VINEYARD HAVEN, Massachusetts, Aug 28, (Agencies): Three days before the official end of the US combat mission in Iraq, US President Barack Obama said Saturday Iraq was now a “sovereign” nation free to determine its own destiny.

“On Tuesday, after more than seven years, the United States of America will end its combat mission in Iraq and take an important step forward in responsibly ending the Iraq war,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.

The president, who is spending his last full vacation day Saturday on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is to deliver on Tuesday a nationally-televised Oval Office address on Iraq.
“As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war,” he said Saturday. “As president, that is what I am doing. We have brought home more than 90,000 troops since I took office.”
US troop numbers in Iraq fell below 50,000 last Tuesday in line with Obama’s instructions as part of a “responsible drawdown” of troops, seven years on from the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
American troop levels are now less than a third of the peak figure of around 170,000 during the US military “surge” of 2007, when Iraq was in the midst of a brutal Shiite-Sunni sectarian war that cost thousands of lives.

But more than 4,400 US servicemen and women have lost their lives in this war since it began in 2003, according to an AFP count based on data from www.icasualties.org, an independent website.
And violence in the country, while down from the worst levels seen at the height of sectarian strife, continues to threaten stability in the nation, spooking investors, terrorizing religious minorities and raising the specter of a return to chaos after the end of US combat operations.
Particularly vulnerable are the Sunni Arab militiamen who sided with American soldiers against Al-Qaeda but now fear a surge in bloody revenge attacks against them.
The fighters have already been targeted in a number of attacks, including three killed Friday night in northern Iraq.
The US combat mission in Iraq is to officially end on August 31. The remaining US troops, who will have a support and training mission, are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2011.
“But the bottom line is this: the war is ending,” Obama said. “Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course. And by the end of next year, all of our troops will be home.”
The president also used his address to call on Americans to honor those who have served in Iraq by sending them messages via such social networking Internet sites as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr or Twitter.
A strong critic of the war, Obama has always drawn a distinction between former Republican president George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and the daily fights US soldiers were waging in the country.
Addressing disabled veterans in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this month, Obama noted that the Iraq war had sparked a vigorous debate in the country and that there were American patriots both in favor of and against the war.
But “what this new generation of veterans must know is this: our nation’s commitment to all who wear its uniform is a sacred trust that is as old as our republic itself,” the president said Saturday. “It is one that, as president, I consider a moral obligation to uphold.”
Alert
Iraq’s prime minister put his nation on its highest level of alert for terror attacks, warning of plots to sow fear and chaos as the US combat mission in the country formally ends on Tuesday.
The Iraqi security forces who will be left in charge have been hammered by bomb attacks, prompting fears of a new insurgent offensive and criticism of the government’s preparedness to protect its people. Still, President Barack Obama left no doubt Saturday in his weekly radio address that the US is sticking to its promise to pull out of Iraq despite the uptick in violence.
In a statement to state-run television, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Iraqi intelligence indicated an al-Qaeda front group and members of Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party are collaborating to launch attacks “to create fear and chaos and kill more innocents.”
“We direct the Iraqi forces, police and army and other security forces, to take the highest alert and precautionary measures to foil this criminal planning,” al-Maliki said in the statement issued late Friday.
A senior Iraqi intelligence official on Saturday said security forces believe suicide bombers have entered the country with plans to strike unspecified targets in Baghdad by month’s end. The official did not know how many bombers or where they would attack, and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Obama, meanwhile, used his weekly radio address to reaffirm his campaign promise to end the war in Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan as home to the top threats against America.
“The bottom line is this: the war is ending,” Obama said from the Massachusetts island retreat of Martha’s Vineyard, where he was on vacation. “Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course.”
Al-Maliki said insurgents would try to exploit widespread frustration with years of frequent power outages and problems with other public services by staging riots and attacks on government offices.
Bombings
Hours after his remarks, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for more than two dozen bombings and shootings across the nation this week that killed 56 people — more than half of them Iraqi soldiers and policemen.
In a statement posted on a militant website Saturday, the group said the coordinated attacks targeted the “headquarters and centers and security barriers for the army and the apostate police.”
The prime minister seemed to recognize that security forces alone would not be able to stop the attacks, and he appealed to citizens to be vigilant.
“We call on the nation to have open eyes to monitor the movements of those terrorists and keep such criminal gangs from halting the progress of our nation.”
But Iraqis interviewed Saturday, weary of the persistent attacks, almost uniformly sneered at al-Maliki’s efforts to thwart threats.
“If he asks us to take the precautionary measures, then he has to give us weapons to protect ourselves,” said Atheer Hadi, whose car was pulled over and searched at a Baghdad checkpoint Saturday afternoon. “If you can’t protect us, then allow us to protect ourselves. You destroyed us and we are fed up.”
Insurgents have intensified attacks on Iraqi police and soldiers, making August the deadliest month for Iraqi security personnel in two years.
US and Iraqi officials have long feared that political instability would lead to widespread violence in Iraq, and a stalled power-sharing agreement among competing leaders vying to run the government has only increased the angst.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, is struggling to keep his job after his political coalition narrowly came in second place to a Sunni-dominated alliance in March parliamentary elections. Nearly six months later, Iraq’s political future is no clearer, and Sunnis already are bracing for the possibility of being shut out of key government posts if al-Maliki remains.
Such uncertainty has in part prompted insurgents to stoke the simmering frustrations with attacks, Iraqi military spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi said Saturday.
“The terrorist groups are intending to escalate their terrorist operations during the coming days to influence the process of the American withdrawal, to cast doubt on the ability of the Iraqi forces taking charge of the security and to take advantage of political instability,” al-Moussawi said.
Attacks
Al-Qaeda has said it was behind a wave of attacks across Iraq during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a US monitoring group said on Saturday.
Al-Qaeda front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, said that during “the month of fasting and jihad” it launched a “new earth-shaking wave” in its campaign of violence, the SITE Intelligence Group said.
In the statement posted on Islamist forums on Friday, the militants said they targeted “headquarters, centres and security barriers for the army and apostate police.”
On Wednesday, more than a dozen apparently coordinated car bombs targeting Iraqi police and other attacks blamed on al-Qaeda hit 10 cities and towns around the country, killing 53 people and wounding hundreds.
Iraq has witnessed an upsurge in violence during Ramadan, when insurgents typically step up their activity.
The spike in unrest has triggered concern that Iraqi forces are not yet ready to handle security on their own, just days before the US military ends its combat mission in Iraq, and with no new government formed in Baghdad since a March 7 general election.
Meanwhile, the US military called on Friday for an investigation into how $1.9 million of computer equipment destined as a gift for Iraqi schoolchildren had ended up being auctioned by a senior Iraqi official.
The official sold the equipment, which should have gone to schools in the southern province of Babil, for less than $50,000 on Aug. 16 at Iraq’s main port Umm Qasar, the military said in a statement.
“Confirmed through documents provided by senior Iraqi customs officials, the containers were auctioned ... before delivery to Babil could be arranged,” it said.
“The computers arrived at the port sealed in containers with numbers matching those on the shipping documents. US officials were in the process of coordinating delivery to Babil area schools when the computers were discovered to be missing.”
Corruption has been a major problem for Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. Transparency International’s 2009 corruption perceptions index ranked Iraq as one of the world’s most corrupt nations — 176th out of 180 countries.
Companies using Umm Qasr, near the southern oil hub of Basra, to import grain have complained of heavy bribes being demanded, poor service and high handling costs that make the port one of the most expensive in the world for shippers.
US forces are preparing to end their combat mission in Iraq on Aug 31 and a total withdrawal is due next year.