Iraq on brink of civil war, Pentagon strategy questioned

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=6c9aa63c7b71f14c

Pepe Escobar - Asia Times Saturday 30th April, 2005

After fasting - or watching non-stop squabbling - for almost three months since the January 30 elections, Iraqis finally got a new cabinet no one likes (except the Kurds).

Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari didn't get what he wanted. No wonder: the Washington/Green Zone is wary of him. The Sunnis are threatening to walk out of the government altogether. Approved by 180 parliamentarians against five, with a significant 90 absences, this is not even a full cabinet: Jaafari was unable to appoint permanent ministers to the Oil, Defense, Electricity, Industry and Human Rights ministries. All posts are meant to be filled by May 7.

The crucial Oil Ministry post is expected to go to a Shi'ite. But the conflicting factions within the election-winning United Iraqi Alliance simply could not reach an agreement. Alarm bells have been ringing all over the Green Zone on the news that the Sadrists of the Fadila Party badly want the Oil Ministry.

But for the moment, even more alarmingly, the acting minister is none other than the unsinkable convicted fraudster, former Pentagon darling and purported Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi. "For the moment" could last a lifetime: Chalabi - who has been oiling his connections with leading Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for a long time - will undoubtedly waste no time filling the Oil Ministry with his Iraqi National Congress cronies. Not a few in Baghdad firmly believe that the Green Zone may have had a perverse hand on his appointment.

more...

Oh here we go!!!

[bpilgrim]

1. yeah, but we got NUKES!!!

http://images.globalfreepress.com

peace

[BattyDem]

2. Everyone saw this coming except *

I can't wait to hear how they're going to spin this! :eyes:

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Of course they saw this coming

this is exactly what Bush wants. Civil war in the Middle East in order to create as much chaos as possible, so we can continue to steal their resources and feed the war machine beast.

[BattyDem]

7. Probably true ... but he can't let the sheeple know that

So ... how will they spin it so it sounds like the best thing that ever could have happened to Iraq? :shrug:

Our troops are going to be caught in the middle of a bloodbath! :cry:

[Richard Steele]

3. Not a few...

" Not a few in Baghdad firmly believe that the Green Zone may have had a perverse hand on his appointment. "

...as in, say, 99% or so?

[lovuian]

4. 70% Unemployment Infrastructure destroyed!!!

Prisons swelling!!!

What do they have to lose!!!

the Quote of the day

"resistance keeps averaging at least 60 attacks a day - and counting. Economic sabotage - the repeated bombing of electrical plants and oil pipelines - is relentless."

I agree having Chalibi the traitor and Allawi... I agree the Pentagon doesn't know or have anybody else and doesn't know what its doing!!!

We are leaderless!!!

[Geo55]

6. My, my....

The CIA's own little bad boy ,Chalabi, runnin' the OIL show in Iraq..
coulda knocked me over with a feather.
'course he's got OIL experience goin' way back, right? ..no?,
oh well, nevermind.

[lovuian]

9. remember the picture of Chalabi shaking Wolfawitz's hand

its sickening!!! and then we hear Chalabi sold us out to Iran!!!

or was it all a Double Agent thingy going on!!!

and he was almost assasinated and his office wrecked

it was all a smoke screen!!!

[Geo55]

10. Your sig line says it all, lovuian

[meganmonkey]

8. Sure would be nice

to see this as the front page headline on every paper tomorrow morning.

I can dream, can't I?

[Barrett808]

11. Death squads deployed

A least six militias are rampaging throughout Iraq, armed, trained and funded by the Pentagon. One of these - the powerful Special Police Commandos, with at least 10,000 men - as already acknowledged by US generals - is widely involved in applying the dreaded "Salvador option" that retired General Wayne Downing, former head of all US special operations forces, considers a "very valid tactic". The Special Commandos were active in the assault on Samarra last October, which American generals hailed as a "model" of counterinsurgency operations (not exactly: the resistance continues). They are also active in Ramadi and Mosul.

Their commander is the feared Major General Adnan Thavit al-Samarra'i, a member of an aborted, Allawi-conceived coup against Saddam in 1996. Thavit until now has been none other than the "security adviser" in charge of the face-lifted, Saddam-era General Security Directorate - infested with Saddam-era Mukhabarat agents. This is the organization Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld considers so precious that he had to fly to Baghdad to personally order Jaafari not to dismantle it. Thavit also happens to be the uncle of the former minister of interior. All this explains Allawi's obsession in controlling a ministry that so graciously houses his Pentagon-cherished top militia. Two other militias - the Muthana Brigade and the Defenders of Khadamiya - are also subordinated to Allawi.

