US rejects Sunni election offer

[cal04]

US embassy officials held unprecedented talks with influential Iraqi Sunni Muslim clerics at the weekend, but turned down an offer under which Sunni political parties would end their boycott of January 30 elections.

"Senior embassy officials met with them," a US official said today.
"They obviously discussed Sunni participation in the political process." The members of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, which groups 3000 Sunni mosques across Iraq, said they would lift their boycott on voting if the US Government provided, under international auspices, a timeframe for US withdrawal from Iraq, the official said.

"We're not going to do that," the official said.
The influential religious body, founded in the days after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, called for a general boycott of the electoral process after US troops attacked the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah on November 8.

The group has been accused of links to Iraq's insurgency across central Iraq, which is waged mainly by Sunni Muslims, angry at the post-Saddam state of the country.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11902910%255E1702,00.html

[LynnTheDem]

1. There's a surprise.

NOT.

And the rebels aren't "mainly Sunni Muslims". Karbala, Najaf, Basra etc aren't Sunnis.

[leftchick]

2. US Embassy Officials?

Negroponte won't get a chance to use his new Death Squads if they agree to any plan!

[ixion]

3. the US won't even discuss it...

I think that says alot about BushCo's true agenda, despite all this talk of 'liberation', it's really no such thing.

[ClintonTyree]

4. Correct.............

it's quite transparent, isn't it? Those 14 permanent military bases they (Halliburton) built weren't just for show. The Bushies aren't leaving until they pump the place dry. We have to make up for those 1,400 (and counting) dead American soldiers somehow.

[bemildred]

5. From Yesterday:

Iraq Sunnis Seek Troop Pullout Timetable

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1135422

The quote I like:

"The Sunni official said the U.S. Embassy initiated the meeting"

[Disturbed]

7. Liberation?

The only liberation will be of Iraq's oil.

[punpirate]

6. The first and very obvious clue to US intentions...

... is that the Committee of Muslim Scholars is forced to deal directly with the Americans, instead of the Iraqi courts, the provisional government or the Iraqi election committee. If the provisional government were actually in charge (as the US asserts), they could come to that determination--if Iraqi sovereignty were as assured as everyone in the administration keeps telling us. The handover in June was purely symbolic, as, I fear, the elections will be.

Iraqi independence was suspected of being a charade from the start--this is merely more evidence of the same. A lot more people are going to die, I'm afraid. We wasted many, many lives propping up the governments of Diem and Thieu. We will waste many more doing the same of Allawi's. *sigh*

[Massachusetts]

8. Good point

[papau]

9. Sad - but very true. :-( I wonder if Allawi is really gone after the

election -

will the elected Shia -then in "total control" - folks take over -

will they have real power?

[daleo]

12. I think they had the election in Washington already

Allawi has pulled off a surprise victory.

[Supersedeas]

10. exactly...who are the principles with the authority to settle??

they are effectively asking a 'Principle' with 'vested interest' to leave the table.

[NYC]

13. Is the story that Iraq has sovereignty?

I have to say that I had totally forgotten that the June 30th (June 28th) transfer was supposed to mean that Iraq now has sovereignty. That is what they told us, isn't it?

So why would the Committee of Muslim Scholars discuss this with the U.S. Embassy?

[punpirate]

14. Perhaps because...

... Iraqi sovereignty is an illusion created by us in an attempt to fool a) the American people, and b) the Iraqis.

Given that we have planned an embassy there staffed with 3,000 people is an indication that the US intends to go on running this client state of ours any way we please....

[VegasWolf]

15. An illusion, l ike the upcoming vote? n/t

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[VegasWolf]

16. You'll get your country eventually, we just want your oil. n/t