Performance of Iraqi Security Forces Mixed By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. officials have hailed the performance of Iraqi security forces as the only silver lining in the spasm of violence after the shrine bombing. For the most part, however, Iraqi forces did not engage the rioters — waiting until clerics had calmed the situation before taking to the streets.
That raises questions whether the Iraqis could stop a new round of even bigger violence that many fear is inevitable. It is now up to American commanders to decide whether to take that risk and recommend major U.S. troop cuts starting this spring.
In Washington, the State Department coordinator for Iraq, James Jeffrey, told reporters Tuesday that Iraqi security forces had managed to establish a normal and calm situation "by Iraqi standards."
A military spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, was more lavish in his praise.
"We're not seeing civil war ignited in Iraq," Lynch told reporters the day after the trouble began. "We're seeing a competent, capable Iraqi government using their security forces to calm the storm."
But most of the credit goes not to Iraqi forces but to top Shiite clerics — including anti-American firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr, who called back his militiamen, responsible for many if not most of the attacks on Sunni sites in Baghdad and Basra.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060302/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_security_test 
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