Iraqis question if more troops will make difference

BAGHDAD, Jan 11 (Reuters) Iraqis weary of death squads and bombs nearly four years after U S forces swept into Baghdad questioned today what difference 21,500 more U S troops would make now under President George W Bush's new plan.

''The government has promised us a lot but nothing has changed,'' Ali Abdul Razzak, a Baghdad resident in his 20s said as he waited to catch a bus in the morning rush hour.

''The Americans will just come and sit in one place and do nothing,'' he said.

Admitting ''mistakes'' in a war that has cost over 3,000 U S soldiers' lives and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, Bush said he was adding 17,500 troops in Baghdad and 4,000 in the restive Anbar province to quell spiralling sectarian violence.

Some among the Sunni Arab minority who mistrust the Shi'ite -led government appeared reassured by the U S presence. U S commanders have made it clear they want Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to crack down on Shi'ite militias, blamed for targeting Sunnis in Baghdad and elsewhere.

''If they withdraw it will not be good for Iraq,'' said Abu Ahmed, a 60-year-old Baghdad man stuck in traffic.

''I will welcome the new strategy if it brings security.'' Bush's decision to boost the total U S troop level in Iraq to around 150,000 drew criticism from political supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Maliki ally whose Mehdi Army militias have been identified by the Pentagon as the greatest threat to security in Iraq.

''Sending more troops to Iraq is a wrong decision and it is against the will of Iraqis and the American people,'' said Nassar al-Rubaie, spokesman for Sadr's parliamentary group.

''We consider it a dictator's decision to use force towards the Iraqi people and a non-democratic decision towards the American people because it is against the American majority represented by the Democratic Party, which condemned and disagreed with sending troops to Iraq.'' On the other side of the sectarian divide, an official of Iraq's leading Sunni religious gathering, the Muslim Cleric's Association, said in typically critical remarks of the U S presence that more troops would not solve things as long as Sunnis are disenfranchised from the political process.

''The American president is ignoring the dangerous political reality in Iraq,'' Mohammad Bashar al-Fhaidi said.

''Those who are on the ruling side today have taken the path of exclusion, of marginalisation and pursuit of others. There are no links between the Sunnis and those participating in the political process,'' he told Al Arabiya television.

''Bush is a prisoner of his own dreams.'' REUTERS SP BS1406