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BAGHDAD, Iraq —
The U.S. military predicted Thursday that more
violence will engulf Iraq in the weeks ahead as the
country's splintered politicians and religious
groups struggle to form a
government.
The warning followed a week marked by what U.S.
Brig. Gen. Donald Alston described as "horrific
attacks," amid deteriorating relations between the
Iraq's largest Shiite religious group and Sunni
Arabs who make up the core of the opposition.
Alston, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition force,
said attacks that have killed at least 500 people
since the Dec. 15 elections were a sign insurgents
were using the difficult transition to a new
government to destabilize the democratic process. In
the month since the elections, 54 U.S. forces also
have been killed.
Violence dropped after Iraqis began celebrating the
four-day Islamic feast of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, on
Tuesday. But Alston said it was likely to rise.
"As democracy advances in the form of election
results and government formation, and as the
military pressure continues, and the pressure
generated by political progress increases, we expect
more violence across Iraq," Alston said at a news
briefing.
Final election results have been delayed by Sunni
Arab complaints of fraud, but are expected next
week. Although leading politicians have expressed
hopes a government could be formed in February, most
experts and officials agree it could take two to
three months, as it did after the Jan. 30 elections
for an interim government.
The governing United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite
religious bloc, has a strong lead, according to
preliminary results. But it won't win enough seats
in the 275-member parliament to avoid forming a
coalition with Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties.
Alston said that as a new government starts forming,
"those committed to seeing democracy fail will see
this time of transition as an opportunity to attack
the innocent people of Iraq."
He said the recent attacks, blamed mostly on
extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in
Iraq, were part of an "attempt to discredit and
derail the progress of the Iraqi people."
At least 121 people were killed last week in twin
suicide attacks against a Shiite shrine in the holy
city of Karbala and a police recruiting center in
Ramadi. A day earlier, 32 people were killed by a
suicide bomber at a Shiite funeral in Muqdadiyah.
Twenty-nine more died in an attack Monday on the
Interior Ministry compound in Baghdad.
"The increase in attacks across Iraq this past week
clearly indicates that al-Qaida and others
terrorists still have the capability to surge,"
Alston said.
He denied allegations by leading Shiite politicians
that the United States had restricted the ability of
Iraqi security forces to deal with insurgents after
Sunni Arabs complained that brutal methods used by
Interior Ministry forces have pushed Iraq to the
brink of sectarian war. Hundreds of abused prisoners
have recently been discovered, mostly in prisons run
by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry — prompting
complaints from U.S. officials.
"I would tell you that I do not see any additional
procedures that have been employed, or I should say
additional restrictions or additional requirements
that have been levied on the Iraqi security forces
that would tie their hands," Alston said.
But he added that U.S. forces "have always had
coordinating instructions with the Ministry of
Interior and Ministry of Defense."
Sunni Arab politicians, meanwhile, expressed anger
over remarks by Iraq's most powerful Shiite
politician suggesting that the new constitution,
approved in October, would not be amended.
The leader of the main Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance
Front, Adnan al-Dulaimi, said his group already had
agreed with the country's two main Kurdish leaders
to form "a national unity government because it's
the only solution to Iraq's political crisis and to
maintain its unity."
Shiite politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
warned on Wednesday that the governing religious
bloc would not allow substantive changes to the
constitution, including the provision that leaves
provincial governments strong and the central
government weak.
A key Sunni demand is weaker federalism and a
stronger central government. The constitution now
gives most power — including control over oil
profits — to provincial governments. The Shiites in
the south and the Kurds in the north control nearly
all of Iraq's oil.
To win their support, Sunni Arabs were promised they
could propose amendments to the constitution in the
first four months of the new parliament.
"We, the Iraqi Accordance Front and other lists will
not bow to any kind of blackmail from any party and
we will stand shoulder-to-shoulder to defend Iraq,"
al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.
Another prominent Sunni Arab politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq
of the National Dialogue Front, agreed.
"If they do not accept key amendments to the
country's new constitution, including the regions
issue, then let them work alone and divide the
country, as for us we do not accept this," al-Mutlaq
told the AP by phone from Amman, Jordan.
AP
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