Rice escalates pressure on Jaafari
Iraq-USA, Politics, 4/4/2006

Journalists accompanying the US Secretary Of State, Condoleezza Rice, and her British peer Jack Straw stressed during their meeting that the tone of Rice with the Iraqi vice president whose term of office expired, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was more friendly than her tone with the prime minister whose term of office expired Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Journalists quoted her as saying while shaking hand with Abdul Mahdi who had previously lost the nomination to the post of the prime minister by one vote to Jaafari that "seeing you is a source of pleasure."

The same source added that the time of the meeting between Rice and Jaafari was 45 minutes while the meeting with Abdul Mahdi and the leader of the United Iraqi Coalition, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, at the dinner banquet lasted for 1.45 hours.

For his part, Abdul Mahdi denied that the meeting with Rice dealt with the future of Jaafari, noting that there is pressure on everyone to form the government as soon as possible.

Rice refused to make any statement on the future of Jaafari, noting that she does not give statements to this end.

Rice and Straw met later in the day with the Iraqi president whose term of office expired, Jalal al-Talibani, and discussed with him details of the Iraqi political operation, especially those pertaining the formation of the political National Security Council and the ministerial security committee as well as the political program of the next government.

Rice and Straw arrived in Baghdad on Sunday morning in a sudden visit carrying a clear message on the loss of patience of both Washington and London because of the delay in the formation of the new government.

Commenting on that, the Iraqi political analyst Saad al-Hadithi told al-Jazeera satellite TV that the American and British administrations are trying to use the progress in the political operation in Iraq and to form the government to raise the popularity of the US President George W. Bush and the British prime minister Tony Blair.

He indicated that all options are there concerning the withdrawal of Jafaari in case the Shiite coalition considers that this will attain political gains to it.

The leading figure in the Shiite coalition Jalal al-Din al-Saghir called on Jaafari to quit in order to give way for Iraqi officials to proceed forward in the efforts to form the national unity government.

Al-Saghir justified his call by saying that a candidate should gain consensus of views at the national level from other lists and to be accepted at the international level.

Other Shiite parliamentarians expected the problem to choose a prime minister by the parliament to be resolved.

The Shiite parliamentarian Muhammad Taqi Mawla said that the political commission of the united coalition was due to convene a meeting on Sunday to discuss this issue.

For his part, the official spokesman for the Iraqi al-Tawafuk front Zafer al-Ani said that Jaafari will have little luck upon voting inside the parliament because he will not win confidence.

For his part, the chief of Iraq's Kurdistan's court Fouad Hussein told al-Jazeera TV that the problem lies in that the Shiite coalition did not in open discuss its views towards Jaafari nor nominated another person and no answer was received from them on the messages dispatched by other political blocs to this effect.

Previous Stories:
  Bush on democracy and Iraq   (3/30/2006)
  Rumsfeld says patience needed in Iraq   (3/28/2006)
  NY Times: Bush was determined to make war against Iraq   (3/28/2006)

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