Reply #6: he has to be careful not to criticize too much [View All]

[RainDog]

because his country is so dependent upon US aid.

but these comments are interesting, and considering the above, and that he is a strong ally of the U.S., I would think the assessment has some validity:

Abdullah sharply criticized the "de-Baathification" campaign in Iraq..."What you did is, you took a third if not more of society and said, 'You're persona non grata,' so a third of the country is isolated," he said. "The problem is that if (Iraqis) wanted to be a teacher, an engineer, or have any job, (they) had to have a party card as a condition of employment. You have to readjust that policy."

The de-Baathification process has been directed by Ahmed Chalabi, a former exile who is a favorite of the Pentagon yet is a fugitive from justice in Jordan. In 1992, a court there convicted Chalabi of fraud and embezzlement in the collapse of a major Jordanian bank in the 1980s and sentenced him to 22 years of hard labor.

Abdullah suggested that Chalabi and other U.S.-backed exiles had ulterior motives in seeking to completely uproot the former regime rather than just removing its top officials.

"When the interim Iraqi government went in, a lot of the people obviously were from the outside, from the opposition groups," he said. "If I can be quite frank, the reason why they didn't want the Iraqi army or the police to be active is because that was the only institution that could have given them a run for their money. Now, by removing law and order, the members of the interim government could strengthen their position."