SADRIST TEMPORARY WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 004461 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/04/2016 TAGS: PGOV IZ SUBJECT: SADRIST TEMPORARY WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ'S GOVERNMENT COMMENCES REF: BAGHDAD 4405 Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Margaret Scobey for reaso ns 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (U) Iraq,s Sadrists have commenced their "temporary withdrawal" from the government as they promised in a press statement after Prime Minister Maliki met with President Bush in Amman on November 30. None of the five Sadrist ministers attended the Council of Ministers meeting on December 3. Contacts have told us that the Ministers of Agriculture and Health and the Ministers of State for Governorate Affairs and for Tourism and Antiquities did not come to their offices but were instead working "from home" or "from outside." (NOTE: The Minister of Agriculture is the acting Minister of Transportation. END NOTE) ¶2. (U) Although many of the 30 Sadrist MPs were present in the cafeteria of the Council of Representatives (CoR) on December 5, including Legal Committee chair Baha al-Araji and Falah al-Shenshal, they did not enter the chamber. (Note and comment: The CoR did not hold a session on December 5, the first day of this week it was scheduled to meet, because it did not achieve quorum. We believe that approximately 163 MPs, including the Sadrists, "signed in," but the number in the chamber when the roll was called never reached 138. While quorum would probably have been reached if all the Sadrist delegates present in the cafeteria had entered the chamber, it would be wrong to attribute the lack of quorum solely to their boycott. There are 275 MPs, of whom 245 are not Sadrists; therefore, at least 107 non-Sadrist MPs were not in the room during roll call. End note and comment.) ¶3. (C) Asked by PolOff what the Prime Minister's strategy for dealing with the Sadrist "temporary withdrawal" was, PM advisor Sadiq al-Rikabi noted that Iraq was a free country and that the Sadrists could choose whether to be in or out of the government. The PM echoed these comments in his December 5 press conference when he answered a question about the Sadrists' decision to boycott, "I have repeatedly said that these issues are up to the current, parties, and movements. They are free to consider things the way they like in today's Iraq that allows for freedom of opinion and pluralism." Al-Rikabi said that there was "confusion" within the ranks of the Sadrists, with some of them dissatisfied with the "temporary withdrawal" decision. (Note: Legal Committee Rapporteur Muhammed Shareef told poloffs that Committee Chair Baha al-Ariji expressed his disagreement in private with the Sadrist boycott. End note.) The PM, al-Rikabi continued, planned to give the Sadrist ministers "a limited time" to reconsider their decision. If they did not return to work after this "limited time", al-Rikabi implied, the PM would replace them. (COMMENT: Rumors and reports of cabinet changes involving the Sadrist ministers have been ongoing for weeks, and the PM noted in his press conference that he intended to seek some changes in his government, but he did not single out the Sadrists. END COMMENT). ¶4. (SBU) CoR Speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani told MPs on December 5 that he had formed a small committee (comprised of three MPs, one each from Tawafuq, the Shi'a coalition, and the Kurdish Alliance) to persuade the Sadrist MPs to return to the CoR. Khalilzad