WASHINGTON, Sept 9, (Agencies): The Obama administration is considering staging American troops in Kuwait next year as a backup or rotational training force for Iraq, after the Pentagon completes the scheduled withdrawal of its current 45,000-strong force from Iraq in December, US officials said.
The proposal, not yet announced, is among a number of options the administration is considering for extending its military training role in still-violent Iraq, whose divided government has been reluctant to ask Washington directly to keep troops on its soil beyond this year.

All troops are to leave Iraq by Dec 31 under a 2008 security agreement, but senior US officials worry that without more training the Iraqi forces may squander hard-won security gains. The Iraqi army, for example, is only now taking delivery of US battle tanks, on which they have yet to be trained.
Improving

Iraq’s security forces are improving but still lack the capability to defend fully Iraqi air space, borders and territorial waters, US military officers say.

“There are some gaps in their military capabilities, their security capabilities, that we believe we could offer some assistance with,” Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday. Discussions with the Iraqis on this are in an early stage, Kirby added.

The Obama administration favors a proposal that would leave 3,000 to 5,000 US troops in Iraq next year to train Iraqi forces, US officials said this week. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Iraq has not yet asked for any extension of forces.

It has not previously been reported that staging US forces in Kuwait as a part of that training mission, or possibly along with that mission, is being considered. One of the US officials said the administration would foresee the Kuwait arrangement lasting for three years, starting in 2012, with troops rotating into Iraq for six-month stints. No decisions have been made, and it was not clear whether direct talks with the Kuwaiti government have begun.

Kuwait has played a pivotal role in the Iraq war from its beginning. The bulk of US ground forces launched the invasion from Kuwaiti territory in March 2003, and the tiny Gulf state has served as a transit point for coalition supply convoys and air transport throughout the conflict. The US uses Kuwaiti air and land bases and maintains a small force in the country now. The Iraq backup forces would be besides that contingent.

Withdrawal

The final stage of the US troop withdrawal from Iraq began this week, and discussions with the Iraqi government on extending a US military presence beyond 2011 began in August. Those talks are being led by the State Department. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week that no decisions have been made about any potential troop extension, although he said an extended US training mission is at the core of the talks.

Iraqi leaders are fearful that issuing a formal invitation for US forces to stay would trigger a political backlash from their own followers, including some who have threatened widespread violence and attacks on the troops if they do not leave. For that reason, one option under US consideration is to have a portion of the US training force based in Kuwait; they would rotate into Iraq for limited periods, and return to Kuwait, one official said.

Several US officials said the Kuwait option is under consideration. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the diplomatically sensitive matter publicly. Kuwait’s defense attache in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Another option under Pentagon consideration is positioning a small US combat force in Kuwait that could rush into Iraq if there is a security problem or to target an insurgent threat, two officials said. Another possibility is to retain in Kuwait some of the US ground combat equipment that is being pulled out of Iraq, instead of shipping it back to the US It could be kept in Kuwait as so-called “pre-positioned” war materiel, one official said.

Kirby and the Pentagon’s press secretary, George Little, said they would not discuss any aspect of a possible US troop extension.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s new chief of staff and a former top commander in Iraq, told reporters Thursday that he could not comment on the appropriate number of US troops that should be kept in Iraq for training purposes next year. But he emphasized the need to keep the number small.

“When I was leaving Iraq a year ago, I felt we had to be careful about leaving too many people in Iraq,” Odierno said. He added later, “The larger the force that we leave behind,” the more the negative Iraqi views of the Americans as occupiers would remain, “and we get away from why we are really there: to help them to continue to develop.”

Odierno also said he has seen indications lately that the Iraqis may need less US military help in tamping down Arab-Kurd tensions in northern Iraq than previously assumed. He said some had believed 5,000 US troops were needed for that purpose. But if the Iraqis in fact are capable of handling that on their own, “then we won’t need those 5,000,” he said.

Some US lawmakers have criticized that number of soldiers and say senior officers favor a larger force of at least 10,000, which would include a unit deployed in northern Iraq to defuse Arab-Kurdish tensions.
Odierno’s intervention carries weight given his battlefield experience in Iraq — he spent a total of 56 months there — and his reputation previously for cautioning against dramatic reductions in the American troop presence.

He said that the final decision about the size of a post-2011 US force would be up to Iraq’s government, American leaders and military commanders.

“I’m not saying 3-5,000 is the right number,” said Odierno, but “there comes a time...when it (US presence) becomes counter-productive.”

“I’m not quite sure what the right number is, but there’s a number there somewhere that is — you’ve got be careful about,” he added.

As commander in Iraq, Odierno — whose son was badly wounded in the war — successfully lobbied President Barack Obama to slow the pace of a planned withdrawal.

Odierno has warned that territorial disputes between Kurdish and Iraqi government forces in the north pose the greatest threat to Iraq’s stability and credited the US presence with helping to calm tensions.