Worst-case scenario, as I feared. Now we're just waiting for El Mozote on the Tigris.

[FloridaPat]

22. They did this in Vietnam. 4 million civilians killed.

If I was a Kurd and got this much power, I'd declare the Kurdish state independent, set it up as a country and go home. Get out of the mess and try just living you life.

[Barrett808]

25. Turkey wouldn't be too happy about that, however. n/t

[Moderator]

12. kick to combine

[rodeodance]

13. Iraq on brink of civil war, Pentagon strategy questioned

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=6c9aa63c7b71f14c

Sunday 1st May, 2005

Iraq on brink of civil war, Pentagon strategy questioned

Pepe Escobar - Asia Times

Saturday 30th April, 2005

After fasting - or watching non-stop squabbling - for almost three months since the January 30 elections, Iraqis finally got a new cabinet no one likes (except the Kurds).

......

.... The country's infrastructure and administration were totally devastated. Everything the Americans did pointed to an incendiary division on sectarian lines. Major players - fiercely against the occupation - are absent from this cabinet or any previous interim government. Scores of employees in most Iraqi ministries simply don't go to work; as far as the Ministry of Interior is concerned, according to the Jordanian press, this means hundreds of staff in the counterinsurgency sections.

With unemployment at a staggering 70%, many won't think twice to secure a US$400 monthly salary as a police officer; but when the going gets tough, as it does on a daily basis, these forces instantly dissolve. As for the Iraqi Armed Forces, $400 a month is unlikely to change the minds of disgruntled youngsters, already fierce nationalists more inclined to fight the occupiers.

There are even more ominous prospects. Outgoing interim prime minister and former US intelligence asset Iyad Allawi - known in Baghdad as "Saddam without a mustache" - badly wanted the Interior Ministry, so he could control his Ba'athist, Mukhabarat pals in charge of security and counterinsurgency. He didn't get it - the chosen minister is a moderate Shi'ite, Baqir Jabbur - nor any other cabinet posts he craved. So Allawi refashioned himself as opposition leader (his party had 40 seats in the elections), which would be tantamount to saying that the White House/Pentagon/Green Zone is now the opposition, since Allawi is the Americans' man. President George W Bush may have never thought he would be minority leader one day...........

[MontageOfFreedom]

14. But there is the illusion here...

He's not military leader, rather the military plunderer. Possibly better off to call it blunderer.

[rodeodance]

15. I had kinda thought that the 30 y. anniversay of the VN war

......would stir some reflective thinking--
Like --WHAT THE H*** are WE doing there!!

But I have heard none!

[mhr]

16. If Only A Small Fraction Of That Article Is True Then

The situation is orders of magnitude worse than we are being led to believe in the US.

[blogbear]

17. Has the Bush bunch been good for anything but ruination or ruined..

nations?

[dbt]

18. The Iraqis were BETTER OFF under Saddam.

It's about time the Reich Wing got over that and moved on for the good of the country.

What is the source of all troubles in Iraq? The US presence there. Iraqis weren't blowing each other up left and right until WE GOT THERE, NOW WERE THEY?

Their infrastructure, substandard though it may have been, was not in a shambles UNTIL WE BOMBED IT BACK TO THE STONE AGE, now was it?

And I betcha they could all get a drink of water UNTIL WE GOT THERE!

We have met the Enemy and He is Us.

[Botany]

20. From Feb. of '03 and an Ex CIA head for Iraq .......

..... Sure we can be in Baghdad in no time but than what do we do?
Their are something like 103 different factions in Iraq. And most
@ one time or another have been @ odds with one another. Iraq
as a "country" was drawn on a map in 1920 by the British. I would
not want to have to govern it.

(But old President * thinks daddy kicked ass in just a few days why
can't I?)

[w13rd0]

19. Chalabi is the Oil Minister...

...I mean...COME ON! Yeah, we've done a real BANG UP job there...

[Disturbed]

21. U.S. is doing Iran's wishes.

How? Killing off as many Sunnis as possible. If the Shi'ites ever get weary of the U.S. Occupation and rise up against it, Iran will back that move.

[Barrett808]

23. Many Iraqis assume this benefits the occupier n/t

[IChing]

24. Latest graph

[nittygritty]

26. Wow. That graph says it all.

Wow.