Some Insurgents Want a Deal, Politician Says

Some Sunni Arab insurgent groups linked to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party are putting out feelers for a negotiated end of fighting in exchange for a timetable for a U.S. pullout from Iraq, a former government minister asserted Saturday, amid fresh signs that upcoming elections have altered the country’s political climate.

Former Electricity Minister Ayham Samarrai said he had received a list of eight demands from insurgent organizations that he declined to identify. The demands included an end to U.S. military operations, the release of political prisoners and a withdrawal of American troops from populated areas.

Samarrai made his comments as a known Baathist website confirmed the death of the highest-ranking fugitive of the Hussein government, Izzat Ibrahim. His death had been reported in Arab media and The Times earlier. Ibrahim had suffered from cancer for several years.

Also Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari in Iraq. Annan, who last visited Iraq before the war began, used Saturday’s meeting to endorse a proposal for broad talks in Egypt on Iraqi reconciliation. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced U.S. support for the talks, which are being sponsored by the Arab League.

Although any such negotiations are far from certain, Sunni groups have engaged in heightened discussion of reconciliation talks, several politicians said.

The insurgency claimed more lives Saturday when a suspected car bomb exploded in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad, killing eight people.

Despite previous attempts to arrange dialogue with insurgents, U.S. diplomats and military leaders in Iraq have learned to be skeptical of any politician’s claims to speak for the diffuse insurgency. Samarrai has claimed to be in touch with insurgent groups before, prompting some to publicly disavow him and accuse him of playing “America’s games.”

Samarrai, a Sunni Arab, lived in exile in the United States until Hussein’s fall.

“They are eager to start talking, and the United States should take that initiative and start moving,” Samarrai said.

Political solutions are inevitable, he said. “Nobody can crush anybody with weapons alone, and everybody knows that. We have to start talking. Let everyone sit and solve it, for God’s sake, because we are dying here like crazy.”

Samarrai acknowledged Saturday that the groups he was referring to -- Sunni nationalist and “patriotic” groups, many linked to Hussein’s former regime, army and security services -- form just a part of the insurgency. The U.S. believes they are responsible for the bulk of roadside explosions, car bombs and ambushes targeting coalition troops and security forces.

Foreign fighters under the Al Qaeda terrorist network’s banner are unlikely to join the talks, he said. The followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi and other militants reject negotiations with the West and aim to establish an Islamic state. They have been blamed for the worst suicide bombings, abductions and beheadings.

In an interview Saturday, Samarrai insisted the overtures were authentic.

“I believe them, because we have been talking to them almost a year,” Samarrai said. “We know they are credible. Some of them are coming with me to Cairo and are willing to talk with whomever I can make them meet.”

Officials of Jafari’s Shiite-dominated government have shown great wariness about the proposed Cairo talks. The government fears being drawn into discussions with those it regards as terrorists or criminals, Deputy Foreign Minister Labeed Abbawi said in an interview.

“We are not allowing anybody from the insurgents or who have any connection with the Baath Party or leaders of that kind,” he said.

But the country’s highest-ranking Sunni politician, Vice President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, said Saturday that he believed such obstacles could be overcome.

“I would say that whoever wants to talk politics has to have a political wing,” Yawer said. “I mean, look at the IRA -- they had Sinn Fein, and even the Viet Cong, they had somebody to negotiate for them.”

But Yawer said he felt sorry for Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who has the task of trying to select the participants for any Cairo talks.

“There are many credible sides to Iraqi society,” Yawer said, “and many who are eligible to be invited to the next meeting in Egypt.”

The discussion of possible negotiations to end the fighting parallels a new enthusiasm among Sunni Arabs to participate in the Dec. 15 elections so they can secure a strong voice in the next parliament.

Several Sunni groups, including the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has roots in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and the Iraqi National Front, led by former Baathist officials and officers, have promised a large turnout among Sunni Arabs in contrast to February’s parliamentary election. Sunni Arab participation in that contest was anemic because of widespread boycotts and intimidation.

Because elections are being organized at the provincial level and not at the national level, the three main Sunni Arab-populated provinces -- Al Anbar, Nineveh and Salahuddin -- are guaranteed significant representation. The current National Assembly is dominated by Shiite and Kurdish groups; only a handful of lawmakers are Sunni Arabs. Sunni Arabs are believed to make up at least 20% of Iraq’s population of 25 million. They had a privileged status during the long rule of Hussein, a Sunni Arab from the Tikrit area.

Sheik Saad Elyan, a tribal leader in Ramadi, said the armed groups he knew in Al Anbar province, a hotbed of the insurgency, “took up their weapons when they lost their rights.

“Naturally, if they get back their rights, then they can participate [in negotiations] and lay down the weapons,” Elyan said.

He confirmed that area sheiks in Ramadi, including some connected to armed groups, had been meeting as recently as a few days ago to discuss the issues and were determined to participate in the December voting.

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Times staff writer Solomon Moore and special correspondent Asmaa Waguih contributed to this report.