Instead,
it needs better intelligence gathering and a way to stop countries intent on
torpedoing Iraq's nascent democracy from supporting Sunni insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda,
or Shiite militia, said Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Al-Khafaji.
"Whether
the US troops are here or not, these groups will continue their operations
because they are the hired guns of regional states with agendas, which want to
sabotage democratic Iraq," Khafaji told Reuters in an interview on
Saturday.
"They
come from known dictatorships. They have a single message — to kill Iraqis and
scorch the earth they live on."
The end
to US combat operations on Tuesday and a fall in troops to 50,000 ahead of a
full pullout in 2011 is a milestone in the 7-1/2 year war launched by
ex-President George W. Bush.
President
Barack Obama, whose Democratic party faces a war-weary public in Congressional
elections in November, said on Saturday that scaling back the US military
presence in Iraq meant he was fulfilling a promise to US voters to end the war.
Iraq
would "chart its own course" now, Obama said.
Iraq is
less violent than it was in 2006/07 when the sectarian slaughter and insurgency
unleashed after the 2003 US-led invasion peaked. But it is far from stable or
secure.
Suspected
Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents have launched a stream of attacks, in particular
against Iraqi police.
Iraq's
political leaders have also failed to agree on a new government almost six
months after an election that produced no outright winner, leaving Iraq adrift
in a political vacuum.
Little
will change on the ground when the six remaining US military brigades in Iraq
formally turn their focus toward advising and assisting their Iraqi
counterparts on Sept. 1.
Iraqi
police and soldiers have been taking the lead since a bilateral security pact
came into force in 2009, and US troops pulled out of Iraqi urban centers more
than a year ago.
"We
have no shortage of security forces... and we have no problem with weapons to
fight terrorism," said Khafaji.
Khafaji
said Iraq had four different intelligence services but the information gathered
was not always making its way down the pipeline to frontline troops. This was a
shortcoming.
"The
next battle is an intelligence battle, which must be waged effectively,"
he said. The deputy minister, who is responsible for Iraq's borders, said
another challenge was to improve relations with other countries and persuade
them to stop supporting violence.
MONEY
FROM ABROAD
"The
important point is that the terrorism operations depend on financial support
from neighboring countries," Khafaji said.
"It
must be a high priority of the government to prevent neighboring countries from
interfering in Iraqi affairs by developing political and economic agreements
with them."
Incumbent
Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki accuses unnamed Sunni Arab states of supporting
insurgents opposed to the rise of Iraq's Shiite majority to political power
after the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Relations
with Saudi Arabia, which eyes Iran's increased influence in Iraq with concern,
are particularly frosty.
The US
military and Iraqi officials, meanwhile, say Shiite militia in Iraq are
trained, funded and armed by Iran. Tehran denies the charge.
Khafaji
said foreign fighters continued to come across Iraq's porous borders. He did
not name any countries.
"No
one slips through the border unless these states so desire and direct," he
said.
Iraq has
been digging a three-meter deep trench along the border, starting with Syria. A
$49 million surveillance system was to have been set up by June. That has been
delayed.
The Iraqi
border police also have plans for 800 additional border posts, which will
require 11,000 additional guards.
"The
battle for freedom continues, but freedom costs blood," Khafaji said.
"The battle now is not between the terrorists and the security forces. It
involves all Iraqis."