IRAQ: Senior US officials have accused the new Iraqi government, which they previously championed, of failing to deal with the scourge of sectarian death squads, which are dragging the country into civil war.
Figures published yesterday show that more than 250,000 Iraqis have been displaced by the sectarian violence since February. The details emerged in a week that, say US officials, has seen the highest number of suicide bombings recorded - half of them aimed at US-led forces.
A senior US officer for the first time publicly questioned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's tactics for quelling the sectarian violence. "We have to fix this militia issue. We can't have armed militias competing with Iraq's security forces. But I have to trust the prime minister to decide when it is that we do that," said Lieut-Gen Peter Chiarelli, the second-highest-ranking US military official in Baghdad.
His comments echoed those of Maj Gen James Thurman, commander of US military forces in Baghdad, who said last week he believed the question of militias was "a problem that the [ Iraqi] government must deal with immediately". Other senior US officials have begun warning that if the Iraqi government does not take a lead in disarming the militias, the US military might have to do so.
Despite a massive military effort in Baghdad to clear no-go areas of militants, much of the effort has focused on strongholds of Sunni fighters, and has so far had no impact on the slaughter. Instead, a record 7,000 Iraqis have died in the last two months alone. To add to US gloom, it was revealed yesterday that the Bush administration is spending $2 billion a week on the Iraq campaign.
The latest crisis has come as Iraq faces an escalating crisis on three fronts: from the nationalist-inspired resistance to the US-led occupation, from al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups which are behind most of the suicide attacks, and from a sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni.
The lack of progress on disarming the militia death squads has been a source of growing tension between the US military and the Iraqi government. That frustration has focused in particular on an agreement between Mr Maliki's government and Jaish al-Mahdi, the militia of the Shia al-Sadr organisation, whose members are blamed for widespread sectarian murders.
Under the understanding, US forces have been instructed not to conduct aggressive military operations in Sadr City, Jaish al-Mahdi's stronghold, leading to accusations that a safe haven has been created for death squads.
US officers say the decision not to confront the major source of the death squads was supported initially by the US because of fears of a full-scale battle with the militia in Sadr City. Instead, a decision was reached to try to bring political pressure to bear on the Sadr organisation, whose parliamentary bloc is crucial in supporting Mr Maliki's government, to bring its militia into line. But with growing doubts over how much the Sadr organisation's leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, actually controls the factions, concerns are now growing about the wisdom of that policy. - (Guardian service)