To the Point: George W. Bush and Republicans are Full of Shit [April 2, 2007]
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President Talabani Criticizes Occupation |
Saudi King Abdullah Calls U.S. Presence an Illegitimate Foreign Occupation |
Former Iraqi Premier Criticizes Bush |
Why America Must Leave Iraq
U.S. Soldiers show why Bush and the Republicans have failed...
Why America Must Leave Iraq
Iraqis explain why...
On a side street of Fallujah, a man with his face covered by a kefiyeh, commonly worn by resistance fighters to hide their identity, stopped an IPS reporter and said he wanted to "deliver a message to the sleeping world" [25].
This disturbing account is further supported by a report in Time magazine. Bobby Ghosh writes that a "truce" between Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda fighters appears to be imminent. The announcement is bad news for U.S. troops, as a ceasefire agreement means the two groups are likely to cooperate in operations against U.S. forces. One rebel commander said:
Senator Richard Lugar, the most prominent Republican yet to break ranks with the Bush administration over Iraq, has called for an "orderly" withdrawal of US troops in the coming months.
Lugar is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He told CBS news, on July 1, 2007, that George W. Bush should embrace moderates from both sides in Congress to chart a new path forward. Lugar said:
In WWII the image of American troops raising the flag on Iwo Jima fueled America's passion for victory. In the Vietnam conflict the photo of the South Vietnamese officer executing a civilian in the street turned world opinion against the U.S. effort. Maybe historians will trace the disaster in Iraq to images from Abu Ghraid (photo of naked man at right). Or has it been the endless failures to win Iraqi "hearts and minds," such as this example recounted by a young journalist in Fallujah?
Standing in front of a podium on a US aircraft carrier, a stage adorned with banners and ranks of cheering, uniformed extras gathered on the deck of that vast ship, a stage that had been turned in a complicated maneuver so the skyline of San Diego, a few miles off, would not be glimpsed by the television audience, beneath a banner famously marked "Mission Accomplished," Bush declared [23]:
Politicians love to tell us the American public has a short memory. Do you remember Mister Bush's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki last November? PM al-Maliki announced (11.30.06) that his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 and allow the United States to begin withdrawing. When asked specifically whether U.S. troops could start to withdraw, al-Maliki told reporters after meeting with Mister Bush in Jordan (see photo below):
Iraqi Bill Demands U.S. Troops Withdraw
A majority of Iraqi lawmakers have endorsed a bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number of foreign troops already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday (5.10.07) [1]. The bill was drafted by a parliamentary bloc loyal to the pro-Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and signed by 144 members of the 275-member house (over 52 percent of the legislators).
Muqtada Sadr - No to injustice! No to America! No to the devils!
Shite cleric Muqtada Sadr, who appeared in his traditional black robe and turban and wore a white cloth symbolizing willingness to die as a martyr, led Islamic prayers Friday, 5.25.07. His comments appeared carefully staged to strengthen his hold over the Shiite Muslim street and to reassert his position as political kingmaker. Before thousands of supporters in the Shiite holy city of Kufa, the cleric presented himself as the champion of all Iraqis - regardless of creed. He called for a U.S. pullout and instructed his militia to refrain from confrontations with Iraqi security forces.
Not only is George W. Bush out of touch with the American public, but his refusal to listen to the wishes of a majority of Iraqi leaders demonstrates he does not respect their nascent democracy. Yet Bush et al are not stupid. What really is going on? From an unnamed administration source (some believe "Bush's Brain" or Karl Rove), we learn:
Leo Docherty, 30, was formally reprimanded for breaking the British Army's code of silence by criticising top brass for a catalogue of failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Col. Mike Kelly, who ended a 20-year military career last week to run as an opposition candidate at federal elections later this year, gave his first television interview about his experiences in Iraq. Kelly, among the most senior Australian officers in Iraq during 2003 and 2004, was scathing of Rumsfeld's role.
As Christians celebrate Easter Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI decried the violence and wars in the Middle East saying, "Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability. In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees" [15].
Protests Mark Iraq Anniversary
Millions of Shia protesters burned and trampled U.S. flags in the holy city of Najaf during an anti-American rally on Monday, April 9th. The Shia comprise the majority ethnic group in Iraq with approximately 60 percent of the population. How can the U.S. succeed when ALL the Iraqis want us out?
The rally coincided with the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad - the day U.S.-led forces symbolically pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein. Who can possibly be stupid enough to claim "we are winning" or that the Iraqi people "want us to remain in their country"?
