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Length: 6:43
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I do
believe Prime Minister Maliki is the right man to
achieve the goal in Iraq. He's got a hard job. He's
been there for five months, a little over five
months, and there's a lot of pressure on him,
pressure from inside his country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: And Prime Minister Maliki is also feeling
the pressure from the White House.
That was President Bush on Wednesday.
How can the U.S. turn things around and gain a clear
victory in the Battle for Baghdad?
Can Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Maliki,
step up to the expectations set by their own country
and the United States?
Joining me now, CNN correspondent Michael Ware. He's
here in the Iraqi capital along with me.
And in Washington, Rajiv Chandraskaran. He's the
former "Washington Post" Baghdad bureau chief and
also the author of "Imperial Life In The Emerald
City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone."
Michael Ware, give us an assessment of the Iraqi
government. Is it strong enough to deal with the
violence in this country, particularly the sectarian
violence, which is beginning to spread outside of
Baghdad to many other areas across the country?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely not,
John.
I mean, you even have to look at the Iraqi government
in a whole different way.
I mean, exactly what is the Iraqi government?
Certainly, the government that the U.S. is relying
upon is little more than the prime minister's office,
Nuri Al-Maliki, and the office of the national
security adviser.
Beyond that, what is it really?
I mean one could argue the government doesn't
actually exist. The rest of the government, the true
building blocks of this government and political
power, are the militias. And the U.S. and Maliki have
no, or little, influence on them at all.
ROBERTS: Rajiv, all this talk about benchmarks and
timetables this week, is there any hope that any of
that will be achieved?
RAJIV CHANDRASKARAN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think
it's highly, highly doubtful, John.
I mean, look, all of these things that the U.S.
government now wants Iraq's government to do are
things that we've been asking the Iraqi government to
do for more than a year: cracking down on
militias, coming to an equitable allocation of oil
revenue, moving forward with a truth and
reconciliation commission.
There's nothing to suggest that the Iraqi government,
Prime Minister Maliki, is going to be able to move
forward on these incredibly divisive issues now in a
way that he hasn't been able to do in the past, and
particularly, as Barbara Starr was mentioning
earlier, the crackdown on militias.
You know, Maliki is doesn't have the clout to do it.
He's beholden to Muqtada al-Sadr. His party, the Dawa
Party, and other large Shiite parties, have their own
militias. He can't go after them to the degree that
U.S. commanders want him to. He would lose all of his
legitimacy among the Shiite community.
ROBERTS: And it's not just the militias that are the
problem here. When you look at the foes that the
coalition forces are facing, it's the militias, it's
the al Qaeda who are here and it's also the
insurgency.
On Thursday, Michael Ware took a look at the
insurgency, particularly this idea of what unites
them.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
WARE (voice-over): America's enemies in Iraq can be
divided into two main groups -- Sunni and Shia. But
there are groups within groups, factions within
factions. Shia militias attack British and American
troops, according to coalition intelligence officers,
not to defeat them but to keep them in a defensive
mode.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
ROBERTS: What's the insurgents' strategy, Michael?
What do they gain by keeping coalition forces in, as
you said, "a defensive mode?"
WARE: Well, particularly in the south, John, what
that's about is consolidating militia power. I mean
what's happening to the Brits is they're being
attacked, but not so much as to provoke them, just to
niggle them and keep their heads buttoned down, so to
speak.
This leaves the militias all the room within the
political sphere and every other sphere. While the
Brits worry about staying alive, the militias do the
rest.
The Sunni insurgency is much different. It's looking
to drive a stake through the heart of American will.
It's much more aggressive.
ROBERTS: Right.
And, also, in terms of the complicated politics that
go on here in Iraq, we saw a really interesting
example of that. The other morning there was a joint
U.S.-Iraqi raid in Sadr City. They were looking for a
Mahdi militia commander who they believed was in
charge in some of these death squads, and, as well,
looking for some people who were suspected of being
involved in the kidnapping of this U.S. soldier.
But it provoked a real political incident here.
Here's how Major General William Caldwell, the
spokesman for the multinational forces, explained the
notification to the Iraqi government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, SPOKESMAN, MULTI-NATIONAL
FORCE-IRAQ: Notification was made to the government
of Iraq, but it's apparent that it didn't make it to
the prime minister and that the U.S. coalition forces
and the government of Iraq security element will go
back and review our procedures to understand why the
prime minister, as he states, had not been personally
notified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: And because he wasn't personally notified,
Nouri Al-Maliki came out and was quite harsh about
the raid, saying things like that should not happen
again. There was a lot of miscommunication. But Rajiv
Chandraskaran, though, when you look at this, I mean,
a lot of this is for domestic political consumption,
I'm sure. Al-Maliki has to make it look like he's an
independent.
But if the Iraqi government and the coalition forces
and the United States cannot get on the same page
here, what does that mean for winning the Battle for
Baghdad?
CHANDRASKARAN: It makes it incredibly complicated, if
not impossible. I mean, it couldn't have been a more
embarrassing turn of events for the Bush
administration. You know, coming out one day and
saying look, we've got a plan, we're going to work
with the Iraqi government to establish these
benchmarks, a timetable. And then, the next day,
because of this raid, because of the way the
communication went or didn't go, Prime Minister
al-Maliki comes out publicly and bashes the plan and
is highly critical.
You know, the White House couldn't have had a worse
P.R. situation on its hands out in Baghdad then.
ROBERTS: Michael Ware, these militias appear to be,
on the ground, gaining influence. How is it that
these radicals are able to fuel the divide between
Sunnis and Shiites who have lived, respectfully in
harmony, you know, to a large degree, for some 200
years?
WARE: Well, you need to remember here that the people
who are behind this violence, inciting this violence,
know precisely where the seams are in the fabric that
holds this society together. It's a very complicated
weave, yet they know just where to strike.
Now, this started with Zarqawi. This sectarian
violence is Zarqawi's greatest legacy. He went out to
provoke the Shia and kept prodding and prodding until
they came back. And that's what we're now seeing.
ROBERTS: Right. And, of course, something else that
we're seeing on the ground here, too, is that because
of these attacks, Sunni-on-Shiite and sometimes
Shiite against Shiite, some people now believe that
the militias are the only people that could really
provide them the protection that they really want to
have.
Michael Ware here in Baghdad, thanks very much.
As well, Rajiv Chandraskaran in
Washington.