US denies Iraq pullout plan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-06 09:20

The US military denied British newspaper reports on Sunday that it planned to pull its forces from Iraq early next year, saying the stories, sourced to senior British defense officials, were "completely false."

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani gestures as he speaks to the media following his meeting with General John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, in Baghdad March 4, 2006. [Reuters]

There were no signs of an end to a political deadlock over the formation of a U.S.-sponsored national unity government that could halt a slide toward civil war.

Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, leading a group of Sunnis, Kurds and others opposing the nomination of Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, sent an envoy to meet top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to help break the impasse.

Sistani, who lives in semi-recluse in the city of Najaf, is not directly involved in politics, but has huge influence over the bulk of the country's 60 percent Shi'ite majority.

Talabani, a Kurd, also met delegates from radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose support last month was crucial to Jaafari's surprise nomination by the Shi'ite bloc. Under fire for security and economic problems since he became interim premier last year, Jaafari is battling to keep his job.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror said a plan for U.S. and British forces to withdraw in spring 2007 followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now the greatest obstacle to peace.

But General Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied the reports and said withdrawal of 133,000 U.S. troops would depend on the security situation in Iraq.

"We're going to do exactly what we said we were going to do, which is to make the assessment of the situation on the ground," Pace said in an interview on U.S. television.

"The commanders in theater will make the recommendations up the chain of command ... to the president for a decision about U.S. troop levels." He said the war was going "very, very well."

Earlier, the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq called the reports "completely false." Reiterating previous statements made by U.S. and Iraqi officials, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said any troop reduction will depend on the ability of the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to maintain order.

IMPASSE

Nearly three months after a December election, Iraq's divided political leaders are still fighting over the crucial post of prime minister in the new government.

The impasse has delayed the formation of a unity coalition of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds that Washington has promoted in the hope of fostering stability and allowing troops to withdraw.

It has created political uncertainty as Iraqi and U.S. troops battle to curb violence that has killed well over 500 people since the February 22 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, an attack that pushed the divided country toward civil war.

Though the Shi'ite Alliance won 130 of the 275 seats in parliament, Iraq's constitution requires a two-thirds majority to confirm the prime minister, giving the Kurdish, Sunni and secular parties a de facto veto.

Despite having announced on Saturday he would issue a decree to convene a first sitting of the parliament elected in December, Talabani did not do so on Sunday.

Government officials have said parliament should meet by next Sunday, March 12. One parliamentarian, Mahmoud Othman, said the session could be convened on Thursday or Saturday.

MOSQUE ATTACK

After 10 days of bloodshed following the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, there was much less violence on Sunday.

A mortar or rocket damaged doors and windows at a Sunni mosque in the northern city of Mosul, a cleric said.

Two cousins and the nephew of the secretary-general of the Muslim Clerics Association, the main Sunni religious body, were killed when gunmen ambushed their car in western Baghdad.

The Iraqi army said it had foiled a plan to attack a Shi'ite shrine in Baghdad's Kadhimiya area, one of the four holiest Shi'ite shrines in Iraq next to the Samarra's Golden Mosque.

Seeking the ear of perhaps the most influential man in the country, two delegations from rival factions in the government have met influential Shi'ite Sistani in the past 24 hours.

After Jaafari's Dawa party met the ayatollah on Saturday, a Kurdish delegation headed by senior Kurdish official Barham Salih, a Talabani aide, discussed the political and security situation with Sistani on Sunday.

Salih, who is also planning minister, said after the meeting that the Kurds hope Sistani would continue pushing the political process "in a way that serves all Iraqis."

The Shi'ite United Alliance nominated Jaafari to keep his job despite security and economic difficulties and criticism of his handling of violence. Smaller factions are refusing to join a coalition he leads and rival Shi'ite leaders are considering putting up a new nominee, political sources say.