Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unveiled an ambitious U.S.-backed plan for bringing together ethnic and sectarian factions that leaves open the possibility of offering amnesty to some insurgents who have killed American or Iraqi troops.
The 28-point plan, presented to parliament Sunday, includes amnesty “for those not proven involved in crimes, terrorist activities and war crimes against humanity,” deliberately vague language hammered out over long and heated closed-door discussions involving Iraqis and Americans.
Al-Maliki, speaking to lawmakers packed inside the Baghdad Convention Center in the high-security Green Zone, said the plan “does not mean honoring and accepting killers and criminals.”
However, it calls for releasing thousands of suspected insurgents who “pledge to condemn violence and vow to back” the government. It also advocates ending rules that keep some former members of the once-ruling Baath Party out of political life, provided they have not committed crimes in the past.
“We realize that there is a segment of those who rebelled against the righteousness, rational and logical and took Satan’s route,” said al-Maliki, who took over as prime minister a month ago amid high expectations among his war-weary compatriots and U.S. officials. “To those who want to build and reform, we present hands that carry olive branches.”
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, speaking to reporters after the parliamentary session, also did not rule out the possibility of pardons for insurgents who had belonged to groups that had taken up arms against American forces.
Only “irreconcilables”–insurgents who fundamentally oppose the Iraqi state, either by fighting for a return of Baath Party dictatorship or for Al Qaeda’s vision of a second Islamic Caliphate–would be categorically excluded, he said.
`All wars must … end’
“All wars must come to an end, and hostility has to be replaced by reconciliation and difficult decisions have to be made by all,” Khalilzad said. “I’m optimistic that we can reach an understanding on this issue but also one that meets the requirements of justice.”
Meanwhile, an Al Qaeda-led group posted footage on the Internet on Sunday showing the killing of three men said to be Russian hostages seized in Iraq this month, Iraqi and Arab television channels reported.
The images, posted on a Web site often used by militants, reportedly showed two masked militants beheading a man and the “execution” of another by shooting. It also showed the beheaded body of a third. The fate of a fourth hostage was not clear.
Al-Maliki’s plan, forged in close consultation with U.S. political and military leaders, is among the more wide-reaching attempts yet by an Iraqi leader to address the religious and political chasms that emerged after the 2003 U.S. invasion.
But the plan’s ambiguity on the amnesty issue quickly drew criticism from one opponent of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.
“For heaven’s sake, we liberated that country,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a Fox television interview. “We got rid of a horrific dictator. We’ve paid a tremendous price. The idea that they should even consider talking about amnesty for people who have killed people who liberated their country is unconscionable.”
Many Iraqi analysts and politicians also wondered whether the plan would be effective in quieting the insurgency. Its more important features, first detailed in the June 17 issue of the Iraqi daily Mada, are designed to assuage Sunni mistrust of the government. The moves would include the formation of committees to negotiate amnesties; steps to demobilize militias and prevent abuses by U.S.-led forces; and a review of laws purging from public life former members of the Baath Party, which ruled during Saddam Hussein’s regime.
But the plan raised immediate doubts from the country’s minority Sunnis. Many Sunnis said the plan did not go far enough in heeding their demands–especially for the setting of a timetable for the departure of U.S. troops.
Sunni’s objection
“What do you want me to tell the honorable people? Not to hate the occupation?” said Sheik Ali Hatam Sulayman, a leader of the Albu Asaf tribe in the rebel stronghold of Anbar province. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
But Shiite politicians called the proposal an initial gesture meant to launch a dialogue between Iraq’s disparate segments and not just appease Sunnis or the insurgency.
Though al-Maliki presented the plan to parliament, his aides said he does not need lawmakers’ approval to implement the measures–a position disputed by some legislators.
