Feeling Besieged, Iraq's Sunnis Unite

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

BAGHDAD, Jan. 5 -- Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims, who enjoyed a favored place under former president Saddam Hussein and now complain of discrimination, have formed a national council to press their interests with U.S. occupation forces and counter the threat of domination by rival Shiite Muslims.

Founders of the shura, or consultative, council said its establishment a week ago is unprecedented in the history of Iraq's Sunnis, reflecting their dramatic reversal of fortune following Hussein's ouster. By forming a body representing a cross-section of Sunnis, they said, they hope to offer the U.S. government a central interlocutor for discussing their future and that of Iraq.

So far, the Sunnis have mostly been sources of trouble for U.S. forces. Attacks against U.S. and allied forces have been centered in the largely Sunni region north and west of Baghdad known as the Sunni Triangle, and U.S. commanders have described the insurgency as an exclusively Sunni endeavor.

Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said the U.S.-led occupation authority was still learning about the Sunni body but would welcome a constructive dialogue. "If the shura council seeks to engage in a cooperative relationship with shared principles of promoting democracy and nonviolence, then the will be ready to respond," Senor said.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57103-2004Jan5.html