Over a million Iraqis, holding aloft thousands of national flags, marched, chanting, "Yes, yes, Iraq/No, no, America" and "No, no, American/Leave, leave occupier" [16]. Hundreds of banners saying "Down with Bush, Down with America" were carried by protesters as Iraqi police and soldiers guarded checkpoints in and around Najaf and Kufa. Ahmed al-Mayahie, 39, a Shia from the southern city of Basra cried out:
In Election 2006, American voters angrily gave George W. Bush and Republicans "a thumping" with a resounding vote of no confidence on their Iraq war policy. Americans demanded change. We want our troops out of Iraq. We're tired of seeing the American flag and our democracy trampled. We're fed up with the lies... non-existent WMDs, Iraq's alleged links to al Qaeda, Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium yellow cake from Niger, the treasonous outing of a CIA agent who worked to reduce nuclear weapons in the world, and recently, wrongful threats against the nation of Iran.
This past week both the U.S. House and Senate, championed by Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, passed supplemental Iraq war spending bills containing provisions to bring the troops home in 2008. This is the will of the American people. Bush can only respond with more lies... saying a timeline will allow "terrorists" to wait out the withdrawal. Americans respond that if they do wait, it will give Iraqis sufficient time to complete reconstruction projects and establish a government capable of providing security. Yes, let the violence stop even if only temporarily. Finish the job, win the "hearts and minds" and Iraqis will rid their society of unwanted extremists. Simply put, George. W. Bush and the Republicans are full of shit...
The "bushit" doesn't end there. Sen. John McCain visited a Baghdad market Sunday and later lied to reporters saying the American people were not getting the full story on what he claims are improving security conditions in the war-ravaged capital. Republican partisan hacks once again blame Iraqi conditions on biased media reports:
How did Iraqis react to about McCain's comments? "What are they talking about?" Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. "The security procedures were abnormal!" [2]
A senior American military official in Baghdad explained that the U.S. delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — while attack helicopters circled overhead. Witnesses reported that soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.
"They paralyzed the market when they came," Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. "This was only for the media."
Republican Congressman Mike Pence, who accommpanied McCain on this media circus, said conditions in Shorja were "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime" [3]. Pence is simply full of shit. The good people of Indiana do not donn armored vests when they shop at their local farmer's market.
Can this be possible? Would John McCain and the Republican delegation manipulate the media to deceive the American public?
UPDATE (4/3/07): We learn from the Australian press that "21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress" [4].
MEANWHILE, the six-day death toll to April 1 was "at least 507 people."
Drop in murders, John? The reality-based facts:
Iraqis killed in February: 1,806 (64.5/day)
Iraqis killed in March: 2,078 (67/day)
Iraqi soldiers killed in March: 44
US troops killed in March: 85
Last week's suicide truck bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar is the deadliest single attack since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, a high-ranking Iraqi Interior Ministry official announced Monday as a new death toll for the blast surfaced. The Wednesday attack -- where a truck packed with 4,000 pounds of explosives detonated in a Shiite area of the city -- was initially blamed for 85 deaths. Hundreds of others were wounded. The Interior Ministry official updated the death toll at 152, making it the war's deadliest single attack [5].
More importantly, key Sunni and Shiite leaders around the world now stand with the majority of Americans. It's time for the U.S. to exit Iraq.
Addressing the final session of Arab Summit, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani declared for the first time that U.S. Forces allegedly liberating Iraq have turned into an occupation that has left daunting consequences on the country. President Talabani criticized unplanned decisions taken by Coalition Forces Administration, which has led to negative fallouts [6].
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah delivered harsh attacks on the U.S. military presence in Iraq to signal Washington its anger over the situation in Iraq and build credibility among fellow Arabs. "In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said Abdullah [7].
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal stood by the king's remarks Thursday, implying at some points that Iraq's Shiite-led government doesn't have the legitimacy to approve the U.S. presence. "If that country had chosen to have those troops, then it's something else. But any military action that is not requested by a specific country -- that is the definition of occupation," al-Faisal told reporters [8].
King Abdullah also told Arab leaders that the American occupation of Iraq was not only illegal, but warned that unless Arab governments settled their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region's politics [9].
The Head of the Iraqi Sunni Muslim Scholars, Shaykh Harith al-Dari, interviewed on 4th Anniversary of the U.S. 'Invasion', noted that the solution lies in the departure of the occupation, the formation of a national army, and the abolishing of the political process. Al-Dari praised the firmness of the Syrian stand, hoped for a Saudi role to rescue Iraq and for rapprochement with Iran. The resistance will remain and attacks on civilians is not jihad [10].
