Obama meets Maliki as war still tears Iraq

WASHINGTON: President Obama's proud political boast is that he ended the Iraq war. But on Friday, he will come face-to-face with a man who is still fighting it -- Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The Iraqi leader visits the White House as Al-Qaeda sows terror in Iraq's community, with a surge of suicide and car bombings, drawing analogies to the darkest days of sectarian bloodletting during the US occupation.

Two years after the last US soldier left Iraq, Americans have largely moved on from a war which killed nearly 4,500 US troops, tens of thousands of civilians and drained the US Treasury.

But the carnage in Iraq -- where more than 700 people have died in violence this month alone -- is stirring fears the country may again slide into an abyss exacerbated by the brutal war rending Syria next door.

"The security situation is not only bad... it not only could reverse all of the gains of 2008, it could tear the country apart if both Maliki and the United States do not act quickly," said James Jeffrey, until last year, the US ambassador to Iraq, who is now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

General David Petraeus, who led the troop surge that quelled the last sectarian explosion in Iraq, warned in a Foreign Policy article the situation was so dire the sacrifices of US troops could be squandered.

"The news out of Iraq is, once again, exceedingly grim," Petraeus wrote, accusing Iraqi leaders of sectarian infighting and of wasting a chance for a better future.

Maliki, blamed by some Iraq watchers in Washington for marginalizing Sunnis and sinking a well of sectarian anger for extremists to exploit, is blunt about the challenge.

"The terrorists found a second chance," he said in a speech in Washington Thursday, warning Al-Qaeda and allied groups were a "virus."

Maliki has a wish list of US military hardware, including attack helicopters to go with already ordered fighter jets to help his ill-equipped military battle insurgents.

There is a certain irony in his request -- given the failure of Iraqi and US negotiators to agree legal immunity for US troops that would have allowed a residual American force to stay behind in Iraq.

Iraq's slide back into violence has revived questions here about the wisdom of the complete US withdrawal, the Maliki government's conduct since and America's future relationship with a nation it invaded in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.