The United States could dramatically and quickly cut its troop presence in Iraq if it provided enough weapons to the country’s security forces, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said.
Maliki called for greater US support for Iraqi troops in an interview with a group of foreign correspondents in Baghdad. Several newspapers, including the Times of London, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, reported his comments on Thursday.
Maliki said the Iraqi insurgency was more violent and longer than it should have been because the US refused to give more arms. He also rejected claims that his government was on ”borrowed time” as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said.
”If we succeed in implementing the agreement between us to speed up the equipping [of] and providing weapons to our military forces, I think that within three to six months our need for American troops will dramatically go down,” Maliki was quoted as saying by the newspapers.
”That is on condition that there are real, strong efforts to support our military forces [in] equipping and arming them,” he added.
The US has held back from supplying the Iraqi army with large quantities of weapons because some have ended up in the hands of militias and insurgents. A Maliki aide was quoted as saying that Iraqi forces particularly wanted ”heavy” weapons.
Maliki also fired back at Rice’s testimony to a congressional panel on January 11, saying that his government is ”in a sense, on borrowed time”.
”Certain officials are going through a crisis. Secretary Rice is expressing her own point of view if she thinks that the government is on borrowed time, whether it is borrowed time for the Iraqi government or the American administration,” the prime minister was quoted as saying.
”I don’t think we are on borrowed time.”
The prime minister added that he believed such messages from US government officials helped militants within Iraq.
”I wish that we could receive strong messages of support from the US so we don’t give some boost to the terrorists and make them feel that they might have achieved success.
”I believe that such statements give moral boosts to the terrorists and push them towards making an extra effort and making them believe that they have defeated the American administration, but I can tell you that they haven’t defeated the Iraqi government.”
Maliki’s government has had sometimes tense relations with the US, evidenced by his lukewarm endorsement for President George Bush’s new plan for Iraq, which includes sending more US troops.
The prime minister again defended the execution of former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, and two of his aides, though he acknowledged that Iraqi authorities had made ”mistakes”.
Saddam ”was not subjected to any act of revenge, any physical attack, and it was a judicial process that ended with him being sentenced to death according to Iraqi law”, Maliki said.
The prime minister also dismissed accusations that the Baghdad government was being lenient with Shi’ite militias, telling the reporters that 400 members of the Mahdi Army had been arrested in recent days.
Maliki promised to crack down on Shi’ite Muslim militias, including forces loyal to radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and Sunni Arab insurgents.
”We will not allow any politicians to interfere with this Baghdad security plan … whether they are Sunnis or Shi’ites, Arabs or Kurds, militias or parties, insurgents or terrorists,” Maliki was quoted as saying. — AFP
