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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, September 19, 2003

US speeding up plan for creating new Iraqi army

The United States is speeding up the timetable for creating a new Iraqi army with plans for 40,000 in the field by next year, The New York Times reported Thursday.


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The United States is speeding up the timetable for creating a new Iraqi army with plans for 40,000 in the field by next year, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Walter B. Slocombe, a senior official in charge of rebuilding Iraqi security institutions, was quoted as saying on Wednesday that the new goal is 27 battalions organized in three divisions within 12 months, twice as fast as in initial plans.

The projected total of 40,000 is less than one-10th of the former Iraqi armed forces.

The speeding up of plans to deploy an Iraqi army that might relieve some of the pressure on American forces comes against a backdrop of mounting difficulties in Iraq for the Bush administration. Attempts to raise billions of dollars for reconstruction, to secure more foreign troops to deploy there and to stamp out resistance to the American-led occupation have met with mixed results.

The Untied States is pushing hard to raise as much as 10 billion US dollars for Iraq at a donors' conference in Madrid next month. But the European Union has offered only 250 million dollars, and the United States may get no more than 1 billion dollars at the conference, European and US officials said.

The officials said that nations felt spurned in the lead-up to the war now appear wary of providing assistance, partly because bitterness lingers and partly because they seek greater control over political and business decisions in Iraq than the Bush administration seems ready to concede.

In addition, the countries being asked for money say they do not know where the funds would go and are demanding more details, they said.

The more rapid deployment of an Iraqi army will not only spare American forces arduous tasks like the patrolling of Baghdad or the conducting of raids to fend off attacks, but also help give Iraqis a sense that they are retaking control of their country and so ease resentment, the report quoted Amrican officials as saying.


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