Replies to post #5719 on Foreign Correspondence

[Ace Hanlon]

Iraqi Baath Party denounces "Islamic Party" as American stooge.
The Arab Baath Socialist Party issued a statement on Wednesday in which it reiterated its denunciation of 19 November 2004 of the "Islamic Party" as an "agent" of the US and a product of the American occupation.
The statement pointed out that the Baath had repeatedly warned against sectarianism and against the reverse sectarianism that would appear to be a defense of Sunnis against the Shi`ah and the Kurds but in fact would play into the hands of the US effort to partition the country along ethnic and religious lines. The position taken by the "Islamic Party" in accepting the American "Constitution" for Iraq exposed the role of that party once again, the Baath said, as a sectarian puppet manipulated by the US and the Jordanian regime in an effort to prettify the referendum regarding the occupation constitution that is based on Shi`i sectarianism and opens the door to partition of the country.
The Baath warned that there was a possibility that the "Islamic Party" might set up its own armed Sunni militia with the blessings of the US occupation ostensibly to protect Sunnis, but in reality to push forward the plans of the Americans and work within their security plans enforcing their rule over the country.
The Baath called for the isolation of the "Islamic Party" and for denunciations of its effort to harmonize with the plans of the occupation as it makes use of Jordanian regime funding and aims at promoting Sunni sectarianism in the country.
"The Iraqi people and their armed national Resistance . . . demand that Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the Arab Nation condemn and isolate the `Islamic Party' stooge and cut all ties with its traitor leaders," the Baath statement urged.