The New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
“We’re seeing more of those weapons going in from Iran, and they’ve really hurt us,” Mr. Panetta said before arriving here on an unannounced trip, his first to the Iraqi capital as defense secretary.
Mr. Panetta is the third top American official to raise an alarm about Iranian influence in Iraq in recent days. The American ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, said last week that the United States had “forensic” evidence that weapons and weapons parts from Iran were being used by Shiite militias against American troops. His remarks were echoed two days later in Washington by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Panetta did not elaborate on what the forensic evidence entailed.
Mr. Panetta’s comments, made a day before he is to meet with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, were aimed at urging the Iraqi military to take stronger action against Shiite militias and to see Iran as the Obama administration does — not just as a threat to American troops, but as a potential cancer in the country.
“The key right now is to make sure that we do everything possible to ensure that the Iraqis within their own country are doing what they can to stop the flow of those weapons and to stop the Shia from using them,” Mr. Panetta said. Iraq did begin a crackdown on Shiite militias in the south in recent days, but the American military would like the Iraqis to do more.
The Shiite-led government has traditionally been more comfortable taking on Sunni militants.
American officials say that Iran supplies the militias with high-powered rockets and parts for powerful bombs that can pierce armor. In June, 15 American service members were killed in Iraq, nine of them in rocket attacks, American officials said.
Iran’s motive, American officials say, is to claim credit for driving American forces out of Iraq at a time when those forces are more than halfway out the door in a withdrawal planned long ago. All 46,000 remaining United States troops in Iraq are to leave by the end of this year under an agreement between the two countries, but both Iraqi and American military commanders believe that some American forces should stay beyond 2011.
Few Iraqi politicians are willing to admit publicly that they need American help, and Obama administration officials say they will consider staying only if the Iraqis ask. The subject is particularly sensitive because the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr helped the current government come to power and has said many times that the United States should leave immediately.
In April, Robert M. Gates, Mr. Panetta’s predecessor as defense secretary, all but begged the Iraqis to ask for troops to stay and said time was running out. Three months later, the situation is largely unchanged, although the Iraqis appear to be inching toward a decision. On Sunday, Mr. Panetta echoed Mr. Gates. “If they are to make a proposal with regards to a continuing U.S. presence there, they have to make a formal request — that we would obviously consider,” he said.
Mr. Panetta arrived in Baghdad from Helmand Province, in Afghanistan, where he met with American Marines and Afghan Army soldiers at Camp Dwyer, a sprawling military base and the site of a busy medevac hospital in the southern desert. Mr. Panetta said he was encouraged by what he saw. “I think the bottom line is we are on the right path here,” he said.
In Washington, Obama administration officials frequently cite military gains in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar as evidence that the Taliban have largely been driven from the south. But Marine commanders offered a more complex assessment.
“The war is certainly not over here,” said Brig. Gen. Lew Craparotta, a senior commander of the 20,000 Marines in Helmand Province. General Craparotta said that although the Taliban had not come back with the same strength in this summer’s fighting season as they had last year, Marines were still taking direct fire and under threat from homemade bombs every day, particularly in areas like Sangin and north toward the Kajaki Dam.
Col. David Furness, a commander of a Marine regimental combat team in central Helmand, said that Afghan Army soldiers were taking far heavier casualties than the Americans and yet were getting up each morning and returning to battle. “In the final analysis, it’s their fight,” he said, adding that the Afghans, with American training, were now good to beat the Taliban on their own. But once the Americans leave, he said, the Afghans “have to maintain the will to do so, and I don’t know how that will go.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 11, 2011, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Ties Arms From Iran To Combat Deaths in Iraq.