Al-Dari said, "If the war continues and the occupation does not leave soon, the most dangerous consequences of the war would be the disintegration of the Iraqi social fabric, the partition of Iraq, God forbid, and the transformation of its demographic structure. Another serious consequence would be deepening the social rifts among the sons of Iraq. On the level of the neighboring countries and the region, many problems and incidents would erupt and only God knows their magnitude. Many signs pertaining to these problems and incidents have already begun to loom" [11].
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has warned that Iraq cannot survive under the current Shiite leadership and Sunnis must have a much larger role in government. Allawi, who trained as a surgeon and reportedly had ties to the CIA and British intelligence agency during his years in exile, was installed as Iraq's first post-Saddam prime minister by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. official who ran Iraq for a year after the invasion. Now he is seeking to de-emphasize his links with the U.S. Allawi said the U.S.-backed draft oil law has the potential to "cause a severe backlash in society." The measure would give foreign companies some access to the country's enormous oil reserves [12].
Passage of the oil law, thought to have been written with heavy U.S. involvement, is one of four benchmarks the Bush administration has set for al-Maliki's struggling government. Allawi said the measure was written under time pressure and could have negative unforeseen consequences. He is also critical of the Baghdad security operation to which President Bush has committed an additional 30,000 troops, with full deployment not expected until June [13].
U.S. Soldiers show why Bush and the Republicans have failed...
Why America Must Leave Iraq
Iraqis explain why...
On a side street of Fallujah, a man with his face covered by a kefiyeh, commonly worn by resistance fighters to hide their identity, stopped an IPS reporter and said he wanted to "deliver a message to the sleeping world" [25].
Fallujah City has become a symbol for all Iraqis and all good people in the world who decided to fight this monstrous American occupation, and no siege will stop the great victorious resistance that represents the voice of all Iraqis who believe in Allah and in the dignity of Iraq. We can see the world is sleeping while America is conducting a dirty plan to enslave all the human beings on earth.
This disturbing account is further supported by a report in Time magazine. Bobby Ghosh writes that a "truce" between Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda fighters appears to be imminent. The announcement is bad news for U.S. troops, as a ceasefire agreement means the two groups are likely to cooperate in operations against U.S. forces. One rebel commander said:
We disagree on some things, but we agree on the important ones. The most important is that it's our common duty to fight the Americans. The enemy has come to us, and instead of fighting each other, we should take advantage of their vulnerability [27].Orderly Iraq Pull-Out Needed
Senator Richard Lugar, the most prominent Republican yet to break ranks with the Bush administration over Iraq, has called for an "orderly" withdrawal of US troops in the coming months.
Lugar is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He told CBS news, on July 1, 2007, that George W. Bush should embrace moderates from both sides in Congress to chart a new path forward. Lugar said:
The withdrawal of the majority of American troops in a calm, orderly way over the next few months should be discussed so that we refurbish our ability to meet problems elsewhere in the world [28].How Bush and the RepubliCONS Lost This War
In WWII the image of American troops raising the flag on Iwo Jima fueled America's passion for victory. In the Vietnam conflict the photo of the South Vietnamese officer executing a civilian in the street turned world opinion against the U.S. effort. Maybe historians will trace the disaster in Iraq to images from Abu Ghraid (photo of naked man at right). Or has it been the endless failures to win Iraqi "hearts and minds," such as this example recounted by a young journalist in Fallujah?
All army and security forces in Fallujah are monsters. I watched one of their inhuman acts today and realized how brutal they really are. A young man jumped in the river for a swim near the hospital, but he was swept by the current and he was screaming for help. We were ready to save his life, but soldiers started shooting at us and they were laughing at the drowning guy until he died. [26]On May 1, 2003, Bush addressed the world!
Standing in front of a podium on a US aircraft carrier, a stage adorned with banners and ranks of cheering, uniformed extras gathered on the deck of that vast ship, a stage that had been turned in a complicated maneuver so the skyline of San Diego, a few miles off, would not be glimpsed by the television audience, beneath a banner famously marked "Mission Accomplished," Bush declared [23]:
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.In Bush's press conference, May 24, 2007, he said:
We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave. (italics added) [19]Remember November 2006? It's now June 2007.
Politicians love to tell us the American public has a short memory. Do you remember Mister Bush's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki last November? PM al-Maliki announced (11.30.06) that his country's forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 and allow the United States to begin withdrawing. When asked specifically whether U.S. troops could start to withdraw, al-Maliki told reporters after meeting with Mister Bush in Jordan (see photo below):
I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007. [22]
Iraqi Bill Demands U.S. Troops Withdraw
A majority of Iraqi lawmakers have endorsed a bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number of foreign troops already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday (5.10.07) [1]. The bill was drafted by a parliamentary bloc loyal to the pro-Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and signed by 144 members of the 275-member house (over 52 percent of the legislators).
