New Shi’ite demands may prolong Iraq paralysis

By Mariam Karouny and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Fresh demands from the Shi’ite Alliance
over the creation of an Iraqi government on Wednesday
threatened to prolong a political paralysis that Washington
says is playing into the hands of insurgents.

Acting parliament speaker Adnan Pachachi said Iraqi leaders
would discuss a national unity government at the next session
on Monday and was optimistic of a breakthrough before then in
spite of the Shi’ite Alliance’s reluctance to drop its choice
of Ibrahim al-Jaafari for prime minister.

“I spoke to the heads of all the political blocs and I
sensed a true intent from all to push the political process
forward,” Pachachi said. “From now until the 17th of this
month, we believe there will be an agreement on some of the
problems.”

Elections for the new government ended four months ago and
the United States and Britain have been pressing Iraqi leaders
to agree on who will lead it, fearful the widening vacuum
emboldens insurgents seeking to undermine the political
process.

A car bomb killed at least six people at an army checkpoint
near the northern city of Tal Afar on Wednesday, police and
witnesses said.

American military officials say the al Qaeda leader in
Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has shifted tactics away from
attacks on U.S. troops to Iraqi army and security forces.

U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war declined for a fifth
straight month in March even as insurgent attacks continue
unabated with Iraqis increasingly the targets.

But rebels have inflicted a series of casualties on U.S.
troops since Sunday, killing eight soldiers, including one who
was struck by a roadside bomb on Wednesday.

Washington hopes the political process will defuse the
insurgency and enable U.S. soldiers to start heading home.

DROP JAAFARI

Much depends on whether the Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance
(UIA) can drop Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister
without splitting the bloc apart.

Kurdish and Arab Sunni leaders have told the Alliance that
they flatly reject Jaafari as a nominee. The Alliance held a
round of talks on Wednesday and was expected to meet again but
no breakthrough was expected, Alliance sources said.

Before any name to replace Jaafari can be put to a
parliament vote, the speaker of the house and his two deputies
must be elected, followed by a vote for a three-man
presidential council, which then has to unanimously choose a
prime minister.

Then the prime minister has one month to name his cabinet
and put it to parliament for approval.

Alliance leaders insist that a parliament speaker, the
prime minister and the president are agreed on by all parties
before the bloc goes to parliament, sources in the bloc said.

“We prefer to have it all as one package, one deal, before
going to the parliament so at least now we should accelerate
the negotiations and meetings,” said Alliance official Reda
Jawad Taki, an official in the powerful Shi’ite Islamist party
SCIRI.

As Iraqi leaders struggled to break the stalemate, former
President Saddam Hussein was doing his best to outwit the court
convened to try him for crimes against humanity in the killing
of 148 Shi’ites in the 1980s.

During a brief session on Wednesday with no defendants,
chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman said Saddam Hussein and his half
brother Barzan al-Tikriti refused to provide the court with
samples of their signatures. Saddam and seven co-accused are
due in court again on Monday.

ARAB MEETING BOYCOTT

The Shi’ite-dominated Baghdad government on Wednesday
boycotted an Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo to
protest comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said
last week that Shi’ites in Arab countries were more loyal to
Shi’ite Iran.

Mubarak said civil war had already started in Iraq, where
fresh violence on Wednesday reminded Iraqi politicians that
they will face an enormous task in tackling insurgent bombings,
kidnappings and death squads once a government is formed.

A policeman and three civilians were killed and four others
wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol car in
central Baghdad, police said.

In what has a become a routine event, police said they
found the bodies of three men in different areas of the
capital.