WASHINGTON (AFP) - One day after a wave of antiwar protests swept the world, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warns a quick US pullout from Iraq will result in terrorists taking it over -- and insists it would be tantamount to handing Germany back to the Nazis.
The warning, issued in an article in Sunday's Washington Post, appeared to contradict his assertions in the very same piece that terrorists were "losing in Iraq" while Iraqi security forces were steadily growing in size and capability as they get ready to assume control of the country.
"Today, some 100 Iraqi army battalions of several hundred troops each are in the fight, and 49 control their own battle space," Rumsfeld said. "About 75 percent of all military operations in the country include Iraqi security forces, and nearly half of those are independently Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-conducted and Iraqi-led."
He pointed out that Iraqi security forces, rather than US troops, had enforced curfews after last month's attack on the Golden Dome mosque in Samarra that left the sacred Shiite shrine in ruins and triggered a spasm of sectarian violence.
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