[Mb-civic] U.S. Debate on Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis in Talks - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

U.S. Debate on Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis in Talks

By Ellen Knickmeyer, Jonathan Finer and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; A01

RAMADI, Iraq, Nov. 29 -- Outside Ramadi's city auditorium, the mortar 
rounds fell, two, then three, each rattling the concrete walls slightly. 
Inside, locked in an intense debate about what it would take for 
American troops in Iraq to withdraw, none of the camouflaged Marines or 
robed Sunni Arab tribal leaders even flinched.

"We all want the withdrawal," Nasir Abdul Karim, leader of Anbar 
province's Albu Rahad tribe, told scores of the armed Marines and Sunni 
sheiks, clerical leaders and other elders at the gathering Monday in 
Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad. "We all believe it is an illegitimate 
occupation, and it is a legitimate resistance."

"We're committed to withdrawing," responded Brig. Gen. James L. Williams 
of the 2nd Marine Division, "as soon as we have strong units" in the 
Iraqi army to replace U.S.-led forces. "I understand the resistance," 
Williams added, commenting later that he was referring to the peaceful 
opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq. "But you must understand we're 
military people. People who are shot at will shoot back."

The spirited exchange in Ramadi came at the largest meeting yet between 
those suspected of supporting the Iraqi insurgency and the U.S. forces 
battling them. The comments by the tribal leaders, and similar remarks 
to reporters Tuesday in Fallujah, 30 miles away, offered fresh evidence 
of how the debate in the United States about pulling out troops is also 
echoing through Iraq. President Bush is expected to address growing 
public sentiment for withdrawal in a speech Wednesday at the U.S. Naval 
Academy in Annapolis.

Nowhere is support for a U.S. military exit stronger than in Anbar 
province in western Iraq, heart of the Sunni insurgency, where fighters 
control whole communities along the Euphrates River, and where money and 
materiel flow in from neighboring Syria. Elsewhere in Iraq, many people 
who resent the U.S. presence say they fear factional struggles and 
upheaval if the U.S. troops leave too quickly. But in Anbar cities such 
as Ramadi and Fallujah, the calls for a pullout are enthusiastically 
applauded.

"The people of Fallujah love Cindy Sheehan," declared Farouk 
Abd-Muhammed, a candidate for National Assembly in Dec. 15 elections, 
referring to the mother of a slain Marine who became a U.S. antiwar 
activist. He spoke Tuesday at a pre-election meeting of local leaders in 
Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, scene of the largest U.S. offensive 
of the war in November 2004.

Abd-Muhammed described watching recent television reports with his 
family showing Americans waving banners that read "Stop the war in Iraq."

"I salute the American people because we know after watching them on 
satellite that they are ready to leave," Abd-Muhammed said.

"We know that there are now voices, even in the Congress, that want 
America to leave Iraq as soon as possible," said Fawzi Muhammed, an 
engineer who is the deputy chairman of Fallujah's reconstruction 
committee. "It makes us feel very happy and comfortable because it is 
the only solution to the problems in Iraq."

Unlike Fallujah -- seen now by some U.S. commanders as a model of 
cooperation between Sunni leaders and the military -- people in Ramadi 
appear to know comparatively little of the debate in the United States 
over the war. Fighting here, including insurgent bomb attacks, knocked 
out most of the provincial capital's communications to the outside 
world, and U.S. forces were able to restore a vital fiber-optics cable 
only this month.

But the distrust -- and the disconnect -- between the U.S. forces and 
the Iraqis here runs strong. Sunday, the day before the meeting, was the 
first "zero casualty" day the city had experienced in some time, 
Williams said.

Heavy fighting, and a heavy U.S. presence to try to curb it, have left 
the city a bombed-out, weed-overgrown, deserted wasteland. As observers 
arrived for the meeting, Marines prodded them to run from the government 
building to the nearby meeting hall, fearing that bullets or mortar 
rounds would make it over the blast walls.

Williams said he had discussed the planned gathering since July with 
Mamoun Sami Rashid Alwani, the third governor of Anbar to take office so 
far this year. One of Rashid Alwani's predecessors was killed in a U.S. 
firefight with insurgents; the other quit after his sons were kidnapped.

Rashid Alwani, a target of insurgents because he has worked with the new 
Iraqi government and the Americans, survived "seven or eight" 
assassination attempts before the meeting came about, Williams said.

For U.S. officers, the fact that the gathering took place was 
heartening. "If there's a debate today, the whole city is seeing 
democracy," Capt. Philip Nash, a Marine commander in Ramadi, said before 
it began. "It's a town-hall meeting in Ramadi."

"Today's awesome," Nash added as scores of U.S. Marines took up 
positions for the meeting, and Iraqi forces checked the Sunni leaders 
filing in for weapons. "They're coming, and I haven't seen that before."

