Iraqi leaders demand a cease-fire
HAMZA HENDAWI
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In a split between U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders and American administrators, the Governing Council demanded an immediate cease-fire across the country Friday and a halt to military operations that punish civilians.
A Shiite member of the council also met with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is battling U.S.-led forces in the south, and announced he was suspending his membership in the Iraqi Governing Council until the "bleeding in all Iraq" ends.
Another member, Ghazi al-Yawer, threatened to quit the council over the Marines' bloody siege of the city of Fallujah, aimed at uprooting Sunni insurgents.
U.S. forces have been fighting a two-front battle this week -- against Sunni militants in Fallujah and al-Sadr's militia in the south -- that has killed more than 460 Iraqis and 45 Americans.
Friday's halt in the Fallujah assault was requested by the council to allow for talks on reducing the violence, U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor said.
But a top commander, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, insisted the talks "are not negotiations."
Al-Yawer, a Sunni member of the council, 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.
Al-Yawer said that while he has not taken any formal steps, "I will quit (the council) 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 television.
The council's 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.
In a statement issued early today, the council demanded "an immediate cease fire" and political solutions for the "situations around the country, particularly in Fallujah."
It also called for an end to the "military solution" and "collective punishment that falls on innocent civilians" -- a reference to the Fallujah siege.
Shiite council member Abdul-Karim Mahoud al-Mohammedawi met Friday with al-Sadr, the cleric U.S. commanders have vowed to capture.
"I will not go back to the council until we enter a constructive discussion about Iraq ... to achieve what the Iraqi people really want and to stop the bleeding in all Iraq," he told reporters outside al-Sadr's office in Najaf.
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.
"These (U.S.) operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah," Pachachi told Al-Arabiya television. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal."
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