Iraq premier calls for speedy US withdrawal

IRAQ'S transitional prime minister called yesterday for a speedy withdrawal of US troops as the top US commander said he believed a "fairly substantial" pullout could begin next spring and summer.

Meanwhile, a poll revealed that the majority of Americans no longer believe the US will win the Iraq war. For the first time, more than half said they believed the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

And 58% do not think the US will be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.

A third of those questioned in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said the US could not win the Iraq war and another 21% said it could but did not think they actually would. Just 43% predicted a victory.

But despite the lack of confidence, 53% of those questioned do not believe it was a mistake to send US troops to war, representing the strongest support for the decision since the Iraqi elections in January.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said at a joint news conference with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the time has arrived to plan a co-ordinated transition from American to Iraqi military control throughout the country.

Asked how soon a US withdrawal should happen, he said no exact timetable had been set.

First, there must be a quickening of the pace of US training of Iraqi security forces, and second there must be closely co-ordinated planning between the US-led military coalition and the emerging Iraq government on a security transition, he said.

Speaking earlier with US reporters travelling with Mr Rumsfeld, General George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, said he believed a US troop withdrawal could begin by spring 2006 if progress continues on the political front and if the insurgency does not expand.

US officials describe a variety of security forces being developed. Foremost is the Iraqi army, comprised mainly of infantry battalions, although there also are to be four tank battalions.

The army now has about 77,000 soldiers, and it is scheduled to expand to about 85,000 by December.

There are now about 94,000 police, most for standard traffic and patrol work.

That is to grow to about 145,000 by December, and it includes special police commando battalions as well as a mechanised police brigade that will be a paramilitary, counterinsurgency unit intended to deploy to high-risk areas using light armoured personnel carriers.

The effort to build a reliable Iraq security force has been slowed by several problems. One that can be traced to the earliest days of the US military occupation was the virtual disintegration of the Iraqi army that existed when US troops invaded in March 2003.

Some say this was made worse by the decision of Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator of Iraq starting in May 2003, to formally disband the Iraqi security forces.

Meanwhile, the Algerian President's office confirmed yesterday that two diplomats in Iraq had been killed by their kidnappers. Algerian state radio announced that the office of president

Abdelaziz Bouteflika said Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi had been murdered. Earlier, Iraq's arm of al-Qaida claimed on the internet that it killed the two Algerian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq.

Belaroussi, 62 and Belkadi, 47, were kidnapped along with their driver at gunpoint last Thursday in Baghdad's upscale Mansour area.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has also claimed responsibility for attacking three other diplomats from Muslim nations.