Muqtada Sadr - No to injustice! No to America! No to the devils!
Shite cleric Muqtada Sadr, who appeared in his traditional black robe and turban and wore a white cloth symbolizing willingness to die as a martyr, led Islamic prayers Friday, 5.25.07. His comments appeared carefully staged to strengthen his hold over the Shiite Muslim street and to reassert his position as political kingmaker. Before thousands of supporters in the Shiite holy city of Kufa, the cleric presented himself as the champion of all Iraqis - regardless of creed. He called for a U.S. pullout and instructed his militia to refrain from confrontations with Iraqi security forces.
No to injustice! No to Israel! No to America! No to the devils! I renew my request that the occupiers should withdraw or schedule their withdrawal. The government should not allow the occupiers to extend their stay in Iraq, not even for one more day. I advise the Mahdi army to resort to civilian means when they are attacked. [21]Neo-Imperialistic America
Not only is George W. Bush out of touch with the American public, but his refusal to listen to the wishes of a majority of Iraqi leaders demonstrates he does not respect their nascent democracy. Yet Bush et al are not stupid. What really is going on? From an unnamed administration source (some believe "Bush's Brain" or Karl Rove), we learn:
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. [24]British Commander Criticizes Occupation
Leo Docherty, 30, was formally reprimanded for breaking the British Army's code of silence by criticising top brass for a catalogue of failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I came out of the Army fucking angry - I felt I had a right to come out and say something. My friends had been killed, so I thought: 'I'm not going quietly.' -- Leo DochertyMr. Docherty speaks five languages including Arabic and Pashto. He became a captain in 2001 and was deployed to Basra in November 2004. During a battle in Sangin, Afghanistan, an 11-year-old Afghan boy was shot dead, a reminder of the dangers when waging war in a dense civilian area [14].
I think we've lost the sympathy of a generation of people. We're perceived as an invading army, and we're radicalising the population. -- Leo DochertySenior Australian Lawyer Calls Rumsfeld's Handling of Iraq Criminal
Col. Mike Kelly, who ended a 20-year military career last week to run as an opposition candidate at federal elections later this year, gave his first television interview about his experiences in Iraq. Kelly, among the most senior Australian officers in Iraq during 2003 and 2004, was scathing of Rumsfeld's role.
If I look at people like Donald Rumsfeld, all I can say is, that verges on criminal negligence.Kelly -- an expert on the law of occupation and peacemaking operations with experience in Somalia, Bosnia and East Timor -- said he offered a plan to stop looting and protect infrastructure soon after former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was toppled.
We knew exactly what needed to be done. Then Rumsfeld came in and overruled that concept and basically threw it out the window and that was where things really started to go wrong, Kelly said. [20]Pope Benedict XVI - Nothing Positive Comes From Iraq
As Christians celebrate Easter Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI decried the violence and wars in the Middle East saying, "Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability. In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees" [15].
Protests Mark Iraq Anniversary
Millions of Shia protesters burned and trampled U.S. flags in the holy city of Najaf during an anti-American rally on Monday, April 9th. The Shia comprise the majority ethnic group in Iraq with approximately 60 percent of the population. How can the U.S. succeed when ALL the Iraqis want us out?
The rally coincided with the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad - the day U.S.-led forces symbolically pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein. Who can possibly be stupid enough to claim "we are winning" or that the Iraqi people "want us to remain in their country"?
Over a million Iraqis, holding aloft thousands of national flags, marched, chanting, "Yes, yes, Iraq/No, no, America" and "No, no, American/Leave, leave occupier" [16]. Hundreds of banners saying "Down with Bush, Down with America" were carried by protesters as Iraqi police and soldiers guarded checkpoints in and around Najaf and Kufa. Ahmed al-Mayahie, 39, a Shia from the southern city of Basra cried out:
In four years of occupation, our sons have been killed and women made widows. The occupier raised slogans saying Iraq is free, Iraq is liberated. What freedom? What liberation? There is nothing but destruction. We do not want their liberation and their presence. We tell them to get out of our land [17].Demonstrators arrived from all over the country in response to a call by Muqtada al-Sadr, a leading Shi'ite cleric, to demand an end to foreign occupation on the fourth anniversary of the end of Ba'athist rule in Baghdad. Both the size of the demonstration and its composition were unprecedented. "There are people here from all different parties and sects," Hadhim al-Araji, Muqtada's representative in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district, told reporters. "We are all carrying the national flag, a symbol of unity. And we are all united in calling for the withdrawal of the Americans." Opinion polls conducted since then show three-quarters of Iraqi respondents demanding the withdrawal of the Anglo-American troops within six to 12 months. Last autumn, 170 of them in a 275-member Parliament (62 percent), signed a motion demanding to know the date of an American withdrawal [18].
