US Activists, Iraqi Lawmakers Demand US Troop Withdrawal
    The Associated Press

    Saturday 05 August 2006

    Amman - "Peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden and 13 other U.S. activists on Saturday joined Iraqi lawmakers in demanding a timetable be fixed for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

    "I'm optimistic that the majority of the American people want a withdrawal sooner, rather than later," Hayden, a former California state senator told reporters in the Jordanian capital after talks with seven Iraqi Shiite and Sunni lawmakers.

    "It's going to be an important issue in the Congressional elections and the (2008) presidential campaign has already begun," he said.

    About half of the activists will head to Syria on Sunday and Lebanon on Monday to "assess the humanitarian crisis" caused by the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah over the past 25 days, killing hundreds and displacing hundreds of thousands. Neither Sheehan, who returned earlier Saturday to the U.S., nor Hayden would be part of the team.

    Hayden wondered whether the Lebanon conflict was "a desperate effort by the Israeli and U.S. neoconservatives to escalate their way out of defeat in Iraq before the November elections."

    "Are they trying to scramble and subdivide the whole Middle East? Do they hope this escalates into a conflict with Syria and Iran which some of them want," he said.

    The activists, representing the largest U.S. anti-war coalition, United for Peace and Justice; the national woman's peace group, CODEPINK; and Global Exchange, arrived in Jordan Thursday for two days of talks with the Iraqi members of parliament.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to meet the activists during last month's talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington in which he asked for more U.S. troops and finance for his beleaguered government.

    Salman al-Jumaili who is the speaker of the largest Sunni coalition in the Iraqi parliament and his Shiite counterpart, Jabar Habib Jabar, joined the activists in issuing three demands: a fixed timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops; a commitment not to have permanent U.S. bases in Iraq; and a commitment by the U.S. government to "pay for rebuilding Iraq."

    "We have found a voice inside the U.S. that backs us. We told them that we in Iraq want to see the light at the end of the tunnel," al-Jumaili told reporters.

    On Thursday, two of the Pentagon's most senior generals, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Congress that Iraq could move toward civil war if the violence raging in Baghdad between Sunni and Shiite Muslims continued.

    U.S. officials have been pressing Prime Minister al-Maliki, a Shiite, to disband the Shiite militias and make overtures to Sunni insurgent groups saying restoring security in Baghdad is essential if the government is to survive.

    Hayden called Iraq "a gradual shrinking space for the Bush administration."