Iraq's prime minister pledged on Thursday that the country would play an active role on the world stage in an upbeat speech delivered as the troubled nation entered a sixth year of war. Despite signs of progress, many Iraqis hold out little hope for a quick end to their suffering.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke five years to the day after US forces fired a first salvo of missiles at Baghdad before dawn on March 20, 2003, triggering a conflict that toppled Saddam Hussein but has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4,000 US troops.
In a nationally televised address, al-Maliki promised to strengthen Iraq's role in world affairs, assuring the Iraqi people that their nation "cannot be anything but strong, unified and active."
"It will not be isolated," al-Maliki said of Iraq. "As Iraq has triumphed over terrorism, it will triumph in the international arena."
Al-Maliki's optimistic remarks were the latest in a series of statements aimed at rallying national morale and projecting the image of Iraq as a country on the road to recovery after five years of bombs, bullets and sectarian slaughter.
On Wednesday, al-Maliki, a Shiite, attended celebrations marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad in Azamiyah, a Sunni Arab neighborhood of the Iraqi capital that had been a bastion of al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups.
He delivered his remarks on Thursday at a cultural festival in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city about 100km south of Baghdad near the ruins of fabled Babylon, one of the great cities of the ancient world.
Al-Maliki said the cultural festival was a sign that normal life was returning to Iraq, however he cut short his remarks a few moments later when the electricity failed.
US officials have also touted the sharp decline in violence over the past year as a sign that the US administration's strategy in Iraq is beginning to show signs of success, despite widespread opposition to the conflict within the US public.
The US military said attacks have fallen by about 60 percent since early last year, when US President George W. Bush rushed about 30,000 US reinforcements to curb a wave of sectarian massacres that plunged the nation to the brink of full-scale civil war.
But US officials also acknowledge that Iraq remains far from secure and that the security gains so far are fragile because of ongoing political disputes among rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities.
"The situation is very unstable," said Jassim Mohammed, 40, a Sunni employee of the Iraqi National Library in Baghdad. "I simply do not see any light at the end of this dark tunnel."
In the latest violence, three policemen were killed on Thursday in a roadside bombing and a shooting in Mosul, which the US military describes as al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq. Another police officer was reported killed in the southern city of Kut.
A senior Iraqi electricity official was released on Thursday after being kidnapped the day before in the northern city of Beiji, police said.
Also on Thursday, the US military said troops killed seven suspected insurgents trying to plant a roadside bomb north of Baghdad the day before, however Iraqi police in Samarra said the dead were civilians trying to repair their car along the roadside.
"Iraq is hard, complicated," US embassy spokesman Philip Reeker told reporters on Thursday. "While we've seen tremendous progress in terms of better security -- and that's reflected in things Iraqis say -- it's fragile. It's the kind of thing that can fly back."
As the war drags on, many Iraqis have become increasingly pessimistic that the US and their Iraqi and coalition allies will manage to bring lasting peace anytime soon.
In Mosul, Shiite taxi driver Mahmoud Abdul-Hussein, 38, said he was pleased that the US and its allies had rid the country of Saddam's tyranny.
"But I regret the cluelessness of the politicians and religious men who seek to promote their own interests and neglect the unity of Iraq," Abdul-Hussein said.
Even though killings are down, Iraqis also complain of electricity shortages, lack of clean drinking water and poorly equipped schools for their children. Unemployment is estimated between 25 percent and 50 percent, Iraqi government figures show.
Last year, a record number of Iraqis sought asylum in the EU, figures released this week by the UN figures show. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said asylum requests from Iraqis soared to 38,286 last year, from 19,375 in 2006, despite the reduction in violence.
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