U.S. Senate vote unites Iraqis in angery Ned Parker and Raheem Salman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 1, 2007
BAGHDAD — Iraq's political leadership, in a rare show of unity, skewered a nonbinding U.S. Senate resolution passed last week that endorses the decentralization of Iraq through the establishment of semiautonomous regions.
The measure, which calls for a relatively weak central government and strong regional authorities in Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish areas, has touched a nerve here, raising fears that the United States is planning to partition Iraq.
"The Congress adopted this proposal based on an incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of the history, present and future of Iraq," said Izzat Shahbandar, a member of former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular parliamentary bloc.
He was reading from a statement also signed by preeminent Shiite Muslim religious parties and the main Sunni Arab bloc.
"It represents a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of the relationship between Iraq and the U.S.A.," the statement said, "and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country's troops."The nonbinding measure was approved in Washington on Wednesday, and resentment appears to be building daily in Iraq. Passed by senators, 75 to 23, it supports a "federal system" that would create regions dominated by sect and ethnicity.
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