linked - Institut kurde de Paris

• 10 • Information and liaison bulletin n° 261 • December 2006
broader support to the government but
also by acting against those who want
to destabilise it by terrorist actions”
stated the White House spokesman,
Tony Snow.
It was in this context that the
Conference of National
Reconciliation completed its work on
17 December. The 200 delegates
present proposed a series of
“recommendations”, including the
return of former members of the
Baath party (formerly the sole party
under the Saddam Hussein regime)
to the army. This measure, that could
be seen as a gesture of opening
towards the Sunni community,
covers several tens of thousands of
ex-officers, and could convince many
ex-Baathists, today active in the
opposition, to lay down their arms.
The various proposals made at the
conference “are declarations of good
intentions that remain to be put into
practice”, admitted, however, Nasser
al-Ani, spokesman of the conference.
“A single important practical measure
was recommended”, which still has to
be presented to Parliament by Mr.
Maliki, “is the payment of significant
pensions to ex-servicemen”, explained
Mr. Ani. After the fall of the Saddam
Hussein regime in April 2003, Paul
Bremmer, the former American
governor of Iraq, dissolved the Iraqi
Army, which at the time was some
400,000 strong, largely composed of
Sunni Arabs. Many observers, at the
time, had considered this a mistake,
which had pushed many former
soldiers into the ranks of the
insurrection. The Baath Party
remains banned, in accordance with
Article 7 of the Constitution, “but, in
their individual capacities, its members
may take part” in the conference,
stressed a Shiite member of
Parliament, Abbas al-Bayati, a
member of the Supreme Council of
the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI).
The conference had begun its work
on 16 December, in Baghdad, in a
conference centre in the “green
zone”, the highly protected sector of
the city centre where all the
principal Iraqi instituti0ons and the
US embassy are located. Its sessions
had been broadcast live by the
national television service. On 3
December the Iraqi President had
rejected the proposal of UN General
Secretary, Kofi Annan, for holding
an international conference on Iraq,
considering that the Iraqis
themselves should decide the fate of
their country. Jalal Talabani was the
second Iraqi leader to take this
stand, after Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.
“We are an independent and sovereign
nation, and it is we who must decide the
fate of our nation”, Mr. Talabani had
declared, according to a
communiqué issued by his office.
The conference was promised at the
beginning of December, but its
realisation remained uncertain until
the last few days. As its initiator,
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, took
the stand. “The new Iraqi Army has
opened its gates to members of the old
Army, to soldiers and officers, and the
government of national union is ready
to welcome those who wish to serve the
nation”, declared Nuri al-Maliki. He
make the point that the number of
places in it would, no doubt be
limited, because of the army’s size,
but that those who were not
accepted would receive a pension.
For many Shiites and Kurds, victims
of the Baathist repression, the idea
of re-integrating ex-Baathists in the
Army and the administration is
unacceptable. For many Sunni
Arabs, on the other hand, they are
political actors who cannot be
ignored.
The Committee of Moslem Ulemas
had announced that it would boycott
the conference: “We have too often
seen, in the past, the government
sign agreements that it later
denounces”, explained sheikh
Mohammed Bashar al-Faidhi,
spokesman of this body, the principal
Sunni religious organisation. Its
leader, Sheikh Hareth al-Dari, at
present a refugee abroad, is accused
of inciting sectarian violence. His
absence was “no surprise” for the
Kurdish member of Parliament
Mahmud Othman, who considered
that the Committee is in “perpetual
refusal”. The Sunni Arabs principally
criticise Maliki’s government for not
attacking the militia that they
consider responsible for the violence.
Omar Abdul-Sattar Mahmud, of the
Iraqi Islamic Party (Sunni) calls for
them to be purely and simply broken
up to “stop the terror”. The radical
Shiite leader, Moqtada al-Sadr,
whose Mahdi’s Army is a 60,000-
man strong militia, is considered a
counter power, suspected of having
actively participated in the sectarian
violence. The Sadr tendency, which
has 6 Ministers and 32 members of
Parliament (out of 275), has
nevertheless always been present at
the negotiating table.
The White House hoped that Mr.
Bush would be able to make a new
strategy public before Christmas.
He was obliged to push this back to
after the New Year. The
Administration invoked the
complexity of the task and the
multiple implications of a new
policy. Iraq’s neighbours are
worried at what the new policy
might be. On 13 December the New
York Times reported that Sunni
Saudi Arabia had warned the
United States that it might support
the Sunni Arabs in the event of a
war against the Iraqi Shiites if the
American troops withdrew.