A decision is needed now on the future of the US troop presence in Iraq, the top US military officer said on Tuesday, during a trip to Iraq to press top Iraqi officials to make one quickly.
The visit by Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes with months to go before a year-end deadline for the withdrawal of the 47,000-odd American soldiers currently stationed in Iraq.
“We really need a decision now,” Mullen told a news conference at the Camp Victory base compound on Baghdad’s outskirts.
“There are certainly discussions which are ongoing and I am hopeful that a decision by the Iraqi leadership to enter negotiations with the US is made very quickly,” he said.
Mullen noted there are “some very difficult political challenges… associated with reaching this decision,” but said that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani are “very aware of the urgency of the issue.”
“A significant part of this is just a physics problem… that’s why it’s so important to make a decision absolutely as soon as possible,” he said.
Mullen arrived on Monday at a US base on the outskirts of the northern city of Mosul before heading to Baghdad.
US officials have pressed their Iraqi counterparts to decide quickly whether they want US troops to remain in Iraq beyond the year-end deadline, including during a visit in July by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.
Proposals for a training mission are gaining traction among Iraqi leaders, although nothing yet has been agreed.
Maliki said during his meeting with Mullen that he hoped Iraqi political leaders would reach a decision during a meeting — repeatedly delayed — now set for Tuesday.
In his talks with Mullen on Monday, the premier also pressed for continuous cooperation between the two countries regardless of the outcome of the meeting.
“There should be continuous weapons cooperation between Baghdad and Washington, especially on the subject of air defence, and of meeting Iraq’s urgent needs for these kinds of systems,” Maliki said, according to his office.
Maliki said on Saturday that Iraq had restarted talks with the United States to purchase 36 American F-16 fighter jets, double the figure that had originally been mooted.
Iraq and the US had been close to a final agreement to purchase the F-16s earlier this year, but nationwide protests forced the Baghdad government to divert funds earmarked for the jets to programmes to help the poor.
Politicians here have already missed a self-imposed July 23 deadline to reach a decision on the US troop presence, and political progress is rarely made during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Monday in Iraq.
Mullen also met General Lloyd Austin, commander of US forces in Iraq, and was set to hold talks with President Talabani, the Pentagon said.
US and Iraqi military officials often remark that while they assess Iraq’s security forces to be capable of maintaining internal security, the country is lacking in terms of defending its borders, airspace and territorial waters.
Mullen arrived in Iraq after a two-day trip to Afghanistan, much of which was spent visiting troops before he is due to step down in October.
He was travelling with comedian Jon Stewart, former NBA star Karl Malone and magician David Blaine, who were accompanying him as part of a morale-boosting tour for soldiers.
His visit comes days after the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, warned in a report that the country was less safe than one year ago and that security was deteriorating.
“Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work,” Bowen said in his report published on Saturday. “It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago.”
Figures released on Monday showed the number of Iraqis killed as a result of violence in July declined from the previous month but still marked the second-highest such toll for 2011.
A total of 259 Iraqis — 159 civilians, 56 policemen and 44 soldiers — died in attacks last month.
Five American soldiers also died in July, bringing the overall number of US troops to have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein to 4,474, according to data compiled by independent website www.icasualties.org.
June was the deadliest month for US forces in Iraq since 2009, with 14 soldiers killed.
