Maliki sees support decline in Iraq and Washington

As Iraqi Prime Minister Nori al-Maliki is scheduled to meet with President Bush in Jordan tomorrow, his position is steadily being eroded by blunt White House criticism and the loss of a key Shiite ally. Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the Mahdi Army militia, carried out his threat to boycott parliament and Maliki's coalition if the premier met the US president. Sadr's faction, which helped elect Maliki to his post, denounced his visit to see Bush as "provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights." The suspension of official participation by the five Sadrist ministers and 30 lawmakers may not have lasting impact but it puts more pressure on Maliki. It was not clear how long the boycott would last, although Sadr's supporters stressed that the move did not represent a permanent boycott. During the meetings in Jordan, Bush said he would press Maliki to develop a strategy to stop the escalating sectarian violence in Iraq, in what the US media is now calling a civil war. "My questions to him will be what do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?" Bush said at a NATO summit in Latvia. The meetings have already been clouded by a leaked White House memo questioning Maliki's ability to rescue Iraq from turmoil that claims scores of lives daily, including over 200 killed in a bomb and mortar attack in the Sadr City district of Baghdad last week. US misgivings about Maliki's leadership surfaced in a critical memo written by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley which was published by the New York Times the day before Bush was scheduled to meet with the Iraqi leader. The Nov. 8 memo was prepared for Bush by Hadley and senior aides on the staff of the National Security Council after Hadley visited Baghdad. The memo suggests that if Maliki fails to carry out a series of specified steps, it may ultimately be necessary to press him to reconfigure his parliamentary bloc, a step the United States could support by providing "monetary support to moderate groups," and by sending thousands of additional US troops to Baghdad to make up for what the document suggests is a current shortage of Iraqi forces. The memo presents an unvarnished portrait of Maliki and notes that he relies on leaders of more extreme Shiite groups for some of his political support. The five-page document, classified secret, is based in part on a one-on-one meeting between Hadley and Maliki on Oct. 30. "His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change," the memo said of the Iraqi leader. "But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action." It said the Iraqi leader's assurances on seeking out sectarian unity seemed to have been contradicted by developments on the ground, including the Iraqi government's approach to the Mahdi Army, known in Arabic as Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM). "Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister's office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq's most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries–when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi killings–all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad." Aides to Bush scrambled to put the best face on the memo. "The president has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki," White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters, adding that the administration "is working with the prime minister to improve his capabilities in terms of dealing with the fundamental challenges in Iraq." Malaki's declining position in the eyes of the Bush administration is paralleled by dwindling support amongst Iraqi Shiites following last week's attacks on Sadr City in Baghdad. On Nov. 23, a barrage of car bombs, mortar attacks and missiles battered the Shiite Muslim area, killing at least 215 people and injuring more than 200, in the single deadliest assault on Iraqi civilians since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003. The attacks, targeting the heart of Baghdad's Shiite community, seem designed to stoke the sectarian rage gripping Iraq. Plumes of black smoke and anguished screams rose above a chaotic landscape of flames and charred cars, witnesses said. Bodies littered the streets and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. Relatives searched for loved ones as strangers helped the wounded reach hospitals overflowing with victims. Meanwhile, angry Shiite residents and men from the Mahdi Army militia, wielding guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers roamed the streets, hurling curses and vowing revenge against Sunni Arabs. The carnage began around 3:30pm, witnesses said. Six parked cars packed with as much as 220 pounds of explosives detonated in three sections of the sprawling working-class area, including a crowded marketplace. As the bombs started exploding in 10- to 15-minute intervals, Katyusha rockets and several mortar shells rained on Sadr City, witnesses said. Residents grabbed the driver of another car before he could detonate a bomb near a police station. The attack occurred as Sadr's supporters were commemorating the death of his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, one of Iraq's most revered ayatollahs, assassinated by agents of then-President Saddam Hussein in 1999. By nightfall, violence had spread to other neighborhoods in retaliatory attacks across Baghdad, even as politicians and senior religious clerics appealed for calm. Mortar shells landed near Abu Hanifa mosque, Baghdad's most important Sunni shrine, killing 22 people and injuring 17. The following day, six Sunni worshippers were dragged from a mosque in Baghdad, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The attack on the mosques and the burnings that followed took place in plain sight of an Iraqi army post, yet the soldiers did nothing. That claim came not from Sunni groups, but Captain Jamil Hussein of the Iraqi police, underlining the bitter divisions within this society. In Tal Afar, in northern Iraq, two bombs that targeted Sunnis killed at least 22 people and wounded 26 others. In an effort to stop tensions from mushrooming, the Iraqi government locked down the capital with a four-day curfew and shut down Baghdad International Airport to all commercial flights. Iraqi security forces flooded neighborhoods around Sadr City to contain the violence. On Nov. 27, as Maliki was attending a ceremony of mourning for some of the victims of the Sadr City attacks, angry residents threw stones at his motorcade and shouted abuses at him. "It's all your fault," one man shouted as a hostile crowd surged around the prime minister and jeered as his armored convoy edged away.