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US agrees to international control of its troops in Iraq
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"The United States accepts that to avoid humiliating failure in Iraq it
needs to bring its forces quickly under international control and speed the
handover of power, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief,
has said. Decisions along these lines will be made in the "coming days", Mr
Solana told The Independent."
"The comments, signalling a major policy shift by the US, precede President
George Bush's state visit this week to London, during which he and Tony
Blair will discuss an exit strategy for forces in Iraq," notes the paper.
"Everybody has moved, including the United States, because the United
States has a real problem and when you have a real problem you need help."
There is a "growing consensus" that the transfer of power has to be
accelerated, he said. "How fast can it be done? I would say the faster the
better," Solana is quoted as saying.
On a slightly different tack, The Guardian this morning reports on its
world pages that "Iraq's governing council wants to significantly reduce
the role of the US military after the rapidly advanced handover of
sovereignty in July next year."
"Entifadh Qanbar, a senior member of the Iraqi National Congress, the party
led by the Pentagon-favoured exile, Ahmad Chalabi, said yesterday that US
troops should stop patrolling Iraqi cities and confine their operations to
securing the country's long, porous borders once the new government was
established."
"American troops will go to their camps in Iraq," said Mr Qanbar. "They
will stay there and they will protect the Iraqi borders. Everything else
will be in the hands of Iraqis."
Looking at The Times' front page, however, such a face-saving transfer of
power doesn't seem likely, with its report on a tape, purportedly by Saddam
Hussein, gloating at America's mounting losses in Iraq and its accelerated
timetable for returning sovereignty to Iraq.
"The evil ones now find themselves in a crisis and this is God's will for
them. The aggressors have no choice but to leave our nation. The evil ones
will not be able to occupy and colonise Iraq," the paper quotes the tape,
that referred to George Bush and Tony Blair as "liars".
The Times' leading article, however, finds the Bush Administration's
decision to accelerate the introduction of civil rule in Iraq as "a
pragmatic response to complex circumstances."
The Financial Times has a front page report on Paul Bremer's take on the
situation, quoting the top US administrator in Iraq, as saying that US
forces were likely to remain in the country after a sovereign government
had been established.
"Our presence here will change from an occupation to an invited presence,"
Mr Bremer said in an interview with ABC News. "I'm sure the Iraqi
government is going to want to have coalition forces here for its own
security for some time to come."
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