Rice, Straw in Iraq to break deadlock
By Sue Pleming and Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – 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 U.S. military said the two pilots of a helicopter lost
south of Baghdad on Saturday were presumed dead and were likely
shot down, a reminder of the violence gripping Iraq as the
political vacuum deepens.
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.
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.”
“Our concern, however, is that they have to make swift
progress,” he added, underscoring the fact the elections were
held four months ago.
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 quality, 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.
Aides said Rice, prevented from flying by helicopter into
central Baghdad by heavy rain, was angry because her 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)