IRAQ:US defence secretary Robert Gates urged Iraqi political leaders to step up reconciliation efforts yesterday, saying they had to accept that Washington could not make an open-ended commitment with troops and support.
Mr Gates arrived in Baghdad on his first visit since a US-backed security crackdown was launched in the capital in February to stop Iraq sliding into sectarian civil war and a day after insurgent bombs killed nearly 200 people in the city.
He said the United States wanted faster progress on legislation widely seen as vital to quelling sectarian bloodshed between Iraq's Shia Muslim majority and Sunni Arabs, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.
"The Iraqis have to know . . . this isn't an open-ended commitment," Mr Gates said, referring to Washington's troop presence and level of support for the Iraqi government.
Mr Gates, due to meet prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, said he would press Iraqi leaders to finalise an oil revenue sharing law and to agree on a plan to allow thousands of former members of Saddam's Baath party to return to public life.
"It is very important that they bend every effort to getting this legislation done as quickly as possible," Mr Gates told reporters before leaving Tel Aviv for Baghdad.
Suspected Sunni al-Qaeda militants carried out a string of bombings in mostly Shia areas of Baghdad on Wednesday in the worst day of violence since the security crackdown began.
Washington, which has 146,000 troops in Iraq, has piled pressure on Mr Maliki's Shia-led government to match military progress with political steps designed to allay grievances in the Sunni community, from which insurgents draw support.
Mr Gates flew to the insurgent hotspot of Falluja, west of Baghdad, where he and the commander of US forces in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, met soldiers.
President Bush has ordered 30,000 more US personnel to Iraq, mostly in Baghdad under the security plan and to give Iraqis breathing space to reach agreements.
In a speech yesterday marking the 50th anniversary of his Islamist Dawa Party, Mr Maliki described violence in Iraq as an "open battle" between government forces and al-Qaeda militants and Saddam supporters.
Hours before Mr Gates arrived, a suicide car bomber killed up to 10 people in Baghdad when he rammed his vehicle into a fuel truck, police said. Another police source put the toll at three.
Two British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the southern province of Maysan, a day after British forces handed over the area to Iraqi security control, British officials said.
The deaths brought to 144 the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
War-weary Iraqis vented their anger at the Baghdad security plan, which has cut death squad killings but failed to stop car bombings and other large-scale attacks.
In the worst of Wednesday's attacks, 140 people were killed in a truck bombing in the Sadriya neighbourhood - the deadliest single insurgent attack in Baghdad since the 2003 invasion.
In Sadriya, angry residents criticised Mr Maliki for failing to protect them. Smoke still billowed from the debris and sandals and glass littered the ground.
"The government is talking about the security plan, but dozens of people are dying every day. No one is protecting us," said Sabah Haider (42), standing beside several burned-out buses.
Mr Maliki is under pressure to say when foreign forces will leave, but insists they will go only when Iraqi forces are ready to replace them. - (Reuters)