U.S. Debate on Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis in Talks

Williams said he had discussed the planned gathering since July with Mamoun Sami Rashid Alwani, the third governor of Anbar to take office so far this year. One of Rashid Alwani's predecessors was killed in a U.S. firefight with insurgents; the other quit after his sons were kidnapped.

Rashid Alwani, a target of insurgents because he has worked with the new Iraqi government and the Americans, survived "seven or eight" assassination attempts before the meeting came about, Williams said.

For U.S. officers, the fact that the gathering took place was heartening. "If there's a debate today, the whole city is seeing democracy," Capt. Philip Nash, a Marine commander in Ramadi, said before it began. "It's a town-hall meeting in Ramadi."

"Today's awesome," Nash added as scores of U.S. Marines took up positions for the meeting, and Iraqi forces checked the Sunni leaders filing in for weapons. "They're coming, and I haven't seen that before."

Contending Agendas

An Iraqi journalist for the country's state-sponsored al-Sabah newspaper, waiting with Nash for the meeting to start, looked at him. "In Saddam's day they would have slaughtered a sheep for visits like this," he told the American captain, referring to the ousted president, Saddam Hussein. "Today I think maybe they will slaughter you."

The Americans said they called the meeting to discuss security, talk about what conditions would lead to a U.S. withdrawal from the province, and encourage Sunni participation in the upcoming national elections.

But the clerics in the audience said they came for one reason: They were told the Americans wanted to discuss plans for a U.S. military pullout.

"We want them to withdraw from the province," Muhammed Dulaimy, an Arabic professor at Ramadi's Anbar University, said as about 200 of the province's elders settled into their seats. "They called the meeting. We came to see why they are talking to us. We didn't come to talk about the election. If it's about the election, we'll leave."

The American pitch was simple: Encourage tribal members to join the military, so that Iraq's national forces can build to a strength that would allow U.S. forces to withdraw, and to discourage attacks on American and Iraqi forces.

The Anbar elders' demands were equally straightforward: Allow the tribes to build up their own army division for Anbar. Leave, and the attacks will stop.

Linguistic Divide

But the disconnect ran strong, and as always for Americans in Iraq, the inability to speak the language didn't help. Marine interpreters, Arabic speakers hired from outside Iraq, repeatedly bobbled the point.

"Your best step would be to convince your sons to join the army and police, so these people not from your city can leave your city," Lt. Gen. Hikmet Hussein, commander of the Iraqi 7th Division here, told the tribal leaders.