Filed at 9:35 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Fresh demands from the Shi'ite Alliance over the creation of an Iraqi government on Wednesday threatened to prolong a political paralysis that Washington says is playing into the hands of insurgents.
Acting parliament speaker Adnan Pachachi said Iraqi leaders would discuss a national unity government at the next session on Monday and was optimistic of a breakthrough before then in spite of the Shi'ite Alliance's reluctance to drop its choice of Ibrahim al-Jaafari for prime minister.
``I spoke to the heads of all the political blocs and I sensed a true intent from all to push the political process forward,'' Pachachi said. ``From now until the 17th of this month, we believe there will be an agreement on some of the problems.''
Elections for the new government ended four months ago and the United States and Britain have been pressing Iraqi leaders to agree on who will lead it, fearful the widening vacuum emboldens insurgents seeking to undermine the political process.
A car bomb killed at least six people at an army checkpoint near the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Wednesday, police and witnesses said.
DROP JAAFARI
Much depends on whether the Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) can drop Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister without splitting the bloc apart.
Kurdish and Arab Sunni leaders have told the Alliance that they flatly reject Jaafari as a nominee. The Alliance held a round of talks on Wednesday and was expected to meet again but no breakthrough was expected, Alliance sources said.
Before any name to replace Jaafari can be put to a parliament vote, the speaker of the house and his two deputies must be elected, followed by a vote for a three-man presidential council, which then has to unanimously choose a prime minister.
Then the prime minister has one month to name his cabinet and put it to parliament for approval.
Alliance leaders insist that a parliament speaker, the prime minister and the president are agreed on by all parties before the bloc goes to parliament, sources in the bloc said.
``We prefer to have it all as one package, one deal, before going to the parliament so at least now we should accelerate the negotiations and meetings,'' said Alliance official Reda Jawad Taki, an official in the powerful Shi'ite Islamist party SCIRI.
As Iraqi leaders struggled to break the stalemate, former President Saddam Hussein was doing his best to outwit the court convened to try him for crimes against humanity in the killing of 148 Shi'ites in the 1980s.
During a brief session on Wednesday with no defendants, chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman said Saddam Hussein and his half brother Barzan al-Tikriti refused to provide the court with samples of their signatures. Saddam and seven co-accused are due in court again on Monday.
ARAB MEETING BOYCOTT
The Shi'ite-dominated Baghdad government on Wednesday boycotted an Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo to protest comments by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said last week that Shi'ites in Arab countries were more loyal to Shi'ite Iran.
Mubarak said civil war had already started in Iraq, where fresh violence on Wednesday reminded Iraqi politicians that they will face an enormous task in tackling insurgent bombings, kidnappings and death squads once a government is formed.
A policeman and three civilians were killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol car in central Baghdad, police said.
In what has a become a routine event, police said they found the bodies of three men in different areas of the capital.