BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday promised to crack down on Shiite Muslim militias and Sunni Arab rebels, warning that no one – not even Muqtada al-Sadr, his political ally – would be above the law.
“We will not allow any politicians to interfere with this Baghdad security plan … whether they are Sunnis or Shiites, Arabs or Kurds, militias or parties, insurgents or terrorists,” said al-Maliki, who also warned that once a military crackdown begins, political negotiations will shut down.
“We gave the political side a great chance,” he said, “and we have now to use the authority of the state to impose the law and tackle or confront people who break it.”
The interview contrasted sharply at points with the Bush administration, which has called for continued political and economic negotiation and a longer timeline for a security crackdown.
Al-Maliki said if he is supplied with sufficient training and equipment, his security forces could stabilize Iraq enough to allow withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin in three to six months – a period in which President Bush’s proposed troop buildup would still be under way. And he said that if U.S. training and supplies had come earlier, lives could have been saved.
“I think that within three to six months our need for the American troops will dramatically go down,” al-Maliki said. “That’s on the condition that there are real strong efforts to support our military forces.”
The U.S.-Iraq security plan involves sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq and between 8,000 and 10,000 more Iraqi forces to the capital, in an effort to quell the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that on average kills more than 100 people a day.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said Iraqi security forces this week had detained 400 Shiite militiamen affiliated with al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose followers constitute part of al-Maliki’s political base. He offered no further details.
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