Albawaba.com - Amman
A spokesman for the Higher Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq told Albawaba.com on Saturday that a recent suspension of US aid did not make much of a difference to the Muslim opposition group.
“We do not think for the American administration, and we are not at all concerned with the crises in the relationship between Bush and the [Iraqi National Conference],” the council’s representative in Syria and Lebanon, Bayan Jabr, told Albawaba.com.
He said the US administration’s policies toward the opposition conference were not a large concern, particularly in light of the US halt to financial aid pending a review of previous payments.
The Bush administration has suspended financial support to the Iraqi opposition conference, which includes many members, until it reviews the $97 million previously donated within the framework of what was known as Iraq Liberation Plan. The plan aimed at replacing the Baghdad regime with a “democratic one.”
“I think the US administration is capable of playing the vital role of a partner in the process of change in Iraq,” said the spokesman. “We have reiterated this matter in our policy statements many times, but we see that the international element is not the decisive factor in the process of change.”
“We believe in combining all the powers inside Iraq in addition to the regional and international factors to accomplish this operation,” added the opposition spokesman.
He criticized the US policy, saying: “The process of change, from Washington’s point of view, will remain limping if the Iraqi political map and its basic internal elements are not reviewed. The failures to achieve the change confirm what we say.”
Commenting on the internal American political debate regarding the way to tackle the Iraqi situation, the opposition figure said, “the ongoing debate by American lobbies, and the weighing of options, is evidence that the administration has not reached a final decision on what to do. The administration will remain like this unless it manages the Iraqi file properly and focuses on the real center of influence upon which the Iraqi political solution rests.”
“We think that the national and Islamic internal resistance, through their quality operations against authority, constitutes the only option for ending the abnormal conditions in Iraq. It is the only option capable of correcting the administration’s vision and returning credibility to the Iraqi resistance movement.”
