Vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi, Iraq’s most senior politician from the Sunni Arab minority, said on Sunday that more US troops were needed in Baghdad to stop the “systematic cleansing” of the Sunni community by Shia militias.

Some 3,000 Iraqis were fleeing the country daily and Iraqi forces were insufficient, incompetent and corrupted, he said. There is intense speculation in Washington that President George W. Bush will propose “surging” some 30,000 more US troops into Iraq in a last-ditch effort to secure the city and Anbar province.