Gates backs pause in troop withdrawal from Iraq

IRAQ:US defence secretary Robert Gates has endorsed a pause in the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

After a meeting in Baghdad yesterday with force commander Gen David Petraeus, Mr Gates said: "A brief period of consolidation and evaluation makes sense."

This means that the US could retain 15 brigades after the withdrawal of five by the end of July, thereby continuing to deploy 132,000 of the 167,000 troops in Iraq. Fearing a breakdown in morale due to long deployments, the Pentagon has pressed for a larger draw-down but this could sacrifice gains made by the "surge" pacification campaign.

Mr Gates also said Iraq's situation remained "fragile". This remark coincided with car bombings killing six and wounding 20 outside the headquarters of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the US- allied Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), the largest Shia faction in the government.

Ahead of Mr Gates's arrival on Sunday, 53 Iraqis died in bombings carried out by Sunni insurgents allied to al-Qaeda and battles erupted in the city of Balad between SIIC-dominated Iraqi police and members of Sunni tribal levies fighting alongside US forces.

Most of the US-funded Sunni "Sons of Iraq" fighters in restive Dyala province are on strike. They are demanding the dismissal of the provincial police chief accused of leading a death squad responsible for the kidnapping and murder of two Sunni women.

In Anbar province, Sunni fighters are demanding posts in the police and army, but the Shia- led government has inducted only a few hundred of the US-paid 70,000 Sunni volunteers.

Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is also facing a Kurdish call for a no-confidence vote. The Kurds want a 17 per cent share in funds budgeted for 2008 while Arab factions argue that their proportion of the populace is only 13 per cent. Most Arabs also oppose Kurdish demands for a referendum to decide whether the oil-producing region around Kirkuk should be annexed by the Kurdish autonomous region.

A further destabilising factor is a revolt among Mahdi army militia commanders against the ceasefire imposed by their chief, radical Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr.