US sees truce with Moqtadan Sadr, while denying rift with Britain on Iraq

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1504&ncid=1504&e=2&u=/afp/20040527/ts_afp/iraq_worldwrap_040527021410

BAGHDAD: (AFP) - Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr agreed to a truce that would end deadly battles in three Iraqi cities, US officials said, as London and Washington put on a show of unity over the future of Iraq.

US officials in Washington said Sadr and a council of Iraqi clerics had reached a deal that would stop the violence by his private Mehdi Army and remove them from government buildings in the contested cities of Najaf, Kufa and Karbala.


Details of the plan were to be announced Thursday in Baghdad, but one official said the deal also appeared to call for dealing in some way with the Mehdi Army militiamen connected to the killing of a rival cleric last year.


The deal came after 13 Iraqis were killed and 33 wounded in fighting early Wednesday between Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and US soldiers in the huge Shiite cemetery in Najaf, medics and militia commanders said.

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[David Dunham]

1. This deal will not work.

[Disturbed]

2. Strange deals

"Al-Sadr's fighters may be folded into the new 'security forces' being cobbled together by the U.S. on the eve of the June 30th 'transfer of power.'

The New York Times)

I wonder what the offered al Sadr.

[ScrewyRabbit]

3. In fact we DO negotiate with "terrorists"...

What a surprise.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I don't think Chimpy considers Sadr a terrorist anymore

Sadr has is just another business man for smirk to deal with now.

Don

[thebigidea]

5. bound to happen, what with all the bad press

They wanna "Fallujah" this one up, right quick.

Gonna be a nasty summer.

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

:kick:

[Justice]

7. Okay, someone convince me we are not selling our souls here (again).

[monkeymind]

8. Dont trust Bush, Sadr

Look what happened when Congress trusted that idiot.