Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 17, 2007
Pg. 1
By Edward Wong
BAGHDAD, April 16 — Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious Shiite cleric, withdrew his six ministers from the Iraqi cabinet on Monday, in the first major shake-up of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government since it was installed a year ago.
It was the first time Mr. Sadr had followed through with a threat to cut some of his ties with the government and with Mr. Maliki, a conservative Shiite whose grip on authority largely rests on Mr. Sadr’s political support.
Legislators working for Mr. Sadr said that he was pulling his ministers from the 38-member cabinet because the government had refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. In a written statement, Mr. Sadr said he was motivated by Iraqi nationalism, asserting that his action was intended to give the government a chance to appoint new ministers who would not be beholden to any political party or have sectarian agendas.
“I ask God to bestow upon the people an independent, devoted government to be like a candle in the middle of the darkness, away from occupation,” said the statement, which was read at a news conference by Nassar al-Rubaie, a senior Sadr legislator.
The move by Mr. Sadr, who went underground at the start of the new Baghdad security plan in February, appeared to be an effort by the young cleric to shore up his reputation as the leading opposition figure in Iraq’s fragmented and acrimonious political landscape.
Mr. Sadr has long demanded that the Americans withdraw from Iraq, but Mr. Maliki has resisted setting a timetable. Mr. Sadr’s latest call for a timetable for American withdrawal comes as many Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress are pressing President Bush for exactly the same thing.
Mr. Sadr’s diminished presence in the government could complicate American efforts to draw the cleric and his militia, the Mahdi Army, away from violence by giving them more of a stake in the political process. Despite talk of a fractured Mahdi Army, Mr. Sadr has shown an ability and a willingness to rein in large segments of the militia under the new American security plan, perhaps concerned that resistance could cost him some of his political gains.
The immediate effect of the pullout on the day-to-day work of the government and its ministries is unclear. Mr. Maliki did not announce replacements, and the six ministries that had been controlled by Mr. Sadr, one of the larger blocs in the cabinet, could stagnate if Iraq’s various political parties engaged in protracted haggling over the new appointments — a common feature of politics here.
Last week, on the fourth anniversary of the American invasion of Baghdad, Mr. Sadr displayed his influence — and his recalcitrant nature — by calling for a protest of tens of thousands in the Shiite holy city of Najaf to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq.
Yet, Mr. Sadr still keeps one foot within the halls of power in Baghdad: He has not withdrawn the 30 members of Parliament whom he controls.
Mr. Maliki said in a written statement that he “welcomes the announcement of his eminence Moktada al-Sadr authorizing him the allocation of the six ministries that are held by Sadr’s bloc.”
But the prime minister resisted Mr. Sadr’s demand to press the Americans for a timetable, saying that the issue of American withdrawal was dependent on “the readiness of our armed forces to handle the entire security portfolio in all provinces.”
Iraqi and American officials have widely criticized Mr. Sadr’s ministers as corrupt and ineffective, so replacing them could bring long-term benefits to the ministries. Mr. Maliki has been saying for months that he wants to overhaul his cabinet.
In part, Mr. Sadr is playing to his base, an enormous population of poor, downtrodden Shiites who feel they have suffered under both the American presence and the Sunni Arab insurgency.
A senior Sadr legislator, Bahaa al- Aaraji, when asked about the timetable, said American troops should stay in Iraq for two more years at the most, and must ensure that the country has a strong army and police force before leaving.
Mr. Aaraji said Mr. Sadr wanted to see Iraq’s other political parties give up ministries or other critical positions so independent-minded figures could be appointed instead. He said one person who should go is the Parliament speaker, Mahmoud Mashhadani, a hard-line Sunni Arab. “Iraq is like an old, sick man, and we need treatment,” Mr. Aaraji said.
In another sign of Mr. Sadr’s strength, thousands of protesters, many of them Sadr followers, marched Monday to the compound of the governor of Basra Province to demand his resignation, because of a lack of basic services like electricity and water.
The governor, Muhammad al-Waeli, is a member of the Fadhila Party, a rival to the Sadr movement, and has said he fears a coup by the protesters. Shiite militias and parties are struggling for control of Basra, which has some of the world’s largest oil reserves.
Mr. Sadr’s pullout from the cabinet is a sign of his rising tensions with Mr. Maliki, who got his position in a contest against the candidate of a rival Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, only because of Mr. Sadr’s support.
Mr. Maliki has asked Mr. Sadr to calm the Mahdi Army during the new security push. The Iraqi Army and American forces recently fought cells of the militia in the southern city of Diwaniya.
During that battle, Mr. Sadr issued a statement urging the Iraqi security forces to join, rather than fight, his militia. American forces have also stepped up raids against Mahdi Army commanders and arrested some of its senior leaders, Iraqi officials say.
Last November, Mr. Sadr ordered his legislators and ministers to suspend their participation in the government to protest a meeting between Mr. Maliki and President Bush in Jordan that Mr. Sadr had opposed. The Sadr politicians returned to the government after two months.
