Iraq Reconciliation Plan

Overview and Purpose

The Iraq Reconciliation Plan resulted from a meeting of U.S. peace activists, led by Medea Benjamin and Raed Jarrar of Global Exchange and Jodie Evans and Gael Murphy of CODEPINK, with Iraqi members of Parliament (MPs), sheiks, and torture survivors. The Iraqi MPs represented 185 (130 Shia, 44 Sunni, 11 secular) of 275 members of Iraq's Parliament. The meetings were held in Amman, Jordan, on August 2-3, 2006.

The Reconciliation Plan documents how the Iraqis, in their own words, propose to solve their country's crisis. The Plan consists of 10 key points, captured via extensive interviews with the Iraqi participants.

Included here are:

• The list of 10 Reconciliation Plan points voiced by Iraqi participants with links to video and transcript.
• A list of all meeting participants, along with their affiliations and photographs.
• A section on each point that provides relevant supporting quotations, identified by source. All quotations are from videotapes of the meeting. They are presented unedited, as translated.

Iraq Reconciliation Plan: Ten Points

1. End the occupation of Iraq. Video and transcript of Point 1
2. Create a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops that is synchronized with the implementation of the Iraq reconciliation plan. Video and transcript of Point 2
3. Disband the militias created after the occupation. Video and transcript of Point 3
   
4. Revise Bremer's Orders and allow the Iraqis to rebuild their army. Video and transcript of Point 4
   
5. Rewrite the Iraqi Constitution. Video and transcript of Point 5
   
6. Keep Iraq as one state and do not partition into multiple states. Video and transcript of Point 6
   
7. Begin the promised reconstruction of Iraq. Employ Iraqis and not foreign workers or contractors. Video and transcript of Point 7
   
8. Acknowledge Iraqis' right to resist the U.S. occupation, negotiate with the resistance, and give amnesty to Iraqis resisting the occupation. Video and transcript of Point 8
   
9. Investigate all the crimes that were committed by the new Iraqi Government and by the occupation forces in Iraq. Video and transcript of Point 9
   
10. Make a fair distribution of oil income and natural resources. Video and transcript of Point 10
    

Iraqi Participants:

Global Exchange/CODEPINK Peace Delegation:

Point 1

End the occupation of Iraq.

Sheik Ahmad Awad Al-Kubaysi:

"We think of the occupation as a bad tree, and that bad tree is attracting all kinds of bad birds. And the only way to have these birds fly away is by cutting that tree."

"The truth is that as the sheik said before me there is one only problem in Iraq that you all know. And that is the occupation and it's the source of all the problems that's happening in Iraq. And they will start with hope and try to work with you all of us to join our efforts to try stop that and prevent it from continuing and end this occupation of Iraq."

"I want to give you one piece of information for sure. That all Iraqi's are very upset over the occupation except the political parties that came with the occupation now."

"We would like to thank you the last time and we would like to tell you that the best way for America even for the U.S. interests, is that the U.S. should pull out of Iraq so that Iraq's and Americans can discuss their mutual interests they can work together and forget about the bloody past."

Sheik Abdul-Karim Al-Kubaisi:

"We want the Americans to leave now. We think that if they leave now, Iraqis will fix their internal problems themselves. We think that the present or American occupation now is causing more sectarian problems."

"You are complaining that a lot of these facts are not reaching the media that you have asked about, well, I am telling you that maybe it's because the American government has spent billions of dollars to make sure they don't."

Dr Ali Temimi:

"We are waiting for American people's support to end this war and pull out the troops and this should not be based just on their personal process in Iraq. It should even be based on morals and ethics and international law."

"We should let them know that what is happening in Iraq is a real tragedy a disaster. It wasn't liberating Iraqis and they are not happy with that."

"The last thing that I want to say is that I believe that the U.S. army will not pull out until the U.S. people put enough pressure on them."

Jabir-Habir Jabir:

"For all of the failures that are happening now in Iraq, the Iraqi government is blaming the U.S. presence, the presence of the U.S. occupation for all of the failures in Iraq."

"The Iraqi government is saying that we are paralyzed in Iraq. We cannot move our army we cannot do anything without the agreement of the U.S. authority in Iraq."

