US 'in talks with Iraq rebels' - (TimesOnline)

[NightOwwl]

Whaaaa? Face-to-face dialogues, delicate negotiations, encounters, common ground? If I didn't know better, I'd say we are trying to "understand our enemy."

The Sunday Times - World
June 26, 2005
US 'in talks with Iraq rebels'
Hala Jaber

Insurgents reveal secret face-to-face meetings

AT a summer villa near Balad in the hills 40 miles north of Baghdad, a group of Iraqis and their American visitors recently sat down to tea. It looked like a pleasant social encounter far removed from the stresses of war, but the heavy US military presence around the isolated property signalled that an unusual meeting was taking place. After weeks of delicate negotiation involving a former Iraqi minister and senior tribal leaders, a small group of insurgent commanders apparently came face to face with four American officials seeking to establish a dialogue with the men they regard as their enemies.

The talks on June 3 were followed by a second encounter 10 days later, according to an Iraqi who said that he had attended both meetings. Details provided to The Sunday Times by two Iraqi sources whose groups were involved indicate that further talks are planned in the hope of negotiating an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in Iraq.

Despite months of American military assaults on supposed insurgent bases, General John Abizaid, the regional US commander, admitted to Congress last week that opposition strength was “about the same” as six months ago and that “there’s a lot of work to be done against the insurgency”.

That work now includes secret negotiations with rebel leaders, according to the Iraqi sources. Washington seems to be gingerly probing for ways of defusing home-grown Iraqi opposition and of isolating the foreign Islamic militants who have flooded into Iraq to wage holy war against America under the command of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The talks appear to represent the first serious effort by Americans and Iraqi insurgents to find common ground since violence intensified in the spring. Earlier informal contacts were reported but produced no perceptible progress.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1669601,00.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. we need congresspeople talking about this, comparing rove's comments

to what we are doing now with Iraqi rebels.

[MadisonProgressive]

7. That's what I was just thinking

They have the nerve to say that Durbins comments give hope to the insurgents? What about the big bad USA groveling to them with a cup of tea???

God damnable bastards!

[Kool Kitty]

12. Exactly. Think that maybe

there was such an uproar over Durbin's remarks and there was a reason that Rove made such an outlandish speech? Maybe because this was about to break?

[NightOwwl]

17. I have no doubt. n/t

[bribri16]

35. If the US had met with Saddam when he requested it this war and

all those deaths would not have happened. Saddam was a thug leader of a nation but a head of state no less. We wanted to be treated as such and we had treated him as such under the Reagan administration and under Bush I administration. It was only after he decided to act independently, annex Kuwait which used to belong to Iraq, and stop the Kuwaiti slant drilling of Iraqi oil (something that Saddam had asked the US to get the Kuwaitis to stop)that we used it as an excuse to start Desert Storm. Even then Saddam was not threatening the US...never had and never would have. We had been buying his oil without at hitch. But then the neocon saw this as a way to launch the PNAC agenda and grab the land and the oil under the guise of "national securitiy." History will be very unkind to this era of American hegemeny and if and when the Bushcos meet their maker, if what the Christian right has been telling us is true, they will be paying a heavy price for their SINS.

[natrat]

36. but then how would they have been able to steal all the money?

[DemExpat]

51. This just boggles my mind too....along with the outrage we would be

hearing if CLINTON had ever negotiated with TERRORISTS.

:nuke:

I just can't stand this shit any longer. :grr:

DemEx

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. And thus...

The reason for the high number of insurgent bombings and other actions. It is a negotiating gambit for the insurgents.

[Oversea Visitor]

3. Dont need much brains

They just want the invaders out. Talk talk as long as you stay they wont stop trying to kill you.

[oblivious]

4. I'll cheer anything that stops the killing, that's for sure.

[dave29]

5. Now if we could just get Bush to do that with Congress

maybe we would find ways out of the serious shithole we find ourselves in.

[jmcon007]

6. should have happened 1735+ lives ago.

[Zhade]

58. Try maybe more like 101,735 lives ago.

Iraqis count, too.

[quaoar]

8. Bush is talking to terrorists?

So now we are making deals with vicious murderers and suicide bombers? What happened to standard U.S. policy never to deal with terrorists?

Are we going to offer them therapy and understanding?

How is Bush going to explain his way out of this one?

[NightOwwl]

18. Ya think he'll mention it during his address to the nation?

Nah, me neither.

[Zhade]

59. The insurgency isn't just comprised of terrorists.

Just sayin'.