Mr. Aaraji said Monday that Mr. Sadr had no intention of reclaiming his cabinet positions this time. Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Mr. Maliki, said Mr. Maliki was coming up with replacements for the ministers and would soon submit a list of names to Parliament.
When the government was formed last year, the 38 ministries were divided up like spoils among the country’s leading political parties, with each ministry becoming the fief of a particular sect or ethnic group. Replacing the six Sadr ministries could involve long bouts of deal-making among the various parties.
Mr. Sadr’s ministers have not been the most popular. One ministry in particular, the Health Ministry, run by Ali al-Shammari, is considered by many Iraqi and American officials to be one of the country’s most underhanded, shadowy government institutions.
Its officials are suspected of pocketing enormous amounts of government money, and Sunni Arabs have been afraid to visit major hospitals in the capital and the Baghdad morgue because of the presence of Mahdi militiamen on the grounds.
The transportation minister, Karim Mehdi Saleh, also loyal to Mr. Sadr, left the country last year and has not been running his ministry since.
The Tourism and Antiquities Ministry, created by the new government, has been accused of adhering to an Islamist ideology in its work. Donny George, the former director of the Baghdad museum and chairman of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, fled to Syria last year and criticized the ministry, saying it had purposefully neglected valuable ruins and artifacts that did not pertain to the Iraq’s Islamic past.
The minister, Liwa Sumaysim, is a dentist whose wife is related to Mr. Sadr and is a member of Parliament.
Mr. Sadr also had control over the Ministries of Agriculture, Civil Society and Provincial Affairs.
On Monday, south of the city of Mosul, at least 13 Iraqi Army soldiers were killed and four were wounded when insurgents attacked their checkpoint, a police official in Mosul said. Two university professors were shot dead in Mosul, and seven people were killed elsewhere in Iraq in various attacks.
Ten bodies with signs of torture were found in Falluja, a hospital official said, and 11 bodies were discovered in Baghdad. Three bodies were found in the Kirkuk area, and 10 people were abducted.
American forces accidentally killed three Iraqi policemen and wounded one while on a raid northeast of Ramadi, the American military said Monday. An American soldier died Saturday in combat in Anbar Province, and a soldier was killed Sunday by small-arms fire in south Baghdad.
A roadside bomb killed a soldier in southern Baghdad on Monday; it wounded two other soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter. Two marines were killed and three were seriously wounded when a canister filled with at least 70 pounds of explosives exploded under their Humvee northeast of Falluja.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, Kirk Semple from Falluja, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Falluja.
April 17, 2007
Pg. 1
By Edward Wong
BAGHDAD, April 16 — Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious Shiite cleric, withdrew his six ministers from the Iraqi cabinet on Monday, in the first major shake-up of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government since it was installed a year ago.
It was the first time Mr. Sadr had followed through with a threat to cut some of his ties with the government and with Mr. Maliki, a conservative Shiite whose grip on authority largely rests on Mr. Sadr’s political support.
Legislators working for Mr. Sadr said that he was pulling his ministers from the 38-member cabinet because the government had refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. In a written statement, Mr. Sadr said he was motivated by Iraqi nationalism, asserting that his action was intended to give the government a chance to appoint new ministers who would not be beholden to any political party or have sectarian agendas.
“I ask God to bestow upon the people an independent, devoted government to be like a candle in the middle of the darkness, away from occupation,” said the statement, which was read at a news conference by Nassar al-Rubaie, a senior Sadr legislator.
The move by Mr. Sadr, who went underground at the start of the new Baghdad security plan in February, appeared to be an effort by the young cleric to shore up his reputation as the leading opposition figure in Iraq’s fragmented and acrimonious political landscape.
Mr. Sadr has long demanded that the Americans withdraw from Iraq, but Mr. Maliki has resisted setting a timetable. Mr. Sadr’s latest call for a timetable for American withdrawal comes as many Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress are pressing President Bush for exactly the same thing.
Mr. Sadr’s diminished presence in the government could complicate American efforts to draw the cleric and his militia, the Mahdi Army, away from violence by giving them more of a stake in the political process. Despite talk of a fractured Mahdi Army, Mr. Sadr has shown an ability and a willingness to rein in large segments of the militia under the new American security plan, perhaps concerned that resistance could cost him some of his political gains.
The immediate effect of the pullout on the day-to-day work of the government and its ministries is unclear. Mr. Maliki did not announce replacements, and the six ministries that had been controlled by Mr. Sadr, one of the larger blocs in the cabinet, could stagnate if Iraq’s various political parties engaged in protracted haggling over the new appointments — a common feature of politics here.
Last week, on the fourth anniversary of the American invasion of Baghdad, Mr. Sadr displayed his influence — and his recalcitrant nature — by calling for a protest of tens of thousands in the Shiite holy city of Najaf to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq.
Yet, Mr. Sadr still keeps one foot within the halls of power in Baghdad: He has not withdrawn the 30 members of Parliament whom he controls.
