Muqtada toys with US's Iraq intentions

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MG16Ak01.html

WASHINGTON - The big question looming over United States-Iraqi negotiations on a US military presence after 2011 is what game Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr is playing on the issue.

United States officials regard Muqtada as still resisting the US military presence illegally and are demanding that Muqtada call off his Promised Day Brigades completely.

But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's main point of contact with Muqtada says he is playing a double game and does not intend to obstruct the negotiations on a deal for the stationing of 10,000 or more US troops from 2012 onward.

Muqtada made a crucial move over the weekend toward accepting such an agreement between the Barack Obama administration


and the Maliki government, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official in the International Liaison Office (ILO). The ILO is an arm of Iraqi military intelligence that is run by a former East German intelligence official who was Muqtada's political adviser during the height of the US war against the Sadrists in 2007-08.