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U.S. withdrawal still on track, Iraqi PM says

BAGHDAD — Massive bombings and scattered daily violence won’t slow American troops from leaving Iraq by the end of 2011, Iraq’s prime minister said Wednesday.

Nouri al-Maliki blamed explosions in two major Iraqi cities a day earlier on al-Qaida extremists and former Baath Party loyalists. He said both groups, whom he blamed for three massive bombings since August, seek to derail Iraq’s fragile political process.

But the Dec. 31, 2011, deadline for the U.S. military withdrawal, he said, remains “in a final form, with fixed timetables.”

“It is something we underscore many times, and with the U.S. side as well,” al-Maliki said during an hour-long news conference in central Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone. “So the withdrawal will not be affected.”

Tuesday’s bombings killed nine people and wounded scores in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul. They happened one week after a series of suicide bombers in Baghdad killed 127 and injured more than 500.

Massive bombings in August and October, also in Baghdad, killed 250. Nearly all the attacks in Baghdad targeted government buildings.

Al-Maliki said the attackers were seeking to scuttle Iraq’s March 7 national elections.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, is running for re-election on a campaign that promises security and unity in Iraq.

“They want to damage the political process,” the prime minister said of those behind the bombings.

“The elections will definitely take place on time whatever the terrorists do,” he said, adding that holding the vote would deal a “body blow” to insurgents seeking to thwart Iraq’s political process.

Al-Maliki also offered a reward of 100 million Iraqi dinars (US $86,670) to anyone who can help lead Iraqi security forces to garages or other hideouts where extremists assemble car bombs.

Top Iraqi security officials told parliament last week that car bombs are increasingly being manufactured in Baghdad workshops and prepared near the target sites.