Iraq Amnesty Plan May Cover Attacks On U.S. Military Leader Also Backs Talks With Resistance
Flyingmonk
Leader Also Backs Talks With Resistance
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/14/AR200...
BAGHDAD, June 14 -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday
proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as
part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be
released within days. The plan is likely to include pardons for those
who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.
Maliki's declaration of openness to talks with some members of Sunni
armed factions, and the prospect of pardons, are concessions that
previous, interim governments had avoided. The statements marked the
first time a leader from Iraq's governing Shiite religious parties has
publicly embraced national reconciliation, welcomed dialogue with armed
groups and proposed a limited amnesty.
Reconciliation could include an amnesty for those "who weren't involved
in the shedding of Iraqi blood," Maliki told reporters at a Baghdad
news conference. "Also, it includes talks with the armed men who
opposed the political process and now want to turn back to political
activity."
Maliki stressed that he had not yet met with the Sunni resistance and
added, "We will talk to those whose hands are not stained with blood,
and we hope they would rethink their strategy." He vowed that they
"will not be able to interrupt the political process, either by wanting
to bring back the old regime, or imposing an ugly, ethnic new regime
upon Iraq."
As Maliki spoke, Iraqi soldiers and police led the first day of a
security crackdown in Baghdad. A force of more than 30,000 uniformed
Iraqi security personnel, backed by more than 30,000 U.S.-led foreign
troops, enforced the first day of a dusk-to-dawn curfew and stepped up
checkpoints throughout the capital. Iraq's Interior Ministry said
Tuesday that no additional troops were brought in for the operation.
Thanks to Wednesday's expanded checkpoints -- one of the first clear
efforts of Maliki's new government -- there were traffic-snarling jams
across Baghdad. "We have noticed less and less people shopping, but I
would rather have security than more customers," said Wisam Saad, 29,
who stood in a shop empty of customers, surrounded by cigar boxes,
teapots and trinkets.
Iraq's previous, transitional government, led by Ibrahim al-Jafari, a
Shiite, launched a similar crackdown last year but it failed to deter
the violence. After elections in December selected Iraq's first
full-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Maliki won
appointment as prime minister. His month-old administration has seen
rapid movement on some long-standing demands from Sunni opponents of
the Shiite governments, such as the U.S.-Iraqi agreement to free
thousands of detainees in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq this month. Hundreds
are due to be released from the Abu Ghraib prison on Thursday.
Maliki's security crackdown and talk of amnesty and reconciliation came
a day after President Bush's unannounced visit to Baghdad's heavily
fortified Green Zone. Bush came with what he said were twin messages
for Maliki: The United States would not abandon Iraq, but Iraq needed
to do more to tackle its problems.
The violence continued Wednesday. A bomb placed in a parked car
exploded in northern Baghdad, missing the police patrol that was its
apparent target but killing four civilians. A photographer for the
Reuters news service, caught in the traffic, reported witnessing
bystanders sticking bars into vehicles in an effort to pull out victims
who were burning alive.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has long talked of negotiations and a
possible limited amnesty to help end Iraq's violence. However, Maliki's
statements Wednesday marked the greatest public show of willingness to
compromise from governments led by the Shiite religious parties.
The Arab League on Wednesday postponed a reconciliation conference for
Iraq that had been set for August. Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, a top adviser
to Maliki, said the conference was delayed in part so Iraq could decide
who might be eligible for any amnesty. It was not clear how the
government would verify which insurgents have been responsible for
which types of attacks.
"The government has in mind somehow to do reconciliation, and one way
to do it is to offer an amnesty, but not a sort of unconditional
amnesty," Kadhimi said in a telephone interview. "We can see if somehow
those who are so-called resistance can be accepted if they have not
been involved in any kind of criminal behavior, such as killing
innocent people or damaging infrastructure, and even infrastructure if
it is minor will be pardoned."
The reconciliation effort pioneered by South Africa after the collapse
of apartheid might be a model, Kadhimi said. "One way was to admit what
you have done and you will be forgiven, and maybe parts of this can be
considered. Because once we see people coming forward to admit what
they have done, and it's within the areas the government has the right
to pardon, it could happen."
Asked about clemency for those who attacked U.S. troops, he said:
"That's an area where we can see a green line. There's some sort of
preliminary understanding between us and the MNF-I," the U.S.-led
Multi-National Force-Iraq, "that there is a patriotic feeling among the
Iraqi youth and the belief that those attacks are legitimate acts of
resistance and defending their homeland. These people will be pardoned
definitely, I believe."
Asked about pardons for those who had attacked Iraqi forces, he said:
"This needs to be carefully studied or designed so maybe the family of
those individuals killed have a right to make a claim at the court,
because that is a public right. Or maybe the government can compensate
them."
U.S. diplomatic officials have said previously that they were
encouraging dialogue among Iraq's many rival factions, but none has
confirmed U.S. backing for an amnesty offer.
Maliki also addressed the problem of militias allied with his Shiite
religious bloc. "Our success in the national reconciliation plan and
our success in providing services will give . . . a message that there
is no need anymore for militias, because security is under the
government's control." He had earlier proposed that militias be
absorbed into Iraq's security forces.
Maliki's statements come as there is growing openness to dialogue on
all sides of Iraq's ethnic and religious divides. Talabani told
reporters at a news conference in the Kurdish north last weekend that
he believed 2006 might be the year of peace settlements for Iraq.
Similarly, the top Sunni Arab in Iraq's new government said this week
that he believed a peace deal was "very close." Salam al-Zobaie, the
deputy prime minister, said in an interview in his Baghdad office this
week that the difference this time was that the new Shiite-led
government was indicating openness to compromise.
Asked about proposals of amnesty for Sunni insurgents, Zobaie said the
previous Shiite governments "closed the door" on the Sunnis "and forced
them to take up the gun to defend themselves. We should be talking
about an apology, not amnesty."
Bahaa al-Araji, a lawmaker and supporter of Shiite cleric and militia
leader Moqtada al-Sadr, said Wednesday that members of the governing
Shiite alliance were formally asked by their bloc this week to evaluate
who might be acceptable partners for dialogue on the Sunni side.
Speaking before Maliki's news conference, Araji rejected some of what
he said were too-easy peace terms being floated by Talabani. He said
Talabani was speaking from the perspective of a northern Kurd spared
the scale of violence that has bloodied the rest of Iraq.
Rather than a reconciliation conference, Araji said, the best step for
peace in Iraq would be for leaders of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish blocs
in parliament to come to terms among themselves.
"That will take care of 90 percent of the people" in Iraq's conflict.
The remaining 10 percent "will then be isolated and exposed, so all
their evil steps are obvious to us and to them," Araji said. Military
forces could deal with the remaining hard-liners after any
reconciliation, he said.
Asked if he was optimistic about prospects for an easing of the
killings, Araji cited the Feb. 22 bombing of the golden-domed Shiite
shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Destruction of the shrine spurred
sectarian violence to new and lasting heights.
"Not as optimistic as I was six months ago," the Shiite lawmaker said.
"More than I was three months ago."