Iraq president rejects Baker report
Talabani says giving handover of security control is the solution to Iraq’s problems.
“It contains very dangerous articles that undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and its constitution. I consider the report to be a type of insult to the Iraqi people.”
The report also urged more centralised control of Iraq‘s oil wealth and embedding thousands more US advisers in Iraq‘s security forces to speed up their training.
“It asks that they put foreign officers in every unit, which is a violation of Iraq‘s sovereignty … What will remain of our sovereignty?” Talabani said.
“The report has a mentality that we are a colony where they impose their conditions and neglect our independence.”
Jordan summit
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“It [the study group] has failed to condemn the Bush administration for their illegal aggression against Iraq.” khobar, Essex, UK |
George Bush, the US president, and Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, agreed at a summit in Jordan last month to speed up the training of the 300,000-strong Iraqi forces so they can assume security command from the US military.
Al-Maliki has complained that he cannot effectively stop the fighting in Iraq if he does not have control over his own forces, which are still under US command. He said after meeting Bush he expected Iraqi forces to assume control by next June.
Talabani said the solution to his country’s problems lay in giving Iraq control of its own security.
“The Iraqi people are able to rule the country … many people ask why there is no security, and that’s because our hands are tied. The prime minister cannot move 10 soldiers from one place to another [without US authorisation].”
Talabani also criticised the report for suggesting that representatives of the deposed Saddam Hussein government, who are believed to be playing a major role in the violence wracking the country, be included.
It is “against the long struggle of the Iraqi people against dictatorship”, he said.