The Hindu : International : Too few troops in Iraq, Powell told Bush

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004

International

International

Too few troops in Iraq, Powell told Bush

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, DEC. 24. The embattled U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, visited Mosul today where an explosion at a military dining hall of a forward base killed 22 persons including 18 Americans.

Mr. Rumsfeld said he had come to thank the troops and wish them a "Merry Christmas." He also visited Tikrit — hometown of the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, and a military base near Falluja.

Mr. Rumsfeld has been accused of showing insufficient respect towards American military personnel after he admitted of using a machine to sign condolence letters to the families of soldiers killed during the war. Critics have also accused him of mishandling the war, chiefly by putting insufficient troops on the ground in Iraq, and overriding advise to the contrary by many senior military commanders.

The Washington Post has reported that the outgoing U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told the President, George W. Bush, and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, last month that there were too few troops in Iraq. American soldiers deployed in Kuwait also recently questioned him about the lack of armour plating on military vehicles, which they felt was endangering their lives.

Suicide bomber

The U.S. authorities have acknowledged that a suicide bomber — apparently a `him' — appeared to have caused the explosion on Tuesday during lunchtime at the Marez military base in Mosul. Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the attack was the deadliest to have targeted an American military facility since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

Carter Ham, the U.S. commander in Mosul, earlier said the bomber probably wore an Iraqi uniform of the kind increasingly common on the U.S. bases as Americans train local forces that they hope will allow them to go home.

Mr. Rumsfeld said militants, who had left Falluja — the city the U.S. troops stormed on November 8, have gathered in Mosul and added to the instability there. "I don't doubt for a moment that some of these folks in Falluja went up to Mosul."

Ansar al-Sunna, the group that claimed responsibility for the explosion, said the Americans were `stupid' for not realising earlier that a suicide bomber had carried out the attack.

"First they said it was a mortar or rockets, then they said it was a suicide operation with local materials. Are they really this stupid that they still don't know how they've been hit, or was it too painful to admit?" said the group in a statement posted on its Web site on Thursday.

Little success

The U.S. efforts to bring Fallujah residents back to their homes have met with little success. Only 921 people have trickled back to the devastated city of 300,000 on Thursday. Three Marines were also killed in the area, indicating that the U.S. troops continued to encounter resistance.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International