U.S. Marine Among 13 Killed:

Four militants and an Iraqi army sergeant-major were killed in fighting when an army patrol stopped several men trying to steal a truck south of Baquba 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad,
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/RAS138189.htm

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American deaths fall, Iraqis' rise:

March was the least deadly month in more than two years for American forces in Iraq, but a surge in slayings of Iraqi troops and civilians suggests that the overall death rate in the conflict is growing, according to military data.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3763367.html

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Shias call on al-Jaafari to quit:

Senior members of Iraq's ruling Shia Alliance bloc have for the first time openly called on Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step down as prime minister to break months of deadlock over the formation of a national unity government.
http://tinyurl.com/zojbc

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Leading contenders for Iraq PM post:

Ibrahim al-Jaafari's chances of remaining Iraq's prime minister suffered a serious setback on Saturday when leading officials within his own bloc called on him to step aside to end deadlock on forming a unity government.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA147080.htm

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Iranian militiamen were brought in by Britain:

MILITIAMEN from an Iranian-backed force were deliberately recruited by Britain to join the new Iraqi security services after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, the Government has admitted.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12575.htm

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Maliki: "US Will Destroy Iraq" :

Jawad al-Maliki, a member of parliament and the number two man in the Dawa Party led by Ibrahim Jaafari, launched a campaign against American policies in Iraq, blaming the US for the deterioration of the security situation and saying that it had "demolished democracy and the elections in Iraq." He warned that the US "will destroy Iraq."
http://www.juancole.com/2006/04/ayatollah-...khalilzads.html

Rice, Straw in surprise Iraq visit CNN
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, are in Baghdad for a previously unannounced visit aimed at jump-starting the process of forming a national unity government. Rice and Straw -- who flew into the Iraqi capital Sunday from northwest England -- were meeting with Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians, who have been stalled in their efforts to form a government following the December 15 parliamentary elections. "It should be very clear to everyone that the time has come for these negotiations to produce a government of national unity," according to Rice, who spoke to reporters aboard the plane. "I think we both understand how hard it is, but the Iraqi people need their government and their leaders." Straw said that when he visited Iraq five weeks ago, he was assured that a new government would be put together quickly. "Sadly ... this coalition formation has taken much longer," he said, and cited "significant international concerns" about the delay. The slow pace of negotiations is believed to be fueling much of Iraq's sectarian violence, and security concerns most likely will be discussed. Rice and Straw have so far held talks with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. A Talabani spokesman said the president had an "excellent" meeting with Rice and Straw. He said Rice thanked the president for his leadership, and stressed that whoever leads the new government must be a unifying force. Rice and Straw also plan to meet with interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite; Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite; Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the top Shia parties; and top Sunni leaders from the Tawafuq coalition. A major stumbling block to the formation of a new government is the choice of a prime minister who can unify the country. The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which won the most seats in the elections for the 275-member Council of Representatives, nominated al-Jaafari for the four-year post, but he is opposed by Kurds and the Sunni-led Iraqi Accord Front. Any choice for prime minister must win approval from the parliament. Opposition to al-Jaafari has been growing, and the Shiite coalition is being pressured to reconsider its decision. Political leaders are trying to agree on an acceptable candidate before a legislative vote is taken. Rice praised Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, calling him "a voice of reason at difficult times for the Iraqi people, someone who has urged unity in the country." Asked whether the United States and Britain are losing patience with the Iraqis, Straw cited the huge financial investment and loss of lives by both countries in trying trying to mold a democratic Iraq. "We're committed to Iraq," Straw said. "Very committed. But we need to see progress. While Rice declined to set a deadline for Iraqis to form a government, she said, "the fact that we're going out to have these discussions with the leadership is a sign of the urgency which we attach to a need for a government." Rice and Straw landed at the Baghdad airport about 10:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. ET) during a heavy rainstorm. There was no mention of how long they would remain in Iraq. The secretary of state spent the past two days touring Liverpool and Blackburn, where Straw is the member of Parliament. Rice had been expected to fly to Washington on Sunday. During her visit to Britain, Rice was dogged by protesters angry over U.S. policies in Iraq and other issues. On Saturday, about 300 protesters -- most of them upset about the war in Iraq -- and two dozen supporters greeted Rice outside the town hall in Blackburn. The two later faced reporters after attending a multi-faith service at Blackburn Cathedral and meeting with the city's Muslim leaders. About 20 percent of Blackburn's population is Muslim. In a speech Friday at an event organized by the Chatham House think tank, Rice said, "I am quite certain there are going to be dissertations written about the mistakes of the Bush administration." "I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them, I'm sure," she said. "But when you look back in history what will be judged on is" whether the "right strategic decision" was made. On Saturday, a reporter asked Rice to give examples of the mistakes. "First of all, I meant it figuratively, not literally. Let me be very clear about that. I wasn't sitting around counting," she replied. "The point I was making to the questioner ... is that, of course, if you've ever made decisions, you've undoubtedly made mistakes. "The important thing is to get the big strategic decisions right, and that I am confident that the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people an opportunity for peace and for democracy is the right decision." "The other point I was making to the questioner is that I'm enough of a historian to know that things that looked brilliant at the moment turn out in historical perspective to be mistakes, and the things that look like mistakes turn out to have been right decisions." Rice denied that protesters had drowned out her messages, and repeated that the right to protest is fundamental in a democracy. "Indeed, I've been very warmly welcomed. I've also noticed the people waving along the streets, I've noticed the considerable gathering of people from Blackburn, just on the other side of the demonstrations. I'm hearing their voices equally clearly and equally well," she said. Straw also played down the demonstrations, including one in Liverpool on Friday night that drew about 1,500 outside the city's Philharmonic Concert Hall. A singer at the concert dedicated a song to the demonstrators, sang John Lennon's "Imagine" and gave an impromptu rendition of his "Give Peace A Chance." "I'm not embarrassed in the least," Straw said of the demonstrations. He drew laughter from the reporters when he added, "as for the size of the crowds, I've been on plenty of demonstrations in my life -- well maybe a few years ago -- but I've not forgotten what is a big crowd and what is a small crowd -- and that was not a big crowd" in Liverpool. Rice arrived Thursday in England from Berlin, where she met with ministers representing the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. They discussed a presidential statement from the council calling on Iran to comply with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Rice also stopped briefly in Paris to meet with French President Jacques Chirac. Her visit to Liverpool and Blackburn was billed as an opportunity for Rice and Straw to demonstrate how U.S. foreign policy directly affects British citizens. It follows a visit by Straw to Rice's home state of Alabama in October, where she gave him a high-profile taste of life in the Deep South.
In Trip to Baghdad, Rice Urges Iraqis to Form Government Quickly New York Times
US, UK Urge Iraq Leaders to Form Gov't ABC News
Guardian Unlimited - BBC News - New Straits Times - Reuters.uk - all 1,562 related »

Rice, Straw in Iraq to break deadlock Yahoo! NEWS
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Jack Straw flew in secret into Baghdad on Sunday in a dramatic bid to break a deadlock over forming a unity government that can halt a slide to civil war. Pressure on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari looked almost irresistible as a leader of the biggest party in his ruling Shi'ite Alliance joined others in publicly breaking ranks and calling on him to step aside in the name of national consensus. Though they refused to say so in public, it was a message certainly conveyed, too, by Rice and Foreign Secretary Straw. Minority Sunni and Kurdish leaders insist they will not join a cabinet under Jaafari and want a different Shi'ite nominee. At stake is the future of an Iraq that Rice said remained "vulnerable" to sectarian civil war three years after the U.S. and British invasion. Insurgents probably shot down a helicopter in which the U.S. military said the two crew were presumed dead. The chill was palpable when Rice and the embattled Jaafari exchanged small talk on a rainstorm raging outside as reporters looked on. The smiles were frosty, the body language awkward. "The fact that we're going out to have these discussions with the Iraqi leadership is a sign of the urgency which we attach to a need for a government of national unity," Rice told reporters who traveled with the two ministers from Britain. No breakthrough is likely to be announced during the two-day trip, officials said -- both Iraqi leaders and their visitors are anxious not to give the impression that Washington and London are imposing a new leader over the elected Jaafari. Jaafari has condemned U.S. "interference" in Iraq's new democracy and an aide said he was ready to fight "to the end."

