[Texgreen] Insurgents in Iraq offer peace

[Roger Baker]

But you might say Bush would never negotiate or agree to conditions.  
Wrong, he just gave in to the demands made by North Korea:

Kim agreed to all of these conditions 10 years ago; his position has  
never changed. Only Bush has backed-down.

<http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m30445&hd=&size=1&l=e>

-- Roger

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<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2251354.ece>

  Robert Fisk: Iraqi insurgents offer peace in return for US concessions
For the first time, Sunni insurgents disclose their conditions for  
ceasefire in Iraq
Published: 09 February 2007

For the first time, one of Iraq's principal insurgent groups has set  
out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American and British  
forces to leave the country they invaded almost four years ago.

The present terms would be impossible for any US administration to  
meet - but the words of Abu Salih Al-Jeelani, one of the military  
leaders of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement show that the  
groups which have taken more than 3,000 American lives are actively  
discussing the opening of contacts with the occupation army.

Al-Jeelani's group, which also calls itself the "20th Revolution  
Brigades'', is the military wing of the original insurgent  
organisation that began its fierce attacks on US forces shortly after  
the invasion of 2003. The statement is, therefore, of potentially  
great importance, although it clearly represents only the views of  
Sunni Muslim fighters.

Shia militias are nowhere mentioned. The demands include the  
cancellation of the entire Iraqi constitution - almost certainly  
because the document, in effect, awards oil-bearing areas of Iraq to  
Shia and Kurds, but not to the minority Sunni community. Yet the  
Sunnis remain Washington's principal enemies in the Iraqi war.

"Discussions and negotiations are a principle we believe in to  
overcome the situation in which Iraqi bloodletting continues," al- 
Jeelani said in a statement that was passed to The Independent.  
"Should the Americans wish to negotiate their withdrawal from our  
country and leave our people to live in peace, then we will negotiate  
subject to specific conditions and circumstances."

Al-Jeelani suggests the United Nations, the Arab League or the  
Islamic Conference might lead such negotiations and would have to  
guarantee the security of the participants.

Then come the conditions:

* The release of 5,000 detainees held in Iraqi prisons as "proof of  
goodwill".

* Recognition "of the legitimacy of the resistance and the legitimacy  
of its role in representing the will of the Iraqi people".

* An internationally guaranteed timetable for all agreements.

* The negotiations to take place in public.

* The resistance "must be represented by a committee comprising the  
representatives of all the jihadist brigades".

* The US to be represented by its ambassador in Iraq and the most  
senior commander.

It is not difficult to see why the Americans would object to those  
terms. They will not want to talk to men they have been describing as  
"terrorists" for the past four years. And if they were ever to  
concede that the "resistance" represented "the will of the Iraqi  
people" then their support for the elected Iraqi government would  
have been worthless.

Indeed, the insurgent leader specifically calls for the "dissolution  
of the present government and the revoking of the spurious elections  
and the constitution..."

He also insists that all agreements previously entered into by Iraqi  
authorities or US forces should be declared null and void.

But there are other points which show that considerable discussion  
must have gone on within the insurgency movement - possibly involving  
the group's rival, the Iraqi Islamic Army.

They call, for example, for the disbandment of militias and the  
outlawing of militia organisations - something the US government has  
been urging the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to do for months.

The terms also include the legalisation of the old Iraqi army, an  
"Anglo-American commitment to rebuild Iraq and reconstruct all war  
damage" - something the occupying powers claim they have been trying  
to do for a long time - and integrating "resistance fighters" into  
the recomposed army.

Al-Jeelani described President George Bush's new plans for countering  
the insurgents as "political chicanery" and added that "on the field  
of battle, we do not believe that the Americans are able to diminish  
the capability of the resistance fighters to continue the struggle to  
liberate Iraq from occupation ...

"The resistance groups are not committing crimes to be granted a  
pardon by America, we are not looking for pretexts to cease our  
jihad... we fight for a divine aim and one of our rights is the  
liberation and independence of our land of Iraq."

There will, the group says, be no negotiations with Mr Maliki's  
government because they consider it "complicit in the slaughter of  
Iraqis by militias, the security apparatus and death squads". But  
they do call for the unity of Iraq and say they "do not recognise the  
divisions among the Iraqi people".

It is not difficult to guess any American response to those  
proposals. But FLN [National Liberation Front] contacts with France  
during the 1954-62 war of independence by Algeria began with such a  
series of demands - equally impossible to meet but which were  
eventually developed into real proposals for a French withdrawal.

What is unclear, of course, is the degree to which al-Jeelani's  
statement represents the collective ideas of the Sunni insurgents.  
And, ominously, no mention is made of al-Qa'ida.