WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Political and administrative developments in Iraq pose a continued threat to the United States, the U.S. president said, extending a state of emergency.
U.S. President Barack Obama said that obstacles to the "orderly reconstruction," the maintenance of peace and administrative developments in Iraq continue to pose an extraordinary threat to U.S. national and foreign policy interests.
"Accordingly, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to this threat and maintain in force the measures taken to deal with that national emergency," he said.
U.S. Defense Department officials this week downplayed suggestions that insecurity and political issues in Iraq were delaying plans to pull U.S. troops out of the country.
Iraq turned violent in the wake of March 7 elections for the Council of Representatives. A wave of shootings and bombings directed Monday at security forces and civilians killed nearly 100 people and injured at least 300 in Iraq. Bombings in Fallujah and Sadr City, meanwhile, claimed scores of lives during the week.
Iraq has yet to form a government in the wake of the March 7 vote. The Iraqiya slate of former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi warned this week warned that political infighting threatened national security.
