News Analysis: US, Iraqis Seek Different Approach to Restore Security

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, September 06, 2003

News Analysis: US, Iraqis Seek Different Approach to Restore Security

For the 25 million Iraqis, the most urgent need is to restore security to the war-ravaged country. But how?

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For the 25 million Iraqis, the most urgent need is to restore security to the war-ravaged country. But how?

The US administration, overburdened by the endless chaos and the huge budget to run the estimated 14,000-strong troops in post-war Iraq, has turned to the international community to share the responsibility, whereas most Iraqis favor "Iraqization" of the issue instead.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew in Baghdad Thursday ona previously unannounced visit to discuss with his top military brass a new security plan which is aimed at cutting US losses by enlisting multinational peacekeepers to Iraq without abandoning US overall control.

However, such a plan encountered strong opposition from France and Germany in the UN Security Council.

The dramatic fall of former Saddam Hussein regime in April has created a big security vacuum which the coalition forces have failed to fill so far.

Rampant lootings, shootings and sabotage coupled with escalatingattacks by unidentified gunmen on the coalition forces and world-shaking car bombings on Jordanian embassy, the UN headquarters and Ali mosque in Najaf last month have drawn the war-torn country to hell.

The coalition troops have been under almost daily attacks and hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed in these attacks sinceMay 1, when US President George W. Bush declared the major combat was over.

To improve the security situation, the coalition forces stepped up their patrols in densely populated cities such as in Baghdad, made surprise searches for unlicensed weapons, beefed up security at checkpoints and worked harder to hunt Saddam and his loyalists.

Though measures were taken, crimes have surged to a record high.Baghdad morgue handled 47 times of people killed by violence in summer compared with the same period last year.

The Iraqi people, including members of the US hand-picked Interim Governing Council (IGC), blamed the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for the status quo.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the IGC rotating president in August, said in a statement last week that the coalition forces can not restore security and the problem can only be solved by the Iraqis themselves.

Al-Jaafari, who visited five Arab countries to solicit recognition of the IGC, has asked the CPA to entrust security to the council. He pledged to double the number of recruited Iraqi policemen to 65,000 within the next few months.

Iraq's newly appointed Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday his government would not welcome peacekeeping forces from neighboring countries such as Turkey, brushing aside the negotiations between Washington and Ankara on this.

But the overall authority in Iraq remains with top US administrator Paul Bremer, who has declined to cede his power on security to the IGC after consultations with Washington.

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