Mon 30 Apr 2007
The political battle in Washington over a Democratic plan to pull U.S. troops from Iraq is being exploited by al Qaeda, which has stepped up attacks to hasten a withdrawal, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Sunday.
Hoshiyar Zebari said Iraq had become “entangled” in domestic politics in the United States, where there is growing impatience for progress in reconciling the country’s warring sects.
U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed to veto a war spending bill that requires combat troops to begin withdrawing by Oct. 1. Congress, which is controlled by the Democrats, plans to send the bill to Bush on Tuesday.
“This plays out very badly here,” Zebari said in an interview with Reuters, making the first substantive government comment on the political tussle.
“It shows the administration is not united. And everybody watches this development, al Qaeda, the anti-democratic forces who are fighting us.”
He pointed to an increase in car bomb attacks blamed on al Qaeda that have caused the civilian death toll to stay high despite a major 10-week-old operation by U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad, the epicentre of the violence.
“This recent escalation you have seen was expected, just to show the Baghdad security plan is not working.
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