BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. officials have met figures from some Sunni Arab insurgent groups but have so far not received any commitment for them to lay down their arms, Western diplomats in Baghdad and neighboring Jordan said Wednesday.
hree more U.S. troops were killed in
Iraq — two of them in roadside bombings, the U.S. command said.
The meetings, described as being in the initial stage, have not included members of al-Qaida in Iraq or like-minded religious extremists, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Contacts have taken place in western Iraq, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, according to two diplomats based in the Jordanian capital, Amman. One of them said talks might shift to Egypt "at some point."
U.S. officials have said establishing a dialogue with the insurgents was difficult because of the lack of a unified command structure among the various groups and the absence of a leadership capable of speaking for most of them.
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the United States is involved in talks on promoting Iraq's political process with "all sorts of groups," but declined to say if any insurgents were among them.
However, a Western diplomat in Baghdad who is familiar with the dialogue said the U.S. was reaching out to "Sunni Arab nationalists" and "some Islamists from the Shiite and Sunni sides," many of whom have grievances about jobs and reconstruction money.
"We hear all the time that they are interested in coming in but we haven't seen signs," the diplomat said. "We want to see attacks stopped. The question is, can they help end the violence if they want to join."
The United States is promoting efforts to form a national unity government in which Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders would offer Sunni Arab figures key positions to try to curb the insurgency.
Talks on a new government are due to begin in earnest after formal certification this week of the results of the Dec. 15 parliament elections. Shiite religious parties won 128 of the 275 seats — but not enough to govern without partners.
Sunni Arabs have insisted that the Shiites give up control of the police in the new government because of alleged human rights abuses by the Shiite-run security services.
You have to look at this story from a political context. President Bush is under the gun for providing some type of measurable result in the Iraq war--otherwise, the American public is going to sour on the Republican Party, and vote the Republicans out of Congress in November's midterm elections. Once the Democrats gain control of Congress, they gain control of the committees, the investigations, and the subpoena powers to look into the multitude of scandals that have been coming out of the Republican-controlled government, and the Bush White House. Bush just can't keep saying we're winning in Iraq, when a majority of the American public doesn't believe him. So how do you get out of this mess? Simple. You announce a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, before the November elections. Of course, the White House spin-meisters will proclaim that the Iraqi military has been sufficiently trained and equipped to police and fight the insurgency without the U.S. military's aid, which would provide the impetus for this partial withdrawal of American forces. There is just one small problem. On the September 29, 2005 issue of USA Today, the senior commander of coalition forces in Iraq, General George Casey, said that the number of Iraqi combat battalions capable of fighting without U.S. support has dropped from three, to one battalion. In other words, the American training of Iraqi forces has been another disaster. But President Bush needs to provide some type of success in Iraq--and a partial withdrawal of American forces in the summer, or the fall, could be packaged by the spin-meisters as a success for the midterm elections. And how do you allow for a withdrawal of American forces during an insurgency?
You negotiate with the insurgents. If American officials can negotiate with the Sunni insurgent groups to stop or reduce the number of attacks, in exchange for some political concessions in the new Iraqi government, then Bush can announce a partial withdrawal of American troops before the midterm elections, providing a major advantage in maintaining Republican control of Congress.
Now I'm not saying that U.S. officials meeting with Sunni insurgent groups is necessarily bad. The Sunni insurgents need to be involved in the political process for creating a new coalition government in Iraq--otherwise you will have a country divided into Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni factions, with civil war breaking out among the three factions. Nor am I going to say that Bush is wrong for not using this policy to help the Republicans in the midterm elections. There are huge political advantages and consequences in negotiating with the insurgents. But what worries me here, is the possibility of the Bush White House employing short-term political calculations to benefit their Republican control of the government, over that of a workable resolution in Iraq, and the long-term stability of the Middle East. Too many times, we have seen the Bush White House make decisions based on politics, rather than the best interests for the nation.
Can you say same old...same old?
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