Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered Iraq's military commanders on Tuesday to speed up preparations for a US-backed crackdown in Baghdad after a string of attacks killed hundreds of people in recent days.
Addressing Iraqi generals over what he called a "delay" in a plan seen as a last-ditch effort to prevent Iraq from pitching into all-out civil war, Maliki said: "I call on you to quickly finish the preparations so that we don't disappoint people."
His words came three days after a suicide truck bomb killed 135 people in a Shia area of Baghdad in the worst single bombing since the US-led 2003 invasion. There is growing frustration among Iraqis over the delay in launching the offensive that Maliki first announced nearly a month ago.
Iraqi officials say the planned crackdown was due to have started this week but that Iraqi security forces have asked for more time to get their troops in place. A previous offensive last summer failed because too few Iraqi troops were committed.
The new US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, a counter-insurgency expert, is also not yet in Iraq but is due to arrive in the next few days. US President George W. Bush has committed 17,500 more troops to the Baghdad push.
In a meeting with Iraqi generals broadcast on state television, Maliki, a Shia, said much had been talked about the planned crackdown, encouraging war-weary Iraqis to believe it represented "the end of the dark tunnel". "Either we all win, or we all lose. The whole world is watching us and expecting us to win," he told the generals.
Suggesting the delay was fuelling violence that has killed more than 1,000 people in the last 10 days, Maliki, who is also the commander in chief of the Iraqi military, said:
"These operations should unite us when we go to the field soon, even though I feel we are already late. This delay has sent a negative message ... Any delay in implementing the plan will be used by the enemies of the operation and those who want to defeat the will of the ... security forces."
Comments
Comments are closed.