US embassy cable - 05ROME3763

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