[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[AFP]

Rumsfeld warns Iran, Syria about helping militants, discusses Iraq security
Mon Feb 23, 8:45 PM ET
[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040224/ts_afp/iraq_us_rumsfeld_040224014514 [/url]

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Iran and Syria about militants crossing their borders into Iraq (news - web sites) after meeting with the chief US overseer and his military commanders on plans to shift security responsibilities to Iraqis in the face of intensified attacks.

His daylong visit coincided with the deaths of seven police in a car bombing at a police station in Kirkuk, the latest in a surge of such attacks as the United States moves to restore sovereignty to Iraqis June 30.


"Syria and Iran have not been helpful to the people of Iraq", he told journalists during a visit to Baghdad. "Indeed they have been unhelpful.


"We know Iran has harbored Al-Qaeda, we know they had people moving across the border. They were certainly aware of that."


"We know Syria has been a hospitable place for escaping Iraqis" following the US-led invasion of Iraq last year, he said, after a visit to the Iraqi police academy in Baghdad.


Rumsfeld has complained in the past of Syria and Iran failure to control their borders, but his comments here were his most pointed on the subject in a long time.


Recruits at the academy whistled and applauded Rumsfeld when he praised them for helping to build a new Iraq by volunteering to serve in the country's security forces despite the dangers.


To shouts of "Long live a new Iraq" by Iraq's deputy interior minister Ahmed Ibrahim, recruits shouted back: "Victorious, O Baghdad."


His day-long visit coincided with a suicide car bombing at a police station in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing seven policeman and wounding 35 people.


More than 100 members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed in suicide attacks and armed raids in the flashpoint town of Fallujah this month.


Rumsfeld nevertheless told US-funded Al-Iraqiya television in an interview that each time he visited Iraq his security conditions were better and that morale was "very high" among US troops and Iraqi security forces.


Rumsfeld and US military officials have said Al-Qaeda-influenced extremists have overtaken loyalists of the former regime as the primary threat facing US forces and their allies here.


"It's quite clear in the past three months we've seen a real step up on the part of the professional terrorists of Al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam, conducting suicide attacks," Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq, said.


Bremer told reporters traveling with Rumsfeld that attacks like the one in Kirkuk aimed at disrupting US plans to shift greater weight for security to Iraqi forces.


"It certainly is the same method of operation, the same MO, and it certainly suggests the terrorists are targeting these security forces because as the Zarqawi letter makes clear, that's one of his prime targets."


Bremer was referring to a captured letter attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian with ties to Al-Qaeda, that outlines a strategy for sparking civil war between Sunnis and Shias before sovereignty is returned to Iraqis June 30.


"He wants to stop the Iraqis from being responsible for their own security. That's one of our main objectives," Bremer said, referring to Zarqawi.





Rumsfeld met here with Bremer and his top commanders in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez and Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, to go over how the transition to sovereignty will affect the US military presence here.

He said he has decided to make Sanchez the senior military commander in the country with responsibility for managing political aspects of the transition as well as the overall military presence.

Metz, who will report to Sanchez, will be in charge of the military's day-to-day tactical operations, he said.

The US-led coalition have rapidly expanded the size of the Iraqi security forces ahead of the June 30 handover, and are moving to reduce the visibility of the US forces here.

Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, the commander of the 1st Armored Division, told Rumsfeld the size of the US force in Baghdad was shrinking from 36,000 to 24,000 by May 15. The number of coalition bases in the capital will go from 48 to eight, he said.

Replacing them will be 12,000 Iraqi police and seven battalions of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, Dempsey told Rumsfeld.

"The threat is moving away from former regime (elements) and into international influence, international terrorism," Dempsey said.

The Iraqis "are far more adept at identifying that than we are," he said. "This is all coming together in a pretty good way for us."

US military officials acknowleged that the Iraqis are still far from being fully trained or equipped for their missions, and will require US backing well beyond the June 30 transition.

"They will not be able to deal with the security threat that still exists after June 30," said Bremer

"The coalition that we have now will have transformed itself from being an occupation to being a partnership. We will be invited guests from the Iraqi government to help them assure their security," he said.