Washington - US President George W Bush and Iraqi Vice
President Adil Abdul Mahdi met at the White House on Thursday to
discuss the effort to secure Baghdad and reconcile differences
between the country's religious communities.
Bush said the addition of 21,500 US troops to Iraq, mostly in
Baghdad, aims to give the Iraqi government time to 'do the hard work
of reconciliation.'
'It's hard work to overcome distrust that has built up over the
years because your country was ruled by a tyrant that created
distrust amongst people,' Bush said, referring to decades of rule by
Saddam Hussein, who was executed in December.
Mahdi said the bolstering of US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad has
been making progress in quelling the violence that has ravaged the
capital city, but emphasized the importance of resolving disputes
like the sharing of oil revenues between Iraq's Sunni, Shiite and
Kurdish populations.
'We are not finished, but we are doing better than expected in
this plan,' Mahdi said. 'This will not solve the whole problem. The
reconciliation process will take our political agenda forward.'
The meeting came as the US Senate continues a debate on a
resolution calling on Bush to begin withdrawals of American soldiers
within four months. The Democratic-controlled Congress strongly
opposes the expansion of the US military presence in Iraq.
The Senate opened debate on Wednesday, and Democratic senators
offered harsh criticism of Bush's policy in Iraq.
'Now it is time for the Congress to explain to the Iraqi people:
'It is your country. We cannot save you from yourselves',' said Carl
Levin, the Democratic senator who chairs the Senate Armed Service
Committee.
On Wednesday, the quarterly Pentagon report to Congress
said violence in Iraq during the last three months of 2006 reached
its worst level in more than three years as attacks on US-led
coalition forces and Iraqi civilians rose.
Most of the violence was centred in Baghdad and the three
surrounding provinces Anbar, Salah ad Din and Diyala. There were a
record 45 daily attacks in Baghdad during that time period, the
report said.
The report said the conflict in Iraq has shifted to a sectarian
fight between Shiites and Sunnis but that violence has also caused a
rise in support for terrorist militias like al-Qaeda in Iraq.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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