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Washington dismisses fears about Iraqi Shia govt

By: Mohamed Ali

WASHINGTON: Bush administration’s top officials on Sunday brushed off worries that a new Shia-dominated Iraqi government might emerge alongside the Islamic theocracy in neighboring Iran While Iraq electoral commission announced Monday Al-Hakim coalition was a surprise leader in the general election count for the Sunni-majority province of Salaheddin.

With the Shias widely predicted to dominate a new constitutional assembly, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed confidence that no Iran-style government would take place.

“The Shia in Iraq are Iraqis, they're not Iranians,” Rumsfeld said on NBC's Meet the Press.

Rumsfeld pointed to news reports that Shia leaders in Iraq are making overtures to their Sunni brethren.

“The Iraqis are going to have a solution for Iraq that's an Iraqi solution,” he said, adding that “the Shia in Iraq are Iraqis first and Shia second.”

Cheney, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said he doubted that Iraqi Shias would be strongly influenced by what he said was the failed theocratic approach of their Shia brethren in Iran.

He also pointed out that Grand Ayatullah Ali As-Sistani has carefully avoided a direct political role and repeatedly said he wants all of Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups represented. He noted with approval the public pronouncements of Grand Ayatullah As-Sistani who had made clear that “he doesn't believe clerics should play a direct role in the day-to-day operations of government.”

Both Cheney and Rumsfeld said the Bush administration would accept whatever government Iraqis chose.

“They will do it their way,” Cheney said. “This is going to be Iraqi, whatever it is. It's not going to be American, it's not going to look like Wyoming or New York.”

“I have believed from the beginning that Iraqi Shia are more Iraqi than they are Iranian Shia,” Rumsfeld said, underscoring the administration's conviction that deep-seated Iraqi nationalism will overcome the factional forces sometimes stoked in an effort to create sectarian rifts.

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