U.S. military leaders yesterday said Shi’ite Muslim extremists in Iraq still being funded by Iran pose a risk to the reduced levels of violence there, and that planned withdrawals of troops will be reassessed this summer.
“[M]ultiple strains of violent extremism remain a threat to the government and populace, and some of these groups benefit from external support,” Adm. William J. Fallon, top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
At the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said Iran has not lived up to its promise to stop supplying weapons and training to insurgents in Iraq.
“I think we have to keep the pressure on them,” said Gen. Odierno, the former No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq. “What they ought to stop doing is training surrogates, funding surrogates and supplying weapons to them, which they are still doing today.”
On Sunday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Baghdad for a historic two-day visit and called for U.S. forces to be withdrawn from the region. Mr. Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian president to visit Iraq, as Tehran was an enemy of Saddam Hussein”s Sunni government in Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki touted the relationship between the two nations as “a high level of trust.”
On Capitol Hill, Adm. Fallon told the panel that Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees combat operations in Iraq, will have a midyear assessment that will help determine whether further reductions in troop levels to the pre-surge 130,000 are warranted.
The Pentagon’s current plans are to reduce troops from 20 to 15 active-duty brigades deployed to Iraq by July.
Despite plans for reductions in Iraq by summer, U.S. commanders will increase troops in Afghanistan to combat the insurgency and growing terrorist presence with the deployment of nearly 3,000 Marines in the coming months.
Last month, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he seeks a reduction in the length of combat tours, from 15 months to 12 months.
Gen. Casey emphasized he will stand by his decision to keep tours to 12 months, regardless of any plans to stop reductions after the fifth brigade returns in July.
“The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war … have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future,” he told the Senate panel.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.