Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Premier Raises Weapons Concerns
Politics, Security
(Kuridstani Nwe) The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, told a session of parliament that the army is suffering shortages of ammunition and weapons. He told parliamentarians that currently the insurgents were better equipped than the security forces. The premier was speaking at a session devoted challenges facing the government, especially those in the field of security.
(Kurdistani Nwe is a political daily issued by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.)
COMMENT: It is interesting that Maliki has admitted this as he has been pressing the U.S. to move more quickly to hand security affairs over to his army, claiming it could crush violence in the country within six months, while President Talabani has asked the U.S. to keep troops in Iraq for a long time. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, recently said it would take 12 to 18 months before Iraqi security forces were ready to control the whole country with some U.S. backup. There are a total of 302,000 Iraqi security forces, which include the army, national and local police. The country's 10 military divisions include around 130,000 troops, many of whom are not well enough trained and lack equipment. Another problem is that the Iraqi army is not considered to be very mobile and lacks the armoured transport vehicles or planes that would allow it to quickly deploy large groups of soldiers. There are 140,000 American soldiers in Iraq, plus 7,000 British soldiers, as well as soldiers from other countries. COMMENT ENDS.
