Rape claim threatens Iraq security plan

Al Iraqiya, the station controlled by the Shiite-dominated government, showed Iraqi soldiers and police patrolling calmly and searching cars for weapons, as Baghdad residents spoke approvingly of the newly safe streets.

On the Sunni-controlled stations such as Al Sharqiya and Baghdadiya, a 20-year-old Sunni Muslim woman calling herself Sabreen, with dark scarves covering all but her teary eyes, recounted how three Iraqi police officers raped her.

When U.S. and Iraqi forces planned their renewed security effort in Baghdad, they anticipated attacks from suicide bombers, mortar fire and sectarian gunmen. But this week they are confronting a more formidable threat: the fallout from Sabreen's claims.

The charges are strongly disputed by Iraqi authorities. But regardless of their veracity, the assertions threaten to turn people against the security crackdown, which is as dependent on public perception as it is on supremacy on the streets.

The claims reinforce the view held by some Sunni Muslims that the security plan, far from an evenhanded effort to restore peace, is being executed by militia members determined to extend Shiite Muslim dominance in the new Iraq.

Already, many Iraqis are wondering why Sunni strongholds have been among the first targets of the security effort, but Sadr City, the neighborhood that is home to some of the most militant Shiite fighters, has been virtually untouched.

"Iraq has become the theater for conflict between regional and international entities, and the only victim is an innocent Iraqi citizen," Sheik Abdel Nasser Janabi, a member of a largely Sunni bloc in parliament, said at a news conference Wednesday. "The ongoing incidents bring to light the fact that there are dirty hands within the security plan."

Ahmed Abdel Ghafour Samaraie, the head of the Sunni Endowment, said the rape allegation showed that U.S. and Iraqi forces had not gone far enough to purge thugs from the security forces. "I think the Baghdad security plan in the beginning was good, but the negative aspect is that the militias are penetrating these forces," he said.

On Wednesday he called for an international investigation of the rape allegation. By the end of the day, he was fired from his post by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite. Samaraie disputes the prime minister's authority to fire him.