Region | Iraq

Iraqis 'ready to keep security if US quits'

Amid US doubt that Iraq's military is making progress, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki on Saturday said Iraqi forces are capable and that US troops can leave "anytime they want".

  • Agencies
  • Published: 23:31 July 14, 2007
  • Gulf News

  • Image Credit: AP
  • Al Maliki during a press conference in Baghdad on Saturday.

Baghdad: Amid US doubt that Iraq's military is making progress, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki on Saturday said Iraqi forces are capable and that US troops can leave "anytime they want".

Al Maliki said his government needs "time and effort" to enact the political reforms that the United States seeks.

"We say in full confidence that we are able … to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if international forces withdraw at anytime they want," he said.

One of his top aides also accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in a US lab."

On Thursday, the US Senate passed a measure calling for the withdrawal of US troops by April, which came after a US report on the mixed progress of the Iraqi government.

Al Maliki shrugged off the progress report, saying that difficulty in enacting the reforms was "natural" given Iraq's turmoil.

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Meanwhile, Shiite lawmaker Hassan Al Suneid lashed at the US military for building a wall around Baghdad's Azamiyah neighbourhood and launching raids in Sadr City.

He also criticised US overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala, where troops have urged former rebels to join the fight against Al Qaida in Iraq. "These are gangs of killers," he said.

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