Bush Names Personal Envoy to Iraq
By DPA
May 31, 2007
Washington - US President George W Bush on
Thursday named a top aide as his personal envoy to Iraq, a move meant to
increase pressure on rival Iraqi factions to reach political reconciliation.
Meghan O'Sullivan, 37, has helped shape US
administration policy as Bush's deputy national security adviser for Iraq and
Afghanistan over the past four years. She spent a year in Baghdad with the
US-led Coalition Provisional Authority after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
Based at the US embassy in Baghdad, she will
'help the Iraqis meet the benchmarks' toward national unity, including
provincial elections and passing a law for sharing oil revenues among Shiite,
Sunni and Kurdish regions, Bush said.
Speaking after talks with Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani at the White House, Bush noted pressure from the Democratic-led US
Congress for Iraqis to meet the benchmarks and called al-Qaeda the enemy number
one in Iraq.
Impatience with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's
government is rife among Democrats, who are demanding that Bush withdraw US
troops from Iraq.
'Mr President, it is important that you
succeed. Failure in Iraq would endanger the American citizens,' Bush told
Talabani during a joint news briefing.
Talabani promised that Iraqis would make
progress.
'We are committed to do our best to train our
army and our forces to replace, gradually, the American forces in taking
responsibility of the security of our country,' Talabani said.
