Iraqi forces would deal with civil war, says Rumsfeld

Dealing with a civil war in Iraq would be the responsibility of Iraq’s own security forces, at least initially, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress yesterday.

Testifying alongside senior military leaders and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr Rumsfeld said he did not believe Iraq would descend into all-out civil war, though he acknowledged that sectarian strife had worsened.

General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East, said the situation in Iraq had evolved to the point where Sunni-Shiite violence was more of a threat to US success there than the insurgency, which continues taking a deadly toll on Iraqi and American troops, and to impede efforts to stabilise the country.

Mr Rumsfeld had previously been reluctant to say what the US military would do in the event of civil war, but in an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee he was pressed on the matter by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd.

“The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the – from a security standpoint – have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to,” Mr Rumsfeld told the committee.

He did not elaborate on the implication of his remark – that at some point the Iraqi security forces might be overwhelmed by a civil conflict and ask the Americans to get involved militarily.

One of Mr Rumsfeld’s chief critics in Congress, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, issued a statement after the hearing urging the administration to explain more fully what it would do in case of a civil war.

“Obviously, it’s not realistic to depend on the Iraqi security forces, which are not yet able to fight on their own,” Mr Kennedy said.

“So Secretary Rumsfeld is basically saying that if the prevention strategy fails and Iraq plunges into civil war, US troops will inevitably be deeply involved.”

Mr Rumsfeld said the key to avoiding civil war is for Iraq’s political leaders to form a government of national unity.

US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said that once the Iraqi parliament selects a prime minister, he will invite leaders of the main parties to a conference to discuss the issues facing their government. He said they will “work together day and night until we’ve finished the job”.

At the committee hearing, Gen Abizaid and Mr Rumsfeld cited progress in the training of Iraqi security forces.

Gen Abizaid said more than 100 Iraqi battalions are now conducting counterinsurgency operations, compared with only five in 2004.

He did not mention that the number of Iraqi battalions rated as capable of operating without US military assistance had recently dropped from one to zero.

More than half of Americans continue to disapprove of President George Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq.

There are now about 132,000 US troops in Iraq. The US death toll since the start of the war in March 2003 exceeds 2,300, in addition to more than 17,000 wounded.

Yesterday, a series of explosions rocked Baghdad, including a car bomb that struck a Sunni mosque and a shooting that killed a total of 17 civilians and wounded 31 as a dust storm enveloped the capital.

One of the deadly blasts targeted an Iraqi army patrol in the mostly Sunni western neighbourhood of Amariyah, killing nine civilians and wounding six.

A car bomb also exploded near the Sunni Al-Israa Walmiraj mosque in east Baghdad, killing five civilians and wounding 12 others.

Police reported finding five more blindfolded, handcuffed bodies killed execution-style, three of them near Fallujah, west of Baghdad , and two others in the Sadr City Shiite slum in the east of the capital.

The US military reported the death of another Marine, killed in insurgency-ridden Anbar province.