Rice joins Rumsfeld in Iraq to meet new PM

BAGHDAD - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said after meeting Iraq's new prime minister-designate on Wednesday they were impressed with his commitment to unite the country.

President Bush, who has called for a national unity government in Baghdad to help defeat a Sunni Arab insurgency and end sectarian blood-letting, dispatched Rice and Rumsfeld to Baghdad to hold talks with Nuri al-Maliki.

"He was really impressive," Rice told reporters after the meeting with the tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, nominated last week at the end of four months of political paralysis in Baghdad over the formation of a new government after December elections.

On top of the long-running insurgency there has been an explosion of sectarian violence in Iraq since a Shi'ite shrine was bombed in February, raising fears among many Iraqis of a possible slide into civil war.

The bloodshed has threatened Bush's hopes of starting to withdraw some of the 133,000 US troops in Iraq before US congressional elections in November.

Maliki, who has vowed to appoint ministers on merit to represent all Iraq's communities in his planned national unity government, won praise from leaders of the Sunni minority for his first major television interview on Tuesday.

The backing and involvement of Sunni leaders is important because insurgents draw their support from the minority community that was once dominant under Saddam Hussein. Iraq's majority Shi'ites now hold sway.

Al Qaeda's figurehead in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has denounced Baghdad authorities as puppets of the United States and said in an unprecedentedly detailed video message this week he would lead Sunni insurgents to victory in new attacks.

Rice returned to Baghdad just three weeks after a visit that heralded the eventual removal of Maliki's predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was rejected by Sunni and Kurdish parties.

Maliki was Jaafari's spokesman and long a vocal advocate of Shi'ite Islamist doctrine. But Rice, whose aides made little secret of their mistrust of Jaafari and his ties to Shi'ite Iran, praised Maliki's commitment to unity in Iraq.

"He understood his role and the role of the new government to really demonstrate that it's a government of national unity in which all Iraqis could trust," said Rice.

"We came expecting to say that the ministries also needed to be ministries of national unity, just like it was a government of national unity, only to hear him say it first.

"I found it both refreshing and really heartening."

Maliki himself made no public comment after the talks.

Just as important as US approval is backing from minority communities who had refused to join a Jaafari government.

"A government that does not marginalize other groups will go a long way in finding real solutions for Iraq's current crisis," said Hussein al-Falluji, an official from the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in parliament.

Officials on all sides agree some form of unity cabinet is vital if violence is to be stopped and the country's stricken economy is to win much-needed foreign investment to capitalize on vast oil resources.

But some fear bloodshed involving militias operating along religious lines and Sunni guerrillas may have hardened divisions among Iraqis beyond repair.

Thousands have been killed or fled their homes since sectarian violence flared after the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra two months ago.

At least 20 people were reported killed on Wednesday, including 10 whose bodies were found by police in Baghdad and Kerbala to the south with torture marks on them.

Maliki has said unless militias come under state control there would be civil war but also that restoring prosperity was vital to calming passions.

Rice said reining in armed groups was a priority.

Despite widespread resentment of the US military presence, three years after US-led forces overthrew Saddam, many Iraqi leaders see US forces as a lid on greater bloodshed.

Rumsfeld said none of the Iraqi leaders he and Rice met on Wednesday suggested they wanted fewer US troops in Iraq.

"The security situation needs to continue to improve," he said.

Neither Rumsfeld nor the US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, would be drawn into specifics of how many of the US troops might be withdrawn and when.

Casey said Maliki's appointment was a "major step" and that things were broadly on track for him to recommend some cutbacks.

- REUTERS