Apr 23, 2007

BAGHDAD—The U.S. ambassador to Iraq urged leaders of rival religious and
ethnic groups on Monday to shelve what he called "I win, you lose"
politics and speed up progress on laws crucial to fostering national
reconciliation.

Ryan Crocker, in his first news conference since arriving in Baghdad in
March, said the months ahead for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's
nearly one-year-old fractious government of Kurdish, Sunni Arab and
Shi'ite factions would be critical.

"The very definition of reconciliation means you've got to move away
from an 'I win you lose' mentality to some form of broader
accommodation," he said.

U.S. officials are frustrated by the reluctance of parties to compromise
and by slow progress on a draft law on sharing oil revenues and rolling
back a ban on former members of Saddam Hussein's party holding office
that affects mainly Sunni Arabs.

Sunni Arabs, who were dominant before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003,
feel marginalised in the new political landscape in which Shi'ites and
minority Kurds, who were repressed under Saddam, have sought to cement
their grip on power.

Crocker warned that Sunni Islamist al Qaeda was trying to trigger a
fresh wave of violence between minority Sunnis and majority Shi'ites in
a campaign of suicide and car bombings that has killed hundreds of
people over the past several weeks.

Car and suicide bombers killed up to 46 people in a series of attacks
across Iraq on Monday, including one in a restaurant near the heavily
fortified Green Zone compound in Baghdad, where Crocker was giving his
news conference.


Wall Controversy
In a new military tactic to stop the bombers, U.S. troops have begun
walling off some flashpoint neighbourhoods in Baghdad with concrete
barriers, but the move has drawn sharp criticism from some Sunni and
Shi'ite political parties.

Maliki said on Sunday he had ordered the U.S. military to stop work on a
12-foot (3.6-metre) high barrier around the Sunni neighbourhood of
Adhamiya.

Crocker defended the wall, saying it made "good security sense" to build
barriers where there were clear fault-lines and "avenues of attack"
between Sunni and Shi'ite areas.

Neither he nor U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox would say
whether construction of the Adhamiya wall would be stopped. Fox said the
erection of barriers around Baghdad's markets and neighbourhoods was
approved by Iraq's government.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the walls
were a temporary security measure aimed at protecting civilian
populations and were not aimed at dividing people in Iraq.

"This is not meant as a political statement. It is meant as a security
measure and we are working closely with the Iraqi security forces on
it," he said.

He rejected comparisons to the wall being built by the Israelis. "They
are completely different situations and no comparisons should be drawn,"
McCormack told reporters.

Tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed in Baghdad
to try to curb sectarian violence.

While they have reduced the number of sectarian murders, there has been
a surge in bombings inside and outside Baghdad. Crocker said he and the
top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, held daily
discussions and agreed that only political action would bring "lasting
calm" to Iraq.

"I think the Baghdad security plan ... can buy time, but what it does is
buy time for what it ultimately has to be—a set of political
understandings among Iraqis. So I think these months ahead are going to
be critical," Crocker said.

Three car bombs exploded in the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Ramadi,
killing 20 people, police said. A source at a local hospital said it
received 29 bodies after the blast.

In Baquba, capital of the volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad, a
suicide car bomber killed 10 policemen, including the police chief, and
wounded 23 others, police said.

A suicide car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 20 in an attack on the
office of a Kurdish political party near the northern city of Mosul.

'BAGHDAD—The U.S. ambassador to Iraq urged leaders of rival religious
and ethnic groups on Monday to shelve what he called "I win, you lose"
politics and speed up progress on laws crucial to fostering national
reconciliation.'

This is IRONIC... A member of our (ha ha MY party is better) political
system telling anyone 'I win, you lose' politics is bad. Perhaps he
should follow ALL the pointing fingers not just the one he is aiming.

And take his own advice!

(our nation could benefit greatly from this sage advice)