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Mr Maliki has become steadily more authoritarian, with critics accusing him of inflaming sectarian tensions Only four days after the US departure, Baghdad has duly suffered 14 near-simultaneous bomb attacks. President Barack Obama put Iraq's extremists on notice when he announced two months ago that America's military withdrawal would conclude in December. It was a fair assumption that he would want the troops home before Christmas, identifying this week as the most dangerous period. The bloodshed was almost certainly designed to exploit a security vacuum after the end of the US presence. But it also coincided with one of the...

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has urged Kurdish officials to hand over the country's Sunni vice-president on terrorist charges, in a row that has raised communal tension. Mr Maliki, a Shiite. ... Mr Maliki has also called for the sacking of Sunni deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlak, who has decried the Shiite-led national unity government as a "dictatorship". All this comes just days after US troops completed their withdrawal from the country, leaving behind what US president Barack Obama described as a "sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq". Mr Maliki ..."We gave Saddam a fair trial, and we will give Hashemi...

The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved on Tuesday a new government to be headed by incumbent Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, ending nine months of political deadlock that threatened to stall economic development and suck the country back into sectarian violence.

LONDON — Iyad Allawi, who won the most votes in Iraq's elections, threatened to quit a power-sharing government in an interview with Britain's Times newspaper on Tuesday. "Power-sharing is not happening," Allawi said. "It is not set to work in a meaningful way... If it does not change, I will not participate." Despite being lauded by international leaders including US President Barack Obama, Iraq's power-sharing pact has looked fragile ever since it was agreed last month after an eight-month impasse. Despite his Iraqiya block narrowly winning elections in March, Allawi has seen religious parties coalesce to form the biggest grouping...

BAGHDAD – Saddam Hussein's foreign minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to death by hanging Tuesday for persecuting members of Shiite religious parties under the former regime. Iraq's high criminal court spokesman Mohammed Abdul Sahib did not say when Aziz, 74, would be put to death. The death sentence was for a conviction on charges of taking part in a Saddam-led campaign that hunted and executed members of the Shiite Dawa Party, of which current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a member.

* 50,000 U.S. soldiers are staying on * Iraq now stands as equal to United States - Maliki * Biden in Baghdad to press leaders to form government BAGHDAD, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister said the end of U.S. combat operations on Tuesday restored Iraq's sovereignty and meant it stood as an equal to the United States, despite political deadlock and persistent violence. U.S. troop levels were cut to 50,000 before the partly symbolic deadline of Aug. 31 set by President Barack Obama to fulfil his pledge to end the war launched by his predecessor George W. Bush....

BAGHDAD // Officials in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have threatened a campaign of civil disobedience against the government and the army after allegations of torture and abuse at a secret prison controlled by the office of the prime minister, Nouri al Maliki.

debkafile's intelligence and Baghdad sources disclose that prime minister Nouri al-Maliki was injured in an attempt on his life last Thursday, March 11. His armored convoy came under an RPG-automatic fire attack after a bomb hit his car. US and Iraqi authorities have blacked out the incident, but our sources learn that Maliki is being treated for moderate-to-serious injuries at the American military hospital. One source says he was hit in the arm. His doctors apparently found his condition was too serious for him to face TV cameras and deliver a broadcast statement to the nation scheduled Sunday March 14,...

America is very close to succeeding in Iraq. The "near-strategic defeat" of al Qaeda in Iraq described by CIA Director Michael Hayden last month in the Washington Post has been followed by the victory of the Iraqi government's security forces over illegal Shiite militias, including Iranian-backed Special Groups. The enemies of Iraq and America now cling desperately to their last bastions, while the political process builds momentum. These tremendous gains remain fragile and could be lost to skillful enemy action, or errors in Baghdad or Washington. But where the U.S. was unequivocally losing in Iraq at the end of 2006,...

Nouri Kamal Al-Maliki, who became prime minister of Iraq in May 2006, was a compromise candidate. He was seen at the time as the weakest of the available candidates - a virtually unknown representative of the Islamic Al-Da'wa Party, at the time a junior partner in the predominantly Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). The occupying power, the United States, favored him because of his reputation as "independent of Iran," as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalman Khalilzad put it.(1)  To the surprise - and perhaps consternation - of both his critics and his allies, Al-Maliki not only won the elections, but...

