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Allawi in negotiations with Baathist supporters
Iyad Allawi yesterday said he had held meetings with supporters of Saddam Hussein's former regime now backing a violent insurgency against his interim government.Iraq's prime minister also said that coalition forces' successful assault on the rebel stronghold of Falluja had separated Sunni former supporters of Mr Hussein's regime from "terrorists" such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda operative, who had formerly acted together to attack his government and the coalition. "We are seeing a line of division between insurgents and terrorists," Mr Allawi said yesterday. "This is the distinction we have to make," he added, noting that his government was trying to "weaken" links between the two groups. While declining to say how many meetings he had held, Mr Allawi said he had held "a lot of them", including with groups that had now dropped their claims against the new government. In Jordan last month, Iraq's leader met Sunni tribal figures and other Iraqis to encourage members of the minority, which dominated Iraq's former regime, to participate in January 30's elections. At the time, he ruled out contacts with insurgent leaders or former members of Mr Hussein's regime. But Mr Allawi yesterday sounded a conciliatory note on the Ba'athists, whose exclusion from key military and other positions in the new Iraq have been identified as a leading source of the insurgency. He distinguished between former Ba'athists who had committed crimes and those who "had to" join the party. "What we have to do is bring those who committed these crimes to justice," he said. "The rest should be here in society serving as productive citizens." A special tribunal set up to prosecute alleged crimes against humanity under Mr Hussein took testimony last weekend from two top Ba'athist officials, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of the former dictator nicknamed "Chemical Ali". The two are the first of 12 "high- value detainees" from the former regime known to have been questioned in preparation for a future war-crimes trial. Mr Allawi, who last week announced his candidacy for the election, is seeking to project the image of a tough leader to win votes from Iraqis fearful of sectarian tensions and insurgent violence. But he also wants to win votes from Sunnis, and has named tribal and others from the group on his ticket. Mr Allawi yesterday repeated criticisms of the former US-led provisional authority's decision to take a hard line on low-ranking former Ba'athists. At the same time, he warned of his resolve to fight "terrorists". "Anybody who is willing to respect the rule of law, we respect them," he said. "Anyone who does not respect the rule of law, we will fight them, and we will break their backs." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-12-21 |
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