- News>
- World
US hopes turning Iraq over to Iraqis will calm things down
New York, Nov 03: With attacks on American-led forces on the increase in Iraq, the US hopes to calm things down by rapidly turning over to Iraqis more responsibility for policing their country, a report said today.
New York, Nov 03: With attacks on American-led forces on the increase in Iraq, the US hopes to calm things down by rapidly turning over to Iraqis more responsibility for policing their country, a report said today.
State Department officials said this has always been the ultimate exit strategy. But Bush's team has long been divided over the exact approach, 'Time' magazine said today.
Despite a flood of speculation by officials in the US and Iraq, the magazine said no one really knows who is responsible for the increasing pace and skill of the resistance, which makes it doubly hard to devise an effective defence. Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, is becoming more active in Iraq, several administration officials told 'Time'. Others said the sophistication of four nearly simultaneous attacks indicated the work of foreign fighters, Islamic radicals from outside Iraq, perhaps representing al-Qaeda or the related terrorist group Ansar al-Islam.
A number of intelligence officials in the US and Iraq who have reviewed summaries of communications intercepts and agent reports told 'Time' that these theories - about foreign fighters, Izzat Ibrahim and Saddam Hussein directing attacks - are based on supposition more than evidence. As polls show American popular approval for the mission in Iraq beginning to sag and as political sniping in Washington intensifies, the bush administration, the magazine said, is struggling to cast dismaying events in a hopeful light.
Bureau Report
Despite a flood of speculation by officials in the US and Iraq, the magazine said no one really knows who is responsible for the increasing pace and skill of the resistance, which makes it doubly hard to devise an effective defence. Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, is becoming more active in Iraq, several administration officials told 'Time'. Others said the sophistication of four nearly simultaneous attacks indicated the work of foreign fighters, Islamic radicals from outside Iraq, perhaps representing al-Qaeda or the related terrorist group Ansar al-Islam.
A number of intelligence officials in the US and Iraq who have reviewed summaries of communications intercepts and agent reports told 'Time' that these theories - about foreign fighters, Izzat Ibrahim and Saddam Hussein directing attacks - are based on supposition more than evidence. As polls show American popular approval for the mission in Iraq beginning to sag and as political sniping in Washington intensifies, the bush administration, the magazine said, is struggling to cast dismaying events in a hopeful light.
Bureau Report