<http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iraq24dec24,1,2326232.story?coll=la-news-a_section> Shiites resist isolating Sadr Politicians and clerics support the leader and view U.S. opposition to him as interference. By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Saad Fakhrildeen Special to The Times
December 24, 2006
NAJAF, IRAQ — One of Iraq's most influential Shiite clerics rejected a U.S.-backed proposal to isolate Shiite extremists in the national government, saying the country should govern itself with the help of anti-U.S. firebrand Muqtada Sadr, according to politicians who spoke with the cleric Saturday.
Shiite politicians met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in this Shiite holy city, and then said they had thrown their support behind Sadr, who demands a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq rather than the temporary increase under consideration in Washington.
"The Sadr movement is part of Iraqi affairs," said Haider Abadi, a leader of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party. "We won't allow others to interfere to weaken any Iraqi political movement."
Ali Adeeb, another member of the Dawa Party, said Shiite leaders, including the prime minister, would resist U.S. efforts to sideline Sadr and his Al Mahdi army.
"The Iraqi government decides what it thinks is necessary for the interest of the political process," he said, adding that Sadr's participation was essential to improve Iraq's political and security problems. Sadr controls several seats in the Iraqi Cabinet and about 30 seats in parliament, but his loyalists have suspended their participation until fellow Shiite politicians join his call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal.
The expressions of support for Sadr are likely to complicate the Bush administration's efforts to forge a new policy on Iraq. They came as President Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and new Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who had just returned to the U.S. from a trip to Baghdad.
The U.S. recently labeled Sadr's militia the top terrorist threat in Iraq. It was involved in clashes with police Friday and Saturday in the southern city of Samawah in which police said five people were killed. Shiite moderates have been trying to build a new coalition with Kurds and Sunni Arabs that would sideline Sadr.
Military officials say Bush's plan probably will include a "surge" of thousands of troops in addition to the 140,000 already here. Many Iraqis grudgingly acknowledge that, while they want the Americans to leave, they trust U.S. troops more than they do the Iraqi security forces, which have been accused of corruption and incompetence.
But Sadr, whose militia has repeatedly clashed with U.S. troops, vehemently opposes their presence.
Abadi said Sistani maintains Iraqis know how best to govern their emerging state. Abadi said the cleric told him, "Iraqis must get their sovereignty as soon as possible. No Iraqis want foreign troops on his land for a long period. Therefore, the government should be strengthened."
Shiite politicians often meet with Sistani and spin his words to fit their political agendas. Most of those at the meeting with Sistani on Saturday were members of the Dawa Party, which is close to the Sadr bloc. After meeting Sistani, they went to see Sadr at his home nearby.
An official from a rival party in the Shiite coalition, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said members had been trying to form a coalition with Dawa, the Iraqi Islamic Party and two Kurdish parties with the hope of strengthening the government rather than isolating Sadr.
"This is just a rumor that we wanted to oust the Sadrists," said Ridha Jawad Taqi, a Supreme Council spokesman who said party leaders were invited to Saturday's meeting but didn't attend and were unaware of the outcome.
Haitham Husseini, another Supreme Council spokesman, said party members will welcome the Sadr loyalists back into the government.
Abadi said negotiations still were underway, but that Sadr's supporters "are on their way back to the government."
In Samawah, about 150 miles south of Baghdad, Sadr supporters who had previously agreed to disarm were fighting police Saturday. After militia members killed two police related to a local tribe, tribesmen joined the fight, sending gunmen into the streets and occupying the Sadr party office, police and tribesmen said.
"Everyone who is related to this bureau or the Mahdi army is a target for us and he might be killed," said Mohammed Hasan, an Ahl Ziad tribesman, who vowed revenge on the militia.
Police in southern Iraq are generally loyal to the Supreme Council, which is engaged in a bitter, years-long feud with the Sadr loyalists. Samawah resident Jamal Abid Oun was hoping for a peaceful resolution.
"There are ongoing talks between the Ahl Ziad tribe and the Sadr bureau aiming at ending this sedition," he said. "God willing, they will come out with something that saves the blood of people."
Other parts of Iraq were rife with violence Saturday.
In Baghdad, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and five injured when their convoy hit a roadside bomb downtown, police said. Authorities recovered 47 bodies in the 24-hour period that ended Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. All had been shot and most blindfolded, showing signs of torture, police said.
At least 13 people died by violence Saturday across Iraq.
Authorities in the southern city of Diwaniya discovered the body of a military intelligence official kidnapped two days ago. A police officer and a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party were also shot dead. Roadside bombs south of Baghdad and near the northern city of Kirkuk killed three.
In the southern city of Amarah, gunmen wearing police uniforms and driving a police car kidnapped a doctor. Police said the car was not theirs.
molly.hennessy-fiske at latimes.com
Times staff writer Hennessy-Fiske reported from Baghdad and special correspondent Fakhrildeen from Najaf. Special correspondents in Amarah, Baghdad, Hillah, Kirkuk and Samawah contributed to this report.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html> December 22, 2006 Iraqi Factions Try to Undercut a Plan to Isolate Extremists By JAMES GLANZ
BAGHDAD, Dec. 21 — Several Iraqi political groups on Thursday maneuvered to undercut an American-backed initiative that would create a multisectarian bloc intended to isolate extremists like the Shiite cleric and militia leader Moktada al-Sadr.
