New York: The American command in Iraq has prepared a detailed plan, which sees an important US role in the war-torn country for the next two years. The classified plan, which represents the co-ordinated strategy of the top American commander and the US ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008, the New York Times reported.

Sustainable security is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, the paper said quoting American officials familiar with the document. The detailed document, known as the Joint Campaign Plan, is an elaboration of the new strategy President Bush signaled in January when he decided to send five additional American combat brigades and other units to Iraq, the paper said.

That signaled a shift from the previous strategy, which emphasised transferring to Iraqis the responsibility for safeguarding their security. That new approach, the report says, put a premium on protecting the Iraqi population in Baghdad, on the theory that improved security would provide Iraqi political leaders with the breathing space they needed to try political reconciliation.

The latest plan, which covers a two-year period, does not explicitly address troop levels or withdrawal schedules. It anticipates a decline in American forces as the "surge" in troops runs its course later this year or in early 2008,but it nonetheless assumes continued American involvement to train soldiers, act as partners with Iraqi forces and fight terrorist groups in Iraq, American officials were quoted as saying. 

The plan, developed by Gen David H. Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador, has been briefed to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm William Fallon, the head of the Central Command. It is expected to be formally issued to officials here this week, the Times said. The plan envisions two phases. The "near-term" goal is to achieve "localised security" in Baghdad and other areas no later than June 2008. It envisions encouraging political accommodations at the local level, including with former insurgents, while pressing Iraq's leaders to make headway on
their programme of national reconciliation.

The "intermediate" goal is to stitch together such local arrangements to establish a broader sense of security on a nationwide basis no later than June 2009. "The coalition, in partnership with the government of Iraq, employs integrated political, security, economic and diplomatic means, to help the people of Iraq achieve sustainable security by the summer of 2009," the Times quotes a summary of the campaign plan as stating.