Political splintering raises stakes for Maliki

BAGHDAD â€”  The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki suffered another defection Saturday, and Iraqi politicians and disillusioned citizens joined the debate about whether he should be replaced with a more secular leader.

Stepping forward to present himself as the ideal candidate, former Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi hired a powerhouse Washington lobbying firm to promote him.

The sectarian violence that has helped drive Sunni Arabs and even some of Maliki’s fellow Shiites to boycott the Cabinet continued to flare Saturday.

A car bomb exploded in Baghdad’s working-class Kadhimiya neighborhood shortly after noon, killing seven people and wounding 30. The blast occurred as Shiite faithful began assembling for an annual pilgrimage to Karbala, 50 miles southwest of Baghdad, the capital. Authorities banned motorcycles, bikes and pushcarts from the streets to deter attacks on pilgrims, expected to number more than a million.

Sunni Arab extremists have used previous festivals to attack Shiite pilgrims. And in August 2005, about 1,000 Shiites died in a stampede on a bridge in Kadhimiya when rumors spread of a suicide bomber in the throng.

In other violence Saturday, at least three civilians were assassinated in Kirkuk, said police, who suspected that Al Qaeda-aligned militants carried out reprisal killings of fellow Sunni Arabs who had turned on the insurgent groups. Later in the day, police said a U.S. missile landed in the city, killing two people and injuring four, including a man whom U.S. forces arrested at the hospital. Kirkuk police said the dead were civilians.

Maliki came in for criticism from President Bush and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker last week. Bush later backed away, calling Maliki “a good person who is facing many problems.� But an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Maliki was unable to govern effectively and that the political situation was likely to become more precarious in the near future.

Several prominent members of Congress called for Maliki to step down, or for the U.S. to start withdrawing its troops soon.

Infighting and sectarian power struggles have prompted all Sunni and independent factions to pull out of the so-called national unity government. The bloc led by Allawi ceased attending Cabinet meetings this month and said Saturday that it was formally abandoning its posts.

The defection of the Iraqi National List, an umbrella faction headed by Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord, coincided with a lobbying campaign promoting the former prime minister as an alternative to Maliki.

The former prime minister has given several high-profile television interviews and written opinion pieces critical of Maliki.

Allawi also hired the Washington firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers on a six-month lobbying contract for $300,000, according to papers filed with the Justice Department. The firm includes Robert Blackwill, Bush’s former envoy to Iraq who helped form the Allawi-led interim government in 2004, and Philip Zelikow, a former advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Bush’s national security spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, cast the lobbying contract as an agreement between a private politician and officials who no longer serve the White House.

“If former Prime Minister Allawi is interested in becoming prime minister again, that would be an issue that he would need to take up with the Iraqi people, probably best taken up in Baghdad rather than Washington,� Johndroe told reporters.

Allawi was traveling outside Iraq, but Iyad Jamaluddin, a member of parliament with his party, said the recent buzz over Allawi’s potential to replace Maliki reflected Iraqi desires to “move away from sectarianism.�

“Time has shown that our policies are the right way to lead Iraq and rescue it from the current crisis,� said Jamaluddin. He disavowed knowledge of the Washington lobbying contract.

Iraqis seemed doubtful that a change in leadership would help.

“It’s not the person that needs to be changed, it’s the policies,� said Muhannad Ahmad, a 36-year-old Shiite engineer. He worried that for all Maliki’s faults, removing him would anger voters who prefer to live with their choices rather than succumb to foreign-backed political intrigues.

Haitham Mahdy, a 52-year-old Sunni accountant from Mosul, proclaimed Maliki and all prominent Iraqi politicians to be failures. Allawi lacks a political base in Iraq and wouldn’t have the trust of the people, Mahdy said.

Allawi, a 62-year-old Shiite, has lived more than half his life abroad and holds British citizenship. His family remains in Britain, enhancing perceptions that he escaped the suffering of the Iraqi people, especially Shiites, during the Saddam Hussein dictatorship.

Many Iraqis despair of finding direction from their leaders.

“The whole government is no good. We have 275 liars,� said Ahmad Azzawi, a 31-year-old music teacher. “Maliki is not the problem -- the problem is that they all have the same thoughts.�

Sunni leaders tend to regard Allawi as somewhat more acceptable than Maliki, but doubt he would fare better in Iraq’s bitter sectarian atmosphere.

“We are aligned with the Allawi faction and we believe he is a man without sectarian bias and is better for Iraq than others,� said Omar Abdul Sattar, a parliamentarian from the Sunni bloc’s Iraqi Islamic Party. “But the fact remains that Allawi can’t resolve Iraq’s problems, as he lacks both domestic and foreign support.�

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani came to Maliki’s defense. Talabani, a Kurd, said Maliki’s trip to Syria last week boosted national security and regional relations.

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Times staff writers Richard Serrano in Washington, Saif Rasheed and Wail Alhafith in Baghdad, and special correspondent Maha Khateeb in Hillah contributed to this report.