Not exactly a meeting of the minds

Quote: On Wednesday, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi

warned that Fallujah must surrender terrorist leaders, chief among them the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, if they want to avoid attack. The Americans have insisted for months that Fallujah must hand over foreign fighters and those responsible for the brutal slaying last March of four U.S. contractors, which triggered the siege.

"If they do not turn in al-Zarqawi and his group, we will carry out operations in Fallujah," Allawi told a meeting of the 100-member interim National Council. "Fallujah of course is an honest city but it has been manipulated by a deviant bunch that wants to harm Iraq."

Counterquote: Earlier the same day,

a Fallujah negotiator, Hatem Karim, challenged claims that al-Zarqawi is in the city and said the elusive terror mastermind had become similar to the weapons of mass destruction which Washington had insisted were in Iraq but have never been found. ...

Fallujah's chief negotiator with the government, Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili ... insisted there were "only a handful" of non-Iraqi Arab fighters in the city - a claim the Americans dismiss - and that they would leave if a deal were struck with the government.

"They are outlaws to them but they are mujahedeen to us," he said of the fighters.

I will say there is one area in which I can see a type of meeting of the minds here: There are actually four parties referred to here, i.e., Allawi, Karim, Jumeili, and US forces. And I frankly don't trust a single damn word any of them say.