By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
The Associated Press
Sunday, May 21, 2006; 10:19 PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. ambassador said Sunday that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will have no honeymoon and will be immediately challenged by al-Qaida and other terrorists.

In an interview with the Associated Press one day after the seating of the new leadership, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad outlined the immediate challenges facing the government of national unity and said the next six months will be "truly critical."

Al-Maliki was meeting Sunday with the security chiefs of the police and military to underline his immediate priorities, Khalilzad said.

The government "will be faced immediately with challenges because the terrorists are not going to go away, they are going to persist in the effort to promote sectarian conflict," Khalilzad said. "They want Iraq to fail, but Iraq in itself is not important for them. Iraq is one theater in a global war that they want to provoke, a war of civilization."

In one of al-Maliki's first acts, the ambassador said, he had approved a plan for "infrastructure security" and is planning to review a strategy for security in Baghdad in coming days.

"Security will be a significant challenge, as will the provision of services," said the ambassador, who was instrumental in brokering agreements that led to the forming of the government, five months after national elections in which 12 million Iraqis participated.

Al-Maliki's government was sworn in without new ministers of defense and interior, but Khalilzad said he was confident that choices for the posts would be made within a week.

Khalilzad acknowledged that polls show that Americans are losing confidence in U.S. policy in Iraq.

"I believe the American people understand the importance of success in Iraq, they understand that Iraq is important, but they have lost some confidence in whether we know what we are doing, whether we have the right strategy for achieving success in Iraq and that has produced loss of confidence, a decreased level of support for the enterprise," he admitted.

"I believe that as they see improvement in the political situation and that in turn produces improvement in the security situation, I believe the numbers will change."

But he added that any turnaround "really depends on the performance of this government" and whether it succeeds in curbing the violence.

Asked whether the United States would have to admit failure and pull out if there was no improvement in the next six months or a year, he said: "We will have to wait and see."

"I am more optimistic now than I have been at times in the past, now that we have the Sunni Arabs participating in the political process, now that we have a government of national unity, but I am, of course, realistic enough to know that there are significant challenges that are still part of the picture," Khalilzad said.

U.S. officials hope the new government of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds will manage to win public trust, ease sectarian tensions and lure Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency, enabling the United States and its coalition partners to withdraw their forces.

"The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq," Khalilzad said.

To achieve stability, the new government must "get the security ministries to transform in such a way that they will have the confidence of the Iraqi peoples," Khalilzad said.

Many Sunni Arabs believe the security forces, especially the paramilitary commandoes of the Interior Ministry, have been infiltrated by Shiite militias and death squads that kidnap and kill civilians.

One key task facing al-Maliki's government will be purging militias from the security forces, Khalilzad said.

"They will have to do it because gaining the security of the people is very important. The prime minister has stated that militias are a problem," he said.

"With regard to militias, of course there is a need for a demobilization, decommissioning and integration plan. That will take a bit of time to develop, and we will work with the government to develop such a plan."

In the meantime, U.S. and Iraqi officials have stepped up efforts to recruit Sunni Arabs into both the police and the army so they can replace Shiite and Kurdish soldiers in heavily Sunni areas where the insurgency is most active.

"I think that with the participation of the Sunni Arabs and all communities in the political process, I believe that the situation in Iraq will improve, but it will not improve in the security domain immediately. It will take time," Khalilzad said.

Khalilzad also said he was ready to engage in talks with the Iranians about their relationship with Iraq. U.S. officials have expressed concern about Iranian ties to Shiite militias, which the new Iraqi government has pledged to disband.

The Bush administration said in March it was prepared to talk with Iran about the situation in Iraq, but the offer was shelved until the new Baghdad government was in place. U.S. officials made clear that the talks would be specifically about Iraq and would not include the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

U.S. authorities also are concerned that weapons have been smuggled into Iraq from Shiite-dominated Iran, although the Iranian government has strongly denied those allegations.

Khalilzad said he wanted to talk to the Iranians about possible arms shipments to Shiite militias.

"We have said we will want to talk about Iraq, what can be done to make sure there is not interference in Iraq," he said. "We want good relations between Iraq and its neighbors. We do not want Iran or others in the region to send arms to the militias, to train militias, send money to militias or others who want to undermine this new Iraq."

Khalilzad also said he was ready to listen to Iranian concerns about the situation in Iraq.