Report: U.S. has little sway in southern Iraq

WASHINGTON -- A new government report suggests the U.S. may have little hope of influencing developments in Iraq's southern provinces amid growing concerns about Iranian involvement there.

The report, released Thursday by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said poor security prevents U.S. and coalition civilian officials from meeting with many of their Iraqi counterparts, yet Iranians can travel unmolested in the region.

The report suggests that conditions are improving in some parts of the country, notably Anbar province, which until earlier this year was the center of the Sunni insurgency. But its description of the limits experienced by coalition reconstruction teams suggests difficulties for the United States in a strategic region of the country.

Much of Iraq's oil wealth is in the south, and the southern city of Basrah is its only major port. Also, U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq would need to pass through the region.

The region is dominated by Shiite Muslims. Iranian religious pilgrims are a major source of income, and no large U.S. military units are present. British forces, which have been responsible for southern Iraq's security since coalition forces invaded more than four years ago, will decrease by half to 2,500 by next spring.

Iranian influence is expanding, the report said, and Iranian money is flooding into Najaf and Karbala provinces, the home of Iraq's Shiite religious leaders. In contrast, the report said, coalition reconstruction experts haven't visited Najaf to meet with officials there in more than a year and have managed only three visits to Karbala in the past year.

In Basrah province, a British-led team of reconstruction experts abandoned its offices in the provincial capital last November after repeated rocket and mortar attacks, and coalition reconstruction teams, including members of the Army Corps of Engineers, no longer travel to Maysan province, which is now dominated by the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the report said. Overland travel is rare in other provinces, the report said.

The report is the third assessment by the special inspector general's office of the effectiveness of coalition reconstruction teams throughout Iraq. It didn't address U.S. claims that the Iranian military is training and arming Iraqi militias.