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Saddam's cousin says US should talk to
insurgents
8.7.2005
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
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AMMAN, July 8 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's
cousin Muzahem al-Majeed, who spent eight years in
prison for opposing his relative, said on Friday
U.S. officials must open talks with Sunni Muslim
insurgents if they want a tranquil Iraq.
"There should be a dialogue with those leaders or
those who represent them if they really want Iraq to
stabilise," said Majeed, 39, freed from solitary
confinement only after the collapse of Saddam's
regime after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
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Former dictator
Saddam Hussein
Photo : AP |
Majeed, deputy head of the broad-based National
Salvation Front, a legal political group, told
Reuters in Amman during a stop on his way to Iraq,
that he was not surprised the Americans were failing
to win over many Sunnis and facing a ferocious
insurgency.
"The Americans marginalised acceptable figures in
Iraq and went along with those who propagated lies
before the occupation and who hold sectarian views,"
Majeed said.
U.S. officials have said most insurgents come from
Saddam's once-dominant Sunni minority, along with
some militant foreign fighters led by al Qaeda's
leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have recently said they
were talking to tribal leaders, clerics and some
groups linked to the Sunni insurgency, but deny any
contact with Zarqawi.
Majeed echoes views of Sunni Arabs across Iraq who
say U.S. postwar policy alienated them and who want
the United States to have a dialogue with credible
Sunni leaders.
Sunni Arabs, who make up around 20 percent of the
population, have had to settle with minimal
representation in parliament after many of them
boycotted the January elections.
Any Sunni boycott of the constitutional process
would damage government efforts to draw Sunnis into
the political mainstream.
"This is a new Iraq, it's not fair or right that
this group or the other should be marginalised. They
all have rights as Iraqis to participate," Majeed
said.
"If the Americans continue to deal with the same
people they rely on it will be like sitting and
talking in front of a mirror. Had they sat with
people with grassroots support in the Iraqi street
they wouldn't have fallen into this mess," he said.
"Unless the Americans draw the right lessons from
their mistakes, I fear a deterioration to an even
worse situation," Majeed said.
Reuters
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