Maliki says critics are ignoring Iraqi achievements

Iraq’s beleaguered prime minister accused his U.S. critics Sunday of going too far, saying they did not appreciate the scale of the disaster facing his country and the achievements of his government.

“The most important achievement is it stopped a sectarian and civil war,” Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said.

The Iraqi prime minister has come under increasing pressure as U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, prepare to present a report on Iraq in less than two weeks. Their findings will focus on the effects of President Bush’s troop buildup strategy.

U.S. officials here and in Washington have underscored modest gains made on the security front. But they have voiced frustration at Maliki’s inability to get key legislation passed.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have called for him to step down.

“Those who are judging the Iraqi experiment in this quick way may not realize the scale of the destruction and sabotage that Iraq has experienced,” Maliki told reporters in Baghdad.

He said he understood that U.S. politicians had elections to think about. But, he said, “these statements sometimes go beyond the rational limits.”

“At the same time,” he said, they send “messages that encourage terrorism.”

U.S. officials had hoped for greater progress on legislation governing the distribution of oil revenue, providing jobs for ousted members of the Baath Party and other issues that divide Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds.

In a bid to ease tensions among Shiite Muslims, Maliki ordered what he promised would be an unbiased investigation of fighting during a festival that left more than 50 people dead in Karbala last week.

The move came hours after the office of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr threatened unspecified consequences if the government did not stop arresting his followers, raising the possibility that he could reverse a decision to halt the activities of his powerful Mahdi Army.

U.S. officials had called the announced stand-down “encouraging,” saying it could allow them to focus on fighting Sunni Arab insurgents blamed for many of the deadliest attacks.

The violence in Karbala on Tuesday, in which members of the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, Iraq’s two biggest Shiite militias, clashed among more than 1 million pilgrims, touched off attacks in Baghdad and threatened to deepen violence across the Shiite-dominated south, where the factions are competing for influence.

Sadr denied that his militia provoked the clashes and ordered his fighters to halt activities for six months, while his officials root out what he described as rogue elements.

Despite that decision, Sadr’s office complained Sunday that more than 200 loyalists in Karbala province had been arrested. In Najaf, spokesman Sheik Salah Ubaidi alleged that some of the policemen investigating had fought against the Mahdi Army during the clashes.

“We warn the government and the executive authorities in Karbala that if there is not a fair, neutral and quick investigation, the Sadr office will be forced to take decisions outside the expectations of the government,” Ubaidi told reporters.

Many Iraqi policemen and soldiers in the province are believed to be loyal to the rival Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council movement and its Badr Organization militia. But provincial authorities in Karbala denied the accusation of bias.

Sadr’s movement has sent conflicting signals on whether its freeze on activities includes operations against U.S. forces.

Rear Adm. Mark I. Fox said American troops would continue to pursue Shiite militants if they attacked U.S. and Iraqi forces. The U.S. command says rogue Shiite militants aided by Iran now are responsible for more U.S. casualties than are Sunni insurgents.

In Basra, Iraqi forces moved into Basra Palace as British troops began moving out, officials on both sides said.

When the formal transfer of the last major British base in the city is complete, nearly all of Britain’s 5,500 troops will be based at the airport outside Basra. Britain’s Defense Ministry has said it hopes to hand over security responsibility for the province, the last one under its control, in the fall.

The continued violence runs counter to Maliki’s assertion that his administration has stopped the civil war. At the same time, U.S. and Iraqi officials have reported a drop in recent months in the number of extrajudicial killings blamed on sectarian death squads. Police in Baghdad recovered the bodies of 13 men shot execution-style in the 24 hours ending Sunday night, down from the average of more than 30 a day before the troop buildup began in February.

In the day’s worst attack, a car bomb exploded at the entrance to Baghdad’s northern Kadhimiya district, home to a Shiite shrine, killing nine people and injuring 15, police said.

North of the capital, U.S. forces killed eight suspected insurgents and detained four in raids against militants operating an illegal court, the military said. Nine Iraqis were freed during the operation, it said.

Fox also said Sunday that U.S. forces detained six suspects and seized weapons in a raid last week at the state-run Al Sabah newspaper in Baghdad.

--

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

Special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf and special correspondents in Baghdad contributed to this report.