 Former US president Bill Clinton called Thursday on Iraq's Shiite majority to reach out to the nation's Sunni minority if they win this weekend's election. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he also said he was "totally against" the notion of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. Sunday's election is expected to legalise Shiite dominance after decades of repression under Saddam Hussein, when Sunnis ruled the roost. Clinton said the worst case scenario would be zero voter turnout in mainly Sunni areas and a higher turnout in Shiite and Kurdish regions. If it happened, he said, the victors should reach out to those "who didn't show up in the polls because they didn't want to be blown away." "Then, I think there'll be an enormous moral obligation on the Shiites and the Kurds and the others who are elected in the areas where there's no problem to make sure that the constitutional system they set up fairly represents all the religious and tribal groups of Iraq," he said. "The people who win should feel a moral obligation to do that." The former president said the new constitution should reflect the views of all groups in Iraq so they "will have a chance to feel that they're a part of the future." In a wide-ranging armchair debate at this meeting of political and business leaders in the Swiss Alps, Clinton did not directly criticise George W. Bush, his successor as president. "We are where we are," he said diplomatically. He said Iraqis needed to be trained and armed to defend themselves "because we need to get out of there, but we don't need a timetable. "I'm totally against setting a timetable, I would be against it if my party tried to impose it on the president." | "My name is Bill Clinton, and my wife approves of this message" |
"We've got to stay and do the job," he added, but warned that if US troops stayed too long, the United States would be accused of imperialism and of only being interested in Iraq's oil. Bush has promised troops will leave Iraq "as quickly as possible," although senior US officials have so far refrained from announcing a time scale. The idea for an "indicative timetable" has been mooted recently by British officials, according to Britain's Times daily, while Prime Minister Tony Blair -- Bush's biggest ally on Iraq -- talked in an interview earlier this week of vague "timelines." |