SCIRI REJECTION
But his days in office look numbered. For the first time, a leader of the biggest party in the Alliance bloc that nominated him to a second term said publicly he should go: "I call on Jaafari to step down," Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir said. "The candidate ought to secure a national consensus from other lists and also international acceptance," he told Reuters. "This is just the beginning and the other calls will follow." SCIRI, under Alliance leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, had kept up a solid front in public behind Jaafari since, with support from Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, he beat SCIRI's candidate by a single vote in an internal ballot in February. But privately the party has been looking for ways to oust Jaafari without breaking up the Alliance created under guidance from the top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Rice met Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, the losing SCIRI candidate in February and a possible replacement for Jaafari. "It's wonderful to see you," Rice said, the tone clearly warm. As he flew with Rice from Liverpool following two days of meetings in his home region, Straw was asked if the plan was to force Jaafari to step down. He said: "We will recognize and respect whoever emerges as the leader through this system." "Our concern, however, is that they have to make swift progress," he added. The election was nearly four months ago. Privately, U.S. and British officials make little secret of their misgivings about Jaafari, a soft-spoken Islamist physician, long exiled in London and with backing from Iran. In talks with President Jalal Talabani, Rice and Straw said they hoped to see a prime minister who could unite Iraqis and said Jaafari did not fit the bill, Iraqi political sources said.

MECHANISMS
It is not clear how Jaafari may be replaced or by whom. One possible contender, Fadhila party chief Nadim al-Jaberi, told Reuters Jaafari was resisting efforts to persuade him to go gracefully. If the Alliance itself remained divided, it might take the risk of setting a choice of leaders before parliament. A British embassy official said the ministers were not expecting to hold a news conference in Baghdad until Monday. They were meeting Shi'ite, Sunni, Kurdish and secular leaders, both bilateral and, over dinner on Sunday, as a full group. With congressional elections in November, President George W. Bush's administration is keen to show progress in Iraq and to start bringing American soldiers home. A sharp increase in sectarian bloodshed in the six weeks since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra has cast a cloud over those prospects. Some two-to-three dozen bodies are turning up every day in Baghdad alone, showing signs of death-squad killing. Former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein's lawyers are likely to be informed this week that he and others will face trial as early as next month on a charge of genocide for the first time, arising from a campaign against Kurds in the late 1980s. Saddam's first trial, for crimes against humanity in the town of Dujail, is due to resume on Wednesday in Baghdad.
By Sue Pleming and Mariam Karouny

http://upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/v...31-051353-3671r


U.S. choices in Iraq civil war
By MARK N. KATZ

WASHINGTON, March 31 (UPI) -- Many observers believe that Iraq is about to be engulfed in a sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. Some think that this has already begun. If this civil war does indeed occur, it will present difficult choices for the United States.

If there is to be any hope of salvaging President Bush's plan for the democratization of Iraq, America must back the majority Shiites. This is because the victory of the minority Sunnis will necessarily result in a dictatorship since they cannot retain dominance democratically. The Shiites, though, could rule democratically if they choose to do so.

The U.S., of course, does not want a democracy which is a tyranny of the majority where minority rights are trampled on, and conflict continues. The U.S. wants a tolerant democracy, so lately it has been trying to reach out to the Sunni minority.

The problem with this, as the U.S. has discovered, is that Shiites unhappy with this can turn to Iran for support -- which would prefer to see a Shiite-dominated authoritarian regime like itself in Iraq, and not a democracy there which would inspire and perhaps even support Iran's own democratic opposition.

America, then, now finds itself in competition with Iran for influence among Iraqi Shiites. The more America does to reach out to the Sunnis, the more the Shiites are likely to turn to Iran.

America could, of course, abandon the Sunni minority and do everything it can to help the Shiites so that if they win the civil war, they will rule democratically and be pro-American, and not establish an Islamic republic and be pro-Iranian.

But if the U.S. does this, the Sunnis are likely to turn more and more to Sunni extremists such as Zarqawi.

Sunni-dominated authoritarian regimes in the Arab world may also help Iraqi Sunnis both to prevent Iranian-backed Shiites from gaining control of Iraq and threatening them, and to undercut the influence of Zarqawi and others linked to al Qaida.

One must not forget the Kurds either. They might well fear that no matter who wins a Sunni-Shiite war, the victor will then suppress them. The development of such a war, though, will give them the best chance possible of finally achieving independence -- de facto if not de jure.

If a full-fledged civil war does develop in Iraq that American forces cannot control, Congress and the next president (if not this one) may conclude that the most prudent, as well as politically popular, course of action would be for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq. But if America leaves Iraq, a civil war could turn into a regional war if the Iranians intervene to help Iraqi Shiites, the Saudis facilitate the intervention of Egyptian and other Sunni-dominated Arab states to help Iraqi Sunnis, and the Turks intervene to suppress the Kurds. What is important to realize is that each of these interventions might occur not so much for offensive reasons, but because each of the intervening parties fears what might happen to it if its regional opponents become powerful in Iraq.

Obviously, the best thing America could do is to prevent a civil war from occurring and all these problems from arising. Many, though, believe that it is now too late to achieve this.

Considering that the U.S. has not been able to suppress Iraq's many armed movements, preventing not just these but entire communities determined to fight each other from doing so may well be impossible.

It appears that Pandora's Box has been well and truly opened in Iraq, and that there may no way to get the lid back on before the forces that have been unleashed destroy the box that once contained them all.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/worl...ast/4869328.stm

Published: 2006/04/02 10:13:29 GMT


Rice and Straw in Baghdad talks
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit.
The pair travelled from the UK, where Mr Straw hosted Ms Rice's two-day trip. They are meeting Iraqi PM Ibrahim Jaafari and President Jalal Talabani.

The visits come as Iraqi politicians struggle to form a government of national unity.

Ms Rice said the US regarded the formation as a "matter of urgency".

Mr Straw added: "We need to see progress and that is in everybody's interest."

Mistakes

The visits come amid mounting pressure on Mr Jaafari, of the majority Shia alliance, to stand down as prime minister.

He has failed to win the support of minority Kurds and Sunnis and now faces opposition within his alliance.


We're going to urge that the negotiations be wrapped up
Condoleezza Rice Hear Rice interview

Last week senior Shia politicians said US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, had told them President George W Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" the retention of Mr Jaafari.

Mr Jaafari responded by saying the comments undermined Mr Bush's commitment to democracy in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters travelling with her to Iraq, Ms Rice said: "The fact that we're going out to have these discussions with the Iraqi leadership is a sign of the urgency which we attach to a need for a government of national unity."

Her comments echoed those made by Mr Khalilzad on Saturday.


He said: "This government needs to have a good programme to govern from the centre and needs good ministers who are competent.

"Iraq is bleeding while they are moving at a very slow pace."

Mr Jaafari was chosen as PM by the ruling Shia-led bloc after it won December's election.

But Kurdish and Sunni Arab parties have rejected the nomination and have threatened to boycott a government unless he withdraws.

The delay in forming a government is thought to be partly responsible for fuelling the increasing sectarian violence which has struck Iraq since last month's bombing of a key Shia shrine at Samarra.

Ms Rice arrived in Iraq after a testing trip to the UK.

She admitted the US had made thousands of tactical errors in Iraq, but later said she was only speaking figuratively.

She also had to face a number of anti-Iraq war protests in north-west England.

