It's simple, they want a piece of the action.
Posted on 12/24/2003 10:52:01 PM PST by Pokey78
TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - With Saddam Hussein in captivity, some tribal elders from his old power base are showing greater willingness to work with Iraq's American occupiers, realizing they must carve out a new political role for the Sunni Muslim minority that long ruled the country. At a meeting this week between tribal leaders and U.S. commanders, a prominent elder from the village where the ousted Iraqi dictator was born made a dramatic acknowledgment that Saddam's era was over.
"I told my people to tell their children that his time is gone," said Sheik Mahmoud Al Nada, leader of the powerful Al Nassari tribe from the village of Uja, near Tikrit, in a region that has been a stronghold of anti-U.S. resistance.
"At first few people would listen, it was like a trickle of water but now, after Saddam is gone, it is becoming a river," said Al Nada, who has opposed the American occupation and even told commanders in the past Iraqis had the right to resist it.
U.S. officers have been meeting every week with the region's tribal leaders, but Al Nada was the first sheik who openly spoke against Saddam, said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, a U.S. commander in Tikrit.
"He is a brave man, he needed a lot of courage to say something like that in Saddam's village," Russell said.
All eight sheiks present at the meeting told the Americans they would not resist the occupation.
The insurgency against U.S. forces - which the sheiks say they play no direct role in - has continued even with Saddam in custody. With the heavy American crackdown on guerrillas and with Saddam now out of the picture, the region's tribal leaders appeared to be starting to face the new political reality in Iraq - and the danger that Sunnis could be squeezed out of post-Saddam power.
A growing number of tribal leaders have started speaking openly about the role of their minority in the governing of Iraq, a U.S. officer in Tikrit said on condition of anonymity.
Sunnis have ruled Iraq for centuries and dominated the country under Saddam's regime, filling high-ranking positions and reaping economic benefits. But they make up only 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, concentrated in Baghdad and villages to the north and west.
With the U.S.-led occupation trying to install democratic government, the Shiite Muslim majority - long oppressed under Saddam - is positioning itself to hold sway in Iraq.
"Shiites want to carve up Iraq and join Iran, Kurds want their independent state, but what about us Sunnis?" asked Sheik Sami Bashir al-Dulemi at the session in Tikrit's city hall.
"We want greater participation in the government," al-Dulemi told the Americans, as the other sheiks - dressed in traditional long Arab robes with golden and silver stripes and headscarves - nodded in approval.
Russell reassured the group of elders that he understands their grievances but counseled them to do more to "find the place for Sunnis" in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Russell equated the situation to a race for a new future in which "the starting gun has fired, the Kurds and Shiites have started running, but the Sunni runner is standing at the starting line ... imagining he has won."
Al-Dulemi said the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council "does not represent all the people of Iraq ... Ever since Iraq became an independent state, all rulers were Sunnis."
The Governing Council, selected by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer to reflect the size of the country's diverse groups, has 13 Shiites, five Arab Sunnis, five Kurdish Sunnis, one Turkman and one Christian. The U.S.-led coalition plans to transfer authority to a transitional Iraqi government by July 1.
U.S. administrators have to balance the Shiites' desire for power after years of oppression with Sunni fears of ending up on the bottom of the heap in the new Iraq. At the same time, American forces are trying to put down the guerrilla resistance, even as U.S. sweeps and crackdowns raise resentment among Sunnis.
At the Tikrit meeting - frequently interrupted by City Hall orderlies serving sweet mint tea and coffee to chain-smoking elders - the sheiks criticized the nightly raids by U.S. troops hunting for guerrillas.
They accused the Americans of using tactics similar to the ousted regime and urged Russell to release some detained men, handing him a list of names.
Russell winced as he glanced at one name, noting: "I dug out dozens of rocket-propelled grenade launchers from this guy's garden."
Tikrit's Mayor Wail al-Ali, a career diplomat who backs the U.S. occupation, complained at the meeting about American soldiers seizing all guns, including antiquated muzzle-loading muskets. He proposed licensing weapons.
Russell endorsed the idea, and the sheiks proposed that the mayor's office start issuing weapons licenses in Arabic and in English, to be comprehensible to U.S. soldiers.
U.S.-appointed authorities allow each family to have an assault rifle with 30 rounds, or a handgun - a nod to a deep-rooted Arab tradition of gun ownership.
It's simple, they want a piece of the action.
I guess these guys haven't noticed that not all Sunnis are being left behind, just the ones who supported Saddam. When we entered Iraq we extended the hand of friendship to all Iraqis, these guys spit in that hand. Despite all that they have done, our hand is still extended in friendship. It's up to them. They can stop these thugs, when they do, they will find a place at the table ready for them.
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