IRAQ: TALABANI IN ROME URGES NO HASTY TROOP MOVES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ROME 003763

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DEPT FOR NEA, EUR/WE AND S/I

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2015
TAGS: PARM PREL PGOV IZ IT UNSC IRAQI FREEDOM NATO
SUBJECT: IRAQ: TALABANI IN ROME URGES NO HASTY TROOP MOVES

Classified By: Pol M/C David Pearce for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary. During his November 7-13 visit to Italy,
Iraqi President Talabani discussed current developments in
Iraq and Iraqi relations with Syrian, Iran and Turkey with
Embassy officials. Talabani received assurances from Italian
center-left leaders that they would not withdraw Italian
troops too soon should they win the upcoming elections and
would only do so in consultation with the GOI and coalition
partners. He was optimistic on the improving security
situation in Iraq and on prospects for the upcoming Iraqi
elections, but warned against continuing interference from
Syria and Iran. End summary.

To Center-Left Leaders: No Precipitate Troop Withdrawal
-------------- --------------


2. (C) Pol M/C and Pol-Mil Counselor met with Iraqi President
Talabani in Rome on November 12. Talabani, who arrived in
Rome November 7 and held meetings with President Ciampi, PM
Berlusconi and FM Fini, Senate President Pera, Chamber of
Deputies President Casini, and center-left leaders said his
trip to Italy had been successful. He made a point of
meeting four major opposition leaders and urged them all not
to make precipitate moves with Italian troops in the event of
a center-left victory in elections next April. Of course we
will survive if you take your troops out, he told them, but
it won't be good for you, or for us, and it will encourage
the terrorists to think they had made a gain. He felt all
four got the message, and all indicated that any changes
would not be made in a disruptive way, but gradually and in
full coordination with the Iraqi government and other troop
contributors according to conditions on the ground. Prodi
was the least receptive, he said, but came around in the end.


3. (C) In his meeting with PM Berlusconi (whose center-right
coalition is currently trailing the center-left in polls),
Talabani said he had joked that many great men, like
Churchill, had been defeated politically after major
accomplishments. Berlusconi said that may well be true, but
he didn't plan to join them, he planned to win.

Progress in Combating Terrorists
--------------


4. (C) Talabani said the important next step in Iraq was the
December election. The security situation was gradually but
steadily improving; the terrorists had been reduced to
relying on car bombs and controlled less territory. They had
been on the verge of controlling Mosul, but that city was
safe now, and they had been expelled easily from Tal Afar.
They had made a major mistake by killing women and children
-- this turned almost all of the population against them.
Some of the tribes had begun to turn on them, including in
the West. Zarqawi and his group were increasingly isolated.
The GOI currently had 200,000 men under arms ("which should
be enough for Iraq"),and training was continuing.


5. (C) Sunni participation would be greater in the December
elections, Talabani continued, and there would be fewer Shia
seats in the new parliament. He felt a substantial number of
Sunnis who had not voted in the first election or referendum
were supportive of the government and the new constitution.


6. (C) Talabani commented that US Ambassador Khalilzad was
very good and very active. He understood the situation in
Iraq well and was "tireless."

Syria a Major Problem
--------------


7. (C) Syria, and especially the Syrian border, was a
problem, Talabani said. Many of the terrorists captured in
Iraq had come from Syria. Damascus claimed the border was
hard to control, but everyone who knew the Syrian regime well
knew this was a fiction. If the SARG wanted, he said, "not
even birds could fly across." Talabani professed to be
puzzled by Damascus, policies. The direction seemed to be
coming from the top, from Bashar and his family. No one else
would dare to make such trouble for the US in Iraq.


8. (C) Bashar had pressured and threatened Hariri before his
death. Ex-Syrian FM Abd al-Halim Khaddam, now retired in
Paris, had told the Syrian leader at the time that it was a
mistake to threaten to break Lebanon over Hariri's and
Jumblatt's heads over the issue of extending President
Lahoud's mandate. Bashar's latest speech was "very foolish."


9. (C) The Syrians seemed to think they could use the old
"steadfastness and confrontation" approach in response to the
pressures from the US, France, and others on Iraq, Lebanon
and terrorism. They had argued until the last minute that
there would be no war to replace Saddam (and war, Talabani
added, was regrettably the only way Saddam could ever be
displaced). They feared the example of a democratic Iraq,
and they feared being surrounded on all sides by countries
that were friendly to the US.


10. (C) SARG leaders were trying to act like Hafiz al-Asad,
but they didn't have the same skills. Hafiz al-Asad would
have known when to make a strategic shift. This regime had
lost its best friend in the West, French President Chirac,
who was now in the lead against them. They had also
alienated key Arab friends, like Saudi Arabia.

11. (C) Talabani said the Syrian government had invited him
to visit Syria (Talabani has long-standing ties to Damascus,
and founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan there in the
mid-1970s). But he told the Syrians there were three
obstacles to better relations: 1) they needed to change the
tone of their media and stop referring to the terrorists as a
legitimate resistance and insurgency; 2) they needed to
expel the former Iraq regime leaders now in Syria (he said a
number were in the Aleppo area and apartments in Damascus; he
speculated that Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri had died in Syria); and
3) stop the flow of terrorists across the border. He said he
would not contemplate a visit until there had at least been a
real change in media tone.


12. (C) A Syrian delegation had visited Baghdad recently but
had not been received well. The Shia, in particular, were
angry with Damascus because they identified the Syrian regime
with support for the terrorists who were carrying out the
killings in Iraq.

Iranians Even More Problematic
--------------


13. (C/NF) Talabani said the Iranian "brothers" were being
very clever, more clever than the Syrians. He felt Iran and
Syria coordinated on Iraq, but the Iranians managed to keep
the Syrians out front, taking more of the heat. The Iranians
were sending their terrorists to set off bombs in the Sunni
areas so that the US and others would think all the trouble
was in the Sunni areas and with the Sunnis. He said Tehran
feared a US turn toward the Sunnis to try and secure their
participation, at the expense of the Shia.


14. (C) Iran's influence with Iraq's Shia would always have
limits, he said. Iran would never be able to control the
Iraqi Shia. The Shia "Vatican" is in Iraq, at Najaf and
Karbala. And Ayatollah SISTANI is a real ayatollah, with
much stronger religious credentials than Khamenei.


15. (C) The MEK remained in a camp in Iraq, controlled by US
forces, but still conducting some anti-Iran activity,
Talabani said. Iran wanted them expelled. A small number
had gone back to Iran, but most remained; few third countries
had stepped forward to offer them refuge.

Turkey
--------------


16. (C/NF) Similarly, the PKK remained at Qandil mountain.
They had recently made a bad decision to send some people
into Turkey to fight. Talabani said he wondered if the PKK
were not under Turkish military control. It was strange, he
said he had told Turkish PM Erdogan, how people in a Turkish
jail are able to send orders and plans to the PKK in the
mountains. "That's democracy," Erdogan reportedly replied.


17. (C/NF) Talabani said he had good relations with Erdogan
and the civilian leaders (but by implication, not with the
Turkish military). KDP leader Barzani's ties with Ankara
remained difficult. Still, Barzani felt the Turkish
government recognized that, whatever their views in the past,
they needed to deal with Talabani now as the president of
Iraq, and Barzani as the president of the north. (Talabani
was planning to see Barzani in Vienna this week and said
relations between them were excellent.) He said the GOT was
disappointed -- they now realize that they were being
deceived by the Iraqi Turkmen, who did not represent 15
percent of the population, as they had claimed, and were only
able to win two seats in the national assembly.
SPOGLI