In Iraq, Rice pushes end to deadlock
With Briton, calls for accord on government
BAGHDAD -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the British foreign minister, Jack Straw, made a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday, telling Iraqi leaders they are growing impatient with the slow progress of political negotiations and pressing them to come to an agreement on a new government.
The top US and British diplomats made the trip as some members of the leading Shi'ite religious parties have called for Ibrahim al-Jaafari to renounce his nomination for prime minister.
For the second straight day, a Shi'ite legislator from Jaafari's coalition called on him to step aside, charging that he has become too divisive and is standing in the way of a national unity government. Kurdish, Sunni, and secular members of the Parliament for weeks have been calling on members of the Shi'ite alliance to pick someone else for their nomination.
Speaking to reporters after a day of meetings with Iraqi officials, Rice said that it was up to the Iraqis to pick their leaders. But she did not offer to endorse Jaafari, who won the United Iraqi Alliance caucus by one vote. Rice noted that Jaafari was picked as the nominee Feb. 11, but has not been able to form a government.
''Well, I don't know who the prime minister is going to be, and it's not our role to try and determine who the prime minister is going to be," Rice said, according to a State Department transcript. ''They've got to get a prime minister who can actually form the government. Whoever that person is, we're going to support because this is a sovereign government and it has to choose its own leaders."
The surprise visit occurred on a day that violence throughout the country offered new evidence that sectarian tensions remain taut. Insurgents blew up a small Shi'ite mosque northeast of Baghdad yesterday, while police reported that at least 42 bodies were found in several neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital, news services reported.
Rice and Straw met with President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, Jaafari, and Sunni leaders.
Jaafari accused the Bush administration of meddling with Iraq after reports last week that President Bush had conveyed that he preferred the Iraqi Alliance withdraw its backing of Jaafari as its nominee for the premier post. A spokesman for the Shi'ite party Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq said Bush sent the message through US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to the party's leader, Abdul-Aziz Hakim.
In a statement, Hakim later backed away from that statement.
The relationship between US officials and Shi'ite leaders has grown strained in recent weeks as Khalilzad has put pressure on Jaafari to stem the problem of Shi'ite militias, which have been suspected of running death squads to settle scores with Sunnis.
Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, a parliament member with the Iraqi Alliance and aligned with the Supreme Council, said yesterday that Jaafari no longer has the acceptance of Iraqi parties and foreign countries and should step aside. A day earlier, Shi'ite parliamentarian Qassim Dawoud was the first UIA member to call for Jaafari to withdraw his nomination.
Sagheer said he was only speaking for himself in calling for Jaafari to step down, but his rejection could set the stage for a splintering between the Supreme Council and Jaafari's Dawa Party. Jaafari beat the Supreme Council's Adil Abdul Mahdi by just one vote for the UIA's nomination.
Sagheer predicted that other calls for Jaafari to step aside would follow from Supreme Council members. The party has grown disenchanted with Jaafari, he said.
The Supreme Council has publicly maintained it will continue to back Jaafari but has discreetly kept open channels with opponents of his nomination.
''It has been 50 days and the alliance has not succeeded in defusing the objections his nomination faced," said Sagheer, according to Reuters news service.
''This has threatened to foster new blocs that would hamper the alliance's leadership of the political process."
Talabani, a Kurd, and other secular and Sunni leaders have argued that Jaafari has been ineffective during his tenure as interim prime minister, a period marked by increased sectarian violence and corruption within the security force.
Shi'ite parliamentarians aligned with anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also backed Jaafari. Sadr officials have said that they will not withdraw their backing of Jaafari.
US officials have said they believe the key to stamping out the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq is to form a government of consensus. Rice said that she and Straw underscored the growing impatience of Americans and Britons over the situation.
''I was very direct that the United States and, indeed, Great Britain and a number of others, but most especially the United States and Great Britain, have put a lot of treasure -- and I mean human treasure -- on the line to try to give Iraq an opportunity for a democratic government," Rice said.
In a separate development, the US military reported the deaths of five US service members yesterday. The US military recovered the bodies of two pilots whose helicopter crashed southwest of Baghdad a day earlier.
The AH-64D
Two American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in central Baghdad late Saturday, the US military said.
Another soldier from the 101st Airborne Division died Thursday from nonbattle-related injuries suffered in northern Iraq.
