Iraqi leaders must find way to stabilize country, Gates says

The defense secretary said he would encourage
continued efforts to reach a power-sharing plan.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Hard choices face Iraq’s political leaders on how to stabilize the country despite promising new signs of progress toward reconciliation, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

“They seem to have become energized over the last few weeks,” Gates said. The Pentagon chief told reporters who traveled with him from a conference in Germany that he wants to “see what the prospects are for further success in the next couple of months.”

In an interview on the trip to Iraq, Gates cited the recent passage of an amnesty law as an example of political progress. He said he would ask Iraqi leaders to assess the prospects for other important steps such as passing a law that would spell out power-sharing between the provinces and the national government.

He compared the struggle over that idea to the U.S. Founding Fathers’ quest to find a constitutional compromise on how to share power in Congress between big and small states.

Gates said he would make clear to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other political leaders “our continued eagerness for them to proceed and successfully conclude some of this legislation” considered essential to reconciling Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Gates arrived after dark at Baghdad International Airport aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane. He flew by helicopter to a private dinner with government officials, including al-Maliki, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, as well as U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

It was Gates’ first visit this year and possibly his last before Petraeus and Crocker return to Washington in April to recommend to President Bush whether to continue reducing U.S. troop levels after Petraeus’ current drawdown plan is completed in July. By then, four brigades are to have gone home, leaving 15.

“I would be interested in how they are planning it — which units are coming out” between now and July, Gates said.

The trickier question is whether Petraeus will tell Bush that security conditions in Baghdad and elsewhere have improved enough to permit even more troop cuts without risking a deterioration in security. Petraeus’ strategy is based on an expectation that improved security over time will give Iraqi political leaders an impetus to make compromises on legislation and other moves toward reconciliation.