WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (AFP) - The United States is gambling that beefing up Iraqi security forces and holding elections there in January will help stabilize the violence-wracked country, but a US withdrawal remains a long way off.
US strategists had hoped to start pulling out troops in 2003. A year later the process has still not started and an extra 12,000 troops are being sent to Iraq for the January 30 election taking the US presence to 150,000.
The euphoria of the swift defeat of Saddam Hussein's forces is now buried in the past.
Throughout the year, American leaders led by President George W. Bush, admitted mistakes had been made in assessing the difficulties of stabilizing the country.
The departure of US administrator Paul Bremer and handing over sovereingty to an interim government, reduced the impression of a US occupation.
But the fragility of the transition amid reconstruction delays, attacks on Iraqis and the beheading of kidnapped foreigners has made the idea of a quick disengagement seem illusory.
"As in Vietnam, if the interim Iraqi government cannot win the political battle, US victories in the military battles become irrelevant," said Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in a study on US strategy in Iraq.
James Dobbins, an American special envoy to Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan, said the United States now has few good options in Iraq.
"Keeping US troops in Iraq will only provoke fiercer and more widespread resistance, but withdrawing them too soon could spark a civil war," Dobbins said in an article for Foreign Affairs magazine.
Washington has been careful not to set precise targets for getting US troops out. But it hopes that if the election goes ahead on schedule produces a credible result, the withdrawal day will be closer.
Voters will choose 275 delegates to an interim National Assembly which will draw up a new constitution, and 18 provincial councils.
The six weeks of official campaigning has begun. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was among more than 5,000 hopefuls to register for the landmark elections. But the bloodshed has increased and there have been some calls for a boycott.
Several American analysts have underlined the risks of the election: violence at the polls, a result that gives the majority Shiite population an overbearing advantage and the possibility of a postponement or cancellation of the vote in part of the country.
Beyond the political problems, the key question that remains is preparing an army, police and border guards who can take over from the US forces and their allies who are equally anxious to leave Iraq.
"American soldiers and marines can come home with the honor they have earned," President Bush said recently. But everyone in the US administration is being careful to avoid giving a date.
For the moment, 115,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers have been trained and 25,000 more will be ready between now and the election -- half of the 275,000 force the US plans to have by mid-2006, according to Defense Department figures.
The contribution of the international coalition is also set to fall in the early months of 2005, even though Japan has stated it will keep its current troop presence for one more year.
Spain, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, the Philippines and Thailand withdrew their troops in 2004.
While countries like the Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Hungary, and Latvia in particular, announced or implied that that they will reduce their troop presence in the coming months.
NATO has decided to raise the number of personnel who will train Iraqi forces, to 300 from 60. But several key allies -- France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Greece -- have refused to let their officers enter Iraq for the mission.

12/16/2004 13:05 GMT - AFP