Rice in Iraq to Press Squabbling Leaders Yahoo! NEWS
Frustrated by Iraq's failure to form a government, the chief U.S. and British diplomats told squabbling leaders on Sunday that it is time to pick a governing coalition. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was careful to say the U.S. did not want to interfere in the democratic process, yet harped on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's failure to organize a unity government. President Bush has made known his opposition to a second term for al-Jaafari, and Shiite politicians are going public with demands that he withdraw as a nominee. After talks with the prime minister, president and others, Rice said, "You can't continue to leave a political vacuum." Diverting from a trip to England, Rice joined British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on an unannounced visit intended to send the signal that international patience has worn thin with the stalemate among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds since December's elections. "People have a sense of drift in the process, both in Iraq and outside of Iraq," Rice told reporters. Since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Washington and London have committed nearly all the billions of dollars spent in Iraq and suffered nearly all the casualties. The U.S. and its allies hope a unified government will be able to curb the violence and pave the way for foreign troops to begin heading home. That government may not include al-Jaafari. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is working with Sunni and secular parties to try to block al-Jaafari, deepening an impasse hardened by the recent surge in sectarian violence. Rice and Straw said they set no deadlines in their talks, which included religious and ethnic power brokers. U.S. officials have made little effort to conceal their desire that al-Jaafari leave office. A week ago, Shiite officials said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad came to a meeting with the leader of the largest Shiite political organization and carried a letter from President Bush in which he objected to a second term for al-Jaafari. Rice and Straw posed stiffly for pictures with al-Jaafari; Rice looked pained as she made small talk with the prime minister for a few minutes before the media left the room. Rice said afterward that the United States is not trying to interfere as the Shiites, who won the largest bloc of votes, chose their leadership. At the same time, she said, "there are two parts to this process. One is you nominate. The other is that someone has to be able to form a government of national unity, and thus far Jaafari has not been able to do that." The meetings were private affairs by U.S. and Arab standards, absent of the many aides who usually line the walls at such sessions. This time, for the most part it was just Rice, Straw and an Iraqi official. Rice and Straw made clear "there is a sense of impatience back in Washington and London about the delay," said Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd. A Sunni Arab politician, Adnan al-Dulaimi, said topics covered included "the Iraqi problem in general," security and "hurrying up in forming the government because the Iraqi people have grown bored of waiting. Our points of view matched." Asked if they discussed the nomination of al-Jaafari for prime minister, al-Dulaimi said only, "We discussed everything." A statement released by Talabani's office said he discussed "the efforts exerted by the representatives of the political blocs." Talks among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have stalled, in part because of opposition to al-Jaafari's nomination by the Shiite bloc. "The only way to break that stalemate, in my view, is to go to the parliament, to convene the House of Representatives of 275 persons, and then to resolve this issue, whether it would be him or somebody else," Zebari told CNN's "Late Edition." On Saturday, Shiite politician Qassim Dawoud joined Sunnis and Kurds in urging a new Shiite nominee. It was the first time a Shiite figure had taken such a step. "The prime minister can be a national hero by announcing his withdrawal so as to speed things up," Dawoud told The Associated Press on Sunday. He raised the possibility that al-Jaafari's opponents within the Shiite alliance could name an alternative candidate if the prime minister did not withdraw soon. A second Shiite legislator, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, said Sunday that al-Jaafari no longer had the acceptance of Iraqi parties and foreign countries. "There is no other way out of the government formation problem," said al-Sagheer, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A leading U.S. lawmaker, GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said from Washington that the Bush administration, after promoting democracy in Iraq, "cannot be seen as again trying to insert a puppet government or however way that's perceived. Just the fact that we had to have the secretary of state and British foreign minister make essentially an emergency visit to Baghdad tells us an awful lot." Rice stayed overnight in the fortified Green Zone, a first for her. The move was intended to signal confidence in Iraqi security measures and counter the impression among Iraqis that high U.S. officials swoop in to give orders and then quickly depart. Mortar fire could be heard as she dined with Sunni leaders and others. Rice and Straw made the trip after spending two days touring Straw's parliamentary district in northern England where they ran into vocal demonstrations against the war and Rice's presence. The diplomats landed in a chilly rain that forced their party to drive from the airport to central Baghdad. The airport road was once notorious for bombings, and Rice has flown by helicopter from the airport on her two previous visits to Iraq as secretary of state. The drive introduced Rice to a fact of daily life for Baghdad residents: seemingly senseless traffic jams and roadblocks. Her convoy, which usually zips through red lights under police escort, idled motionless in the rain. Once in the city, mix-ups left some of Rice's aides and reporters stranded in sheets of rain far from the old Saddam Hussein palace that is the U.S. Embassy headquarters.
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/world/mi...059&partner=AOL
I
raq's Premier Is Asked to Quit as Shiites Split

By EDWARD WONG and JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: April 3, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 2 — Iraq's dominant Shiite political bloc fractured Sunday when its most powerful faction publicly demanded that the incumbent Shiite prime minister resign over his inability to form a unified government. The split came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, paid an urgent visit to Iraqi leaders here to convey in the most forceful terms yet that their patience for the country's political paralysis was wearing thin.

It was not clear whether the joint visit by Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw, the top emissaries of the two countries that led the invasion of Iraq three years ago, played a direct role in the splintering of the Shiite bloc, and whether that schism would lead to forward movement on forming a new government, which has been stalled for months.

The developments suggested that a new phase in Iraq's convulsions might have started by opening a possibly violent battle for the country's top job between rival Shiite factions, which both have militias backing them. The incumbent prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, has said he will fight to keep his job, and his principal supporter is Moktada al-Sadr, a rebellious cleric whose Mahdi Army militia has resorted to violence many times to enforce his wishes.

Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw, who came here unannounced in a driving rainstorm from a meeting in England punctuated by antiwar protests, told reporters they did not want to intervene in the dispute over the prime minister. But at the same time they pointed out that Mr. Jaafari had been unable to win enough political support to form a government since his nomination on Feb. 12.

"They've got to get a prime minister who can actually form the government," Ms. Rice said after a meetings with Iraqi leaders — which included a visibly uncomfortable photo session with Mr. Jaafari — inside the Green Zone, the fortified part of Baghdad that houses the Iraqi government and American Embassy. She added, "I told them that a lot of treasure, a lot of human treasure, has been put on the line to give Iraq the chance to have a democratic future."

Neither Ms. Rice nor Mr. Straw would specify whether they had applied even tougher pressure on the Iraqi leaders. But Ms. Rice's references to the loss of lives — more than 2,300 American soldiers alone have died here since the March 2003 invasion — and the many billions of dollars spent clearly reflected the growing impatience in Washington and London for more progress.

The fracturing of the Shiites became clear in the late afternoon, as a senior official in the leading Shiite party, Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheir, said in a telephone interview that his party was putting forward another candidate to replace Mr. Jaafari. "I've asked Jaafari to resign from his job," said Sheik Sagheir, a deputy to the Shiite bloc's leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. "The prime minister should have national consensus inside the Parliament, and he should have the support of the international body."

Any dispute between the Shiite bloc's two biggest factions — Mr. Hakim's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the party led by Mr. Sadr — carries with it the possibility of armed violence. The factions are longtime rivals, have backing from Iran and operate militias with members in the Iraqi security forces. Their militias fought street battles last August throughout Baghdad and the south, even hijacking double-decker buses to storm office buildings.

Nasr al-Saadi, a Sadr member of Parliament, said Sunday that Mr. Jaafari still had the backing of Mr. Sadr's faction. "He was elected in a democratic way," Mr. Saadi said, referring to the fact that Mr. Jaafari won his nomination in a secret ballot among the Shiite bloc's 130 members. "This is democracy. I haven't been informed that the Shiite alliance will change candidates."

The eruption among the Shiites could also redraw Iraq's political coalitions, if some Shiite politicians leave the bloc to side with other groups in the 275-member Parliament. That would weaken the religious Shiites, and it is one of the great fears of the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Since cobbling together the fragile Shiite coalition in late 2004, the ayatollah and his aides have been working hard to keep it together to ensure that the religious Shiites assume power over Iraq's minority Sunni Arab and Kurdish populations through elections.

The Supreme Council's defection came a day after a senior Shiite politician, Kassim Daoud, called for Mr. Jaafari to step down. Mr. Daoud has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Mr. Jaafari, as has Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a deputy in the Supreme Council. Mr. Mahdi lost to Mr. Jaafari by just one vote in February's balloting.

The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage Negotiations to form the government have been deadlocked over Mr. Jaafari's nomination. The Constitution gives the largest bloc in Parliament the right to appoint a candidate, but a two-thirds vote of the entire assembly is needed to install the government. In late February, the main Sunni Arab, Kurdish and secular blocs demanded that the Shiites withdraw Mr. Jaafari and select someone else.

Last Tuesday, Mr. Hakim fired the opening salvo in his campaign to unseat Mr. Jaafari by having his aides tell reporters that the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had informed Mr. Hakim that President Bush preferred another candidate. That set off a furor here, with Mr. Jaafari saying in an interview that the Americans should stop interfering. "I accept this position because it's an Iraqi, democratic choice," he said.

Mr. Hakim, a former exile in Iran, and Mr. Mahdi were among the dozen Iraqi leaders who met with Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw on Sunday.

Others in the Shiite bloc who oppose Mr. Jaafari include the Fadhila Party, led by a fundamentalist cleric who has called for Mr. Khalilzad's resignation, and many independent politicians.

