U.S. hopeful on exit after quiet July in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — July is on track to be the least deadly month for American troops and one of the quietest for Iraqis since the war started, a decline in violence that has led the U.S. to consider stepping up its withdrawal plans just a month after pulling its combat forces back from Baghdad and other cities.

The optimism was tempered by two bombings that killed 12 civilians to the north and west of Baghdad on Thursday. Though such attacks have become a daily fact of life for Iraqis, overall violence levels remain low.

At least 274 Iraqis have been killed in attacks so far in July, according to an Associated Press count. Only two months — both this year — have seen fewer Iraqis killed since the AP began tracking war-related fatalities in May 2005. There were 242 deaths in January and 225 deaths in May.

Only seven U.S. troop deaths have been recorded this month, the lowest monthly total since the war started in March 2003, according to an AP tally. By contrast, July was the bloodiest month for U.S. forces in the eight-year Afghan war, with at least 41 dead.

The encouraging numbers from Iraq came a month after the Americans turned over responsibility for protecting cities to government forces and withdrew to bases outside urban areas.

A spike in bombings and other attacks that killed about 300 people in the 10 days leading up to the June 30 city withdrawal deadline sparked concern that the move would jeopardize security gains. But that level of violence did not continue into July.

Jim Dobbins, director of national security research at RAND Corp., said the relatively smooth transition was one reason for Wednesday’s remarks by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the U.S. may speed up its withdrawal plans if the trend toward reduced violence continues.

“I think the fact that they were able to [take over the cities] so relatively successfully and the fact that they’ve continued to try to expand their own autonomy and limit the U.S. role, particularly the visible U.S. role, was a factor,” he said. “It demonstrates a sense of self-confidence that the U.S. wants to encourage.”

A U.S. Army adviser to the Iraqi military command in Baghdad, Col. Timothy R. Reese, argued in an internal memo that the U.S. should “declare victory and go home” next year, 16 months ahead of schedule.

Reese wrote that the years-long American effort to train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces has reached a point of rapidly diminishing returns, and that Iraqi forces already are good enough to defend the government against the weakened terrorist and insurgent forces that remain.

He concluded that Iraq’s Shiite-dominated security forces are capable of defending their country despite corruption, poor management and the inability to resist political pressure.

“The massive partnering efforts of U.S. combat forces with ISF [Iraqi security forces] isn’t yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition,” Reese wrote in a memo early this month to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.

Reese argued for ending the U.S. military mission in Iraq in August 2010. That is the date when President Barack Obama has said all combat troops will have withdrawn. A residual force of 35,000 to 50,000 troops will remain to continue training and advising the Iraqi security forces until a final pullout by December 2011.