Point 2

Create a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops that is synchronized with the implementation of the Iraq reconciliation plan.

Sheik Ahmad Awad Al-Kubaysi:

"So I think that it's one of the main and basic important points that we should start talking about this writing the time table for the withdrawal of American troops. And that time table could be synchronized with another schedule to rebuilding a new Iraqi army and troops that can save and can hold the security situation in Iraq."

Dr. Saleh Al Mutlak:

"We want the U.S. troops to pull out - this is what we should all be working towards. We want the U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq."

"And we want them to correct all of their mistakes before they pull out of Iraq. The mistakes that were committed by them, the U.S. administration in Iraq are huge, they are enormous in Iraq. We have to push hard for a time table for withdrawing the U.S. troops."

Jabir-Habir Jabir:

"This is one of the major things that is leading us to ask for a withdrawal of American troops because we want Iraqis to take responsibility for building their own army. And they know how to build their own army."

"We have our new Parliament session it starts in September. In December the Security Council will be actually discussing the foreign presence in Iraq again. We want to be working very hard to ask for an end to this international umbrella through the Security Council." [1]

Salman Al-Jumayli:

"Our coalition has delivered a number of messages from Iraqi resistant groups to the American army. Our coalition has delivered these messages that were written by the Iraqi resistance to the U.S. army telling them that if the army would create a very clear roadmap to leave Iraq the resistant groups are ready to stop attacking the U.S. army and start working against terrorist that are destroying the security in Iraq."

"The other problem is that the main resistance forces are not getting into clashes with terrorist forces because they believe that the major battle is with the occupation forces and they do not have enough capacity to engage against terrorists.

"That's why it makes it even easier for terrorist groups to stay in Iraq and to stay around places where the resistance groups are working because they are not planning to attack each other."

"We had discussions with the U.S. authorities in Iraq and we told them give us a road map, just give us a light at the end of the tunnel and we will guarantee that we can help differentiate between the Iraqi resistant groups and other terrorist groups. Iraqi resistant groups have a very certain goal. They want to liberate Iraq from the foreign occupation and after you leave, their project is done. While terrorists have a big fight with the Americans which will not stop after the occupation ends."

"When we see light at the end of the tunnel, when we get our roadmap that will make sure our country will be liberated from foreign occupation, we guarantee that the majority of the national armed resistance groups will stop attacking anyone and they will start fighting against any attacks by the terrorists in Iraq."

"But now the American administration is telling us they want the resistant forces to take a part and help the Americans in their next battle against Iran. They want to use the Iraqi national resistance as a tool to fight the Iranian presence in Iraq and outside."

Point 3

Disband the militias created after the occupation.

Sheik Abdul-Karim Al-Kubaisi:

"The militias have to be disassembled because the militias are the main force for conflict now. It's not that they just kill people around the country, they kidnap people's relatives and they ask for very big ransoms. It's more like slavery. When they steal these people they sell them between different militias and then they come and ask you for money to release your relatives. Many of them take money from Iran. We have documents that show that they get one thousand dollars a month salary from Iran. They get the best workers from there. So we want these militias to be disassembled and this will be a very important condition to have reconciliation."

Sheik Ahmad Awad Al-Kubaysi:

"... disassembling the Iraqi militias. We are very shocked to see that most of the Iraqi militias are funded by Iran. They are going around Iraq, doing anything that they want to under the nose of the U.S. army there. And the U.S. army is silent. They are not interfering to stop what the militias are doing."

"We think that if the American government is planning to do any good they should while they are leaving disassemble the militia. And have them go to their original countries. A lot of them came from IranÉ we believe in the American ability to do that. We've seen what the militias are doing and I want to tell you something about history, about history repeating itself. We've seen back in 1917 when the British occupation came to Iraq, which was even before the oil wells were discovered in Iraq. Oil was discovered in Iraq in 1922, but when the British army came to Iraq and occupied it and then the military leaders in the British Army called their colonel back in Britain and told them that there is nothing in this country to be used. And they still told them that they should stay and try to plan a problem, like a sectarian problem , a bad thing to help weaken this country and to help them to control it and stay there. And this is the same thing, which the American occupation is doing now again. History repeating itself."

