Iraqi Leaders Urge Insurgents to End Attacks

Iraq’s interim leaders appealed Wednesday for those waging a campaign of insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation to cease provocations and take advantage of “a spirit of forgiveness” to reconcile with their Iraqi brothers.

The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council held out an olive branch to those who it said had been deceived by deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, calling on them to “desist from acts of violence and return to the fold of the Iraqi people.”

Meanwhile, officers of the Army’s 1st Armored Division determined that a massive predawn truck explosion that killed 12 people was probably an accident and not an act of terrorism.

In Samarra, a city at the heart of pro-Hussein guerrilla warfare, U.S.-led coalition troops launched a major sweep through the insurgent stronghold in an operation, code-named “Ivy Blizzard,” to kill or capture Hussein supporters, religious extremists and foreign fighters who have stepped up their provocations since Hussein’s arrest near Tikrit on Saturday.

U.S. troops also seized two significant arms caches near Ramadi, another violence-prone town in the Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, including surface-to-air missiles. The weapons included more than 200 artillery and mortar rounds and dozens of antitank mines.

In hopes of attracting some Hussein loyalists to the side of Iraq’s postwar rebuilding effort, the Governing Council issued a formal call for insurgents to “prove their loyalty to the nation so that they may be embraced by their generous brothers.”

“The Governing Council stresses the need for a spirit of forgiveness in order to rebuild national unity on solid foundations which disavow violence and vengeance and focus on rebuilding an Iraq of justice, peace and prosperity,” council member Mouwafak Rabii said, reading from an official proclamation by the 25-member body.

Noting that Hussein and top figures of the deposed Baath Party regime would be put on trial as war criminals, the Iraqi leaders sought to assure Hussein loyalists at large that they would be treated fairly.

Council members stopped short of offering any amnesty, reflecting the limited authority the interim government wields. U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III has the final word on any decisions regarding arrests, detentions and day-to-day affairs in Iraq until a planned July 1 hand-over of sovereignty.

“There is no need for amnesty for those who haven’t committed any crimes against humanity,” said Adnan Pachachi, an 80-year-old former exile and acting president of the council. “They have simply to turn themselves in and express their willingness to participate with other Iraqis in the reconstruction of our country. Only those who committed war crimes will be sent to the special tribunal.”

Both Pachachi and Rabii were among the Iraqi officials who briefly visited Hussein in his cell Sunday and asked him about some of the more heinous atrocities attributed to his administration. They described Hussein as being kept abreast of insurgent attacks during his eight months on the run from coalition forces but hardly in any position to direct them.

The council members reiterated that Hussein was likely to face war crimes charges before a newly established tribunal to which only Iraqi judges would be appointed. Because of the time it will take to prepare the case against him and the desire of most Iraqis to see him face the death penalty, which has been suspended during coalition rule, the trial and sentencing are unlikely to start before the hand-over, they said.

Rabii confirmed that Hussein remained jailed in Baghdad, contrary to regional media reports that he had been transferred to a U.S. interrogation center in Qatar.

Iraqi officials have drawn criticism from human rights advocates for designing a tribunal the foreign analysts consider vulnerable to accusations of “victors’ justice.”

But Pachachi insisted that the Iraqi tribunal would call in foreign experts and advisors as needed, dismissing the criticism of organizations such as New York-based Human Rights Watch. That group complained again Wednesday that important legal questions remained to be addressed about the legitimacy of a tribunal established during occupation.

Iraqi media have sought to cast the insurgency as a doomed and desperate force and previous supporters of the regime as eager turncoats.

One former official, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, has applied to change the name of his youngest son from Saddam to Zuhair, the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported. The newspaper also said Aziz was appealing to his U.S. jailers for French cigarettes, better food and smaller clothes because he has lost weight.

Meanwhile, the military reported that two U.S. troops died Wednesday. A soldier with the 1st Armored Division was killed in an ambush in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood, and another soldier died in a vehicle accident in Mosul.

Near Fallouja, three members of the 1st Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade were wounded in action.

At the scene of the 6 a.m. Baghdad explosion, U.S. military ordnance experts analyzed the wreckage and the crater and concluded that the blast was the result of the tanker’s crash into a bus, said Capt. Jason Beck, spokesman for the 1st Armored Division, which is deployed in the capital.

Twelve people died in the blast, including three children, and hospital officials said 21 others were injured, several of them seriously.

“Women and children died before my eyes, and parts of people were everywhere,” said Ahmed Adnan, 30, who lives nearby and rushed out to try to help.

“The flames were leaping into the air. I have never heard such a big explosion.”

A scorched smell hung in the air, and a knot of curious people gathered around what appeared to be a charred human skull thrown upon the road median. Vehicles as far as 100 yards away, including a car and a pickup truck, were incinerated along with the bus.

Even at such an early hour, the wide, four-lane street and sidewalks were beginning to fill with Iraqis starting their long treks to work in a city plagued by a gasoline shortage and insufficient public transport

Iraqi police originally called the explosion in the run-down Bayaa district of southwest Baghdad a botched attempt to bomb a nearby police station. As the anti-American insurgency has gathered force, police stations have been the target of frequent attacks that have killed and maimed scores of U.S.-trained Iraqi police officers. Insurgents see the law enforcement recruits as collaborators with the occupation.

Witnesses also leapt to the conclusion that the blast was the work of insurgents.

A crowd gathered around the twisted remains of the truck’s engine block, muttering angrily. “No gas! No jobs! No security!” yelled one balding, red-faced Iraqi man. “Whose fault is all this? The Americans!”