Rice could help Iraq’s progress

BAGHDAD – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that Iraq’s national reconciliation has moved along “quite remarkably,” citing a new law that lets thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party reclaim government jobs or pensions.\nRice, who split off from President Bush’s Mideast tour for a visit to Baghdad, said the Iraqi parliament’s approval Saturday of the U.S.-sought benchmark law was a first step and showed that last year’s “surge” of American forces was paying dividends.\n“It is clearly a step forward for national reconciliation - a step forward for healing the wounds of the past, and it will have to be followed up by implementation that is in the same spirit of national reconciliation,” she said during a news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.\nIraqi officials said Rice warned Iraqi leaders they should not pass up a “golden opportunity” during Bush’s last year in office to intensify their efforts for national reconciliation. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to share the information with the media, they said Rice also told them that the formation of a “national unity” government should be a top priority for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.\nAl-Maliki’s government, dominated by Shiite Muslims, has promoted a Shiite agenda and has been slow to include Sunnis in the police and other national groups as they have formed groups to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.\nMeanwhile, in an interview published Tuesday by The New York Times, Iraq’s defense minister said the country would not be able to assume full responsibility for internal security until 2012 and would be unable to defend its borders until at least 2018.\n“In regard to the borders, regarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020,” the minister, Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jasim al-Obeidi, was quoted as saying.\nRice left Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to personally convey Bush’s encouragement about signs of progress in Baghdad.\nAlthough national reconciliation “has not always moved as fast as some of us sitting in Washington would like, it has certainly moved and, given the legacy, history and stains of tyranny, it has been quite remarkable,” she said.\nBush said Rice could “help push the momentum by her very presence” and that he himself would not go to Iraq while traveling in the region. There had been widespread speculation he would make a visit.\nRice met with al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents, Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashemi, as well as Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Iraq’s largest Shiite party and Massoud Barzani, president of the self-rule Kurdish region in northern Iraq.\nThe de-Baathification law is one of 18 steps that the United States considers benchmarks to promoting reconciliation among the country’s Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.\nA senior aide to al-Maliki said Rice also encouraged the prime minister to promote the progress of the other benchmark legislation, including provincial elections, constitutional amendments and a law to share the country’s oil and gas resources among the different sects.