Mr. Mahdi is considered the front-runner to replace Mr. Jaafari, but a compromise candidate could end up on top because of the enmity of the Sadr faction toward Mr. Mahdi and the Supreme Council. Options include Hussain al-Shahristani, a former nuclear physicist, and Ali Allawi, the finance minister and a cousin of Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon favorite.

Mr. Mahdi visited Washington last fall and was believed to have the backing of the Americans at the time. A rotund, bearish-looking man, he is a Western-educated proponent of free market economics, having disavowed earlier Maoist beliefs. He owns a house in the south of France, and American officials hope his exposure to the West tempers Islamist ideals honed by years in Iran.

Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw flew into Baghdad in an unusual thunderstorm early on Sunday and were driven to the Green Zone in armored military vehicles. Sectarian violence and migrations have been soaring across Iraq partly because of the power vacuum, and American officials, including Ms. Rice, say a new government must be formed quickly to help stabilize the situation.

"The Iraqi people are losing patience and that's showing up in polling, it's showing up, I'm told, in cartoons, it's showing up in the news coverage here," she said. In the evening, after the rains had ended, Ms. Rice said she had carried "a very direct message" to the Iraqis, and they had responded favorably.

Asked whether she had indicated to Mr. Jaafari that he drop out, she said only that "the message to all parties" was to form a government quickly. She added that Iraq's leaders "have to realize there is a particular urgency to this case."

Ms. Rice was last here in October, Mr. Straw in February. They made plans to spend the night — a rarity for a visiting American official, particularly since an insurgent rocket attack on Al Rashid hotel in 2003 while Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz was staying there.

The decision to stay overnight was intended as something of a political statement. Last month, a senior official noted there was concern within the administration that it seemed hypocritical for top officials to assert that progress was being made in Iraq while refusing to spend more than a few hours. Visiting dignitaries also rarely leave the Green Zone.

The world outside the zone is often awash in blood. The American military said Sunday that two soldiers had died from the crash on Saturday evening of an Apache attack helicopter, shot down south of Baghdad. Two other soldiers were killed Saturday in Baghdad by a roadside bomb, and a soldier died from noncombat injuries sustained in an operation on March 30 in Kirkuk.

In Diyala Province, gunmen killed two civilians in Balad Ruz, and insurgents blew up a Shiite mosque northeast of Baquba. A policeman in Baghdad was killed, as was a lawyer in Basra. Six bodies were found in Baghdad, two of them abducted hospital workers; all had been shot in the head. Armed men kidnapped Waleed Subhi al-Dulaimi, the official in charge of religious tourism.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2B8...600549C2738.htm

Zarqawi 'sacked for mistakes'
Sunday 02 April 2006, 13:01 Makka Time, 10:01 GMT


Zarqawi is said to have made many political mistakes

Iraq's resistance has replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as political head of the rebels, the son of Osama bin Laden's mentor has said in Jordan.

Hudayf Azzam, 35, who claims close contacts with the fighters, said on Sunday: "The Iraqi resistance's high command asked Zarqawi to give up his political role and replaced him with an Iraqi, because of several mistakes he made.

"Zarqawi's role has been limited to military action. Zarqawi bowed to the orders two weeks ago and was replaced by Iraqi national Abdullah bin Rashed al-Baghdadi."

Azzam's late father, Abdallah Azzam, was known as the "prince of mujahedeens" and advised bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda.

Azzam said he regularly receives "credible information on the resistance in Iraq. He said al-Zarqawi had "made many political mistakes", including "the creation of an independent organisation, al-Qaeda in Iraq".

"Zarqawi also took the liberty of speaking in the name of the Iraqi people and resistance, a role which belongs only to the Iraqis," Azzam said.

As a result "the resistance command inside and outside Iraq, including imams, criticised him and after long discussions demanded that he be confined to military action".

"Zarqawi pledged not to carry out any more attacks against Iraq's neighbours after having been criticised for these operations which are considered a violation of sharia [Islamic law]," Azzam said.


AFP

US Choices In Iraq Being Engulfed By Unforeseen War
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Choices...reseen_War.html

Washington (UPI) Apr 03, 2006 - Many observers believe that Iraq is about to be engulfed in a sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. Some think that this has already begun. If this civil war does indeed occur, it will present difficult choices for the United States.


Drifting Towards Civil War In Iraq
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Drifting_T...ar_In_Iraq.html

http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...03-125600-6878r


http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...03-125600-6878r
Rice, Straw warn Iraq to end impasse
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 3, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BAGHDAD -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew together to Iraq yesterday to deliver a stern message to the country's political leaders that they must stop bickering and form a government.
The two diplomats, whose visit was kept secret until they landed in Baghdad, nudged the ruling Shi'ite alliance to drop its support for interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and put forward another candidate in order to break the weeks-old deadlock.
"There are two parts to this process: One is to nominate, and the other is that the person has to be able to form a government of national unity," Miss Rice told reporters after meeting with Iraqi political leaders. "Thus far, Jaafari has not been able to do that."
On Saturday, leaders of the largest party in the Shi'ite alliance called publicly for the first time for Mr. al-Jaafari to step down. His close association with Iranian-backed cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has made it difficult for him to win support from the Sunnis or the United States, and he also is distrusted by Kurdish leaders.
Miss Rice and Mr. Straw said the formation of a government is an Iraqi process and that they have no intention of interfering in it. But they did not hide their impatience with the lack of a political agreement 3½ months after Dec. 15 elections.
"There is significant international concern about the time the formation of this government is taking," Mr. Straw said during the flight to Baghdad from Liverpool, England, where Miss Rice was his guest for two days.
"The fact that we are going out to have these discussions with the leadership is a sign of the urgency that we attach to the need for a government of national unity," Miss Rice said. "It's important to have fresh messages from time to time from Washington and from London about the concern that a government be formed."
Both ministers said their countries have made enough sacrifices in the name of Iraqi freedom and democracy and deserve to see those efforts produce a political outcome. The long delay has made it harder for President Bush to explain to Americans why more than 2,300 of their fellow citizens have died in Iraq.
The United States and Britain also hope that having a democratically elected government will ease the sense of Sunni alienation that is contributing to the violent insurgency.
"I was very direct that the United States and, indeed, Great Britain and a number of others ... 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," Miss Rice said after her meetings.
During their joint diplomatic effort, Miss Rice and Mr. Straw met with President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, as well as Mr. al-Jaafari and other Shi'ite leaders.
Most notable among them were Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Adil Abdul-Mahdi, the chairman and vice president, respectively, of the largest Shi'ite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
Mr. al-Jaafari, who heads Dawa, the other major party in the Shi'ite alliance, defeated Mr. Abdul-Mahdi by just one vote to be the alliance's nominee for prime minister. One of the SCIRI leaders would be most likely to replace Mr. al-Jaafari.
Miss Rice offered unusual praise for the "considerable maturing of the Sunni political leadership."
"When I was here in November, it was sort of hard to imagine that they were going to be a voice for the Sunni people," she said. "It didn't seem that they really had the kind of connections that you see in the Shia ... or the Kurdish political leadership."
She also met with Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Shaways and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, both of whom are Kurds.
Miss Rice spent Friday and Saturday in Mr. Straw's home district in northwestern England, returning a visit he paid to her home state of Alabama in October. The visit was supposed to last until today, but they flew to Baghdad last night instead.

Rice, Straw press Iraqi leaders Yahoo! NEWS
The United States and Britain piled pressure on Iraq's leaders on Monday to break their deadlock over a new government and prime minister as quickly as possible and to disband religious militias to avoid civil war. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, on the second day of a previously unannounced visit, told Iraqi leaders the lack of a government nearly four months after elections was undermining security. "The Iraqi people are rightly demanding that they have a government after they braved the threats of terrorists to go to the polls and vote," Rice told a joint news conference in the fortified Green Zone, the diplomatic and government center. "Indeed, the international partners, particularly the United States and Great Britain and others who have forces on the ground and have sacrificed here, have a deep desire and, I think, a right to expect that this process will keep moving forward. "It is, after all, the political process that will disable those who wish to engage in violence against the Iraqi people." Rice demanded the disbanding of sectarian militias, which are tied to political parties. Some Shi'ite militias have been accused by Arab Sunnis of running death squads. "You can't have in a democracy various groups with arms -- you have to have the state with a monopoly on power," she said. "We have sent very, very strong messages repeatedly, and not just on this visit, that one of the first things ... is that there is going to be a reining in of the militias." Sectarian bloodshed has spiraled since a key Shi'ite shrine was bombed on February 22. Many Iraqis and foreign governments believe the only way to put a lid on the killings and avert civil war is a government grouping Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Hundreds have died since the shrine bombing -- two to three dozen mutilated corpses often turn up on the streets of the capital -- and more than 30,000 have been forced from their homes.

