ABC News reports that Shiite Muslims in Iraq are beginning to cooperate with Garner in the run-up to Monday’s conference:
Monday’s conference, second in a series likely to extend well into May, was expected to attract 300 to 400 delegates from political organizations that had opposed Saddam Hussein and from other Iraqi interest groups, said a Garner deputy, Barbara Bodine.
The first meeting was held April 15 in Ur, in southern Iraq, just a week after U.S. troops took control of the Iraqi capital and ousted the Saddam government. Fewer than 100 Iraqis participated, many of them exiles, as some Shiites and others stayed away in protest of potential U.S. influence over selection of a new Iraqi president.
Bodine told reporters that, on Monday, “I think we are going to see more of an indigenous representation, simply because we’ve had more time to organize.”
It’s common sense, isn’t it?