Fallujah

No, I so not suffer from amnesia.
I'm glad to see some others who don't, either.

The legal basis for the war in Iraq

Does it even matter any more? To me it does, especially when i read this:

Tony Blair was named winner of the prestigious Liberty Medal last night by America's National Constitution Centre for "his steadfast commitment to conflict resolution" in Northern Ireland and the Middle East.

It makes me want to hurl. Like I said before, what use are international law & treaties if there's no way of holding people/governments accountable when they trample all over them? In this entire sorry situation, the perpetrators have been rewarded every step of the way and still are. The ones who are paying, have no voice and no recourse.

Yesterday, at a public inquiry that is going on unnoticed, official documents were released for the first time...

Just another postscript.

Wat een ongelofelijke komedie wordt hier gespeeld!!

Smoke and mirrors. Misdirection 101.

Ons hele kabinet speelt een cynisch spel met het volk. De conclusies van Commissie Davids liegen er niet om. In plaats van deze punten van kritiek te confronteren, komt Balkenende met een meesterlijk set: Hij snoeft en gooit alle negatieve conclusies resoluut in de goot met een paar koele woorden. Onmiddelijk hoog drama bij de coalitiepartner PvdA, die toch nog de schijn van links hoog moet houden. Vervolgens een hyperventilerende drama tot laat in de nacht waar Balkenende een soort van knieval maakt, om vervolgens toch te zeggen dat hij dus toch blijft staan bij wat hij eerst zei.

Selectieve doofheid preveleert. Iedereen in de pers roept dat een crisis is afgewend. Opluchting alom.

...en bijna niemand merkt dat met geen woord gesproken wordt over de bevindingen van Commissie Davids, die zeer ernstig zijn en die toch ten minste zouden moeten leiden tot het opstappen van Balkenende.

Zo luchtig wordt er omgegaan met zulk diepgaande onderwerpen als internationaal volkerenrecht.

Inmiddels gaat het over dooien en ijs. En Haiti.

Hoezo, democratie.

The Iraq war and accountability

I have been watching the Chilcot inquiry in the UK unfold. I have been listening and reading and hearing what people said. What a craven spectacle it is!

Counter to what some politicians seem to believe, most of their constituents don't have the attention span of a gnat. I remember very well what was said and done, years ago - and to me, it does not matter that it happened many years ago. And it should not, in such matters. Many agree with this way of thinking, which is why a 90-year old Nazi criminal had to stand trial in Germany for WW2 war crimes! Even after all that time, it is just to prosecute such crimes.

If the rule of law has to mean anything, it has to be blind. These days, it is not. If people can waltz all over international laws prohibiting wars of agression and never have to be held accountable (even with this inquiry, I see Blair is going to give evidence in secret. Par for course, isn't it?), then the law itself is useless. The entire concept of democracy and a just society based in law is a joke.

This was a war of choice, Blair is increasingly open about it:

"I would still have thought it right to remove him. Obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat," he said.
"I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons still in charge but it's incredibly difficult."

And still as unapologetic as ever.

The Independent's headline this morning read "Untouchable". Yes, it seems so. The evidence that has come out of this inquiry makes clear there was no case to go to war. Period.

I am beyond angry and disgusted. It seems there will be no consequences for anyone. No accountability. If so, I hope they will just drop the masks. I hope that when the next war of choice is started, our politicians won't bother with the horse and pony show. Just say "hey we don't like this person, so we are going to bomb the country to smithereens". And then go out and do it. I for one would at least appreciate the honesty.

Irak oorlog: nee, het gaat niet weg

Ze kunnen niet gewoon blijven weigeren om antwoord te geven!

De ambtelijke top van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken heeft in 2003 een kritisch juridisch advies over de politieke steun aan de Irak-oorlog weggehouden bij de minister.

In een geheim memorandum van 29 april 2003 stelt de Directie Juridische Zaken (DJZ) van het departement dat de juridische onderbouwing van het standpunt van het toenmalige kabinet-Balkenende „zowel materieel als procedureel tekort” schiet (punt 16 in memorandum). De juristen schatten zelfs in „dat Nederland een eventuele procedure voor het Internationaal Gerechtshof hierover zou verliezen” (punt 9).

De toenmalige secretaris-generaal (SG) van het departement, Frank Majoor (tegenwoordig permanent vertegenwoordiger bij de Verenigde Naties), besloot de notitie niet door te sturen aan minister De Hoop Scheffer (CDA), aan wie deze gericht was. „Goed opbergen in de archieven voor het nageslacht, de discussie is hiermee voor dit moment gesloten!”, werd op het memo geschreven.

De juristen reageerden met de opmerking: „Het audite et alteram partem (hoor en wederhoor, red.) geldt hier kennelijk niet.” Het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (BZ) wil niet ingaan op de vraag waarom de SG het memo niet doorstuurde en of De Hoop Scheffer destijds wellicht mondeling kennis heeft genomen van de inhoud van het memorandum.
bron

Het wordt tijd dat hier volledige openheid over komt.

