Gates sees U.S. combat role in Iraq shrinking

updated 7:05 a.m. ET Sept. 15, 2008

BAGHDAD - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that although no additional U.S. combat brigades are to withdraw from Iraq this year, he expects the U.S. combat role to keep shrinking.

"We are clearly in a mission transition," he told reporters on an overnight flight here from Washington.

U.S. troops will increasingly play a backup role, Gates said, as Iraqi security forces take on more of the responsibility for fighting an insurgency that has lost much of its power and influence over the past year.

"The areas in which we are seriously engaged (in fighting) will, I think, continue to narrow," Gates said.

The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, told reporters later at the main U.S. military headquarters outside Baghdad that he remains optimistic that the trend of improving security will continue.

Key measures of security have improved about 80 percent over one year ago; while "there is a degree of fragility" to the situation, he said, it is "somewhat less" fragile than just a few months ago.

Elections, al-Qaida worries
The biggest uncertainty at the moment, Austin said, is the central government's inability thus far to pass the legislation needed to hold provincial elections across the country before the end of the year. Gates is meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki later Monday.

Austin also said the al-Qaida in Iraq remains a source of concern.

"Al-Qaida is in disarray but they have not yet been defeated," he said.

Iraq currently has primary responsibility for security in 11 of its 18 provinces. It regained responsibility for Anbar province, at one time the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency, a few weeks ago.

In the interview, Gates said he is focusing heavily now on expanding the use and effectiveness of intelligence and surveillance programs that have played an important part in eroding the insurgency in Iraq.

It is Gates' eighth trip to Iraq since becoming defense secretary in December 2006.

Sandstorms prevented Gates' aircraft from stopping as planned at Camp Speicher, near the northern city of Tikrit, to receive a briefing on a once-secret program, known as Task Force Odin. The program has innovatively linked a variety of surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft — drones as well as manned planes — with new sensor technologies to hunt down insurgent cells. Those assets also are linked to attack helicopters and other planes capable of striking at discrete targets on short notice, day and night. One of the keys has been expanding the availability of full-motion video cameras aboard aircraft that can transmit live images to other aircraft and to ground stations, enabling quick action.

"We have a lot more plans under way" for expanding that program, Gates said.

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