Opening statement

Thank you. Thank you Mr. Secretary General, Your Excellencies,thank you for inviting me to NATO Headquarters again. This will be mythird visit since we began dialogue almost a year ago.

On July 13th last year I address Your Excellencies about the progressand challenges facing my country in our democratic politicaltransition. I also recall the preceding statement issued on Iraq by theHeads of State and Government at the Istanbul Summit in June last year,which declared NATO's full support for the process of change in the newIraq.

The 5th of November, 2004, I visited again withthe previous Prime Minister Dr. Iyad Allawi, and I remember well thevisit to Iraq of His Excellency, the Secretary General, Mr. Scheffer,on December the 3rd.

My visit today is timely as itcoincides with our participation in the International Conference onIraq that starts tomorrow here in Brussels. This will provide animportant platform for our government to address the internationalcommunity on its vision and priorities, and what it needs to help usrecover. We need the international community to share the burden in theprocess of stabilizing and rebuilding our country. NATO has animportant role in helping us to achieve that.

We arepleased that NATO is continuing to be engaged in providing assistanceto the multinational force and to my government with the training ofour security forces. There is no doubt that our contribution... thatyour contribution and your presence on the ground plays a major role tothe build-up, training, and equipping of our armed and security forces.

My government, which was democratically elected by thepeople, is grateful to you for your continued engagement andassistance. We also believe that one of our top priorities andchallenges is to improve security.

Without securitythere is very little that can be done. The entire political process,and the reconstruction of Iraq, depends primarily on building up aviable Iraqi security force that can protect the people of Iraq anddefend its borders.

After the overthrow of SaddamHussein we have had to start almost from the beginning to build a newIraqi army from the bottom up. This task needs your further assistance,and ongoing commitment. We are aware and we appreciate that; the offersand the ongoing training provided by a number of NATO member states.

Our preference is still to see such training and resources beingdeployed on the ground inside the country, but at the same time, we dotake note of some of the offers by some members of the NATOorganization to provide this training outside.

I'll give you a brief picture of what achievements have already been accomplished.

Our forces are active proof that the training process is providingtangible results, and day by day, the Iraqi national guards and thearmy, the police, are improving their performance and combatcapabilities. Our forces are also assuming more and moreresponsibilities from the MNF in different parts of the country.

In addition, we also see the results of training in the field ofcommand and education and in adherence to the new military doctrine.

For some time now they have increasingly shifted from defensive postureto a more offensive position to provide security and face up to theterrorist attacks carried out by the terror networks of SaddamistIslamic fundamentalists and ordinary criminal gangs, who all share thesame goal, to undermine stability, security and the work of the newgovernment. In terms of numbers, we see progress. In terms of equipmentthe delivery has improved in quality and quantity, although we do needthis process to be accelerated. Our units deserve to arm themselveswith more effective weapon system.

Our armed andsecurity forces have also improved their intelligence, thanks to thesupport of the local people. There have recently been numerous caseswhen these intelligence leads have led to the detention of many keyterrorist leaders, and foiled many of their plans to carry out attacksand inflict their damage on ordinary Iraqi people.

Weare aware of the plans to open the Joint Military Staff College inRustimiyah on the 25th of September this year. This would be a landmarkdevelopment for providing first class training for the new Iraqi juniorand senior staffs. We appreciate the work of General Rokos in thisregard, and General Petraeus who have been very, very helpful. And alsowe are aware of the programs for NATO schools to continue this task.

The new transitional government has a clear vision and priorities toaccomplish its goals to reconstruct the country. It is important in thecritical field of security that close coordination is establishedbetween NATO and the Iraqi Ministry of Defence in order for Iraq tobenefit the most from joint cooperation. Significant progress has beenmade. This must continue at the same time as we advance on time and oncourse in the political process. We are committed to the deadlines setout in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546 and webelieve that as we progress on the political track and process thiswill have an impact on the security situation.

We aregrateful to your efforts, Mr. Scheffer, personally, and to NATO, but wealso seek your increased engagement. It is not just a question ofnumbers in our forces, but also the quality of leadership and theability of the forces to be self-reliant.

We areconfident that you would continue the program to help us with thatlevel and help us meet our goal of developing self-sufficient securityforces to secure and defend the interests of Iraqi people. We, indeed,are seeing a great deal and tangible results coming out of yourefforts. I mean, since last year up to now I can say that our forcesreally have made a good progress.

On the politicaltrack process also I'd like to report to you that again we provedreally that this government, or the previous government, has met everysingle timetable asked or demanded by the international community.

And recently we succeeded in making the Constitutional Commissioninclusive. New members have been added to those who were elected; from55 another 15 Sunni Arab have been added to that Commission in order tohave their say in the future of their country and theirconstitution-writing process, and another 10 members would be servingas experts or advisor, so now we have a truly representative, atruly... a body that represent all the Iraqi communities.

We were supposed... we are now actually in the process to start theprocess of writing the constitution. This must be finished by the 15thof August. And also this really needs to have the approval of themajority of the Iraqi people through a referendum by October. And thenwe will have a new election at the end of December.

Sothese coming months are very important, very critical for the successof this process in Iraq. We are confident as Iraqi, thanks to thesupport we are getting from the multinational forces and theircommitment, their dedication, our own ability also to move to finishthis process successfully. We are capable of defending ourself asIraqi, but we need your support, we need your assistance.

As I said in my opening remarks, really we started from the beginning.Tomorrow also is an important date for us. The International Conferenceon Iraq will be attended by 80 countries, and organizations. Thisinternational platform is basically requested by the government of Iraqin order to address the international community, ask them to bere-engaged in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq.

We believe that the consequences of failure in Iraq are... will go farbeyond Iraq itself. And that's why the stakes are high., that's why weneed the contribution, the assistance of many countries for us in thethree designated fields of this conference; political, economic, ruleof law, strengthening justice, training of police and security forces.

Our message here really that we are going to set our visions in allthese different fields, and we'll ask those participants to see whatthey can do, what can they offer in each of these fields. We areoptimistic and we hope that the conference will be a successful eventfor Iraq and for all those who would participate in that conference.

Once again, Mr. Scheffer, thank you very much for giving us thisopportunity and I'm ready to take whatever questions you (inaudible)their excellencies...