Agencies  --  Arab News

WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, 21 February 2004 — American officials say US forces will be needed in Iraq long after a sovereign government is restored this summer, but they have yet to work out the terms of a continued presence.

Senior Pentagon officials said they were confident that the Iraqis, once given political control, would agree US troops should stay. But some outside the government question whether that would hold true once an elected Iraqi government took over.

Anthony Cordesman, a close observer of the Iraq situation as a strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that if political control was turned over on July 1 to an Iraqi body that is not elected, it likely would align itself with US objectives and therefore welcome a continued US military presence. But once elections were held, the US role would be in doubt, he said. If the new Iraqi government decided it wanted American forces to leave, “We would certainly be obligated to leave, under international law,” Cordesman said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita, told reporters at the Pentagon that there is a “fairly confident belief” that most Iraqis accept the US view that American troops will be needed over the long haul to ensure a stable transition to democracy.

The basis for a continued US military presence under the authority of a transitional Iraqi government is “being developed,” Di Rita said without elaborating.

Di Rita did not define the roles that US troops would play once the occupation ended. Other officials have said troops will be needed to guide the development of Iraqi internal security forces as well as build an Iraqi army that is capable of defending against external threats.

Meanwhile, a bomb blast yesterday wounded at least one US soldier traveling in a convoy with thousands of troops heading home after a tense year in Iraq, a US officer said.

A US military helicopter evacuated the Fourth Infantry Division (4ID) soldier after a roadside explosion hit his convoy just south of Balad, about 75 km north of Baghdad, Maj. Douglas Babb said. Troops from the 30,000-strong Task Force Iron Horse, who have spent a year in the so-called Sunni Triangle hunting rebels, were driving through hostile territory along the main north-south highway toward Baghdad. After reaching Baghdad, they are to head to Kuwait, where they will fly back to the United States.

In all, as many as 200,000 troops are coming in or out of the restive belt north and west of the capital in the biggest US troop rotation since World War II as Taskforce Iron Horse and other contingents are relieved by fresh troops.

Separately, a US military spokesman in Baghdad said a soldier died in a vehicle accident in Balad, but there were no further details.

And the death toll rose to four following a bomb attack on US soldiers Thursday on foot patrol in Khaldiyah 80 km west of Baghdad, the military said.

About 2,000 Iraqis took to the streets yesterday in Najaf city to demand general elections, a day after UN chief Kofi Annan crushed hopes of an early vote. “We call on the Iraqi people, those who are duty bound, to defend their right for legitimate elections,” declared a statement by the organizers of the rally in the city.

But the statement did not call for a vote before June 30 — the date when the US-led occupation is due to end — which had been a key demand by Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.