Key cleric won't block US-Iraq pact

BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister said yesterday that the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric will leave the decision on the future of US troops to the government and parliament, a step that could remove a major obstacle to a deal.

Tension rose in the Iraqi capital yesterday as a car bomb killed 13 people in a Shi'ite enclave.

Also in Baghdad, thousands of Shi'ites marched to mourn the assassination of a prominent Shi'ite lawmaker, which their leaders blamed on the Americans. Saleh al-Auqaeili was killed Thursday by a roadside bomb.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, journeyed yesterday to the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf to brief Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani about the progress in talks with the United States on a security agreement governing operations of American forces starting next year.

After a 2 1/2-hour meeting, Maliki told reporters that the Iranian-born cleric would not oppose the security deal if it is approved by the country's democratic institutions, including parliament, which must ratify the pact.

"He does not want anything forced or imposed on the Iraqi people," Maliki said. "Rather he wants it to be done through the institutions. If the government and the parliament approve this, then [Sistani] will be convinced that is what the Iraqi people have decided."

Sistani's office had no comment. However, it would be politically untenable for Maliki to accept a deal and send it to parliament for ratification if Sistani spoke out publicly against it.

Sistani's earlier insistence that only elected officials draft Iraq's first constitution after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein forced the United States to change its blueprint for the country's transition to democratic rule.

Sistani also pressured the Americans to agree to the first post-Hussein elections in January 2005, even though many US officials believed the country was too unstable for meaningful balloting.

American and Iraqi officials have said they are close to an agreement that would replace the UN mandate for US forces in Iraq; the mandate expires Dec. 31. But the most contentious issue - legal jurisdiction and immunity for US troops under Iraqi law - remains unresolved.

Maliki said the United States had made major concessions, including agreeing to pull American forces back to their bases by the end of June and to a full withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011.

President Bush had steadfastly refused for years to set a timetable for a troop withdrawal, saying that should depend on security conditions on the ground.

Iraqi politicians say they cannot sell the deal to their war-weary public without a timetable for the end of the US presence.

However, one senior US official confirmed yesterday that the Americans had agreed to the June and 2011 dates.

The official, who requested anonymity because the talks are ongoing, said the United States still believes that security conditions should determine the withdrawal schedule but that Washington can live with the language in the draft deal.

Iraqi officials have said the US departure could be delayed if the government asks the United States to stay.