Iraq's political woes are many, party says

BAGHDAD, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- An arrest issued for the Iraqi vice president is one of many pressing political issues the country is facing after American forces left, a party official said.

A court in the semiautonomous Kurdish provinces of Iraq during the weekend received an arrest warrant and travel ban decree against Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi from the government in Baghdad.

Kurdish judicial authorities said they were withholding certain details because of the sensitivity of the matter, Iraqi news channel al-Sumaria reports.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said legal action would spread beyond Hashemi unless he was detained on charges of overseeing a death squad.

Maysoun al-Damlouji, a spokeswoman for the Iraqiya slate, in a statement carried by the Voices of Iraq news agency, said Hashemi's case is a "small issue" in a larger political crisis in Iraq.

"The continuation of the conditions in Iraq on their current situation shall lead to one-man rule in Iraq and the return of dictatorship, which many fear, not just Iraqiya," she said.

Iraqiya won parliamentary elections last year but was unable to form the majority needed to unseat Maliki. The Sunni-backed alliance suspended participation in the Council of Representatives over the latest political conflict, though some members have returned.

Political turmoil erupted in Iraq almost as soon as U.S. forces left the country in December. Anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr called for a new round of elections amid ongoing disputes, which fall largely along sectarian lines.