U.S. Still Has ‘Important Role’ In Iraq, Says Visiting Top Pentagon Official

Top U.S. military officer General Martin Dempsey insisted Tuesday during a quick trip to Iraq that Washington was still playing an important role there, eight months after the last American troops departed.

The Pentagon’s top general has finished talks in Baghdad with senior Iraqi officials including Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about ways the U.S. might help plug gaps in Iraq’s security.

Dempsey is the highest-level U.S. official to visit Iraq since the last U.S. combat troops left the country in December. He also met with the chief of the U.S. Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen.

The spokesman for Gen. Dempsey, Marine Col. David Lapan, said they talked about the crisis in Syria as well as ways the U.S. might provide Iraqi with more military assistance.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile, said in an interview with AFP that Iraq was now a sovereign state, on an equal footing with the United States, a remark completely removed from the 2003 American-led invasion.

“We still retain significant investment and significant influence. But now it’s on the basis of a partnership and not on the basis of ownership,” Dempsey, who served in Iraq as a commander during the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, said before landing in Baghdad.

Clad in a formal military dress uniform instead of the combat fatigues worn during the war years, Dempsey stressed that he came to build a dialogue with his Iraqi counterparts and not to make demands.

After a 90-minute meeting with Maliki, Dempsey later told reporters the two discussed the conflict in neighboring Syria, Iraq’s interest in expanding training with U.S. forces and the purchase of American military hardware, including radar, air defense weaponry and equipment to bolster border security.

After flying over the bustling Iraqi capital by helicopter, Dempsey said he was struck by the air of “normalcy” compared to a few years ago when he served during a raging war with insurgents.

“Only eight months out, and it seems to me that they’ve gripped the opportunity for now that we hoped they would grip,” he said en route back to Washington.

Dempsey talks of Iraq’s democratic example

Although Iraq still faced daunting challenges, Dempsey said the country could eventually serve as a democratic model for the rest of the Middle East, which has been shaken by popular uprisings since early 2011.

Since the departure of American combat troops, however, Iraq has witnessed a protracted political stalemate, while several deadly attacks have underscored gaps in safety here despite US and Iraqi officials’ insistence that local forces are able to maintain security.

Dempsey arrived from Afghanistan, where his C-17 aircraft was damaged by an insurgent rocket attack on the tarmac overnight at Bagram air base, forcing the general to use another plane for his trip to the Iraqi capital.

Asked by AFP about the rocket attack at Bagram, Dempsey smiled and shrugged, saying perhaps it was a “lucky shot” by the Taliban.

Alarabiya