Iraq: Still a Quagmire

WASHINGTON, Apr 7 (IPS) - Despite a reduction in violence over the past 15 months, ''the U.S. risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world,'' according to a new assessment by the same group of experts who advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group (ISG) in 2006.

The assessment, which was released on the eve of a critical Congressional testimony this week by Washington's ambassador and chief military officer in Iraq, concludes that the decline in violence has resulted in very little progress toward achieving national reconciliation and that gains in security remain ''fragile and dependent on the presence of U.S. forces.''

''Political progress is so slow, halting and superficial, and social and political fragmentation so pronounced that the U.S. is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago,'' according to the report released by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and entitled 'Iraq After the Surge: Options and Questions'.

"Lasting political development could take five to ten years of full, unconditional U.S. commitment to Iraq,'' it concluded, noting that such a commitment already ''carries a massive cost, both human and financial, in addition to the global interests the U.S. is sacrificing to its commitment in Iraq. Even if progress in Iraq continues, the results may not be worth the cost,'' it warned.

The report, which lays out three possible options for U.S. policy in Iraq over the next year or so, comes just two days before Amb. Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus are ask that Washington suspend its current drawdown of U.S. "surge'' forces in Iraq at the anticipated 140,000-troop level by the end of July to ensure that security gains achieved over the past year can be sustained. At the height of the Surge several months ago, Washington had about 170,000 troops in Iraq.

That recommendation, which appears to enjoy the backing of U.S. President George W. Bush, is likely to be hotly disputed by Democrats in Congress who favor continuing to withdraw combat troops at the rate of about 5,000 a month through the end of the year -- a position privately shared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff who have fretted publicly that maintaining high levels of deployment in Iraq is taking an unsustainable toll on both the morale of U.S. ground forces and on their readiness to deal with other potential military crises.

The new USIP report, which represents the views of scores of military and regional experts who advised the bipartisan, Congressionally appointed Iraq Study Group (ISG) two years ago, will almost certainly give the dissenters ammunition in their questioning of Crocker and Petraeus.

The ISG, which was co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, had called in December 2006 for withdrawing all U.S. combat troops by April 2008, leaving the remaining troops -- around 80,000 -- to focus on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, conducting operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and protecting U.S. civilian personnel.

Bush, however, rejected that recommendation and opted instead for a "surge'' strategy that increased U.S. troop strength by about 30,000 in hopes that the additional forces would substantially reduce sectarian violence in and around Baghdad and encourage Iraq's warring political and religious factions to make the compromises necessary for national reconciliation.

While the strategy has made major advances on the security front, progress toward reconciliation has been largely consisted of "tactical horse-trading'' designed above all to satisfy minimum U.S. "benchmarks'' -- such as revenue sharing and a reform of the de-Ba'athification laws -- to ensure Washington's continued support, according to the report.