Iraq Govt Appoints Fmr Saddam General To Carry Out Bush's New Iraq Plan...

NY Times JOHN F. BURNS, SABRINA TAVERNISE January 12, 2007 10:29 AM

Mr. Dabbagh, the government spokesman, emphasized the parts of the Bush plan that best suited the Maliki government's political ambitions. He said the "good thing in this plan is that it determines that responsibility should be transferred from the Americans to the Iraqis." This was a prime point with Mr. Bush, too, when he said that the role of American troops under the new plan would be to "help the Iraqis" secure neighborhoods in Baghdad, protect the local population and maintain security in areas that American and Iraqi forces have cleared.

Within hours of Mr. Bush's speech, American commanders were meeting with their Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad to work out the details of a new command arrangement that would give Mr. Maliki a direct role in overseeing the new crackdown. The Iraqis named a commander for the operation, Lt. Gen. Aboud Gambar, a Shiite from southern Iraq who was a top general in Saddam Hussein's army until the American-led invasion in 2003.

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