Pentagon plays down comments on US role in Iraq

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta suggested that Iraq had agreed to keep American troops in the country beyond a 2011 deadline, but Baghdad insisted the issue was still under negotiation. In an interview with two US newspapers published Friday, Panetta said the Iraqis appeared to have made up their mind to extend the presence of American troops beyond the year-end withdrawal deadline.
"My view is that they finally did say, 'Yes,'" Panetta told Stars and Stripes and the Military Times. Iraqi political leaders announced on August 3 that they would open talks with the United States over a possible training mission after 2011 without saying definitively if some American troops would remain. But the Pentagon later on Friday sought to play down the defence chief's remarks, saying he was merely noting that Baghdad was open to discussing a possible US military role.
"The secretary was asked if there had been progress in our discussions with the Iraqi government since his visit six weeks ago. "He made clear that the Iraqis have said yes to discussions about the strategic relationship beyond 2011, and what that relationship might look like," spokesman George Little said in an email. Under the terms of a 2008 security agreement, all of the roughly 46,000 US troops still in Iraq must pull out by the end of the year unless both countries forge a new deal.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi premier's office said no decision had been made on the future of US troops. "We have not yet agreed on the issue of keeping training forces," Ali Mussawi, media advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told AFP after Panetta's remarks.
"The negotiations are ongoing, and these negotiations have not been finalised," he said. The US military presence remains a delicate political issue in Iraq, and anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has warned of "war" if American forces stay beyond 2011.
Both US and Iraqi military officers, however, acknowledge Iraq's forces need outside assistance to defend the country's air space, ports and borders. Panetta said Friday there was now a consensus among Iraqi leaders to address US concerns for the Baghdad government to hammer out what type of US training force would be needed, select a defence minister, draft a new security agreement and step up operations against Iranian-backed militants.
"So what I guess what I'm saying is we have made progress and as a result of that I think we're going to be engaging with them to try to negotiate what that presence will look like," said Panetta, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.