KurdistanObserver.com

Report: US In Secret Talks With Iraqi Insurgents

Reuters-Feb 21, 2005- U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers are conducting secret talks with Iraq's Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, Time magazine reported on Sunday, citing Pentagon and other sources.

  The Bush administration has said it would not negotiate with Iraqi fighters and there is no authorized dialogue but the U.S. is having "back-channel" communications with certain insurgents, unidentified Washington and Iraqi sources told the magazine.

  The magazine cited a secret meeting between two members of the U.S. military and an Iraqi negotiator, a middle-aged former member of Saddam Hussein's regime and the senior representative of what he called the nationalist insurgency.

  A U.S. officer tried to get names of other insurgent leaders while the Iraqi complained the new Shi'ite-dominated government was being controlled by Iran, according to an account of the meeting provided by the Iraqi negotiator.

  "We are ready to work with you," the Iraqi negotiator said, according to Time.

  Iraqi insurgent leaders not aligned with al Qaeda ally Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi told the magazine several nationalist groups composed of what the Pentagon calls "former regime elements" have become open to negotiating.

  The insurgents said their aim was to establish a political identity that can represent disenfranchised Sunnis.

  The White House had no immediate comment on the report.

  Controversial Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi said on Sunday the outcome of any negotiations between insurgents and the U.S. military would not be binding for a new Iraqi government.

  "I know nothing about such negotiations. Those negotiations will in no way bind the elected government of Iraq," he said. "The issue here is not negotiating with the killers who are killing the Iraqi people," he added in an interview with ABC's "This Week."