Washington, June 27: The war in Iraq was far from being over and the US forces would have to stay for a longer period, a senior US Senator who recently visited the country has said. "It is still a situation of war in Iraq... We have not won the war; we are in it," chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Republican Senator Richard Lugar, told reporters.
Lugar said President George W Bush has to start making concrete plans for keeping troops in Iraq for at least five years and insisted that the statement on troops not staying longer than needed was "rubbish". He said the regular armed forces may have to be expanded to maintain law and order in Iraq and not leave it to reservists who would be there temporarily and rotate.
"A war is still going on. It is predictable that sabotage is going on. There are people in Iraq who do not like the thought that Saddam Hussein is gone, and they are willing to continue to fight about it--us, or anybody else who may be in harm's way," he said. "The fact is that the so-called decapitation theory, the thought that somehow or other the United States would take out of commission police officers, Army officers, people who were in the ministries, who were identified with Saddam Hussein and the regime, and the rest of the forces would continue on to do their duty was a disastrous assumption," he said.
Lugar said he also met Afghanistan's President Karzai in Oman during his recent visit to the region. Bureau Report