"...Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite activist who spent years in exile in Syria, is expected to meet President Bush at the White House this coming week. Security in Iraq is expected to top the agenda after an increasing series of attacks in the Baghdad area.
But al-Maliki, who has been among the most vocal Arab leaders against the Israeli assault, said he also would raise the issue of Israel's attacks in Lebanon....
However, Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, have a wide following among Iraqi Shiites, who comprise about 60 percent of the nation's 27 million people.
On Saturday, the Fadhila party, which is part of al-Maliki's Shiite alliance, urged the prime minister to call off the visit. Fadhila holds 15 seats in the 275-member parliament and dominates the provincial administration in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.
"Fadhila demands that the prime minister cancel his visit to the U.S. in solidarity with the Lebanese people and over what is going on there, the disasters due to the Zionist aggression amid international silence about these crimes," party official Sheik Sabah al-Saiedi told The Associated Press...."
washingtonpost.com
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This is so beyond George and wife Condi's pay grade. |
