Iraq on brink of becoming failed state: Report

Baghdad, Dec 20: Radical action is needed to save a''hollowed-out and fatally weakened'' Iraqi state and ease violencethat a new Pentagon report says is at an all-time high, a prominentthink-tank warned today.

The report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG)said an international effort was needed to prevent Iraq collapsing intoa ''failed and fragmented state'' whose Shi'ite- Sunni Arab conflictcould draw in its neighbours in a proxy war.

''Hollowed-out and fatally weakened, the Iraqi state today is preyto armed militias, sectarian forces and a political class that, byputting short-term personal benefit ahead of long term nationalinterests, is complicit in Iraq's tragic destruction.'' In a reportyesterday, the Pentagon said the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shi'itecleric Moqtada al-Sadr had replaced al Qaeda as the ''most dangerousaccelerant of potentially self- sustaining sectarian violence in Iraq''.

While the statement came as little surprise to many Iraqis,especially minority Sunnis, it was the bluntest statement yet by thePentagon on the militia. US commanders in Iraq have previously beenreluctant to blame the Mehdi Army by name.

The US and Iraqi military have also avoided large-scale strikes onhis Sadr City stronghold, although they have staged raids to seizesuspected Mehdi Army death squad leaders.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who owes his position toSadr's support, has vowed to dismantle the militias but has done littleso far to rein them in. The Pentagon report said the Mehdi Army exerted''significant influence'' over the government.

''It is likely that Shi'ite militants were responsible for morecivilian casualties than those associated with terrorist organisations.Shi'ite militants were the most significant threat to Coalitionpresence in Baghdad and southern Iraq,'' the Pentagon report said.

'Political Compromise Must'

The Pentagon's findings were givenadded urgency by Tuesday's ICG report, which took issue with a call bya high-level Washington panel, the Iraq Study Group, to speed up thehandover of security control to the Iraqi government.

''This is not a military challenge in which one side needs to bestrengthened and another defeated. It is a political challenge in whichnew consensual understandings need to be reached,'' the ICG said.

Washington has been frustrated by the inability of Iraq's leadersto reach a political compromise that would take the heat out of theSunni insurgency and ease sectarian tensions between Shi'ites andSunnis that have sparked spiralling violence.

''All Iraqi actors ... must be brought to the negotiating table and must be pressured to accept the necessary compromises.

That cannot be done without a concerted effort by all Iraq'sneighbours,'' the ICG said, calling for an international conference onIraq that included all political players.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed that Iraq'sneighbours, who include Syria and Iran, must play a role in resolvingthe crisis that threatens to tear the country apart.

The United Nations says 100,000 Iraqis are fleeing each month.

''All of Iraq's neighbours should help because all ... would haveto deal with (it if) the situation does not resolve in Iraq. If I werea neighbour I would be especially interested to help bring stability inIraq,'' she told al-Arabiya television today.

US President George W Bush is expected in January to announce anew strategy for Iraq, where nearly 3,000 US soldiers and tens ofthousands of Iraqis have been killed since the US invasion to oustSaddam Hussein in 2003.

''You will not see this president desert Iraq. You will see thispresident remain strongly committed until Iraqis can govern themselvesand sustain themselves,'' Rice said.

Reuters