US/Iraqi Press Conference

United States President, George W. Bush (Liberals hate when you say that phrase) and Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki held a press conference today discussing the condition of Iraq. Centcom has the full transcript here, but for some quotes from the conference, here you go!

Bush: We talked about security in Baghdad. No question the terrorists and extremists are brutal. These are people that just kill innocent people to achieve an objective, which is to destabilize his government. The Prime Minister tells me that he and his government are not shaken by these actions. They're concerned about them, they're not shaken by them.

The Iraqi people want to succeed. They want to end this violence. Our strategy is to remain on the offense, including in Baghdad. Under the Prime Minister's leadership, coalition and Iraqi leaders are modifying their operational concept to bring greater security to the Iraqi capital. Coalition and Iraqi forces will secure individual neighborhoods, will ensure the existence of an Iraqi security presence in the neighborhoods, and gradually expand the security presence as Iraqi citizens help them root out those who instigate violence.

This plan will involve embedding more U.S. military police with Iraqi police units to make them more effective. The Prime Minister advised me that to support this plan, he and General Casey have agreed to deploy additional American troops and Iraqi security personnel in Baghdad in the coming weeks. These will come from other areas of the country. Our military commanders tell me that this deployment will better reflect the current conditions on the ground in Iraq.

Maliki: I reaffirmed to the President Iraq's need to the cooperation from the international community and your cooperation. And I have seen a great deal of understanding for this very vital issue from the President. I also expressed my appreciation to the role that's been played by the multinational forces and the exerted efforts to support us and to help us in building our security organizations, to allow our organizations to fully be in control of the security position and the security circumstances.

I agreed with the President to form a joint committee of experts and connections in order to achieve the self-sufficiency for the Iraqi forces. This will allow these forces to bear the responsibility of protecting security and confronting terrorism in our country. And in this field, we have achieved our first and initial success when our forces assumed the responsibility in the Muthanna governorate. This is a very important step, will be followed by similar steps in many other governorates in Iraq.

We are determined to defeat terrorism, and the security plan for Baghdad has entered the second phase and it's achieving its objectives in hunting the terrorist networks and eliminating it.