In Election 2006, American voters angrily gave George W. Bush and Republicans "a thumping" with a resounding vote of no confidence on their Iraq war policy. Americans demanded change. We want our troops out of Iraq. We're tired of seeing the American flag and our democracy trampled. We're fed up with the lies... non-existent WMDs, Iraq's alleged links to al Qaeda, Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium yellow cake from Niger, the treasonous outing of a CIA agent who worked to reduce nuclear weapons in the world, and recently, wrongful threats against the nation of Iran.
This past week both the U.S. House and Senate, championed by Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, passed supplemental Iraq war spending bills containing provisions to bring the troops home in 2008. This is the will of the American people. Bush can only respond with more lies... saying a timeline will allow "terrorists" to wait out the withdrawal. Americans respond that if they do wait, it will give Iraqis sufficient time to complete reconstruction projects and establish a government capable of providing security. Yes, let the violence stop even if only temporarily. Finish the job, win the "hearts and minds" and Iraqis will rid their society of unwanted extremists. Simply put, George. W. Bush and the Republicans are full of shit...
The "bushit" doesn't end there. Sen. John McCain visited a Baghdad market Sunday and later lied to reporters saying the American people were not getting the full story on what he claims are improving security conditions in the war-ravaged capital. Republican partisan hacks once again blame Iraqi conditions on biased media reports:
The American people are not getting the full picture of what's happening here. They are not getting the full picture of the drop in murders, the establishment of security outposts throughout the city, the situation in Anbar, the deployment of additional Iraqi brigades who are performing well and other signs of progress, McCain said.Accompanying McCain were 100 American soldiers with three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships overhead. And that's either a fishing vest or body armor he's wearing (photo below). Nonetheless, McCain told reporters: "his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed 'walk freely' in some areas of Baghdad."
How did Iraqis react to about McCain's comments? "What are they talking about?" Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. "The security procedures were abnormal!" [2]
A senior American military official in Baghdad explained that the U.S. delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — while attack helicopters circled overhead. Witnesses reported that soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.
"They paralyzed the market when they came," Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. "This was only for the media."
Republican Congressman Mike Pence, who accommpanied McCain on this media circus, said conditions in Shorja were "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime" [3]. Pence is simply full of shit. The good people of Indiana do not donn armored vests when they shop at their local farmer's market.
Can this be possible? Would John McCain and the Republican delegation manipulate the media to deceive the American public?
UPDATE (4/3/07): We learn from the Australian press that "21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress" [4].
MEANWHILE, the six-day death toll to April 1 was "at least 507 people."
Drop in murders, John? The reality-based facts:
Iraqis killed in February: 1,806 (64.5/day)
Iraqis killed in March: 2,078 (67/day)
Iraqi soldiers killed in March: 44
US troops killed in March: 85
Last week's suicide truck bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar is the deadliest single attack since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, a high-ranking Iraqi Interior Ministry official announced Monday as a new death toll for the blast surfaced. The Wednesday attack -- where a truck packed with 4,000 pounds of explosives detonated in a Shiite area of the city -- was initially blamed for 85 deaths. Hundreds of others were wounded. The Interior Ministry official updated the death toll at 152, making it the war's deadliest single attack [5].
More importantly, key Sunni and Shiite leaders around the world now stand with the majority of Americans. It's time for the U.S. to exit Iraq.
Addressing the final session of Arab Summit, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani declared for the first time that U.S. Forces allegedly liberating Iraq have turned into an occupation that has left daunting consequences on the country. President Talabani criticized unplanned decisions taken by Coalition Forces Administration, which has led to negative fallouts [6].
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah delivered harsh attacks on the U.S. military presence in Iraq to signal Washington its anger over the situation in Iraq and build credibility among fellow Arabs. "In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said Abdullah [7].
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal stood by the king's remarks Thursday, implying at some points that Iraq's Shiite-led government doesn't have the legitimacy to approve the U.S. presence. "If that country had chosen to have those troops, then it's something else. But any military action that is not requested by a specific country -- that is the definition of occupation," al-Faisal told reporters [8].
King Abdullah also told Arab leaders that the American occupation of Iraq was not only illegal, but warned that unless Arab governments settled their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region's politics [9].
