Word: hakim
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...Asked to respond to Allawi's overtures this week, the top candidate of the Shiite list, Abdelaziz al-Hakim told an Arab newspaper "there is no room for power sharing ... because (our) expectations indicated a sweeping victory with a large majority (voting) for the United Iraqi Alliance list." Instead, Hakim spoke of reaching out to the Kurds and drawing in minorities, including the Sunnis who for the most part appear to have stayed away from the polls. And his coalition has already begun negotiating a coalition arrangement with the Kurdish alliance, which is expected to win around 20 percent...
...calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal, but the Shiite list appears far more inclined to press the issue than does Allawi. "No one welcomes the foreign troops in Iraq. We believe in the ability of Iraqis to run their own issues, including the security issue," UIA leading candidate Hakim told an interviewer this week. "Of course this issue could be brought up by the new government." Allawi argues that U.S. troops can be withdrawn only once Iraqi forces are ready to replace them, and President Ghazi al-Yawer this week said that while talk of an immediate withdrawal was "nonsense...
...force, armor, artillery, and other standards of a modern army, most of which the U.S. has not begun putting in place. On the basis of the current patterns of force-development, the need for a U.S. presence could persist for years. But in light of the sentiments expressed by Hakim and other Shiite leaders, it's unlikely that would be unacceptable to a Shiite-led government...
...endorsement by the clergy - and given the fact of Iraq's Shiite majority, whose relative weight will be amplified by the anticipated widespread Sunni boycott, the UIA is expected to win a plurality of the vote. That may make one of their leading candidates - Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; Ibrahim al-Jaffari of the Dawa Party; and independent Hussein al-Sharistani - top contender for Allawi's job in the new government. This list also includes the one-time Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi, as well as followers of radical cleric Moqtada...
...this point, many Americans seem willing to call al-Hakim's bluff. But the Pentagon believes a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would condemn Iraq to a bloodbath wrought by Sunni insurgents against a weak central government that might then be tempted to seek help from Iran. That said, the U.S. is well aware that the Iraqis will probably demand that the Americans start making plans to leave. In November the CIA's departing station chief in Baghdad sent a cable to Washington predicting that the new government would insist on a schedule for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. A State Department...