Speaking at a UN-sponsored conference on transitional justice and reconciliation in Baghdad the speaker of the country’s parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said that US forces have committed butchery in Iraq and should leave. “Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right,” Al-Mashhadani said in a speech as the conference opened. “What has been done in Iraq is a kind of butchery of the Iraqi people.” The two day conference will attempt to reconcile warring factions, and address the issue of the previous regime’s crimes. Meanwhile the US is moving to bolster American troop strength in Baghdad in order to deal with the escalating violence in the city. This comes after a U.N. report stated that the Iraqi death toll has risen to over 100 per day. Contrary to the expectations of the American government, the number of civilian deaths have only increased since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

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