Blair Sees ‘a New Beginning’

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush hailed the new Iraqi government as a pivotal achievement Monday, both expressing optimism that it would hasten an end to the conflict that has harmed their domestic popularity but stopping short of tying it to a timetable for drawing down troops.

Blair, in a surprise visit to Baghdad, said the formation of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government was “a new beginning,” while Bush, speaking in Chicago, called it “a turning point” for Iraq.

Blair and Iraqi officials who met Monday discussed British troop withdrawal and the deteriorating security situation in the southern city of Basra, where the British are based.

However, at a news conference in the heavily fortified Green Zone, Blair refused to set a timetable for British withdrawal, saying it would be “governed by conditions on the ground.”

“There is now no vestige of excuse to carry on with terrorism and bloodshed,” Blair said. “If the worry of people is the presence of the multinational forces, it is the violence that keeps us here. It is the peace that will allow us to go.”

Bush, in a speech to a restaurant group, said that “as the new Iraqi government grows in confidence and capability, America will play an increasingly supporting role.” But, he added, “the way forward will bring more days of challenge and loss.”

In coming months, Iraqi security forces are scheduled to assume authority in several provinces, beginning in the south, Maliki told reporters after the meetings with Blair, adding that there were plans for Iraqis to take control of most of the country’s 18 provinces by the end of this year.

As Blair met with dignitaries inside the palaces of the Green Zone, two car bombs killed at least seven people and wounded 10 others in the capital. The U.S. military said Monday that a Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 had been killed in Al Anbar province the previous day.

One of the bombs in the capital went off about 10:30 a.m. near a medical center in the vast Shiite slum of Sadr City, killing three. An hour later, the other bomb struck near a market in the southeastern neighborhood of Zafaraniya. That explosion killed four and set fire to several shops and cars, police and hospital officials said.

Also on Monday, gunmen shot and killed Hameed Rodhan, a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Youth, in the Sadiya neighborhood in southern Baghdad. In a separate incident elsewhere in the capital, assailants shot Brig. Gen. Nadum Hussein, who later died at a hospital. Police in Kirkuk said gunmen kidnapped the 15-year-old daughter of a neighborhood official.

Maliki has said the new government will use “maximum force against the terrorists and criminals” and has reiterated the need for the dismantling of Iraq’s militias. But he has still not named key security officials, including ministers for Interior and Defense. Pentagon officials said they were keeping a close eye on those appointments.

“Those are important ministries,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. “They need strong leadership.”

Thousands of civilians have died in sectarian and tribal violence this year. Most have been killed in Baghdad. But tensions have also flared around the country, as previously quiet Shiite areas have hardened against the presence of foreign troops.

When a British military helicopter crashed in Basra this month, apparently shot down, hundreds of Iraqis gathered, cheering the wreck and clashing with British troops. Five British troops died in the crash and five Iraqis, including a child, were killed during the ensuing melee. In the week following, two British troops were killed by a roadside bomb. The British casualties were unusually high and prompted renewed calls in Britain for withdrawal.

Blair is already struggling with waning public support. In a recent government reshuffle, he appointed Des Browne as the new defense secretary. Last week, Browne visited Basra, acknowledging to reporters that violence had increased there.

With about 7,200 troops in the country, Britain is the second-largest partner in the U.S.-led coalition, having drawn down from 46,000 at the peak of combat operations during the invasion in 2003. Since then, 111 British personnel have died or are missing and presumed dead, according to the British Defense Ministry.

“It’s been three years of struggle to get to this point,” Blair said at the news conference in Baghdad. “It’s been longer and harder than any one of us would have wanted it to be. This is a new beginning. And we want to see what you want to see -- Iraq and the Iraqi people take charge of their own destiny, to write the next chapter of Iraq’s history themselves.”

Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and Peter Spiegel and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.