Party quits tortuous Iraq government talks

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A small but influential Shi’ite
Islamist party said it was pulling out of talks on forming a
new Iraqi government on Friday, complaining of U.S.
interference.

The withdrawal of the Fadhila party, part of the Alliance
bloc, may help end a struggle over the key post of oil
minister. The party had been pushing its own candidates against
Hussain al-Shahristani, the choice of bigger Alliance groups.

The row over the oil ministry, in control of the world’s
third biggest reserves of crude and at the heart of efforts to
revive Iraq’s shattered economy, has been a major reason for
delay in efforts to form a government in recent days.

“We will not return to the negotiating table and we have
announced our final position. We withdraw from the formation of
the government and we will stay in parliament to express the
voice of the people,” spokesman Sabah al-Saadi told reporters.

He criticised other parties for trying to force candidates
for ministries on the Alliance’s prime minister-designate, Nuri
al-Maliki, as well as pressure from the United States.

Maliki has another 10 days under a one-month constitutional
deadline to present his cabinet to parliament.

“The current negotiations are subject to external pressures
from the American ambassador in Iraq,” Saadi added.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has played a major role in
mediating in Iraq’s political disputes for the past year.

He has stressed that Washington, frustrated by the delay in
forming a government after December’s election, now wants
technically competent ministers appointed to run Iraq for the
next four years as it tries to reduce the U.S. presence.

Washington and Iraqi leaders hope that a grand coalition of
majority Shi’ite Muslims, once-dominant Sunni Arabs and ethnic
Kurds can stem sectarian and ethnic violence that has raised
the prospect of an all-out civil war.

There is also a lack of agreement on filling the sensitive
ministries of interior and defense with figures free of ties to
militias that have flourished in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Leaders from the Sunni minority — and, more discreetly,
the United States — are demanding the removal of the interior
minister, accused of allowing Shi’ite police death squads to
operate.

OIL MINISTRY

Fadhila is one of over a dozen parties in the United
Alliance which has a near majority in parliament and has a
representative on the bloc’s seven-strong steering committee.
It had been pressing to have a Fadhila member named oil
minister. Among its candidates was the present minister Hashem
al-Hashemi.

Other Alliance negotiators have been pressing the case for
Hussain al-Shahristani, an independent member of the Alliance.
He now appears in a strong position to secure the post, over
Oil Ministry technocrat Thamir Ghadhban.

Shahristani is a nuclear scientist by training. Tortured
and imprisoned by Saddam for, he says, refusing to work on a
nuclear arms program, he was once seen as a potential prime
minister and became a deputy speaker of parliament.

He has been criticized by minority Sunni Arabs as too rigid
in his attachment to Shi’ite sectarian interests. He is seen as
close to top Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and
played a role in forming the Alliance, with Sistani’s blessing,
as means of avoiding a split in the Shi’ite vote.

Oil industry officials have voiced some reservations about
Shahristani’s ability to lead the ministry, which provides
almost all Iraq’s state revenue and is vital to the rebuilding
of the devastated economy.

Several officials said they were concerned that
Shahristani, despite his technical background, has little
experience of the sector oil and a reputation as being
unreceptive to advice.

DISPUTES

Years of war and then international sanctions in the 1990s
ravaged production under Saddam Hussein. Since the U.S.
invasion, sabotage by Sunni insurgents opposed to the
occupation and the Shi’ite-led government has further curbed
exports.

Reviving those sales is vital to bringing prosperity to
Iraq. Many hope new wealth could calm violent passions that see
dozens killed or forced from their homes every day. But the
division of oil revenues is also a major bone of contention.

Sunnis, clustered in central Iraq with few resources, fear
that Shi’ites in the south and Kurds in the north may use the
federal provisions of a new constitution to corner the oil.
Parliament is due to review the constitution shortly.

Washington is keen for calm to allow it to start
withdrawing troops from a conflict that is increasingly
unpopular at home. The Army Reserve said this week it had
blocked the resignations of about 400 officers since 2004 to
maintain forces for Iraq.

More than 2,400 U.S. troops have died in the war, including
four Marines in an Abrams tank who died when their vehicle fell
off a bridge into a canal near Falluja on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Alastair
Macdonald in Baghdad and Will Dunham in Washington)