Very very sad: WHERE are the Americans?" Talk to Iraqis in Baghdad these days, and you'll likely hear the question. Of course, everyone knows where the Americans are physically. The 130,000 US troops cantoned in a diminishing number of barracks outside the cities make their presence felt on occasion. The thousands of civilian Americans who are helping build a new Iraq are also easy to spot. The question refers to the United States' fast-fading political profile. Those who deem Iraq as the biggest US foreign-policy success in decades are baffled by Washington's determined efforts to deny that reality -- indeed,...

A multi-billion dollar mystery is unfolding in Iraq, and it may reach to the highest levels of the Iraqi government. It involves what the New York Times calls an "extremist Shiite group" that has now reconciled with Prime Minister Maliki and his regime. The group is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five British contractors who, according to the Guardian, were installing a sophisticated financial tracking system in Iraq's ministry of finance in 2007. The story so far: Today, the Times reports: "An extremist Shiite group that has boasted of killing five American soldiers and of kidnapping five British...

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said for the first time Thursday that Iraq may ask U.S. troops to stay in his country beyond a previously agreed 2011 deadline for withdrawal. While Iraqi and American military figures have spoken privately about a longer-term presence in part to maintain U.S. military equipment ordered by Iraq, the Iraqi prime minister has not previously acknowledged this publicly. When U.S. combat troops exited Iraqi cities last month under the terms of a Status of Forces Agreement, Mr. al-Maliki declared a national holiday to celebrate the milestone toward full Iraqi sovereignty. On Thursday, however, in response...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed Iraq security issues when the two met at the Pentagon late this afternoon. Gates and Maliki addressed the U.S.-Iraqi security relationship and equipment needs for Iraqi soldiers and police, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. Their conversation, Morrell said, focused “largely on our security partnership, on ways that we can continue to help the Iraqi security forces grow in size and capability, so that they are able to fully exert their sovereignty and protect the people from external and internal threats.” Gates acknowledged during...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki hailed the seeds of a growing cooperation between their nations, pledging that out of the fires of war would come a new friendship. But they warned the path ahead could yet prove tough, with many obstacles to overcome and sectarian violence still threatening Iraq's stability. "Both of us agree that the bonds forged between Americans and Iraqis in war can pave the way for progress that can be forged in peace," Obama pledged after White House talks with Maliki. "America stands ready to help the Iraqi government build their...

Not that it’s important enough for mainstream media to highlight, but that elusive thing known as Iraqi political reconciliation (remember when its absence was a sign of the apocalypse?) may be upon us:

How worried should we be about reports such as this and this in the Washington Post about how restricted U.S. troops have become in Iraq? One article reports on how U.S. troops, worried about an insurgent plot to mortar their bases, were not allowed to operate in the neighborhood where the attack was supposed to happen — the Iraqis insisted on handling the issue themselves. This is part of a broader Iraqi initiative to take U.S. forces off the streets that is raising concerns among some Americans over being denied the authority to protect their own forces. The other Post...

BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck a conciliatory tone ahead of his trip to Washington, talking about his gratitude for U.S. sacrifices in Iraq, and offering to negotiate a settlement between Iraq's federal government and the country's Kurdish enclave as tensions heighten between the two. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal as he prepared for a visit to the U.S. on July 21, Mr. Maliki said he planned to thank America for its shared sacrifice with the Iraqi people in the tumultuous post-Saddam Hussein years since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "We have [achieved] a combined victory...

THE war in Iraq is officially moving to an end. Six years after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, several coalition members have ended their missions in Iraq - including Australia, which pulled out its troops 12 months ago - and the US is preparing to wrap up its military involvement in the country. If we examine the question from an American, British or Australian perspective, then it would be difficult to present an answer that could convince all critics. For the coalition members this was a war of opportunity, not a war of necessity. Going to war or not was...