PROGRESS NEEDED
Rice and Straw said foreign governments could not tell Iraqis who their next prime minister should be, but that Iraq's international supporters must see progress. The fact of their visit and the tone of their comments made clear interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari did not meet their conditions. "You cannot have a circumstance in which there is a political vacuum in a country like this that faces so much threat of violence," Rice said. "It needs to be a strong leader who's a unifying force and someone who can bring stability and meet the challenges of the Iraqi people." Although Jaafari has been nominated as the next prime minister, his appointment has yet to be confirmed. Straw said political talks would make no progress until the issue of who would be prime minister was settled. "We do have, I think, a right to say that we've got to be able to deal with Mr. A, or Mr. B, or Mr. C. We can't deal with Mr. Nobody. And that's the problem, OK?" he said. Jaafari's critics and now some of his own allies have increasingly called for him to step aside, saying the Shi'ite leader cannot bring the needed unity and security. But no clear alternative leader has emerged and none of the potential candidates has presented a decisive strategy for dealing with the problems confronting post-war Iraq. Talks over forming a new government after parliamentary elections in December have stalled on the fate of Jaafari and details such as a Sunni demand for a security veto in any new administration. In the latest violence, gunmen in two cars shot dead five people on the streets of the southern city of Basra on Monday. A child was killed in the crossfire, police said.
By Sue Pleming

One day a fascinating thesis will be written about the role of AEI in incubating the Iraq debacle and now coming forward with proposals to fix it. The following article from today's WSJ sets out the grim prognosis. Once again, US policy seems fixated on personalities -- this time Adil Abd al-Mahdi who is the NSC designee to become Prime Minister. The article's thesis is that enough Iraqi nationalism remains to provide protection against Iranian advances.

AT WAR Can the Shiite Center Hold?

The unanticipated consequences of "Iraqification."

BY REUEL MARC GERECHT
Monday, April 3, 2006 12:01 a.m.

The Shiites of Iraq who want representative government, and who look to the resolutely moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for religious and political guidance, have endured Baathists, Sunni supremacists and holy warriors. They have seen the shrine of Samarra--the most purely Shiite shrine in the country, which has been for ages the responsibility of Sunnis to protect--horribly scarred. If the Shiite center collapses--if radicals like Muqtada al Sadr and some within the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Dawa Party can depict themselves as more effective guardians of the faithful--then massive internecine violence, Kurdish secession and a Shiite dictatorship seem likely.
Contrary to what so many in the Bush administration hoped, Iraq's salvation still rides with the two forces that few had foreseen: the religious Shiites, who recognize Ayatollah Sistani as moral guide, not the secularists in whom U.S. officials placed such store; and the U.S. military, which remains the only effective counterinsurgency force capable of diminishing sectarian strife and staunching Sunni-led violence. Together, they can corner the militants in their midst; if either falters, Iraq will probably descend into hell.
Contrary to what the former U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi recently asserted, Iraq isn't yet in a civil war if one uses that term to describe an irreversibly cataclysmic struggle. Just make a comparison to Algeria in the early 1990s, where failed, arid, brutal secularism and savage Islamic radicalism ripped the country apart, leaving entire neighborhoods and villages slaughtered. It shouldn't be too hard to see that things in Iraq--the only country in the Middle East whose violent past can rival Algeria's--could become much worse. After the bombing at Samarra, the U.S. military and the Iraqi army, which didn't fall apart, practically shut down the country to ensure raw emotions didn't flash into massive bloodletting. In Algeria, during its most violent civil-war years, the military, using indescribably brutal tactics, wasn't able to bring comparable quiet to the land. Nevertheless the attack in Samarra and Shiite counterattacks against Sunni mosques, social and political organizations, and clerics have significantly embittered politics and faith. Though the Bush administration hates to admit it, daily life in Baghdad has become worse. For those politically active, life is more dangerous now than ever. It is irrelevant whether small businesses, imports, and school and hospital construction are doing better if Iraq's political and intellectual classes (not to mention foreigners who are trying to help them) cannot walk out of their homes unguarded.
If Baghdad remains a killing zone, where Iraq's leaders can safely gather only under U.S. protection, then the prognosis for the Iraqi national identity, which has always had Baghdad at its center, is poor. Lasting political compromises will probably be impossible if the increasingly vicious sectarian strife in Baghdad and its environs intensifies. Within a year, at most two, Iraq could become Algeria.

Though declining, the odds remain decent that Iraqis will do their part to stop the descent. On the Shiite side--and the Shiites will either make or break the Iraqi democratic experiment--no party, not even the firebrand Muqtada al Sadr, has advanced a nondemocratic political ideal. Though one can certainly find Iraqi Shiites who admire an Iranian-style theocracy, they have been philosophically crippled in their own country since no prominent Iraqi cleric has come forward to challenge Ayatollah Sistani and the other senior ulema, who have rejected clerical rule in favor of democracy. Though Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad are awash with those who fear the nefarious hand of Tehran in Iraq--and Iran's clerical elite and their fervid praetorians, like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, certainly intend us great harm--Tehran has relatively few loud political defenders among the Arabs of Mesopotamia. Prominent Shiite Iraqi exiles who've become political players in Baghdad do owe Iran their lives--Tehran saved thousands from certain death under Saddam--and many more are now surely benefiting from the Iran's clandestine largesse. Regions of southern Iraq appear to be increasingly under the sway of Tehran. Iran will try to prevent the birth of functioning democracy backed by senior Iraqi clerics who don't recognize the legitimacy of theocracy.
Yet no Iraqi Shiite can expect to have a political future--indeed, expect to stay alive--with the rallying cry of "Shiites Unite! Join the Persians!" Saddam Hussein was not the only thing driving Iraqi Shiites to kill Iranian Shiites in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Iraqi nationalism and an organic, nonideological Arabism is alive among them and will provide stiff resistance to any Iranian effort to direct its Shiite "allies" in Iraq. Hence, in part, Muqtada al Sadr's criticism of Sciri's recent efforts to facilitate U.S.-Iranian talks about Iraq. Sadr and his men, who often deride Ayatollah Sistani's Iranian birth, can be ferocious Arab Iraqi nationalists and diehard Islamic militants. That the Bush administration would welcome Sciri-backed Iranian-U.S. talks in Baghdad is bizarre: We should want to underscore and oppose all of Sciri's Iranian flirtations.
We can certainly expect to see Iraqi Shiites cut short-term deals with Iran--the crushing poverty in many Shiite regions of Iraq will guarantee the cash-laden Iranians influence. But it is fear of the Sunni insurgency and holy warriors that gives Iran real traction in Iraqi society. If the insurgency abates, the Iraqi army becomes more powerful, or Iraqi Shiite militias become bolder (and they certainly appear to be more effective in striking Sunnis even in well-armed, solidly Sunni neighborhoods), Iran's influence will wane. Though definitely weakened by the constant savage Sunni attacks against the Shiites, which make Shiite clerics counseling forbearance look somewhat unworldly, Ayatollah Sistani still holds sufficient sway to guarantee that negotiations among the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds continue. Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Sciri, the dominant Shiite political party, is well aware that if Ayatollah Sistani were publicly to signal dismay with his actions, his political power would shrink considerably, probably even jeopardizing Sciri's existence. It is Sciri's clerical connections--the Hakim family is among the most prominent, and in the holy city of Najaf, among the most moderate, of Iraq's influential clerical families--that give it real strength.
Washington currently has no Shiite "partner" in Iraq. In all probability, it will not find one. Stained by reports of corruption in his interim government, Ayad Allawi may well be finished as a significant political player. And his antireligious, "pro-Sunni" secular disposition doomed him long ago among most Shiites. Though still seen as the brightest politician, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi was annihilated in the parliamentary elections. The current prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, a leader of the Dawa Party, is too politically inept and his party's alliance with Sadr is likely to grow stronger. (On a grassroots level, Dawa is easily as radical as Sadr's Mahdi Army.) Which leaves Adil Abd al-Mahdi of Sciri, probably the only major player in Sciri with whom the Americans culturally feel comfortable. (Though sincerely religious, Mahdi is highly Westernized and lay, free of the evasive speech of Shiite clerics.) But Mahdi isn't Sciri.
Shiite-U.S. relations will likely get worse. The Iraqi conspiratorial reflex--powerfully on display in the recent "mosque shooting" of Sadr's followers (U.S. soldiers supposedly oversaw the execution of Shiite worshippers in a Baghdad mosque)--is now aggressively working against the U.S. American efforts to incorporate Sunnis into a "national unity" government often appear to Shiites as antidemocratic coercion to reward Sunnis who have rarely condemned the insurgency. Yet for most Shiites, Americans are still seen as indispensable, even if it is difficult for them, and especially their religious leaders, to associate with Americans in a publicly grateful and cooperative way.
Americans aside, the attack in Samarra didn't blow apart the democratic Shiite consensus led by Ayatollah Sistani. The various, often mutually hostile, Shiite parties, are likely to plow ahead, however fitfully, to some political deal with the Sunnis and the Kurds, who both now know that the Shiites will no longer passively watch their women and children slaughtered and their holy sites desecrated. Sunni and Kurdish fear of Shiite power--a fickle but growing alliance between Sunni Arabs and Kurds was inevitable--is politically overdue and healthy for all concerned. This is a tightrope act, but the Sunni Arabs must internalize the fact that they cannot leverage the insurgency into power. If they continue to try, they will only convert Shiite "sheep" (the traditional Arab Sunni view of Arab Shiites) into rampant "lions," unstoppable by even the most revered, peace-promoting divines.
And what is most likely to curtail the violence is the U.S. military--not political dialogue among the Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Kurds. Dialogue is important--the all-critical, viscerally anti-U.S. and seriously anti-Shiite Sunni Clerics Association is slowly moving toward reconciliation with a Shiite-led Iraq. But only the U.S. military has the capacity, as recently shown in Tal Afar and brilliantly reported by The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan, to secure territory against insurgents and holy warriors. The successful operation in Tal Afar is a blatant negation of Gen. John Abizaid's "light footprint" strategy that views large numbers of U.S. soldiers as part of the problem, not the overwhelming part of a counterinsurgency solution. The current approach to counterinsurgency--transfer responsibility to the Iraqis as quickly as possible--will seriously stress Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, perhaps to the breaking point. Do we really want Shiite and Kurdish soldiers taking the lead in killing Sunnis? Unless heavily monitored by Americans for the foreseeable future, these soldiers could well utilize Algerian-style tactics against the Sunni Arabs. It is astonishing that Shiites have not unleashed more vengeance against their former Sunni Baathist masters and current Sunni tormentors.
It is no coincidence that Shiite militias have grown more powerful and more aggressive as U.S. forces have increasingly adopted an Iraqi-centered strategy. Such an approach will not, anytime soon, curtail Sunni attacks. Counterinsurgency warfare is the last thing you'd expect a newly minted army to undertake. Shiite militias, incorporated within the government and outside it, will not be inclined to stand down: They will react even more harshly to continuing attacks on their community. The Iraqification program has actually started to fuel the very violence that Iraqification in theory was supposed to stop. This gradual, perhaps rapid, U.S. withdrawal could well unhinge the Shiite community, giving victory to the militant minority.







