Key members of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government made a rare trip to the Sunni bastion of Anbar Province Thursday to pledge more than $120 million in reconstruction money. Iraqi and US officials call it a significant step toward political reconciliation. Critics say it's too little, too late.
Mr. Maliki did not make the trip, but dispatched top deputies who met with Sunni sheikhs, Anbar officials, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, who was there as part of a tour through Iraq.
The overture to war-torn Anbar, long an insurgent stronghold where Sunni tribes have joined the US fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq, comes as Maliki is facing criticism from both US lawmakers and Iraq's Sunni politicians for failing to mend widening political and sectarian fault lines within the government ...
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