Baghdad - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, speaking to
reporters in Baghdad after meeting US Speaker of the House of
Representatives Nancy Pelosi on Sunday, said Iraq no longer needed
significant US help to keep the country secure.
'The atmosphere in Iraq today is one of democracy and freedom,'
al-Maliki said. 'The security situation has improved. We no longer
need a large number of military forces in the cities we are able to
control.'
'Our efforts are now focused on improving our intelligence
capabilities. The official withdrawal of US troops will not affect
the security situation in Iraq,' al-Maliki said.
Under the terms of a US-Iraqi agreement governing the presence of
US forces in Iraq, US soldiers are scheduled to withdraw from Iraqi
cities and towns by the end of June, and to withdraw from the country
completely by 2011.
Pelosi's visit on Sunday came at the tail of the bloodiest month
in Iraq this year. At least 300 people, most of the Shiite Muslims
from Baghdad, were killed in a series of bomb attacks over the course
of April.
On Sunday morning, police General Jaafar Taama al-Khafaji narrowly
escaped an assassination attempt when a car bomb in central Baghdad's
al-Andalus Square exploded as his convoy passed by, police said.
The general, who is in charge of the Interior Ministry's traffic
department, was wounded in the attack, which police called an
assassination attempt, but was expected to survive.
The attempted assassination followed Saturday's fatal shooting of
police General Hakim Jassim in the Zubair district of the southern
Iraqi city of Basra and the fatal shooting of an off-duty police
officer in a central market in the northern city of Mosul.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in March said the Iraqi
government might ask US soldiers to stay in the most violence-prone
areas of the country past the June deadline, but in more recent
comments has said he expects US forces to withdraw on schedule.
'There is no doubt that there are parties that want to disrupt the
political process and support terrorism,' al-Maliki said Sunday. 'We
are working to strengthen our intelligence services and to develop
our security services to shore-up the successes of the national
reconciliation process and the national unity government.'
In recent months, senior officials in al-Maliki's government have
reached out to former members of the Baath Party, now banned under
Iraq's constitution, in an effort to bring them back into the
political process.
Pelosi, who earlier met with Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Iyad
al-Samarrai to discuss means of strengthening cooperation between the
US Congress and the Iraqi parliament, said she looked forward to a
more mature relationship between the United States and Iraq following
the withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi cities in June.
She pledged renewed US support 'for the Iraqi government in all
its efforts to maintain the security, stability and development of
the economy.'
USA
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