Saudis may aid Sunnis if U.S. gone, paper says

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in a war against Iraqi Shiites if the United States withdraws from Iraq, The New York Times reported on its Web site Tuesday, citing American and Arab diplomats.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia delivered that message to Dick Cheney during the U.S. vice president's brief visit last month to Riyadh, the newspaper said. Cheney traveled to Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally and the world's top oil exporter, to discuss Iraq.

King Abdullah expressed strong opposition to talks between the U.S. and Iran, which is largely Shiite, the Times said.

The White House could not immediately be reached to comment on the report.

Until now Saudi officials have promised the U.S. that they would refrain from aiding Iraq's Sunni insurgency, but only as long as the U.S. remains in Iraq, the Times reported.

The Saudis fear a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq would open the door to a massacre of the country's minority Sunni population, the newspaper said.

Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal, who resigned Monday, recently fired a consultant who wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post suggesting that the Saudis would back Iraq's Muslim Sunnis in the event of a wider sectarian conflict.

Sunni, Shiite leaders confer

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi political leaders are in talks in an effort to find common ground among rival groups as Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has come under fire from powerful politicians who accuse him of not doing enough to stop the sectarian violence.

Two key political figures, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni who met with President Bush on Tuesday in Washington, and senior Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, have been linked to behind-the-scenes efforts to form a new bloc in parliament that would replace the alliance now supporting al-Maliki's government.

"What is going on now is positive when the aim, contrary to what has been said, is to broaden the government's political base and not an attempt to undermine its ideology or to search for alternatives," al-Maliki told reporters in his first public comments on these efforts.

The White House has denied that any plans were afoot to dump al-Maliki.

Bush met al-Maliki in Jordan last month and assured him of his backing, and last week had talks in Washington with al-Hakim.

Political supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, forming one of the biggest blocs in the government, suspended their participation in the cabinet in protest against al-Maliki's meeting with Bush.

Some officials involved in the talks denied reports that they were working to unseat al-Maliki or isolate al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is accused of death-squad killings that fuel the Sunni-Shiite violence.

Also

U.S. casualties: Five more U.S. troops have died in Iraq, including three Marines killed in combat in volatile Anbar province, the U.S. command said Tuesday.

Kerry plans visit: Sen. John Kerry, whose botched joke about U.S. troops in Iraq dealt a blow to his presidential ambitions, will travel to Iraq this weekend to meet with soldiers, political leaders and military officials.

Cameraman killed: A television cameraman working for The Associated Press was shot to death while covering clashes in Mosul.

Seattle Times news services