Iraqi leader takes heat for security plan

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s Shiite prime minister exchanged heated words with a Sunni Arab lawmaker Thursday over the country’s new security plan, leading parliament temporarily to suspend a raucous debate and Iraqi television to abort its coverage.

The argument underscored the deep divides that have bedeviled attempts to quell Iraq’s sectarian violence.

As the legislators debated, the violence here continued with more than 80 Iraqis and at least one U.S. soldier reported killed in a string of bombings, mortar fire and other bloodshed.

In the day’s worst attack, a suicide car bomber struck a busy Baghdad intersection where shoppers waited to buy bread, killing at least 27 people and wounding 54 others, police and witnesses said.

The parliamentary clash took place as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presented his arguments in favor of a U.S.-backed security plan. The effort would leave no safe havens for militants, regardless of religious or political affiliations, he said.

Abdul Nasir Janabi, a Sunni cleric and legislator from a violent region south of Baghdad, responded by protesting a major sweep by U.S. and Iraqi troops Wednesday through Haifa Street, a Sunni neighborhood near the Green Zone that is dominated by anti-government militants. Sporadic blasts continued Thursday, according to Iraqi officials.

Janabi accused al-Maliki’s administration of purging Sunni Arabs from the government, arresting pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia and imposing politically motivated death sentences, a possible reference to Saddam Hussein’s execution last month.

Al-Maliki retorted, “All I could tell our brother the sheik is that he will trust in this premiership once we present his file and hold him accountable for it.” As Shiite legislators loudly applauded, he said, “150kidnapped individuals in his area – why doesn’t he talk about that?”

Mahmoud Mashhadani, parliament’s speaker and a Sunni, interrupted the exchange, chiding al-Maliki for making “unacceptable” accusations.He then called for an adjournment to avoid enflaming sectarian tensions. The session resumed soon after, but Iraqiya, the state-run television station, stopped airing it.

The government concedes that Shiite militiamen linked to parliament’s two largest political blocs have infiltrated the security forces and government vehicles have been used in a number of kidnappings and killings.

The first of a promised 21,500 U.S. troops have arrived in Iraq to help implement the security plan in Baghdad and Al Anbar province, center of the Sunni-driven insurgency.