The Head of the Iraqi Sunni Muslim Scholars, Shaykh Harith al-Dari, interviewed on 4th Anniversary of the U.S. 'Invasion', noted that the solution lies in the departure of the occupation, the formation of a national army, and the abolishing of the political process. Al-Dari praised the firmness of the Syrian stand, hoped for a Saudi role to rescue Iraq and for rapprochement with Iran. The resistance will remain and attacks on civilians is not jihad [10].
Al-Dari said, "If the war continues and the occupation does not leave soon, the most dangerous consequences of the war would be the disintegration of the Iraqi social fabric, the partition of Iraq, God forbid, and the transformation of its demographic structure. Another serious consequence would be deepening the social rifts among the sons of Iraq. On the level of the neighboring countries and the region, many problems and incidents would erupt and only God knows their magnitude. Many signs pertaining to these problems and incidents have already begun to loom" [11].
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has warned that Iraq cannot survive under the current Shiite leadership and Sunnis must have a much larger role in government. Allawi, who trained as a surgeon and reportedly had ties to the CIA and British intelligence agency during his years in exile, was installed as Iraq's first post-Saddam prime minister by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. official who ran Iraq for a year after the invasion. Now he is seeking to de-emphasize his links with the U.S. Allawi said the U.S.-backed draft oil law has the potential to "cause a severe backlash in society." The measure would give foreign companies some access to the country's enormous oil reserves [12].
Passage of the oil law, thought to have been written with heavy U.S. involvement, is one of four benchmarks the Bush administration has set for al-Maliki's struggling government. Allawi said the measure was written under time pressure and could have negative unforeseen consequences. He is also critical of the Baghdad security operation to which President Bush has committed an additional 30,000 troops, with full deployment not expected until June [13].
Iraqi Widow Saves Her Home, but Victory Is Brief
Suaada Saadoun talking to U.S. and Iraqi security forces a day before she was murdered. "What can you do?" his first sergeant said to him. "It's their problem. This is their country, and they need to work it out among themselves. There's nothing we can do about it."
[NOTE: This story emphasises why the U.S. must exit Iraq and leave the responsibility for securing the country to the Iraqi people.] BAGHDAD, March 29 - The two men showed up on Tuesday afternoon to evict Suaada Saadoun's family. One was carrying a shiny black pistol. Ms. Saadoun was a Sunni Arab living in a Shiite enclave of western Baghdad. A widowed mother of seven, she and her family had been chased out once before. This time, she called American and Kurdish soldiers at a base less than a mile to the east. The men tried to drive away, but the soldiers had blocked the street. They pulled the men out of the car. The Americans shoved the men into a Humvee. Neighbors clapped and cheered as if their soccer team had just won a title. The next morning, Ms. Saadoun was shot dead while walking by a bakery in the local market. After the police took the body away, all that remained in the alleyway was a pool of blood, a bullet casing and the upper half of Ms. Saadoun's set of false teeth. The final hours of Ms. Saadoun's life reveal the ferocity with which Shiite militiamen are driving Sunni Arabs from Baghdad house by house, block by block, in an effort to rid the capital of them. It is happening even as thousands of additional American troops and Iraqi soldiers have been sent to Baghdad as part of President Bush's so-called surge strategy. The task of preventing or reversing the sectarian displacement is daunting. The United Nations estimates that at least 727,000 people have been displaced within Iraq since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in February 2006 set off waves of sectarian violence. About two million people have fled the country. The first month was quiet. A couple of explosions, some shooting here and there. But a few weeks ago, the eight remaining Sunni Arab families living near the American and Iraqi base had again begun to receive threats, Captain Morales said. Four families lived to the north of the base. Militant Shiites marked those homes with big X's, splashed red paint across their front doors and shot at the buildings with Kalashnikovs. Two families moved out. Last week, the other two woke up one morning to find that the militants had chained their doors shut. The other four Sunni homes, including that of Ms. Saadoun, lay west of the base. Dozens of Sunni families fled that area last year when Shiite militias began moving in. Ms. Saadoun and her family were among the refugees - they left for Syria in late 2006 after someone threw a grenade into their backyard. Ms. Saadoun returned in February with four daughters, a son-in-law and grandchildren after hearing that American soldiers had moved into the neighborhood. Her three sons stayed in Syria. Determined not to be driven out a second time, Ms. Saadoun was the only person in any of the four remaining Sunni households to complain to the Americans and Kurds when militant Shiites began issuing warnings this month. "She started calling us, then she started calling the Kurds a lot more than us," Captain Morales said. "She even visited the base a few times." She received her final threat on Tuesday afternoon, when the two Shiite men drove up in a gray sedan. One of them, Zuhair Naama, had a pistol tucked into his waistband. They pulled out papers. They said they were guards from the Ministry of Finance, which is run by a hard-line Shiite political party backed by an Iranian-trained militia called the Badr Organization. The men told Ms. Saadoun they had been authorized by the ministry to repossess the home on behalf of the Iraqi government. Ms. Saadoun's home was one of 80 or so in the area that had belonged to the government before the American invasion of March 2003. That summer, Ms. Saadoun paid $10,000 to buy the house from squatters. Then she sold two rooms to Abu Bariq, a Sunni Arab soldier, who moved in with his wife and three children. 
