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Al-Sadr followers protest proposed pact with the US

Thousands of followers of a radical Shiite cleric protested a proposed US-Iraqi security deal on Friday, burning an effigy of US President George W. Bush in the same square where Iraqis beat a toppled Saddam Hussein statue five years ago.

Chanting and waving flags, Moqtada al-Sadr’s followers filled Firdous Square to protest the pact that would allow US troops to stay for three more years.

The demonstration followed two days of protests in parliament by al-Sadr loyalists, who disrupted readings of the proposed agreement.

Parliament is scheduled to vote on the pact tomorrow, but presidential spokesman Naseer al-Ani told Iraq’s Sharqiyah television late on Friday that the vote might be delayed until after the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha early next month.

“It will need more time. Perhaps until after Eid al-Adha,” he told the Dubai-based station without explanation.

The legislature is expected to go into recess later this month ahead of Eid al-Adha, when scores of lawmakers travel to Saudi Arabia for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Despite the opposition of at least three small parliamentary factions, the pact is expected to pass in the Shiite-led parliament when it comes up for a vote.

Al-Sadr, who controls a group of 30 lawmakers in the 275-seat parliament, views the deal as a surrender to US interests. But supporters say the pact will eventually lead to full sovereignty.

If al-Sadr’s group and other legislators opposed to the pact lose by a thin margin, they might attempt to turn their anti-US message into a defining issue in provincial elections on Jan. 31 and general elections late next year.

Al-Sadr’s influence in Iraq, however, has dipped from the days when militiamen loyal to him battled US forces and were seen as protectors of Shiites against Sunni militants and his anti-US message earned him and his followers strong nationalist credentials.

Al-Sadr, believed to be in Iran, was not at the protest, though his representative read a sermon he wrote that called the US “the enemy of Islam.”

“The government must know that it is the people who help it in the good and the bad times. If it throws the occupier out, all the Iraqi people will stand by it,” the sermon read, using common rhetoric for the US.

Al-Sadr said that his followers in both his movement’s armed and peaceful factions would continue to work for the removal of US forces.

The protesters placed the Bush effigy on the same pedestal where US Marines toppled the ousted dictator’s statue in one of the iconic images of the 2003 US-led invasion.

After a mass prayer, demonstrators pelted the Bush effigy with plastic water bottles and sandals. One man hit it in the face with his sandal. The effigy fell head first into the crowd and protesters jumped on it before setting it ablaze.

The uproar this week suggests that the security pact could remain divisive as the country struggles for reconciliation after years of war.

For Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, its senior government partner, the margin of support is almost as important as the victory itself. A narrow passage will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the new terms governing the US troop presence.
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