Bush, Maliki seek Baghdad security improvements

Washington, Jul 22: President George W Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will seek agreement next week on improving security in Baghdad and one option is to bring more US and Iraqi forces into the capital, a senior US official said.

Maliki visits Washington to meet Bush on Tuesday as Baghdad is convulsed by mounting violence between Shi'ites and Sunnis that has raised fears of all-out civil war in Iraq.

The top American commander for the West Asia said yesterday that escalating sectarian violence in Baghdad had become an even greater worry than the insurgency and that plans were in fact being drawn up to move additional forces to the Iraqi capital, according to a report in today's New York Times.

''The situation with sectarian violence in Baghdad is very serious,'' Gen. John Abizaid of the Army, the head of the United States Central Command, told the Times in an interview yesterday.

''The country can deal with the insurgency better than it can with the sectarian violence, and it needs to move decisively against the sectarian violence now.''? Abizaid added that ''There is a very serious effort to make sure that it is not just weighted with additional US capability, but also additional Iraqi capability.'' ''Clearly, it will require that we move whatever combat power that the commanders on the ground there think is appropriate, whether Iraqi or American. And I think it will be a combination of both,'' he told the Times.

The shifting of forces to the Baghdad area is expected to come at the expense of troop levels in other parts of the country, the Times said, but it was not clear whether the increased violence would prompt US commanders to modify plans for future troop reductions.

UNDER PRESSURE

Maliki and Bush's talks are likely to encompass the volatile region beyond Iraq as well.

Bush is under pressure to show progress in Iraq, clearing the way for a reduction in US troops by the end of the year, as his Republicans face elections in November with their control of the US Congress at stake.

US officials expect Maliki to raise with Bush his concern about Israel's attacks against Hizbollah in Lebanon and that Bush will explain why he wants to address the root causes of the conflict, such as Hizbollah's attacks on Israel and Syrian and Iranian support for the guerrilla group.

Maliki, who will address a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, has denounced Israel and warned of the dangers of escalating tension in the region.

The senior Bush administration official said Maliki's outspokenness was evidence that ''we're dealing with a sovereign government here, not one that takes an American position on everything.'' Five weeks after Bush visited Baghdad to bless the new Maliki government and rekindle hopes of better days ahead, hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in suicide bombings and attacks.

The senior official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, would not talk about what security agreements might be made between Bush and Maliki, but suggested there could be ways to bolster Iraqi forces whose month-old plan to limit violence in Baghdad has been overwhelmed.

''The situation in Baghdad is one that if there starts to be improvement in that city, that will have positive reverberations throughout the country. So that is one of the reasons why Baghdad is so heavily on the minds, both of the prime minister and the president,'' the official said.

US officials are insisting Iraq is not on the brink of civil war, saying Maliki is pushing ahead with reconciliation efforts between Sunnis and Shi'ites and that most Iraqis do not want their country divided along sectarian lines.

REUTERS