- Britain wants to hand over military control in Iraq as
soon as Baghdad's forces are ready to take control of security, Tony Blair
said yesterday.
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- Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the transitional prime minister,
called for a swift withdrawal of US troops - something America's senior
general in Iraq indicated could begin next spring.
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- Mr al-Jaafari urged a quickening of the pace of US training
of Iraqi forces, as well as closely co-ordinated planning between the US-led
military coalition and the emerging Iraqi government on a security transition.
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- Mr Blair said Mr al-Jaafari's comments were consistent
with the long-standing British and American policy that troops would stay
only as long as necessary to assist home-grown security forces.
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- At a press conference at No 10 following talks with Jose
Luis Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, Mr Blair said: "It is the
position of Britain, of America, of everybody, that as the Iraqi force
capability builds, so the necessity for our support there diminishes. That
is not a new announcement. That is the political strategy.
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- "It's important to keep emphasising that so people
in Iraq and the Arab world don't think it's our strategic objective to
remain. It is not."
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- Mr Blair insisted that Mr al-Jaafari's comments did not
signal any change in strategy. "The strategic objective is clear:
an Iraq sovereign and democratic with its own forces, in charge of its
own security. Our purpose is simply to remain for the time necessary for
that to happen, so these people can get the democratic country that they
want and we can resist those who want to destroy that democracy."
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- The comments followed a Ministry of Defence admission
that it did not foresee the huge post-war resistance.
-
- Responding to a critical report by MPs, the MoD acknowledged
that there had been a strategic vacuum. "The extent to which all of
Iraq's security apparatus would dissolve - particularly the police - was
not predicted before the invasion."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/
2005/07/28/nirq28.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/28/ixnewstop.html
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