U.S. Growing Desperation of Iraq?

Iraqi men stand in front of three coffins during a funeral of victims after a U.S. air strike in the Sihha district in Dora southern Baghdad, Iraq, early Friday, Sept. 28, 2007. (AP Photo/Loay Hameed)

US Embassy in Iraq rips partition plan

1 October 2007

Baghdad: The US Embassy in Iraq joined a broad swath of Iraqi politicians -- both Shiite and Sunni -- in criticising a nonbinding US Senate resolution seen here as a recipe for splitting the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.

In a highly unusual statement, the US Embassy said resolution would seriously hamper Iraq's future stability.

''Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself,'' the unsigned statement said.

''Iraq's leaders must and will take the lead in determining how to achieve these national aspirations. ... attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed,'' it said.

The statement came just hours after representatives of Iraq's major political parties denounced the Senate proposal.

The Senate resolution, adopted last week, proposed reshaping Iraq according to three sectarian or ethnic territories. It calls for a limited central government with the bulk of power going to the country's Shiite, Sunni or Kurdish regions, envisioning a power-sharing agreement similar to the one that ended the 1990s war in Bosnia. Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat presidential candidate, was a prime sponsor.

The Kurds in three northern Iraqi provinces are running a virtually independent country within Iraq while nominally maintaining relations with Baghdad. They support a formal division, but both Sunni and Shiite Muslims have denounced the proposal.

At a news conference earlier in the day, at least nine Iraqi political parties and party blocs -- both Shiite and Sunni -- said the Senate resolution would diminish Iraq's sovereignty and said they would try to pass a law to ban any division of the country.

''This proposal was based on the incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of Iraq's past, present and future,'' according to a statement read at a news conference by Izzat al-Shahbandar, a representative of the secular Iraqi National List.