Chinese School - Iraqi leaders forge new political pact

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WORLD / Middle East

Iraqi leaders forge new political pact

(agencies)
Updated: 2007-08-17 10:24

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's political leaders emerged Thursday from three days of
crisis talks with a new alliance that seeks to save the US-backed
government. But the reshaped power bloc included no Sunnis and
immediately raised questions about its legitimacy as a unifying force.

US soldiers stand in front of a base before they start a night mission in
Iraq in this June 28 , 2007. [Reuters]

The political gambit came as teams in northern Iraq tallied the grim
figures from the deadliest wave of suicide attacks of the war and - in a
rare moment of joy since Tuesday's devastation - pulled four children
alive from the rubble.

In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hailed the political agreement
as a first step toward unblocking the paralysis that has gripped his
Shiite-dominated government since it first took power in May 2006.

The new Shiite-Kurdish coalition will retain a majority in parliament -
181 of the 275 seats - and apparently have a clear path to pass
legislation demanded by the Bush administration, including a law on
sharing Iraq's oil wealth among Iraqi groups and returning some Saddam
Hussein-era officials purged under earlier White House policies.

A crucial progress report by US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and commander
Gen. David Petraeus is due in Congress in less that a month. But a senior
American Embassy official hesitated to join in al-Maliki's enthusiasm
since the new alliance of Shiites and Kurds failed to bring in Sunnis,
who were favored under Saddam and are now crucial to efforts for future
stability.

The US official said "all three principle communities" in Iraq need to
find ways to "make accommodations and compromises and ultimately
reconciliation." The official spoke on condition he not be identified by
name.

The key disappointment was the absence of Iraq's Sunni Vice President
Tariq al-Hashemi and his moderate Iraqi Islamic Party. That portends even
deeper political divisions, but al-Maliki called the agreement "a first
step."

"It is not final and the door is still open for all who agree with us on
the need to push the political process forward," he said.

Al-Maliki was joined at a news conference to announce the political
grouping by President Jalal Talabani and fellow Kurd Massoud Barzani, the
leader of the northern autonomous Kurdish region; and Shiite Vice
President Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

They, along with the US ambassador, were said to have wooed al-Hashemi
intensely to join the new leadership bloc. But officials in the al-Maliki
government said the Sunni vice president wanted too much.

Among his demands was that members of his Iraqi Islamic Party fill all
the Cabinet posts vacated by a mass resignation by another party, the
Sunni Accordance Front, according to the officials, who spoke anonymously
because the information was too sensitive to attach to their names.

The officials said al-Hashemi also wanted one of his loyalists to replace
Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie.

In Baghdad, a car bomb struck a parking garage in a central commercial
district during the morning rush hour, killing at least nine people and
wounding 17, police said. Smoke poured out of the seven-story concrete
building, and food and merchandise stalls below were left charred.

The US military also said three soldiers had been killed. Two soldiers
died Wednesday and six were wounded in fighting north of Baghdad. The
military said one soldier died Thursday in Baghdad of non-combat causes.
At least 45 American troops have died this month.

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