[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Talks Fall Apart for Shiite Rebels and Iraq Leaders

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Talks Fall Apart for Shiite Rebels and Iraq Leaders

August 15, 2004
 By ALEX BERENSON and JOHN F. BURNS 



 

NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 14 - Truce talks between Iraq's interim
government and Moktada al-Sadr's rebels collapsed Saturday,
prompting American commanders to prepare new battle plans
for breaking Mr. Sadr's grip on this holy city and the Imam
Ali mosque, the Middle East's most sacred Shiite shrine. 

Soon after the talks broke down, American marines and
soldiers lined up in tanks and armored vehicles at their
base in Najaf, with some anxiety but ready to begin an
offensive. Instead, it was called off, for the second time
in recent days. 

"We were sitting here waiting for authorization to go clear
the militia," Maj. David Holahan of the Marines told The
Associated Press. "We never got that authorization. We'll
continue operations as the prime minister sees fit," he
said, referring to Iraq's interim leader, Ayad Allawi. 

American commanders in Najaf said Dr. Allawi had decided to
turn to Iraqi forces, not American, to take the lead
against Mr. Sadr at such a sensitive location. That would
be a serious test for the American-trained Iraqi military
and police forces, which have not performed reliably in the
past. 

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser to Dr.
Allawi, announced the breakdown of the talks, and promised
that military operations would resume. He said, "I feel
deep sorrow and regret to announce the failure of the
efforts we have exerted to end the crisis in Iraq
peacefully. Our goal was to spare blood and preserve
security." 

Dr. Rubaie, 57, a British-trained neurologist who returned
from 20 years of exile after the toppling of Saddam Hussein
last year, added: "The Iraqi interim government did not
leave any stone unturned to lead to a peaceful conclusion.
The government is resuming military clearing operations to
return the city of Najaf to normal functioning, and to
establish law and order in this holy city." 

But later on, when the American-led offensive was
suspended, a smaller convoy of American soldiers left the
base on another mission: to buy food for families of Najaf.


A demand that Mr. Sadr disarm his fighters and withdraw
them from Najaf seemed to undo the talks. 

Mr. Sadr's aides said they had demanded that both sides,
the American forces and Mr. Sadr's militia force, the Mahdi
Army, leave the city. They said the cleric also wanted
pledges by the government to release scores of Sadr
fighters taken prisoner during combat, and to give amnesty
to all who had taken part. 

The amnesty demand seemed certain to be rejected by
American commanders, who curbed a broader national amnesty
proposal announced by Dr. Allawi earlier this week,
limiting its terms to exclude any rebels who have taken
part in actions killing or wounding American troops. The
Americans were also wary of any new commitment by the
cleric to disarm his troops, saying he had breached an
earlier cease-fire and seemed likely to do so again. 

Dr. Rubaie said he was leaving Najaf immediately to fly to
Baghdad, 120 miles north, where he was expected to join
crisis talks on the next step in confronting Mr. Sadr, a
populist Shiite cleric who has used the Mahdi Army to stir
a widespread insurrection in the Shiite heartland of
southern Iraq. Since he initiated uprisings across the
south in the spring, Mr. Sadr has entrenched himself as the
most identifiable leader of armed resistance to the
Americans and as a challenger to lead Iraq's majority
Shiite population. 

The fighting in Najaf has set off the most serious
challenge yet faced by the Allawi government in the seven
weeks since it took power with the return of sovereignty to
Iraq. In addition to Najaf, American military commanders
and members of the 30-nation military alliance here have
faced a widening series of attacks in a dozen or more
Shiite towns and cities across a 300-mile swath of
territory south of Baghdad, including Basra, the
second-largest city and linchpin of Iraq's richest oil
fields. 

On Saturday, an American military spokesman said 50
insurgents were killed when American aircraft dropped
500-pound bombs on rebel hide-outs in a ground-and-air
assault on Samarra, north of Baghdad. Hospitals in the city
reported 25 people dead and 86 wounded. Mosques in the city
broadcast appeals on their loudspeakers blood donations. 

