Comeback.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/330/world/Iraq_s_Communist_Party_says_it:.shtmlBAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Iraq's largest leftist party which battled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and now holds a seat on the U.S.-picked Governing Council blames Washington for the upsurge in armed resistance and wants U.N. peacekeepers to replace American troops in the near future.
Salaam Ali, a member of the Iraqi Communist Party's Central Committee, told The Associated Press that the slowness of the occupation authorities in devising a viable plan for the transfer of authority to an Iraqi government had emboldened ''defeated elements'' of Saddam's regime and religious militants.
''If the Americans had listened to us back in May and allowed a national conference to pick a legitimate government, there would never have been this level of instability,'' Ali said in an interview in his office, where a small, gold colored statue of Lenin stood on the mantle.
Still, the party Iraq's oldest and broadest secular political grouping intends to stick with the 25-member Governing Council and to cooperate with L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in the country, during the upcoming transition. The party's secretary general, Hamid Majid Moussa, will continue to serve on the body, Ali said.
Despite the ideological differences between the communists who still stress their Marxist roots and the coalition, officials say the two sides have cooperated surprisingly well over the past several months.
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