Hillary rejects Bush plan

2007-01-17 17:11

Washington - US senator Hillary Clinton on Wednesday rejected President George W Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq, saying Baghdad was not committed militarily or politically to assuming control of the country.

In interviews after a visit to Iraq where she met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and top US commanders, Clinton said Bush's strategy for quelling violence in the country did not have a good chance of success.

"The Iraqi government is not committed to taking the steps both militarily and politically that would help them to gain control over Baghdad and other places in the country," Clinton told NBC television in an interview.

"I do not think that this strategy has a very high level of success at all attached to it. In fact, I think that at best it's a holding pattern."

Clinton, a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2008, had previously taken a cautious stance on Bush's new strategy on Iraq, announced last week.

Clinton said that instead of Bush's plan to increase US troops in Iraq by 21 500 in an attempt to restore security in Baghdad and Al-Anbar province, she backed placing an immediate cap on the number of US troops in the country, currently about 132 000.

"I support the beginning of a phased redeployment out of Baghdad and eventually out of Iraq completely."

- AFP