US accuses Iran and Syria of trying to destabilize Iraq

UNITED NATIONS: The United States accused Iranian-backed groups of launching numerous attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S.-led multinational forces this year and said estimates suggest that 90 percent of foreign terrorists enter Iraq through Syria.

"Iran and Syria must stop the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq, and their malign interference in Iraq," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Monday in a report to the U.N. Security Council on behalf of the multinational force in Iraq.

The Iranian and Syrian governments have repeatedly denied trying to destabilize Iraq and insist there is no proof.

But Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Hamid Al Bayati told reporters "we know (there is) intereference by neighbors. I can't state names, but we know some neighbors are helping militias, armed groups. And (the) Iraqi government is trying to stop intereference in internal affairs."

In his speech to the council, Al Bayati highlighted Iraq's request "for the support of the international community in putting an end, and preventing, foreign interference in Iraq's internal affairs that destabilizes the country's stability and security."

Khalilzad told the council that "recent clashes between criminal militia elements and Iraqi government forces in Basra and Baghdad have highlighted Iran's destabilizing influence and actions."

"The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — Quds Force — continues to arm, train, and fund illegal armed groups in Iraq," he said. "The bulk of weapons used by these groups are made in Iran and supplied by Iran, including mortars, rockets and explosively-formed penetrators."

Khalilzad said "this lethal aid poses a significant threat to Iraqi and multinational forces and to the stability and sovereignty of Iraq," undermines Iraqi efforts to rebuild the country, and violates a Security Council ban on such arms transfers.

The U.S. ambassador's report to the council echoed the assessment last week by Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military official, who said it is clear that recently made Iranian-made weapons are flowing into Iraq, including to insurgents leading the fight recently in Basra in southern Iraq.

But Mullen, who chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he has "no smoking gun" proof that the highest leadership in the Iranian government has approved the stepped up support for insurgents who are killing U.S. and Iraqi forces.

As for the Syrian border, Khalilzad said, "Syria continues to allow foreign fighters to transit Syria en route to conducting attacks in Iraq, and we know that al-Qaida terrorist facilitators continue to operate inside Syria."

Nonetheless, Khalilzad said, "the overall security environment in Iraq continues to improve, and there have been some gains on the political, economic and diplomatic fronts as well ... (though) progress has been uneven in certain areas, and many challenges still remain."

During recent military operations, he said, "some Iraqi units were found wanting," a reference to the fighting in Basra where some officers and units fled or refused to fight.

"But overall the Iraqi Security Forces are quite capable and their performance is solid," Khalilzad said.

More than 540,000 Iraqis are now part of the country's security forces, an increase of 24,000 since January, he said, and the United States expects an additional 50,000 Iraqi soldiers and 16 Army and Special Operations battalions to be trained by the end of the year as well as more than 23,000 police officers and eight national police battalions.

The multinational force has about 140,000 U.S. troops and some 10,000 personnel from other countries.

The force is authorized under a Security Council mandate, which expires at the end of the year. Khalilzad said the Iraqi government does not want the council mandate to be renewed, and the United States is currently discussing a bilateral agreement with the United States "to regulate the presence of foreign forces."

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin raised the timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops in his remarks to the Security Council, and questioned the prospect of a bilateral U.S.-Iraqi agreement.

"Many Iraqis, let us admit this quite frankly, consider them as occupying troops," Churkin said of the multinational force.

"Naturally, we are not speaking here of the immediate evacuation of the multinational forces, since so far conditions do not exist for this," he said.

Churkin cited recent events in southern Iraq and elsewhere including Baghdad as an indication that Iraqi forces "are still not ready to full shoulder responsibility for providing for security in the country and for effectively countering various types of militias."

At the same time, however, he warned that if a bilateral agreement on the further presence of foreign forces "turns into a mere change of signs, this will not help clarify the issue of the continuation of such a presence — and that will hardly help in a radical improvement of the situation in Iraq."

Asked about Churkin's comment, Khalilzad called the Russian ambassador's concerns "premature" since "we are in the middle of those discussions with Iraqis ... (and) we don't quite know what the outcome would be."
IHT