U.S. ambassador rates political progress in Baghdad 'extremely disappointing'

By News Services

Last update: August 21, 2007 - 8:29 PM

BAGHDAD - The top U.S. diplomat in Iraq on Tuesday called the country's political progress "extremely disappointing" and warned that support for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is not unlimited.

President Bush also offered a tepid endorsement of the Iraqi government on Tuesday, yet he brushed off a call by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for Al-Maliki's ouster.

The president said only the Iraqi people can decide whether to sideline the troubled prime minister.

"Clearly, the Iraqi government's got to do more," Bush said at the close of a two-day summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker's remarks to reporters were the harshest criticism yet by a senior U.S. official of Al-Maliki's government and may be a prelude to what he'll tell Congress in a report that he and Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, will give next month.

"The progress on the national level issues has been extremely disappointing," Crocker said. "We do expect results, as do the Iraqi people, and our support is not a blank check."

The Sept. 15 deadline for Bush's next progress report to Congress is fast approaching, leaving the president little time to show that his troop buildup is succeeding in providing the enhanced security the Iraqi leaders need to forge a unified way forward.

In a speech today to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Mo., Bush will say that the troop buildup is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against Al-Qaida and clearing terrorists out of heavily populated areas.

"Our troops are seeing this progress on the ground, and as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" he will say. The White House released excerpts of the speech Tuesday evening.

The Bush administration has long met criticism of Al-Maliki with words of support. When they met in Jordan last November, the president called Al-Maliki "the right guy for Iraq." Now, Bush continually prods Al-Maliki to do more to forge political reconciliation.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, has been openly critical of U.S. efforts to bring former Sunni insurgents into the Iraqi security forces, saying that some of the former insurgents are potential enemies of his government.

Crocker acknowledged Tuesday that the decision by some Sunni tribes to align themselves against Al-Qaida wasn't a sign of reconciliation between Sunnis and the Shiites.

"It is probably an essential prerequisite for reconciliation," he said. "But it isn't reconciliation."

McClatchy News Service, the Associated Press and the New York Times contributed to this report.

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