BAGHDAD, Aug 25: The US-led forces in Iraq have not been able to gather the intelligence they need to maintain security, a visiting US congressional delegation said here Monday.

The 11-member cross-party delegation from the US House of Representatives, on the first day of a four-day tour, said they were convinced that increasing troop numbers was not the answer to the escalating security threat across Iraq.

“I’m trying to keep an open mind on the matter,” said delegation chief Tom Davis of Virginia at a press conference outside the coalition authority’s administration building in downtown Baghdad.

“But we have an intelligence problem. More troops may not be the answer.”

The delegation spent the day visiting US troops stationed in Baghdad and touring civilian facilities, including a local hospital where they handed out teddy bears to sick children.

The 11 members also met coalition leaders to discuss the security situation. Over the next three days they will have more meetings with coalition commanders before reporting back to Congress in Washington.

Davis said the US military was presented with a number of hurdles in gathering useful intelligence.

“They are faced with a situation where they have problems on three fronts: the 100,000 prisoners who Saddam (Hussein) released before the war and are still at large; a porous border where a lot of terrorists come across; and, Baath party remnants.”

He also echoed coalition opinion that outside troublemakers entering the country and Saddam loyalists were not working together against the US-led coalition.

“There is no hard evidence that they are working together,” said Davis.

“They have a history of opposition to each other,” he added, but cautioned, “you know how it is in the Middle East — the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Delegation member Ed Shrock, also of Virginia, said he believed the 130,000 US troops currently stationed throughout Iraq were ample to keep the peace.

“Before I came here I was convinced we needed more troops over here, judging by what I heard in Washington, but now I am not so sure,” said Shrock.

Colonel Guy Shields, the coalition forces’ chief spokesman, told reporters earlier Monday that there were 130,000 US troops in Iraq. Another 20,000 soldiers, the vast majority of them British, operate with the coalition, he said. —AFP