Baghdad (Iraq): Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the top US diplomat in Iraq, "I'm not America's man in Iraq," during a private meeting Friday, a senior aide said.
Al-Maliki and US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad were talking about the US military's plan for timelines to achieve key political and security goals, including reining in sectarian militias, according to Hassan al-Seneid, an Iraqi parliament member and senior aide to the prime minister.
The two shared similar assessments about Iraq and its needs, but differed on resolutions, al-Seneid said.
The prime minister told the US ambassador that as head of a national unity government, agreements with the United States must be approved by Iraq's parliament, al-Seneid said.
"I consider myself a friend of the US, but I'm not America's man in Iraq," al-Seneid quoted al-Maliki as telling Khalilzad.
Another aide, Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, said al-Maliki made the same sentiments known to US President George W Bush during a video conference meeting on Saturday -- in essence, that the prime minister answers to the Iraqi parliament and people.
The prime minister has been critical of the setting of timelines and the US military effort, particularly a raid in Baghdad's Sadr City to detain a death squad leader this week.
During the two leaders' video conference, al-Maliki did not discuss timelines, Dabbagh said, but he did ask for better training and support from the US to enable Iraqi security forces to play a bigger role.
Also discussed were "efforts to promote reconciliation among all Iraqis, and the International Compact for Iraq and the economic reforms associated with it," according to a joint statement from al-Maliki's office and the White House.
The compact is a UN framework for providing international assistance, launched in June.
Bush and al-Maliki agreed to form "a high level working group to put forward recommendations on how to reach those goals," the statement said.
The group would include Iraq's national security adviser, ministers of defense and interior, US Gen. George Casey and US Ambassador Khalilzad, the statement added.
Al-Maliki and Khalilzad's private talks coincided with fresh violence in Iraq that left at least three people dead and scores of people wounded Saturday. Police were also investigating the killing of a women's rights leader in Iraq.
Gunmen reportedly stormed Faliha Ahmed Hassan's house in Hawija, about 43 miles southwest of Kirkuk, and shot her to death on Friday evening.
Also in Hawija, gunmen on Saturday morning killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded three others in an attack on a joint Iraqi army and police patrol, a Kirkuk police official said.
Iraqi security forces were also targeted in eastern Baghdad. A roadside bomb wounded two Iraqi police officers in charge of guarding an oil industry facility Saturday morning, an Iraqi police spokesman said.
Also in eastern Baghdad, a bomb planted in a parked minibus exploded on Palestine Street, killing a civilian and wounding eight others, Iraqi emergency police said.
In a separate attack in the southern neighborhood of Dora, eight mortars exploded at a bus station, killing a civilian and wounding 30 others, Iraqi emergency police said.
And, in what has become a common occurrence, Iraq police found 10 bullet-riddled bodies thought to belong to victims of Sunni-Shiite sectarian vendettas.
West of the capital in Anbar province, a US Marine with the Regimental Combat Team 5 died Friday after being wounded in battle, the US military said Saturday.
The US military death toll for the war is 2,811. So far this month, 98 troops have died. The deadliest month for US forces in Iraq was November 2004, with 137 killed.
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