US officials in Baghdad fear a new outbreak of so-called 'ethnic cleansing' between Sunnis and Shi'ites next year after the US security crackdown ends, a government watchdog said today.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction warned in a report that lower levels of sectarian violence attributed to US President George Bush's troop build-up have not produced lasting political reconciliation in Baghdad and its neighbouring Diyala province.
"Some of (the) districts and neighbourhoods remain too 'hot' for reconciliation to take place," said the report, which included a review of a US initiative to stabilize Iraq with provincial reconstruction teams consisting of US civilian and military officials.
"In areas that included mixed Sunni-Shia populations, we were told, the departure of US forces would produce open battlegrounds of ethnic cleansing," the report said.
There has been no end to the relentless violence in Iraq, but attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas have fallen off since Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops as part of a strategy to stabilize the Iraqi capital in hopes of fostering political reconciliation. There are currently 171,000 US troops in the country.
But analysts say the fractured Iraqi government has not addressed underlying grievances between Sunnis and Shi'ites. They warn that sectarian violence could re-escalate after the planned withdrawal of 20,000 US combat troops by next July.
Sectarian violence surged after the February 2006 bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in mainly Sunni Samarra. Analysts say one reason for the recent drop in violence is the scale of sectarian "cleansing" that has since occurred in once-mixed Sunni and Shi'ite districts.