Shi'ite cleric issues call for US to dismiss ambassador to Iraq
Says envoy siding with fellow Sunnis
BAGHDAD -- A leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric demanded yesterday that the United States dismiss its envoy and accused him of siding with fellow Sunni Muslims in the country's growing sectarian conflict.
The call by Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi came as political leaders, urged on by the US ambassador, held negotiations to form a government of national unity after elections in December.
Yacoubi said in a sermon read out at mosques for Friday prayers that Washington had underestimated the conflict between Shi'ites and the once dominant Sunni Arab minority.
''They are either misled by reports which lack objectivity and credibility submitted to the United States by their sectarian ambassador to Iraq . . . or they are denying this fact," Yacoubi said in the message, later issued as a statement. ''It [the United States] should not yield to terrorist blackmail and should not be deluded or misled by spiteful sectarians. It should replace its ambassador to Iraq if it wants to protect itself from further failures."
After the imam of Baghdad's Rahman mosque read that line, worshipers chanted ''Allahu Akbar" -- God is Greatest.
Yacoubi's call for Zalmay Khalilzad's ouster is the latest sign of growing divisions between the ruling Shi'ites and Washington and comes days after an Iraqi-US raid on a mosque compound killed at least 16 Shi'ites and outraged many Iraqis.
Yacoubi is the spiritual guide for the Fadhila party, one of the smaller but still influential components of the dominant Islamist Alliance bloc. He is not part of the senior clerical council around Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf.
Nonetheless, Shi'ite politicians said his comments reflected widespread disenchantment among them with Khalilzad.
''It's a very good statement," one senior official in the Alliance, not from Fadhila, said of Yacoubi's sermon.
Khalilzad has been criticized by Shi'ite leaders who say they resent his championing of efforts to tempt Sunnis away from armed revolt into a coalition government.
The US embassy declined to comment on the criticisms.
Some analysts say while the hostility may complicate Khalilzad's job in bringing all sides together, it also underlines the central role the United States continues to play.
Nor is frustration one-sided. US lawmakers visiting Baghdad in recent weeks have spoken of their impatience for Iraqi leaders to reach a deal.
Privately, some diplomats acknowledge that, as long as the US embassy and US forces are in many ways running Iraq, its leaders may have little incentive to be held responsible.
At the same time, one diplomat in Baghdad voiced annoyance recently at the impasse on the coalition, saying: ''It really is about time they took responsibility and got on with government."
The Shi'ite-Sunni bloodshed has spiraled since a key Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra was bombed in February, sparking a wave of violence and poisoning the political atmosphere. Hundreds have died since and more than 30,000 fled their homes.
In other developments yesterday:
While March was a bloody month for Iraqi civilians, the death toll for American military personnel stood at at least 29, the lowest monthly total since February 2004, according to a count by the website icasualties.org.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report. 
