Al-Duri calls for an "open front" in the war against the occupation; more signs of political collapse

Al-Quds al-Arabi publishes a summary of a statement by Baath resistance leaderIzzat Ibrahim al-Duri denouncing the recent AP-originated story about laying down their arms, and attributing it to the occuption's disinformation campaign. Al-Duri writes: "Let the dogs of Rome (meaning the empire), and before them the Safavid dogs of Persia know, crouched in their Green Zone fortress, that the coming days will be darker for them than a moonless night..." which is his way of saying they haven't laid down their arms. Moreover, Al-Duri goes out of his way to deny that there are any contacts at all between the Baath resistance and the Americans, in Amman or anywhere else. And he says there won't be until the conditions that were originally laid down have been met (timetable for withdrawal, restoration of the Baath, and so on). Which suggests that at least from the Baath point of view, any contacts there may have been in the past have not led to any continuing contacts.

Also, al-Duri calls on supporters for a high degree of cooperation between the Baath resistance and other armed anti-occupation groups. He called on "members of the [Baath] party to participate in facilitating the entry of Arab and Islamic mujadideen, in order that they can join the ranks of the fighters against the occupation, and so that the land of the Rafideen will become an open front for retaliation against the American and British occupation, and those who cooperate with them."

In another report on the same page, Al-Quds cites remarks by Sheikh Ali al-Abeidi, head of the Abeid tribe in central Iraq, who said: "The leaders of the Abeid tribe understand that the American occupation and the Maliki government have ignored their demands" in connection with reconciliation, presumably made in the recent talks in Amman. And he added that "the death-sentence for Saddam was imposed by order of Bush." In a similar vein, Sheikh Hamid al-Ajili, speaking for a number of tribes around Baiji, Tikrit, Samara and Balad, north of Baghdad, said his group had a quick meeting to discuss ending all discussions with this sectarian government, for which, they are convinced, the Saddam sentencing will prove to have been the "beginning of the end" for it (the government).

And the reporter quotes Fawaz al-Dulaimi, representative of the leaders of the Dulaim tribe in al-Anbar, who said: "Let the dogs of Rome in the White House know that the execution of Saddam will cause a reaction in Iraq in general, and in al-Anbar in particular, involving more death for the soldiers of the aggression".

Finally, to round out this page of news about the decline of the political and negotiating process, Al-Quds prints a summary of a statement by two groups that are part of the Iraqi Accord Front (44 members out of 275), National Dialogue Council, and Coalition of Independents, calling on the IAF as a whole to withdraw from the political process. The statement accuses the government of extremism and lack of power-sharing, using the state-or-emergency law to faciliate violence, and so on. Participation by the IAF in the government has become nothing but a legal cover for government attacks on the Iraqi people, the statement says.
The statement said "the civil war has already begun, but for political reasons this has not been ackowledged."