Obama rules...
Troops found the burned bodies of 12 policemen as they recaptured the town of Ishaqi in Salaheddin province from Sunni Arab insurgents, police and a doctor said.
It was one of the closest points to the capital that the militants reached in the offensive that saw them overrun a large part of northern and north-central Iraq this week.
Troops also retook the nearby Muatassam area of Salaheddin, the colonel said.
On Friday night, police and residents expelled militants from another town in the province, Dhuluiyah, where they had set up checkpoints, witnesses said.
"Residents are now firing into the air" in celebration, witness Abu Abdullah told AFP.
Security forces have also held fast in the Muqdadiyah area of Diyala province, preventing militants from taking the town in heavy fighting, a police colonel said.
In Samarra, reinforcements were awaiting orders to launch a counter-offensive against areas north of the city, including Dur and Tikrit, seized by the militants earlier this week, an army colonel said.
North of Baghdad, gunmen today attacked a convoy carrying the head of the anti-corruption watchdog, sparking clashes that killed nine policemen, an officer said.
Security forces have generally performed poorly, with some abandoning their vehicles and positions and discarding their uniforms.
But they have been bolstered by a flood of volunteers since Sistani urged Iraqis Friday to join up to defend the country.
A representative of Sistani, who is adored by Shiites but rarely appears in public, made the call from the shrine city of Karbala, south of Baghdad.
A Qatar-based union of Sunni Muslim clerics on Saturday denounced the call, saying developments in Iraq were a "result of oppression and exclusion of people that wanted freedom".
Obama said while the US was willing to help, Iraq needed to move to heal the deep divide between the Shiite-led government and the Sunni Arab minority, whose resentment jihadists have exploited.
Washington "will not involve itself in military action in the absence of a political plan by the Iraqis that gives us some assurance that they're prepared to work together," Obama said.
"Any action that we may take to provide assistance to Iraqi security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by Iraq's leaders to set aside sec- tarian differences." Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby declined to say what kind of response was being prepared. He confirmed aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and its strike group were nearby and ready to act. The navy said the carrier group was in the Arabian Sea.
State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf dismissed Republican lawmakers' criticism a residual US force would have prevented the Iraqi army's collapse.
"When we left Iraq, after years of sacrifice and American taxpayer money, and certainly our troops felt that sacrifice more than anyone, the Iraqis had an opportunity," Harf told reporters.
Instead, Iraqi leaders "created a climate where there were vulnerabilities when it came to the cohesion of the Iraqi army," Harf said.