Rice, Straw in Iraq

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Britain's Jack Straw flew to Baghdad yesterday and pressed Iraqi politicians to break their deadlock and form a unity government that can halt a slide to civil war.

"The Iraqi people are losing patience," Ms Rice said after meeting Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders. On the delay of nearly four months in forming a government since elections, she said she had told them: "Your international allies want to see this done."

Pressure on Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari looked almost irresistible as a leader of the biggest party in his ruling Shi'ite Alliance joined others in publicly breaking ranks and calling on him to step aside in the name of national consensus.

Though they refused to say so in public, it was a message which appeared to have been conveyed, too, by Ms Rice and Mr Straw.

Minority Sunni and Kurdish leaders insist they will not join a Cabinet under Mr Jaafari and want a different Shi'ite nominee.

At stake is the future of an Iraq that Ms Rice said remained "vulnerable" to sectarian civil war three years after the US and British invasion.

Two US crew were presumed dead yesterday after the crash of their helicopter, which the US military said was probably shot down by insurgents.

The chill was palpable when Ms Rice and the embattled Mr Jaafari exchanged small talk on a rainstorm raging outside as reporters looked on. The smiles were frosty, the body language awkward.

No breakthrough is likely to be announced during the two-day trip, officials said - both Iraqi leaders and their visitors are anxious not to give the impression that Washington and London are imposing a new leader over the elected Mr Jaafari.

Mr Jaafari has condemned US "interference" in Iraq's new democracy and an aide said he was ready to fight "to the end".

But his days in office look numbered. For the first time, a leader of the biggest party in the Alliance bloc that nominated him to a second term said publicly he should go: "I call on Jaafari to step down," Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir said.