Sen. Clinton urges Iraqi PM Maliki be replaced

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton on Wednesday urged Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki be replaced because he was unable to resolve differences between warring political factions.

She echoed a call made on Monday by the chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, for Maliki to go because he was not making any headway in bridging the rifts.

"Iraqi leaders have not met their own political benchmarks to share power, modify the de-Baathification laws, pass an oil law, schedule provincial elections, and amend their constitution," Clinton, a senator from New York, said in a statement.

"I share Senator Levin's hope that the Iraqi parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks," she said.

Her statement came hours after U.S. President George W. Bush offered renewed support for Maliki but acknowledged mistakes had been made during the more than four-year war and that many were frustrated by the lack of progress on political goals by Iraqi leaders.