Tom Hayden: Documents Reveal Secret Talks Between U.S. and Armed Iraqi Resistance…

Failures on the battlefield and in the recent American elections are propelling the Bush Administration to consider significant changes in Iraq policy. Having placed the Shiite majority in power, the Administration now wonders if the country is being delivered to Iran. Having fought the Sunni-led insurgency for three years, the Administration wonders if negotiations are the only way to reduce American casualties.

It is not for holiday purposes that George Bush and Condoleeza Rice are meeting next week with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman while Dick Cheney rushes to Saudi Arabia. The only question being kept from the American people is what the high-level talks are about.

On November 21 on the Huffington Post, I revealed that American officials have contacted Sunni nationalist insurgents to explore a cease-fire and even the possible replacement of the al-Maliki government with an interim one. This plan would reduce US casualties against the Sunni-led insurgency [recently one hundred deaths per month], while consistent with the Pentagon desire to focus firepower on the Shiite Mahdi Army, led by "radical cleric" Moktada al-Sadr, the most prominent Shiite leader calling for an American withdrawal from Iraq. The current obstacle to an all-out American offensive against al-Sadr's stronghold in Sadr City happens to be Prime Minister al-Maliki, whose governing coalition includes al-Sadr. >>>cont

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