Iraqi minister wants coalition forces out of Baghdad in six months

A MINISTER in Iraq’s interim government said yesterday he wanted to see US and British soldiers pull out of Baghdad and other major cities within six months.

Iraq’s new electricity minister Ayham al-Samarrai told the BBC that coalition forces should shrink away into the countryside by the beginning of next year and let the Iraqi army take over in urban areas. “I am looking to see everybody going out of the cities in a very short time,” said Samarrai in a television interview. “I am talking about the British and the American soldiers to go out of the cities in six months time and stay outside in certain places to protect the country, because the country has no soldiers.”

Referring to the Iraqi army, he said: “I think we are already in the process of putting that army together.”