ARABS-US RELATIONS - Apr 26 - Rice And Rumsfeld To Meet Iraqi PM.

The US' diplomatic and military chiefs both flies in to Baghdad to meet Iraq's new PM Jawad al-Maliki, emphasising the importance Washington attaches to his success in forming a national unity government. State Sec Rice and Def Sec Donald Rumsfeld arrived separately and were to meet PM-designate Jawad al-Maliki together later, a day after al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released a video condemning the government as a puppet of the US. Returning to the capital just three weeks after a visit aimed at breaking deadlock over the choice of Maliki's predecessor, Rice said Iraq was at a "turning point" and that a focus of meetings she and Rumsfeld planned would be pressing for a new cabinet free of divisive "sectarian" figures. Maliki, who has a month to form a government, said on Apr 25 he needed two weeks and would choose ministers on merit. Washington, anxious to start pulling out troops with US congressional elections looming in November, has pushed Iraqi leaders in the four months since an election to overcome sectarian and ethnic divisions in order to avert civil war. Rumsfeld and the US commander, Gen George Casey, would not be drawn on the specifics of what Maliki's appointment meant for their plans for sending some of the 133,000 US troops home this year. Casey called it a "major step". Rumsfeld, who watched Iraqi troops in training, dismissed criticisms that the new Iraqi forces were not capable of taking over from Americans or of preventing a sectarian civil war. Rice was in Baghdad on April 2 and 3 with her British counterpart, on a mission Iraqi officials characterised as a bid to force Ibrahim al-Jaafari to quit as PM because minority Sunnis and Kurds refused to join a coalition under him. He did so last week, when the Shi'ite Alliance bloc passed the mantle on to Maliki, a long-time senior aide to Jaafari. "The reason we're going into Iraq is because this is a very significant time and ... the president asked us to go in to show support for this new government", Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff told reporters travelling with Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, who rubbished a suggestion he might quit after criticism from retired generals, rejected criticism of the capabilities of the new, US trained Iraqi forces: This is a sovereign country and they are making impressive progress". The "next benchmark", he said, was for Maliki to form a government with "people who are competent, people who understand the importance of running ministries not as sectarian ministries" and who can fight corruption throughout the country. Maliki, a tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, said in a lengthy TV interview on Apr 25 he needs two weeks to form a government and would appoint ministers only on merit. In comments broadcast as other channels were showing the first confirmed video message from Zarqawi, he also said force alone would not end violence and that his government would try to bring the prosperity that would dampen aggression. Echoing demands from US officials, he said militias -- among them those who say they are protecting majority Shi'ites from attacks by al Qaeda -- must be brought under state control. Otherwise, he said, there would be civil war. QAEDA DENOUNCES "PUPPET GOVERNMENT" Zarqawi, a Jordanian blamed for some of the bloodiest attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces, denounced what he called Iraq's puppet government in what appeared to be his first video comments since a suspected appearance, masked, during the beheading of an American hostage two years ago. "What is coming is more painful", he said in the 35-minute film posted on the Internet. Similar to the sometimes elaborate videos of Osama bin Laden, with whose leadership Zarqawi has sometimes seemed at odds, the film showed him with armed men in the desert.