Dr. Ali Temimi:

"We have a very clear idea of how to deal with Militias. The problem with Militias is that all of people who have Militias are part of the Iraqi Government. They are not faceless people or people who are mysterious. They are part of the Iraqi Government. According to the Iraqi Constitution and those that are assigned by all of the governmental parties they should not have Militias. They agreed then they should not have militias. This law should be enforced and we should bring these Iraqi parties and put them together and say you agreed on not having Militias so disassemble all Militias."

"The Iraqi Government contacted us two days ago they wanted to know what exactly our demands are so that we will start discussing more issues with them.

"For one de-assembling the militias two changing the Iraqi Minister of Interior [2] and removing all of the corrupt leaders in the ministry of Interior who are committing crimes against Iraqis."

"Even the U.S. Army announced yesterday that there are six main groups in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior who are committing crimes against Iraqis and there are death squads. They don't belong to Iraq as a country they just belong to the political party of their militias."

Dr. Abdul Alattif Al-Hemian:

"The state should monopolize all the military forces and they should be the only ones who have the military forces."

"The Militias were started as a phenomenon in Iraq after the 100 Bremer Orders. Law number 91 gave space for Iraqi Militias to come to surface Iraqi just started seeing Militias after order 91." [3]

Unidentified Iraqi Participant:

"Order 91 includes recognition of eleven militias. So these militias. The U.S. forces deals with these militias as legitimate forces and deal with anyone from outside these militias as terrorists."

"From a legal point of view the constitution prevented anyone from having militias. They had a loophole in the constitution and they put the militias as a part of the Iraqi Army. But they are not functioning as a real part of the Iraqi army they say that they are part of the Iraqi army but they are still militias that follow their party's orders."

"The problem now is that the law is there but there is no one to implement it because their parties are stronger than the government."

"So the only people who can disassemble militias are the American Army because they are refusing to disassemble the militias. They are refusing to voluntarily disassemble the militias."

Point 4

Revise Bremer's Orders and allow the Iraqis to rebuild their army. [5]

Salman Al-Jumayli:

"...the other point that has to be included in the Iraqi reconciliation is the revision of the 100 orders by Bremer."

"The Bremer orders excluded tens of thousands of Iraqis and just threw them outside of government outside their jobs with no income just because they were Baathist or they were part of the Iraqi army or for other reasons."

"So for example just in the province of Al Anbar which is the province where Ar Ramadi is its capital we have 5600 high ranked officers who were kicked out of the army sent back home without any income."

"So these people of course will be vulnerable to start working with some groups who came from outside the country because those groups can support them with income they can give them money and supplies."

"These terrorist groups that came from outside the countries started benefiting from an army of unemployed people in Iraq. They started benefiting because of a very long list of mistakes of the U.S. army in Iraq."

"And they started benefiting because of the big sectors that were excluded from the new Iraqi government because of Bremer's orders."

"Especially those that relate to the dissembling the Iraqi armies order 2." [6]

"And changing the changing the laws of de-bathtification into a court process that the court would be in charge of...."

"And other things that have to be change include some revisions of part of Bremer's orders that excluded around 180 Iraqi judges and kicked them out of...they just excluded them from the judicial system. And we know that this is against the 4^th Geneva conventions because this happened under the occupation authority of Bremer. And under the 4^th Geneva Convention occupation authorities are not supposed to change the judicial system in the country. So we have more than 180 Iraqi judges that we want to be re-included in the judicial system."

"And we have to discuss and review orders related to the situation of militias and the armed groups whether these groups emerged after the fall of Bagdad or whether they existed even before the war."

"And this can be done by what my colleague just presented his idea by having this big Iraqi army of Iraqis. So if we can have all these people to join the Ð protecting the Iraqi protecting Iraq either by having hired them to work with us in the military or by reissuing the orders to have required military service."

Point 5

Rewrite the Iraqi Constitution.

Jabir-Habir Jabir:

"We think that the Iraqi Constitution should be re-written." [8]

"All of us know that the Constitution was written in a very fast period of time and it was written without real representation from the Sunni Arabs in Iraq."

"The people who wrote the constitution were concerned about a new dictator rising in Iraq. This is why they were thinking of decentralizing the authority in Iraq and giving more authorities to the provinces and less authority to the center..."

