Report: U.S. Envoy Met With Iraq Rebels

BAGHDAD- Outgoing U.S. envoy to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said he left Baghdad early last year to meet with Sunni insurgent leaders in Jordan.

In an interview with The New York Times, Khalilzad said he talked with groups such as the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades after the elections and again after a Shiite shrine in Samara was bombed.

He declined to give details of the meetings but the newspaper said by last summer it was clear the insurgents were stepping up, rather than scaling back attacks around Iraq.

'I think that it has not gone as well as one would have clearly liked,' Khalilzad said.

The talks run counter to the Bush administration policy of not negotiating with terror groups, although U.S. military commanders have said it was necessary to woo less radical insurgent groups away from the true militants, the Times said.

Khalilzad is leaving his post after nearly two years after being nominated by U.S. President George Bush as ambassador to the United Nations.