Key leaders skip Iraq's reconciliation meeting
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 17, 2006
BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister reached out to Sunni Arabs at a national reconciliation conference on Saturday, urging Saddam Hussein-era officers to join the new army and a review of the ban against members of the former dictator's ruling party.
But key players on both ends of the Sunni-Shiite divide skipped the meeting, raising doubt that the conference will succeed in healing the country's wounds.
"We firmly believe that national reconciliation is the only guaranteed path toward security, stability and prosperity. The alternative, God forbid, is death and destruction and the loss of Iraq," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in his opening remarks.
The long-awaited gathering was seen by the Iraqi government and the White House as a chance to rally ethnic, religious and political groups around a common strategy for ending the country's violence.
Iraq's politicians, however, have been unable to come together. The Shiite prime minister faces growing dissent from his coalition partners, including Shiite allies like radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Sadr's bloc said it was boycotting the two-day meeting, as did two major Sunni groups and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite.
"There is no point in holding these conferences ... because the situation is getting worse," said Sadr's spokesman, Firas al-Mitairi.
Sadr's absence came amid recent reports that some rival lawmakers are attempting to sideline the anti-U.S. cleric, whose Mahdi Army militia has been blamed for some of the worst sectarian violence.
The prime minister addressed the problem of militias in his speech, reiterating that they should be disbanded, but he did not offer any new ideas about how to do so.
"There must be a solution to this problem, and the militias must be disbanded and integrated into various state institutions," he said.
Maliki also said that Iraq has been able to overcome many of the outstanding problems with its neighbors, including U.S. rivals Syria and Iran.
He added that Iraq would send delegations to the neighboring countries in coming days and could call for a regional conference.
"We refuse to allow Iraq to become a battlefield for regional and international conflicts," he said.
Other developments
At least 23 people were killed Saturday in Iraq, including a Sunni cleric and a Sunni politician who were shot in Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad.
Police also found the bodies of 53 men who had been bound and blindfolded before they were shot to death in Baghdad, likely the latest victims of sectarian death squads.