Sunnis, Shi’ites Find Fault with Iraq Peace Plan

By Ibon Villelabeitia and Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The Iraqi prime minister’s plan for national reconciliation came in for criticism from both sides of the sectarian divide on Monday, a day after parliament accepted a compromise strategy that is short on crucial detail.

Iraq’s most senior Sunni Arab politician, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, complained that the plan set no withdrawal date for U.S. occupying forces.

He also said Shi’ite Islamist Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was wrong to rule out peace negotiations with hardline followers of Sunni former leader Saddam Hussein.

"Leaving the issue of a timetable (for U.S. withdrawal) vague," Hashemi told Reuters, "is telling the resistance: ‘continue your fighting to liberate Iraq’."

U.S. commanders are keen to leave but see withdrawal taking years yet with civil war a threat from various armed groups.

In another camp, an aide to fiery Shi’ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr said the 24-point plan presented to parliament on Sunday did not go far enough to punish Saddam’s Baathist supporters and should also include provisions to ensure the release of Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia leaders from jail.

Sahib al-Amery told reporters in Najaf that Sadr’s movement, accused by Sunnis of attacks on them, welcomed the plan but said its proposals to soften measures barring Baathists from office must be scrapped in favor of tougher sanctions on them.

Like Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party, Sadr’s movement is part of the broad national coalition formed over months of wrangling following an election in December.

Bitter ethnic and sectarian divisions remain, however, amid violence that officials said on Monday had caused over 130,000 to register for state aid as internal refugees since bloodshed in late February, an increase of over 30,000 in the past month.

The true number fleeing attacks and threats likened to "ethnic cleansing" is higher since the data do not include the many who do not seek official assistance or head abroad.

POLICEMEN KILLED

Seven policemen were killed in six separate incidents reported on an otherwise relatively quiet day for violence. A bodyguard for Sunni parliamentary leader Adnan al-Dulaimi was killed in a shooting in central Baghdad, Dulaimi told Reuters.

There was no further word on four Russian embassy workers whose al Qaeda-linked kidnappers posted video on the Internet purporting to show up to three of them beheaded or shot.

Gunmen abducted 10 young men, all students from Sunni towns near Baghdad, from a building where they were living in the capital, police sources said. Sunnis say pro-government Shi’ite militias are targeting the once dominant minority community.

Other Sunni leaders have complained that Maliki failed to lay out clear plans for curbing Shi’ite and Kurdish militias.

Hashemi criticized him for ruling out peace talks with not only the al Qaeda Islamists, whose pan-Islamic visions are seen as putting them beyond the pale of reconciliation, but also with Baathists and other hardline Sunni insurgents:

"If you want to achieve national reconciliation you can’t include some groups from peace talks and exclude others.

"You have to talk to Saddam Hussein loyalists, Baathists, nationalists. Everybody who wants to participate in the political process should be welcomed," the vice president said.

Talk of a sweeping amnesty offer before Maliki’s much awaited speech to parliament had prompted vocal complaints from U.S. politicians anxious not to be seen by U.S. voters condoning the exoneration of killers of American soldiers.

In the end, Maliki simply offered an "olive branch" to all who are ready to join the political process and said thousands who were not convicted of major crimes should be freed.

Another leading Sunni politician said a major difficulty in reaching out, as the United States has urged, to rebel groups is identifying who legitimately speaks for the militants.

Commenting on further confirmation from Maliki aides that seven insurgent groups, including the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Baathist-led Mohammed Army, had sought talks, Iyad al- Samarrai of the Iraqi Accordance Front said:

"The problem comes from people who say they represent this or that group. Do they really represent them?"

Hassan al-Senaid, a Shi’ite member of parliament close to Maliki, said: "Maliki has placed no red lines except for individuals who are wanted by Iraqi justice."

(Additional reporting by Hiba Moussa, Aseel Kami, Ross Colvin, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Omar al-Ibadi and Michael Georgy)