Gates: US Combat Role Will ‘Continue to Narrow’
U.S. Secretary of State Robert Gates said on Monday that he believes the U.S. combat role in Iraq will “continue to narrow” in the coming weeks and months ahead.
“We are clearly in a mission transition,” he told reporters.
“The areas in which we are seriously engaged (in fighting) will, I think, continue to narrow,” Gates said.
The main problem in Iraq right now is not militarily. It’s political. US leaders are concerned about the Iraqi government’s inability to pass important laws, which would help revive the country’s economy, and bring the different sects together. The U.S. believes that especially Sunnis have to be emancipated. If not, it fears, sectarian violence could very well destroy the country once again.
For now, however, it is becoming clear that the ’surge’ as such can be slowly brought to an end. At the moment those extra troops are brought home, the other, ‘normal’ troops can be begin their withdrawal as well.
Gates’ words will take some wind out of the sails from Democrats, who made the war in Iraq and an immediately withdrawal a major issue during elections for the last couple of years.
