speaking of timetables and oil

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE04Ak07.html

NG IN THE RED ZONE
What Muqtada wants


Muqtada al-Sadr is not at the conference on Iraq that opened on Thursday in Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt, even though he is, hands down, the most popular, and certainly the most charismatic, political leader in Iraq, with his ears finely tuned to the Shi'ite - and even Sunni - street.

Nasr al-Roubaie is the leader of the 32-strong Sadrist bloc in the Iraqi Parliament. As Muqtada's top man in government, Roubaie could not but be one of Iraq's top political players. Between two parliamentary meetings, Roubaie took time to give an exclusive interview to Asia Times Online. Symbolically, we talked on the outer limits of the Green Zone, practically in the Red Zone, outside the first checkpoint, manned by Georgian troops who speak virtually no English and absolutely no Arabic. The Sadrists, it should be remembered, are - literally - both inside and outside the Green Zone government.

Roubaie emphasized the key Sadrist strategy that a timetable must be set for the total withdrawal of US troops - and the US Congress's Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as 64% of American voters, according to the latest polls, would certainly agree. "Our fight has developed in many different ways. Some are peaceful. Some are armed. We are engaged in political resistance. We want to get our real freedom through peaceful means," said Roubaie.

-snip-

Roubaie had just come from a meeting where a motion signed by 134 Parliament members was being introduced demanding a timetable for US withdrawal. "It's not only us - the parties from Kurdistan, the Sunni parties, are all united." This was a reference to the Kurdistan alliance and the powerful, 44-seat-strong Tawafuq Front Sunni bloc, which groups three parties. Roubaie left implicit that the key religious parties in government, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Da'wa, are against the timetable.

-snip-

So if the Americans want to stay, this must be connected with oil, and the extremely controversial new Iraqi oil law, which should, in theory, be approved by Parliament next month (at least according to the explicit demands of the Bush administration). Roubaie said, "The oil of Iraq should benefit all the people. We cannot hand out our oil wells to foreign companies with these production-sharing agreements. The sovereignty of Iraq will be compromised. This will be only pen on paper, like the last orders of the Abbasid caliphs. Our oil wells should benefit all Iraqis."

-snip-

"Of course in Iraq," answered Roubaie with a huge grin, as a column of US Bradleys rumbled back to its cozy abode in the Green Zone. So the White House, once again, has been spinning a lie about the cleric having fled the country.
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