Frantic efforts are under way in Washington and London to find an exit strategy for Iraq as a renewed surge in violence led US President George W. Bush to admit on Friday that tactics there might need to change.
Diplomats and politicians in both capitals are desperately reviewing and debating options that were once regarded as unthinkable.
The review was given added urgency on Friday when 800 gunmen, thought to be part of the Mahdi Army militia, ran amok in Amara, a town transferred by the British to Iraqi control only a month ago.
PHOTO: EPA
A source in the Amara police department said 30 officers and 20 civilians had been killed when the gunmen overran police stations and set up roadblocks. About 500 British soldiers were on stand-by to go back in.
In Washington, Bush said he would consult his top military commanders in Iraq over whether a change of tactics was necessary. But the president, who is under intense pressure to rethink his Iraq strategy if not his whole approach to foreign policy, said talks with the generals would only concern tactics, not strategy.
"We are constantly adjusting tactics so we can achieve our objectives and right now, it's tough," the president admitted.
With 74 US soldiers already dead in Iraq this month, it is likely to be the worst month for US forces in two years. US officers admitted on Thursday that the effort to pacify the capital -- known as the Baghdad Initiative -- has failed.
Pressure for a change of strategy is partly the result of leaks from a review from a study group set up by the former US secretary of state James Baker at Bush's request. The leaks from Baker's Iraq Study Group (ISG), which is due to report after next month's Congressional elections, suggest it will recommend a fundamental change of course.
The Foreign Office is conducting a review in tandem with Baker. UK officials said the Foreign Office was "beavering away" on about half a dozen options, roughly the same as those considered by the ISG. One official said discussions were proceeding at "a high tempo."
Among the changes the ISG is expected to recommend is the opening of talks on Iraq's future with Syria and Iran, countries the White House has sought to isolate.
"The failure of the Baghdad initiative is convincing evidence that a military solution is not going to work," said Larry Diamond, a former adviser to the US-led occupation authority in Baghdad who also advised the ISG.
"We should be talking to neighboring Arab states and we think we should be talking to Iran -- to broker the compromises which might save the situation," Diamond said.
Other options being considered are a redeployment of forces to "super-bases" in Iraq or bases outside the country, pressuring the Baghdad government to find a fairer way of sharing Iraq's oil wealth to give Sunnis a better deal, and even the partitioning of the country into autonomous Kurdish, Sunni and Shia regions -- an idea the White House has hitherto dismissed as a "non-starter."
British diplomats, including Dominic Asquith, the ambassador to Iraq, and David Manning, ambassador to Washington, have contributed to the ISG.
The Foreign Office is backing the ISG proposal to engage with Iran and Syria.
"We are encouraging them to go with that," a Foreign Office source said.
The Foreign Office has ruled out an immediate unilateral British pull-out and partition. It basically favors a continuation of the present policy, but is agonizing over whether to press for a timetable, possibly even a secret one, for withdrawal.
"Every policy option I could lay out for you would be worse than what we are doing now," a British official said.
Meanwhile, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Iraqi Shiite and Sunni clerics meeting on Friday signed a text calling for a halt to sectarian bloodletting in war-torn Iraq.
At the meeting, organized by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, the 29 clerics from the two sides of the country's religious divide signed a document stipulating that "spilling Muslim blood is forbidden."
The 10-point text, drafted by four clerics from two communities under OIC auspices, draws on verses of the Koran and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed.
It also calls for the safeguarding of the two communities' holy places, defending the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq and the release of "all innocent detainees," according to a copy of the text seen.
The text includes calls to safeguard the "goods, blood and honour of the Muslim" to free innocent people who have been abducted and "allow displaced people to return to their place of origin".
It also calls for suspected criminals to be judged "in a just manner".
The document is to be distributed throughout Iraq in Arabic and English.
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