United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Sunday increased pressure for an end to Iraq’s political deadlock and the speedy formation of a national unity government, during a surprise visit to Baghdad.
”The Iraqi people are losing patience,” Rice said after meeting Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders. ”What is more, your international allies want to see this done.”
The intervention by Rice and Straw came as the position of Ibrahim Jaafari, the Prime Minister, weakened with the first signs of an open revolt by members of the Shia coalition which won the election more than three months ago.
The power vacuum has angered Iraqis as well as the US and British governments. Many feel it has allowed militias to mount a campaign of sectarian murders and bring the country to the brink of civil war.
Scores of bodies are being discovered in Iraq’s capital every day, presumably the victims of police death squads or sectarian killings. On Sunday nearly 40 bodies were found in several Baghdad neighbourhoods, all handcuffed and with gunshot wounds to the head or chest, police said.
The US has been growing increasingly impatient with the Iraqi political class. The reports of politicians haggling over portfolios as the country teeters on the edge of a civil war is eroding support for the occupation among the US public.
During their visit, neither Rice nor Straw expressed publicly any preference over who should become Iraq’s prime minister.
”There is significant international concern about the time the formation of this government is taking,” Straw said. ”We will be urging the Iraqi leaders we see to press ahead more quickly.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, was more blunt. Before the ministers’ trip he described Iraq as ”bleeding” because of the lack of a government.
Jaafari was re-nominated by a one-vote margin in the Shia bloc’s selection process in February. He has been unable to persuade the main Sunni and Kurdish parties to back him.
The Shias have 130 seats in the 275-member Parliament, too few to push through a Cabinet on their own.
The Kurds complain that Jaafari has done nothing to help them gain control of the disputed city of Kirkuk.
The Sunnis say he has failed to rein in the Shia militias, who are accused of murdering hundreds of innocent Sunni civilians.
Jaafari has refused to give way to another Shia candidate who might command more support and until this weekend his rivals in the Shia bloc felt bound to maintain coalition unity by backing him as the nominee.
For the first time, a leader of the biggest party in the bloc said publicly he should go. ”I call on Jaafari to step down,” Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir told Reuters on Sunday. ”This is just the beginning and the other calls will follow.”
On Saturday, Kasim Daoud, an independent member of the Shia bloc, called on Jaafari to give way, while other Shia MPs said four of the seven main parties in their bloc had given the prime minister until yesterday to prove he could get support from the Sunnis and Kurds. If not, he would be dumped.
Before the December election, US and British diplomats gave strong hints that they preferred Adel Abdel Mahdi, the man who went on to lose the Shia nomination by one vote.
The fact that Jaafari was supported by MPs loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr added to the alarm felt in US and British circles.
The ministers’ first stop was with President Jalal Talabani, who has barely been on speaking terms with Jaafari for months, according to US officials.
An hour-long meeting with the prime minister began with awkward exchanges about the weather in front of photographers, while a meeting with their preferred candidate, Mahdi, seemed warmer. ”How are you? It’s wonderful to see you,” Rice told him. – Guardian Unlimited Â