Iraqi occupation was idiotic but Baghdad must be secured: vice-president

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) - The US-led occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein's ouster was an "idiot" decision, Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi said during the World Economic Forum.

But he warned that winning the "war" in Baghdad, where US troop levels have recently been reinforced, would be crucial to ending the spiral of violence in the country.

The Shiite vice president's comments came just a day after the influential US Senate Foreign Relations committee rejected President George W. Bush's plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.

The Committee, whose recommendation is not binding but is certain to hamper the plan's passage through the Democrat-controlled Congress, voted 12-9 on a no-confidence resolution slamming the US president's project as "not in the national interest."

"Iraqis and Iraq had been put under occupation, which was an idiot decision," the Shiite vice president said in a debate, while cataloguing mistakes accumulated by all sides -- US and Iraqi -- over the past four years.

Mahdi told the meeting of political and business leaders in the Swiss resort of Davos that the plan to stifle violence in Baghdad could work.

"If we can win this war in Baghdad, I think we can change the course of events," he said.