September 16, 2007

"See What Might Develop Out of That"

AMB. CROCKER: Again, Senator, it's hard to do nation-building or reconciliation in the face of widespread sectarian violence, which has been the situation over the last 18 months.

And, as you've seen from General Petraeus' charts, it's really just been in the last few months that we've seen a significant reduction in that.

I think that nation-building, reconciliation in Iraq is going to take a lot of forms. In certain areas, the tribal dimension is key. If you're dealing with Anbar, you're dealing tribal terms.

And what is interesting and somewhat encouraging to me there is those tribal elements that have emerged have shown a considerable interest in linking up with the central government in Baghdad.

About 10 days ago, the leader of the Anbar awakening, Sheik Abdel Sittar came to Baghdad. I spent some time with him. His main purpose, though, was to meet with the prime minister and kind of establish a relationship and see what might develop out of that.

The rest, as they say, is history.