Pentagon insists US drawdown in Iraq on track

Maliki 'certain' of Iraq poll victory
Baghdad (AFP) March 3, 2010 - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he was "certain" of victory in Iraq's March 7 parliamentary election, in a foreign television interview on Wednesday. "Our victory is certain," he told France 24 satellite television. "The State of Law Alliance will come first by a wide margin but the exact percentage of the votes that we will obtain is not clear." Maliki added: "It is definitely difficult to win 163 seats (for an absolute majority in parliament) and that is why we must make alliances with others to form a government." A poll published last month conducted by the National Media Centre, a government agency linked to Maliki, put support for his State of Law Alliance at 29.9 percent, the highest level of backing of any bloc in Sunday's poll. Ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqiya alliance followed with 21.8 percent and the mostly conservative Shiite Iraqi National Alliance at 17.2 percent. The poll was carried out from February 1 to 15 among a cross-section of 5,000 Iraqis in the country's 18 provinces, with 53 percent of those interviewed men and 47 percent women. Around 4.9 percent of Iraqi voters had no opinion, while 2.2 did not respond in the survey, which has a two-percent margin of error.

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) March 3, 2010
The Pentagon insisted on Wednesday plans for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq were on track, despite a report that the US commander there wants to slow the pace of the drawdown.

The Pentagon has faced questions about its withdrawal plans after a prominent defense blog last week reported that General Ray Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq, had told President Barack Obama he needs additional troops beyond a 50,000 limit set for September.

Obama has promised to scale back the force to 50,000 by September and to pull out all combat troops by the end of August.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell did not confirm Odierno made the request but said "it would take an extraordinarily dire turn of events for that to be something we were to consider."

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said there would have to be "a pretty considerable deterioration" in Iraq to require a change in the drawdown timeline.

Morrell said the US military was "on target to meet the president's policy goal of having us down to 50,000 troops in Iraq come September the first," adding: "Everything is trending in that direction."

Odierno wanted an additional brigade deployed in northern Iraq to safeguard security in the disputed city of Kirkuk, according to the report on the Foreign Policy website by journalist Thomas Ricks.

Ricks is the author of a book, "Fiasco," about the handling of the Iraq war by the administration of former president George W. Bush.

Morrell said last week that Odierno had made "no such proposal, nor has one been approved by this department."

But officials said it was possible Odierno had raised the issue in White House meetings without filing a formal, written request.

Odierno told a news conference in Washington last week he had prepared back-up plans to leave more forces in place if political tensions after Iraq's crucial elections on Sunday threatened to trigger serious violence.

The US military now has about 96,000 troops in Iraq and the election is seen by Washington as a crucial precursor to a complete military withdrawal by the end of 2011.

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