free republic photos of saddam hussein capture

It failed when Talabani did not back it and due to splits among Maliki’s rivals. The prime minister’s office said only 10 bodyguards had been arrested and that the warrants had been issued under counter-terrorism laws.įoes of Maliki, an ally of Iran, tried earlier this year to organize a vote of no confidence in him. “We call on all to stop any statement or voice compromising the unity of the country.”Įsawi said more than 100 bodyguards and staff had been snatched illegally, and blamed Maliki. “Let Sunni and Shi’ite know that the execution of judicial orders against some accused does not mean the targeting of a certain sect,” Maliki said. Maliki, who forged his political career in exile and resistance to Saddam Hussein, called for calm, urging opponents not to color a judicial decision with politics. Politicians and the authorities gave conflicting accounts of the incident, but it evoked an episode a year ago when Iraq moved to arrest Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, accusing him of running death squads just as U.S. “My message to the prime minister is that you are a man who does not believe in partnership and does not respect the law and the constitution,” Finance Minister Rafaie Esawi said. Sunni leaders warned they might withdraw from government and called for a vote of no confidence in Maliki, whom they accuse of abusing his power to sideline election rivals. Several thousand demonstrators took to the streets in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar after prayers, blocking a highway in Falluja to demand Maliki’s resignation and waving banners reading: “Resistance is still in our veins”.

Maliki has often managed to play his rivals off against one another and strengthen his alliances in the complex political landscape before provincial elections next year and a parliamentary vote in 2014. Talabani’s absence and political tension has renewed pressure on Iraq’s fragile power-sharing government, which is split among sects and ethnic Kurds and has stumbled from crisis to crisis since U.S. The incident came hours after President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who has mediated among Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish factions, left for Germany after suffering a stroke that may end his steadying influence over politics. Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki speaks during the opening ceremony of the Defence University for Military Studies inside Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone June 17, 2012.

Free republic photos of saddam hussein capture