FED:Iraq now able to look after itself: Molan

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-2011
FED:Iraq now able to look after itself: Molan

CANBERRA, Dec 19 AAP - The war in Iraq has been a success for the West because it has
enabled the Iraqi government to take charge of security now US troops have left, an ex-Australian
army officer says.

Retired Major General Jim Molan, former coalition chief of operations in Iraq, said
Iraq had not been handled well and errors had turned what should have been a two-year
conflict into a nine-year saga.

He said Iraq's political situation remained precarious but not disastrous, with a level
of violence no greater than in other countries dealing with insurgencies.

Major General Molan said the Iraq government now had more than 600,000 internal security troops.

"If they want to achieve internal security, they will be able to achieve it now and
that I think is what victory is all about for us," he told Sky News.

"I think this war has been a success from the West's point of view."

Major General Molan said Sunni insurgents and Shia militia may try to destabilise the
government but that was now Iraq's problem.

"And we have given the Iraqis not just the political ability to manage this, but also
the military and internal security ability to handle this," he said.

Major General Molan said a similar result was the best the West could hope to achieve
in Afghanistan.

"Absolutely - if we at this stage manage to get in Afghanistan to where we have stumbled
through to get to in Iraq, we'll be quids ahead," he said.

However the US government's decision to draw down US troop numbers in Afghanistan had
increased the risk of failure, he said.

Major General Molan said Australia had to learn from Iraq.

"The lesson from this is not that this war is unwinnable. The lesson is that if you
take it seriously, if you apply the basics that any soldier can tell you, and the American
general told the president, these wars are winnable."

AAP mb/jsh/jmt

KEYWORD: IRAQ AUST MOLAN

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