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Rice: Up to 2,000 foreign fighters could be in Iraq
EFL:Up to 2,000 foreign fighters bent on harming Americans and other coalition soldiers in Iraq may have flocked to the Middle East country following its invasion by the United States and Britain, a top White House official acknowledged late Tuesday. But national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the administration of President George W. Bush would rather face them in Iraq than in other parts of the world. "Iâve seen ... estimates of anything from several hundred - high hundreds - to a couple of thousand," said Rice in an interview with ABCâs "Nightline" program, adding that the precise numbers of foreigners fighting in Iraq remained unknown. Rice said these non-Iraqis were hard-core militants trying to get into the country because Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism. "They would have been fighting and committing terrorist acts someplace in the world," said the national security adviser. "Theyâre now drawn to Iraq, where, frankly, we are in a position to confront them and to disable them." Faced with the guerrilla infiltration problem, the United States has been stepping up pressure on Syria, seen as a key transit point for foreign fighters, accusing it of not doing enough to prevent these elements from crossing its borders. Rice drove home this point in her interview, saying that "Syria is a country with which we continue to have a number of problems." "We got some cooperation on closing the border to Iraqi figures who were trying to get out shortly as the war was ending," the national security adviser explained. "But we are constantly reminding the Syrians that they have obligations to make certain that their border is not used for terrorists to cross, that they have obligations to disclose anything that they might be doing with weapons of mass destruction." I love Condi. Posted by: Steve 2003-09-17 |
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