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CAMP RAMADI, Iraq (AP) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq said that an American role over the next 2 1/2 years is crucial to ensuring legitimate national elections and helping Iraq become a long-term U.S. partner in the Middle East.
Gen. Ray Odierno disputed a colonel’s call for the military to declare victory and leave ahead of schedule, telling The Associated Press on Tuesday that the American presence is needed even though security is better than expected a month after Iraqi forces assumed responsibility for protecting cities.
"Our goal here given us by the president is a secure, stable sovereign self-reliant Iraq. We’re not there yet," he said in a wide-ranging interview after meeting with Iraqi officials at a U.S. base outside the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi.
Odierno argued that U.S. troops should stay mainly to train and advise Iraqis to avoid a resurgence of major violence that would squander more than six years of enormous U.S. sacrifices. He cautioned that many obstacles remain, particularly Kurdish-Arab tensions that could stoke violence in northern Iraq.
His remarks came five days after the circulation of a controversial memo prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, a U.S. Army adviser to the Iraqi military in Baghdad. Reese argued that the American effort to train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces has reached a point of rapidly diminishing returns and the U.S. should go home next summer, 16 months ahead of schedule.
