US in secret truce talks with insurgency chiefs

[Quixote1818]

Marie Colvin
AMERICAN officials held secret talks with leaders of the Iraqi insurgency last week after admitting that their two-month clampdown on violence in Baghdad had failed.

Few details of the discussions in the Jordanian capital Amman have emerged but an Iraqi source close to the negotiations said the participants had met for at least two days.

They included members of the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the main Sunni militias behind the insurgency, and American government representatives. The talks were described as “feeler” discussions. The US officials were exploring ways of persuading the Sunni groups to stop attacks on allied forces and to end a cycle of increasingly bloody sectarian clashes with members of the majority Shi’ite groups.

According to the source, the key demand of the Islamic Army was the release of American-held prisoners in allied jails.

Continued at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2415692,00.html

[jannyk]

1. Hmmmm. Could it be that the Shi'ia got wind of this

and that's why they started their attacks last week?

[teryang]

2. the central government is a neo-colonial quisling regime

No Iraqi insurgent that understands that the Bremer edicts written by the US into the so called Iraqi "constitution" is going to give up their arms or fight against the quisling regime.

Why would insurgents apparently well armed and organized give up their weapons to a corrupt regime exporting its capital and resources to Anglo-American multi-nationals?

So called US policy experts completely ignore the political issues raised by the neo-colonial constitution and dwell on the sectarian nature of the violence. Until the US gives up the Bremer edicts and its death grip on the oil ministry and the economic administration of the country there is no hope in Iraq for anything but bloodshed. The central government was dead on arrival with the US written neo-colonial laws that created it.

The current Washington wonk mantra is that the Iraqis are going to have to resolve their own political problems. We don't even admit what those problems are. The current Iraqi central government was created by US energy and banking elites for their own corporate benefit. Why would any patriotic Iraqi go along with it? Why would any Iraqi police or soldiers fire on their own people to defend it?

This is a failure of American neo colonial policy and the Cheney energy plan. Plan A conquest of colonial Iraq is a complete failure. Alternative B? Break it up into pieces to see what we can salvage. This too is a failure, because of the enhancement of Iranian power that naturally results. As pointed out by an Iraqi scholar, the sectarian analysis of the Iraqi civil strife ignores the last eighty years of Iraqi history, and ignores the political issues central to the attempted neo-colonial conquest which all Iraqi factions reject.

[leftchick]

3. and sadly

the neo-fascists will never admit how wrong their plan has been. How horribly it has failed. People will continues to die while cheney continues to drool over how close he is to that oil.

[teryang]

4. from their narrow perspective-the war is a great success

they and their corporate cronies have purloined hundreds of billions of dollars, they've created a police state, and conducted three fraudulent national elections. The question is can they do it again this November?

Someone needs to ask Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush et al, about the diaster at FOB Falcon, and whether the reports of 300 US dead and 178 wounded Americans has any basis in fact. If this information were verified, even just the number of wounded, which one blog lists in detail, this could be the coup de gras for this administration.

[leftchick]

5. where did you read that?

not jihadunspun was it?

[teryang]

7. There is this Russian source but....

http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/105374

...I am unable to find my source, which included the information in the Russian article which has an obvious bias and I am inclined to think not reliable. My source was an irish blog which in addition to the Russian information, furnished corroboration in the form of alleged email communications from one alleged US soldier describing casualty movements, which also could be questioned. The thing I found really disturbing was the list of wounded, names, ranks, and unit assigned which lent some credibility to the reports. The photo of the damage at FOB Falcon was cropped so the extent of the damage could not be ascertained. Now that I have seen what seems to be an uncropped photo, I am inclined to disbelieve this story. In the uncroppped photo, the barracks area is intact and only a fraction of the base area seems to have destroyed.

Given that it is relatively well known that casreps are confidential, I question that a soldier would release this very specific information. Such a release would be a court martial offense.

The whole story about the casualties is disturbing. I would really like to see the list of wounded explained by official sources to put the story to rest.

[BlooInBloo]

6. "Republicans negotiate with, appease, terrorists."

From the Department of Headlines We'll Never See.