Word: baghdad
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Even as General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker made their case on Capitol Hill for maintaining U.S. troop levels in Iraq, a key Iraqi advocate of sending them home was making a power play. Tensions had been high in Baghdad Tuesday morning, in anticipation of a million-strong march against the U.S. occupation called by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. His Mahdi Army had been engaged in weeks of violent clashes with U.S. and Iraqi government forces in the capital and in the southern city of Basra, and many in the capital feared the worst. But on Tuesday...
...Sadr's announcement came just as cars ferrying worried Iraqis began to clog Baghdad's streets, amid tightened security checkpoints and swirling rumors of an impending curfew. But whether this recent call for restraint will actually ensure calm remains uncertain - Sadr also threatened to call off the Mahdi Army's now defunct cease-fire if attacks by government forces continued. And his response to a demand by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he disband his militia or face exclusion from the political process was typically ambiguous: Sadr said he would put the matter to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani...
...Last fall's testimony by Washington's top diplomat and military man in Baghdad was a high-wire act, as the surge was just beginning to take effect. A year later, lawmakers are expected to acknowledge progress on the security front, but will demand to know what's next. Eager to preserve the fragile gains, Petraeus is expected to urge a pause in U.S. troop withdrawals after this summer, when overall American troop strength in Iraq will fall from 160,000 to about 140,000. Petraeus has said he is leery of jeopardizing the gains of the past year...
...even on a quiet Friday, Maliki may again be buckling to Mahdi Army pressure. The Prime Minister called for a halt on military raids against militants in Basra and other areas of southern Iraq and in the Mahdi Army strongholds of Baghdad, effectively ending - for the time being - the largest Iraqi government military offensive to date. "All pursuits and raids in all areas will be stopped. Those who take up arms will face the law," Maliki said in a statement...
Maliki's statement on Friday came amid Shi'ite demonstrations against the U.S. in Baghdad's Mahdi Army-dominated neighborhoods of Sadr City and Shula, and after a recent call by al-Sadr for a massive demonstration in Najaf, now scheduled for Baghdad on April 9. Crocker allayed fears that Sadr's provocative call for a million-man march would lead to renewed violence. "Millions of people converged on [the holy city of] Karbala for the Arba'een [a Shi'a holiday] in very peaceful conditions. I think that's what Iraqis now expect and want to see," he said...