Ms. Saadoun's phone call to a nearby military base kept her family from being falsely evicted, but she was killed the next day at a market. Her granddaughters were among those in mourning.
Ms. Saadoun said she knew the papers that the two Shiite men showed her were fake. They had tried the same thing the previous week. Ms. Saadoun invited the men into her home, then quietly called Captain Morales and a Kurdish officer, Maj. Zirak Nuri Salah, on her cellphone. Blocks away, inside the Kurdish barracks of the old Muthanna air base, Major Salah's phone rang at 2:46 p.m. "The men are here," Ms. Saadoun said. The major rounded up a dozen of his soldiers and piled into three armored vehicles. Captain Morales did the same with his men. Someone called the two Shiites on their cellphones and warned them that the Americans and the Iraqi Army were coming. The men jumped into their car and drove away, but were stopped at a checkpoint run by Kurdish soldiers at the mouth of the street.  All Major Salah saw was chaos when he showed up. The soldiers already on the scene had forced the two Shiites to stand against a wall outside Ms. Saadoun's home. Residents of the house crowded around the front gate. Neighbors milled about. Ms. Saadoun was screaming at the Shiite men, and they were screaming back.
"We've been threatened for almost a year, a full year," she continued. "I'll go to the Green Zone if you don't solve my problems." A neighbor in a gray Manchester United tracksuit looked on from across the street. His name was Zaid Hamoud. He was 22 and a Sunni Arab. "I've been threatened, too," he told this reporter. "They called my cellphone and said, 'You have two days to leave your home or we'll blow your head off.' " "I don't understand why they kill each other," Major Salah said. "I don't care if they're Sunni or Shia. I just want to get to the truth." That night, Captain Morales had the two Shiite men transferred to a detention center near Baghdad International Airport. He also ordered a patrol of Americans and Kurds to scour the neighborhood for a man known as Abu Hazem. Ms. Saadoun had said Abu Hazem worked with the two Shiites. The soldiers walked down a series of dark streets looking for the right house. They pulled a man dressed in white robes from his home, thinking he had information. He pointed the patrol to an ice cream shop. The owners of the ice cream shop pointed down the block. Someone had told the soldiers to look for a house number 33, but there did not seem to be a 33. The patrol kicked in the door of the wrong house, breaking the door in half, and apologized to the family. Captain Morales heard the news about Ms. Saadoun the next day around noon. She had been shot in the market earlier that morning, just northeast of the base and within spitting distance of the same checkpoint where the two Shiite men had been stopped. The captain paced around the hallway inside his command center. His face was ashen. "What can you do?" his first sergeant said to him. "It's their problem. This is their country, and they need to work it out among themselves. There's nothing we can do about it." SOURCE: "Iraqi Widow Saves Her Home, but Victory Is Brief," March 30, 2007, www.nytimes.com |
[1] "Iraqi Bill Demands U.S. Troops Withdraw," Thursday, May 10, 2007, www.nytimes.com
[2] "McCain Wrong on Iraq Security, Merchants Say," Monday, April 2, 2007, www.nytimes.com
[3] Ibid., www.nytimes.com
[4] "Truck Bomb Kills Iraqi School Children," Tuesday, April 3, 2007, www.theaustralian.news.com.au
[5] "Tal Afar Toll Tops Record for Iraq War's Deadliest Attack," Monday, April 2, 2007, www.cnn.com
[6] "Talabani Criticizes Coalition Forces in Iraq," Friday, March 30, 2007, www.alsumaria.tv
[7] "Saudis on U.S. in Iraq: 'illegitimate foreign occupation'," Friday, March 30, 2007, www.cnn.com
[8] Ibid., www.cnn.com