"We have a problem with this constitution because while the constitution states that all of the already existing resources for oil should go to the central government all of the new found resources of oil can go to their province or to the regional government."

"So we want to rewrite the Constitution in a way that guarantees the unity of Iraq on the one hand and guarantees the centralization of income from natural resources. So the natural resources income should go to the central authority and the central authority should distribute that to the rest of the country."

Sheik Abdul-Karim Al-Kubaisi:

"Our solutions for stopping the current violence, for one we want to rewrite the Constitution and to be included in this Iraqi Constitution process. The number of Sunnis in Iraq is fourteen million people..."

"One of the biggest trials that happened before we start setting our main two points is the Iraqi Constitution. When the Iraqi Constitution was ended, Sunnis were totally excluded out of the Constitution with millions of Sunnis who will be living under this curse for the rest of their generation, you know, their children and their grandchildren. So you can see these sectarian plans for dividing Iraq started sectarian tension between the Iraqi's. These started from the first time, from the time of Bremer when he supported such a Constitution."

"Some other points of the Constitution that we don't agree on are that the new Constitution gives Iraq nationality to many people in a very unjust way that no other countries would be giving. For example if you have one of your parents as an Iraqi, or there are so many flexible points that you can get a nationality. So there are all of these foreigners who are coming from the Iran region beyond Iraq. And they are either getting married to Iraqi women or men or they are, you know, just trying to get this nationality. And all of these things are not fair for the Iraqis being mixed with these thousands of blended Iraqis who are gaining their nationalities very easily."

Dr. Ali Temimi:

"And in addition to that the Iraq Constitution was written in a very short time and under so much pressure by the U.S. administration. There should be a general public announcement saying that this constitution needs to be rewritten and we have to rewrite the constitution in a better way by Iraqis this time instead of (unintelligible)."

Point 6.

Keep Iraq as one state and do not partition into multiple states.

Kamal Al-Kaisi:

"...so the one who designed such a constitution is in his mind that this is a transitional for partitioning or it would help him in partitioning the country but in a very bad way. So if you ask people you know especially those who are experts to national law and we don't mind to have a country a melting pot like the United States and to have a central government. And for Iraq now it is clear that in order to solve the problem to pull these things together to play a positive role nationally and regionally and internationally you have to a strong centralized government in order to plan to put policies and to have stability towards the world and region and their partners..."

Point 7.

Begin the promised reconstruction of Iraq. Employ Iraqis and not foreign workers or contractors.

Jabir-Habir Jabir:

"I spent most of my time in Iraq; from my personally witnessing I haven't noticed any real reconstruction that is going on in the country. There was a lot of money that was spent on the so called reconstruction during the last few years but I haven't noticed anything that was brought to Iraqis by this money."

"So we know that most of the money that was spent in Iraq for reconstruction and as aid was lost because of corruption. And this corruption is either by the U.S. companies or sometimes by Iraqi contractors. For example big contracts were given to big companies and these big companies gave these contracts for half the price for a sub contractor and then the subcontractor gave for ¼ the price for a sub-sub contractor and then it ends up being implemented by an Iraqi contractor with very bad quality with ten percent of the real price of the contract. So you can see that ninety percent of the majority of the money is just getting lost in this bureaucratic and corrupt process."

Salman Al-Jumayli:

"All of you know of how Iraq was destroyed and how our museums were looted and these things are still ongoing until now there are some big scandals in Babylon that no one is talking about now against the Polish troops there. Babylon is a very ancient place in Iraq and the Polish troops are destroying a part of the Ancient city without anyone talking about it."

"The U.S. did not rebuild the destruction that they caused in Iraq this shame will go against the U.S. for the rest of their history."

Point 8.

Acknowledge Iraqis' right to resist the U.S. occupation, negotiate with the resistance, and give amnesty to Iraqis resisting the occupation.

Sheik Abdul-Karim Al-Kubaisi:

"We want you to know that when the occupation came all the Iraqi's resisted against occupation. All of them resisted in the way that they can resist, some of them fought, some of them resisted by saying words of truth and some of them just by paying money dealing with a humanitarian mission. But all of us resisted. And because the occupation met all of this resistance, they started searching for some weak points in Iraq. So they would try to attack Iraq back and that's why this entire superior attention problem started emerging."

