Leader promises that Iraq will play a global role
U.S. officials acknowledge that Iraq remains far from secure.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — 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. Despite signs of progress, many Iraqis hold out little hope for a quick end to their suffering.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke five years to the day after U.S. forces fired a first salvo of missiles at Baghdad before dawn on March 20, 2003, triggering a conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein but has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,000 American troops.
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.”
“It will not be isolated,” al-Maliki said of Iraq. “As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena.”
Al-Maliki’s 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 had been a bastion of al-Qaida 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.
American 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 beginning to show 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 percent since early last year, when President Bush rushed about 30,000 American reinforcements to curb a wave of sectarian massacres that plunged the nation to the brink of full-scale civil war.
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iraq remains far from secure and that the security gains so far are fragile because of ongoing 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 the latest violence, three policemen were killed Thursday in a roadside bombing and a shooting in Mosul, which the U.S. military describes as al-Qaida’s last urban stronghold in Iraq. Another police officer was reported killed in the southern city of Kut.
A senior Iraqi electricity official was released Thursday after being kidnapped the day before in the northern city of Beiji, police said.
Also Thursday, the U.S. military said troops killed seven suspected insurgents trying to plant a roadside bomb north of Baghdad the day before. Iraqi police in Samarra said the dead were civilians trying to repair their car along the roadside.
As the war drags on, many Iraqis have become increasingly pessimistic that the Americans and their Iraqi and coalition allies will manage to bring lasting peace anytime soon.
Even though killings are down, Iraqis also complain of electricity shortages, lack of clean drinking water and poorly equipped schools for their children. Unemployment is estimated between 25 percent and 50 percent, according to Iraqi government figures.
Last year, a record number of Iraqis sought asylum in the European Union, according to U.N. figures released this week. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said asylum requests from Iraqis soared to 38,286 in 2007, from 19,375 in 2006, despite the reduction in violence.