'Nonsense' to ask US to leave

2005-02-01 13:15

Baghdad - Iraq's interim president said on Tuesday it would be "complete nonsense" to ask United States and other foreign troops to leave Iraq at this point but some of the 170 000 soldiers could be leaving Iraq by the end of the year.

"It's only complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power," President Ghazi al-Yawer told reporters.

He said foreign troops should leave only after Iraq's security forces are built up, the country's security situation has improved and some pockets of terrorists are eliminated.

"By the end of this year, we could see the number of foreign troops decreasing," al-Yawer said.

Al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, had been a strong critic of some aspects of the US military operation in Iraq, including the three-week marine siege of the Sunni rebel city of Fallujah in April.

Al-Yawer helped negotiate an end to that siege. But the city fell into the hands of insurgents and religious zealots, forcing the marines to recapture Fallujah last November in some of the heaviest urban combat for American forces since the Vietnam war.

"There were some mistakes" in the occupation "but to be fair...I think all in all it was positive, the contribution of the foreign forces in Iraq," al-Yawer said. "It was worth it." - AP

- SAPA