Analysis: Iraq PM's Silence Telling

Iraq's prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki delivers a speech during celebrations of the Iraqi Army Day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Baghdad, Iraq, in a Saturday, Jan. 6, 2007 photo. President Bush calls a crackdown on Shiite militias critical to success in Iraq but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been noticeably silent. Supporting Bush's plan would mean attacking the Shiite radicals who have helped expand his Shiite dominance over much of Iraq. (AP Photo/ Ali al-Saadi, File) (Ali Al-saadi - AP)

Al-Maliki, who first outlined a new Iraqi-led security plan to Bush when they met in Amman, Jordan, in November, has never sought an increased U.S. military footprint in Iraq. He has argued for the Americans increasingly to pull out of the cities and leave security to the Iraqi Army, which is 80 percent Shiite. The Americans would respond only when needed.

An Iraqi general told The Associated Press earlier this week that the army intended to put 9 brigades on the streets of Baghdad, or a total of about 27,000 men.

The force would be commanded by a Shiite, Lt. Gen. Aboud Gambar, who was taken prisoner of war by U.S. forces during the 1991 Gulf war and will report directly to al-Maliki.

The military officer, who spoke anonymously because the information was not yet public, said for the most part the Iraqi force would not be directed against the Shiite militias. The majority of fighting against the Mahdi Army in Sadr city would be left to the Americans in tandem with the Iraqi Special Operations Command, which is made up of many non-Arab Kurds as well as Sunni and Shiite Arabs.

Muqtedar Khan, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said he suspects the Iraqi leader is simply trying to placate the Americans, whom, it seems, he can't live with or without.

"This is the kind of game most global politicians are born with," said Khan, who is also a professor of Islam and global studies at the University of Delaware. "It's called managing Washington."

Al-Maliki is in a tight spot, he said, caught between his radical Shiite supporters and his American backers, who help finance and protect his fractious government. Khan sees a way out, but he's not hopeful al-Maliki can pull it off.

"If Maliki can send a message that he is for the Iraqi people and that's he tough," he may survive, Khan said, explaining that the prime minister needs to find a way to convincingly tell ordinary Iraqis that, "I'm tough on Sadr. I'm tough on Bush."

But Lang thinks that if al-Maliki allows U.S. troops to clear Shiite areas of militias, his "position will become more and more impossible, and his government will fall."

And Naim al-Kaabi, Baghdad's deputy mayor and a senior member of al-Sadr's political organization, declared support for the Bush plan to attack Sunni insurgents but not the Mahdi Army, which he claimed was not a militia.

"It is an ideological group whose aim is to protect religious leaders, holy shrines and civilians. If the government can guarantee security, the Mahdi Army will dissolve," al-Kaabi said.

The militia is widely held responsible, often with the blessing of Iraqi authorities, of cleansing mixed neighborhoods of their Sunni minorities as the Mahdi Army has expanded its hold deep into west Baghdad Sunni enclaves.

Al-Maliki aides have suggested the prime minister will attempt to avoid an all-out attack on the militia by attempting first to focus the new security drive on Sunni insurgent-held regions of the capital. If that were to prove successful, the theory goes, al-Maliki could then go the Mahdi Army and demand it disband because Shiites were no longer under threat.

Regardless, some Mahdi Army leaders in Sadr City said Friday that they expect a strike soon.

The fighters, who would not give their names because their activities are secret, said they were being cautious about moving about Sadr City and have taken pains not to appear in the streets with weapons.

"We don't know how the strike will be carried out or when," one of the fighters said.

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Eds: Steven R. Hurst is the AP bureau chief in Baghdad. AP writer Sarah DiLorenzo contributed to this report from New York.