Washington, Nov 12: America is not alone and nearly 40 countries are already involved in Iraq and "more and more allied forces are coming in to help us," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has said. The US-led coalition is facing remnants of the old Iraqi regime and foreign terrorists who are coming into the country because they know the importance of Iraq to their mission of destabilizing the US and its allies, she said yesterday.
"We are using intelligence increasingly given to us by the Iraqi people to capture and detain and, in some cases, kill these bad guys who want very much to stop the progress that is being made in Iraq," she said.
These, said Rice, are the same people who tortured and murdered and maimed Iraqi citizens for the almost 30 years of the Saddam Hussein regime.
"So we have a good strategy for dealing with them. That strategy depends heavily on increasing the number of Iraqis involved in their own security," Rice said.
asked whether the casualty rate will dictate American policy, she said US President Bush is committed to "getting this job done in Iraq".
Rice said, "Nothing of value has ever been won without sacrifice. And American security is at stake here. We learned on September 11 that we can't just sit back and expect our oceans to protect us. And so this is a war, this is an effort that will make America more secure." Bureau Report