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Iraq PM Says U.S. Forces Must Stay Associated Press June 24, 2005 WASHINGTON - The U.S.-led multinational force must stay in Iraq until Iraqi forces are fully prepared to defend the country by themselves, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Thursday. Setting of a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces would be a sign of weakness, he said. "The country would be open to increased terrorist activity," he said at the Council on Foreign Relations. Ahead of his White House meeting Friday with President Bush, al-Jaafari said Iraq's insurgency consisted of a "very, very limited minority" of people. Where once...

Iraq would like to see U.S. forces withdraw as soon as feasible, but setting a date for their departure would be a mistake, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said in an interview published on Friday. "We would like to see the withdrawal of American forces as quickly as possible, because the presence of any foreign troops on our land means there is a weakness that we cannot by ourselves control the security situation," Jaafari said in an interview with The Washington Post. But a deadline would "play into the hands of the terrorists," Jaafari said on the eve of a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush, under pressure over declining American support for the Iraq war, discussed strategy on the way forward on Friday with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. White House officials indicated there would be no major change in Bush's Iraq policy, keeping U.S. troops there until Iraqis are sufficiently trained to defend themselves. Bush and Jaafari planned a news conference in the White House East Room after their talks. The U.S. president faces a difficult task of acknowledging the difficulties in Iraq with his tendency to emphasize the positive. Fifty-one percent of Americans believe the United States should...

President George W Bush held a discussion on strengthening social security reform at Montgomery Blair High School, in Silver Spring, Md Later President George W. Bush spoke about the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in the Old Executive Building urging Congress to ratify the CAFTA trade pact Vice President Dick Cheney will appear on today's "Wolf Blitzer Reports." The program focuses on the day's top news, live interviews with top newsmakers and live reports from CNN correspondents Earlier in the day Vice President Dick Cheney along with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley had a closed meeting with Iraq's Prime...

WASHINGTON - Iraq’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari blasted the Al Jazeera news channel and other Arab media Thursday for giving distorted coverage of Iraq’s troubles and encouraging “terrorism.” Defending a ban on the pan-Arab network when challenged by an Al Jazeera reporter at an appearance in Washington, Jaafari said ”the Iraqi people hugely oppose this news channel.” “Representatives of Al Jazeera have come to speak to me and I say to them that the problem Al Jazeera has, is not with the government it is with the Iraqi people,” Jaafari said at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “The...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S.-led multinational force must stay in Iraq until Iraqi forces are fully prepared to defend the country by themselves, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Thursday. Setting of a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces would be a sign of weakness, he said. "The country would be open to increased terrorist activity," he said at the Council on Foreign Relations. Ahead of his White House meeting Friday with President Bush, al-Jaafari said Iraq's insurgency consisted of a "very, very limited minority" of people. Where once there were 12 to 14 incidents of terrorism a day, the...