“The Baghdad security plan is now ready, and we will depend on our armed forces to implement it with multinational forces behind them. Field leaders will ask for help from these forces if needed
Lemme guess…..they’re going to need “help” come along about next Wednesday. Yah, that’s the ticket. We need about 40,000 new soldiers worth of help.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday that Iraqi forces will lead a new effort — with U.S. help — to wrest control of Baghdad’s neighborhoods from militias and other sectarian killers.

“The Baghdad security plan is now ready, and we will depend on our armed forces to implement it with multinational forces behind them. Field leaders will ask for help from these forces if needed,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in a speech at the 85th anniversary celebration of the Iraqi army.

Iraqi forces will begin a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assault on militants in the capital this weekend, as a first step in the new White House strategy to contain Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads, key advisers to the prime minister said.

“The Baghdad security plan will not offer a safe shelter for outlaws regardless of their ethnic and political affiliations, and we will punish anyone who hesitates to implement orders because of his ethnic and political background,” al-Maliki said Saturday.

The first details of the new plan — a fresh bid to pacify the capital — emerged Friday, a day after President Bush and al-Maliki spoke for nearly two hours by video conference. Bush was also expected to detail his vision of a new strategy in the coming days.

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