Sunnis' Exclusion from Political Process Stokes Fears of Civil War

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0328-06.htm

Sunnis' Exclusion from Political Process Stokes Fears of Civil War
by Tom Lasseter

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- While American officials point to the bargaining among Shiite Muslim and Kurdish politicians over an interim Iraqi government as evidence that democracy is taking hold in Iraq, some Iraqi analysts and politicians are increasingly worried about the group that's missing from the equation: Sunni Muslims.

Almost two months after national elections, Iraq's Sunni minority remains fragmented and largely alienated from the horse-trading. If that continues, the group that's long dominated Iraq could find itself shut out of December's prime ministerial election as it was on Jan. 30, when Sunnis won only a few seats in Iraq's new parliament.

Lawmakers had planned to meet this weekend to form a coalition government that's expected to be dominated by Shiites and Kurds, but the session was postponed at least until Tuesday.

On Sunday, Shiite and Kurdish leaders said that many of the key decisions about the new government had been made. Both groups stand to receive most of the key positions - prime minister, president and the major cabinet posts - leaving the Sunnis further estranged.

..more..

[expatriot]

1. Check this out.... "Fractured Iraq sees a Sunni call to arms "

BAGHDAD -- For the first time, Sunni Muslim sheiks are publicly exhorting followers to strike with force against ethnic Kurds and Shi’ites, an escalation in rhetoric that could exacerbate the communal violence that already is shaking Iraq’s ethnic communities.

’’The Americans aren’t the problem; we’re living under an occupation of Kurds and Shi’ites," Sattar Abdulhalik Adburahman, a Sunni leader from the northern city of Kirkuk, told a gathering of tribal leaders last week, to deafening applause. ’’It’s time to fight back."

Such calls for violence are being voiced against the backdrop of an alarming rise in tit-for-tat ethnic and sectarian killings.

According to several Iraqi leaders, Shi’ite death squads routinely kill Sunnis suspected of ties to the Ba’ath Party or insurgency. Bands of Sunnis target Shi’ites in retaliation, Sunni political leaders like Adnan Pachachi said, suggesting that significant organizations, rather than small splintered cells of vigilantes, are driving the killing.

[G_j]

2. terrible

what an absolute nightmare!

And Bush speaks of spreading peace throughout the world.

[applegrove]

3. Rumsfield is still mad the Turks would not let him through. Dem Sunnis

would all be too dead to annoy.