We are now in the unenviable position of having to confront radicalized, murderous Shiite militias, who have gained broader Shiite support because of the Sunni-led violence and the lameness of U.S. counterinsurgency operations. The Bush administration would be wise not to postpone any longer what it should have already undertaken--securing Baghdad. This will be an enormously difficult task: Both Sunnis and Shiites will have to be confronted, but Sunni insurgents and brigands must be dealt with first to ensure America doesn't lose the Shiite majority and the government doesn't completely fall apart. Pacifying Baghdad will be politically convulsive and provide horrific film footage and skyrocketing body counts. But Iraq cannot heal itself so long as Baghdad remains a deadly place. And the U.S. media will never write many optimistic stories about Iraq if journalists fear going outside. To punt this undertaking down the road when the political dynamics might be better, and when the number of American soldiers in Iraq will surely be less, perhaps a lot less, is to invite disaster.
The Iraqis and the Americans will either save or damn Iraq in the coming months. Quite contrary to the purblind charges of Michigan's Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, the Iraqis really are doing their part--better than what anyone historically could have expected. The real question is, will Gen. Abizaid and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld do theirs?
Mr. Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.




Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

UNCERTAINTY AND HORROR IN BAGHDAD: THINGS ARE SO BAD HERE NOW, THE TV WARNS US NOT TO TRUST THE POLICE. AND MORE AND MORE PEOPLE, LIKE MY COUSIN, MUST PAY TERRIBLE VISITS TO THE MORGUE RIVERBEND (SALON): Editor's note: Baghdad Burning, the blog written by a young Iraqi woman named "Riverbend," has given readers around the world an intimate, and devastating, look at the situation in Iraq.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/04/03/riverbend/

IRAQIS FACE A MORE BRUTAL LIFE WITH EACH PASSING MONTH: TERROR AND CHAOS REIGN, AND THE TITANIC CHALLENGE OF ENSURING POLITICAL STABILITY HAS BARELY BEGUN TO BE ADDRESSED - JONATHAN STEELE (GUARDIAN, MARCH 31)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1743627,00.html

U.S. PLAN TO BUILD IRAQ CLINICS FALTERS: CONTRACTOR WILL TRY TO FINISH 20 OF 142 SITES - ELLEN KNICKMEYER (WASHINGTON POST, MONDAY, APRIL 3)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6040201209.html

US BASES IN IRAQ: A COSTLY LEGACY - DAVID R. FRANCIS (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, APRIL 3): Some military analysts wonder if 20 or so years from now the US will still have costly "enduring" bases in Iraq. ("Permanent" is a term the Pentagon generally avoids in referring to the hundreds of bases it has around the globe.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0403/p16s02-cogn.html

WILL U.S. AIR POWER REMAIN IN IRAQ? - CHARLES J. HANLEY (MERCURY NEWS, APRIL 2): American air liaisons working with Iraqi units may not always be able to judge how legitimate an air strike is. Human rights monitors fear a rise in civilian casualties if Iraqi units have U.S. air power at their disposal.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...aq/14247559.htm

U.S. TROOP FATALITIES HIT A LOW; IRAQI DEATHS SOAR - JONATHAN FINER (WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 1): March was the least deadly month in more than two years for U.S. troops in Iraq, but a surge in killings of Iraqi troops and civilians suggests that the overall death rate in the conflict is growing, according to military data.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6033101745.html

THE ENDGAME IN IRAQ EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 2): The kind of broadly inclusive government U.S. Ambassador to Iraq U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad is trying to bring about offers the only hope that Iraq can make a successful transition from the terrible mess it is in now to the democracy that we all hoped would emerge after Saddam Hussein's downfall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/opinion/...r=1&oref=slogin

APPROACH SHOT: CAN KHALILZAD'S APPROACH STILL WORK? - SPENCER ACKERMAN (NEW REPUBLIC): Khalilzad's focus away from insurgency and onto sectarianism is one of the most valuable course corrections in the last three years -- one that brings the U.S. as close as it has ever come to approaching the Iraqi political and security scenes as they are, rather than as we'd prefer to see them.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060327&s=ackerman033106

A SILVER BULLET AIMED AT IRAQ'S HEAD - EHSAN AHRARI (ASIA TIMES, APRIL 4): The most unknown -- but an extremely important variable -- is whether the dumping of Iraqi premier Ibrahim al- Jaafari will bring an end to sectarian strife. The best guess is that it is likely to have very little -- to no effect.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD04Ak01.html

IRAQ IS NOT IN CIVIL WAR (YET): IRAQ IS UNDER OCCUPATION - LAITH AL-SAUD (COUNTERPUNCH): The average Iraqi is no sectarian. What we have rather is the importation of sectarianism along with ex-patriots, many of whom had not been in the country for thirty years. The occupation must be eradicated if one sincerely hopes to keep the peace in Iraq.
http://www.counterpunch.org/laith03312006.html

CAN THE SHIITE CENTER HOLD? - REUEL MARC GERECHT (WALL STREET JOURNAL, APRIL 3): If Baghdad remains a killing zone, where Iraq's leaders can safely gather only under U.S. protection, then the prognosis for the Iraqi national identity, which has always had Baghdad at its center, is poor. The Iraqis and the Americans will either save or damn Iraq in the coming months.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1144017143...in_commentaries
PAID SUBSCRIPTION
ALSO AT
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110008178

