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Iraq Violence Flares as US's Zoellick Visits
Reuters
Wednesday 13 April 2005
A second senior U.S. official made a surprise visit to Iraq on Wednesday as Washington sought to play up Iraq's political transition, but violence shadowed the trip as nine were killed in a bomb blast.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick arrived less than a day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit, his ninth since the 2003 invasion, and warned Iraq's new leaders against any abuse of office.
Shortly after Zoellick's arrival a bomb blew up near the oil city of Kirkuk as a group of Iraqi guards was trying to defuse it, killing nine and wounding four, the local police chief said.
And in Baghdad there was a series of explosions, including a bomb that struck an oil tanker sending thick clouds of black smoke pouring into the air over the east of the capital.
Another bomb detonated on the road to the airport, wounding seven Iraqis.
The attacks again underscored the intense security challenges facing Iraq's newly elected leaders, who are still deliberating over the formation of a government more than two months after an election in late January.
"We are obviously, in the aftermath of this election, in a key period of political formation," Zoellick told reporters earlier on his military aircraft.
"This is a process of political transition, the formation of Iraqi democracy," he said. Shortly after his arrival in Baghdad, Zoellick traveled to Falluja, west of the capital and the site of some of the worst unrest in Iraq over the past two years.
There he discussed reconstruction with U.S. troops helping rebuild the city after a big U.S. offensive last November which left much of it in ruins.
Zoellick, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top deputy, was due to meet President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, as well as other officials, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Attack on US Troops
Of the four blasts that struck Baghdad, one was a car bomb targeting a joint U.S.-Iraqi military convoy in the Amiriya district of western Baghdad. It seriously wounded four civilians, witnesses and hospital officials said.
Three other explosions struck convoys in other parts of the city, including an attack on a U.S. convoy near the airport.
The U.S. military hopes to cut troop numbers in Iraq next year but that will depend on the training of Iraqi security forces, which have lost hundreds in bombings and attacks.
Iraqi troops have made progress against the insurgency since the election and violence appears to have eased but millions of Iraqis who defied suicide bombings to vote want to see the new government do more to end the bloodshed.
Iraqi Vice President Ghazi Yawar said it was time to put aside the official government line that U.S. troops will leave only when Iraqi troops are ready and start discussing a mechanism for their departure when the time is right.
"We can't say that when we have security forces then multinational forces would leave and at the same time we don't work on building these forces," he told Reuters in an interview.
"I think that in a year we can begin gradually decreasing the number of these forces until they leave because it is not an easy process."
Rampant Crime
As well as tackling the insurgency, Iraq's new leaders will have to confront rampant crime and an economy largely in ruins. Crime is of particular concern, with gangs responsible for hundreds of violent kidnappings over the past year.
After a lull in abductions, an American contractor was kidnapped from a reconstruction site near Baghdad on Monday. More than 150 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been abducted in the last year and many of them have been killed.
On his visit, Rumsfeld warned corruption and purges of security forces and ministries could sap the credibility of Iraq's new leaders and undermine the battle against insurgents.
Some fear Iraq's new Shi'ite leaders will purge the interior and defense ministries of Sunni Muslims with experience in security and intelligence.
Yawar was concerned that Sunnis, who gained wide experience in the security and intelligence services under Saddam, would be dismissed in a process called de-Baathification.
"Those who did not commit any crimes in the Baath should be allowed to join but not take sensitive positions in the state."
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