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Iraq's new Prime Minister demands militias disarm Iraqi militias, including those loyal to the firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr must lay down their weapons, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi demanded on U.S. television on Sunday.
"The position of the government is very clear. There is no room for any militias to operate in Iraq," Allawi said on ABC's "This Week" program. "Everybody should follow the bounds of the law, whether it's Moqtada al-Sadr or anybody else."
Allawi said he met on Saturday with a delegation trying to mediate between the government and Sadr, who has urged Iraqis to oppose the continued presence of around 160,000 mainly U.S. foreign troops in Iraq.
Sadr has indicated his militia would disarm if its members were offered amnesty and that was possible, Allawi said.
Sadr also wants "to be part of the political process," he said. "Anybody who respects the rule of law and the human rights is welcome to be part of Iraq."
Allawi listed internal security as the top goal of the caretaker Iraqi government, but said other priorities were restoring public services, reducing unemployment and holding elections for a permanent government by January 2005.
Asked on CNN about Sadr, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said there were "contacts with a variety of people who are currently outside the political process."
"But I can assure you, these contacts and exchanges are all focused on bringing about calm and bringing about an environment of stability and giving people who have not been responsible for crimes and criminal activities a way of getting back into society, while dealing with the terrorist threat that we have to confront and deal with," said Salih.
Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner said the question of granting amnesty to insurgents should be left to the Iraqi government.
"Give them a chance," said the Virginia Republican. "It sort of strikes us as not correct, since some of those he's offering it to have been engaged in the insurgency and might have brought about death or harm to our forces. But give them a chance."
Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, said on CNN that amnesty should be limited to "those who haven't really done harm, who haven't killed others, who haven't committed criminal acts." He said Sadr should be prosecuted for inciting insurgents.
New Jersey Democrat John Corzine, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the United States had to respect Iraqi sovereignty. "I think it's dangerous if we get into compromising of giving amnesty to people who have attacked American men and women, killed American men and women, been responsible for the insurgency," Corzine said. |
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