[Bluebear]

9. He is offering therapy and understanding to the enemy!!!

[NightOwwl]

19. He's nothing but a damn librul!

It's the ultimate flip-flop!

[daleo]

10. The U.S. military is hoping for a divide and conquer gambit here.

It could easily go the other way, though. The current Iraqi puppet regime might decide to cut a deal with the resistance behind the American's back, if they sense the U.S. is losing the will to stay on. It is really a no win situation, which everyone warned Bush and the warmongers about 3 years ago.

[usregimechange]

11. Bush providing therapy to the enemy?

[NightOwwl]

20. This is Bush's version of therapy...

[LiberalAndProud]

13. Anything like the 'Paris Peace Talks' I wonder.

In 1967, with American troop strength in Vietnam reaching 500,000, protest against U.S. participation in the Vietnam War had grown stronger as growing numbers of Americans questioned whether the U.S. war effort could succeed or was morally justifiable. They took their protests to the streets in peace marches, demonstrations, and acts of civil disobedience. Despite the country's polarization, the balance of American public opinion was beginning to sway toward "de-escalation" of the war.

This was the backdrop as the United States and Hanoi agreed to enter into preliminary peace talks in Paris in 1968. However, almost as soon as the talks were started, they stalled. When President Lyndon Johnson turned over the presidency to Richard Nixon eight months into the talks, the only thing the two sides had agreed on was the shape of the conference table.

Despite candidate Nixon's promise of "peace with honor," the deadlock would continue for three-and-one-half years of public and secret meetings in Paris. Two key issues had locked both parties. Washington wanted all northern troops out of South Vietnam; Hanoi refused any provisional South Vietnamese government that involved its leader, Nguyen Van Thieu. In June 1969 the first troop withdrawals were made by the U.S., as part of its "Vietnamization" plan, whereby the South Vietnamese would gradually assume complete military responsibilities in the war while continuing to be supplied by U.S. arms.

In February 1970, national security advisor Henry Kissinger began
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/peopleevents/e_paris.html

[FredStembottom]

65. Oh. My. Gawd. The shape of the table!

I was just a typical Junior High goofus during all that but "Paris peace talks" and "shape of the conference table" sure bring back memories of just how protracted and interminable the coming of the end of that war was!

On and on and on and on and on it went......
.......
.......
........
...

[LiberalAndProud]

70. Memories of "Paris Peace Talks"

"Mom! They said on the radio the war might end."

wry smile from my mother ...
"Don't count on it"

That was 1968 I b'lieve.

[Gelliebeans]

14. At least someone in the UK

media is sick of cowarding to this administration.

Personally, I would like to see bush slapped around again by the Washington correspondent Carole Coleman from RTE (Irish tv).

[NightOwwl]

21. That was the best interview ever!

Off-topic, but are those your cats? They are beautiful...are they ragdolls?

[Gelliebeans]

33. She is following in

Helen Thomas' footsteps eh?


yes they are ragdolls. I just luv em to pieces.

:loveya:

[othermeans]

15. So much for the "we will never negotiate with the terrorists" thing

The ones they are negotiating with are the ones who bombed the Americans at the chow hall.

[NightOwwl]

22. Is that a flip-flop I hear? n/t

[othermeans]

16. On second thought maybe they just need therapy and indictments

[Gabi Hayes]

23. Report: U.S. Secretly Met With Insurgents

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5099303,00.html


LONDON (AP) - U.S. officials held secret talks in Iraq with the commanders of several Iraqi insurgent groups recently in an attempt to open a dialogue with them, a British newspaper reported Sunday.

The commanders ``apparently came face to face'' with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a summer villa near Balad, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, according to The Sunday Times.

The Sunday Times said neither the Iraqi government nor U.S. officials in Baghdad would confirm its report about the talks. Military officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment on the Times article early Sunday morning.

The story, which quoted unidentified Iraqis whose groups were purportedly involved in the talks, said those at the first meeting included Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Iraq and an attack that killed 22 people in the dining hall of a U.S. base at Mosul last Christmas.

I thought we refused to negotiate with terra=ists

Isn't that what these people are?

any disconnect?

will this get reported here?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

24. Was Kissinger there?

[weldon berger]

25. If it's true, more power to 'em.

We certainly aren't getting anywhere trying to blow those guys up, so we may as well chat with them when the opportunity arises. Too bad whoever's doing it isn't running the war. The Washington Post mentioned the wire service story, so it'll probably get some play here. I actually wish it wouldn't, because then the administration won't feel compelled to deny it and stop it.

