SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, (Reuters):
KURDS IN northern Iraq welcomed the retired US general overseeing the country's rebuilding yesterday with cheers, hugs and a shower of petals 12 years after he helped them break free from Saddam Hussein.
Jay Garner told an emotional crowd of Kurdish leaders and students in the city of Sulaimaniya, 330 km (205 miles) northeast of Baghdad, that their self-governed region was a model for Iraq after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam.
SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
"Let's take the spirit of free people that we have here in the Kurdish provinces and spread it," he said through an interpreter to loud applause at Sulaimaniya University.
Garner also held talks in Dukan - 50 km (30 miles) to the northwest with rival Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani, veteran leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
"Our desire would be that the new government of Iraq represent all the Iraqi people... It will be a mosaic," he told a news conference after the talks.
Talabani thanked the United States and its allies for toppling Saddam, saying people who opposed the war followed an "appeasement policy, not a peace policy".
"The right decision of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair was the real policy of peace, to fight against tyranny," he said after the talks with Garner.
Barzani told the news conference: "We are very pleased that the entire Iraqi people will be the masters of their destiny. They will govern themselves by themselves."
