U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Iraqi leaders on Thursday to
end their "political inaction" and put aside their differences to rein in
sectarian violence that threatens to tear the country apart.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice (L) greets Iraq President Jalal Talabani (R) at the fortified Green
Zone in Baghdad October 5, 2006. Rice flew into Baghdad on Thursday for a
surprise visit to press Iraqi leaders to resolve their differences and
ease raging sectarian violence that has killed
thousands.[Reuters] |
Her surprise visit, during a Middle East tour, focused new attention on Iraq
in the United States at a time when President George W. Bush's administration is
on the defensive over the war in campaigning for next month's congressional
elections.
Three years after U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq is gripped by an
unrelenting Sunni insurgency and sectarian killings that Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led national unity government is struggling to contain.
The U.S. military and Iraqi government meanwhile denied reports that al
Qaeda's leader in Iraq was killed in a raid on a safe house in western Iraq this
week but said DNA tests would be conducted on bodies recovered from the scene to
make sure.
Rice flew to Baghdad on an unannounced mission to meet the government she
helped forge earlier this year but which has failed to deliver on promises of
improved security and services.
Calling Maliki a "very good and strong prime minister", she delivered a
double-edged message: that Bush remained committed to Iraq and its government
but that Iraqi politicians had to move faster to resolve their differences,
restore security, crack down on sectarian militias and provide basic services.
"Our role ... is to support all the parties and indeed to press all of the
parties to work towards that resolution quickly, because obviously the security
situation is not one that can be tolerated and is not one that is being helped
by political inaction," she told reporters travelling with her as she flew to
Baghdad.
Rice got a taste of Baghdad's chronic insecurity when her plane had to circle
for about half an hour before landing because the airport was briefly closed due
what a U.S. official called "indirect fire" - most likely mortar rounds.
A few hours later as she posed for pictures with Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani, the lights briefly went out, a reminder of the blackouts that many
Iraqis face.
Maliki on Monday unveiled a vague four-point deal with Sunni leaders and
fellow Shi'ites that focuses on all-party local committees to bridge distrust
between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims and stem the violence that kills hundreds
every week.
The Baghdad morgue said it had received 1,440 bodies in September, 85 percent
of them victims of violence. This was a drop on the 1,550 it reported in August
and the 1,815 in July.
The United Nations, which adds the morgue figures to the numbers of hospital
deaths from the Health Ministry, has said 6,599 Iraqis were killed in July and
August, 700 more than in the previous two months.
SENSE OF URGENCY
The U.S. has recently stepped up pressure on Maliki to stamp out militias
blamed for many of the deaths and who Sunni leaders say often act in collusion
with the Shi'ite-dominated police.
Maliki has vowed to disband the militias, some of which are tied to parties
within his own government. But the difficulty of his task was underlined this
week when the 8th National Police Brigade was pulled off the streets of the
capital, some of its members accused of complicity in hit squad attacks.
"It ought to be very clear to everybody -- and I think it's especially clear
to the Iraqi government -- that these are urgent matters that they have to take
on with great urgency," Rice said.
In addition to her talks with Maliki and Talabani, Rice met members of Sunni,
Shi'ite and Kurdish parties to press home her case that quick action was needed.
In a hint of the political pressure that Bush confronts over the Iraq war, a
U.S. official said Rice stressed the need to change American perceptions that
Iraq is mired in violence.
"A key requirement was for Iraqis to understand that when the American people
look at Iraq, what they see are Iraqis killing Iraqis and that is not a good
image," the senior State Department official said of the message Rice delivered.
"The world, the American people, need to see a different image. They need to
see Iraqis working together and producing progress. This was a moment, a
critical moment, for change," he added. The official spoke on condition of
anonymity because he described private conversations between Rice and the
Iraqis.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said this week that the main
threat to Iraq was now from sectarian violence and that the four-month-old
national unity government had just two more months to start containing it.
Dismissing claims by Iraqi politicians that al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub
al-Masri and several associates were killed in a U.S. airstrike this week, U.S.
military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said: "We believe he is
still alive."
Masri, an Egyptian who is also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, assumed the
leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died in a
U.S. airstrike in June.
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