An Iraqi National Initiative to End the Occupation of Iraq Reflecting the Will and View of the Iraqi National Resistance and the Other Major Political Forces Opposing the Occupation

 

 

Proposed Principles for

Dialogue and Agreement

 

 

1- A declaration by the American side of an unequivocal decision to withdraw fully from Iraq according to a short time-table of no more than six months. In consequence, all American, and other occupying contingents, should withdraw their forces from all Iraqi cities toward temporary and recognized military bases in agreement with the new Iraqi Government. These forces should not engage in any security or military operations during the time of their withdrawal. Furthermore, by the end of the six months period, all of these forces should have completed their withdrawal from those bases [in Iraq].

 

2- The Iraqi National Resistance will declare a ceasefire, while keeping their arms, until the final withdrawal of the American and the other national occupation forces have been completed.

 

3- An agreement should be reached, under the auspices of, and with guarantees from, the UN Security Council, and in consultation with the Iraqi National Resistance and other political forces that have not collaborated with the occupation, on selecting a Prime Minister for Iraq for a transitional period of no more than two years. The chosen PM should have the authority to select Iraqi cabinet ministers, in non-committing consultation with the UN representative in Iraq, from among neutral technocrats and non-partisans. The PM and his ministers will have to abide by the rule of refraining from nominating themselves in any elections that would be taking place thereafter. The PM should have, in non-committing consultation with the UN representative, the authority of discharging ministers and appointing alternatives as needed and as necessitated by circumstances. The Cabinet will be authorized during the transitional period, all of the legislative, executive and financial powers necessary to implement their duties. The Cabinet should also have the authority to reconsider, nullify or modify the laws, rules and orders introduced since the beginning of Iraq’s occupation to the date of this agreement. The same authority applies to laws, rules and instructions that were issued before the occupation.

 

4- The UN Security Council should be committed to preserving Iraq's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

 

5- The new Cabinet should immediately commence, and in consultation with the Iraqi National Resistance and the other main national forces opposing occupation, to reconstruct the Iraqi Army and other security forces, according to appropriate rules and criteria. The Army and other security forces should be supplied with needed modern and from suppliers that the Cabinet consider adequate. All military militias in the land of Iraq will have to be dissolved in a manner specified by the Government.

 

6- All squads of the Iraqi National Resistance, that abide by the above ceasefire, will be dismantled within the six months of this agreement and fully upon the full withdrawal of U. S. and other foreign forces from Iraq, and after the re-establishment of a minimum size of the Iraqi army and other Iraqi security forces.

 

7- The army and other security forces will not be allowed to engage in politics or join political parties. They will be under the complete authority and leadership of the new government. In addition, all political parties and other political entities are to be prohibited from engaging in political activities within the military establishment and within other security forces of Iraq.

 

8- The Iraqi Government, in non-committing consultation with the UN Secretary General and the Iraqi National Resistance, have the right to invite limited numbers of Arab forces of some Arab countries, who did not encourage or participate in the occupation of Iraq, to perform peacekeeping missions in Iraq. Their size and duration of stay in Iraq will be decided by the Iraqi Government.

 

9- The new Iraqi Government will be empowered to achieve the following tasks, in addition to those mentioned above:

 

(a) Selecting a Consultative Council of 100-150 persons from among political forces, public personalities and Iraqis of special talents, who did not collaborate politically with the occupation. The meetings and debates of this Consultative Council will be held behind closed doors and its proceedings will not to be publicly announced.

 

(b) Abrogating the so-called constitution adopted by a rigged referendum on 15/10/2005, (especially in the Governorates of Mousil–Nainawah, Muthanna, Diwaniyya and Thiqar) as being illegal as it had been already rejected by two thirds of the voters in three governorates. All actions taken based on that constitution are to be abrogated as well.

 

(c) Preparing, within one year of putting this agreement into force, a Law on Elections and a Law on Political Parties and the holding of elections for the two houses of parliament, the Deputies and the Senates, taking its guidelines from the provisional constitution drafted by the Beirut Symposium (July 2005) (in Arabic) and published in the book titled "A Program for the Future of Iraq after Ending the Occupation: the Constitution, the Law on Election, the Law on Political Parties, the Reconstruction, the Oil, the Media, the Army, the Kurdish Question, and the Reparations". In achieving this task, the government is not committed to stick to the letter of the proposed programs exclusively, and should be in consultation with a large number of Iraqis inside and outside of the country regarding these issues.

