Home
Iraqi political leaders have been summoned to crisis talks this Friday - usually a day of prayer - with a deepening power struggle in cabinet unresolved and underscored by Thursday's bombings in Baghdad.
The series of bombings in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, mainly in Shiite neighborhoods, left 70 people dead and also stoked debate among leading US politicians on whether last week's final US troop withdrawals have left Iraq destabilized.
The crisis talks scheduled for Friday were described by US and United Nations envoys in Baghdad as being crucial to restoring calm.
Hashemi with raised right index finger standing next to Iraqi flagMaliki accuser, Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi
Sheltering from terrorism charges in Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of the country's Sunni Arab minority accused Maliki of behaving like the late dictator Saddam Hussein.
Maliki rival draws comparison with Saddam
The US magazine Foreign Policy quoted Hashemi as saying, "Many of Saddam's behaviors are now being exercised by Maliki unfortunately."
"There is no way that we will reach any sort of solution in the foreseeable future."
Hashemi also accused Maliki of wanting to take control of all of Iraq's key institutions.
"The judicial system is really in his pocket."
On Monday a five-member judicial panel had issued a warrant for Hashemi's arrest on charges that he had run hit squads against government officials. Hashemi has denied this but said he would accept trial before a court in Kurdistan.
His remarks echoed recent comments by Iraq's deputy prime minister, Saleh al-Mutlak, also a Sunni, who likened Maliki's Shiite-led government to a "dictatorship."
Iraq's fragile power-sharing coalition was formed last year to overcome rivalries between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groupings.
Maliki, however, recently called for his prime ministerial deputy Mutlak to be sacked, prompting a boycott of both cabinet and parliament by the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc.
Flurry of US mediation
US officials say IA Director David Petraeus, a former commander in Iraq, happened to be on a visit to Iraq and would meet senior leaders. Vice President Joe Biden had spoken with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, in an bid to sooth sectarian tensions. Maliki's office said US army chief of staff General Ray Odierno had also met with Maliki for talks on "military cooperation."
Maliki at pult, with microphones and Iraqi flagRivals accused Nuri al-Maliki of tightening his gripThursday's bombing series, Iraq's worst in four months, for which responsibility has still not been claimed, has been interpreted variously by analysts, who ask whether Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida may be reemerging.
Analysts sceptical
Baghdad-based analyst, Hadi Jalo, said the bombings across the capital would elicit an even stronger crackdown by Maliki.
"I think al-Maliki, who has absolute power now … will strike back, and he will escalate his crackdown against his political rivals. What is clear now is that the situation is deteriorating."
Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, does not hold out much hope either.
"The conditions that perpetuate civil wars are making a hasty comeback."
In 2006 and 2007 Iraq was pushed to the brink of civil war - even under US-led occupation - during a wave of Sunni-Shiite sectarian bloodshed.
Assessments in Washington differ
Ahead of next year's US presidential election, the Republican hopeful Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama of making a "signature failure" by not keeping some troops in Iraq. On Thursday, White House spokesman Ray Carney said the bombings would not derail "Iraq's continued progress."
Numerous men standing amid wreckage of cars and shattered building frontagesInspecting the damage left by Thursday's bombing
Another senior Obama administration official, quoted anonymously by Reuters, said: "That there were sectarian divisions in Iraq before we invaded, and will likely be sectarian conflicts after US forces left, is a fairly obvious point."
"A residual troop presence would have no role. The intelligence community has also assessed that Iraqi security forces are fully capable of providing internal stability," the official was quoted as saying.
It was former president George W. Bush who agreed in his last months in office to the late-2011 deadline for the last combat troops to leave Iraq, almost nine years after the US-led invasion that topped Saddam Hussein.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The series of bombings in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, mainly in Shiite neighborhoods, left 70 people dead and also stoked debate among leading US politicians on whether last week's final US troop withdrawals have left Iraq destabilized.
The crisis talks scheduled for Friday were described by US and United Nations envoys in Baghdad as being crucial to restoring calm.
Hashemi with raised right index finger standing next to Iraqi flagMaliki accuser, Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi
Sheltering from terrorism charges in Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of the country's Sunni Arab minority accused Maliki of behaving like the late dictator Saddam Hussein.
Maliki rival draws comparison with Saddam
The US magazine Foreign Policy quoted Hashemi as saying, "Many of Saddam's behaviors are now being exercised by Maliki unfortunately."
"There is no way that we will reach any sort of solution in the foreseeable future."
Hashemi also accused Maliki of wanting to take control of all of Iraq's key institutions.
"The judicial system is really in his pocket."
On Monday a five-member judicial panel had issued a warrant for Hashemi's arrest on charges that he had run hit squads against government officials. Hashemi has denied this but said he would accept trial before a court in Kurdistan.
His remarks echoed recent comments by Iraq's deputy prime minister, Saleh al-Mutlak, also a Sunni, who likened Maliki's Shiite-led government to a "dictatorship."
Iraq's fragile power-sharing coalition was formed last year to overcome rivalries between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groupings.
Maliki, however, recently called for his prime ministerial deputy Mutlak to be sacked, prompting a boycott of both cabinet and parliament by the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc.
Flurry of US mediation
US officials say IA Director David Petraeus, a former commander in Iraq, happened to be on a visit to Iraq and would meet senior leaders. Vice President Joe Biden had spoken with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, in an bid to sooth sectarian tensions. Maliki's office said US army chief of staff General Ray Odierno had also met with Maliki for talks on "military cooperation."
Maliki at pult, with microphones and Iraqi flagRivals accused Nuri al-Maliki of tightening his gripThursday's bombing series, Iraq's worst in four months, for which responsibility has still not been claimed, has been interpreted variously by analysts, who ask whether Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida may be reemerging.
Analysts sceptical
Baghdad-based analyst, Hadi Jalo, said the bombings across the capital would elicit an even stronger crackdown by Maliki.
"I think al-Maliki, who has absolute power now … will strike back, and he will escalate his crackdown against his political rivals. What is clear now is that the situation is deteriorating."
Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, does not hold out much hope either.
"The conditions that perpetuate civil wars are making a hasty comeback."
In 2006 and 2007 Iraq was pushed to the brink of civil war - even under US-led occupation - during a wave of Sunni-Shiite sectarian bloodshed.
Assessments in Washington differ
Ahead of next year's US presidential election, the Republican hopeful Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama of making a "signature failure" by not keeping some troops in Iraq. On Thursday, White House spokesman Ray Carney said the bombings would not derail "Iraq's continued progress."
Numerous men standing amid wreckage of cars and shattered building frontagesInspecting the damage left by Thursday's bombing
Another senior Obama administration official, quoted anonymously by Reuters, said: "That there were sectarian divisions in Iraq before we invaded, and will likely be sectarian conflicts after US forces left, is a fairly obvious point."
"A residual troop presence would have no role. The intelligence community has also assessed that Iraqi security forces are fully capable of providing internal stability," the official was quoted as saying.
It was former president George W. Bush who agreed in his last months in office to the late-2011 deadline for the last combat troops to leave Iraq, almost nine years after the US-led invasion that topped Saddam Hussein.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
