McClatchy: Iraqi governor killed as U.S. senators offer bleak assessment of Iraq prospects

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Iraqi governor killed as U.S. senators offer bleak assessment of Iraq prospects
By Chris Collins | McClatchy Newspapers



BAGHDAD — A roadside bomb on Monday killed the governor of Iraq's Muthanna province, making him the second governor in as many weeks to become a casualty of violence between rival Shiite Muslim militias in southern Iraq.

Word of the assassination came as two prominent members of the Senate Armed Services Committee completed a two-day visit to Iraq and offered a bleak assessment of prospects here.

In a joint statement, Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, and John Warner, R-Va., the committee's senior Republican, said that while a surge of U.S. troops had tamped down violence in some parts of Baghdad, there was no sign of political reconciliation between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite rivals and "we are not optimistic about the prospects." They said U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker shared their views.

Levin later told reporters during a conference call from Tel Aviv that he believed the Iraqi parliament should replace Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. "The Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders," Levin said.

Levin said he and Warner spent two hours with Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, but that Petraeus didn't say what he planned to recommend about U.S. Iraq policy in a much-anticipated report to Congress next month.

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Bush could help them make better progress if he went over there and serve as the temporary Governor until they found another one. Should be a snap for Bush.