Sadr's 30-member bloc immediately suspended any participation in parliament out of protest to the bombing, and resolved to not participate "until the government takes realistic steps to rebuild the Askariya shrine" (they also called for the rebuilding of all damaged Shiite and Sunni mosques). This action by the Sadrists is seen as a further blow to the already weakened al-Maliki government and will further impede the legislative process towards national reconciliation in Iraq. Maliki had just the day before been visited by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte who pressured him for quicker results against sectarian violence, and on Sunday 10 June 2007 Admiral William J. Fallon told al-Maliki that an increasing number of U.S. Congressmen were opposed to continuing to give aid to Iraq, and also opposed to maintaining the American military presence there, and that if the Iraqi government wanted to counter that mounting opposition, it needed to be making progress, by July.