Bush, Maliki to meet as Iraqi deaths hit new high
U.S. President George W. Bush will meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan next week with grim new statistics showing record numbers of Iraqis were killed last month and many more fled the country.
A U.N. report said 3,709 civilians were killed in October — 120 a day and up from 3,345 in September. In all, 418,392 moved to other parts of Iraq since the February bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra triggered a surge in sectarian violence.
It said as well as those displaced within Iraq, nearly 100,000 people were fleeing to Syria and Jordan every month — proportionally equivalent to a million Americans emigrating each month, depriving the U.S. economy of a city the size of Detroit.
The meeting between Bush and Maliki in the Jordanian capital Amman, a much safer venue than Baghdad, will follow a weekend visit to Iran by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and this week’s landmark visit to Iraq by Syria’s foreign minister.
They will be the first lengthy talks between Bush and Maliki since Bush pledged a new approach on Iraq after his Democratic opponents took control of Congress.
They agreed to draw up plans for accelerating the training of Iraqi forces and the transfer of responsibility. Maliki said Iraqis could take charge in six months, half the U.S. estimate.
reuters
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