BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A man claiming to speak for a major Iraqi insurgent group said Sunday that the United States had tried unsuccessfully to establish contact with his group.

Speaking on Al-Jazeera television, the purported spokesman for the 1920 Revolution Brigades said the U.S. bid to contact his group failed because ''intermediaries'' used by the Americans were deemed unworthy.

''We don't believe the Americans are serious,'' added the spokesman, identified as Sheik Abdullah Suleiman al-Amri, who appeared in traditional Arab dress but with his face concealed.

Alberto Fernandez, a senior State Department official, told Al-Jazeera on Oct. 21 that Washington was ready to talk with any Iraqi group -- excluding al-Qaida in Iraq -- to help reconcile Iraq's factions and end the violence wracking the country.

Outlining a blueprint of policies for bringing security to Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad spoke last week of the need to persuade Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms and engage in national reconciliation.

He said Sunni-ruled Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Jordan had agreed to encourage the groups to end violence and work for a united and independent Iraq.

Al-Amri did not identify the intermediaries his group rejected, but earlier in the interview he sharply criticized Sunni Arab politicians who joined Iraq's Shiite-dominated, U.S.-sponsored political process.

''Their participation was wrong and they did not make good on any of the promises they made to voters,'' he said.

Al-Amri said his group had no ties to Saddam Hussein loyalists fighting in the resistance or the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group known to maintain ties with some insurgents.

But like a man who claimed to speak for Saddam's outlawed Baath Party in an interview with Al-Jazeera earlier this month, al-Amri set near impossible conditions for talks, including a full withdrawal of U.S. forces and recognition of the insurgency as the main representative of Iraqis.

That was a hardening of previous conditions. His group was one of 11 Sunni insurgent groups that offered in June to halt attacks if the Iraqi government and President Bush announced a two-year timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

The 11 did not include the powerful Islamic Army in Iraq, Muhammad Army or the Mujahedeen Shura Council, the umbrella label for eight militant groups that include al-Qaida in Iraq.

The 1920 Revolution Brigades is particularly active in the Sunni-dominated provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin and Anbar. The group is known to have a large number of former members of Saddam's Republican Guard and Mukhabarat, the former dictator's most feared security agency.