Iraq needs US troops for deterrence: minister

[Barrett808]

Source: AFP

DUBAI (AFP) - Iraq's defence minister said on Saturday that his country needs US troops to protect its borders and also for "strategic deterrence."

"We need US troops... for the defence of the borders... I don't have anything I can use for strategic deterrence. I do not have intercepting aircraft," Abdel Qader Jassim Mohammed told AFP on the sidelines of a conference in the United Arab Emirates.

"My need for them (US troops) is pressing in this regard," Mohammed said.

But the Iraqi official, who was in Dubai to attend a conference on Iraqi defence and security, said that Iraqi troops always replace US forces when the security situation improves and the latter withdraw from a certain area.

"Whenever the security situation seriously improves we replace them. We have a plan for this year but I cannot disclose the timetable," he said.

"Anyway, the Americans themselves are not willing to abandon Iraq unless they are confident that we are capable. This is an agreement," Mohammed added.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080216/wl_mideast_afp/iraqdefencesecurityusuae

[rwenos]

1. Life can be a dream

On Thorazine.

He lost me when he said "We need US troops... for the defence of the borders."

Yet another Third-World politician who figures out the way to keep the Yankee Dollars rolling in is to flatter the rubes holding them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. A human shield to protect their troops

It took the British 30 years to figure out how to get out of Iraq
who stood as a barrier to the internal factions that fought for control of the place.

Good grief don't we learn from history.

[angstlessk]

3. It would be cheaper for us just to give them all the weapons they would ever

need or want and walk away and let them do their own 'deterence' :grr:

[arcane1]

4. you forgot to add "again"

:)

[angstlessk]

6. touche with that...too true and then there was Iran/Contra too...

hells bells..lets just write our tax checks directly to the 'military industrial complex' rather than the IRS?

[ckramer]

5. They know it - if US troops leave, they are done

A government that can't stand on its own feet.

[arcane1]

7. as with all puppets..

they cannot stand without a puppet master's strings (or hand)

[Kolesar]

8. Didn't presidential candidate Joe Biden say the US should guard the borders, the embassy, and ...

..."not much else". He would have the US military withdraw the other troops that were trying to do whatever Gates/Petraeus/the Pentagon thought they were doing. (Mediating the Iraqi Civil War?)

[Deny and Shred]

9. When they stand up, we'll stand down.

They've fallen, and they can't get up.

[kirby]

10. Protect your own fucking border... n/t