US outlines policy in Iraq ahead of Maliki visit

As the White House prepares to welcome Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki this week, five "core areas" tied to US interests will be the main focus, according to a Senior US Administration Official on Wednesday. The first will be the promotion of a unified and federal Iraq "that is really focused on making sure that Iraq's territorial integrity remains intact, that the three principal communities are generally working together," said the Official, speaking on background. "A lot of that effort is focused on Arab-Kurd tensions which tend to rise up every now and then," he added. "This is something we talk about all the time. But that means developing ties in a number of areas, of not only security but also economics, diplomacy, culture, trade, education." "The relationship between Baghdad and Irbil has really made a great deal of progress over the last six months, and in particular, we're seeing increased security cooperation in some of the disputed areas," said the Official. The second area of focus is to increase Iraq's oil exports, which is "critical both for Iraq's ability to withstand the many pressures that it is under, and it is also essential to global economic stability as well as our own US vital interests both in the region and globally," he noted. "Despite terrorist hits to pipelines, despite weather problems, and despite a number of platforms coming off due to maintenance and other things, Iraqi production remains around 3 million barrels a day," he announced. "We expect that to increase over the next couple months, but most importantly we're focused with the Iraqis on a longer term vision for their strategic infrastructure." The third is to build up counterterrorism efforts against Al-Qaida. "We have this Al-Qaeda reemergence. How do we go about it? How do we go about it in terms of security cooperation? And how do the Iraqis go about it in terms of political reconciliation initiatives and also economic outreach?" It was also pointed out that Al-Qaeda in Iraq is no longer known by that name. "They're now the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant," said the Official. "They have the same leader they've had since about 2006. That's Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who we believe is now based in Syria. And this is now really a transnational threat network." Prime Minister Maliki's first priority in Washington is expected to be the violence that has plagued the country in recent months. 5,250 people have died this year alone, and 600 of them were in October. The casualties are mostly civilians. Suicide bombers have been "targeting playgrounds, weddings, funerals, and this is having a devastating psychological impact, as you can imagine, on the country," said the Official, pointing out that the victims are almost entirely Shia Muslims. Part of US assistance in this area involves arms sales, which the Iraqis have specifically asked for. "We've worked very closely with them and we support those requests, and we're working with the Congress through those as appropriate," stated the Official "We've made some progress. We notified over the summer a major air defense system which allows the Iraqis for - really, for the first time, to take sovereign control of their airspace, which right now they don't have. So it'll take some time to get that system in place." The US has already delivered more than USD 14 billion in foreign military sales to the government in Baghdad, according to State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf, who also addressed the issue at a foreign press briefing on Wednsday. "This has provided, I think, some good capabilities. We also want to keep working with them to figure out what else they need; we'll work with Congress on that, of course," she said. "And whether it's training, whether it's equipment, we're certainly committed to that relationship, going forward." The fourth area of focus for the US is to "facilitate Iraq's regional integration" while the fifth is to assist Iraq with its overall economic development with a focus on the elections in April 2014. The focus on regional integration will highlight Iraq's relationship with Kuwait. "Iraq this summer finally settled issues with Kuwait that have been outstanding since the first Gulf War, and that really was quite a breakthrough and required a lot of political risk both from the Iraqi leadership and also the Kuwaiti leadership," said the Senior Administration Official. "But that was really significant. And then last week, the Iraqi cabinet approved for the first time a - Kuwaiti consulates in Basra and Irbil, and anyone who has followed the Iraq-Kuwait relationship really all the way back to 1991, I think, can recognize the significance of that," he noted. Maliki will meet with President Barack Obama on Friday.