|
New iraq prime minister wants US troops to stay Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5382914http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5382914
Iraq's Allawi Says U.S.-Led Troops Still Needed
Wed Jun 9, 2004 09:55 AM ET
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will need foreign troops to fight insurgents even after a U.S.-led occupation formally ends on June 30 in line with a U.N. resolution adopted unanimously overnight, Iraq's interim prime minister said.
"The sovereignty is going to be total," Iyad Allawi told Fox News in an interview to be aired Wednesday.
"We ask in fact and we want the...multinational forces to help us to face the security threats until such a time that we are able to build our own security and move ahead."
Underlining the challenge, guerrillas killed 12 members of an Iraqi security force entrusted with pacifying Falluja and saboteurs blew up a northern oil pipeline.
On a brighter note, three Italian security guards rescued by U.S.-led special forces returned to Italy amid emotional scenes after nearly two months in captivity. A fourth hostage was shot dead on April 14 after Italy rejected demands that its troops leave Iraq.
The United States and Britain, whose invasion ousted Saddam Hussein 14 months ago, hailed passage of the U.N. resolution that endorses a "sovereign interim government" in Iraq and mandates a U.S.-led multinational force to keep the peace.
Compromises offered by Washington and London, at French and German insistence, over how much control Iraqis will have over foreign forces helped overcome council divisions, but few expect the resolution to calm daily violence in Iraq soon.
KURDISH FURY
Iraqi Kurds, angered by the omission of any reference to an interim constitution that guarantees their autonomy, said they might quit Allawi's newly formed government in protest.
"If the leadership calls on us to withdraw from the government, we will do so," Public Works Minister Nasreen Berwari told Reuters.
Top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said this week he would oppose any U.N. resolution endorsing the interim constitution passed by Iraq's now-dissolved Governing Council.
The U.N. measure provoked little reaction among ordinary Iraqis consumed by security fears and economic hardship.
"Is the resolution going to give us electricity or water? I doubt it," said Eman Abdullah, a 30-year-old policewoman.
In the Falluja attack, rebels fired mortars at forces who had taken over security in the town at the behest of U.S. forces after a bloody counter-insurgency campaign there.
Iraqi officers said 12 of their men had been killed and 10 wounded in the attack on a camp of the Falluja Brigade led by General Mohammed Latif, who was not present at the time.
It was believed to be the first assault on the brigade since the unorthodox unit took charge in Falluja last month.
Clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents killed 11 Iraqis, including women and children, near Falluja Tuesday.
The Polish military said an explosion that killed six eastern European soldiers Tuesday was caused by a mortar attack, not an accident as previously believed. The blast killed three Slovaks, two Poles and a Latvian who were disposing of ammunition from the Iraqi army.
Wednesday's oil pipeline attack disrupted supplies of crude from the Kirkuk fields to Iraq's biggest refinery at Baiji.
Oil ministry spokesman Assim Jihad said the pipeline was not linked to a vital export line to Turkey, already out of action due to sabotage, and could be repaired within five days.
An Iraqi energy official said earlier that saboteurs had also attacked a gas pipeline feeding the Baiji plant overnight.
In another blow to Iraq's energy sector, a fire at a power station near Baiji forced it to shut down. The cause of the blaze was not clear. Ibrahim Shakur, head of the power network in the north, said the plant, which produces about 10 percent of Iraq's electricity, could be operating again by evening.
U.S.-BRITISH RELIEF
President Bush, hosting a summit of the G-8 industrial nations on Sea Island, Georgia, said the Security Council vote was "a great victory for the Iraqi people."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who opposed the war, said the measure would need time to change reality on the ground.
The resolution endorses a timetable leading to elections for a transitional government by January and fresh polls within a further 12 months, after a constitution is written.
It gives the interim government the right to tell U.S.-led troops to leave and says their mandate expires in January 2006.
The measure provides for security coordination between the Iraqi government and U.S.-led forces, but hands the Iraqis no explicit veto over operations foreign troops might conduct.
It does not mention U.S. military prisons, where some 8,000 Iraqis are jailed. But a letter from Secretary of State Colin Powell, attached to the resolution, said internment would continue when "imperative reasons of security" required.
|
|
