CAIRO, June 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – An American official team held face-to-face meetings in June with representatives of different Iraqi resistance groups in the first known formal talks between the two sides, a leading British newspaper reported on Sunday, June 26.
Two meetings were held between four American officials and a small group of Iraqi resistance commanders in a summer villa near Balad in the hills 40 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi sources, whose groups were involved in the talks, told The Sunday Times.
They said the American team included senior military and intelligence officers, a civilian staffer from Congress and a representative of the US embassy in Baghdad.
The Iraqi resistance groups represented in the meeting were Ansar Al-Sunna, the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Iraqi Liberation Army, Jaish Mohammad and other smaller groups.
Iraq’s National Security Minister Abdul Karim Al-Enzi has recently urged “nationalist” Iraqi resistance groups to negotiate a truce that could hasten a US troop withdrawal.
"There are nationalists within the insurgency who are against the occupation. We are urging them to show their faces and come to the table," he told Reuters on July 22.
"Up to now we have only talked with them through intermediaries," he asserted.
Ready to Listen
At the first face-to-face meeting with Iraqi resistance leaders held on June 3, one of the US officials introduced himself as “a representative of the Pentagon”, according to the paper.
The officer said he was ready to “find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances”.
He further indicated that the content of any discussion between the two sides would be relayed to his superiors in Washington.
The United States, which invaded Iraq in 2003 without a UN mandate, has since been describing Iraqi resistance groups as "insurgents" and "terrorists".
Several Bush administration officials have repeatedly ruled out any talks with resistance groups.
There are currently about 160,000 foreign troops in Iraq, including 138,000 American forces.
Intelligence Gathering
During the one-and-half hour meeting with the resistance commanders, the American officials asked a lengthy series of questions about the structure of the resistance, the British daily said.
The Americans asked questions about the “hierarchy and logistics of the groups, how they functioned, how orders were dispatched, how they divide their work and so on,” which irritated the Iraqi groups which saw the questions as a crude attempt to gather intelligence.
“It was a boring line of questioning that indicated an attempt to discover more about their enemy than about finding solutions,” one of the sources said.
“We told the translator to inform them that if they persisted with this line we would all walk out of the meeting.”
Withdrawal Timetable
During the meetings, the Iraqi resistance groups demanded “a guaranteed timetable of American withdrawal from Iraq”, the source told The Sunday Times.
“We told them it did not matter whether we are talking about one year or a five-year plan but that we insisted on having a timetable nonetheless.”
The demand, however, did not meet with a favorable response from the American officials.
The Iraqi groups also demanded US compensation for the damage caused by the US invasion-turned-occupation of the oil-rich country.
The one-and-half hour meeting has broken up with the US officials saying that they needs more time to consult with Washington.
But before wrapping it up, one US official apparently asked whether the resistance groups would be interested in disarming in return for a release of all Iraqi prisoners in US detention camps.
The Iraqi groups immediately reverted to its demand for a timetable.
US President George Bush has been resisting increasing calls, even inside the US, for a clear withdrawal timetable.
A congressional resolution proposed earlier in June called on the Bush administration to develop a strategy for removing all US troops from Iraq and to begin the withdrawal by October 2006. Two Republicans are among its backers.
Recent opinion polls indicated that almost six in 10 Americans want at least a partial pullout.
Eighty two Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum have recently joined the chorus demanding the withdrawal of the US-led occupation troops.
Second Meeting
Ten days later, a second meeting was held between the two sides, with two little known resistance groups, Thawarat Al-Ishreen and the Shura Council of Mujahideen, present.
The meeting did not go well between the two sides, according to The Sunday Times.
“The tone of the Americans was different,” the Iraqi insider said.
“They were talking with a tone of more superiority, arrogance and provocation.”
The US team bluntly asked the Iraqi groups to “cease all support, logistics and cover for Zarqawi’s group”.
They said they would be ready to discuss the Iraqi demands if all “links” with Zarqawi’s group were severed.
“Our response was that we will never abandon any Muslim who has come to our country to help us defend it,” the Iraqi commander said.
Washington blames Zarqawi for numerous deadly attacks and kidnappings and murders of Western hostages.
The second meeting hit a dead end, but the two sides agreed to keep talking, with the Iraqi groups asking for a United Nations representative to attend the next round of talks, according to the Iraqi source.