Topic: US to deploy military-civilian reconstruction teams in Iraq

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The United States will deploy
military-civilian reconstruction teams in Iraq to help defeat the
insurgency and rebuild the country, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said at a hearing on Wednesday.
"These will be civil-military teams, working in concert with each of the
major subordinate commands, training police, setting up courts and helping
local governments with essential services like sewage treatment or
irrigation," Rice said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The first of the "provincial reconstruction teams" will be dispatched to
Iraq next month, Rice said, adding that these teams will be part of
Washington's "clear, hold, and build" strategy.
These teams will "clear areas from insurgent control, hold them securely
and build durable, national Iraqi institutions," she said.
More than two years after the end of the Iraq war, the United States has
been facing a persistent insurgency that has left nearly 2,000 US soldiers
killed and over 10,000 injured in Iraq.