Text size:

Iran cited as threat in Iraq

BY CRAIG GORDON | Newsday Washington Bureau

June 23, 2006

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Iraq yesterday predicted a reduction in American troops there this year, but also cited a significant new obstacle - neighboring Iran's stepped-up efforts to train and equip Iraqi insurgents.

"I'm confident that we'll be able to continue to take reductions over the course of this year," said Army Gen. George Casey, who made no formal recommendations on troop levels or timing on a visit this week to the Pentagon.

But Casey appeared to back away somewhat from his projection last year of a "fairly substantial" reduction by the end of 2006, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested troop levels might go up before coming down as part of normal rotations.

"What we've always said is there would be a gradual reduction over time as the Iraqi security forces assumed a larger and larger role," Casey said.

Troop levels have decreased from 138,000 in recent months to 126,900 today. U.S. generals had hoped to get levels to 100,000 by year's end, but some in the administration say that projection was based on an Iraqi government being formed much sooner.

Casey offered a good-news/bad-news forecast of the security situation that will affect his decision.

On one hand, he said, Iraqi forces and their government leaders are getting stronger, but on the other, the insurgency has grown more complex recently, with al-Qaida still a threat and Iran's meddling growing more dangerous since January.

Iran is supplying weapons, roadside-bomb technology and training to a variety of Shia insurgents in Iraq, Casey told reporters at the Pentagon, including providing powerful shaped-charge explosives capable of piercing American armor.

Casey said Iran's covert special operations force is directing the effort at the behest of the Tehran government. Some of the training is being farmed out to Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based terror group backed by Iran.

Casey's comments came as President George W. Bush returned from a European visit focused on rallying world pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear-weapons programs. U.S. officials have been growing increasingly worried about Iranian efforts to infiltrate Iraq and frustrate the U.S. mission there as well.

Casey also distanced himself from projections by Iraq's national security adviser that most U.S. troops could be out of Iraq by next year, saying he had never discussed that timetable with the Iraqi government.

The Republican-controlled Senate yesterday rejected two Democratic attempts to urge withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Casey said he opposed setting a fixed date for withdrawal.

"I feel it would limit my flexibility," he said. "I think it would give the enemy a fixed timetable. And I think it would send a terrible signal to a new government of national unity in Iraq that's trying to stand up and get its legs underneath it."