Bush Says Iraqi Forces Still Need Training

01/31/2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Monday commended Iraqi security forces for protecting voters during Sunday’s election but said those forces still need training before U.S. troops will leave their country.

President Bush called Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawer Monday morning to congratulate them on the elections, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. McClellan said Bush agreed with Allawi that the security forces helped secure polling sites.

“We concur,” McClellan said. “We believe that the Iraqi security forces did do a good job in helping to provide a secure environment for the elections to take place.”

At least 44 people were killed in violence at the polls in Iraq, including nine suicide attackers. Despite the threat of violence, the electoral commission said it believed that turnout overall among the estimated 14 million eligible Iraqi voters appeared higher than the 57 percent, or roughly 8 million, that had been predicted before the vote.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, called for an exit strategy in Iraq. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said that Bush “needs to spell out a real and understandable plan for the unfinished work ahead” in Iraq.

“Most of all, we need an exit strategy so that we know what victory is and how we can get there; so that we know what we need to do and so that we know when the job is done.”

McClellan said the United States was committed to accelerating the training of Iraqi security forces so they can be left to defend the country themselves.

“There is still much to do to help train and equip those Iraqi security forces,” McClellan said, “We’re going to be there every step of the way to help continue the training and accelerating the training and equipping of those forces...so that those forces will eventually be able to provide for their own security and be able to defend Iraq from internal, as well as external threats.”

The mission, McClellan said, is to “put Iraq on a path to democracy and in position to defend themselves. And then our troops can return home with honor.”

On Sunday, Bush promised that the United States will help Iraqis fight continuing insurgency as they build a democratic government.

“Terrorists and insurgents will continue to wage their war against democracy, and we will support the Iraqi people in their fight against them,” Bush said. “We will continue training Iraqi security forces so this rising democracy can eventually take responsibility for its own security.”

Besides the celebratory calls to Iraqi leaders Monday, Bush also called United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and key leaders in Europe - war ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair and war opponents French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Bush on Sunday called three key U.S. allies in the Middle East - King Abdullah of Jordan, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt - to talk about building on the Iraqi election and to support democracy among the Palestinians.

L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said Monday the elections were “a great victory for the Iraqi people, for democracy and for the president’s message of freedom.” He said that while the insurgents, “since they are antidemocratic, won’t respect the results of these democratic elections,” violence was likely to continue.

“But gradually they’re going to lose,” Bremer said on NBC’s “Today” show. “The balance of power is towards democracy now in Iraq.”