Departing U.S. Ambassador Warns Against Quick Withdrawal From Iraq

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
January 23, 2009
Pg. 10
By Timothy Williams
BAGHDAD — Ryan C. Crocker, the departing American ambassador to Iraq, warned on Thursday against a rapid withdrawal of troops from the country, saying Iraq was not yet capable of handling its own security.
“I think Iraqi security forces have made enormous progress during my time here, both quantitatively and, more important, qualitatively,” Mr. Crocker told reporters at the new American Embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad. “There is still a ways to go. And clearly, still a continuing need for our security support.”
“If it were to be a precipitous withdrawal, that could be very dangerous,” he added, “but it’s clear that’s not the direction in which this is trending.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, spoke from Baghdad via video conference call to President Obama in Washington, offering their opinions about his pledge to pull combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months.
Mr. Crocker would not provide details to reporters of what he discussed with the president, saying he did not want to “rebroadcast it over the media.”
Mr. Crocker, a 59-year-old career diplomat who arrived in Baghdad in March 2007, has consistently advocated a strong and continued presence of American troops in Iraq to ensure stability.
During an appearance before a Congressional committee in 2007, he said the focus on Iraq should not be measured by benchmarks for progress and deadlines for troop withdrawals but by the informal ways in which Iraq had begun to improve. His watchword has been patience.
Gains made in reducing sectarian violence during the past two years were “still fragile, still reversible,” he said Thursday. “Anything can happen.”
A pact signed by Iraq and the United States requires American combat forces to leave Iraqi cities by June and calls for the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.
Mr. Crocker is scheduled to leave his post in two to three weeks. His replacement has not been announced.
He has said he may retire to his home state, Washington, though he reminded reporters that he had previously announced his intention to retire, most recently before President Bush selected him to be the ambassador here, replacing Zalmay Khalilzad, who had been appointed ambassador to the United Nations.
Mr. Crocker, who has also served as ambassador to Pakistan, Kuwait, Syria and Lebanon, said this year would be a critical one in Iraq, particularly because of provincial and parliamentary elections on Jan. 31 and a referendum on the security pact in July.
“The conduct and outcome of those elections I think are going to be very important for the country, in particular that they be — and be perceived as — free and fair, in at least a general sense,” he said. “They’re not going to be perfect elections, I think we all know that. But it is important that they be credible elections.”
Successful elections will give Iraqis “a lot of confidence going forward,” he said.
Mr. Crocker, who was a diplomat in Baghdad during the Saddam Hussein era, said Iraq had been “traumatized” by Mr. Hussein and had not yet recovered.
“He created a dramatic climate of fear that all Iraqi communities still suffer from,” he said. “If there’s one word that still does describe a state of mind in Iraq, it would still be fear.”
 
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