IRAQ: THE LOGIC OF WITHDRAWAL - PETER N. KIRSTEIN (HNN, APRIL 3): The Iraq War, as Vietnam was, is morally wrong, strategically a disaster and fueled by the notion of American exceptionalism: that America has the might and the ethnocentric right to shape the international community in its own image. The occupation of Iraq must end with the rapid withdrawal of American military forces.
http://www.hnn.us/articles/23421.html

TOWN COUNSEL: THE REAL LESSON OF TALL AFAR - LAWRENCE F. KAPLAN (NEW REPUBLIC, APRIL 1): The problem is that the gravest threat to Iraq today comes not from the insurgency but from looming civil war. Unlike an insurgency, in which U.S. troop concentrations tend to invite more problems than they solve, when it comes to keeping local belligerents from one another's throats, those troops offer the only solution.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060327&s=kaplan040206

WHEN CYNICISM MEETS FANATICISM: CRITIQUING THE CRITIQUE OF THE WAR IN IRAQ ? VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (NATIONAL REVIEW): There remains this last unknown -- how well can a liberal democracy, in its greatest age of affluence, leisure, and self-critical reflection, still fight a distant war against emissaries of the Dark Ages who seek to behead apostates, blow up democrats, and silence with death writers, journalists, and cartoonists. It is not just our democratic values versus their IEDs, but whether our idealism still has the resilience to defeat their nihilism.
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200603310745.asp

THE PRESIDENT'S WAR MADNESS - DERRICK Z. JACKSON (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, APRIL 3): President Bush said he invaded Iraq to rid the world of a madman. It is ever more clear Bush went mad to start it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...ncommentary-hed

REMEMBERING SADDAM'S SLOW WAR - AUSTIN BAY (WASHINGTON TIMES, MARCH 31): Toppling Saddam began the reconfiguration of the Middle East, a dangerous, expensive process, but one that is laying the foundation for true states, where the consent of the governed creates legitimacy and where terrorists are prosecuted, not promoted.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200603...85452-2569r.htm

CORRECTING FORMER NEOCON'S IRAQ STORY - CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, APRIL ): ?The only successes I attributed to the Iraq war were two, and both self-evident: (1) that it had deposed Saddam Hussein and (2) that this had made other dictators think twice about the price of acquiring nuclear weapons.?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...ncommentary-hed

AN INVENTORY: BETTER OFF UNDER SADDAM - GARY LEUPP (COUNTERPUNCH, MARCH 31): A bad man and bad regime. The propaganda of the occupiers requires that we believe things have improved since his fall. But the evidence suggests otherwise.
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp03312006.html

"SADDAM CHOSE TO DENY INSPECTORS": BUSH REPEATED THIS BALD-FACED LIE RECENTLY. THE COWERING PRESS STILL LETS HIM GET AWAY WITH IT, BUT THE PUBLIC IS NO LONGER FOOLED - JOE CONASON (SALON): The American public has joined the rest of the civilized world in questioning the arguments and motives of the war makers. Yet even now, President Bush persists in blatantly falsifying the war's origins -- perhaps because, even now, he still gets away with it.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/03/31/bush_lies/

18 Killed In Continuing Violence:

Gunmen killed six civilians, including a child, in the city of Basra, police said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0390225.htm

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Three U.S. Marines, Sailor Killed :

Three Marines and one Sailor assigned to 2/28 Brigade Combat Team, died from enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province April 2.
http://tinyurl.com/pz84l

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5 Marines die, 3 missing in Iraq accident:

A U.S. military truck rolled over in a flash food in western Iraq's Anbar province, killing five U.S. Marines, injuring another and leaving three other troops missing, the military said Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/m6x5b

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A must watch 3 minute video.

Bushwhacked: And another soldiers dies.

Windows media and Real media.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12610.htm

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Iraq's US/UK Permanent Bases ::

There is Pentagon and US governmental obfuscation surrounding United States permanent bases in Iraq. Whilst Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defence, continues to deny a permanent US presence there, the facts appear to contradict his statements.
http://tinyurl.com/md9t3

- A Civil War By Any Other Name
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/A_Civil_Wa...Other_Name.html

Washington (UPI) Apr 04, 2006 - Despite President Bush's repeated denials, the figures are clear: 900 sectarian killings in a single month in Iraq means a civil war is well under way. Iraq is a nation of 25 million people. In the United States, that level of killing would proportionately equal almost 11,000 people killed in riots, reprisal killings and sectarian clashes in a single month.

Saddam faces new trial for genocide Yahoo! NEWS
The court trying Saddam Hussein said on Tuesday that charges that the former Iraqi leader committed genocide against Kurds in the late 1980s have been handed to the prosecution, paving the way for a new trial. "We declare the investigations are completed in the case called the Anfal campaign in which thousands of women, children and men were killed. The accused are being transferred to the criminal court," said court spokesman Raid Jouhi, adding: "They will be tried according to the Iraqi law for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity." Saddam's co-accused will include his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali," for his role in a poison gas attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5,000 people. Prosecutors say Saddam could face trial on the new charges as early as next month. The toppled Iraqi president is already on trial in connection with the killing of 148 Shiites after an attempt on his life in the town of Dujail in 1982. The Anfal hearings could run in parallel to the existing trial. Kurds accuse Saddam and his former aides of killing more than 100,000 people in the Anfal campaign, which they say included ground assaults, air strikes and the destruction of thousands of villages. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Tuesday he expected Saddam to stand trial for all cases filed against him before the court reaches a verdict. "I believe the court is working on a plan whereby he will be tried for all the crimes then a verdict will be handed down," he told a news conference. But Jouhi said it is too early to tell if all the cases against Saddam would be prosecuted before a verdict is handed down.

Car Bomb Kills 10 in Latest Iraq Violence Yahoo! NEWS
A car bomb exploded Tuesday in a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, killing at least 10 and wounding 28, police said. Another blast killed a woman and two of her young sons in the capital, officials added. The latest violence came after the U.S. military reported the deadliest day in almost three months for American service members in the Iraq war. Ten U.S. troops died, including five Marines killed in a vehicle accident in western Iraq. Two Marines and a sailor were still missing after the truck overturned near Asad air base. The car bomb went off in the poor, mostly Shiite area of Habibiyah, and damaged several cars and nearby sandwich stands, police said. Chaos ensued, and militants from radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fired in the air to clear the crowds. The bombing in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad hit shortly after 7 a.m., killing the woman and two boys, ages 9 and 12. A third son, aged 13, was wounded, as were two brothers of a different family living in the same home, police said. Assailants gunned down a judge driving in eastern Baghdad, and killed a receptionist who works at the United Arab Emirates Embassy and his friend as they were leaving the embassy in Mansour, police said. In Dora, one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, gunmen killed an ice cream vendor and a person sitting with him in the vehicle, police said. A policeman who works at a morgue was also gunned down as he headed to his Dora home. North of the capital, a car bomb targeted a convoy carrying a Samarra city council member's son, killing a security guard and a driver and wounding three other guards. The son, 19, was not harmed. In southern Iraq, gunmen killed a policeman and wounded another as the two were driving in the city of Basra, police said. Police discovered four corpses, apparent victims of the sectarian violence gripping Iraq. Two were found near a highway in western Baghdad's mostly Sunni neighborhood of Khadra, both handcuffed and showing signs of torture, and another in southwestern Baghdad's Shurta district, shot in the head. The other, also handcuffed, was found floating in a small river south of the capital, police said. The continuing violence made talks to form a new government even more urgent. Iraqi politicians have been at a stalemate for months, primarily due to disagreement over who the country's next prime minister should be. Sunni and Kurdish politicians have called for the Shiite bloc to replace Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the current prime minister, as its nominee. Last weekend, two prominent Shiite politicians also joined calls for him to step aside. The only faction showing steadfast loyalty to al-Jaafari appeared to be the one led by al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric. Some 2,500 people marched in support of al-Jaafari in Sadr City, calling for Iraqi leaders to speed up the formation of the government and carrying banners reading "Down with the Conspiracy." The demonstrators also carried an empty black coffin, bearing the words "Constitution" and "Political Process." Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab politician, on Tuesday said Sunnis were still insisting on a different nominee and hoped to hear back from the main Shiite bloc in a few days. A prominent Shiite politician among the two publicly calling for al-Jaafari to step aside continued to express his faltering support. "In my belief, there is no way left (for al-Jaafari), considering that other parliamentary blocs are still closing doors ... and the constitutional choices in Dr. al-Jaafari's hands do not enable him to win the legal quorum in order to receive a new mandate as prime minister," Shiite legislator Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer told Lebanese television Tuesday. Rising tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims have led to a marked increase in Iraqi civilian deaths. At least 1,038 civilians died last month in war-related violence, according to an Associated Press count. The AP count showed at least 375 Iraqi civilians killed in December, 608 in January and 741 in February. Most of the increase appeared to be a result of a sharp rise in the number of civilians found dead throughout Baghdad — the apparent victims of sectarian reprisal killings. U.S. casualties had appeared to be on the decline, with last month the least deadly month for American troops since February 2004. But 14 troops have already died in the first three days of April — nearly half the number who died in all of March. In addition to the five Marines killed in the vehicle accident, three Marines and a sailor were killed by "hostile fire" in the same province, the military said. No further details, including the precise location, were released. Army Pfc. Jeremy W. Ehle of Richmond, Va., was killed when his patrol came under fire near Hit, 135 kilometers (85 miles) west of Baghdad. Ehle, who arrived in Iraq last month, was part of the Army's 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division stationed in Friedberg, Germany. That many American troops had not died in a single day since Jan. 7, when 18 troops were killed, according to the Web site icasualties.org. As of Monday, at least 2,344 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Elsewhere, police said three Iraqi army officers were arrested in connection with an attack on an oil pipeline in Hawija, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad, last week. U.S. Air Force F-15s and U.S. Navy F/A-18s provided close air support to troops fighting Iraqi insurgents north of the capital in Tikrit and Habaniyah and Fallujah west of Baghdad. The Iraqi government also announced in a statement the arrest in Anbar province of five "terrorists," including two Sudanese who came in through Jordan. No other details were provided.
By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer

