U.S. military wary of Iranian pledges on arms flow

By Paul Tait

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday Iran must prove over time it is committed to stemming the flow of weapons into Iraq, adding a note of caution after a warming in Washington's tone towards Tehran.

U.S. officials have softened their rhetoric towards Iran in recent weeks. The U.S. military freed nine Iranians held in Iraq.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said earlier this month he understood Iran had given Iraq behind-the-scenes assurances that the flow of weapons would stop.

"We are thankful for the commitment that Iran has made to reduce the flow of weapons and explosives coming into Iraq," Lieutenant-General James Dubik, head of U.S. military efforts to rebuild Iraq's security forces, said on Wednesday. He added it had made some contribution to cutting violence in Iraq.

But Dubik and U.S. military spokesman Major-General Kevin Bergner said it was impossible to tell exactly how much difference those commitments had made.

"It's important here that the commitments that have been made start to see real progress that's statistically significant, that's measurable and that is sustained over time," Bergner told a media conference.

Iranian and U.S. officials said on Tuesday they had agreed to hold a new round of talks on security in Iraq, the fourth this year between the bitter foes after a diplomatic freeze lasting almost 30 years, but no date has been set.

Bergner said he hoped the latest round of talks, following meetings in May, July and August, would focus on the commitment to stop weapons from entering Iraq. The talks will be limited to Iraqi security and will not include Iran's nuclear ambitions.

ROCKETS AND BOMBS

Washington accuses Shi'ite Iran of training and arming Shi'ite militias in Iraq and the military has often displayed what it says are Iranian-made rockets and roadside bombs it says were captured in Iraq.

Tehran rejects the charge and blames the violence in Iraq, in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, on the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties have dropped sharply in the past two months, with a "surge" of 30,000 extra U.S. troops and the organization of neighborhood police patrols by mainly Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs credited for the falls.

The military says the number of attacks has fallen 55 percent since the surge was fully deployed in mid-June to the lowest level since January 2006, a month before the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra unleashed waves of reprisal killings.

The use of the neighborhood police units helped reverse spiraling violence in western Anbar province, an al Qaeda stronghold which was once the most dangerous part of Iraq.

Those police units and the U.S. troop surge have squeezed Sunni Islamist fighters out of Anbar into other areas of Iraq, with northern Iraq now the biggest worry for U.S. commanders.