Bodies pile up in Baghdad as Bush meets Maliki

[Kadie]

Bodies pile up in Baghdad as Bush meets Maliki
by Dave Clark
9 minutes ago


BAGHDAD (AFP) - Baghdad's overflowing morgues have welcomed another grim daily harvest of bullet-riddled corpses as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met US President George W. Bush and vowed to halt the violence.

Iraqi security officials said they had recovered the bodies of 58 murder victims in Baghdad over the previous 24 hours -- a US spokeswoman confirmed 49 -- and that a mass grave holding 28 corpses was found north of the city.

Six civilians were killed in sectarian fighting around Baquba, north of the capital, and two police were killed by insurgents in the western city of Fallujah, police said Thursday.

These latest victims of Iraq's vicious sectarian conflict formed a gloomy backdrop to a crisis meeting in neighbouring Jordan between Bush and Maliki, whose embattled unity government has been undermined by the bloodshed.

snip...
"We have agreed and we were clear on the need to speed up the transfer of security responsibilities to the Iraqi forces," Maliki said.

Nevertheless, Bush explicitly ruled out setting a timetable for US forces to leave, a move which will anger Maliki's increasingly vocal opponents.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061130/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrest_061130143719