  |
Bush: Iraqi neighbors undermining its new government
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 07 07 06
US President George W. Bush on Thursday said he was concerned that some of Iraq's neighbors may be trying to undermine the war-torn country's efforts to build a democracy.
"We, of course, are concerned that some in the neighborhood may want to derail the progress of a free Iraq. And that is troubling and something that we'll work on," Bush said at the White House.
The president did not name names, but in the past he has pointed the finger at Syria for not doing enough to starve Iraqi insurgents of support and accused Iranian elements of arming and training those who target US and Iraqi forces.
Bush's comments came as he met with the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, whose name appeared on a classified cable from the embassy in Baghdad warning of severe and worsening dangers for Iraqi employees.
The president made no reference to that message, which appeared in the Washington Post, but thanked the diplomat for giving him "a report that is realistic" about the situation in Iraq.
Bush, noting that Iraq was "still a dangerous place," said that training Iraq's new army had "gone quite well" to date, but that "there's more work to be done in training the police."
AFP 06 2346 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels