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BAGHDAD - Shi'ite and Sunni leaders have disagreed over a government order lifting US checkpoints around a Baghdad militia stronghold as figures showed more than 40 Iraqi civilians died on average each day in October.
American troops ended roadblocks around the Shi'ite slum district of Sadr City after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered them out. The move followed public friction with Washington before elections in which President George W. Bush's Republicans risk losing control of Congress.
Bush said he spoke with the Iraqi leader last week and "I didn't find many differences of opinion when I talked to him."
Bush said the decision to lift the roadblocks was made with Gen. George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, in the room.
"It is to me heartening to see a leader say, 'I want more troops, I want a line of authority and responsibility.' I appreciate he is making hard decisions that he thinks are necessary to keep his country united and moving forward," Bush said of Maliki.
After the roadblocks were lifted, backers of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr celebrated in Sadr City, bastion of his Mehdi Army. An aide hailed the end of a "barbaric siege" begun to help find a kidnapped American soldier possibly being held by militiamen.
"I'm relieved Maliki is finally facing up to them," said Mustafa Ayyub, 22, a guard at a bank in the mixed Karrada district where checkpoints were also lifted.
Iraq's Sunni vice president condemned the move. The once-dominant Sunni minority blames sectarian death squad violence on the Mehdi Army.
"I'm afraid that by lifting the siege, the government sent the wrong message to those who stand behind terrorism in Iraq. It says the iron fist will loosen and they can move freely," said Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.
Next Tuesday's US elections are dominated by the debate about whether to keep 150,000 US troops in Iraq as the country spirals towards all-out civil war.
The death of a soldier in the western Anbar province on Tuesday took the US death toll in October to at least 104, the highest in nearly two years and another American soldier was reported killed on Wednesday in a roadside bombing west of Baghdad.
Bush rejected demands that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resign over Iraq and praised US Vice President Dick Cheney, another lightning rod for critics of administration policy. Asked if he expected Rumsfeld to stay on through the end of his presidency, which ends in January 2009, Bush said, "Yes, I am."
Referring to Rumsfeld and Cheney, Bush said, "Both of those men are doing fantastic jobs and I firmly support them."
He added that US commanders in Iraq had told him "the troop level they've got right now is what they can live with."
On Wednesday, 35 bodies were found dumped in Baghdad on a day when Reuters reporters recorded more than 70 violent deaths in Iraq.
Statistics issued by the Interior Ministry for Iraqis killed in political violence put civilian deaths last month at 1289 - nearly 42 a day and up from 1,089 in September, the previous record.
Bloodshed intensified in the holy month of Ramadan, which ended last week, as rival Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim communities vied for power in a cycle of sectarian reprisals.
US military commanders assessed two weeks ago that Iraq was edging towards chaos, according to a classified military chart published in The New York Times.
Casualty figures have become controversial since the United Nations put the monthly civilian toll at more than 3000 this past summer and a group of medical statisticians estimated more than 650,000 may had died since the American-led invasion of 2003.
US and Iraqi officials question the UN estimate and the statistical survey published in the medical journal The Lancet.
The Iraqi government recently tightened rules to prevent officials outside the prime minister's office from releasing civilian casualty figures.
- REUTERS
