Apparently our fearless leader is the only person in the world who still thinks everything is going well in Iraq. I'm sure Cheney will tell us the same thing tonight as well.
Iraqi Premier Gives Sobering Account of Insurgency
By EDWARD WONG
AGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 5 — In his first speech before the interim national assembly here, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave a sobering account today of the threat posed by the insurgency, saying the country's instability is a "source of worry for many people" and that the guerrillas represent "a challenge to our will."
Dr. Allawi, who has tried hard to cast himself as a tough and confident leader since taking office in late June, asserted that general elections would go ahead in January as planned, but acknowledged that there were significant obstacles standing in the way of security and reconstruction. The nascent police force is underequipped and lacks the respect needed from the public to quell the insurgency, he said, and foreign businessmen have told him they fear investing in Iraq because of the rampant violence here.
The tone of the speech was a sharp departure from the more optimistic assessment Dr. Allawi gave to the American public on his visit to the United States last month. At his stop in Washington, Dr. Allawi made several sweeping assertions about the security situation in Iraq, including that the only truly unsafe place in Iraq was the downtown area of Falluja, the largest insurgent stronghold in Iraq, and that only 3 of 18 provinces had "pockets of terrorists." Dr. Allawi did not directly contradict those statements in his appearance today, but his words reflected a darker evaluation of the state of the war.
"It is true that the security situation in our country is the first concern for you, and maybe for your inquiries, too," Dr. Allawi said to the roughly 130-member national assembly, which asked him combative questions following his speech in the nearly hourlong session. "It is true that it is a source of worry for many people concerned about the future of Iraq and the process of democracy in Iraq."
The insurgents "are today a challenge to our will," he continued. "They are betting on our failure. Should we allow them to do that? Should we sit down and watch what they are doing and let them destabilize the country's security?"
Though Dr. Allawi joined President Bush last month in boasting of having 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi policemen, soldiers and other security officials, he acknowledged today that there were difficulties in fielding an adequate security force.
"It's clear that since the handover, the capabilities are not complete and that the situation is very difficult now in respect to creating the forces and getting them ready to face the challenges," he said, adding that "the police force is not well equipped and is not respected enough to lay down its authority."
Dr. Allawi suggested that it was time to start supplying the new Iraqi Army with sufficient heavy weapons and armored vehicles. To that end, Dr. Allawi said, he had begun discussions with neighboring Arab countries and with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to help arm the Iraqi forces. "We need to build our military capacity and increase the number of people to face the challenges that we have," he said.
Dr. Allawi's speech, given inside the fortified government headquarters on the west bank of the Tigris River, comes at a crucial juncture for Iraq, as insurgents have stepped up a bloody campaign of car bombings and assassinations to cripple the interim government while American-led forces try to take back rebel territory.
Over the weekend, the First Infantry Division led Iraqi troops in seizing the streets of insurgent-controlled Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. But the success of that effort and others like it around the country will ultimately depend on whether the Iraqi security forces can fight the insurgency on their own.
At stake now are the general elections scheduled for January, which will depend on large voter turnout — even in virulently anti-American regions — to have any chance of appearing legitimate. In recent months, experts have voiced increasing doubts about the ability to hold such elections.
A nationwide poll of 3,500 Iraqis just completed by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies shows that the number of Iraqis who say they are "very likely" to vote in the elections has dropped to 67 percent, from 88 percent in June. About 25 percent say they will "probably" vote. The poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
Violence continued flaring up across the country today. At noon, a car bomb exploded next to a military convoy in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least three civilians in a car behind the convoy, the American military said. Right after the explosion, insurgents ambushed the convoy with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Four soldiers were wounded and taken to a military hospital in Mosul.
The police officials in Mosul said that they had discovered four headless bodies — a local woman and her family. The woman had been running a prostitution house and was apparently decapitated, along with her relatives, by a fundamentalist Islamic group, the officials said.
Several mortar blasts rocked Baghdad in the morning. One shell landed at a passport office in the center of the city, seriously wounding one person, the police said. The mortar had been fired from a vehicle driving along a highway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/in...rint&position=
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