Al Sadr’s Interview

Zeynab » 08 June 2007 » In Features, Iraq, Politics and Security »

There is big coverage of Al Sadr’s interview the Arabic language article covering it is here: اصوات العراق - الصدر يقول ان الدور العربي في العراق ضعيف وأنه لا يؤيد فكرة الانقلاب على الحكومة . We have put below the English article on Aswat Al Iraq. (There are some differences - a question of the taste of the translator in the words they use. Omar):

Baghdad, June 8, (VOI) – Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr said the Arab role in Iraq is “very weak” and settles only for issuing statements of denunciation, also rejecting the idea of a coup against the government and terming it as an attempt to “eliminate Shiism in Iraq.”

“The Arab role in Iraq is divided into both positive and negative. The positive does not exceed statements of denunciation, while the negative is much more. At least the Arab silence about what is going on in Iraq is very negative,” Sadr said in an interview to the state-run TV al-Iraqiya late on Thursday evening.

Sadr did not deny plans to start a tour of Arab countries soon but said “Arab countries should go to Iraq because Arab countries need Iraq, not the other way round.”

“Iraq’s security will serve Arab countries’ own security because Iraq is now a battlefield for defending all Arabs and Muslims,” Sadr said in the interview, his first since he re-appeared two weeks ago in Iraq after he had kept a low profile for a few months.

He said, “all the blood running in Iraq now will be run in other Arab countries, which is now evident in Lebanon.”

“Arabs have to cooperate in order to bring an end to the Iraqi people’s suffering. It is up to the Iraqi people to determine the form of such cooperation,” he added.
The Shiite leader noted that whoever tries to stage a coup against the government does not aim to serve Iraq. “The Iraqi government is viewed as a Shiite government, although it is closer to being a secular government,” said Sadr.
Any parties trying “to start a coup against this government only want to end Shiism in Iraq,” he said, adding, “toppling this government and bringing another to its place will not change the reality as long as occupation forces are still present.”

Sadr disappeared from Iraq a short while after the Baghdad security plan, known as Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Law Imposing), came into effect in February 2007 through coordination between the Iraqi and U.S. forces.

Sadr has rejected the idea of disbanding his Mahdi Army militias.

“These men (the militias) should not be marginalized,” he said, adding that disbanding the Mahdi Army “would result in many unacceptable problems and unfavorable consequences.”

Sadr refused accusations against the Mahdi militias. He said, “these are exaggerations made by the occupation forces in order to tarnish the image of the Mahdi Army and the whole (Sadrist) current.”

He dismissed there were plans to turn his Mahdi Army into a political party.

“Political parties, in my own personal view, serve only their own interests, not the Iraqi people,” Sadr said.

Sadr denied reports that groups from the Mahdi Army have assaulted Iraqi civilians, saying “anyone assaulting an innocent Iraqi civilian does not belong to this army and I would disown him until the Day of Judgment.”
Speaking on Kirkuk Sadr said, “Kirkuk is an Iraqi city and should remain a place of peaceful coexistence among all Iraqis. It has to be an indivisible part of Iraq.”

Sadr, known for his extreme rejection of foreign presence in Iraq, held the U.S. army responsible for “sectarian conflict and the security deterioration running rampant in Iraq.”

“The presence of the occupation in Iraq ignites sectarian sedition,” he said, pointing out “violence breeds violence.”

He severely criticized parties that call for keeping U.S. forces’ presence in Iraq.

“It would be insolence and treason that a man who had called for the departure of the occupation would, after being elected by the Iraqi people, call to keep the occupiers,” Sadr stressed.

Sadr said he would meet with a delegation of Iraqi Sunni scholars in a few days in the holy Shiite city of Najaf. “These meetings may be of great benefit to the Iraqi people,” he said.
Sadr did not mention the main reasons for his disappearance or where he had disappeared to for a few months.

It was a way to reconsider what was going on in the country and also a way to “diversify tactics to serve the Iraqi people, which will be, God wiling, successful.”

Sadr said he categorically rejects any “interference in Iraq’s internal affairs whether from Iran or any other country,” noting he seeks to “maintain good ties with everybody including Iran.”

The Sadrist bloc holds 30 seats in the 275-seat Iraqi parliament within the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC), which still retains a parliamentary majority with 113 deputies after members of the al-Fadila (Virtue) Party bloc – 15 members in total – withdrew.