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Iraqi leader fears losing support of US

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fears the US will torpedo his government if parliament does not pass a law to fairly divvy up the country's oil wealth among Iraqis by the end of June, close associates of the leader said on Tuesday.

The legislature has not even taken up the draft measure, which is only one of several US benchmarks that are seen by al-Maliki as key to continued US support, a crucial need for the survival of his troubled administration.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey denied Washington would withdraw support.

"The notion that we have in any way shape or form threatened to bring down his government over this law is simply untrue," he said in Washington.

Aside from the oil law, the associates said, US officials have told the hardline Shiite Muslim prime minister that they want an Iraqi government in place by year's end acceptable to the country's Sunni Arab neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

"They have said it must be secular and inclusive," one al-Maliki associate said.

To that end, al-Maliki made an unannounced visit Tuesday to Ramadi, the Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, to meet with tribal leaders, the provincial governor and security chiefs in a bid to signal his willingness for reconciliation.

Passage of the oil law, which seeks a fair distribution of revenues among all Iraq's sectarian and ethnic groups, has become a major issue for the US, which had initially counted on financing Iraq's post-invasion reconstruction with oil revenues. But the country is producing oil at about the same levels as before the war, at best.
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