By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 12, 2003; Page A01
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, Feb. 11 -- Iraqi exile leaders complained today that a U.S. plan to install a military governor for up to a year in postwar Iraq, as outlined by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, risks leaving in place an Iraqi administration dominated by the country's Sunni Muslim minority and veterans of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Leaders of the principal exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, said the administration plan, described by Khalilzad last week in Ankara, Turkey, seemed to reflect fears in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt that immediate democracy in Iraq could be destabilizing. The complaints also highlighted concern that the exiles' role in postwar Iraq could turn out to be less than they anticipated in months of lobbying against Hussein.
posted on February 11, 2003 11:05:26 PM new
> risks leaving in place an Iraqi administration dominated by the country's Sunni Muslim minority and veterans of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Why Not? It worked well for General George Patton to leave the Nazi Party intact, except for the upper leaders. to this day, the Nazi Party is still intact, alive, and kickin' in the USA!
posted on February 12, 2003 10:54:44 AM new Why Not? It worked well for General George Patton to leave the Nazi Party intact, except for the upper leaders. to this day, the Nazi Party is still intact, alive, and kickin' in the USA!
If you have ever read up on George Patton you would know (and not just seen in the movies) that had he been left alone, the Nazi left in Germany would have been eliminated & there would never have been a threat from the Russians.
Patton was reigned in by U.S. military commanders and only ceded to their authority when he died prematurely in a auto accident in Germany.
Thousands of Nazi escaped Germany to South America at the end of the war. That is why Bolivia has a high rate of blue eyed, blond haired natives to this day.
[ edited by bear1949 on Feb 12, 2003 11:02 AM ]
posted on February 12, 2003 11:09:47 AM new
I wasn't slamming Patton. Rather, I was pointing out that America has already set a prescedent and look how IT turned out!
posted on February 12, 2003 11:20:28 AM new
Borilla I'm not saying you were picking on Patton. I'm saying that with the constraints placed on him he had no options.
posted on February 12, 2003 05:39:43 PM new
And speaking of yet more problems, from the conservative London Times
Peter Riddell
Blairite domination has been shaken, throwing into doubt a third term
Glenda Jackson will never rate more than a trivia footnote in future political histories. But she may have won a place in dictionaries of quotations by her remarks in the Commons yesterday: “I am very proud of my party. It is my Government of which I am ashamed.” It was reminiscent of the veteran Tory Nigel Birch’s equally theatrical denunciation of Harold Macmillan during the Profumo debate of June 1963, quoting Browning’s The Lost Leader: “Let him never come back to us . . . never glad confident morning again.”
Tony Blair is obviously in serious trouble — faced by many unhappy, and quite a few hostile, Labour MPs and a mutinous party in the country. The next few days are going to be very awkward for him: Hans Blix’s report to the Security Council tomorrow, the anti-war march in London on Saturday which coincides with his leader’s speech to Labour’s spring conference in Glasgow, and then the attempt to secure a further UN resolution.
The pitfalls are obvious. His Iraqi strategy rests crucially on obtaining this resolution, as Jack Straw was reminded yesterday during a vigorous 90-minute meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. The Cabinet realises that, and President Bush has been left in no doubt of Mr Blair’s pressing political needs.
Parallels are being drawn with the Suez crisis of 1956 over a possible strategic miscalculation by Britain (though with America and France on opposite sides), and Margaret Thatcher’s last days in 1990 facing backbench unrest. At present, both comparisons are premature. Mr Blair could still emerge from Iraq vindicated, if not necessarily strengthened
Turkey compliance isn't going as smoothly as we were led to believe. As with most countries, the great majority of the Turks are opposed to a war with Iraqi and the government is holding out for more economic aid, i.e., money. The army has also been balking at being placed under U.S. command. Its chief goal is to find a means to slaughter the Kurds. The Kurds, btw, are opposed to the U.S. plans for post-invasion military government.
[ edited by antiquary on Feb 16, 2003 10:00 AM ]
posted on February 16, 2003 10:25:09 AM new
Even the Iraqi opposition in exile is criticizing US post-invasion plans. These are the ones who are supposed to help give legitamacy to the occupation. Strategically they were earlier intended to function much as the Northern Alliance did with Afghanistan. Now, with the Kurds, they are advocating a more democratic approach to the creation of an Iraqi government.
posted on February 16, 2003 01:45:11 PM new
We need to do this the right way. Geroge Bush has f*cked it all up and confused everyone.
No more bull:
(a) we are going to go over to Iraq and kick out Saddam because he dares to breath and to run that country.
(b) once we do that, we will take all of thier oil and sell it to reimburse the Oil Companies for their being left out for so many years from the profits.
(c) we have the Right to install ANOTHER Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi government as Puppt Leader (works for us, right?) that is friendly to us.
(d) forget about rebuilding Iraq.
So, let's drop the B.S. about the United Nations Resoluons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Terrorism, and so forth -- admit that we are violating International Laws and United Nations Resolutions and go bomb the hell out of Iraq so that we buy even more weapons to replace them!
Next: IRAN -- do we go take it over right away or leave a month or so to cool off? What do you think?
posted on February 16, 2003 04:43:01 PM new
The LA Times did a good objective article on the composition of the current protest movement.
"But since the October and January demonstrations, mainstream religious, labor and environmental organizations also have joined the movement, forming new coalitions that have already diluted leftist influences. More than 80 cities and counties, along with state legislative bodies in Maine and Hawaii, have passed resolutions urging President Bush not to rush to war. Campaigns are underway in more than 90 other cities.
"Cities that have passed resolutions range from such bulwarks of liberalism as Santa Cruz and Santa Monica to Des Moines, Tucson, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit.
"Typical of the campaign, started by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank in Washington, is the resolution passed Jan. 16 by the Chicago City Council on a 46-1 vote.
" 'The Bush administration has failed to articulate a clear strategic objective or outcome of a military attack against Iraq, and such an attack fails to enjoy the support of many of our allies," the resolution states. "Now, therefore be it resolved that we, the members of the City Council of the city of Chicago, oppose a preemptive U.S. military attack on Iraq unless it is demonstrated that Iraq poses a real and imminent threat to the security and safety of the United States.' "
posted on February 16, 2003 05:11:28 PM new
Good article, antiquary!!! This is an excerpt from London to illustrate the diversity of marchers there also.
"There were nuns. Toddlers. Women barristers. The Eton George Orwell Society. Archaeologists Against War. Walthamstow Catholic Church, the Swaffham Women's Choir and Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War (And a Home Win against Bristol would be Nice). They won 2-0, by the way. One group of SWP stalwarts were joined, for the first march in any of their histories, by their mothers. There were country folk and lecturers, dentists and poulterers, a hairdresser from Cardiff and a poet from Cheltenham"
