Putin casts doubt on Iraq polls, US combat deaths near 1,000

Agence France Presse
Dec 7 2004

12-07-2004, 19h57

Mehdi Fedouach – (AFP)

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin cast doubt over the
viability of holding elections as planned next month in an Iraq under
“total occupation”, as the number of US soldiers killed in combat
neared 1,000.

In the latest violence, assailants targeted the country’s minority
Christians by setting off explosions in two churches — one of them
Chaldean, the other Armenian — in the northern city of Mosul, but
without causing casualties.

“Each attack against a church pushes Christians to emigrate,” said
Faid Touma Hermez of the Chaldean Democratic Union. The insurgents
“want to erase any trace of the Christian presence in Iraq.”

In Baghdad, US soldier died after his patrol was ambushed, the
military said.

A total of 999 US military personnel have now been killed in action
in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in March 2003,
according to Pentagon statistics.

In other violence, an Iraqi entrepreneur working for US forces was
shot dead in his car near an American base in Samarra, north of the
capital, police said. Some 40 such killings have been carried out in
the region over two months.

“I cannot imagine how elections can be organized in conditions of
total occupation of the country by foreign troops,” Putin said as he
met Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi at the Kremlin.

“At the same time, I don’t understand how you alone can remedy the
situation in the country and prevent its disintegration,” he told
Allawi.

Putin noted, however, that Moscow had supported the UN Security Council
resolution calling for elections in Iraq to be held on January 30
and said Russia stood “ready to support your efforts to stabilise
the situation in the country”.

General John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Gulf, said
American troops in Iraq could have a different role overall after
the elections, as their focus could shift away from combat and toward
training Iraqi forces.

“If the Iraqi security forces start to gel in terms of leadership and
seasoning in important areas around the country — which I think will
happen — then we can talk about reshaping our forces,” he told the
Washington Post.

But the general noted that, at the moment, the Iraqi troops “are
not as mature as they need to be for the security environment that’s
going to exist in the next several months.”

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, meanwhile, said the US-led
multinational forces should speed up their departure from Iraq by
training local troops more quickly.

Training Iraqis would provide an “exit strategy” for the foreign
troops, he told the British parliament.

In Moscow, Allawi was seeking in his talks with Putin to smooth
diplomatic relations, following a similar mission to Germany on a
European tour of powers that opposed last year’s invasion.

The premier said Moscow would be given a “leading role” in helping
restore Iraq’s shattered industries — a clear signal was Baghdad
was ready to give Russia access to its lucrative oil industry.

Officials in Moscow said Russia would try to win back oil contracts it
signed under Saddam Hussein’s regime in exchange for Moscow’s promise
to write off 90 percent of Iraq’s eight billion dollar Soviet-era debt.

Allawi said in a Belgian newspaper interview that Iraq’s elections —
faced with an insurgency determined to derail the process through
bloodshed — could be spread out over a period of 15-20 days in
late January.

“Everyone — Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Turkomans — should
take part in the vote,” he was quoted as saying by the daily Le Soir.

“For that I think one could envisage elections spread over 15 days,
20 days, with polling on different dates for different provinces …
That would allow for adequate security arrangements to be put in
place,” he added.

But in a classified cable sent in late November, the CIA station
chief at the end of a year-long tour of duty in Iraq warned that the
security situation was only likely to worsen in the runup to the polls,
The New York Times said.

More violence is in the pipeline, said officials familiar with
the cable.

On a positive note, two Sunni Muslim parties, including the key Islamic
Party, announced Tuesday plans to take part in the general elections,
despite earlier calls for the polls to be postponed.

The head of a leading Shiite Muslim movement, meanwhile, warned that
delaying the polls would create legal complications and could lead
to chaos.

“Delaying elections will lead to a legal problem, because the Iraqi
government will be illegitimate … as it expires with the election
date,” said Abdulaziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

In other developments, the US military announced the arrest in Hawija,
50 kilometres (30 miles) from the northern city of Kirkuk, of Salam
Daud, who it described as a chief of the Saddam Fedayeen militia
loyal to the former dictator.

Colonel Lloyd Miles said a number of other people were also arrested,
including Iraqi police and national guardsmen working with insurgents.