PM orders lifting of U.S.-Iraqi checkpoints

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday ordered the lifting of joint U.S.-Iraqi military checkpoints around the Shiite militant stronghold of Sadr City and other parts of Baghdad -- another apparent move to assert his authority with the Americans and appeal to his Shiite support base.\nU.S. forces disappeared from the checkpoints within hours of the order, setting off celebrations among civilians and armed men on the edge of the sprawling slum controlled by the Mahdi Army militia run by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.\nIraqi troops loaded coils of barbed wire and red traffic cones onto pickup trucks, while small groups of men and children danced in circles chanting slogans praising al-Sadr, who earlier Tuesday had ordered the area closed to the Iraqi government until U.S. troops lifted what he called their "siege" of the neighborhood.\nAl-Maliki's order threatened to further upset relations between the U.S. and the Iraqi government, which became strained last week after he issued a string of bitter complaints, at one point saying he was not "America's man in Iraq."\nThe White House insisted there was no rift.\n"To deal with checkpoints does not necessarily change the situation in terms of how you deal with Sadr City," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "What he did not say is, 'Let's not continue going after terrorist organizations.'"\nPentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there appears to be some disagreement about the checkpoints, but "I just can't provide any clarity."\n"Iraq is a sovereign country, and U.S. military operations are in support of the Iraqi government and in support of Iraqi forces," he added.\nThe tightened security had been credited by some for producing a temporary decline in violence, possibly because it curbed the activities of Shiite death squads blamed for waves of sectarian killings of Sunnis.\nBut a car bomb exploded in the neighborhood Tuesday, killing three people and wounding five, police said. On Monday, a bombing there killed at least 33 people.\nElsewhere in Baghdad, a suicide car bomber struck a wedding party of Shiite celebrants, killing 11 people and wounding 21. Weddings and funerals in Iraq are relatively easy targets for suicide bombers hoping to spark sectarian reprisals and push the country into a full-blown civil war.\nThe extra checkpoints were set up last week around Sadr City as U.S. troops searched for a missing American soldier and raided homes looking for death squad leaders in the sprawling slum that is home to an overwhelmingly Shiite population of 2.5 million people.\nOther checkpoints manned by U.S. troops were erected in the downtown Karradah neighborhood where the soldier was abducted.