Perspective: Talks with radicals called key to ending violence

As President Bush prepares this week to announce a new plan for the war in Iraq, doubts are growing in Baghdad and among some international analysts over whether U.S. attempts to reconcile Iraq's warring factions are excluding the very people who need reconciling -- the Sunni-led insurgents and their archenemies, the Shiite militias.

Put simply, the question is this: With more than 3,000 American troops and many tens of thousands of Iraqis killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, is it time to speak to the killers themselves?

In interviews with Chronicle correspondents in Iraq and by telephone with a Chronicle reporter in San Francisco, two dozen Sunni and Shiite hard-liners revealed a paradox. None could fully explain how to bring his side's sectarian killings under control, yet all emphasized that peace cannot take hold without the approval of those holding the weapons.

"The U.S. administration's problem is that it has been negotiating with (Iraqi) politicians and parties that have no public support, so they are unable to help the United States withdraw from Iraq," said a former brigadier general in Saddam Hussein's army who said he is "close" to the Sunni-led insurgency and asked that his name be withheld for security reasons.

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