Iraq Files Genocide Charges Against Saddam
--------------------

By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer

April 4 2006, 12:07 PM PDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi authorities charged Saddam Hussein with genocide Tuesday, accusing him of trying to exterminate the Kurds in a 1980s campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 -- the first move to prosecute him for the major human rights violations which the U.S. cited to help justify its invasion.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...opinternational

Iraq's PM Jaafari rejects calls to step aside
Tue Apr 4, 2006 7:18 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has rejected growing pressure on him to resign, saying Iraqis must be left to choose their leader democratically.

In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper on Wednesday, Jaafari brushed aside calls from opponents and some political allies to step aside to break a political deadlock.

Although Jaafari has been nominated as Iraq's next prime minister, his appointment has yet to be confirmed.

Jaafari's critics and some allies have called for him to step aside, saying the Shi'ite leader cannot bring the needed unity and security.

"There is a decision that was reached by a democratic mechanism and I stand with it," he told the newspaper. "We have to protect democracy in Iraq and it is democracy which should decide who leads Iraq."

The United States and Britain have said that Iraq's failure to appoint a new government four months after elections is undermining security.

On a visit to Baghdad at the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Iraqi people were "losing patience" with the delay on forming a new government.

Jaafari said no consensus had been reached during talks with Rice and her British counterpart, Jack Straw.

"I heard their points of view even though I disagree with them," he told the Guardian. "People will react if they see the rules of democracy being disobeyed.

"Every politician and every friend of Iraq should not want people to be frustrated."

Talks over forming a new government after parliamentary elections in December have stalled on the uncertainty over Jaafari's future.

Jaafari, who won his alliance's nomination to keep the top job in a vote in February, has previously condemned U.S. "interference" in Iraq's new democracy.



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Copyright © 2006 The Daily Star

Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Disintegration of Iraq would pose multiple problems for Israel

By Asher Susser
Commentary by

The possible fragmentation of Iraq is a most unwelcome prospect from the Israeli point of view. Some observers, locked in perceptions of a bygone era, might still think otherwise. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Israel was deeply involved in conflict with core Middle Eastern states - Egypt, Syria and Jordan - it was extremely apprehensive about possible Iraqi wartime military assistance to its Arab enemies. Israel consequently developed a particularly friendly relationship with the non-Arab periphery of the region, particularly Iran, and actively pursued a covert relationship with the Kurds in Iraq in support of their secessionist struggle against the central government in Baghdad. Israel's interests have, however, radically changed since then, as have the concepts of core and periphery in the Middle East.

Israel has made its peace with key players of the Arab core, Egypt and Jordan. It maintains an uneasy modus vivendi with Syria and low-intensity conflict with the Palestinians. The balance of power between Israel and its Arab neighbors has shifted markedly in Israel's favor. Generally, in the last two decades or so, the Arabs have been considerably weakened, with former regional powers having lost their hegemonic status. Egypt no longer wields the regional clout it once enjoyed. Syria under President Bashar Assad is but a shadow of its former self. It has been forced out of Lebanon and is substantially isolated. Iraq has been crushed by the American invasion, and Saudi Arabia, even with oil prices going through the roof, is not as wealthy as it once was. Moreover, the kingdom is suffering from domestic terrorism, and has had a somewhat less intimate relationship with the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.

In the eastern part of the Arab world, where the Syrian and the Iraqi Baath regimes once vied for supremacy, there is now an Arab leadership void. The power vacuum is being filled by an expanding Iran, the likes of which the region has never witnessed in the modern era. Determined to obtain a nuclear capability, Iran is presently also buoyed by an unprecedented sense of Shiite ascendancy. Iraq has become the first Shiite-dominated Arab state, the Shiites are on the rise in Lebanon, and Jordan's King Abdullah was, therefore, pretty much on the mark in his anxious reference in late 2004 to the emergent "Shiite crescent" of influence.

Under these circumstances, the former Sunni Arab core is becoming a political periphery relative to the new core, which has moved eastwards to Iran. As the U.S. sinks deeper into the Iraqi morass, so Iran treats the West with ever increasing defiance and an obvious sense of impunity and self-assurance. Saddam's Iraq was once the Arab bulwark in the east, but its removal has opened the floodgates for Iranian regional ascendancy, for which nothing positive can be said from an Israeli standpoint.

If the weakening of Iraq and the potential for its disintegration have brought the region thus far, the country's actual dismemberment into three statelets - one Kurdish in the north, one Sunni in the center, and one Shiite in the south - could have disastrous consequences for the region, especially for Israel and its regional allies, Turkey and Jordan.

As is well known, the Turks are wary of the potentially destabilizing impact of a Kurdish state. A weak Sunni Iraqi state, sandwiched between the Kurds and the Shiites and denied Iraq's oil wealth, could become an insufferable burden on the neighbors, especially Jordan, to which many Iraqis may emigrate. This would bring even greater pressure to bear on Jordan's economy and infrastructure, already straining under the burden of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have taken refuge in the kingdom.

The Shiite statelet in the south would be far more dependent on Iran than on a more powerful, united (albeit federative and Shiite-dominated) Arab-Kurdish Iraqi state, and thus a far more likely candidate to serve as a subservient and subversive cat's paw of the ayatollahs in Tehran.

The disintegration of Iraq along sectarian lines would be the first such development of its kind in the Arab state system since its creation in the 1920s. Others could follow, like Lebanon and Syria, leading to sectarian shifts of power to the Shiites in Lebanon and, in Syria, to fundamentalist Sunnis bent on unseating the Alawites who dispossessed them a generation ago. The Iranians and Hizbullah, Hamas and their Syrian counterparts in the Muslim Brotherhood would all stand to benefit from the new disorder, in which Israel, Jordan and Turkey would be equally hard-pressed to cope with the negative fallout of Iraq's demise.

Considering the alternatives, none appears more appealing than the restoration of the integrity of an independent, unoccupied, Arab-Kurdish Iraqi state, which would probably be more inclined to restrain Iranian influence than an occupied and fragmented Iraq.


Asher Susser is director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org,

Copyright © 2006 The Daily Star
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Let the Iraqis Bargain

By David Ignatius

To implement a unity government in Iraq, the Iraqis will need Americans to be patient and give their full political support.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Iraqi PM rejects calls to resign BBC NEWS
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has rejected growing pressure to resign, saying Iraqis must be allowed to choose their leader democratically. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Mr Jaafari dismissed calls from opponents and some allies to step aside to break a political deadlock. The Shias' nomination of Mr Jaafari has been a major sticking point in forming a government as he lacks wider support. He has also been criticised for not doing more to curb sectarian violence. "There is a decision that was reached by a democratic mechanism and I stand with it," Mr Jaafari told the British newspaper.