Baghdad, Iraq – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused Sunday to accept the resignations of six Cabinet members, keeping open the door for a possible return of Sunni ministers whose departure last week caused a crisis in his unity government.
Members of the Sunni bloc known as the Iraqi Accordance Front said al-Maliki’s action would not affect their decision, but a senior member held out the possibility that a resolution could be reached at an upcoming summit of leaders of Iraq’s main ethnic and religious blocs.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the deaths of four U.S. soldiers: two during fighting Sunday in Baghdad and two others in separate attacks Saturday in western Baghdad and another area near the capital. As of Sunday, at least 3,668 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believed the troop buildup completed in June was beginning to improve security but blamed Iraqi politicians for failing to pass legislation aimed at reconciliation.
He expressed disappointment at the Sunni withdrawal from the Cabinet as well as parliament’s decision to take August off. He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he had urged the country’s presidency council, which consists of its president and two vice presidents, not to follow parliament’s example.
His message, he said, was blunt: “For every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struck a more conciliatory note, telling “Fox News Sunday” that “the leadership is not on recess, and the presidency council and the prime minister are still working.” However, she also said the Bush administration had told the Iraqis that they needed to work harder.
U.S. officials, under pressure to show progress in a report to be delivered in Congress on Sept. 15, had hoped that giving Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority a stake in the government would foster reconciliation with the majority Shiite Muslims.
President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd who has been leading efforts to save the unity government, said al-Maliki had informed him of his decision to reject the resignations Sunday.
Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali Zubaie and five other Sunni ministers withdrew from the Cabinet on Wednesday, citing the government’s failure to respond to a long list of demands, including the release of detainees not charged with specific crimes, respect for human rights, the disbanding of private militias and the involvement of all major parties in security decisions.
In violence Sunday, a mortar barrage in southeast Baghdad killed at least 13 people and injured 17, police said.
Police in Baghdad recovered the bodies of 18 people shot execution-style, considered an indication of sectarian killing. Two women were among the victims.
Early today, a suicide bomber slammed his truck into a densely populated residential area in the northern city of Tal Afar, killing at least 25 people, police said.
At least 22 others were wounded, said police Brig. Gen. Rahim al-Jibouri. The death toll was expected to rise, he said.
