Baghdad, Iraq – Key political groups agreed Wednesday to mount a campaign to deny Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari another term in a bid to jump-start stalled talks on a new national unity government, as at least 47 people died in bombings and shootings across the country.
The move against al-Jaafari, building for weeks, is headed by three major political blocs that have been in U.S.-backed talks with the Shiite alliance on forming a new government.
Those talks broke down last week when the Sunni parties pulled out of the negotiations to protest attacks on Sunni mosques in reprisal for the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra.
During a meeting Wednesday, leaders of three parties, including Sunnis, Kurds and the secularists of ex-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, agreed to ask the Shiite alliance to withdraw al-Jaafari’s nomination and put forward another candidate.
Al-Jaafari won the nomination by a single vote during an election Feb. 12 among Shiite lawmakers who won seats in the Dec. 15 parliament balloting. He defeated Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi in large part because of the support of radical, anti- U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr’s militiamen were believed behind many of the attacks against Sunni mosques last week, and the prospect of a prime minister in debt to the young radical has alarmed mainstream politicians, including some in the Shiite alliance.
Also Wednesday, Saddam Hussein said in a defiant courtroom confession that he ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were later executed, and arranged for the flattening of their palm groves and farms.
But he insisted he had the right to do so because they were suspected of trying to kill him.
“Where is the crime? Where is the crime?” Hussein asked. “If trying a suspect accused of shooting at a head of state – no matter what his name is – is considered a crime, then you have the head of state in your hands. Try him.”
Hussein’s dramatic speech came a day after prosecutors presented the most direct evidence against him in the four-month trial: a 1984 presidential decree approving the death sentences for the 148, with a signature said to be Hussein’s.
