One of Iraq’s most influential Shiite clerics rejected a U.S.-backed proposal to isolate Shiite extremists in the national government, saying the country should govern itself with the help of anti-U.S. firebrand Moqtada Sadr, according to politicians who spoke with the cleric Saturday.
Shiite politicians met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in this holy Shiite city, and then said they had thrown their support behind Sadr, who demands a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq rather than the temporary increase under consideration in Washington.
“The Sadr movement is part of Iraqi affairs,” said Haider al-Ebadi, a leader of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party. “We won’t allow others to interfere to weaken any Iraqi political movement.”
Ali al-Adeeb, another member of the Dawa Party, said Shiite leaders, including the prime minister, will resist U.S. efforts to sideline Sadr and his al-Mahdi Army militia.
Sadr controls several seats in the Iraqi Cabinet and about 30 seats in parliament, but his loyalists have suspended their participation until fellow Shiite politicians join his call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal.
The expressions of support for Sadr are likely to complicate the Bush administration’s efforts to forge a new policy on Iraq. They came as President Bush met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had just returned from a trip to Baghdad.
Military officials say Bush’s plan will likely include a “surge” of thousands of troops in addition to the 140,000 already here.
More Top Picks Lubricant
In Samawah, 120 miles south of Baghdad, Sadr supporters who had previously agreed to disarm were fighting police on Saturday. After militia members killed two police related to a local tribe, tribesmen joined the fight, sending gunmen into the streets and occupying the Sadr party office, police and tribesmen said.
Other parts of Iraq were rife with violence Saturday.
In Baghdad, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and five injured when their convoy hit a roadside bomb downtown, police said.
Baghdad police recovered 47 bodies in the 24-hour period that ended Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. All were shot and most showed signs of torture, police said.
At least 13 people died in violence Saturday across Iraq.