Shiite Official Demands More Security

11/30/2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must improve security and provide more reliable electricity and other basic services before Shiite politicians end a boycott of the government launched to protest the premier's summit with President Bush, a top legislator said Thursday.


The boycott by ministers and lawmakers loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is not affecting many vital ministries, and one striking official said work continues at his ministry even with him gone.


But the boycott has driven home the fragility of the Iraqi government, and one of its leaders said in a telephone interview that to end it there must be an increase in the number of well-trained Iraqi security forces.


Baha al-Aaraji also said the government must provide more electricity, gas and other basic services, especially in southern provinces that are less violent than central and northern Iraq. In Baghdad and other cities, residents often have no electricity or water supplies for much of the day.


Al-Aaraji would not answer further questions.


One of the main goals of the U.S. coalition is to train enough Iraqi soldiers and police to take over its security responsibilities, especially in particularly violent areas such as western Iraq, where al-Qaida in Iraq is powerful, and Baghdad, where fighting between Sunni militants and Shiite militias is escalating.


The U.S. military said Thursday that Iraqi forces found 28 bodies on Wednesday in what may be a mass grave south of the city of Baqouba. For about a week, heavy fighting between Iraqi police and Sunni insurgents has killed scores of people in and around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.


In the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed Nasir Gatami, the deputy of the local Sunni Endowment chapter, and three of his bodyguards in an attack on their two-car convoy, police said.


The Endowment, which confirmed the attack, was created to care for Sunni mosques across Iraq. In the past four months, 23 of its employees have been kidnapped in Baghdad, with suspicion focused on Shiite militias.


The military also said that a U.S. soldier was killed during combat in Baghdad on Wednesday, raising to at least 2,884 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war.


The boycott doesn't affect top ministries in al-Maliki's government such as foreign, defense, oil, finance, interior, justice or trade. The boycotting Shiite Cabinet members include the ministers of agriculture, health, transport and public works.


Liwa Smeism, one of the boycotting Cabinet ministers, said Thursday that the Shiite boycott wouldn't stop all work at government offices such as his Ministry of State of Tourism and Archaeological Affairs.


"We are protesting, not closing the ministries. The undersecretaries and other officials are running them. If my decision is needed at my ministry, my staff can call me up at home," he said in a telephone interview.


Smeism said the participating ministers are "suspending our participation in the Cabinet meetings until we get new directions from our leaders of the boycott."


Like, al-Aaraji, Smeism declined to comment on the decision by al-Maliki and King Abdullah II of Jordan to abruptly back out of a meeting with Bush in Amman on Wednesday night.


In announcing the boycott Wednesday, the 30 lawmakers and five Cabinet ministers said their action was necessary because the summit in Jordan constituted a "provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights."


The Sadrists had threatened to quit the government and parliament if al-Maliki went ahead with the summit. But by downgrading their protest to a suspension of membership, they left open a return to their jobs.


Despite the boycott, al-Maliki and Bush went ahead Thursday morning with their scheduled summit meeting, which is aimed at halting Iraq's escalating sectarian violence and paving the way for a reduction of American troops.