[lebkuchen]

26. We could have chatted with Saddam

rather than spending hundreds of billions and vaporizing so many lives. The Bushies didn't chat because they knew Saddam's army couldn't ultimately beat our own.

Now that we're entrenched in a guerilla and civil war, it's a horse of a different color. Now the Bushies want to chat. It means we're losing in our colonial intents.

[weldon berger]

54. I don't think Saddam was a good conversationalist,

but it would have been a truly fine idea to leave the inspectors in long enough for them to definitively not find anything. Which of course is why we didn't. But if someone, anyone, in the administration is operating outside the Wall of Confusion, I certainly don't want to stop them.

[JDPriestly]

27. This would explain Rove's remarks.

It would be typical of Republicans to ridicule Democrats as yellow-bellied negotiators while secretly brandishing the white flag themselves. This is pure Reagan -- talking tough to the American people out of one side of his mouth while making deals with one or the other of his "evil empires" out of the other side -- all the while crossing his fingers behind his back. You never know whether the Republicans are coming or going or who will be the next enemy. Our message to Rove should be: Thou doth protest too much. What a bunch.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

28. Offering them some of the LOOT? won't work-their objective is U.S. OUT

If I were a resistance fighter I would never trust that a "meeting" wasn't a "setup".

The conquerers really need to meet with ALL the Iraqis to "negotiate".

[jsamuel]

29. Who is providing THERAPY now? I thought they prepared for war?!

[pdurod1]

30. Picked up by one American news network

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=882627

love to see Rove eat his words

[Disturbed]

31. Saddam did try to negotiate but..

the Bush Regime refused to deal. The Bush Regime had one goal. To remove Saddam and take control of the territory and the flow of oil.

[Teaser]

32. Old news

nad not secret. We claimedwe were doing this last month. And it was claimed the month before. And before that.

Every month we release a version of this story.

[pinniped]

34. These so-called insurgents they met are all frauds unless...

the mythical Supreme Al Qaeda Commander al-Zarqawi was present. He is the leader of Middle East operations and they have no power to negotiate in his absence.

Since the article fails to mention him, I guess he wasn't there. He was probably off in a taxi-cab somewhere playing his new notebook computer.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

37. "U.S. Negotiating With Terrorists."

The real headline.

[leftchick]

38. exactly

of course that will never happen. :eyes:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

39. Alternate headline: "Bush Follows In Reagan's Footsteps." nt

[Bluebear]

41. Precisely. n/t

[NashVegas]

40. It Is Only Through Negotiation That Wars Are Truly Ended

If I were Iran's new, hardliner president, I'd ditch that EU agreement and get nukes, asap. A nice, negotiated settlement with Iraq will free up the resources we need to go to Iran.

[leftchick]

42. It made Yahoo front page!!

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050626/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq

rate it up!

[kentuck]

43. Did they take a cake and a Bible ??

Like Reagan did when he sent Ollie North to negotiate with the Iranian terrorists??

[Bluebear]

44. I think Cheney ordered flowers & chocolates sent to them. n/t

[saigon68]

52. They took a few chicken to go TAKEOUT meals from Guantanamo

You know--- the ones that are so yummy

[carincross]

45. Times reports talks between US and Insurgents

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1669601,00.html

US 'in talks with Iraq with Iraq rebels' Hala Jaber

After weeks of delicate negotiation involving a former Iraqi minister and senior tribal leaders, a small group of insurgent commanders apparently came face to face with four American officials seeking to establish a dialogue with the men they regard as their enemies. The talks on June 3 were followed by a second encounter 10 days later, according to an Iraqi who said that he had attended both meetings. Details provided to The Sunday Times by two Iraqi sources whose groups were involved indicate that further talks are planned in the hope of negotiating an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in Iraq. The talks appear to represent the first serious effort by Americans and Iraqi insurgents to find common ground since violence intensified in the spring.

***********

C-SPAN's Washington Journal led with this story this morning. Many conservatives were incredulous. "We do not negotiate with terrorists." Some said this couldn't possibly be true since it came from the same newspaper that released those false Downing Street Minutes.

[rocktivity]

46. And just in time for Georgie's June 28 fireside chat!

P.S. Is the Downing Street minutes are false, why hasn't anyone on Blair's end said so?

:headbang:
rocknation

[brainshrub]

47. And just in time for the new Abu Grabe pictures to be released!

[asjr]

48. Didn't the Chimperor tell us Iraq was in charge now? Why

aren't the Iraqis talking with them? Ha Ha! It just gets worse by the hour.