Contending Agendas

An Iraqi journalist for the country's state-sponsored al-Sabah 
newspaper, waiting with Nash for the meeting to start, looked at him. 
"In Saddam's day they would have slaughtered a sheep for visits like 
this," he told the American captain, referring to the ousted president, 
Saddam Hussein. "Today I think maybe they will slaughter you."

The Americans said they called the meeting to discuss security, talk 
about what conditions would lead to a U.S. withdrawal from the province, 
and encourage Sunni participation in the upcoming national elections.

But the clerics in the audience said they came for one reason: They were 
told the Americans wanted to discuss plans for a U.S. military pullout.

"We want them to withdraw from the province," Muhammed Dulaimy, an 
Arabic professor at Ramadi's Anbar University, said as about 200 of the 
province's elders settled into their seats. "They called the meeting. We 
came to see why they are talking to us. We didn't come to talk about the 
election. If it's about the election, we'll leave."

The American pitch was simple: Encourage tribal members to join the 
military, so that Iraq's national forces can build to a strength that 
would allow U.S. forces to withdraw, and to discourage attacks on 
American and Iraqi forces.

The Anbar elders' demands were equally straightforward: Allow the tribes 
to build up their own army division for Anbar. Leave, and the attacks 
will stop.

Linguistic Divide

But the disconnect ran strong, and as always for Americans in Iraq, the 
inability to speak the language didn't help. Marine interpreters, Arabic 
speakers hired from outside Iraq, repeatedly bobbled the point.

"Your best step would be to convince your sons to join the army and 
police, so these people not from your city can leave your city," Lt. 
Gen. Hikmet Hussein, commander of the Iraqi 7th Division here, told the 
tribal leaders.

"You need to move forward in this city,'' translated the Marines' 
interpreter, who appeared to be from North Africa. "You need to get 
involved."

Speakers complained of the heavy American presence in the blasted city 
center, of sniper shootings, of arrests and raids. Unheard by Americans, 
the elders occasionally catcalled from the audience. One stood up to 
complain when a female American political adviser sat down next to a 
white-bearded imam. "Show some respect for the turban!" the man shouted.

"God bless you, God bless you," others in the audience added, after the 
woman moved to another seat.

"We haven't seen anything since Saddam fell!" another man shouted.

"I think it's really a helpful debate," a Marine watching from the back 
told a reporter, as Arab man after Arab man rose to complain of the U.S. 
military presence, some thrusting a finger at the Marines. One after 
another, Sunni men identified themselves by their officer rank in Iraq's 
former army as they spoke, as if Hussein's force was still in existence.

A Greater Enemy

"We hoped we would see an already made plan and not discuss it any 
more," another sheik, Anwar Khirbeet, said of the talk of American 
withdrawal. "People here are against the occupation forces. We frankly 
consider the current government as a terrorist government."

Khirbeet drew the only applause of the day when he warned that Sunni 
Arabs faced a greater enemy in Anbar than Americans: the Iranian-allied 
religious parties of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, now in power in 
Baghdad. "The occupation will end sooner or later; the most dangerous 
thing we can face is the Iranian involvement,'' he said, to loud 
clapping from the crowd.

"They'll bring us the Wolf Brigade next!" shouted a man in the audience, 
referring to the Interior Ministry force that many Sunnis allege is 
linked to the late-night kidnappings and killings of Sunnis.

By 3:15 p.m., five mortar rounds had landed outside, to the left of the 
meeting hall. The mortar fire was heavier than usual, Americans said, 
and clearly launched to make a point. Then, the nearest round of the day 
hit, apparently overshooting the building and striking to the right, 
making the windows rattle briefly in their frames.

"These spoilers out there are trying to intimidate,'' Williams said, 
taking note of the firing for the first time that day. "Not one of you 
blinked an eye. So that's very good."

The elders murmured, approvingly.

"We're here to work through the problems,'' Williams urged. "These are 
complex problems. There are not easy solutions, but there are solutions."

His words were translated differently, however. "I don't have any time 
to waste," is how they were conveyed by another army interpreter, an 
older Lebanese man, seemingly impatient after five hours of talks, and 
improvising in an apparent effort to bring them to a close. "Even if you 
all do have time to waste, today's not the day."

Thus prodded, Marines and tribal leaders reached an agreement: Anbar's 
elders would come up with a plan that would satisfy U.S. conditions for 
security and allow U.S. troops to pull out of Ramadi, and Williams would 
try to pitch it to Baghdad. Despite the disconnect, both sides had 
gotten across enough of their points to satisfy, at least to a degree.

"It may work," said one Hussein-era army commander, identifying himself 
as Gen. Sant-Rawi, standing up to go, just before the day's seventh 
mortar round landed outside.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/29/AR2005112901850.html?nav=hcmodule
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