[9] "U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King," Friday, March 30, 2007, www.nytimes.com
[10] "Al-Dhari on Year 4 of American Iraq," Tuesday, March 27, 2007, www.juancole.com
[11] Ibid., www.juancole.com
[12] "Former Iraqi Premier Criticizes U.S.," Saturday, March 31, 2007, www.washingtonpost.com
[13] Ibid., www.washingtonpost.com
[14] "Ex-Army Officer: Troops Are Dying in Iraq For a 'Doomed Project'," Sunday, April 8, 2007, www.independent.co.uk
[15] "Pope: 'Nothing positive' in Iraq," Sunday, April 8, 2007, www.cnn.com
[16] "The Nightmare Bush Dreads Most," Monday, April 16, 2007, Asia Times
[17] "Protests Mark Iraq Anniversary," Monday, April 9, 2007, english.aljazeera.net
[18] "The Nightmare Bush Dreads Most," Monday, April 16, 2007, Asia Times
[19] "Press Conference by the President: Rose Garden," Thursday, May 24, 2007, White House Press Release
[20] "Former Australian Army Lawyer Says Rumsfeld's Handling of Iraq Almost Criminal," Tuesday, May 22, 2007, International Herald Tribune: Asia-Pacific
[21] "Iraqi Cleric Sadr Makes First Appearance in Months," Friday, May 25, 2007, LA Times
[22] "Iraq PM: ‘Our forces will be ready by June ’07’," November 30, 2006, MSNBC
[23] "Words in a Time of War," Friday, June 1, 2007, Asia Times
[24] "Quote from Ron Suskind used in 'Words in a Time of War'," Original: October 2004, New York Times Magazine
[25] "Anger Builds in Besieged Fallujah," Tuesday, June 5, 2007, Asia Times
[26] Ibid., Asia Times
[27] "A 'Truce' Between U.S. Enemies in Iraq," Wednesday, June 6, 2007, Time
[28] "Orderly Iraq pull-out needed," Sunday, July 1, 2007, News24.com
Copyright © InfoImagination 2007
[2] "McCain Wrong on Iraq Security, Merchants Say," Monday, April 2, 2007, www.nytimes.com
[3] Ibid., www.nytimes.com
[4] "Truck Bomb Kills Iraqi School Children," Tuesday, April 3, 2007, www.theaustralian.news.com.au
[5] "Tal Afar Toll Tops Record for Iraq War's Deadliest Attack," Monday, April 2, 2007, www.cnn.com
[6] "Talabani Criticizes Coalition Forces in Iraq," Friday, March 30, 2007, www.alsumaria.tv
[7] "Saudis on U.S. in Iraq: 'illegitimate foreign occupation'," Friday, March 30, 2007, www.cnn.com
[8] Ibid., www.cnn.com
[9] "U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King," Friday, March 30, 2007, www.nytimes.com
[10] "Al-Dhari on Year 4 of American Iraq," Tuesday, March 27, 2007, www.juancole.com
[11] Ibid., www.juancole.com
[12] "Former Iraqi Premier Criticizes U.S.," Saturday, March 31, 2007, www.washingtonpost.com
[13] Ibid., www.washingtonpost.com
[14] "Ex-Army Officer: Troops Are Dying in Iraq For a 'Doomed Project'," Sunday, April 8, 2007, www.independent.co.uk
[15] "Pope: 'Nothing positive' in Iraq," Sunday, April 8, 2007, www.cnn.com
[16] "The Nightmare Bush Dreads Most," Monday, April 16, 2007, Asia Times
[17] "Protests Mark Iraq Anniversary," Monday, April 9, 2007, english.aljazeera.net
[18] "The Nightmare Bush Dreads Most," Monday, April 16, 2007, Asia Times
[19] "Press Conference by the President: Rose Garden," Thursday, May 24, 2007, White House Press Release
[20] "Former Australian Army Lawyer Says Rumsfeld's Handling of Iraq Almost Criminal," Tuesday, May 22, 2007, International Herald Tribune: Asia-Pacific
[21] "Iraqi Cleric Sadr Makes First Appearance in Months," Friday, May 25, 2007, LA Times
[22] "Iraq PM: ‘Our forces will be ready by June ’07’," November 30, 2006, MSNBC
[23] "Words in a Time of War," Friday, June 1, 2007, Asia Times
[24] "Quote from Ron Suskind used in 'Words in a Time of War'," Original: October 2004, New York Times Magazine
[25] "Anger Builds in Besieged Fallujah," Tuesday, June 5, 2007, Asia Times
[26] Ibid., Asia Times
[27] "A 'Truce' Between U.S. Enemies in Iraq," Wednesday, June 6, 2007, Time
[28] "Orderly Iraq pull-out needed," Sunday, July 1, 2007, News24.com
Copyright © InfoImagination 2007
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