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US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage paid a one-day visit to Iraq on Sunday as his country airstroke Fallujah, while Iraq was said to name 43 ambassadors in efforts to normalized relations with other nations.
Armitage, the most senior US official that has visited Iraq since it regained its sovereignty on June 28, held talks with Iraqi Interim President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar and Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on security issues and efforts to further forgive Iraq's foreign debt.
At a press conference with Armitage, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebariat said Iraq will name ambassadors to 43 countries on Monday, trying to boost relations with the outside world just three weeks after regaining its sovereignty from the US-led coalition authorities.
Zebariat said his country planned to resume diplomatic ties with all Arab countries, including neighboring Kuwait, who was invaded by Iraq more than ten years ago.
Armitage said the US airstrike, on suspected hideout of al-Qaeda militants in Fallujah early Sunday in which 14 people were killed, had been authorized by the Iraqi interim government.
"We worked with the(Iraqi) government, the government was fullyinformed about these matters, agreed with us on the need to take the action, we conducted the action," the US official said, noting"we didn't just strike off on our own, a sovereign nation had to agree."
The Sunday attack is the sixth of a series of military operation targeting the hideout of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a suspected linker to the al-Qaida network, since June 19.
Zarqawi was blamed for at least 25 attacks in Iraq. He claimed responsibility for a failed attempt on Saturday to assassinate Iraqi Justice Minister Malek Dohan al-Hassan, in which five people were killed.
US Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy director of the US-led force in Iraq, said the strike targeted the extremist militants' "fighting positions and trench lines near the remains of a house".
He said about 25 fighters were there just before the attack, citing Iraqi and coalition intelligence sources.
The house destroyed was said to belong to poor civilians. Body parts could be seen scattered around and some were stacked and covered with a blanket, witnesses said.
In another blow to the US-led coalition forces, Poland, one of Washington's supporter in the Iraqi war, said on Sunday that Poland's military presence in Iraq should be substantially decreased from early 2005.
Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka made the announcement at a news briefing during his visit to Iraq, the first by a government chief since the power transfer.
But he also said his country plans to "keep its troops as part of the multinational forces and to contribute to Iraq's rebuilding process," according to a statement.
The announcement followed the withdrawal of 11 Philippine soldiers, including the head of Manila's mission in Iraq, Brigadier General Jovito S. Palparan Jr., as part of the complete withdrawal from Iraq to save the life of a Filipino hostage.
Palparan Jr. arrived early Monday at the Manila International Airport, saying he was happy to be back home. Ten of his men are scheduled to fly from Kuwait in the afternoon, and the remaining 32 members of the military-police contingent were set to leave Iraq later Monday.
The Philippine Government led by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo decided to withdraw its troops earlier than the scheduled Aug. 20 departure has been criticized by the United States, which said it would re-evaluate the bilateral ties.
The fate of the kidnapped De la Cruz has gripped the Philippines, and the government, one of the strongest backers of Washington's invasion of Iraq, has to conform to the domestic emotional pleas for a pullout to save him.
The 46-year-old Cruz was kidnapped on July 7 near Fallujah while driving a truckload of fuel from Saudi Arabia. The kidnappers have said he won't be freed until the last Filipino peacekeeper leaves Iraq.
Meanwhile, Jordanian King Abdullah II on Sunday told CNN that his country and other neighbors of Iraq should not send troops to Iraq unless Iraq requests it.
"I don't think Jordan is the right country, nor any of the countries that surround Iraq (to send troops to Iraq), because I believe that we can't work with transparency," he said.
However, if the Iraqi government makes a request, "it would be difficult for us to say no," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2004)
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