IRAQI HEALTH OFFICIAL IS ARRESTED IN SWEEP

Iraqi and U.S. forces on Thursday launched a crackdown on the web of patronage that sustains radical anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr, detaining a high-level Iraqi official in connection with the killings of Health Ministry officials and the diversion of millions of dollars to a Shiite Muslim militia.

Iraqi special forces, backed by U.S. troops, stormed the Health Ministry complex in downtown Baghdad, detaining Deputy Minister Hakim Zamili, a Sadr loyalist.

It was the second raid at the ministry in six months, but the first high-profile arrest.

“This is the first visible big fish,” said a U.S. advisor to the Iraqi military after Zamili was arrested. “It’s one to watch. It has to be the beginning of the housecleaning.”

U.S. military officials say Sadr’s Al Mahdi army is one of the deadliest groups in Iraq, killing thousands of civilians and troops.

Sadr, who has emerged as an important political power broker, has built his stature by controlling seats in parliament and gunmen on the street.

His hold on key service branches with large budgets, such as the health and transportation ministries, provides patronage for his followers, Iraqi and U.S. officials say.

The arrest of Zamili immediately sparked protest among Shiite lawmakers affiliated with Sadr, who described it as an unlawful kidnapping and an attack on the “dignity of the Iraqis.”

Reaction from Sadr’s camp and the streets was unusually muted, lending credence to theories that the Shiite cleric is remaining neutral in the early days of the Baghdad security crackdown.

The Health Ministry is controlled by Sadr, Iraqi and U.S. authorities say. It’s a house of horrors where health officials have disappeared on their way to meetings, never to be heard from again.

Controlling the ministry means controlling the hundreds of gunmen who guard the gates, plus a billion-dollar budget and thousands of jobs.

U.S. officials no longer visit the run-down ministry. Even for Americans, who typically travel in cocoons of security, the threat level is too high, the U.S. advisor said.

At the nearby morgue, Sunni Arabs have been abducted and killed while trying to retrieve the bodies of slain relatives, forcing many families to leave their loved ones behind and violate Islamic rules on burial.

Sunni doctors from the provinces have stopped coming to the Health Ministry. They cite the danger and a sense that medicine and equipment are withheld from Sunnis, resulting in countless deaths.

Sunni and Shiite patients complain of bribery and corruption throughout the system.

Threats and kickbacks?

In a statement on the raid, the U.S. military did not name Zamili. It identified the detainee as a “senior Ministry of Health official” and said he was linked to the killing of Ali Mahdawi, a health director from a Sunni-dominated province who was kidnapped from the ministry, along with his bodyguards, in June.

“He is reported to openly intimidate and threaten officials who disagree with and question his actions,” said the statement, which also alleged that the minister was taking kickbacks on contracts and siphoning off millions of dollars to the Al Mahdi army.

A third of the Health Ministry’s budget goes to salaries, making it a rich source of patronage.

The Al Mahdi army also is suspected of using the ministry’s ambulances to transport fighters.

Additionally, U.S. agencies have spent at least $493 million of Iraqi reconstruction funds on healthcare. Most new clinics built in Baghdad are in Shiite neighborhoods.

An aide to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki who spoke on condition of anonymity called Zamili’s detention a “major arrest.” The aide said Zamili was suspected in the kidnapping of another deputy health minister, Ammar Safar, who was abducted from his home in November. Safar has not been heard from since.

‘No one is immune’

Although there was no official comment from Maliki’s office, the aide said the prime minister had been informed of the raid, which showed that “no one is immune,” the aide said.

Health Minister Ali Shammari, a Shiite, called the raid a “violation of the sovereignty of Iraq.”

“They humiliated the officials, smashed the glass and broke the doors,” Shammari said. Images of dusty boot prints suggesting that troops had kicked down doors played on national television.

Shammari and a group of lawmakers affiliated with Sadr said the charges against Zamili were trumped up. They demanded his release.

“This kidnapping has proved that they are not only targeting the ruling government of Iraq but also the dignity of Iraqis,” Nassar Rubaie, a Shiite lawmaker loyal to Sadr, said in a statement.

A delegation of Shiite politicians complained to Maliki, also a Shiite who relies on Sadr for political support. In the past, Maliki has released high-level Shiite suspects detained by U.S. and Iraqi troops.

But U.S. officials hope the raid and arrest represent a departure from the government’s unwillingness to go after Shiite militias.

In August, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers raided the Health Ministry, looking for kidnapping victims. They arrested seven of Shammari’s bodyguards and confiscated large sums of money and documents.

Increasingly, Maliki is speaking out more forcefully against militias, saying his government will go after both Sunnis and Shiites.

The raid came less than 48 hours after a meeting called by Maliki to tell Iraqi army commanders in Baghdad to go after anyone breaking the law, regardless of their sectarian or political affiliations.

“Maybe, just maybe, this is an indication that the political circles will not intervene,” the U.S. advisor said.

Across the country, the violence continued.

A car bomb killed 15 in Aziziyah, southeast of Baghdad, and mortar shells killed seven in Babil province, south of the capital. Shootings, bombings and mortar shells killed at least 52 others around the country, authorities said.

Of those, 20 were found dead across the capital.

The U.S. military announced the death of four Marines in Al Anbar province. They died in separate attacks Wednesday, the military said.

The deaths brought to at least 30 the number of U.S. troops killed in the first week of February, according to icasualties.org, a website that tracks coalition casualties.

At least 3,115 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the website said.

The U.S. military also said a U.S. airstrike killed 13 suspected insurgents Thursday northeast of the Amiriya neighborhood in Baghdad.

roug@latimes.com

Times staff writers Zeena Kareem and Raheem Salman contributed to this report.