Maliki government is on 'borrowed time,' Rice says

WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested today that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was running out of time to restore security in Iraq but repeated her confidence in him.

''I have met Prime Minister Maliki. ... I saw his resolve. ''I think he knows that his government is, in a sense, on borrowed time, not just in terms of the American people but in terms of the Iraqi people,'' Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a hearing where she testified about President George W Bush's plan to send 21,500 more US troops to Iraq.

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