News Service from House Harris

MID: Pirates will infest Gulf if US quits Iraq too soon: minister

BAGHDAD, Nov 22 AFP - Iraq's defence minister has warned that the Gulf will be infested by pirates and Iraq left at risk of attack by its neighbours if US forces leave the country too soon.

"Coalition forces are currently protecting the Gulf, and our navy will not receive its first ships until April 2009," Abdel Qader Jassem Mohammed al-Obeidi told a news conference in Baghdad on Saturday.

If those forces "withdraw precipitously, our gulf will become like the Gulfof Aden, where there have been 95 acts of piracy", he said.

Obeidi was addressing journalists on his support for the controversial military pact that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until the end of 2011, a deal being considered by the Iraqi parliament.

The minister did not enlarge on his remarks or explain how the Gulf would become prey to pirates when one of its littoral states, Bahrain, is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

The Gulf, which supplies the bulk of world oil imports, is also bordered byKuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iran, all of whose navies patrol the waterway.

Somali-based pirates have in recent months been plaguing shipping in the Gulf of Aden and in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa.

Obeidi also said Iraqi territory risks being attacked by neighbouring states, referring to Turkey's bombing of Turkish Kurdish PKK rebels in their mountain hideaways of northern Iraq.

"Today, Iraq is the target of bombing from abroad but it is limited becausethe (US-led) coalition represents a dissuasion force," he said.

"If it is not there any more, the whole country risks being the target of shooting, even (the southern port of) Basra, and they will justify their actions by referring to information on a PKK base there," the minister said.

Obeidi also said his country has turned into "a battleground for different foreign intelligence services," without naming any countries.

"Iraqi security forces, backed by the coalition, must impose a limit on their activities, of which Iraqis are the victims."

AFP rs =0A