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US denies Iraq pullout plan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-06 09:20
The US military denied British newspaper reports on Sunday that it planned to
pull its forces from Iraq early next year, saying the stories, sourced to senior
British defense officials, were "completely false."
Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani gestures as he speaks to the media following his meeting
with General John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, in Baghdad
March 4, 2006. [Reuters] | There were no signs of
an end to a political deadlock over the formation of a U.S.-sponsored national
unity government that could halt a slide toward civil war.
Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, leading a group of Sunnis, Kurds and others
opposing the nomination of Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, sent an
envoy to meet top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to help break
the impasse.
Sistani, who lives in semi-recluse in the city of Najaf, is not directly
involved in politics, but has huge influence over the bulk of the country's 60
percent Shi'ite majority.
Talabani, a Kurd, also met delegates from radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr, whose support last month was crucial to Jaafari's surprise nomination
by the Shi'ite bloc. Under fire for security and economic problems since he
became interim premier last year, Jaafari is battling to keep his job.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror said a plan for U.S. and British
forces to withdraw in spring 2007 followed an acceptance by the two governments
that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now the greatest obstacle to
peace.
But General Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied
the reports and said withdrawal of 133,000 U.S. troops would depend on the
security situation in Iraq.
"We're going to do exactly what we said we were going to do, which is to make
the assessment of the situation on the ground," Pace said in an interview on
U.S. television.
"The commanders in theater will make the recommendations up the chain of
command ... to the president for a decision about U.S. troop levels." He said
the war was going "very, very well."
Earlier, the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq called the reports "completely
false." Reiterating previous statements made by U.S. and Iraqi officials,
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said any troop reduction will depend on the
ability of the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to maintain order.
IMPASSE
Nearly three months after a December election, Iraq's divided political
leaders are still fighting over the crucial post of prime minister in the new
government.
The impasse has delayed the formation of a unity coalition of Shi'ites,
Sunnis and Kurds that Washington has promoted in the hope of fostering stability
and allowing troops to withdraw.
It has created political uncertainty as Iraqi and U.S. troops battle to curb
violence that has killed well over 500 people since the February 22 bombing of a
Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, an attack that pushed the divided country toward
civil war.
Though the Shi'ite Alliance won 130 of the 275 seats in parliament, Iraq's
constitution requires a two-thirds majority to confirm the prime minister,
giving the Kurdish, Sunni and secular parties a de facto veto.
Despite having announced on Saturday he would issue a decree to convene a
first sitting of the parliament elected in December, Talabani did not do so on
Sunday.
Government officials have said parliament should meet by next Sunday, March
12. One parliamentarian, Mahmoud Othman, said the session could be convened on
Thursday or Saturday.
MOSQUE ATTACK
After 10 days of bloodshed following the destruction of the Golden Mosque in
Samarra, there was much less violence on Sunday.
A mortar or rocket damaged doors and windows at a Sunni mosque in the
northern city of Mosul, a cleric said.
Two cousins and the nephew of the secretary-general of the Muslim Clerics
Association, the main Sunni religious body, were killed when gunmen ambushed
their car in western Baghdad.
The Iraqi army said it had foiled a plan to attack a Shi'ite shrine in
Baghdad's Kadhimiya area, one of the four holiest Shi'ite shrines in Iraq next
to the Samarra's Golden Mosque.
Seeking the ear of perhaps the most influential man in the country, two
delegations from rival factions in the government have met influential Shi'ite
Sistani in the past 24 hours.
After Jaafari's Dawa party met the ayatollah on Saturday, a Kurdish
delegation headed by senior Kurdish official Barham Salih, a Talabani aide,
discussed the political and security situation with Sistani on Sunday.
Salih, who is also planning minister, said after the meeting that the Kurds
hope Sistani would continue pushing the political process "in a way that serves
all Iraqis."
The Shi'ite United Alliance nominated Jaafari to keep his job despite
security and economic difficulties and criticism of his handling of violence.
Smaller factions are refusing to join a coalition he leads and rival Shi'ite
leaders are considering putting up a new nominee, political sources say.
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