Rice, Rumsfeld in joint push for Iraq unity govt

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld smiles as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (L) shakes hands with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani at the Presidential Council Office in Baghdad yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

The surprise visits by the two top US officials, who arrived separately, came just hours after Iraq's most wanted man -- al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- voiced new defiance of Washington in his first video appearance, posted on a website. Iraq is still without a new government four months after a December election for the country's first full-term post-Saddam Hussein parliament and raging violence has raised fears the country is sliding into civil war.

A long-running deadlock over the prime minister's job was broken last week after Shia leader Jawad al-Maliki was nominated and he said Tuesday he hoped to have his cabinet line-up ready within two weeks.

Rice and Rumsfeld together met Maliki and relected Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Wednesday but the details of their discussions were not immediately known.

Rice earlier hailed Maliki's designation, saying his government would be key to breaking the sectarian violence that is engulfing Iraq.

"It is a government of national unity and it is one that may be the greatest threat to efforts to separate the Iraqis and turn them against one another," Rice told the accompanying press.

She suggested that the video message from Zarqawi, who has a 25 million dollar US bounty on his head, was a reaction to the threat to his influence that the political breakthrough posed.

"I think Zarqawi knows very well that... this government is representative of the broad Iraqi populace," Rice said.