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Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari Says
Iraq Has 'Pressing' Need for More Troops
10.1.2007
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January 10, 2007
There is a "pressing'' need for an increase in
U.S.-led coalition forces in Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.
``There is a need for more troops to help the Iraqi
forces to bring the situation under control,''
Zebari said in a telephone interview from Baghdad
with Bloomberg Television today.
President George W. Bush later today will announce
the deployment of an extra 20,000 U.S. service
members to boost the 132,000 in Iraq, according to
an adviser. Another 8,000 soldiers from nations
outside Iraq have joined the U.S. in the coalition,
which invaded the country in March 2003.
The deployment of more troops is not too late,
Zebari said. |
Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister |
"It would be different this time,'' he said. "There
is a combination of security, political and economic
measures,'' Zebari said, referring to Iraqi
initiatives. He said the increase in U.S. forces
will be matched by an increase in Iraqi personnel.
Iraq's government will "accelerate the plan of
national reconciliation to include more people and
reach out to those who are disaffected,'' said
Zebari, a Kurd in the majority-Shiite Muslim
administration. The Dec. 30 execution of former
leader Saddam Hussein presents an opportunity for
national reconciliation, he said.
Iraq has been beset by sectarian violence between
the Shiites and the minority Sunni Muslims, who were
dominant in Hussein's regime. Attacks also have been
carried out by Islamic insurgents who have targeted
the Shiite-dominated security services and the
coalition forces.
The security services have been implicated in the
killing of Sunnis by death squads.
"The number of attacks have declined by 30-40
percent over the last few days after the execution
of Saddam Hussein, but this may only be temporary,''
Zebari said.
Suicide Bombing
A suicide bomber killed four people at a crowded
market in the northern town of Tal Afar today.
Fourteen others were injured, some of them children,
President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan party said in a statement on its
Arabic-language Web site.
A coalition soldier was killed in action in eastern
Diyala province yesterday, the U.S. military said in
an e-mailed statement. More than 3,000 U.S.
personnel have died in the conflict, 2,420 of them
in action.
"Twenty-thousand more troops is essentially 20,000
more targets, and especially as the Iraqi forces are
unable to actually hold territory,'' Michael
Williams, head of the transatlantic program at the
London-based Royal United Services Institute, said
in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday.
``This has been the problem, the U.S. has cleared it
and then Iraqi forces are unable to hold it and
build on it.''
bloomberg com
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