Iraqi Government Dismisses Sunni Group’s Threats to Quit

By MEGAN GREENWELL

By Megan Greenwell and Saad al-Izzi

The Washington Post

BAGHDAD

The Shiite-led Iraqi government issued a sharp response Friday to a Sunni political bloc that is threatening to pull out of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ‘s administration, saying the group’s “threatening, pressuring and blackmail” will not impede Iraq’s progress.

In a four-page statement, al-Maliki spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh dismissed each of the 11 demands made by the Iraqi Accordance Front , the country’s largest Sunni political group. Dabbagh accused the Accordance Front of working for its own political gains rather than for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

“The threatening, pressuring and blackmail is useless, and delaying the work of the government, the council of representatives and the political process will not bring Iraq back to the time of dictatorship and slavery,” Dabbagh wrote in the statement.

The Accordance Front announced Wednesday that its six ministers in al-Maliki’s cabinet would quit the government permanently unless the prime minister made significant progress on its list of demands by next week. The group seeks a greater role in security matters, the removal of militia members from Iraqi security forces, and the release of thousands of detainees its members believe are unjustly imprisoned.

The group’s government boycott would not affect its 44 seats in the Iraqi parliament.

The blunt statement from al-Maliki’s government makes it unlikely that the Accordance Front will see the type of action it desires before its deadline Wednesday, leaving the future of the cabinet unclear. The infighting within the government, coupled with the dwindling chance of legislative action on several key bills before the parliament’s August recess, will likely be seen as major setbacks when the top U.S. commander in Iraq issues a progress report to President Bush on Sept. 15.

Also Friday, a street battle between U.S. and Iraqi forces and members of a powerful Shiite militia left 17 fighters dead south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said at least five Iraqi civilians were also killed, but the military reported no civilian casualties.

The clash began when U.S. and Iraqi troops entered a neighborhood in the city of Karbala to detain the suspected leader of an assassination cell that broke away from the influential Mahdi Army militia. The military did not identify the man, but Iraqi police sources said he was Razaq al-Ardhi, a Karbala resident.

Al-Ardhi was captured without incident, the military said, but neighbors began to fire weapons from several locations nearby. The troops fired back, killing five people, then attacked from an aircraft overhead, killing an additional 12 fighters, according to a military statement. The military said no troops were injured.

A U.S. soldier was killed Thursday when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Diyala province east of Baghdad, the military said.

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