Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
USA Today
March 21, 2008
Pg. 6
By Associated Press
BAGHDAD — Iraq's prime minister pledged Thursday that the country would play an active role on the world stage in an upbeat speech delivered as this troubled nation entered a sixth year of war.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke five years after U.S. forces fired a first salvo of missiles at Baghdad on March 19, 2003, triggering a conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein but has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.
In a nationally televised address, al-Maliki promised to strengthen Iraq's role in world affairs, assuring the Iraqi people that their nation "cannot be anything but strong, unified and active."
"As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena," al-Maliki said.
His optimistic remarks were the latest in a series of statements aimed at rallying national morale and projecting the image of Iraq as a country on the road to recovery after five years of bombs, bullets and sectarian slaughter.
On Wednesday, al-Maliki, a Shiite, attended religious celebrations in Azamiyah, a Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad that until recently was a bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups.
He delivered his remarks Thursday at a cultural festival in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad near the ruins of fabled Babylon, one of the great cities of the ancient world.
Al-Maliki said the cultural festival was a sign that normal life was returning to Iraq. He cut short his remarks a few moments later when the electricity failed.
U.S. officials have also touted the sharp decline in violence over the past year as a sign that the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq is showing signs of success, despite widespread opposition to the conflict within the American public.
According to the U.S. military, attacks have fallen by about 60% since early last year, when President Bush rushed about 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to curb a wave of sectarian massacres that plunged the nation to the brink of full-scale civil war.
U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iraq remains far from secure and that the security gains are fragile because of political disputes among rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities.
"The situation is very unstable," said Jassim Mohammed, 40, a Sunni employee of the Iraqi National Library in Baghdad. "I simply do not see any light at the end of this dark tunnel."
In violence on Thursday, three policemen were killed in a roadside bombing and a shooting in Mosul, which the U.S. military describes as al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq. Another police officer was reported killed in the southern city of Kut.
March 21, 2008
Pg. 6
By Associated Press
BAGHDAD — Iraq's prime minister pledged Thursday that the country would play an active role on the world stage in an upbeat speech delivered as this troubled nation entered a sixth year of war.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke five years after U.S. forces fired a first salvo of missiles at Baghdad on March 19, 2003, triggering a conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein but has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.
In a nationally televised address, al-Maliki promised to strengthen Iraq's role in world affairs, assuring the Iraqi people that their nation "cannot be anything but strong, unified and active."
"As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena," al-Maliki said.
His optimistic remarks were the latest in a series of statements aimed at rallying national morale and projecting the image of Iraq as a country on the road to recovery after five years of bombs, bullets and sectarian slaughter.
On Wednesday, al-Maliki, a Shiite, attended religious celebrations in Azamiyah, a Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad that until recently was a bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups.
He delivered his remarks Thursday at a cultural festival in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad near the ruins of fabled Babylon, one of the great cities of the ancient world.
Al-Maliki said the cultural festival was a sign that normal life was returning to Iraq. He cut short his remarks a few moments later when the electricity failed.
U.S. officials have also touted the sharp decline in violence over the past year as a sign that the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq is showing signs of success, despite widespread opposition to the conflict within the American public.
According to the U.S. military, attacks have fallen by about 60% since early last year, when President Bush rushed about 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to curb a wave of sectarian massacres that plunged the nation to the brink of full-scale civil war.
U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iraq remains far from secure and that the security gains are fragile because of political disputes among rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities.
"The situation is very unstable," said Jassim Mohammed, 40, a Sunni employee of the Iraqi National Library in Baghdad. "I simply do not see any light at the end of this dark tunnel."
In violence on Thursday, three policemen were killed in a roadside bombing and a shooting in Mosul, which the U.S. military describes as al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq. Another police officer was reported killed in the southern city of Kut.