AMAZING

Remember, these are the ones who lost the most when Saddam fell from power.

Amazing...truly.

TIKRIT, Iraq—Influential spiritual leaders from Saddam Hussein's hometown — a bastion of anti-American sentiment — are joining forces to persuade Iraqis to abandon the violent insurgency.

The effort marks a new, open willingness to co-operate with U.S. forces — a shift in the thinking of at least some key members of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which lost political dominance with the fall of Saddam and has largely formed the most outspoken and violent opposition to the U.S.-led occupation.

Sheik Sabah Mahmoud, leader of the Sada tribe, said yesterday he and 10 other tribal elders have formed a reconciliation committee in Tikrit to speak to other Iraqi leaders about trying to persuade rebels to put down weapons. He said he took that message last week to a group of scholars, religious leaders and other prominent figures meeting in Baghdad.

"It's about time we put our differences aside and looked to the future," Mahmoud said. "I told them, `The reality is they (U.S. forces) are here on the ground; the past is dead. Give the Americans a chance to see what they are going to give us.'"