WASHINGTON, July 25: US congressional Democrats voiced alarm on Tuesday over Iraq’s denunciation of Israel in the Middle East conflict, and some said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s upcoming address to Congress should be cancelled unless he apologises.

A group of House of Representatives Democrats was circulating a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging the Illinois Republican to secure an apology from Maliki or cancel the address on Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress.

A number of Senate and House Democrats said they planned to protest Maliki’s speech by not attending, or were waiting first to hear if he apologised.

Ron Bonjean, Hastert’s spokesman, said there was no intention of cancelling Maliki’s speech, and he accused Democrats of ‘political gamesmanship during an election year’.

Iraq’s US-backed government on Saturday denounced Israel’s raids on Lebanon and Gaza.

Maliki last week called for ‘the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression’.

Senate Democratic leaders in a letter asked Maliki to clarify his remarks before addressing Congress.

They said his failure to condemn Hezbollah’s “aggression and recognise Israel’s right to defend itself raise serious questions about whether Iraq under your leadership can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East”.

With more than 2,500 US service members killed in the Iraq conflict, more than 18,000 wounded and more than $300 billion in US tax dollars spent, the Senate Democrats said, “Americans deserve to know whether Iraq is an ally in these fights.”

In the House, about 20 Democrats signed the letter to Hastert saying Maliki’s speech should be cancelled unless he apologises, citing mounting evidence ‘that the Iraqi leadership’s goals are not in the best interest of the United States, nor the Middle East’.

Representative Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, said Congress ‘should not supply a platform for supporters of Hezbollah’.

Representative Joseph Crowley, also of New York, said allowing Maliki ‘to address a joint session of Congress after he has condemned Israel, our best ally and the only true democracy in the Middle East, sends the wrong message’.

—Reuters