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Sunni leader said Iraq followed U.S. advice in crisis
Jim Michaels, USA TODAY 8:41 a.m.
EST January 14, 2014
WASHINGTON — Iraq's government followed U.S. advice and kept most of its forces out of Ramadi and Fallujah, allowing local tribes to push al-Qaeda militants out of the two cities, a top Sunni leader said.
Saleh al-Mutlaq, a deputy prime minister, also suggested reports that al-Qaeda controlled the mostly Sunni cities were exaggerated and militants had free rein over parts of the cities for only a matter of hours.
"They were pushed out by the tribes and the people of Fallujah and Ramadi themselves," al-Mutlaq said in an interview Monday during a visit to the United States.
Most Sunnis oppose al-Qaeda, he said. "They know what al-Qaeda would do if they controlled the cities."
Images of al-Qaeda militants running rampant through the cities earlier this month grabbed world headlines and stunned U.S. officials, who worried about a resurgence of the terrorist organization in Iraq.
The assaults came amid heightened tensions between the Shiite-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki and Sunnis, who are a minority in Iraq. The violence came after the government broke up a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi and arrested a Sunni leader.
Al-Mutlaq and others say al-Qaeda militants were attempting to exploit the Sunni-Shiite tensions.
Mutlaq said the lack of reconciliation in Iraq is a greater threat to the United States than the presence of al-Qaeda, which he said only number in the hundreds in mostly Sunni Anbar province.
"The biggest threat is the absence of reconciliation in the country and the absence of justice in the country," al-Mutlaq said. "The Americans should concentrate mainly on reconciliation and justice in the country."
The crisis in Anbar was a major challenge to Maliki's government. If Maliki ordered government troops into the Sunni cities it risked triggering a civil war.
U.S. officials had counseled restraint in dealing with the uprisings. In a call to al-Maliki last week, Vice President Biden encouraged his "outreach to local, tribal and national leaders," according to a White House statement. Al-Mutlaq said Sunni leaders made a similar point.
Fallujah and Ramadi are influential cities in the Sunni heartland and both played key roles during the Iraq war following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Once Sunni tribal leaders in Ramadi decided to support the United States against al-Qaeda beginning in 2006, momentum shifted against insurgents. The movement, called the Awakening, started in Ramadi, the capital of mostly Sunni Anbar province. At the time the United States encouraged the revolt against al-Qaeda.
Now it is al-Maliki's turn to work with the Sunnis, he said.
"You can only fight al-Qaeda with the Sunnis," al-Mutlaq said.
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