Al-Maliki asks U.S.to send him weapons

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Iraqi government’s need for American troops would “dramatically go down” in three to six months if the United States sped up the process of equipping and arming Iraq’s security forces, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday.

Facing skepticism in Iraq and abroad about his ability to lead his country out of civil war, the head of the Shiite Muslim-led government defended his country’s independence and sovereignty and called on U.S. leaders to show faith in his ability to lead.

At a time when Bush has committed an additional 21,500 troops to the fight in Iraq, al-Maliki went further than he has before in establishing a time frame for drawing down the U.S. presence.

“If we succeed in implementing the agreement between us to speed up the equipping and providing weapons to our military forces, I think that within three to six months our need for the American troops will dramatically go down,” al-Maliki said.

In a statement issued Tuesday by al-Maliki’s office, he said Iraq would continue to build up its armed forces “so it will be possible to withdraw the Multinational forces from cities, or withdraw 50,000 soldiers from Iraq.”

Also Wednesday, a suicide car bomber killed 17 Shiites at a teeming Sadr City market, while gunmen in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad shot up a convoy of U.S.-based nonprofit workers in an ambush that took the lives of an American woman and three bodyguards.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a truck laden with explosives blew up outside a police station, killing 10 people, including four policemen, and wounding 45 others, according to Kirkuk police chief Burhan Habeeb Taiyab.