Posted on 04/09/2004 4:56:10 PM PDT by kezekiel
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Anger grew Friday among U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders over the Marines' bloody siege of Fallujah, with one member of the Governing Council suspending his membership and another threatening to quit.
Friday's halt in the assault had been requested by the council to allow for talks on reducing the violence, a U.S. spokesman said.
Several of the council's 25 members spoke out against what they called the "mass punishment" of Fallujah's people in the siege, launched early Monday by U.S. forces to uproot Sunni insurgents in the city.
Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni member, and the representative of another Sunni member met Friday with city leaders in talks at a Marine base outside Fallujah, council member Mahmoud Othman told The Associated Press.
"We have been asked by members of the Iraqi Governing Council to have the opportunity to enter into Fallujah to speak with leaders of Fallujah to address ways in which bloodshed could be minimized," U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor said.
The council request for negotiations pointed to the eagerness of the Iraqi leaders to distance themselves from the assault, which has angered many Iraqis and become for some a symbol of resistance against the Americans.
Shiite council member Abdul-Karim Mahmoud al-Mohammedawi has formally suspended his membership, Othman said.
Al-Yawer said that while he has not taken any formal steps, "I will quit if the problem is not solved peacefully, because God will not bless a position of power that does not benefit its people."
"If negotiations fail because of the stubbornness of the American side or the failure to adhere to a cease-fire, I will quit 100 percent," he told Al-Jazeera TV.
One of the strongest pro-U.S. voices on the council, Adnan Pachachi, denounced the U.S. siege, launched after Sunni insurgents killed four U.S. contract workers and a mob dragged their burned and mutilated bodies through the streets and hung two of them from a bridge.
"These (U.S.) operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah," Pachachi told Al-Arabiya TV. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal."
Added al-Yawer: "We all agree that those who did that (killed the four Americans) were criminals who deserve to be arrested. But the result was the mass punishment of a city. ... And that we refuse."
Asked about the council members' criticism, Senor said U.S.. forces have "a responsibility to address a situation that is hostile."
He said the coalition cannot "just turn our heads and look the other way" when Americans are killed in Fallujah.
Total B.S. If we can't even find 25 truthful iraqis to sit on that council, it's very bad news for iraq as it's presently constituted. A three-state solution is probably the best way to go, imo. Divide and conquer.
Iraq is going to be a tough place to govern it is going to require those who are firm, kind, courageous, just and law abiding. Lacking in any one of those traits should disqualify them.
...ain't do such thing...
At times I believe we should people it with American retired American military men. How would you like that?
By the way what is there about Iraq which is it necessary to "have clues" about? What are the complex intricacies of this "Iraq" society that the IGC are missing which prevents them from doing their job as well as they otherwise could? Enlighten me.
What does an IGC person need to know about Iraq that he cannot know by having lived in some other country?
How to plant roadside bombs?
How to go to a mullah's rally and pump your fist chanting slogans?
How to burn things, like cars?
How to hide inside your apartment complaining about how Americans aren't keeping the peace from Islamo-mafia thugs, and simultaneously saying the Americans should leave altogether even though that would mean the Islamo-mafia thugs take over completely, which you won't lift a finger to stop because you're scared of them?
They only was good to fool the CIA about the WMD and the flowers with wath the iraqis greating the US soldiers.
Flowers, eh?
You mean like these flowers?
Chalabi is wanted for bank fraud in Jordan
Wow, Jordan. And it's not like Jordan has a repressive government of its own or anything. With their vaunted constitutional protections and internationally renowned system of jurisprudence I guess Chalabi's a criminal fair and square.
and never been to Iraq since he was 14.
Yes, clearly he should have journeyed to Iraq and let Saddam Hussein's thugs kill him. That's what a real man would have done. THEN he would be fit to serve on IGC.
After all: Exiles are cowardly! You hear that, Florida Cubans? Cowardly! German Jews who emigrated to America in 1930s? Bunch of cowards!
Clearly only someone who remained in Iraq and did not get killed by Saddam Hussein, i.e. by remaining in his good graces, is worthy of having power in post-Hussein Iraq. Offhand I can think of one possible candidate: Saddam Hussein. He stayed! Maybe we should put *him* on the IGC.
Now they resigning one by one and on the end of Juni noone will be there to whom hand over the power.
That will be their loss not ours.
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