AC: Look, these are beginnings. And they could easily be overturned. Let us not make any exaggerated claims at this stage, but they are positive beginnings.

Here is another issue: Yesterday, in probably the most dangerous area of Baghdad-Hai'amil, or the "Worker's Quarter in the southwest of the city-there are Shi‘a and Sunnis living there, and there was a protracted conflict between the Mahdi Army and the Sunni armed force in the area. There was tension. So, we went there yesterday, along with the commander or the deputy commander of the Baghdad security plan, and we went there to a Sunni mosque and held a meeting. People saw that we were there. They came out of their homes and attended, and it was broadcast on Iraqi TV. It had a positive effect, and the parties agreed to form a committee and work normally, and the situation is quiet there now.

If we do not build on this, if we do not provide the people something-they have had no electricity for months, they've had no food distribution for months, they've have almost no fuel, they could not go out of their area-then I cannot guarantee anything.

But again, the sense is that people are fed-up with the violence. They have seen the brink and they don't like it. They are trying to work back from the brink

Now the prime minister is supporting this effort very much, and he in fact has from his own prime minister's office budget, he is granting a million dinars to every family that returns that was forcibly evicted from their area. So many people are returning, and the moves that we made in returning mosques to various communities that were taken from them is helping secure this kind of feeling among the people there.

So the work is going on in the city at the popular level, and if there is to be successful reconciliation, I believe that it also has to be done in the neighborhoods among the neighbors who had been living together for many years and when this sectarian violence emerged, they began to fight each other. Let me emphasize to you that the areas of conflict in Baghdad are no more than 25 neighborhoods out of a total of 800. 

NIo: Do you feel that the Maliki government has anyone on the Sunni side who could similarly serve as an informal interlocutor with armed Sunni groups, particularly the ones facing off with the Shi‘a? And does that person have the ties and credibility to similarly prevent Sunni retaliation and unprovoked attack on the Shi‘a?

AC: There is a Sunni politician, a senior figure in the Islamic Party, his name is Naseer al-Ani, who was vice president of the National Assembly, and he is working alongside me in those committees. He comes to all the meetings, and we are working together with all the communities.

NIo: Is there anything you would like to add?

AC: After security is improved security, the Iraqi government has to take responsibility for providing a better output of products and services for the people.

This something that needs to be thought about and addressed with some depth. We have now a decline in, as we speak, the amount of oil exported. We are now down to 1.3 million barrels a day; the budget is based on 1.6 million barrels a day at $50 a barrel, so we are 20 percent below that. And we need serious consideration about the oil sector.