Iraqi lawmakers said on Saturday that Washington should take responsibility for the turmoil in Iraq and stop blaming Baghdad, Iran and Syria. Frustrated by criticism from the United States over their slow progress towards political goals meant to foster national reconciliation, Iraqi leaders said Washington would be better served by examining its own progress in the unpopular war.
“The Americans always try to pretend the responsibility for cleaning up this mess isn’t theirs and tend to shift blame onto Iraq, Iran and Syria for everything that goes wrong,” said veteran Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.
“But they should stop this nonsense and admit that most of the accountability rests on their shoulders,” he told Reuters.
On Saturday evening a suicide car bomber killed 10 people and wounded 15 others in southwest Baghdad. Many were queuing outside a bakery to buy bread for the evening Ramadan meal which breaks the day-long fast during the Muslim holy month.
The explosion came two days after U.S. President George W. Bush, announcing plans for a limited withdrawal of around 20,000 U.S. troops by July, said U.S. forces had helped ensure “ordinary life is beginning to return” to Baghdad.
Bush criticized Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government, saying it had made limited political progress despite the breathing space offered by this year’s “surge” of U.S. troops and the improved security.
In a report ordered by Congress, the White House echoed that criticism on Friday, saying that Iraq’s leaders had made satisfactory progress on just nine out of 18 political and security benchmarks and unsatisfactory progress in seven.
It said it could not rate two other targets.
“Before they ask the government to treat the problems in Iraq they should correct the mistakes they committed, like the disbanding of the Iraqi army,” Sunni Arab lawmaker Izzedine al-Dawla said.
The benchmarks, which include a crucial revenue-sharing oil law, are designed to promote reconciliation between Iraq’s warring majority Shi’ite and minority Sunni Arabs.
Maliki’s shaky unity government has been all but paralyzed by infighting. A dozen ministers, Shi’ites and Sunnis, have left his cabinet and on Saturday the political movement loyal to anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said it had withdrawn from the ruling Shi’ite Alliance.
The move leaves the coalition with around half the seats in parliament, although it could survive with the support of a handful of independent lawmakers.
The White House report followed two days of Congressional testimony by the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who highlighted security gains in the former al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Anbar province.
Petraeus also expressed concern about Iranian involvement in Iraq. U.S. officials accuse Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq and say Syria does not do enough to stop militants crossing its border into Iraq. Both countries deny the accusations.
In a setback for Washington, a Sunni Arab sheikh who led a tribal alliance which helped push al Qaeda insurgents from much of Anbar was killed in a bomb attack outside his home.
An al Qaeda led group, the Islamic State in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the killing and vowed to assassinate more tribal leaders who cooperate with the security forces.
In an audiotape posted on the Internet on Saturday the group’s purported leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, announced a new phase of attacks to mark the month of Ramadan, which started this week.
Baghdadi did not give details but renewed a call on Iraqis to fight the U.S.-led forces and their allies.
The U.S. military says the Islamic State in Iraq is a front organization set up by al Qaeda in Iraq to try to put an Iraqi face on what is a foreign-led network.
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