BAGHDAD - Leaders from nearly all of Iraq’s top political blocs called Saturday for a solution to a crisis pitting the Shi’ite-led government against Sunnis and Kurds, saying the dispute threatens the country’s national interests.
The statement came after three days of meetings that brought together senior Sunni, Kurdish, and even Shi’ite politicians disgruntled with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - who was not represented at the talks in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. While no one at the minisummit demanded that Maliki step down, the fact that the discussions included key figures from across Iraq’s political spectrum underscored the growing impatience with the Shi’ite prime minister.
Maliki’s critics accuse him of consolidating power and sidelining both Sunnis and Kurds, touching off a political impasse that has brought government work to a near standstill and threatens to break up Iraq....
The talks were hosted by Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish autonomous region, and included the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as well as former prime minister Ayad Allawi and hard-line cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, both Shi’ites. Parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, also took part.
The broad front represented at the meeting ratcheted up the pressure on Maliki to engage his political foes and accede to some of their demands.
It was only with the support of Barzani and Sadr that Maliki kept his job after his party fell far short of winning the most seats in the 2010 parliamentary elections. Allawi’s Iraqiya alliance, which is backed by the Sunni minority, won the most seats in the vote, but Maliki cobbled together a political coalition with the Kurds and Sadr’s followers, winning the right to head the government.
The statement from the meeting also called for better services for Iraqis in what likely was a promise made at Sadr’s request. The backbone of the cleric’s followers are poor, and have been at the forefront of nationwide demands for more jobs and better public utilities like electricity and water - both of which experience deep shortages during Iraq’s searing summers....
We left that country a shambles, America, and all that rebuilding loot was stolen by contractors.
The monthslong political impasse began when the government issued terrorism charges against the nation’s highest-ranking Sunni, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, as the final US troops left Iraq in December. Sunni politicians briefly boycotted the government.
At the same time, Barzani butted heads with Maliki over a deal for Exxon Mobil Corp. to drill for oil in the Kurdish region without Baghdad’s oversight. Barzani threatened this week to let Kurds vote to secede from Iraq if the government crisis has not been resolved by September regional elections.
Oil so often at the bottom of everything in my agenda-pushing paper.
Also Saturday, five people were killed in Baghdad in a tribal dispute linked to a wedding. Police said the couple got married Friday without permission from the bride’s family, prompting her cousins to attack the groom’s house at dawn Saturday. The couple escaped unharmed, but three members of the groom’s family and two of the bride’s were killed in the fighting.
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Related:
"Nearly three dozen killed in Iraqi attacks" by Tim Arango | New York Times, April 20, 2012
BAGHDAD - A string of deadly explosions and other attacks shook Iraq on Thursday, with bombings in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk resulting in the most fatalities....
Just the idea that three dozen dead is somehow not extraordinary but normal is sickening.
Nearly four months have passed since the withdrawal of the US military, and despite the attacks Thursday, security has not deteriorated, as many analysts contended it would. By some Iraqi government measures, March was one of the least violent months since 2003, when the US-led war began.
But according to statistics cited by the United Nations, violence has remained steady and similar to the levels over the past three years. In March, according to those statistics, 294 people were killed in attacks, up from February and comparable to many months last year.
While the security situation has been somewhat stable, the political situation has deteriorated in recent months. On Thursday, a dispute that pits the Shi’ite-led government against the Kurdish minority appeared to be escalating. Last year Kurdish authorities in the north entered their own exploration deal with Exxon Mobil, a pact that the Baghdad government has said is illegal. The government has threatened to withhold money from Kurdistan, and the Oil Ministry on Thursday dropped Exxon from a list of bidders for a new round of exploration contracts.
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Also see: Al Qaeda says it was behind Iraq attacks
Related: Sectarianism Splitting Iraq
"Top Hussein deputy reportedly on video
BAGHDAD - A video posted Saturday on a website linked to the Ba’ath Party purports to show Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest-ranking member of Saddam Hussein’s regime still at large. He criticized Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated government and what he said was meddling by Iran (AP)."
The guy had health problems ten years ago and was already claimed to have been killed, but whatever. Just get that pos propaganda out there!
