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Some Sunnis Hint at Peace Terms in Iraq, U.S. Says

May-14-2005 » Filed Under: General Military

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By STEVEN R. WEISMAN and JOHN F. BURNS, New York Times

WASHINGTON, May 14 - The Bush administration, struggling to cope with a recent intensification of insurgent violence in Iraq, has received signals from some radical Sunni Arab leaders that they would abandon fighting if the new Shiite majority government gave Sunnis more political power, administration officials said this week.

The officials said American contacts with what they called "rejectionist" elements among Sunni Arabs - the governing minority under Saddam Hussein, which has generated the insurgency, and largely boycotted January's elections - showed that many wanted to participate in the political system, including the writing of a permanent constitution. [...]

Senior American officers in Iraq and others in the Pentagon said the violence had not prompted them to change their strategy of capturing or killing insurgents, cutting off their financing, pre-empting their attacks and training more Iraqi security forces.

Rather, they said, the attacks reinforced their view that quelling the insurgency would also require an effective political strategy to stabilize areas where insurgents have been most active, including Baghdad and Mosul, two of Iraq's biggest cities. [...]


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