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Bush, Allawi discuss obstacles to Iraqi vote

* US, Iraqi officials say Allawi may be preparing the ground to delay elections
* Report says US may add hundreds of military advisers to Iraqi forces

WASHINGTON: Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi called US President George W Bush following Monday’s spate of car bomb attacks in Iraq to discuss the existing obstacles to the January 30 Iraqi elections, The New York Times said Tuesday quoting top US officials.

The officials stressed that Allawi at no time suggested that the election be delayed. “There was no substantive conversation about the delay,” an unnamed senior official said, adding that the Iraqi leader “wasn’t even wobbly” about the issue.

However, the daily said other US and Iraqi officials interpreted Allawi’s call as a sign that he is worried about his own party’s prospects in the election and may be preparing the ground to make the case for a postponement of the vote.

“Clearly the thinking on this is still in motion in Baghdad,” a senior administration official told The New York Times late Monday, adding that Bush, who insists that a delay would mean giving in to Iraqi insurgents, “is holding firm.”

US officials were reluctant to provide details of Allawi’s discussion with Bush but said it dealt with security issues and the ferocity of the insurgency. “It was a discussion about the impediments,” said an official who reviewed a transcript of the call. “But no one suggested the impediments could not be overcome.”

Military advisers: The United States is considering adding hundreds of military advisers to work directly with Iraqi military units after the January 30 elections to improve their performance and stiffen their resolve, The New York Times said Tuesday. The advisers would enhance the training the Iraqi Army, National Guard and police forces receive after boot camp, senior US military officials said, adding that General George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, was reviewing the proposal still under discussion.

“The development of Iraqi security forces is, in my view, necessarily the main effort,” Brigadier General Carter Ham, commander of American forces in northern Iraq, told the daily in an e-mail message from his headquarters in Mosul on Monday. “Building capable and loyal Iraqi forces is what will eventually lead to the defeat of the insurgency and to a sufficiently stable environment so that US and other forces can begin to reduce our presence,” he added.

He said the plan would build on earlier US efforts to train Iraqi troops. “It’s time to apply it on a larger scale,” he said, adding that expanding the adviser program “is something we want to start doing in the immediate post-election period.”

An intense US effort to train Iraqi forces to take over security duties so US forces can eventually withdraw from their country has run up against a strong insurgent campaign of bombings and attacks to instill fear in Iraqi military and police recruits. Several hundred US troops are already embedded with Iraqi units to provide additional training, but the proposal would expand the program providing 10-man teams with 45 existing and 20 emerging national guard batallions, a US military official said in Iraq.

In addition, the US Department of Homeland Security is providing small teams to help train new Iraqi border police officers, the official added. afp

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