BAGHDAD, 1 June 2005 — Iraq’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari vowed yesterday to beef up security in the war-weary country, as US President George W. Bush said Washington and its Iraqi allies were making progress against the insurgency. Meanwhile, four US troops, four Italians and two Iraqi soldiers were killed in air crashes.
“I think the Iraqi government will be up to the task of defeating the insurgents,” Bush said at a White House press conference. “I believe that the Iraqi government’s going to be plenty capable of dealing with them, and our job is to help train them so that they can.” The Iraqi government announced that the governor of the restive western province of Al-Anbar, Nawaf Raja Farhan Al-Mahalawi, had been found dead after he was taken hostage during a major US sweep of the area earlier this month.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on CNN television that he hoped the trial of deposed leader Saddam Hussein on charges of crimes against humanity would begin within two months. In Baghdad, Jaafari laid out his fledging government’s ambitions before Parliament, focusing on the twin priorities of dealing with rampant insecurity and drawing up a permanent constitution before fresh elections in December.
The most pressing issue for the government, facing a sharp escalation in attacks since the cabinet was sworn in in early May, remains how to tackle the insurgency with some 700 people killed during the month. “In order to accelerate a return to stability, the government will allocate sufficient funds to relaunch the intelligence and national defense services,” the prime minister said.
Jaafari also repeated the idea of setting up a truth and justice commission, similar to one created in post-apartheid South Africa, to end once and for all recriminations over crimes committed under Saddam. Talabani later said that a trial for Saddam himself might begin “within two months I think.”
“The Iraqi government is now doing its best to prepare the ground for a court which will be able to decide ... about Saddam Hussein’s future,” the Kurdish leader said.
The four dead American soldiers were traveling with the Iraqis on a mission in eastern Diyala province Monday when their Iraqi air force light plane crashed, US Lt. Col. Fred Wellman said, without elaborating on the cause. Four Italians died in another crash in the south of the country when their military helicopter crashed during overnight near the city of Nasiriyah, where Italian troops are based, the Italian Army said.
Officials said the crash was likely accidental, but the deaths prompted renewed calls for Italy to withdraw its 3,000-strong contingent from Iraq. Ten people died in other violence in Iraq, including three police commandos killed during an assault in the capital and a television anchorman who was shot in the north, security sources said.
A convoy of Interior Ministry commandos came under attack in Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, leaving three dead and seven wounded, while two Iraqi soldiers were killed in an attack on their convoy near Baquba, north of the capital. The Ansar Al-Sunna group linked to Al-Qaeda claimed the attack on the convoy.
In the northern city of Mosul, local public television anchorman Girgis Mahmoud Mohammed was shot and killed, while a policeman was shot dead in another part of the city. North of Baghdad, three other people, including an Asian truck driver whose nationality was unknown, were killed in separate attacks that also left six wounded, including one woman, police sources said. And near Samarra, 125 miles north of Baghdad, three decapitated and partially decomposed bodies were discovered, a police source said.
Iraqi troops, meanwhile, stepped up Operation Lightning, the largest domestic security operation to date, manning roadblocks and checking vehicles entering Baghdad for arms and explosives.
