US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew into Baghdad yesterday for a closer look at developments in Iraq as Washington tried to get more nations to contribute troops and cash for peacekeeping in Iraq.
Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters on his plane, said more American forces were not needed, but called for more Iraqi and international involvement in security.
"I haven't been back into Iraq or Afghanistan I guess since last ... April or May and it seemed to me that it was important to have an opportunity to get a first hand sense of how things are going," Rumsfeld said.
The Pentagon had not announced his trip to Iraq in advance for security reasons.
In a reminder of the daily dangers in Iraq, US troops fought Iraqi guerrillas who fired mortars near their base, then raided homes to detain suspected bomb-makers in a night of drama around former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. Iraqis then fired rocket-propelled grenades at a patrol.
There were no American casualties, but US commanders said at least one Iraqi may have died in the fighting witnessed by reporters accompanying the troops.
In another overnight incident near Baquba, 50km northeast of Baghdad, US troops ambushed and killed three Iraqi guerrillas laying explosive devices on a roadside, the US military said.
In New York, the US faced a sceptical UN Security Council on a resolution crafted to induce more nations to send troops and money to support the US-led occupation.
Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had urged his government to send an extra 5,000 soldiers or risk "strategic failure."
While the US has made some concessions, diplomats said it faced intense negotiations as France and other Security Council members were wary of rubber-stamping the US occupation.
The resolution wants UN endorsement of the US-selected Iraqi Governing Council as an interim government.
In Dresden, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he and French President Jacques Chirac had agreed the UN must play a leading role in the political process in post-war Iraq.
Unremitting assaults on US-led troops and a spate of recent bomb attacks are likely to be on Rumsfeld's agenda when he meets senior military leaders in the Gulf region.
Some 20,000 to 22,000 non-US soldiers are deployed in Iraq and Rumsfeld said he would like that number to go up by another division -- about 15,000 soldiers. He also said efforts should be made to bolster the size of the Iraqi security forces.
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander of coalition forces in Iraq, said the involvement of more nations would send a message to the Iraqi people that the international community was committed to stabilizing their country.
He told a news conference in Baghdad he had enough troops to perform the task force's current mission but more soldiers would help to deal with future challenges.
He cited sealing borders more effectively, dealing with an internal conflict or a greater threat from foreign Muslim militants as challenges that would require more soldiers.
Sixty-seven US and 11 British soldiers have been killed by hostile fire in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
The proposed UN resolution marked a policy reversal for the Bush administration, which had resisted U.N. involvement after the Council's refusal to approve the war that toppled Saddam. France, Russia, China and Germany were among nations on the Security Council which opposed the war.
Britain, which has about 10,000 troops, appeared closer to sending more forces. Straw said that sending an extra 5,000 soldiers would not only help improve security but also demonstrate Britain's resolve to other coalition members and sceptical Iraqis.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS