BAGHDAD, Aug 14, (Agencies): Iraq does not need American military bases and the national forces can by the end of 2011 face the violent groups and enforce law and order, the official government spokesman said on Saturday.

Ali Al-Dabbagh, in an interview with the CNN, excerpts of which were broadcast by the local media, said Iraq is seeking to build the national defense and security forces to protect the citizens, the territorial sanctity and national sovereignty.
This policy is based on maintaining good ties with the neighbors and plucking out the seeds of discord at the internal level, he said.

The Iraqi Army Chief of Staff, Babker Zibrai, has recently declared that the national forces will not be able to take charge of the security responsibilities ahead of 2020.
The defense ministry said his remarks were “misinterpreted.”
The United States has declared a plan for ending combat missions of the American forces and restricting their presence to fixed positions and bases as well as backing the Iraqis in some civilian and administrative tasks.

 The result of the seven-year war in Iraq will be apparent in three to five years, US General Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, said on Friday.
“I am confident that the Iraqi security forces will be able to provide on the same level now of security moving forward,” Odierno said in an MSNBC interview from Iraq.
Odierno said that, in his opinion, Iraqi security forces were strong enough to maintain stability after US combat troops withdraw from Iraq, and that the US pullout plan was on schedule.
“Is there still going to be some violence here? Yes, there is, but I think they can handle that level of violence,” Odierno said.
“And we will be here continuing to support them for another 16 or 17 months, and they will continue to improve along that line.”

The withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq is under way, with all American combat troops scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of this month.
The Pentagon plans to leave behind about 50,000 trainers to work with Iraqi security forces.
Meanwhile, Kurdish rebels fighting Turkey from bases in northern Iraq declared on Friday a unilateral cease-fire for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The rebels belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have staged hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets in their decades-long campaign for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast. Similar announcements by rebels in the past have failed to open the way to a lasting peace.
One of the group’s leaders, Bouzan Teken, told reporters that the PKK’s fighters will “cease all their military operations inside Turkey” but will defend themselves if attacked.

The cease-fire will last from Friday until Sept 20 to coincide with the period in which Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, he said, speaking alongside two other prominent PKK leaders at a news conference in the Qandil Mountains where the rebels operate near Iraq’s border with Iran.
The rebels also demanded that Ankara release 1,700 Kurdish politicians they said were detained in Turkish prisons, Teken said.

Turkey, which has ignored a series of PKK cease-fire declarations in the past, had no direct comment on the latest announcement. Late Friday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said he hoped Ramadan would give militants a chance to change their ways, and he declared the country would not give in to “terror.”
Labeled terrorists by Turkey and the West, the rebels have intensified attacks since June, saying the government has rejected their calls for a dialogue.

Teken said 71 PKK fighters had been killed during military operations from June 1 to Aug 9. The Turkish military’s website said at least 46 soldiers have been killed since the beginning of June.
In another report, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani along with his two deputies Adel Abdulmahdi and Teriq Al-Hashemi stressed here Saturday the necessity of urgently forming a new government, calling for renouncing marginalization and exclusion.

The president and his two deputies made these remarks during addresses delivered in the gathering held by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq in commemoration of council’s late leader Abdulaziz Al-Hakim.

Talabani said that Iraqis are feeling bitterness on delaying of forming the government at a time when many of them suffer from lack of services and a dwindle in power generation all over the country.
He also drew attentions to the necessity of carving out a government based on efficiency and that it should be a government of national unity that calls for singlemindedness and achieving well-being for society.

On his part, vice president and leading member of the Iraqi List Tariq Al-Hashemi said in an address during the ceremony that the political crisis is likely to be resovled soon if Iraqi leaders put forward their proposals according to the fair criteria and renounce the culture of exclusion and marginalization.
He also believed that the political process should be based on national partnership in what sustains national harmony, pointing out that Iraqi people expect, following a seven-year change, a qualitative shift that affects various aspects of life in spite of the political failure in achieving many aspirations.
As for vice-president and leading member of the National Coalition Adel Abdulmahdi, he said in the same ceremony that it is high time to get the country out of its current quandary and to embark upon a serious dialogue that includes all political parties and aims at resolving crises and activating points of agreement.

Ablaze
Meanwhile, two policemen were shot dead and their bodies set ablaze at a Baghdad checkpoint on Saturday while three of their colleagues and an anti-Qaeda fighter were also killed, security officials said.
Insurgents shot the two policemen as they sat in their car in eastern Baghdad, the capital’s security leaders said, and then set it on fire, while three others were killed by silenced pistols at a checkpoint in the west of the city.
Baghdad Operations Command blamed the attacks on negligence on the part of local forces, and said unit commanders would have to explain their mistakes, but did not give details on possible disciplinary measures to be taken.
“We will hold accountable the chiefs of the security units in the areas where the attacks took place, due to the negligence of their members,” it said in a statement.
Saturday’s incident was the third time in two weeks that members of the security forces’ bodies have been burned after being killed by insurgents.
Meanwhile in Al-Shaab district northeast of Baghdad a member of the government-backed Sahwa (Awakening) militia was shot dead at a checkpoint, an interior ministry official said, and two other fighters wounded.
The Sahwa, known in the US military as the “Sons of Iraq” sided with the US against al-Qaeda from late 2006, helping to turn the tide of Iraq’s brutal insurgency.
Dozens of the former Sunni rebels have been killed in apparent revenge attacks in recent months.