Sheik Ahmad Awad Al-Kubaysi:

"... recognizing the Iraqi resistance as a legitimate force. I remember something that President Bush said. He said if my country was occupied I would resist the occupation, so it is known that resisting occupation is a legitimate force for any country anywhere, anytime."

"The occupation is responsible for all of the trials that happened in Iraq."

"The truth is that the association of Muslim scholars supports every Iraqi that fights the occupation. Whether he was Sunni, Shiite, Kurdi or Arabic or Christian and in fact we called and that's what they did. They helped in organizing the first Iraqi conference. Which included all kinds of Sects, and all kinds of Iraqi's that opposed the occupation, including Christian party. So we support all kinds of efforts from all Iraqi organizations or individuals or party from every ethnic or religion that opposes occupation."

Dr. Abdul Alattif Al-Hemian:

"From here we think that the American administration should recognize the resistance because this recognition of the resistance will lead to peace in Iraq. One of the most important points, the priority to reach peace in Iraq is that the U.S. Administration should recognize the Iraqi resistance as legitimate. That peace should be found through negotiation not through more attacks and not more military options."

Point 9.

Investigate all the crimes that were committed by the Iraqi Government and by the occupation forces in Iraq.

Sheik Ahmad Awad Al-Kubaysi:

"All of you know that the U.S. army is immune to any Iraqi government can not take any soldier to Iraqi courts. And this causes very big problem and disasters in Iraq because the U.S. crimes continue to happen all of the time. Just a couple of days ago the U.S. army bombed a house full of civilians and they killed twenty people because of as you know of a wrong tip. And no one can go out and investigate this. And we know this is because of orders to the team by agreement."

Ali Al-Qaisi, torture survivor:

"Both Titan Company and CASI are criminal companies. They rely on people who are the reject of society, they are prisoners, and they are thieves of different societies. They are the real criminals when it comes to the Iraqi people. Their job is to interrogate Iraqi people to take the information from the Iraqi people and to submit it to the authorities. And they use the worst and the dirtiest methods to interrogate. They make money Ð they receive $20 per prisoner, while on the prisoner they don't even spend one tenth of one dollar. These companies, they make their money from torturing, interrogating, and throwing people in prison, that's how they make their money."

"And at the same time we saw that many people were sent to prison because of Abu Ghraib from American army and from the American leadership in the army. We didn't see a single contractor who was sent to prison because we know that in the U.S. it is easier for them to send their own troops to prison than sending anyone from a company because they've been afraid of the companies. The big companies actually intimidate the administration and the administration cares about the companies more than they care about their army."

Aahmad Sl-Samerraie R:

"In general, we're suffering a lot from the occupational power, we're suffering from the environmental condition in Iraq, we're suffering from the prisons, and we're suffering from the lack of humanitarians and the economic situation.

"I want to be specific about the incidence in Fallujah; probably a lot of you are aware of what happened. We actually had the chance to document what happened in Fallujah. We have documentation, evidence and pictures of what happened at the time. And then after that we documented Haditha, Ishakhi, the two incidents that happened, and we did this with the help of other organizations.

"We come up periodically with reports that document the human rights violations in Iraq and we try to get these to international organizations."

Point 10.

Make a fair distribution of oil income and natural resources.

Jabir-Habir Jabir:

"The other issue for the constitution is the issue of resources, natural resources. The natural resources issue affects Iraq economically very much and it is one of the problems especially when it comes to the Sunni Arab population because they don't have oil in their provinces. We have a problem with this constitution because while the constitution states that all of the already existing resources for oil should go to the central government all of the new found resources of oil can go to their province or to the regional government."

"We have always asked the American administration to put more pressure on the Kurdish authority because usually the U.S. administration protects the Kurds in the north and what's happening now is that the Kurdish federalism in the north is like they are having their own state."

"We want to rewrite the Constitution in a way that guarantees the unity of Iraq on the one hand and guarantees the centralization of income from natural resources. So the natural resources income should go to the central authority and the central authority should distribute that to the rest of the country."