Mr. Maliki said in a written statement that he “welcomes the announcement of his eminence Moktada al-Sadr authorizing him the allocation of the six ministries that are held by Sadr’s bloc.”
But the prime minister resisted Mr. Sadr’s demand to press the Americans for a timetable, saying that the issue of American withdrawal was dependent on “the readiness of our armed forces to handle the entire security portfolio in all provinces.”
Iraqi and American officials have widely criticized Mr. Sadr’s ministers as corrupt and ineffective, so replacing them could bring long-term benefits to the ministries. Mr. Maliki has been saying for months that he wants to overhaul his cabinet.
In part, Mr. Sadr is playing to his base, an enormous population of poor, downtrodden Shiites who feel they have suffered under both the American presence and the Sunni Arab insurgency.
A senior Sadr legislator, Bahaa al- Aaraji, when asked about the timetable, said American troops should stay in Iraq for two more years at the most, and must ensure that the country has a strong army and police force before leaving.
Mr. Aaraji said Mr. Sadr wanted to see Iraq’s other political parties give up ministries or other critical positions so independent-minded figures could be appointed instead. He said one person who should go is the Parliament speaker, Mahmoud Mashhadani, a hard-line Sunni Arab. “Iraq is like an old, sick man, and we need treatment,” Mr. Aaraji said.
In another sign of Mr. Sadr’s strength, thousands of protesters, many of them Sadr followers, marched Monday to the compound of the governor of Basra Province to demand his resignation, because of a lack of basic services like electricity and water.
The governor, Muhammad al-Waeli, is a member of the Fadhila Party, a rival to the Sadr movement, and has said he fears a coup by the protesters. Shiite militias and parties are struggling for control of Basra, which has some of the world’s largest oil reserves.
Mr. Sadr’s pullout from the cabinet is a sign of his rising tensions with Mr. Maliki, who got his position in a contest against the candidate of a rival Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, only because of Mr. Sadr’s support.
Mr. Maliki has asked Mr. Sadr to calm the Mahdi Army during the new security push. The Iraqi Army and American forces recently fought cells of the militia in the southern city of Diwaniya.
During that battle, Mr. Sadr issued a statement urging the Iraqi security forces to join, rather than fight, his militia. American forces have also stepped up raids against Mahdi Army commanders and arrested some of its senior leaders, Iraqi officials say.
Last November, Mr. Sadr ordered his legislators and ministers to suspend their participation in the government to protest a meeting between Mr. Maliki and President Bush in Jordan that Mr. Sadr had opposed. The Sadr politicians returned to the government after two months.
Mr. Aaraji said Monday that Mr. Sadr had no intention of reclaiming his cabinet positions this time. Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Mr. Maliki, said Mr. Maliki was coming up with replacements for the ministers and would soon submit a list of names to Parliament.
When the government was formed last year, the 38 ministries were divided up like spoils among the country’s leading political parties, with each ministry becoming the fief of a particular sect or ethnic group. Replacing the six Sadr ministries could involve long bouts of deal-making among the various parties.
Mr. Sadr’s ministers have not been the most popular. One ministry in particular, the Health Ministry, run by Ali al-Shammari, is considered by many Iraqi and American officials to be one of the country’s most underhanded, shadowy government institutions.
Its officials are suspected of pocketing enormous amounts of government money, and Sunni Arabs have been afraid to visit major hospitals in the capital and the Baghdad morgue because of the presence of Mahdi militiamen on the grounds.
The transportation minister, Karim Mehdi Saleh, also loyal to Mr. Sadr, left the country last year and has not been running his ministry since.
The Tourism and Antiquities Ministry, created by the new government, has been accused of adhering to an Islamist ideology in its work. Donny George, the former director of the Baghdad museum and chairman of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, fled to Syria last year and criticized the ministry, saying it had purposefully neglected valuable ruins and artifacts that did not pertain to the Iraq’s Islamic past.
The minister, Liwa Sumaysim, is a dentist whose wife is related to Mr. Sadr and is a member of Parliament.
Mr. Sadr also had control over the Ministries of Agriculture, Civil Society and Provincial Affairs.
On Monday, south of the city of Mosul, at least 13 Iraqi Army soldiers were killed and four were wounded when insurgents attacked their checkpoint, a police official in Mosul said. Two university professors were shot dead in Mosul, and seven people were killed elsewhere in Iraq in various attacks.
Ten bodies with signs of torture were found in Falluja, a hospital official said, and 11 bodies were discovered in Baghdad. Three bodies were found in the Kirkuk area, and 10 people were abducted.
American forces accidentally killed three Iraqi policemen and wounded one while on a raid northeast of Ramadi, the American military said Monday. An American soldier died Saturday in combat in Anbar Province, and a soldier was killed Sunday by small-arms fire in south Baghdad.
A roadside bomb killed a soldier in southern Baghdad on Monday; it wounded two other soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter. Two marines were killed and three were seriously wounded when a canister filled with at least 70 pounds of explosives exploded under their Humvee northeast of Falluja.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting from Baghdad, Kirk Semple from Falluja, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Falluja.