The bloc would consist of Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab and Kurdish parties in an alliance that would be novel in Iraq's highly sectarian political environment. This week, Iraqi and Western officials said that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a highly influential Shiite cleric, had given a tentative go-ahead to the coalition.
But on Thursday, Saleem Abdullah, a Sunni Arab lawmaker who is a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said his party had set tough new conditions for its participation in the bloc.
And Mr. Sadr was considering a plan to announce that his militia, the Mahdi Army, would scale back its military activities in response to accusations that it was involved in sectarian violence, an official knowledgeable about the plan said.
The framers of the bloc seemed highly unlikely to be able to meet some of the Islamic party's demands, like an insistence that more Sunni Arabs be installed in senior positions at Iraqi ministries and security forces now controlled by Shiites.
"Now the negotiations are stopped, and we are waiting for their response," Mr. Abdullah said. "Honestly, I think an agreement will be very difficult."
As those political moves played out, the new United States defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, met with enlisted men and women in Baghdad to talk about the possibility that more troops could be sent to Iraq. And the American military announced that three more service members had died in Iraq, putting December on a pace to be among the deadliest months of the conflict.
Also on Thursday, 38 bodies of Iraqis were found dumped at various sites around Baghdad, apparently the victims of death squads, the Interior Ministry said, and three bombs killed at least 12 and wounded 18.
The deadliest of the blasts was a suicide bomb that went off near a police academy just after 7 a.m., a police official said, killing mostly police recruits. A second bomb exploded near a funeral procession in the Amel neighborhood, and another detonated near a passport office.
The trial of Saddam Hussein on charges of the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds during the 1980s was adjourned until Jan. 8. Prosecutors told the court that Iraqi soldiers had been ordered to cooperate with Turkish forces in the killings, but the precise nature of an implied agreement between the countries was not spelled out.
When a document supposedly describing the agreement was read into the record, the judge ordered the microphone cut off so that reporters could not hear it. Beyond interjecting a few brief comments, Mr. Hussein mostly sat silently.
Mr. Sadr's maneuvers on Thursday were seen by some officials as a possible move to reduce his political and military liabilities as the Americans and their allies pressed to form the bloc meant to marginalize him and perhaps make any attempt to disarm or attack the Mahdi Army more politically palatable.
At the moment, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki owes his power to a coalition that includes a major contingent led by Mr. Sadr, complicating any move against the cleric or his Mahdi Army militia.
Mr. Sadr was also said to be ready to allow his allies to rejoin the government after a three-week boycott, The Associated Press reported.
The walkout, including 30 lawmakers and six cabinet officials, was a protest against Mr. Maliki's meeting with President Bush in Jordan, and it has kept Mr. Maliki's government from passing legislation. Any return by the politicians would make it more likely that Mr. Sadr could keep some influence in the government even if a new cross-sectarian governing bloc was approved.
"Within two days, the Sadr movement will return to the government and Parliament," said Abdul Karim al-Anizi, a lawmaker from Mr. Maliki's Dawa faction, according to The Associated Press. Two allies of Mr. Sadr's who were not identified also said the politicians would return.
Although there were hints on Thursday that the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party might reconsider some of its demands, if taken at face value they would almost certainly scuttle the formation of the unity bloc because they could never be met in the spoils system of Iraqi politics.
In that system, the ministries are doled out to parties that won various shares of the vote in the last elections, and top ministry posts are given to members of those parties.
In Baghdad, Mr. Gates talked to enlisted service members on the second day of his visit to Iraq. A majority of the troops at the meeting signaled that they supported the idea of sending more American forces to Iraq, a proposal that has emerged as a leading option as the Bush administration considers a strategy shift.
"I really think we need more troops here," said Specialist Jason T. Glenn. "With more presence here," he said, security might improve to a point that "we can get the Iraqi Army trained up."
On Wednesday, American generals expressed concern about such a plan, saying that sending more troops would make Iraqis less likely to take responsibility for security.
After a meeting with Mr. Maliki and other senior Iraqi officials, Mr. Gates said that he had discussed "the possibility of some additional assistance" but that there had been no mention of specific numbers of additional American troops.
Mr. Gates told the troops that the administration was putting together a package of ideas for reversing sectarian violence, including procedures for delivering reconstruction assistance quickly to places where the military had conducted operations to clear out insurgents and militias.
Mr. Gates said the first assistance to a neighborhood should come "within hours" of such a clearing operation, to show residents the tangible benefits of rejecting militants and backing the government.
It was not clear how the troops who met with Mr. Gates had been selected, but in a show of hands he requested, about half said they were serving their second tour in Iraq and the rest said they were on their first.
Several said the Iraqi Army and police were improving but were not competent enough for the Americans to shift to a supporting role. Many do not show up regularly for work, they said, and some tip off insurgents and militias about military operations.
David S. Cloud and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Najaf.
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