Near Falluja, the Sunni rebel stronghold west of Baghdad,
American warplanes bombed suspected rebel positions after
Marine units were ambushed with rifle fire, rockets and
machine guns, the American command said, giving no
information about casualties. The bombing raid was one of
several carried out in recent days, including some on
targets inside Falluja, which American commanders say is a
fortress for loyalists of Saddam Hussein and Islamic
terrorists led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born
militant suspected of planning suicide bombings,
kidnappings and other attacks. 

Commanders of the 3,000 American troops deployed around
Najaf, mainly from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and
the Army's First Cavalry Division, kept a tight lid on
preparations for a resumed offensive after negotiations
collapsed, saying future attacks would not necessarily
center on Najaf's Old City and the area around the shrine.
The short-lived truce allowed both sides to regroup. 

As the talks imploded, fresh convoys of Sadr supporters
were arriving in Najaf from the cleric's main stronghold in
Sadr City, the sprawling Baghdad slum that is home to two
million Shiites, and from cities as far south as Basra. An
Iraqi freelance reporter working for The New York Times
said one convoy of 200 men had arrived in Najaf with food
supplies from Falluja. 

There was no immediate sign of Mr. Sadr on Saturday. On
Friday, he was reported by aides to have suffered shrapnel
wounds during a firefight near the shrine in the hours
before fighting was halted for the talks. Later, he
reappeared in the Imam Ali shrine, demanding the
resignation of the Allawi government, calling it "worse
than Saddam," and vowing to fight on in Najaf "until
victory or martyrdom." 

A Sadr aide, Ali Sumeisim, who took part in the talks, told
reporters that Dr. Rubaie had backtracked on an outline
accord that would have had both sides pull back from the
Old City, leaving the shrine under the control of the aging
ayatollahs who form Iraq's Shiite clerical hierarchy. 

Mr. Sumeisim accused American commanders and Dr. Allawi of
using the talks as a smoke screen while plotting a violent
showdown intended to wipe out the Mahdi Army. "Today, a
vicious plot is being woven to commit a massacre in Iraq,"
he said. "I call on all honest people in the world, on all
Muslims, to raise their voices and expose the truth." 

It seemed clear that the decision to end the talks had been
taken personally by Dr. Allawi, who has made a mark already
as prime minister with his get-tough approach. Dr. Rubaie
said Dr. Allawi and other senior ministers had finally
concluded that "there is no use to continue." 

The fighting that began in Najaf 10 days ago pitched both
sides into a game of brinkmanship, with stakes that run to
the political future of Iraq. When Mr. Sadr began a series
of uprisings in April that spread across southern Iraq, he
gave notice of his determination to mount a violent
challenge to the American presence here, and to use his
defiance as a path to political pre-eminence among Shiite
leaders. American officials resolved to do everything
possible to curb his growing power, regarding him as
dangerously volatile and violent, as well as deeply
influenced by the ruling ayatollahs of Iran, who, American
intelligence reports say, have funneled weapons and money
to the Mahdi Army. 

But Mr. Sadr has proved an artful adversary, compensating
for superior American firepower with tactics - like turning
mosques into fortresses - that have largely preserved him
from attack. In what has virtually been hand-to-hand
combat, more than 360 of his fighters were killed this week
in the vast cemetery next to the Imam Ali shrine, American
officers said. The American command has said six American
soldiers were killed, along with 20 Iraqi guardsmen. 

In Najaf, Mr. Sadr's trump card has been control of the
shrine, which American commanders say has been used for
firing at Americans soldiers and their allies with mortars,
rockets and assault rifles. 

In the past, Mr. Sadr has pledged to disarm his fighters
and return control of Najaf to police and national guard
units under Iraqi government control. 

In practice, American and Iraqi officials say, the pledges
were never kept, and Mr. Sadr's fighters continued to
control whole neighborhoods, build up weapons caches and
attack government buildings and police stations, sometimes
taking captives. 

Alex Berenson reported from Najaf for this article and John
F. Burns from Baghdad. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/international/middleeast/15IRAQ.html?ex=1093599720&ei=1&en=d6bd5f3ef0c35bcb


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