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Bush tells Americans their troops to stay in Iraq

Posted on: Wednesday, 29 June 2005, 12:21 CDT

By Omar Anwar

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - President Bush's appeal to Americans tostick with the war in Iraq despite mounting losses won a mixedreception in Baghdad, where Iraqis expressed both resentmentand gratitude on Wednesday.

In a half-hour address to troops, televised nationwideahead of the July 4 Independence Day holiday, Bush tied Iraq tohis global campaign against anti-American Islamist militants.

"Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we willfight them there, we will fight them across the world, and wewill stay in the fight until the fight is won," he said on thefirst anniversary of the formal return of sovereignty toIraqis.

There would be no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops, hesaid, although the 140,000-strong force would not be enlargedand would "stand down" as Iraqis were trained to "stand up."

Many Iraqis in the capital, weary after more than two yearsof bloodshed and economic dislocation, view U.S. troops with adegree of mistrust but also as a bulwark against sectarianviolence they fear might lurch toward civil war if they left.

Grateful, in the main, for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,many are dismayed by what they see as heavy-handed tactics anda failure by the U.S. occupiers to prevent Iraq becoming a newhaven for foreign Islamists in the chaos that followed Saddam.

"Why are the Americans drawing terrorism into Iraq?" askedAbdul Ridha al-Hafadhi, 58, head of a humanitarian aid group.

"Why don't they find another place to fight terrorism?" heasked. "I don't feel comforted by Bush's remarks; there must bea timetable for their departure."

NO TIMETABLE

Bush, who is confronting sliding opinion poll support athome for his handling of Iraq, said setting any kind oftimetable would encourage the insurgents.

But Jameel al-Hadithi, a 63-year-old bookshop owner, feltthis was an ominous sign: "Clearly they are planning to stay along time and terrorist attacks and resistance will increase."

"They didn't come to Iraq for the sake of the Iraqi people.Their aim was to deflect terrorism from their own country."

Surveyor Saad al-Rubaie, 33, said however: "Bush andAmerica decided to help the Iraqi people and that is in ourinterest."

"I don't think the Americans will leave soon. But we shouldhave a timetable to rebuild our country and security forces ...Now the war is against the Iraqi people not the Americans."

"Iraq is an open field where all America's enemies can comeand fight them," said 33-year-old Haider Ali. "But we honestlyfeel comfortable with the American presence because they are asuperpower and they will win in Iraq."

Though Bush's Democratic party opponents criticized whatthey called a lack of direction in his remarks, Bush insistedhis plan was clear and had both military and political aspects.

A key strategy is to draw Saddam's Sunni Arab minority,fearful and resentful of a loss of influence to the Shi'iteMuslim majority, into peaceful politics after many of themstayed away from a U.S.-backed election in January.

A Sunni former minister in the previous, U.S.-sponsoredinterim government, who has made much in recent weeks of whathe says are contacts with insurgent leaders, launched a newpolitical movement on Wednesday, which he said would involvefigures from the "legitimate Iraqi resistance."

U.S. officials appear keen to split apart the alliancebetween nationalists and violent Islamists; Iraqi officialshave said they will not prosecute people who have fought theAmericans. Killers of civilians would be treated differently.

"LEGITIMATE RESISTANCE"

"The birth of this political bloc is to silence theskeptics who say there is no legitimate Iraqi resistance andthat they cannot reveal their political face," formerelectricity minister Ayham al-Samarai told a news conference topresent his National Council for the Reconstruction andReunification of Iraq.

Among its goals, he said, were recognizing "the right ofthe Iraqi people to resist the occupation by all possible meansand to differentiate between terrorism and resistance."

He said he condemned the targeting of civilians.

Thousands of people turned out in Baghdad on Wednesday forthe funeral of Dhari Ali al-Fayadh, the oldest member of thenew parliament, who was killed by a suicide car bomber onTuesday along with five of his bodyguards.

Also buried was a journalist whose family said he was shotby U.S. soldiers who apparently took him for a suicide bomber.

The bulk of the insurgents, who have harried U.S. forceswith dozens of daily attacks costing more than 1,700 lives, areIraqi Sunnis. They have made common cause with small numbers ofguerrillas drawn from the wider Sunni Arab world, like alQaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who have come to wage holy war.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Waleed Ibrahimand Lutfi Abu Oun)

Source: REUTERS

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