 

(d) The holding general elections within the second year of the transitional period, under the auspices of the UN, the League of Arab States, the European Union, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, Amnesty International and other Arab and international organizations, in order to secure a free, honest and transparent elections. The elections will be organized on the proportional list’s rule and governorate districts as stipulated in the draft constitution mentioned above (9-C).

 

10- The new government will abide within the transitional period, with the oil policy agreed upon by the Beirut Symposium. All oil agreements (contracts) signed during the occupation are to be declared null and void as violating UN Security Council resolutions No. 1456 and 1483. All agreements (contracts) signed by the National Kurdistan Party and the Kurdistan National Union Party during the period 1991-2003, as well as all agreements signed during the occupation, with foreign firms for the exploration, development and oil production in the Governorates of Suleimania, Erbil, and Duhok, are to be declared null and void as well. The Iraqi Government will demand from all concerned firms to halt all of their operations in those governorates. These companies will also be  subjected to legal proceedings, inside and outside of Iraq, for contracting for oil investments with illegal Iraqi bodies in these areas.

 

11- The Security Council, based upon a US initiative, is to abrogate all sanctions that not yet alleviated, that were imposed on Iraq by the Security Council in the aftermath of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, including the halting of any further deductions from the exported Iraqi oil revenues, and to release all frozen Iraqi assets.

 

12- The US and the UK will have to provide financial assistance, in the form grants, for no less than US$50 billion from the former and US$20 billion from the latter, to be deposited within six months of the date of the agreement and to be under the disposition of the new Iraqi Government for the purposes of Iraq’s reconstruction and for compensating for the damages inflicted on the Iraqi state and the Iraqi population by the illegal US–UK occupation. The total of these amounts would be less than the actual financial expenditure for keeping the US and the UK forces for another year in Iraq. Furthermore, the US and the UK Governments will strive to use their contacts with Arab Governments to eliminate the debts owed to them by Iraq, to waiver Iraqi reparations allocated for them by previous Security Council resolutions, and to reimburse back to Iraq the reparations received by those Governments (except from individuals and firms) that were extracted through the UN reimbursements from the Iraqi oil revenues under the oil for food program.

 

13- The elected Iraqi Parliament will write a draft constitution based on the guidelines of the draft constitution for the Beirut Symposium, and to be submitted to popular referendum. Until this constitution is adopted, the new Government will adopt the draft written by the Beirut Symposium as a provisional one that expires by the adoption of the final constitution.

 

14- The Iraqi elected Parliament will select a President of the Republic according to the Constitution that adopted by the popular referendum.

 

15- The new Iraqi Government will deal with the Kurdish issue in accordance with the draft Constitution written by the above mentioned Beirut Symposium.

 

16- The Governments of the US and the UK will commit themselves to non-intervention, directly or indirectly, in the internal and security affairs of Iraq.

 

17- The new Iraqi Government will commit itself not to develop weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This commitment does not deprive Iraq of the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes in accordance with international law.

 

18- The new Iraqi Government will commit itself also to peaceful means and not to resort to force in cases of dispute with other Arab states and neighbor countries, including those that encouraged, assisted or participated in the occupation of Iraq, with the exception in case of self-defense and within the rules of the charters of the UN and the Arab League.

 

19- The new Iraqi Government will establish an independent judicial panel, composed of Iraqi and neutral international legal experts, to investigate all complaints about crimes, human rights violations in Iraq, the collaboration with the occupiers, as well as state-terrorism including kidnappings, killings based solely on identity papers, and blackmailing. These include all crimes that were committed in Iraq since the revolution of July 14, 1958 and until the time of departure of the occupying forces from Iraq. This Panel will collect information on all of these crimes in order that the newly elected Parliament would define the manner of implementing their retribution in the light of world experiences in dealing with such crimes.

 

20- Upon agreement to the above, and the implementation by the US and the UK to the points related to them as mentioned above, the new Iraqi Government will deal with all US and UK companies and firms on issues of the reconstruction of Iraq, oil investment, at an equal footing with other world companies and firms, without political prejudice and on the basis of the oil policy and the reconstruction program to be adopted by the new Iraqi Government.

 

21- This initiative is to be seen as an integral whole and not to be dealt with selectively.