Another delegation goes to negotiate with Muqtada al-Sadr?? Are you kidding me? Is this the most insane idea you've ever heard? Two lessons in life you should have learned in kindergarden: 1) Germans love David Hasselhoff. 2) Muqtada al-Sadr uses negotiations to buy time to rearm and reposition himself. Letting him leave is just letting him regroup in another city is not what we want. We want him dead. This is FUBAR. Via Command Post, a CNN atory:

Iraq's National Conference agreed on Monday to send a delegation to Najaf to meet with Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and encourage him and his Mehdi Army militia to withdraw from the Imam Ali Mosque.

According to delegation member Rajaa Khuzaie, delegates will arrive in Najaf no later than Tuesday morning.

Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army has been battling U.S. and Iraqi forces in Najaf for more than a week and a half. The huge mosque compound is surrounded by Iraqi forces, but authorities have said there is no plan to storm the site, considered one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday 25 heavily armed foreigners are holed up inside the mosque south of Baghdad and have rigged it with explosives, threatening to blow up the building if attacked.

Khuzaie said the delegation will ask al-Sadr and his militia to leave the shrine, lay down their weapons and reconfigure themselves as a political group.

After efforts to reach a truce with al-Sadr's militia failed over the weekend, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie declared that military operations would resume to "return the city of Najaf to normal city functions and to establish law and order."

Al-Rubaie also said the government has "left no stone unturned" in its efforts to peacefully resolve the standoff in Najaf.

According Khuzaie, the delegation has a better chance of success where others have failed, because it represents the National Conference, which she said represents all of the people of Iraq.

At the Iraqi National Conference, 1,500 Iraqi leaders will choose a 100-person interim body that will advise and oversee the newly installed interim government.

Posted by: Rusty at 01:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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