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(MENAFN - The Peninsula) davos • The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an "idiot decision" and Iraqi troops now need to secure Baghdad to ensure the country's future, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi said yesterday.
"Iraq was put under occupation, which was an idiot decision," Mahdi said at the World Economic Forum here. Mahdi said the Iraqi government planned to bring troops in to Baghdad from surrounding areas and said it was "a technical question" for the United States to decide whether to deploy more soldiers.
President George W Bush plans to send another 21,500 troops to Iraq, a move widely criticised in the United States. On Wednesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted against the decision, which is due to go before the Senate next week.
"If we can win this war in Baghdad then I think we can change the course of events," Mahdi told a panel on the state of affairs in Iraq. "As Iraqis, we think we need more (Iraqi) troops in Baghdad, and we are calling for some regiments to come from other parts of the country," he said.
Mahdi's party, the powerful Shi'ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was one of the exiled opposition parties consulted by Washington as it planned the invasion. Its leader Abdul Aziz Al Hakim is a key figure behind the US-backed national unity government.
Bombs kill 34 in Baghdad
In Baghdad, meanwhile, bombs killed at least 34 people but Iraq's prime minister vowed a crackdown in the capital would leave militants nowhere to hide. In a speech to parliament, Nuri Al Maliki urged politicians on all sides to support his security plan, backed by 17,000 US reinforcements and seen by many as a last chance to halt sectarian violence in the capital.
"There will be no safe haven — no school, no home, no (Sunni) mosque or Shi'ite mosque. They will all be raided if they are turned into a launch pad for terrorism, even the headquarters of political parties," he said. Maliki said his determination had already borne fruit. "I know that senior criminals have left Baghdad, others have fled the country. This is good, this shows that our message is being taken seriously," he said.
Since Maliki announced his plan earlier this month there have been a series of bombings and dozens of bodies continue to be found dumped in the city, apparent victims of death squads. Thirty-three were found on Wednesday alone. A car bomb ripped through a shopping district in Karrada in central Baghdad, killing 26 people and wounding 64, a police source said. Another car bomb and a motorcycle bomb exploded in other markets, killing five people, while a roadside bomb killed three, police said.
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