Bush tells Bremer speed pace of Iraq transfer

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12249865.htm

WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush directed Iraq's civil administrator Paul Bremer on Wednesday to speed the transfer of postwar authority to the Iraqi people, drawing Washington's policy closer to that of its skeptical European allies.

At the end of two days of urgent consultations with Bush and his top national security advisers, Bremer said he would return to Baghdad for talks with members of the Iraqi Governing Council on how to best to accelerate the transfer of power.

The United States also displayed a new military approach to its troubled occupation, unleashing the firepower of the First Armored Division against what it said was a Baghdad building used by anti-American guerrillas.

Bremer will return to Iraq with a number of ideas, including one in which power would be handed over to an interim government to write a constitution and to an executive to assume sovereign power, much like was done in postwar Afghanistan.

A similar proposal earlier this fall was advocated by France and Germany but at the time rejected by the United States.

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[izzie]

1. Got to be out before Nov4, 2004

n/t

[Howardx]

2. its transparent

im sure youre right.

[kentuck]

4. Right. Dont want to wait until the last minute...

Always thinking of the next election...

[Sagan]

3. Hmmm... interesting.

So what happens when the new Iraqi government re-nationalizes the oil industry? When they decide to give French and Russian companies contracts over American ones?

[htuttle]

6. THAT is what is going to be interesting...

Nearly every international legal expert (except those in the pay of BushCo) has been saying that all these privatization contracts aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

The US simply has no authority to assign these contracts, and the only authority that backs them up is the US military. Naomi Klein has done some good pieces on this recently (and was on Democracy Now this week talking about it).

What will happen to them once the military is gone? Well, don't worry, they are also backed by the US Import/Export bank which means that, like always, you and I will ultimately be paying the bill. Think about that for a moment...

Hmm...something tells me everything is NOT going according to plan.

[NNN0LHI]

7. I think the Dow Jones goes back down to 7000 or lower really fast n/t

[dutchdemocrat]

5. BBC reports similar.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=698335