State Department denies Iraqis back terrorism

updated 8:44 p.m. ET Nov. 22, 2005

WASHINGTON - Responding to a statement by Iraqis recognizing a right of resistance, the State Department on Tuesday said they had endorsed neither terrorism nor violence.

“They are calling on people to confront terrorism, so I think that is certainly very positive,” spokesman Sean McCormack said of a statement adopted by Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, Egypt, backed by the Arab League.

The statement, he said, deals with the legitimate right to peaceful protest, peaceful expression of differences. And, he said, the United States had “no quarrel with that idea.”

“Take a look at exactly what they are doing,” McCormack told reporters at the daily department briefing for the news media. “They are coming out against violence.”

Responding to a call by the Iraqi factions for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces from the country, the State Department said the U.S.-led coalition remains committed to fostering stability and security in Iraq.

“We will stay as long as it takes to achieve those goals and no longer,” a State Department spokeswoman, Julie Reside, said of the Iraqis’ consensus statement.

A chorus in Congress
The call for a timetable, cast in the form of a demand, seemed to parallel similar demands among a growing number of members of Congress.

The State Department said, however, that President Bush’s policy on U.S. troops in Iraq was clear. It also complimented the Iraqi ethnic groups for “coming together to talk about ways that they can end violence” in their country and the Arab League for sponsoring the conference and making a commitment to increase its diplomatic support for Iraq.

Spokesman McCormack stressed that the Iraqis’ call for a timetable was coupled with expressions of hope that Iraq could build up its military and security forces “in order to enjoy peace and stability and get rid of the terrorism that targets Iraqis” and destroys their national wealth.

‘Legitimate right’ of insurgency claimed
In Cairo on Monday, leaders of Iraq’s sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country and said Iraq’s opposition had a “legitimate right” of resistance.

The final communique, hammered out at the end of three days of negotiations at a preparatory reconciliation conference under the auspices of the Arab League, condemned terrorism, but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if their operations do not target innocent civilians or institutions designed to provide for the welfare of Iraqi citizens.

Amr Nabil / AP Jawad al-Khalisi, a Shiite Muslim cleric of the National Foundation Congress, left, talks Monday to Unadim Kann, an Iraqi governing council member, right, at the Iraqi reconciliation conference at the Arab League in Cairo.

The participants in Cairo agreed on “calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation” and end terrorist attacks.

The conference was attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish lawmakers, as well as leading Sunni politicians.

Sunni leaders have been pressing the Shiite-majority government to agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The statement recognized that goal, but did not lay down a specific time — reflecting instead the government’s stance that Iraqi security forces must be built up first.

End of 2006?
On Monday, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr suggested U.S.-led forces should be able to leave Iraq by the end of next year, saying the one-year extension of the mandate for the multinational force in Iraq by the U.N. Security Council this month could be the last.

“By the middle of next year we will be 75 percent done in building our forces and by the end of next year it will be fully ready,” he told the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.

Debate in Washington over when to bring troops home turned bitter last week after decorated Vietnam War vet Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and estimated a pullout could be complete within six months. Republicans rejected Murtha’s position.

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