US must reform Iraqi forces before leaving-Hashemi
Source: Reuters
(Adds quotes, background, details) By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - A senior Iraqi official criticized the United States on Thursday for disbanding the Iraqi army in 2003 and said it should not withdraw without reforming Iraqi security forces heavily infiltrated by sectarian militias. Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said he and U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday discussed the idea of forming a political coalition better able to end sectarian violence than Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government. Highlighting the threat from sectarian death squads, gunmen in camouflage uniforms kidnapped about 30 Iraqis in a daylight attack in Baghdad on Thursday. Most were later released unharmed in the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Shaab neighborhood, an Interior Ministry source and police said. The violence in Iraq stems from many sources, including attacks by insurgents from the minority Sunni community, by militias from the majority Shi'ites and by criminals. Dozens of people are killed every day. Hashemi, a Sunni, visited Washington a week after the Iraq Study Group, a panel of former senior officials, recommended Bush withdraw most U.S. forces from combat in Iraq by early 2008 and focus instead on training Iraqi forces. Their report increased pressure on Bush to find a way out of a war that has killed more than 2,900 U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis. In a speech at a Washington think tank, Hashemi said any U.S. timetable for withdrawal "can can only be linked to serious efforts to reform the Iraqi military and security forces." If the U.S. withdrew without such an effort, he said, "The militia and militia-infiltrated government forces will escalate their massacre of innocent people. There will be a security vacuum. This will not lead to stability but further chaos." U.S. MISTAKE "The United States has (a) duty to reform the Iraqi government forces because it was the United States forces which mistakenly dissolved the previous Iraqi military and security forces -- so there was, more or less, an obligation -- and created this security void now being filled with ... sectarian militias, terrorists and organized crime gangs," he added. Hashemi was unsparing in his criticism of the U.S. decision to disband the Iraqi army and other security forces after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. "Imagine one day waking up and finding out that your nation's leaders had completely dismantled all police and military. As a result, there is (not) one policeman, or state, or federal law enforcement agent, or even one national guard or any soldier to protect you from criminal elements, or terrorists," he said. "It will be total chaos." "Then imagine that instead of calling back the army and security forces, the authorities in this imaginary scenario decided to form a new army and police from members of the KKK, some racist, (supremacist) militias, some mercenaries and organized crime gangs," he added, referring to the Ku Klux Klan, a loose federation of U.S. groups whose members have included white supremacists. "With the new government-issued budget and government-issued vehicles, these armed groups begin arresting, torturing, murdering innocent people either because of their faith, or creed, or purely for profit," he added. "This is is exactly what has happened in Iraq." Hashemi said he and Bush discussed the idea of a "Plan B" -- a new political coalition including the powerful Shi'ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the Islamic party, which is the biggest Sunni bloc in parliament, and two Kurdish parties -- to try to reduce the violence. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the idea emerged from Iraqis and was for them to decide.
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