Pentagon worries about troop decreases

WASHINGTON -- As Pentagon officials weigh the pace and timing of a sizable troop cut in Iraq, they worry more about the reliability of U.S.-trained Iraqi police than about the more developed Iraqi army.\nAmid a recent rise in sectarian violence, questions about dependability are focused mainly on the Iraqi police. Their training has progressed more slowly than the army's, and their religious and tribal allegiances are more problematic.\nThe Iraqi army and police, along with smaller forces such as the border patrol, are crucial to the Bush administration's plan for reducing U.S. troop levels from 133,000 to perhaps 100,000 or fewer by the end of this election year.\nAs the U.S. public grows more impatient with the war, the administration is hoping it can draw down U.S. forces by transferring security responsibility to the Iraqis.\nYet the administration must assess how ready the Iraqis are to handle the volatile mix of sectarian violence, insurgent attacks and weak institutional support for the Army and police. Any doubts about the Iraqi ability to cope with those problems could complicate U.S. hopes for withdrawals.\nThe reliability issue has been a central concern from the moment the U.S. military began rebuilding the Iraqi army from scratch following the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. That task arose because L. Paul Bremer, the initial American occupation chief, decided to disband what was left of the defeated army.\nQuestions about the trustworthiness of Iraqi security forces have gotten a higher profile following the sectarian killings that have proliferated after the bombing of a Shiite mosque in February.\nThe police are under the control of the Interior Ministry. It has been dominated by Shiites and accused of atrocities against Sunnis, who sometimes fear the mere presence of the police.\nTo allay those fears, American soldiers have handed out cards in Baghdad that encourage residents to call authorities if they see police commandos, or fighters posing as police, on suspicious missions without U.S. troops.\nThe calls go directly to U.S. headquarters instead of the ministry.\nLt. Col. Michael Negard, a spokesman for the U.S. general in charge of training and equipping the Iraqi army and police, said the army in particular is making steady progress in its fitness to battle the insurgents.\n"The small units are very aggressive during operations and they take the fight to the enemy at every opportunity," Negard said in an e-mail exchange Friday.\nThe total number of trained personnel in the Iraqi army and police has grown steadily, now exceeding 250,000. But size alone is not sufficient for the Iraqi forces to assume full responsibility from the Americans. The Iraqis also need experience, leadership and a support system to keep them fed, fueled, armed and paid.\nThere have been well-documented cases of Iraqi soldiers and police fleeing in the face of insurgent opposition, and of infiltration of the forces by insurgents. U.S. officials say those problems have lessened.\nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on May 5 that U.S. soldiers who are working directly with Iraqi soldiers as trainers and advisers have reported that the Iraqis increasingly are committed to their mission.\n"They have not been anything other than enormously supportive of the American servicemen and women who are embedded with them and assisting them in their development and progress." Rumsfeld said.\nHis assessment is not greatly different from that of a retired Army general who has been a public critic of the war effort, Barry McCaffrey, who spent a week in Iraq in April observing U.S. and Iraqi troops.