US spurns conflict with Iran in Iraq
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—The chances of the United States “stumbling” into a confrontation with Iran through skirmishes in Iraq “are very low,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday. When asked on CBS television if such a scenario was inevitable the longer US troops stayed in Iraq, he said: “I think the chances of us stumbling into a confrontation with Iran are very low.
“We are concerned about their activities in the south. We are concerned about the weapons that they are sending in — that they continue to send in to Iraq. “But I think that the process that’s underway is, as I said, headed in the right direction.”
US President George W. Bush on Thursday lumped Iran with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group as “two of the greatest threats to America in this new century” and said both hoped for a US defeat in Iraq. He warned that he would not hesitate to use force if the Islamic republic targets US interests in its strife-torn neighbor, saying it must choose either to live in peace with Iraq or continue arming and funding militants there.
“Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops, and our Iraqi partners,” Bush said. Asked if his comments meant he was less concerned about Iran than the president, Gates said he believed as Bush did that Iran had a choice, whether to have a positive or negative relationship with Iraq.
But the defense secretary noted that a recent government offensive against Shiite militias in Basra had changed the situation. “I think one of the interesting developments of Prime Minister (Nuri al-) Maliki’s offensive in Basra is that it has revealed to the Shia particularly in the Iraqi government the level of Iranian malign influence in the south and on their economic heart line through Basra,” Gates said.
“So I think what has happened is that the hand of Iran has been exposed in a way that perhaps it had not been before to some of the Iraqi government and frankly I think that’s a very positive development.” US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker said Friday he believed Iran’s support for militias fighting the Iraqi government may cause a Shiite “backlash”, adding: “My sense is the harder they push, the more resistance they encounter.”
General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, told Congress Tuesday that Iran was playing a destructive role in Iraq by “training, arming and directing” Shiite militia.
The Iraqi government has dismissed about 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted or refused to fight during last month’s offensive against Shiite militias and criminal gangs in Basra, officials said Sunday. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 921 police and soldiers were fired in Basra. They included 37 senior police officers ranging in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.
The others were dismissed in Kut, one of the Shiite cities where the fight had spread. Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the security forces to confront armed groups in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city. But they met fierce resistance and the attack quickly ground to a halt as fighting flared across the Shiite south and Baghdad.
Since then, government officials have revealed that about 1,000 members of the security forces — including an entire infantry battalion — had mutinied, on some cases handing over vehicles and weapons to the militias. The majority of Iraqi soldiers and police are Shiites.
Speaking in Basra, Khalaf said those dismissed included 421 police officers and 500 soldiers who had not returned to duty in the southern port city and would be tried by military courts. “Some of them were sympathetic with these lawbreakers, some refused to (go into) battle for political or national or sectarian or religious reasons,” Khalaf said.
But he said that those who returned in coming days and could prove they had been prevented from doing so by the militias would be reinstated. In Kut, a senior police officer said 400 local policemen have been sacked for refusing orders to combat the militias, including the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the Interior Ministry in Baghdad had ordered the policemen removed from duty on Saturday. Although fighting in Basra eased in late March, security operations are continuing.