IRAQ: The US conceded yesterday that Iraq could yet descend into sectarian civil war as American diplomats strove to break a deadlock among Iraqi political leaders that threatens further delay in opening a parliament.
"We have opened the Pandora's box," US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said, referring to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The question is, what is the way forward," he asked, speaking two weeks after the bombing of a major Shia Muslim shrine in Samarra sparked days of bloodshed that killed hundreds.
"If another incident [ occurs], Iraq is really vulnerable," the envoy, who is at the heart of talks to forge a coalition of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, told the Los Angeles Times. "The way forward . . . is an effort to build bridges across communities."
Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the 2003 invasion, said: "There's always been a potential for a civil war." He blamed the media for "exaggerating" Iraq's problems.
"It was held together through force and viciousness," he said of the minority Sunni-dominated rule of Saddam Hussein.
President Bush says an inclusive Iraqi government can bring stability and, along with the formation of Iraq's new armed forces, can allow him to start withdrawing US troops. The recent violence has jeopardised that plan.
A few days before US military commanders are expected to put recommendations to Mr Bush for future troop levels, Mr Khalilzad warned that pulling out too soon would risk a regional conflict that would make his native Afghanistan "look like child's play".
The assassination of the top Iraqi general in Baghdad on Monday by a sniper, who apparently knew exactly which car door he would open in a 14-vehicle convoy, prompted an investigation.
Iraqi generals said it proved that the US-trained army was infiltrated by militants who could turn on fellow soldiers in the event of a conflict with sectarian and ethnic militias.
Efforts to forge a grand coalition following an election in December have stumbled over Sunni and Kurdish refusal to accept that the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shia, should stay on.
His critics say he's failed to bring security or prosperity.
Mr Jaafari, as ever, appeared untroubled yesterday. He told a media briefing that the issue was being discussed in a "civilised and democratic way".
Angered by the opposition but divided over its response, the parties in the alliance asked President Jalal Talabani to delay for a few days the planned opening of parliament on Sunday.
But senior officials, including the outgoing speaker, said that was unlikely because March 12th is a constitutional deadline. Sunday's session, however, may conduct essentially no business - not even the election of a new speaker as demanded by law.
Mr Talabani, a Kurd, would meet all parties tomorrow to agree a plan, officials said. One way out of the impasse may be to conclude a brief sitting on Sunday without a formal adjournment, allowing the "first" session of the new parliament to be resumed at a later day, senior political sources said.
It would leave Iraq, already facing its deepest crisis since the US invasion, without a full-term government. Senior Iraqi politicians say privately that their country, created by Britain in 1918, faces a break-up into three warring states.
Mr Khalilzad said in one of the gloomiest US assessments to date: "There's a vacuum of authority and . . . a lot of distrust."
A spate of attacks, including seven car bombs, yesterday killed 13 people, among them eight policemen, and wounded 35.
In one incident, gunmen killed three people in an office of radical Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr in Baquba, while a Sunni shrine in Saddam's Sunni hometown of Tikrit was blown up. Three mortar rounds also hit the Baghdad headquarters of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, but caused no injuries.
A new video was broadcast showing three of four Christian peace activists held hostage since November. The three looked to be in good health, but the fourth, an American, was not shown.
"We do not know what to make of Tom Fox's absence," their organisation, Christian Peacemaker Teams, said in a statement.
Al-Jazeera television, which showed the video, said Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Sooden and Briton Norman Kember, abducted in November, appealed to Arab leaders and their own governments to help free them.