baghdad • Iraqi Shi’ite leader Abdel Aziz Al Hakim, the head of parliament’s largest bloc, said yesterday that he favours extending an amnesty to insurgents who may have killed US troops.
He also accused US-led coalition troops of contributing to the worsening security by being “sucked into a quagmire” they were unqualified to handle.
“Yes, they should be covered regardless of their religious or ethnic affiliations,” Hakim said when asked if he would support extending a reconciliation and amnesty plan unveiled by Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to those who may have attacked US-led troops.
Although the insurgency in Iraq is being fueled by Sunni Arabs, partisans of radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr also fought US troops in 2004.
Hakim’s position would contradict that of his government ally Maliki, also a Shi’ite, who said on Wednesday that there would be no amnesty to those who killed US troops, foreigners or journalists.
At the same time Hakim said he would oppose dialogue with “Saddamists and takfeeris”, catchall terms used by hardline Shiites to refer to loyalists of ousted leader Saddam Hussein and extremist Sunni Arab militants who regard Shiites as apostates.
In the same breath, the black-turbaned cleric dismissed the insurgency and accused it of crimes against Iraq. “If there was a true resistance movement, then it should unmask itself so that we can sit down and negotiate with it, but I have seen no proof that such a movement actually exists,” he said.
Hakim, who also heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) party, visited Tehran last month. After meeting him, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on US and other foreign troops to leave Iraq. Before Saddam’s fall, Hakim spent two decades in Iran, where Sciri was based and where its paramilitary wing the Badr Brigades was formed with Tehran’s help.
Hakim was among the first to return to Iraq after the US-led invasion in March 2003 toppled Saddam. He was appointed to the US-formed Governing Council during the US occupation administration that lasted until June 2004.
In an interview at his heavily guarded Baghdad office, Hakim blamed the actions and policies of US-led coalition forces for the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, which in addition to a raging insurgency is besieged by violent sectarianism pitting the newly empowered Shiites against the once-ruling Sunni Arab elite.
“They were not qualified to protect society. They were sucked into a quagmire and made many mistakes that have brought us to the present unfortunate stage. They must give more opportunities to Iraqis to take control,” he said.
