Anti-U.S. cleric criticizes Iraqi gov't

Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr sharply criticized Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government on Sunday and once again demanded that all foreign troops leave the country.

Al-Sadr's criticism comes at a time when relations between his Sadrist movement and al-Maliki's coalition government he supports are at a low ebb, with the prime minister coming under mounting pressure to end his alliance with the radical Shiite cleric.

Thirty lawmakers and five Cabinet ministers loyal to al-Sadr are boycotting the government and parliament to protest al-Maliki's recent summit with President Bush in neighboring Jordan. They have said they will not lift their boycott until a timetable is announced for the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition troops from Iraq.

Al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, criticized the Sadrists for their action, saying it is disloyal to the governing coalition.

Al-Sadr, in a statement issued Sunday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad, said al-Maliki's government has no right to go it alone. Nor should it have sought the U.N. Security Council's recent renewal of the mandate of the multinational forces in Iraq. Such a move should have been taken by "the people," a reference to the 275-seat parliament, the cleric said.

Alluding to al-Maliki's summit with Bush, al-Sadr said: "Yesterday's friends are today's enemies, and yesterday's enemies are today's friends." He also criticized the Iraqi government's widely reported contacts with leaders of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party as part of its efforts to reach national reconciliation.

"Baath has been our enemy. Now it sits to talk with our friends," he said.

Al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia fought American troops for most of 2004, said a report by a bipartisan commission on Iraq was designed to "divide and finish us."

He did not elaborate, but the Iraq Study Group report released Wednesday recommended the disbanding of all militias in Iraq and that the United States should offer financial and technical support to the Iraqi government in implementing a "program to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate militia members."