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Rice, Straw in Iraq to break gov't deadlock

Posted on: Sunday, 2 April 2006, 07:43 CDT

By Sue Pleming and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Jack Straw flew in secret into Baghdad on Sunday in a dramatic bid to break a deadlock over forming a unity government that can halt a slide to civil war.

A day after senior figures in the ruling Shi'ite Alliance bloc broke ranks and turned publicly on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Rice and Foreign Secretary Straw will certainly add to the pressure on the controversial premier to step aside.

The chill was palpable when Rice and the embattled Jaafari exchanged small talk on a rainstorm raging outside as reporters looked on. The smiles were frosty, the body language awkward.

However, no breakthrough is likely to be announced during the two-day trip, officials said -- both Iraqi leaders and their visitors are anxious not to give the impression that Washington and London are imposing a new leader over the elected Jaafari.

"The fact that we're going out to have these discussions with the Iraqi leadership is a sign of the urgency which we attach to a need for a government of national unity," Rice told reporters who traveled with the two ministers from Britain.

Rice was visibly more friendly in her meeting with Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a candidate for prime minister if Jaafari steps aside.

"How are you? It's wonderful to see you," she told him.

The flight from Liverpool, where the pair had spent two days of "backyard diplomacy" in Straw's home region, was shrouded in a secrecy far greater than typical unannounced visits to Iraq.

PRESSURE

Asked if the plan was to force Jaafari to step down and have his Alliance colleagues nominate someone acceptable to the minority groups in parliament, Straw said: "We will recognize and respect whoever emerges as the leader through this system."

Nearly four months after an election, he added: "Our concern, however, is that they have to make swift progress."

Privately, U.S. and British officials make little secret of their view of the unsuitability of Jaafari, a soft-spoken Islamist physician, long exiled in London and with backing from Iran. They have questioned his ability to unite and lead Iraqis.

"It is important to have fresh messages from time to time from Washington and from London," Rice said as she and Straw denied interfering in Iraq's democracy or setting a deadline.

In talks with President Jalal Talabani, Rice and Straw said they prefer a prime minister who can unite Iraqis and that Jaafari does not have that qualification, political sources said.

A British embassy official said the ministers were not expecting to hold a news conference in Baghdad until Monday. They have a program of meetings with Shi'ite, Sunni, Kurdish and secular leaders, both bilateral and as a full group.

With U.S. congressional elections in November, President George W. Bush's administration is keen to show progress in Iraq and hold out the prospect that U.S. soldiers will soon be able to start going home.

A sharp increase in sectarian bloodshed in the six weeks since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra has cast a cloud over those prospects.

Some two to three dozen bodies are turning up every day in Baghdad alone, showing signs of death-squad killing.

Rice said Iraq was "vulnerable" after years of sectarian tensions held in check by repression and accused al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of aiming to foment civil war.

PARLIAMENT

Iraqi and foreign leaders say a unity government is the way to halt this before it erupts in all-out warfare.

Sunni, Kurdish and secular leaders, who share about half the seats in a parliament elected on December 15 but which has yet to hold a substantive meeting, insist they will not serve under Jaafari, nominated in February by the Alliance to a second term.

Critics say he failed to bolster economic security in his year as interim premier. But with support from Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, he won an internal ballot by one vote over the candidate of the biggest party in the Alliance, SCIRI.

Saturday's move against Jaafari was declared publicly by one Alliance leader, independent Kasim Daoud, and echoed anonymously by others who confirmed that four of the seven main parties in the bloc, including SCIRI, had given Jaafari just days to quit.

It is unclear how that might happen and how a new prime minister might be chosen. No clear replacement is in view, Alliance sources said.

Top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a driving force in creating the Alliance, has an open mind on who leads it but wants to avoid any public rift in the bloc, the sources said.

Once there is agreement on a prime minister, officials hope key posts in the administration can be approved quickly and a full cabinet drawn up and approved by parliament within weeks.

Jaafari's senior aide said on Saturday he would hold on "to the end."

Aides said Rice, prevented from flying by helicopter into central Baghdad by heavy rain, was angry because she and Straw's armored convoy was stuck in traffic on the airport road, which is vulnerable to insurgent suicide bombings and shootings.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Alastair Macdonald)

Source: REUTERS

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