The problem with the American presence and the way Bush plans to respect the request of the government to either stay or go at their request is twofold:
1. they appointed the government probably with the instructions ... never EVER ask us to leave.
2. they are listening to the government and not the people.
If you read the US Declaration of Independence it states: We,
THE PEOPLE of...
Isn't that what it is all about ... The People???
Oh sorry ... forgot ... it's about oil and keeping Bush a 'War President'
Iraqi resistance forms coalition
Seumas Milne, Damascus
July 20, 2007
SEVEN important Sunni-led insurgent groups fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance to prepare for negotiations in advance of a US withdrawal.
In their first interview with the Western media since the US-led invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups — responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police — said they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq.
They also denounced al-Qaeda for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.
Speaking in Damascus, the spokesmen for the three groups — the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas — said they planned to hold a congress to launch a united front and appealed to governments and the UN to help them establish a permanent political presence outside Iraq.
Abu Ahmad, spokesman for Iraqi Hamas, said: "Peaceful resistance will not end the occupation. The US made clear it intended to stay for many decades. Now it is a common view in the resistance that they will start to withdraw within a year."
Leaders of the three groups, who did not use their real names, said the new front, which brings together the main Sunni-based armed organisations except al-Qaeda and the Baathists, had agreed on the main planks of a joint political program.
It included a commitment to free Iraq from foreign troops, rejection of co-operation with parties involved in political institutions set up under the occupation and a declaration that decisions and agreements made by the US occupation and Iraqi Government are null and void.
The aim of the alliance — which includes a range of Islamist and nationalist groups — is to join other anti-occupation groups in Iraq to negotiate with the Americans in anticipation of an early US withdrawal. The program envisages a temporary technocratic government to run the country until free elections can be held.
The insurgent groups deny support from any foreign government, including Syria, but claim they have been offered — and rejected — funding and arms from Iran.
All three Sunni-based resistance leaders said they were acutely aware of the threat posed by sectarian division to the future of Iraq and emphasised the importance of working with Shiite groups. But they rejected any link with the Shiite militia and parties because of their participation in the political institutions set up by the US and their role in sectarian killings.
Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna, a salafist (purist Islamic) group with a particularly violent reputation in Iraq, said his organisation had split over relations with al-Qaeda, whose members were mostly Iraqi, but its leaders largely foreigners.
"Resistance isn't just about killing Americans without aims or goals. Our people have come to hate al-Qaeda, which gives the impression to the outside world that the resistance in Iraq are terrorists.
"We are against indiscriminate killing; fighting should be concentrated only on the enemy. A great gap has opened up between Sunni and Shiite under the occupation, and al-Qaeda has contributed to that," he said.
■ US Democrats vowed to force votes on Iraq withdrawal plans "again and again" after Senate Republicans thwarted their latest bid to start troop withdrawals within 120 days and for most US combat soldiers to be out of Iraq by the end of April.
Senators voted by 52 to 47 to move to a final vote on the plan, short of the 60 votes needed to move ahead on the measure.
Speaking after the vote, former secretary of state Colin Powell said current US troop levels in Iraq could not be maintained beyond mid-2008. Mr Powell also urged the Administration to stop shunning Hamas as a political player in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the US and Iran confirmed that they are to hold a second round of talks to discuss ways of stabilising Iraq. The Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said the meeting was at the request of the US because of the problems their troops were facing.
GUARDIAN, AFP
