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| Baghdad – SMG Jassim Saleem, NDU Commander, makes his opening remarks prior to the conference |
BAGHDAD 18th October 2009 –– Under the patronage of the Iraqi Minister of Defence, on October 18th in the National Defence College (NDU) Hall at the Cultural Center, the first scientific conference on the subject "Towards Iraqi National Strategy” has been held.
Staff Lt. Gen. Jasim Duhe Hussein, Iraqi army deputy chief of staff for training, took part in the event, among numerous Iraqi general officers. Italian Maj. Gen. Giuseppe Spinelli, deputy commanding general, NATO Training Mission-Iraq, and UK Brig. Gen. John Wootton, chief, Division of Training Educational Doctrine Advisors, were also present. The MoD invited NTM-I because of its security force training agreement with the government of Iraq.
SMG Jassim, NDU Commander, introduced the guest speakers, two Baghdad University PHD Researchers, Mr. Nasear Noori and Mr. Hazzin Al-Shumary. The two professors gave their lectures in which they highlighted the importance of having a national strategy for Iraq, based on a scientific approach.
This strategy, Mr. Noori stated, must be instrumental in building a civil and democratic country in accordance with the international rules and procedures, where political partnership overcomes all divisions and dangerous rivalries. "We should forget about dictatorship,” he concluded. Mr. Al-Shumary, on his side, said that National Integration is the key word, in its many aspects and approaches: economical, political, scientific, regional, but in the end what matters is to put the people at the center of all concerns. Only so, the internal critical ethnic and political divisions and controversies can be solved.
This conference is meant to be the first one in a long democratic and rigorous debate to shape the future national strategy of Iraq.