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Agencies
Thursday, June 5, 2003

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President Bush today praised US troops for helping to make Iraq "safer" and promised to "reveal the truth" on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Bush, speaking to US troops in Qatar at the end of a week-long tour of the Middle East, said: "We've made sure Iraq is not going to be used as an arsenal for terrorist groups."

Mr Bush said the situation in Iraq was improving, thanks to the work of US soldiers, after Saddam Hussein emptied jail cells of "common criminals" just before the war and left his people hungry and desperate.

The criminals "haven't changed their habits or their ways," Bush said. "They like to rob, loot ... We'll find them. Day by day the United States and our coalition partners are making the streets safer for the Iraqi citizens.

"A more just political system will develop when people have food in their stomachs, and their lights work, and they can turn on a faucet and they can find some clean water - things that Saddam Hussein did not do for them," he said.

"I've been on the road for a while and I hope you didn't mind us stopping by," he added. "I'm happy to see you and so are the long-suffering people of Iraq."

Mr Bush hinted that the search for weapons of mass destruction would be long and difficult but insisted: "We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth.

"This [Saddam Hussein] is a man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them."

Mr Bush's speech came amid further signs of tension between Iraqis and US troops in Falluja, where an American soldier was killed and five were wounded overnight after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Scores of US army military police sealed off the area and launched house-to-house searches for the attackers.

Residents said the attack, at an American checkpoint in front of a police station, left "blood everywhere".

Jamal Hussein Ali, 27, said he saw the immediate aftermath of the assault, which he said began with small-arms fire at around 2030 GMT yesterday.

"Then we heard an explosion," Mr Ali told Reuters. "We saw the American troops shooting and running. They crossed the street, broke down a shop door and took cover inside." Falluja has been a centre of resistance to American occupation, and US forces have come under repeated attack in the area, about 30 miles west of Baghdad.

Senior military commanders say they believe the resistance is not coordinated.

The commander of US ground forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General David McKiernan, said the spate of attacks in and around Falluja was a last-ditch effort by Saddam's supporters.

"I don't see any pattern of centralised command and control over these incidents," Lt Gen McKiernan said.

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Direct Link:
--http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,971053,00.html

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