Talabani: U.S. forces to stay as long as needed

updated 8:59 a.m. ET March 4, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - President Jalal Talabani on Saturday underscored the need for a unity government in Iraq after a spasm of sectarian killing and said he had been assured U.S. forces would remain in the country as long as needed — “no matter what the period.”

Talabani spoke to reporters after a meeting with Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, who met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad on Saturday.

Abizaid said he was “very, very pleased with the reaction of the Iraqi armed forces” during the violence that broke out after the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra and reprisal attacks against Sunni Muslims that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

“We should understand that the terrorists are trying to create problems among the Iraqi people that can lead to difficulties between various groups,” he said after a separate meeting with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. “We should not fall into their trap. We are stronger than they are. We will ultimately prevail.”

The surge of violence, which killed at least 500 people since last week, has tangled negotiations to form a new government after December parliamentary elections and threatened American hopes of starting a troop pullout this summer.

Bomb blast breaks one-day calm
Iraqi soldiers and police — backed in one neighborhood by a Shiite militia the United States wants disbanded — enforced a driving ban that brought relative peace to Baghdad streets Friday.

But as normal traffic resumed Saturday, a bomb exploded at a minibus terminal in a southeastern suburb, killing at least seven people and injuring 25, police said.

Talabani said Abizaid assured him Saturday that U.S. forces “are ready to stay as long as we ask them, no matter what the period is.”

“He added that forming a strong national unity government made up of all blocs in parliament will help in stabilizing Iraq and bringing peace,” Talabani quoted Abizaid as saying.

However, Talabani said his Kurdish followers and their allies will fight for a second term for al-Jaafari.

Sunni, Kurdish and some secular politicians have asked the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, to nominate another candidate. They accuse al-Jaafari of failing to rein in attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics in the aftermath of the bombing of the Shiite Askariya shrine.

“With all our respect to Dr. al-Jaafari, we asked them to chose a candidate who is unanimously agreed on by Iraqis,” Talabani said. “I want to be clear, it is not against Dr. al-Jaafari as a person. He has been my friend for 25 years. What we want is unanimity.”

Al-Jaafari’s supporters in the United Iraqi Alliance have vowed to resist moves to replace him. But other Shiite leaders are troubled by his close ties to radical young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose support was key to al-Jaafari’s nomination by a single vote in a Feb. caucus of Shiite lawmakers.

Hundreds demonstrated Saturday in Amarah and Najaf, in Iraq’s southern Shiite heartland, in support of al-Jaafari’s bid for another term.

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