New security plan as 37 killed across Iraq
Iraqi leaders discussed the latest in a long line of new security plans for Baghdad as bombs and shootings killed 37 people across the country in the run-up to national unity talks.
Multiple car bombs in Shiite districts and a truck bomb in the north targeting Iraqi soldiers guarding oil pipelines claimed 20 lives alone during another violence-torn day.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a visiting delegation of US congressmen led by Arizona Senator John McCain that his government had a new security plan to protect the capital and the rest of the country.
The government requires "more arms for the Iraqi army, more powers and training in order to be capable of handling security missions all over the country," he told the delegation, his office said.
Maliki's National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie told journalists the new plan involved a swifter transition from US troops to Iraqi forces.
US forces would move to the outskirts of the cities to combat Al-Qaeda insurgents, while the Iraqis would handle the raging sectarian conflict tearing Baghdad apart.
"The coalition forces should not get involved in sectarian violence -- this is a job for the Iraqi security forces to do," he told CNN.
On the surface, a rapid transition from US to Iraqi forces would appear to be a rare instance of total agreement in the often tortured relations between the two governments.
With latest polls indicating that only 15 percent of Americans believe the war can be won, President George W. Bush is under to pressure to change the course of the United States' three-and-a-half year old adventure in Iraq.
On Tuesday, the White House said Bush would unveil a new Iraq strategy in January, but Rubaie's announcement indicates the change may already be under way.
However, many people in Iraq fear the result of a overly swift transition to Iraqi forces, especially since many are believed to have already taken sides in the sectarian conflict raging across the capital.
US spokesman Major General William Caldwell said American forces would remain as advisors with Iraqi forces to train them and, more importantly, ensure they remain neutral.
"Their real purpose is to provide leadership, mentoring and coaching, but they in fact will be able to observe what we call professionalism to make sure (the Iraqis) are not acting in a sectarian manner out there," he said.
As part of the transition, more and more US combat forces would be turned into transition teams accompanying Iraqi forces, he said, citing recent successes in northern Iraq.
Ultimately, however, Caldwell insisted that more effort was needed by Iraqi political leaders to stem the violence.
"Until that political process gets more engaged and the political leadership and the political parties become more concerned about this than anyone else, we are not going to see a turn in the levels of violence," he said.
His comments exhibit a degree of frustration common among US commanders over the political squabbling between Iraq's numerous factions which are divided on ethnic and sectarian lines.
On Saturday, Maliki has promised to hold a national reconciliation conference, but which factions will attend and whether they have ties with the armed groups involved in the violence is not yet known.
Sectarian-motivated violence in Baghdad continued Wednesday as a car bomb exploded in a busy market near the Shiite Al-Kamaliyah mosque in east Baghdad, killing at least 10 civilians and wounding another 26, a security official said.
Two more car bombs later near the nearby Sunni Al-Samuri mosque killed five day labourers and wounded 10.
The bombings mirrored an attack Tuesday, when two suicide bombers blew their cars up amid another crowd of casual workers, mostly Shiites, killing 70 and wounding more than 200 in Baghdad's Tayaran Square.
In another attack Wednesday, two truck bombs smashed into a base of Iraq's oil infrastructure protection force, killing 10 soldiers and wounding six, an officer on the scene said, adding that three civilians were also wounded.
A policemen was killed by a bomb attack elsewhere in the province, while mortars hit a house in the nearby town of Hawija, killing a mother and two of her children.
Police also reported Wednesday that insurgents blew up a revered Shiite shrine Tuesday night near the Kurdish town of Khanaqin in Diyala province on the Iranian border.
Eight people were killed in rebel attacks across the country, including five in Diyala's capital of Baquba.
AFP
