BLAIR
BAGHDAD (Reuters):
THE NEW Iraqi prime minister said yesterday his forces could be in charge in most of Iraq by December and officials with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair said all foreign troops may be gone within four years.
Demonstrating support for Nuri al-Maliki by flying in two days after a national unity govern-ment of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds was sworn in, Blair would not be drawn on deadlines.
"What we want to see in Iraq is a sovereign and independent nation ... with Iraqis in control of every aspect, including their security," Blair told a news conference.
Maliki said two British-run provinces in the south could be handed to Iraqi security forces next month and a statement by the two governments issued afterwards said: "By the end of this year, responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security should have been transferred to Iraqi control."
The United States says it is too soon to discuss a timetable for pulling out its 133,000 troops, which suffer daily casualties three years after it invaded to oust Saddam Hussein.
Two bomb attacks killed nine people in Baghdad to underline a new warning from Maliki that Iraq faces civil war if his government fails to rein in 'militias' -- generally code for armed groups run by fellow Shi'ite Islamists in his cabinet.
Washington and London count on the tough-talking Maliki, who has pledged "maximum force against terrorists", to start tackling widespread guerrilla and sectarian violence.
They hope that the participation of the once politically dominant Sunni Arab minority in his government will help defuse an insurgency that erupted after the U.S.-led invasion.
"NEW BEGINNING"
The installation after months of sectarian argument of Iraq's first full-term government since 2003 has focused attention on plans for pulling out some 150,000 foreign troops, which include a 7,000-strong British military presence.
"It's been longer and harder than any of us would have wanted it to be, but this is a new beginning," said Blair, who has spent much political capital on the controversial war.
A senior British official accompanying him said London hoped all but some non-combatant foreign soldiers could be withdrawn by the time of the next Iraqi election in late 2009, provided the country moved in the right direction.
"The aim is to take Iraq to a position where the multinational force is able to withdraw during its (the government's) period in office," the official said.
It was the firmest statement yet from one of the two main allies in the invasion of Iraq on a date for pulling out troops.
Maliki said overall control of security in most of Iraq's 18 provinces could gradually pass into Iraqi hands by end-2006.
Only Baghdad and the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar in the west might remain under U.S. command, he suggested.
Security expert Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defence College said this plan appeared optimistic. "I don't think it is entirely realistic that (Iraqi security forces) will become so effective in such a short time," he said by phone.
DEATH SQUADS
Maliki, keen to show Iraqis that their new government can bring independence and security, acknowledged that 325,000 Iraqi troops and police due to be recruited by December would need further training.
In a sign of the intensity of sectarian disputes, he has yet to name interior and defence ministers to control his forces. He hopes to do so in the coming days. Sunni and foreign accusations that the Shi'ite-dominated police have been running murder and kidnap squads have poisoned communal relations.
Maliki warned that a failure to end the practice of major political parties controlling militia forces would be disastrous. "Weapons should be in the hands of the government ... Otherwise this will lead to the introduction of civil war."
Iraqis desperately want their new government to succeed in restoring some sense of normality in a country where suicide bombings and kidnappings have become part of daily life.
But some doubted its chances of halting the bloodshed.
"Does it matter who is in power? How can they protect us when they can be killed themselves?" said Mudhafar Naeem, a baggage handler at Baghdad airport who risks death by insurgents by working at a government-run facility.
A few hundred metres (yards) from where Blair and Maliki met in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, Saddam was again on trial for his life on charges of crimes against humanity.
The hearing began in uproar when guards manhandled a Lebanese defence attorney from the court. She threw off her black court robe, amid angry exchanges with the judge.
Among witnesses, one of Saddam's half-brothers, Sabbawi Ibrahim, spoke in defence of the former president and another half-brother, Barzan, who is in dock alongside him.
(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Mariam Karouny and Michael Georgy in Baghdad and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington)
2006-05-22 14:26:21 GMT (Reuters)
