Iraqis To Launch New Battle For Baghdad
Iraq's prime minister said Saturday that Iraqi forces will lead a new effort — with U.S. help — to wrest control of Baghdad's neighborhoods from militias and other sectarian killers.
"The Baghdad security plan is now ready, and we will depend on our armed forces to implement it with multinational forces behind them. Field leaders will ask for help from these forces if needed," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in a speech at the 85th anniversary celebration of the Iraqi army.
Iraqi forces will begin a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assault on militants in the capital this weekend, as a first step in the new White House strategy to contain Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads, key advisers to the prime minister said.
"The Baghdad security plan will not offer a safe shelter for outlaws regardless of their ethnic and political affiliations, and we will punish anyone who hesitates to implement orders because of his ethnic and political background," al-Maliki said Saturday.
The new security push came as the bodies of 80 people — many showing signs of torture — were discovered in Iraq on Saturday, police and morgue officials reported.
Some 71 of those turned up in Baghdad, including 27 bodies discovered not far north of the heavily fortified Green Zone, police said.
A police official (speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information) said the 27 bodies were discovered in the area surrounding Sheik Marouf Square, about 2 miles north of the Green Zone, home to the U.S. and British embassies, the Iraqi government and hundreds of American forces.
Police called for the Iraqi army to help remove the bodies from the dangerous Haifa Street location because the area was too dangerous for the mostly lightly armed police force.
The district is heavily populated by Sunni Muslims and housed many government and military officials during the time of Saddam Hussein. Sunni insurgents continue to hold the area that is just west of the Tigris River in the central part of the capital.
A morgue official in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, said his facility received three bodies Saturday. And in Mosul, police said they found six bullet-riddled bodies across the city. Mosul lies about 225 miles northwest of the Iraqi capital.
In other developments:
The first details of the new plan — a fresh bid to pacify the capital — emerged Friday, a day after President Bush and al-Maliki spoke for nearly two hours by video conference. Bush was also expected to detail his vision of a new strategy in the coming days.
It was unknown whether the new effort had begun by Saturday afternoon. There was no evidence of elevated American or Iraqi troop levels on Baghdad's streets, and there were only routine levels of violence.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said this past week that any new effort to stabilize Baghdad would likely involve traditional, large-scale U.S. operations as well as nighttime raids by smaller, more mobile forces.
"We're going to go after anyone who operates outside the law," Caldwell said.
On Saturday, al-Maliki asked residents of the Iraqi capital for patience during the new security operation.
"We are fully aware that implementing the plan will lead to some harassment to all of beloved Baghdad's residents, but we are confident that they fully understand the brutal terrorist attacks Iraq faces," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki also defended his government's execution of Saddam Hussein, amid speculations that the former leader's execution chamber was infiltrated by militiamen who taunted Saddam in his final moments of life.
"The execution of the tyrant was not a political decision, as the enemies of the Iraqi people say. The verdict was implemented after a fair and transparent trial, which the dictator never deserved," al-Maliki said.
He also accused other governments, without naming them, of meddling in Iraqi affairs with their criticism of Saddam's hanging.
"We consider the execution of the dictator an internal issue, and we reject and condemn all acts of some governments," al-Maliki said. "The Iraqi government could be forced to reconsider its relations with any government that doesn't respect the will of the Iraqi people."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has condemned the conduct of Saddam's execution and its timing at the start of a Muslim religious festival, saying in an interview published Friday that the hanging made the deposed leader "a martyr."
"It was disgraceful and very painful," Mubarak told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot in an interview Thursday.
Al-Maliki's aides said Friday that disagreement remained between Bush and Iraqi officials on key issues.
The Iraqi leader is uneasy about the possible introduction of more U.S. troops, they said, and he has repeatedly refused U.S. demands to crush the militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, one of the prime minister's most powerful backers.
Any serious drive to curb the extreme chaos and violence in the capital would put not only American forces but al-Maliki's Iraqi army in direct confrontation with al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Sami al-Askari, an al-Maliki political adviser, told The Associated Press on Friday that the prime minister continues to press for a rapid U.S. withdrawal from the capital to bases "on the outskirts of Baghdad."
Al-Askari and Hassan al-Suneid, another top al-Maliki aide and lawmaker from his Dawa Party, said the fresh security push would be open-ended once initiated this weekend.