Biden: Iraq’s future must justify U.S. losses

Posted on Fri, Jan. 14, 2011
By Lara Jakes – Associated Press
BAGHDAD – Vice President Biden said Thursday that the United States should make sure Iraq’s stability and democracy were strong enough to make it “a country that was worthy of the sacrifices” the American military suffered during eight years of war. Biden, speaking to about 400 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, also said the United States would continue to train and equip Iraqi forces beyond 2011. His remarks highlighted continuing uncertainty about whether all American troops will head home by the end of the year as required by a security agreement between the two nations.
“The Iraqi people for the first time, I suspect, I would argue, in their history are on the verge of literally creating a country that will be democratic, sustainable, and, God willing, prosperous,” Biden told the troops at the military’s headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad. “It could have a dramatic impact on this entire region, and God knows the Iraqi people deserve it.”
The White House has promised to end the war responsibly. “By that we meant we were going to end this by bringing you all home . . . but leaving behind a country that was worthy of all the sacrifices that so many of your brothers and sisters have made,” Biden told the troops.
More than 4,400 U.S. troops have died since the 2003 invasion, and an estimated 32,000 have been wounded.
Biden’s trip marks the first visit by a top U.S. official since Iraq approved a new cabinet last month, breaking a political deadlock and jump-starting its stalled government after March’s inconclusive elections. But lingering security challenges remain: On Thursday, three bombings in the capital killed two people.
The address to U.S. troops capped a daylong series of meetings in Baghdad, including a session with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Biden then traveled to Irbil in northern Iraq to meet with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani.
Under a security agreement between Washington and Baghdad that was worked out in 2008, all American troops are to leave Iraq by the end of the year. However, Iraq’s top military commander, Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari, has said U.S. troops should stay until Iraq’s security forces can defend its borders – which he said could take until 2020.
An aide to Biden said the vice president reiterated Washington’s longtime position that the Americans would listen to any request by the Iraqi government for troops to stay longer but that Baghdad has not asked them to do so. The official did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Maliki, under pressure from hard-line Shiite Muslims, has signaled he wants American troops to leave on schedule.
Last weekend, the influential and anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr returned to Iraq after nearly four years of exile in Iran, in part to insist that the U.S. “occupiers” must leave on time or face retribution among his followers “by all the means of resistance.”
A spokesman for Maliki, Ali al-Dabbagh, said both sides during the meeting between his boss and Biden “committed themselves to the date of withdrawal” and emphasized that the departure date of U.S. troops was fixed.
Iraq must walk a careful line, balancing its relationship with the United States and its Shiite-majority neighbor, Iran, to the east. Iran views a continued U.S. military presence along its western border with suspicion and is believed to be lobbying its Iraqi allies to adhere to the timeline.
Both Washington and Baghdad had refused to discuss publicly any possibility of U.S. troops staying until after Iraq installed its new government. Biden congratulated Iraq on accomplishing that political feat, which took months of negotiations.
“I’m here to help the Iraqis celebrate the progress they’ve made,” Biden told reporters before meeting with U.S. Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and U.S. commander Gen. Lloyd Austin at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. “They’ve formed a government and that’s a good thing.”
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