BAGHDAD, 29 September 2003 — Members of the US Congress saw firsthand yesterday the daunting task of rebuilding Iraq in advance of a vote on US President George W. Bush’s $87 billion funding request, while Iraqi police and US forces seized weapons in Baghdad and the north of the country.
Also yesterday, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said sovereignty should be handed to the Iraqis soon. “We think the timescale should be short,” said de Villepin. “We consider that it is a question of months. We have been thinking that within six to eight months, the transfer of sovereignty should be complete,” he told a French radio station.
Rep. Jim Walsh, a New York Republican and member of the 17-member congressional delegation visiting Iraq, said at the end of a daylong tour of Baghdad’s dilapidated infrastructure, that the lawmakers were convinced Iraq has “tremendous potential” despite the “tremendous amount of damage done to the country by Saddam Hussein.”
“But it becomes very clear that the American public needs to be very patient with Iraq, there is a long way to go,” Walsh said.
The Pentagon mobilized 15,000 fresh troops for duty. Four US soldiers were meanwhile wounded in two separate bomb attacks, a military spokesman said.
Sgt. Mark Ingham said an attack with an “improvised explosive device” (IED) occurred about 11:00 a.m. in the town of Iskandariya, 45 kilometers south of the capital.
Ingham said another two soldiers were wounded at Taji, 10 kilometers north of Baghdad, by an IED explosion at 9:45 a.m.
As the US military continues efforts to pacify the country five months after Bush declared an end to major combat, a spokesman said soldiers had conducted nine raids and 1,517 patrols and detained 74 Iraqis in the previous 24 hours.
“As for the people detained in the raids, obviously we would have a strong suspicion they might be involved in attacks, given what we found in the venues that we raided,” Lt. Col. George Krivo said.
A weapons cache found Saturday near Tikrit included 23 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives, grenades, grenade launchers, rockets, a mortar and mortar rounds. It was among the largest caches found there since American troops arrived in April.
