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27 January 2005

Coalition Will Increase Partnership With Iraqi Security Forces

Abizaid says training will be stepped up after elections

Washington -- The head of the U.S. Central Command says one of the important things that will happen after the January 30 national elections in Iraq is that coalition forces will increase the level of training and partnership with Iraqi security forces.

"We clearly know that Iraqi security forces need to mature further," General John Abizaid said January 26 after a closed two-hour briefing for the Senate Armed Services Committee.  The amount of training that will be required and the number of coalition forces to carry it out is still to be determined, he said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner said the Iraqi elections are going forward.

"Every expectation is that they will meet a measure of success.  But the period of aftermath of the elections is fraught with uncertainty," Warner said.

While the elections will take place across the nation on January 30, he said, it will take several weeks to certify the results.  After that, the newly elected National Assembly must select a president and two deputies, and then they will recommend a prime minister who will need to be confirmed by the assembly, he said, outlining some of the many steps still to be taken by Iraqis after the vote in January

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this process will take time, and he indicated that the insurgents could attempt to exploit this period with renewed violence.

"One has to expect that the level of violence will either stay where it is, or go up or down modestly during this period as [the insurgents] attempt to prevent from happening that which is going to happen," Rumsfeld said.

Abizaid said the role of U.S. forces is to help the Iraqi interim government and Iraqi electoral commission in the ways they've requested.

"We understand that our role is to ensure that this is an Iraqi election.  And I think you'll see on [January 30] millions of Iraqis will go to vote because they want to vote," Abizaid said.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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