NYT: Speaker of Iraq’s Parliament Considers Quitting

Speaker of Iraq’s Parliament Considers Quitting

By EDWARD WONG | August 14, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 14 — The speaker of Parliament said today that he was considering stepping down because of bitter enmity from Kurdish and Shiite political blocs, revealing the first major crack in Iraq’s fragile unity government since it was formed nearly three months ago.

The speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, is the third-ranking official in Iraq and a conservative Sunni Arab. Shiite and Kurdish legislators have banded together to try to push him out, mainly because he is considered too radical. Since taking office in late May, Mr. Mashhadani has publicly praised the Sunni insurgency, called the Americans “butchers” and denounced the idea of carving Iraq into autonomous regions, which the Kurds and some Shiites strongly support.

“Maybe now is the best time for me to withdraw,” Mr. Mashhadani said in a telephone interview. “My hand won’t be stained as they want it to be stained.”

The replacement of Mr. Mashhadani would represent the first upheaval in the new Shiite-led government since it was installed on May 20. In the weeks since, Iraqis have been growing more and more disillusioned with their leaders as sectarian violence has soared and basic services like electricity and water continue to lag. The executive offices and the 275-seat Parliament are split mostly among the major Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political blocs.

The political jockeying unfolded as an American military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, told reporters today that some Shiite militias were receiving weapons from individuals or groups in Iran and undergoing training there. It is unclear, however, whether the Iranian government is directly involved, he said at a news conference.

“We do know that weapons have been provided and I.E.D. technology been made available to these extremist elements,” General Caldwell said, using the military’s acronym for improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs.

The Iranian involvement was first reported last week by The New York Times. The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in an interview Friday at his home that Iran had been encouraging small Shiite militias to attack the American-led forces in retaliation for American backing of Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran, governed by Shiite Persians, supports Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia.

In the Iraqi Parliament, the bylaws say the speaker can be replaced if an absolute majority of the members — 138 — approve of the ouster. The Parliament is in recess for August, but a Kurdish legislator, Mahmoud Othman, said a special session might be called to vote on Mr. Mashhadani.

The move to replace Mr. Mashhadani could infuriate some Sunni Arabs in the government. But several legislators said in interviews that the main Sunni Arab bloc, the Iraqi Consensus Front, would be allowed to retain the speaker position, provided it found an agreeable replacement. Mr. Mashhadani said he would stay in Parliament even if forced to step down as speaker.

One member of the bloc, Salim Abdullah, said some Sunni legislators were open to nominating another speaker. “This is the time when we need someone to be more active and more acceptable to the political blocs,” he said.

Mr. Othman, the Kurdish legislator, said many Kurdish and Shiite politicians believe Mr. Mashhadani’s proclamations have been “extreme” and “might endanger the situation.”

During negotiations over the new government in the spring, Mr. Mashhadani was not the first candidate for speaker presented by the Iraqi Consensus Front. The bloc’s top candidate, Tariq al-Hashemi, now a vice-president, was rejected by the Shiites as being too sectarian. Another Sunni leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi, was also shut out.

Mr. Mashhadani’s strong stand against regional autonomy has raised the ire of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, one of the most powerful Shiite leaders, Mr. Othman said. The Sunni Arabs, who make up a fifth of the population, are generally wary of autonomy because they suspect the Kurds and the Shiites will hoard oil wealth in their regions. The majority Sunni provinces in Iraq have little oil compared to the Kurdish north or Shiite south.

Mr. Mashhadani has also ignited fury among American officials. Many took note of a speech he gave on July 22 in which he said, “The U.S. occupation is the work of butchers under the slogan of democracy and human rights and justice.” At a news conference the same day, Mr. Mashhadani defended the right of guerrillas who attack Americans to be given amnesty: “I personally think whoever kills an American soldier in defense of his country would have a statue built for him in that country,” he said.

Days later, when Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki visited Washington, Congressional leaders pressed him to chastise or remove Mr. Mashhadani. Ambassador Khalilzad met with Mr. Mashhadani in the ambassador’s home last Friday afternoon.

Mr. Mashhadani belongs to the Salafiya sect of Sunni Islam, a fundamentalist branch that counts Osama bin Laden as an adherent. In 2003 and 2004, he was a fixture at the Ibn Taimiya Mosque, a Salafist bastion near the airport that was raided several times by the American military in what it called a search for weapons and insurgents. During a previous interview there, he accused this reporter of being an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency.

At his afternoon news conference in Baghdad, General Caldwell, the military spokesman, said that Shiite militias here have received training through a “third element” associated with Iran, but declined to give details.

He added, “We do believe that some Shiite elements have been in Iran, receiving training. But the degree to which this is known and endorsed by the government of Iran is uncertain.”

In the past, American military officials have said Iran gave lethal shaped-charge explosives technology to Shiite militias here, possibly through Hezbollah. The general said today that the military had “made no direct connection with anything involving” Hezbollah yet.

Mr. Khalilzad said in his interview last Friday that mortar and rocket attacks on the fortified Green Zone have surged recently because of Iranian encouragement of the militias, which are splinter groups of the Mahdi Army. He also said that Iran could foment more violence as it faces off with the United States and United Nations over its nuclear weapons program at the end of August.

Mr. Khalilzad elaborated his views on Iran in an interview with CNN on Sunday: “There is no question,” he said, “that they are providing arms, that they are providing money, that they are providing training directly or through Hezbollah to groups here, including death squads, including giving the names of people to some of the death squads that they would like to see eliminated in Iraq.”

Sectarian violence roiled Baghdad today. Two car bombs exploded in the neighborhood of Zaiyuna, killing at least two people and wounding four others, an Interior Ministry official said. Another car bomb in central Baghdad killed one person and injured three.

In the oil city of Kirkuk, gunmen assassinated Sheik Badr Hashim al-Uboudi, a member of a leading Shiite political party. He was gunned down in a market, and a son was severely injured. The sheik had spoken out against Kurdish attempts to annex Kirkuk to the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

General Caldwell said 57 Iraqis in southern Baghdad were killed Sunday in a gas main explosion and not by bombs, mortars or rockets, as Iraqi security officials had previously reported. He said an American explosives team came to that conclusion after examining the site today. An official at the Iraqi Defense Ministry said today that the Iraqis were doing their own investigation.

Four Australian soldiers were injured this morning by a rocket attack inside the Green Zone, military officials said.

Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi contributed reporting for this article.