Maliki: Iraq Forces to Take Over Security in '07

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during a news conference Thursday on his return to Baghdad from a two-day visit to neighboring Jordan, where he met with President George W. Bush and King Abdullah II. (Hadi Mizban - AP)

The 30 lawmakers and five Cabinet ministers loyal to al-Sadr had threatened to quit the government and parliament if al-Maliki went ahead with the summit, which aimed at halting Iraq's escalating sectarian violence and paving the way for a reduction of U.S. troops.

But they limited their protest to suspending participation in ministries and the legislature, and left open the possibility of returning to their jobs.

A senior Sadrist legislator, Baha al-Aaraji, said the cleric's supporters would return to work when there are more well-trained Iraqi security forces and the government ends the country's chronic shortages of electricity and fuel.

The Sadrists played a critical role in al-Maliki's election earlier this year, and he appears reluctant to comply with U.S. demands to disband the Mahdi Army. The militia is blamed for much of the sectarian violence tearing Iraq apart.

"Political partnership means commitment," al-Maliki said, addressing his Sadrist allies, whom he advised to use constitutional channels to air their grievances.

Al-Maliki pledged again Thursday to act against illegal armed groups, but he did not name the Mahdi Army or say what steps he might take.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said Iraqi forces found 28 bodies Wednesday in what may be a mass grave south of the city of Baqouba. For about a week, heavy fighting between Iraqi police and Sunni insurgents has killed scores of people in and around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

In the southern city of Basra, police said gunmen killed Nasir Gatami, the deputy of the local chapter of a group called Sunni Endowment, and three of his bodyguards in an attack on their two-car convoy.

The Endowment, which confirmed the attack, was created to care for Sunni mosques across Iraq. In the past four months, 23 of its employees have been kidnapped in Baghdad, with suspicion focused on Shiite militias.

The military also said that a U.S. soldier was killed during combat in Baghdad on Wednesday, raising to at least 2,884 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began over 4 1/2 years ago.

The Sadrist boycott of parliament and government has not affected top ministries such as foreign, defense, oil, finance, interior, justice or trade. Shiite Cabinet members participating in the boycott include the ministers of agriculture, health, transport and public works.

Liwa Smeism, the minister of State Tourism and Archaeological Affairs, is participating, but he said the protest wouldn't stop all work in his and other agencies.

"We are protesting, not closing the ministries," he said in a telephone interview. "The undersecretaries and other officials are running them. If my decision is needed at my ministry, my staff can call me up at home."

Smeism said the participating ministers were, however, "suspending our participation in the Cabinet meetings until we get new directions from our leaders of the boycott."

Thursday's meetings were supposed to be Bush's second set of strategy sessions in the Jordanian capital. But the first meeting between Bush and al-Maliki, scheduled for Wednesday night along with Jordan's king, was scrubbed. Accounts varied as to why, but it followed the leak of a classified White House memo critical of al-Maliki and a boycott of the Iraqi leader's government in Baghdad.

In the ABC News interview, al-Maliki said that didn't intend to snub Bush by not meeting with him Wednesday.

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Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.