By CHRISTINE HAUSER - The way American officials inform the Iraqi government about raids by coalition forces will be reviewed, a spokesman for the United States military command in Iraq said today, after the country’s prime minister criticized an American-backed operation against a Shiite militia enclave.

The American military also said in a statement that one sailor and four Marines were killed by enemy fire in Anbar province. The American spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said today during a news conference televised live from Baghdad that American forces were using an “aggressive offensive approach” in the city of Ramadi in Anbar province.

Cooperation between American and Iraqi forces can be a sensitive balancing act, and it has political overtones for the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Mr. Maliki complained on Wednesday that the Iraqi government should have been informed about the raid into a Shiite enclave in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, and should have a role in such operations.

His remarks indicated that Mr. Maliki finds himself having to navigate between the frustrated Shiites who form his political base and the American government that wields power in Iraq.

American authorities have an interest in showing that Iraqi officials and forces are taking a lead in running the political and military affairs of the country. The Bush administration says that it intends to train Iraqi forces sufficiently for them to take over security and allow the eventual withdrawal of American troops. But American forces have kept control in some areas in part because they do not believe that the Iraqi forces are up to the job yet.

On the protocol of apprising Iraqi officials of military operations, General Caldwell said that this was an issue of “tremendous sensitivity.” Each day, he said, American and Iraqi forces are conducting raids all over the country.

He said the raid into Sadr City early on Wednesday was conducted by Iraq forces and backed by “coalition advisers,” and was aimed at two targets.

One was approved in advance by the government of Iraq. But at one point during the operation, the troops involved received information about the possible location of an American soldier of Iraqi descent who has been missing since Monday. Based on that information, Iraqi forces involved in the raid entered a mosque to search. They found nothing.

The prime minister was apparently not notified of this element of the raid, General Caldwell said.

“U.S. coalition forces and the Government of Iraq security element will go back and review our procedures to understand why the prime minister, as he states, had not been personally notified,” he said.

“It’s their country — it’s a sovereign nation,” General Caldwell said. “Our protocol is such that, if we feel it’s of a real sensitive nature, something that you would notify a senior person about, then we are going to notify them.”

In the raid on Wednesday, Iraqi forces and American advisers entered the far northern tip of the Sadr City district, an area dominated by a Shiite guerilla leader known as Abu Dera, and came under fire. Air support was called in, and American aircraft fired high-caliber guns at militiamen, a military official said. Three people were detained.

Residents said that Abu Dera, whose real name is Ismail al-Zerjawi, was not one of the people captured, but that his son was wounded and his cousin was killed in the fighting.

Once loyal to Mr. Sadr, Abu Dera broke away in 2004 and now runs his own influential crime ring. He is popular among hard-line Shiites, who call him the Zarqawi of the Shiites — a reference to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda leader who urged Sunnis to kill Shiites.

The American military reported that 10 militiamen were killed and 2 were wounded in the fighting, which residents said lasted several hours. Iraqi authorities put the total casualties at 20.

On Wednesday, Mr. Maliki also put himself at odds with the American government in remarks apparently tailored to a domestic audience, saying that no one had the right to set a “timetable” for the Iraqi government.

His comments contrasted with statements by the top two United States officials in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who said on Tuesday that a timetable for political measures had been accepted by the Iraqi government.

“This is a democratically elected government,” General Caldwell said today concerning Mr. Maliki’s reaction. “They are here to answer to their people.”

General Caldwell said the United States and Iraqi governments share an “end goal” of maintaining a representational government that fights extremism. But he said that the role of United States forces and American cooperation with the Iraqis was changing in nature.

He also said that the United States was using checkpoint searches and unmanned surveillance aircraft to try to locate the missing American soldier, who was off duty and visiting members of his family when he was seized, handcuffed, forced into a vehicle and taken away by men whose faces were covered.

The American military said that 96 of its troops have died so far in October, the most in one month since October 2005, when the same number was killed, according to The Associated Press.

Source: New York Times