[Gary173]

49. Must be liberals

cause conservatives don't 'nigoshiate wif no terrists'

[mbperrin]

50. NO, see, KKKarl says we don't NEED to understand

or deal with these guys in any way, just kill 'em.

Wouldn't wanta go against King Slug now, wouldja?

[maddezmom]

53. AP; Rumsfeld: U.S. Met With Iraq Insurgents

LONDON - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged Sunday that U.S. officials have met with insurgents in Iraq, after a British newspaper reported that two such meetings took place recently at a villa north of Baghdad.

Insurgent commanders "apparently came face to face" with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a villa near Balad, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, The Sunday Times reported.

When asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" about the report of the two meetings, Rumsfeld said, "Oh, I would doubt it. I think there have probably been many more than that."

But he insisted the talks did not involve negotiations with Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but were rather facilitating efforts by the Shiite-led government to reach out to minority Sunni Arabs, who are believed to be the driving force behind the insurgency.

"We see the government of Iraq is sovereign. They're the ones that are reaching out to the people who are not supporting the government," Rumsfeld said on "Meet the Press."

more: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050626/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq_8

[VegasWolf]

55. Plainly spoken, US just wants the oil, Iraqui's can have everything else.n

[warsager]

57. Now they are REBELS!

Does anyone notice the slight yet very significant difference between REBEL and INSURGENT? I mentioned in another post that insurgent means fighting against YOUR OWN government by the way. Which the Iraqs are not doing, as they are fighting against an occupying power. It could mean alot if the media begins to refer to the Iraqs fighting as Rebels.

Its sickening to me that the US was in cahoots with Saddam since 1959, WE are the ones that armed him, gave him intelligence, built up his army, encouraged him to fight Iran (all the while playing both sides) WE helped him to become the powerful monster he was, turned a blind eye to his tyrannical murdeous ways, continued to give him money and military intelligence even though he was using chemical weapons that WE sold to him, and then the propaganda war started and the lies just flowed like oil.

And now the black sticky crap is all over and we can't clean it up.

F**K**G SICK BASTARD CRIMINALS. They ALL belong in Jail.

Bush
Cheney
Rumsfeld
Rove
Wolfowitz
Rice
Powell

Just as a start. They need to be put on trial as the war criminals they are and thrown in jail forever.

[oblivious]

67. Thank you for speaking plainly. Simple and true.

[Contrary1]

56. When something like this breaks...

I like to check out Freepland, to see if they are discussing it.

They're not.

I guess if it's not on Faux, it never happened, huh? :crazy:

[Roland99]

60. Is KKKarl going to criticize himself for appeasing terrorists?

[mzmolly]

61. Bush is "negotiating with terrorists" I see.

:eyes:

Just givin' it back to the R's as they would to us. I am glad we are talking with them personally, but Democrats would NEVER live this down. Imagine the Scarboroughs the Hannity's and the Roves if Clinton were "talking" with so called insurgents?

[tmooses]

62. Us Holds Talks With Insurgents.

Whatever happened to "we will not negotiate with terrorists"?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4624385.stm

[qanda]

63. They must be Liberals

Looking to offer therapy and understanding to the terrorists. :eyes:

[okieinpain]

64. damn, conservatives always wanting to file lawsuits, and get therapy

for the terrorist.

[NightOwwl]

66. Rate this Yahoo story up!

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050626/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq

"Insurgent commanders 'apparently came face to face' with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a villa near Balad, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, The Sunday Times reported. <Said Rumsfeld> they're certainly reaching out continuously, and we help to facilitate those from time to time.' The top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen. John Abizaid, said American officers and diplomats 'have been talking with a broad range of people from the Sunni Arab community, some of whom obviously have some links to the insurgency.'"

Ah, isn't that sweet. :loveya: They are facilitating with the insurgent commanders. Why, it's almost like they are making attempts to "understand our enemy." Good thing KKKRove made clear that only libruls do stuff like that before this story broke. :eyes:

[Disturbed]

68. The Bush Regime is forced to do this

because Iraq is dragging them down. Also, al Sadr has been speaking with certain Insurgency groups, most likely at the beheast of al Sistani, who is the real leader of Iraq. We haven't heard much from al Sistani of late. If the Shi'ites and Sunnis ever united agains the Occupation how long would the U.S. last in Iraq.

[warrens]

69. Oh, NOW we negotiate with Terraists?

These loudmouth pricks. They'll say anything, but when it comes time to save their butts, they have absolutely no moral principles.