http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/newssummary/s_445949.htmlBAGHDAD - For weeks, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari resisted calls to step aside. It took a meeting between the U.N. envoy and the country's most powerful Shiite cleric to break the logjam that Iraqi politicians and U.S. officials could not budge.
Barely 24 hours after saying stepping down was out of the question, al-Jaafari freed Shiite lawmakers Thursday to choose someone else to head the next government and made what appeared to be a farewell speech.
"I cannot allow myself to be an obstacle, or appear to be an obstacle," al-Jaafari said on Iraqi television. He said his fellow Shiite lawmakers should "think with complete freedom and see what they wish to do."
Al-Jaafari's abrupt reversal was an apparent breakthrough in the frustrating struggle to form a national unity government. The Bush administration hopes such a government will curb Iraq's slide toward anarchy and enable the U.S. to begin bringing home its 133,000 troops.
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* should be cheering a cheer. Let's see what happens next.
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