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Baath Party is back in the picture


...The room is used for meetings by the Iraqi Baath Party, still fighting against US troops in the country, and members of other militant groups involved with the Supreme Leadership for Jihad and Liberation, a network of more than half a dozen insurgent organisations. At the start of last month, according to a Baath Party official, a European diplomat visited the apartment block and held talks with the militants. "It was a formal meeting," said Abu Mohammad, the exiled Iraqi and Baath Party member who runs the office. "The diplomat came and said he was here on behalf of his government to find out what we wanted in a future Iraq and to hear our strategy, our aims and goals." The discussions were carried out on agreement that the diplomat’s country would not be publicly identified. "I can only tell you that he represents a significant European country," Abu Mohammad said. "We sat and talked, just as we have spoken to Iraqis who come here as mediators, we presume wanting to take messages back to the Iraqi government."...

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Baath Party is back in the picture

Phil Sands

August 22, 2009


DAMASCUS // In a high-rise apartment block in a smart Damascus neighbourhood, there is a room with a portrait of Saddam Hussein on one wall and on another a photograph of the former dictator smiling as he receives a medal from Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, his old right-hand man and the current figurehead of the Iraq insurgency.

The room is used for meetings by the Iraqi Baath Party, still fighting against US troops in the country, and members of other militant groups involved with the Supreme Leadership for Jihad and Liberation, a network of more than half a dozen insurgent organisations.

At the start of last month, according to a Baath Party official, a European diplomat visited the apartment block, sat beneath the large photograph of Iraq’s deposed ruler and held talks with the militants.

"It was a formal meeting," said Abu Mohammad, the exiled Iraqi and Baath Party member who runs the office. "The diplomat came and said he was here on behalf of his government to find out what we wanted in a future Iraq and to hear our strategy, our aims and goals."

The discussions were carried out on agreement that the diplomat’s country would not be publicly identified.

"I can only tell you that he represents a significant European country," Abu Mohammad said. "We sat and talked, just as we have spoken to Iraqis who come here as mediators, we presume wanting to take messages back to the Iraqi government."

The Baathists, now led by Izzat al Douri, a red-haired senior aide to Saddam, have continued to play a role in the Iraq insurgency, according to the US military and the Iraqi authorities, although exactly how much power they actually wield on the ground is unclear.

In Iraq the Baath Party remains outlawed and, officially, Iraqi government policy is not to negotiate with active members or insurgents fighting under Baathist control.

In the spring, US officials met insurgent representatives in Turkey, sparking protests from Baghdad that the United States was violating Iraqi sovereignty and taking a weak line on terrorists.

Washington insisted that Iraqi officials had been informed of the meetings. "I personally met with the European diplomat and explained our policies to him," Abu Mohammad said.

"I told him we would keep targeting the American occupation until every soldier has left Iraq; that we are pushing for Arab leaders to support the resistance because we are the ones standing against Iranian control of Iraq; that the current political process in Iraq is illegitimate; and that when the Americans finally withdraw there must be a comprehensive national settlement protecting Iraqi unity and its Arab identity."

At the end of July, a rare statement by Mr al Douri was placed on the Baath Party and Resistance website hinting at political reconciliation, something the insurgents had previously refused to countenance. Abu Mohammad said this would involve all parties.

"All Iraqis, without exception, will participate in a national political process," he said.

"There will be a comprehensive settlement. At the moment this is impossible because Iraq is under occupation. One group supports the occupiers, the other is opposed to them. When the occupation is over, there can be a settlement."

Insisting that the Baathists and their allies had a strict policy of targeting only US troops and not shedding Iraqi blood, Abu Mohammad said that if insurgent groups were able to capture Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki now, they would "sentence him to treason with an appropriate punishment" – under Iraqi law that means execution.

"We are at war; there are dead on both sides, as is natural in war."

If the US occupation has ended, however, Abu Mohammad said the current Iraqi prime minister would go before a national court.

"The charge would still be treason but he would have a fair trial," he said.

Abu Mohammad also explained that after six years of war, the Baathists are beginning to look beyond the conflict with the United States.

"The Americans are going to leave Iraq, that is now clear," he said.

"And make no mistake, they would have stayed longer if they had not been forced to leave by the resistance. When the Americans have gone, the next war will be against Iranian influence in Iraq. For that reason we are urging the Arab nations to support us in defending the unity of Iraq, the Arab identity of Iraq and to protect all the Arab countries from the Iranian project."

During the 1980s Iraq and Iran fought an eight-year war that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Baghdad, under Saddam, received backing in the conflict from the Arab states, except Syria, which sided with Iran. The United States also supported Iraq.

Iraq’s current ruling Shiite parties, including Mr al Maliki’s Dawa and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, opposed Saddam’s regime and were heavily backed by Tehran.

Since taking control of Iraq after the US-led invasion they have been widely viewed there by many nationalists as following Iranian orders, a charge they both deny.

US troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, under an agreement between Washington and Baghdad.

As part of that security pact, US forces largely pulled back from Iraqi cities at the end of June, handing primary responsibility for security over to Iraqi government troops.

Violence has continued and, in the first 10 days of August alone 157 people were killed, mainly in bombings targeting civilians.

- psands@thenational.ae





:: Article nr. 57220 sent on 23-aug-2009 03:35 ECT

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Link: www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090823/FOREIGN/708229888/1011/AR
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