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Article: U.S. Sets Plans to Aid Iraq in Civil War; Security Forces Would Bear Brunt
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- March 10, 2006
- Author:
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The U.S. military will rely primarily on Iraq's security forces to
put down a civil war in that country if one breaks out, Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers yesterday.
Sectarian violence in Iraq has reached a level unprecedented since
the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and is now eclipsing the insurgency as
the chief security threat there, said Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the
top U.S. commander in the Middle East, who appeared with Rumsfeld.
"The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to
occur, to have the . . . Iraqi security forces deal with it to the
extent they're able to," Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations
Committee when pressed to explain how the ...