U.S. Envoy Warns Iraq to Unify Government
By ROBERT H. REID
BAGHDAD, Iraq Feb 20, 2006 (AP)— The U.S. ambassador delivered a blunt warning to Iraqi leaders Monday that they risk losing American support unless they establish a national unity government with the police and the army out of the hands of religious parties. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad delivered the warning as another 24 people, including an American soldier, died in a string of bombings, underscoring the need for the country to establish a government capable of winning the trust of all communities and ending the violence.
Such a government is also essential to the U.S. strategy for handing over security to Iraqi soldiers and police so the 138,000 U.S. troops can go home. But talks among Iraqi parties that won parliament seats in the Dec. 15 election have stalled over deep divisions among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. During a rare news conference, Khalilzad said division among the country's sectarian and ethnic communities was "the fundamental problem in Iraq," fueling the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency and the wave of reprisal killings.
"To overcome this there is a need for a government of national unity," which "is the difference between what exists now and the next government," he said. The outgoing government is dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
Khalilzad said Iraq's next Cabinet ministers, particularly those heading the Interior and Defense ministries, "have to be people who are nonsectarian, broadly acceptable and who are not tied to militias" run by political parties
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1642262And this quote from Zalmay:
"A sectarian government who run their own ethnical militias to be incharge of the security (in Iraq) will not be acceptable", such announcement should be addressed in secret meetings and not through "Satellite TV channels", such public announcement will rally and moblize the shiia supporters of the "list 555" (Shiite alliance party).