Italy PM: Iraq attack won't affect pullout   (AP)  Updated: 2006-06-07 14:15  
Premier Romano Prodi said Tuesday that this week's attack on an Italian 
military patrol in southern Iraq that killed one soldier and wounded four others 
would not hasten Italy's withdrawal from the country.  
 
 
 
   Italian Premier Romano 
 Prodi, right, flanked by Defense Minister Arturo Parisi delivers his 
 speech at the Lower Chamber in Rome, Tuesday, June 6, 2006. Premier Romano 
 Prodi said Tuesday that this week's attack on an Italian military convoy 
 that left a soldier dead and four wounded would not affect Italy's pullout 
 plans. [AP] |   
Prodi said the government was in the process of working out the timing and 
manner of the withdrawal of its 2,700 troops with allies and Iraqi authorities.
 "Nothing changes regarding the pullout plans of our soldiers," Prodi told 
Parliament. "Yesterday's attack won't have any repercussions on the timetable, 
which is being defined."
 Extreme leftist coalition allies, however, insisted that Italy's troops 
should be withdrawn immediately.
 "What are we waiting for to pull out our troops?" said Oliviero Diliberto, 
leader of a communist party in Prodi's coalition. "It's only a question of 
giving the political go-ahead."
 The Italian Joint Task Force said that a military vehicle, escorting a 
British convoy about 60 miles north of Nasiriyah, was hit by an explosive 
device, wounding all five soldiers in the vehicle, one of whom died shortly 
after.
 The death raised to 32 the number of Italian personnel killed in Iraq during 
the military deployment, which includes the paramilitary police. The toll 
includes four dead in a roadside blast in April, in Nasiriyah.
 Prodi, who took office last month after winning April elections, has called 
the Iraq war a "grave error" and vowed to withdraw the troops. His center-left 
government has said it will stick to a plan by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi 
to reduce the number to 1,600 sometime this month.
 The Italian troops were sent in by Berlusconi, a strong U.S. ally, to help 
rebuild Iraq after the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein.   
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