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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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June 21st,
2009 - Iraqis Happy at US Pull Out, But Fear More Attacks |
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Iraqis Happy
at US Pull Out, But Fear More Attacks By Mohammed Abbas Reuters June 21, 2009 Baghdad - Iraqi taxi driver
Haitham Nief is looking forward to the partial pull out of U.S. combat troops
this month from the northern city of Mosul and elsewhere. Mosul remains one of the
most violent places in Iraq, but Nief says he is sure the security situation
will improve once the Americans leave town and withdraw to camps outside. "Anyone who wants to
fight them can go there and attack their bases without harming
civilians," he said. Across the war-battered
country, a June 30 deadline for most U.S. troops to pull out of cities and
into their bases is prompting fears of a surge in violence and worries that
Iraqi security forces may not be up to the job on their own. But the anxiety is also
tinged by hope the U.S. pull back will usher in an end to conflict and
trigger economic revival. Six years after U.S.
soldiers invaded to topple Saddam Hussein, 28-year-old Iraqi market porter
Ahmed Salih just wants them to go home. "Life here is dead
because of their presence," he said, gesturing around him at the once
busy Dawasa market, the scene of many explosions and shootings in Mosul.
"We are full of desperation ... no jobs, no income, just because of
them." Violence has dropped sharply
across Iraq in the past year. Some of the credit can be given to the U.S.
military, and a strategy to boost the presence of U.S. troops in urban areas
where fighting once raged. But insurgents including
Sunni Islamist al Qaeda still launch deadly attacks on U.S. forces, Iraqi
police and civilians in a bid to trigger renewed sectarian bloodshed and
undermine Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government. As U.S. soldiers draw back
from towns and cities, the pressure is being piled on local forces ahead of a
parliamentary election in January that will be a test of whether Iraqis can
live together after the years of turmoil triggered by the war. The government says it is
confident its forces will cope. Professionalism It will be a big challenge. On Saturday, a suicide truck
bomb killed more than 70 people outside a mosque near the northern city of
Kirkuk. Earlier this month, a car bomb tore through a quiet Shi'ite town in
the south, killing more than 30 people, and an assassin murdered the head of
parliament's biggest Sunni bloc. In Kirkuk, claimed by
northern Iraq's Kurds as their ancestral capital, some fear the police are
allied to politicians, or that political parties with armed militias could
leap to fill any security vacuum after the Americans leave. "Some people are afraid
that the situation could become worse," said Kirkuk-based political
analyst Abd al-Rahman Taleb. In the capital Baghdad, some
businesses hope reduced security measures, such as checkpoints, will boost
profits. At the Baghdad Hotel, a
forest of barbed wire blocks the front gate. Travel agencies and other hotel
shops nearby are crumbling, their windows boarded, letters falling off signs. "We're very happy. This
hotel has a great history, but it was strangled by U.S. roadblocks. The
Americans were staying in rooms near the hotel, and no one could come in
except the staff," said hotel manager Amir Hussein Salman. "You couldn't speak or
reason with the Americans." In Abu Nawas, a palm
tree-lined park popular with families on the east bank of the Tigris, Haji
Hussein, owner of the Baghdadi Restaurant, said Iraqi forces who took over
checkpoints in the area last month were not searching vehicles thoroughly. Previously, the entrances
had been manned by teams of security contractors hired by the U.S. military. Hussein said the restaurant
would not let vehicles park near it because of the danger of car bombs. "It's not a question of
whether we prefer security provided by Iraqis or Americans, it's a question
of professionalism. But if the Iraqis were professional, then that's better,
because we can speak to them," he said. Additional reporting from
Mosul and Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by
Janet Lawrence. © Thomson Reuters 2009 External link: http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSLL360441 |