MANY IRAQIS LOOK AT AL-MALIKI JUST AS MUCH A DICTATOR AS SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS

IRAQ: From One Dictator to the Next

Analysis by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*BAGHDAD, Apr 12 (IPS)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41960

Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was."Al-Maliki is a dictator who must be removed by all means," 35-year-old Abdul-Riza Hussein, a Mehdi Army member from Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS.

"He is a worse dictator than Saddam; he has killed in less than two years more than Saddam killed in 10 years."

Following the failed attempt by the U.S.-backed al-Maliki to crack down on the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the situation in Iraq has become much worse. Iraq appears to be splintering more widely under this rule than under Saddam's.

Fierce fighting has broken out between Sadr's Mehdi Army and Maliki's army and police forces in Baghdad, which comprise mostly the Badr Organisation militia, the armed wing of the political group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). According to statistics compiled by the U.S. military in Baghdad, there has been a sharp increase in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces, from 239 in February to 631 in March.

Most of these attacks are believed to have been carried out by the Mehdi Army. The Mehdi Army is known to have substantial control of the streets of Baghdad, Basra, and many other predominantly Shia areas in southern Iraq. But there is also considerable Shia support for Maliki's effort to disarm the Mehdi Army.

"Those who shout loud against Maliki and his legally elected government are all thieves and murderers and must be executed," says Aziz Mussawi, a resident of Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, who fled for Baghdad when the clashes started there last month. "These militias will destroy Iraq if left unleashed."