Baghdad, Iraq – Moving to wrest control of his army from the United States, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered U.S. forces to take down the barriers they had erected in their search for a missing U.S. soldier and to end the blockade of Baghdad’s largest Shiite Muslim district.
U.S. officials complied, a development hailed as a victory by supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is suspected of kidnapping the soldier.
The action was the starkest sign yet of the differences that divide U.S. officials, who have urged al-Maliki to disarm al-Sadr’s militia, and al-Maliki, whose hold on power depends at least partly on al-Sadr and his control of parliament’s largest voting bloc.
For the past week, al-Maliki has been openly critical of U.S. policies in Iraq. He rejected assertions by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad that he had agreed to a timetable for disarming militias and making other changes. He blamed the U.S.-led coalition for the violence sweeping his country.
He criticized U.S. tactics in efforts to arrest death-squad suspects. He said the U.S. was misguided in singling out the militias as the greatest threat to Iraq instead of Sunni insurgents and former supporters of Saddam Hussein.
On Tuesday, he went further. Referring to himself as commander of the armed forces for the first time in his nearly six-month tenure, al-Maliki issued a midday statement ordering U.S. and Iraqi forces to tear down barricades surrounding Sadr City by 5 p.m. and to stop searching cars entering the Karrada neighborhood in central Baghdad, where the soldier was kidnapped.
In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow dismissed any suggestion of a rift. “To deal with checkpoints does not necessarily change the situation in terms of how you deal with Sadr City,” he said, asserting that al-Maliki has “been very assertive and aggressive” in combating sectarian violence.
But White House concern over al-Maliki’s stands was evident in the decision to send National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to Baghdad on Monday.
Hadley met with al-Maliki and his security chief, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, but there was no announcement of what they discussed.
Al-Sadr supporters immediately celebrated the end of the barricades, and Sadr City residents cheered in the streets as Iraqi and U.S. soldiers took down the barbed-wire barricades.
Iraq update
Developments: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday ordered the lifting of joint U.S.-Iraqi military checkpoints around the Shiite militant stronghold of Sadr City and other parts of Baghdad – another apparent move to assert his authority with the Americans and appeal to his Shiite support base.
The military had no immediate comment on a CBS News report saying the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, was expected to recommend Iraq’s ill-equipped and marginally effective security forces be increased by up to 100,000 troops.
Casualties: According to an Associated Press count, October recorded more Iraqi civilian deaths – 1,170 as of Monday – than any other month since AP began keeping track in May 2005.
A car bomb exploded in the Sadr City neighborhood, killing three people and wounding five.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a suicide car bomber struck a wedding party of Shiite celebrants, killing 11 people and wounding 21.
U.S. fatalities stood at 103 for the month of October. October was the fourth-deadliest month for American troops since the war began in March 2003.
