
The release of a video of the American, Roy Hallums, was the first sign of the 56-year-old since he was seized Nov. 1 from a compound in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. He worked there for a Saudi company that provides meal service to the Iraqi army. Five colleagues were taken with him.
The bearded Hallums is shown with a rifle pointed at his head. He pleaded for help from Arab leaders, saying, "I'm not asking for any help from President Bush because I know of his selfishness and unconcern for those who've been pushed into this hellhole."
Hallums' captors made no demands on the tape.
The Iraqi judge, Qais Hashim Shameri, was gunned down along with his son during morning rush hour, police said. The militant group Ansar al Sunnah claimed responsibility for the assassination in an Internet posting.
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© 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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