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More U.S. troops for Baghdad

Julian Borger

The plan will focus on the growing sectarian conflict

Washington: U.S. President George W. Bush has agreed to send more U.S. troops into Baghdad to help the Iraqi Government of Nuri al-Maliki curb the escalating violence now claiming an estimated 100 lives a day.

The U.S. troops will be redeployed from other areas of Iraq where Mr. Bush said progress was being made, and will be sent into the capital alongside Iraqi Government reinforcements, who will be given more and better equipment.

The announcement was made at a joint White House press conference on Tuesday attended by Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki, who was making his first visit to Washington since becoming Iraqi Prime Minister two months ago.

Mr. Bush said the problems of Baghdad needed to be attended to. ``Obviously the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and therefore there needs to be more troops,'' he said.

The increased U.S. involvement in Baghdad was an acknowledgement that an earlier plan to gain control of the city, announced by Mr. Maliki in mid-June and using mostly Iraqi troops, had failed to contain worsening sectarian bloodshed between Shia and Sunni militias.

The new Baghdad plan was negotiated by Mr. Maliki and Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, but only formally announced on Tuesday. Mr. Maliki said the new plan would focus on the growing sectarian conflict.

``The most important element in the security plan is to curb the religious violence. That's one of the main objectives,'' Mr. Maliki said. ``And, God willing, there will be no civil war in Iraq.''

Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute think-tank, said to prevent a full-blown civil war breaking out, the new Baghdad security plan would have to be more effective than the last.

First effort

``The first effort has failed and failed miserably because of a lack of adequate resources and troops and U.S. forces,'' Mr. Goure said. ``This is no longer about insurgents, but about militias. We are in an incipient civil war.''

U.S. and Iraqi officials have recognised in recent weeks that the violence between Shia and Sunni groups is now worse than the militancy against U.S. forces, and some Sunni leaders previously determined to drive out coalition troops, have begun calling on them to stay behind to protect them from Shia militants. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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