U.S. forces begin to shift posture in Iraq: analysts

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. forces have begun to shift away from their front-line war-fighting posture in Iraq, but political and security conditions are unlikely to allow for large troop reductions until after 2009, analysts say.

The Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations analysts, who just returned from a Pentagon-sponsored trip to Iraq, found the Iraqi army surprisingly capable of leading security efforts like its spring operations against Shi'ite militants in Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City section.

The ability of Iraqi security forces to take over security is viewed by U.S. officials as the crucial step in a transition of the American military from a combat role to support operations that would allow for larger U.S. troop reductions.

"What we saw was that that initial transformation ... was well under way. And that is a very positive development," said Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings think tank.

"The security forces are getting bigger. They're also getting better," he added. "Their capabilities are getting good enough that they are having a real impact on the situation."

Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank said the U.S. military's role in Iraq has increasingly become one of policing cease-fire agreements with former insurgent groups that have contributed to a sharp decline in violence over the past year.

"The U.S. mission has started to shift from counterinsurgency, as we traditionally understand it, into increasingly something that looks like peacekeeping rather than war fighting," said Biddle, who has advised the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

The Brookings and Council on Foreign Relations analysts spoke at separate forums this week. On the whole, the analysts were upbeat about progress that has been made in Iraq but tempered their optimism with caution by saying conditions could easily be reversed.

NO MAJOR TROOP CUTS SEEN UNTIL 2010

The Bush administration, which poured extra forces into Iraq last year to help quell sectarian violence, is currently withdrawing extra combat brigades and expects to have reduced U.S. forces to about 140,000 troops by August, from a peak of more than 170,000 last year. The United States currently has 146,000 troops in Iraq.

The number of non-U.S. coalition troops in Iraq is also falling and is expected to be below 10,000 by August, analysts said.

"The violence is continuing to trend downward, even as the coalition troop numbers and U.S. troop numbers do as well," said Michael O'Hanlon of Brookings.

He said U.S. military and Iraqi government statistics show that violence against civilians has fallen 80 percent since President George W. Bush's troop buildup started last year.

Petraeus told the Senate last month that he expected to make further troop cuts later this year, after the extra combat forces depart.

But analysts said they would not expect to see a major reduction in U.S. forces until around 2010, by which time Iraq is expected to have held provincial elections this autumn and general elections by the end of 2009.