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Iraqi Leader Plans Security Push
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Alaa Makki, a leading Sunni lawmaker, said that in principle, he wants American troops pulled out of Iraq, but not during this "urgent emergency situation."
Without an effective Iraqi military, "we'll be left with a serious security vacuum and will be lost. It will be filled with forces that are already operating here," he said. "This is a necessary action now, and that's because really the previous plan failed to achieve success."
During the last Baghdad security plan, the Iraqi government pledged more troops than it provided. The number of new troops now being discussed, in the low tens of thousands, will probably not be able to "fundamentally change" the violent neighborhoods in Baghdad, said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert.
"You can win every tactical clash, but we couldn't be there in enough numbers" to create stability and foster economic development, said Cordesman, an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "At some point, you've got to leave and go on to the next place."
A joint statement by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said that coalition troops "will provide appropriate assistance as determined by Iraqi and coalition field commanders, for the implementation of the new plan for securing Baghdad and its surrounding environs."
Violence flared Saturday after a relative lull last week during the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Nearly 100 corpses were collected Saturday across the country, in addition to the fighting on Haifa Street, the Associated Press reported.
In the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada, a car bomb attack targeted the convoy of the commander of the Baghdad emergency police force, Ali al-Yassiri, said Col. Hassan Abdullah, an Interior Ministry duty officer. The explosion missed the police commander but killed two civilians and wounded three others.
The fighting on Haifa Street was not the start of Baghdad's security plan, said Askari, the Defense Ministry spokesman.
"It's not part of the Baghdad security plan. They were terrorists who set up imaginary checkpoints," he said. "We were there, and we arrested them and the clashes took place."
Special correspondent Waleed Saffar contributed to this report.
