Top Iraqi Officials Growing Restless

While the official U.S. position remains supportive of Maliki, some American military commanders question the Iraqi government's commitment to evenhanded enforcement in security operations and worry that decisions to capture or release certain suspects are made with sectarian motives in mind.

The turmoil within Shiite political circles is exacerbated by the deteriorating health of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Council. He has sought treatment in Houston, and now Tehran, for lung cancer, and several U.S. and Iraqi officials said his condition is grave. While the Islamic Council has several prominent members, including Abdul Mahdi and Hamoudi, many U.S. and Iraqi officials expect that Hakim's son, Ammar al-Hakim, will succeed his father.

"A highly complicated political landscape is about to get more complicated," said a U.S. official who tracks Shiite politics. The Islamic Council "is on top now, but other groups are contending for greater political power," he added.

Earlier this year, the Fadhila Party staged the first direct challenge to Shiite unity when it withdrew its 15 members from the United Iraqi Alliance, the ruling Shiite coalition in the 275-seat parliament. Some observers see the Shiite religious leadership in Najaf as one of the last bonds holding together an increasingly fractious political grouping.

Sadr and Hakim are powerful rivals who command large militias, and Sadr might be attempting to expand his disparate following at a time of transition for the Islamic Council. Sadr is known as a fierce nationalist, while Hakim has pushed to create a semiautonomous region of largely Shiite provinces in southern Iraq. Sadrists tend to see the Islamic Council as an Iranian proxy, although U.S. and Iraqi officials say they believe Iran supports Sadr's militia as well.

Members of Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, have clashed with security forces linked to the Islamic Council in recent days in the southern city of Nasiriyah. The city's police force consists largely of members of the Badr Organization, an arm of the Islamic Council. Ahmed al-Shaibani, a spokesman for Sadr in Najaf, said 11 Mahdi Army fighters and 40 police officers and soldiers had been killed in the clashes.

Such violence is not without precedent. Last October, dozens were killed in similar fighting between the Mahdi Army and policemen affiliated with the Badr Organization in the southern city of Amarah.

"This is the genesis or manifestation of the open rift in the Shiite camp," said the senior Iraqi politician who had read Abdul Mahdi's letter.

Maliki's tenuous position also derives from the relative weakness of his Dawa party, which does not command the devoted following among average citizens that Sadr and Hakim's organizations do. As violence has increased and basic services have declined over the years, the central government -- and with it Maliki's leadership -- has grown more irrelevant to such outlying regions as the Kurdish north and the Shiite south, and among the Sunni tribes in Anbar province.

"Dawa has no popular traction or appeal or footprint," said a senior Iraqi official who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "We really need to have new elections to know who stands where."

One of Abdul Mahdi's demands of Maliki is that he act on long-standing commitments to include the president and two vice presidents in more of the decision-making, according to the politician who read the vice president's letter. The leadership of the United Iraqi Alliance has also met with Maliki's circle and has been critical of its tight hold on decision-making, the politician added.

Khudair al-Khuzai, the education minister and a fellow member of the Dawa party, called Maliki's performance "wonderful" under the circumstances.

"If any government faced even one of the pressures he is facing, it wouldn't be able to continue," he said. "The Shiites won't find anyone better than Maliki, and the next elections will prove that."

Wright reported from Washington. Correspondent John Ward Anderson in Baghdad contributed to this report.