Baghdad, Iraq – The U.S. Central Command chief confronted Iraq’s prime minister Monday over how Iraqi forces would halt raging violence and signaled a possible prelude to shifts in American policy on engaging Iran and Syria.
The meeting came as sectarian attacks killed at least 90 people throughout Iraq, 46 of them showing signs of torture. The U.S. military announced the deaths of four additional American soldiers.
Gen. John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, sternly warned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he must disband Shiite militias and give the United States proof that they were disarmed, according to senior Iraqi government officials with knowledge of what the two men discussed.
One of the militias, the Mahdi Army, is loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
On Monday night, U.S. forces raided the homes of al-Sadr’s followers and U.S. jets fired rockets on their northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Shula, residents said. Police said five residents were killed, though a senior al-Sadr aide put the death toll at nine. The U.S. military said it had no comment.
In their meeting, Abizaid also asked the Iraqi leader to give the U.S. military a firm timetable for when Iraq’s security forces could take full control of the country, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Al-Maliki has been pressing the U.S. to move more quickly to hand security affairs over to his army, claiming it could crush violence in the country within six months. On Monday, Abizaid asked the prime minister to give a detailed explanation of how he would do that.
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, recently said it would take 12 to 18 months before Iraqi security forces were ready to control the whole country with some U.S. backup.
But a brief statement by the Iraqi government said Abizaid told al-Maliki he had come to “reaffirm President Bush’s commitment” to success in this country. It also said the two discussed the “effect of neighboring countries on the security situation in Iraq,” a clear reference to Iran and Syria.
That was particularly significant given that al-Maliki had said only a day earlier that he was ready to take “five steps” toward Syria if it took one in Iraq’s direction.
