WASHINGTON, June 29: An international force of up to 60,000 troops is needed in Iraq to halt the continuing violence, which will escalate if left unchecked, US Sen. Joseph Biden warned on Sunday.
Appearing on the “Fox News Sunday” programme, the influential Democrat, on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “I think we need somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 other troops.”
“I want to see French, German, I want to see Turkish patches on people’s arms sitting on the street corners, standing there in Iraq,” Biden said. “...We’ve got to get over this ideological fixation on the part of Mr. (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and (Vice President Dick) Cheney of not letting the Europeans and NATO come in.”
Biden returned recently from a trip to Iraq, where steady attacks have targeted Americans since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1. At least 22 Americans have been killed by hostile fire.
Sen. Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, told CBS “Face the Nation” extra troops were urgently needed.
“I don’t think we have months. I think we’ve got weeks to turn this around,” Dodd said. “And the people on the ground know it. Our military people are exhausted.
“... We need to get that second army in place over there. We need to invite others around the region as well as the world to help us do that. We’re not doing that and the longer we wait, the greater risk is going to be posed by Iraq,” Dodd said.
The lawmakers spoke after a week of particularly intense ambushes and hit-and-run attacks. Another explosion in Baghdad on Sunday targeted a US convoy. Biden said the status of US troops there was “in peril. The war is still on.”
He said he had been assured NATO was ready to join the US and British troops in Iraq and that “NATO should be in.”
The Delaware Democrat said the US troops he spoke with felt shortchanged by Washington’s failure “to expand this responsibility internationally. They all understand it.”
“One general I spoke with said. ‘Look senator, this is a fairly sophisticated group... It’s the old fedayeen, we believe, and it’s the old Republican Guard and they are beginning to mobilize and organize.’”
While Biden said he did not believe a coordinated central network was in place, the attacks were clearly being organized by “serious military people.”
“It is increasingly becoming bolder and increasingly becoming more coordinated,” he asserted. “...To the extent that we continue to try to own this all ourselves, I think, this will increase.”
On ABC’s “This Week,” US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he also “would like to see a lot of other nations” included.—Reuters