Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani (right) meets the top US officer in Iraq General George Casey (second right) in Baghdad yesterday

BAGHDAD: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani yesterday rejected the idea that his country is caught in the grip of a civil war between the majority Shias and the formerly privileged Sunni community.
“I don’t believe that a civil war is taking place in Iraq,” Talabani told a joint news conference with the commander of US and coalition forces in Iraq, General George Casey.
“There is more than one Iraqi political force... which opposes civil war,” he said, naming the ruling Shia coalition and the Sunni National Concord Front.
“Therefore, I don’t expect a civil war,” said Talabani, himself a member of the Kurdish minority.
Iraq, and particularly Baghdad, has been engulfed in sectarian bloodshed since February, as tit-for-tat attacks by militias and death squads have killed thousands of people from both communities.
Bodies of people are found daily across the country, especially in Baghdad, where kidnappers dump the tortured corpses of the victims by the roadside and in the Tigris river.
In May and June alone, around 6,000 people were killed in such bloodletting across Iraq, the UN said in a report last month.
Talabani, however, said these killings were mere reactions to major insurgent attacks.
“When a car bomb explodes in a Hussainiyat (Shia mosque), markets and Shia regions, it is natural there would be a reaction among enthusiastic Shia youngsters who find the government unable to maintain security,” he said. “This is a reckless reaction.”
Talabani said that Iraqi forces should carry out security missions and that coalition forces led by the US act as backup.
“They (coalition troops) should not be the head of the arrow,” he said, adding that their presence in any military mission should not be “very effective”.
Casey later said at a news conference: “There is a comprehensive plan ... to change the situation significantly prior to Ramadan,”
The holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims observe a strict daylight fast, is expected to start in late September this year although the exact timing will be determined by religious authorities.
The beefed up forces are an admission that Operation Forward together, a security crackdown in the capital driven by what the Iraqi government has said is about 50,000 Iraqi forces, had failed to ease violence.
“What you will see are Iraqi security forces, supported by the coalition, clearing out areas where there are terrorists and death squads, and then establishing the security presence to protect the people,” Casey said.
“It’s clear to everyone that the people in Iraq are tired of terrorism and want peace and security. That peace and security will come when all Iraqis reject violence and accept peace.”
The US boosted its soldiers in the capital, in a blow to Washington’s hopes that it can start bringing its troops home, after Iraqi forces failed to curb increasingly savage sectarian attacks or confront armed militias blamed for fanning tension.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has sworn to disarm these groups, but must proceed with care because some are connected to members of his newly formed government of national unity. – Agencies