HIGH-RANKING US military officers have expressed frustration with the Iraqi Government because of its failure to confront corrupt officials and death squad leaders who have infiltrated Iraq’s security forces.

A series of unprecedented comments by US officers indicated a growing anxiety over whether Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, would confront his two biggest Shia coalition partners, including the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Both have been linked to death squad killings.

One US military official, who has knowledge of national operations, said that Mr Maliki had cancelled plans to sweep Baghdad’s Sadr City, the bastion of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army militia, at the start of this week.

The al-Mahdi Army is blamed for much of the sectarian violence plaguing Baghdad, which the US and Iraqi forces are trying to stamp out with their city-wide offensive, Operation Together Forward, which was launched in June.

The official, like other Iraqi and US officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the politically sensitive nature of the subject.

A high-ranking Iraqi security official told The Times that pressure from Shia politicians had forced the Iraqi Army to stop fighting the al-Madhi Army this month in the southern city of Diwaniyah. Such political pressure had also stopped Iraqi Army operations against militias elsewhere, he said.

The official made clear that the Iraqi Government was reluctant to take on Hojatoleslam al-Sadr, who has 32 seats in Parliament, the largest number in Mr Maliki’s ruling coalition. The official said that Shia militia bastions such as Sadr City would be the last places tackled as part of Operation Together Forward, in which US and Iraqi forces seal off neighborhoods and search them house by house.

Faced with such hesitation on the part of the Government, US military brass are growing worried. “There is corruption and problems inside some of these ministries but it’s got to be dealt with, and it ought to be dealt with by the Prime Minister and the folks that are inside this Government. I think the time is short for them to deal with that because this cannot go on like this,” one officer said.

Another officer warned that the US military will have its moment of truth when it will pressure the Iraqi Government. “We are now at a time when we have a little bit of influence there. There is going to come a time when I would argue we are going to have to force this issue [of the militias],” the officer said.

The officer criticised the degradation of Iraqi ministries under the present Government, under which the Sadr movement has run out of trained professionals from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the board of antiquities and heritage.

“I can tell you in every single ministry how they are using the ministry to fill up the coffers of political parties. They are doing that because that is exactly what Saddam Hussein did,” the officer said, referring to the culture of bribery and corruption inaugurated by Saddam during his 35-year reign.

The Americans are hoping that Mr Maliki will reform his Government. “It’s going to take time for the Government to cleanse itself . . . and I’ve got to give it time to do that. I hope that I have a Prime Minister that’s going to take that on,” the senior officer said.

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