Iraq wins support at global conference

Brussels, Belgium ? Iraq won wide and concrete support from the international community at a conference that wrapped up Wednesday with high hopes for the future of a country where the new government is trying to rebuild its security forces but failing to cope with relentless terror attacks.

No new money was offered at a meeting that was never intended as a donors conference, but the gathering was applauded as proof that sharp differences over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could be put aside to help Iraqis now.

“It’s a good day for Iraq,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said joyfully. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, clearly moved, called it a “watershed” moment for the nation.

Among the steps to emerge was a new donors conference July 18-19 in Amman, Jordan; assurances from several nations to follow through on recent pledges of aid or to consider debt relief; and expert advice on drafting a constitution ahead of December elections.

The one-day conference on Iraq, hosted by the European Union and the United States at Iraq’s request, brought together more than 80 senior officials from around the world.

Iraq, led by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, asked for a Marshall Plan like the massive aid program the United States provided Western Europe after World War II, an economic package which he said “offered the people of Germany financial support and pushed Germany toward independence and security.”

He asked governments to follow through with pledges of aid at past donor conferences, to train Iraqi troops on Iraqi territory, and to restore full diplomatic relations with Baghdad as a sign of their commitment.

Nations at the conference embraced Iraq’s blueprint, adopting a resolution promising full support of Baghdad’s “efforts to achieve a democratic, pluralist, federal and unified Iraq, reflecting the will of the Iraqi people, in which there is full respect for political and human rights.”

Rice: Ending Iraq insurgency would be ‘death knell’ to terrorism

Brussels, Belgium (ap) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared Wednesday that defeating terrorism in Iraq would sound a “death knell” for terrorism elsewhere.

“Terrorism can be defeated in Iraq, it will be defeated in Iraq,” Rice said at the close of an 80-nation conference on the reconstruction of postwar Iraq.

“When it is defeated in Iraq, at the heart of the Middle East, it will be a death knell for terrorism as we know it,” Rice said.

Rice did not elaborate on how the war in Iraq might affect terror groups in other parts of the world. She often says, however, that insurgencies are defeated by political means as well as military ones, when local populations no longer see the value of an insurgency.

The insurgency in Iraq is a mix of Sunni Arab opponents of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and foreign supporters of al-Qaida and other terror groups.

The terrorism inside the country is almost entirely a postwar phenomenon. As part of its investigation, the Sept. 11 Commission’s report last summer said Saddam did not have a close relationship with al-Qaida.