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Maliki: Iraq shouldn't be split

A U.S. Senate proposal to divide the country is ill-conceived, the Iraqi prime minister says.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister told the Associated Press on Friday that a U.S. Senate proposal to split the country into regions according to religious or ethnic divisions would be a "catastrophe."

The Kurds in three northern Iraqi provinces are running a virtually independent country within Iraq, while nominally maintaining relations with Baghdad. They support a formal division. But both Sunni and Shiite Muslims have reacted with extreme opposition to the U.S. Senate proposal.

The majority Shiites, who would retain control of major oil revenues under a division of the country, oppose the measure because it would diminish the territorial integrity of Iraq, which they now control. Sunnis would control an area with few if any oil resources. Kurds have major oil reserves in their territory.

The nonbinding Senate resolution calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions under control of the three communities in a power-sharing agreement similar to the one that ended the 1990s war in Bosnia. Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful, was a prime sponsor of the measure.

"It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told AP on a return flight to Baghdad from New York, where he appeared at the U.N. General Assembly. "Iraqis are eager for Iraq's unity. ... Dividing Iraq is a problem, and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."

The comments were Maliki's first since the measure passed the Senate on Wednesday.

Iraq's constitution lays down a federal system, allowing Shiites in the south, Kurds in the north and Sunnis in the center and west of the country to set up regions with considerable autonomy.

Nevertheless, ethnic and sectarian turmoil have snarled hopes of negotiating such measures, especially given deep divisions on sharing the country's vast oil resources. Oil reserves and existing fields would fall mainly into the hands of Kurds and Shiites if such a division were to occur.

So far there has been no agreement on a broader sharing of those revenues, one of the several U.S.-mandated benchmarks the government has failed to push through Parliament.

Biden argues that the United States has focused too much on trying to prop up a strong, central unified government in Baghdad.

But it is unlikely the Bush administration will alter its policies on Iraq as a result of the resolution. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that the administration supports a federal Iraq, but it is a "sensitive issue best left to the Iraqis to address at their own pace."

Developments

Meanwhile, Iraqi police and witnesses said U.S. troops backed by helicopter gunships raided an apartment building at 2 a.m. Friday in a Sunni neighborhood in southern Baghdad, killing 10 civilians and wounding 12.

The U.S. military said it was checking into the report.

An unknown number of people also were detained after the clashes between U.S. helicopters and gunmen in the Dora neighborhood's Sihha district, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In violence north of Baghdad, at least six people were killed when four gunmen with full beards and wearing military uniforms barged into a busy cafe late Thursday as people were playing a popular game to celebrate the end of the dawn-to-dusk fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The men arrived in a military vehicle used by the Saddam Hussein-era army and opened fire, shouting, "God is great," according to a provincial police officer who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal.

The six killed included three off-duty police officers.

Also Friday:

- U.S. Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, 22, was acquitted on charges he killed two unarmed Iraqis. He was convicted of a lesser charge of planting evidence on one of the bodies to cover up the crime. He was to be sentenced today.

- The U.S. military announced that American-led forces on Tuesday killed one of the most important leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq, a Tunisian named Abu Osama al-Tunisi who was believed connected to the kidnapping and killings last summer of American soldiers.

[Last modified September 29, 2007, 01:10:54]