Komende weken wordt duidelijk of de Eerste Kamer een onderzoek start naar de besluitvorming rond de Irak-oorlog. Het kabinet beantwoordde onlangs tientallen vragen uit de senaat, maar een meerderheid beoordeelde het resultaat als onbevredigend.

Een mooi Engels woord: accountability. Tot nu toe een groot tekort hieraan bij ons regering.
Balkenende denkt dat als hij lang genoeg nee blijft zeggen, dat wij hier genoegen mee nemen.

Niet, dus.
Een parlementaire enquête is het enige dat duidelijkheid zal verschaffen.
Het is hoog tijd!

Balkenende, onwrikbaar.

En toch neem ik hier geen genoegen mee.
Ik blijf bikken, een rots zal op den duur wel kraken tonen.
Zelfs Balkenende.

Het kabinet houdt onwrikbaar vast aan zijn standpunt over de politieke steun die Nederland gaf aan de Amerikaans-Britse inval in Irak in 2003.

Eveneens blijft het kabinet weigeren de adviezen en ambtelijke stukken te openbaren die ten grondslag lagen aan het Nederlandse besluit.

bron

Iraq's $79 billion surplus

I've been reading a lot of chatter over this on the various sites I visit and at some point I posted this opinion (which I'm rewriting slightly and reposting here):


Iraq did not ask for this war and should not be obliged to finance it or provide reparations to Iraqis or to Americans. That money belongs to the Iraqi people and should be seen totally separate from war costs. Like Powell said, you break it, you own it. That's how the game works; after Iraq had invaded Kuwait and was routed from the country by Bush senior's coalition, they had to pay whopping reparations to Kuwait and to any corporation who suffered damages because of the war. I believe they were still paying towards these reparations at the time Saddam's body was buried.

Though politically, it's attractive to link the Iraqi budget surplus to America's budget deficit, America's financial woes are of no consequence to the Iraqi people and neither should it be. The cause of the deficit is not something they have had any influence over, it is entirely the USA's doing. These two issues are not linked in any way.

Yes, reconstruction of the damage caused is costing America an arm and a leg. that's what you get when you put profiteers in charge of that kind of stuff. They have milked the American taxpayer for every cent they could, and then took some more. These are the people to get angry at, not the benighted people of that region left with almost no law, order, infrastructure or civil society. There are many sharks in the water feeding off Iraq's corpse right now... and who in fact would greatly benefit from the country remaining ungovernable for as long as possible. Halliburton is a huge company with many subsidiaries who are making obscene amounts of money in the region, then there is Blackwater and a number of smaller but no less greedy fish.

That surplus money sitting in the bank, the amount is as high as it is because of the oil price. Iraq has had no influence on that. Fact is, much of this money is earmarked in the budget that this puppet government simply cannot get passed because of political shenanigans. But hey, you don't install a puppet government and then get angry at them for being good puppets. Good puppets tend to do this: Fuck the good of the people, how can i get the most out of this for myself!!?? And in the end, even if they wanted to, the systems and manpower for good government are simply not in place. They could not even begin to reconstruct the country themselves right now, it is in such shambles. Catch 22.

This is smoke and mirrors. Americans are being manipulated into being angry at the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Elections coming up, right? Right.



I also added the following:

Here is another way of looking at the finances, if one were to consider the angle of reparations, and who owes what to whom (this is from 2006)

Economic View: War cut Iraq's national income 40%
War cut Iraq's national income 40%
By Anna Bernasek
Published: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2006

NEW YORK: What has been the economic cost of the Iraq war for Iraq? Several studies have dealt with the war's cost to Americans, but few have studied the other side.

The loss of human life has always been evident. Recently, the United Nations estimated that 100 Iraqis were dying each day, on average, as a result of the war. Other observers, like The Lancet, the British medical journal, have put the death toll as much as five times higher, amounting to the implied loss of 2 percent of Iraq's population since the invasion in March 2003.

The economic cost has been less visible. Published information on the subject is very limited, although one economist, Colin Rowat, has made some preliminary calculations. Rowat, a specialist on the Iraqi economy at the University of Birmingham in Britain, relied mainly on data from the International Monetary Fund to estimate the war's overall effect on the Iraqi economy. His calculations are a work in progress, but what he has found so far is sobering: the cost amounts to a cut of at least 40 percent in Iraq's national income.

Rowat looked at the six-year stretch from 2000 to 2005 and divided it into thirds. During the first period, 2000 to 2001, United Nations trade sanctions against Iraq were beginning to crumble; the Security Council lifted the cap on Iraqi oil sales to the rest of the world, and the Iraqi government was becoming adept at getting around the remaining trade restrictions. The second period, 2002 to 2003, covers the buildup to war and the invasion itself. The last period, 2004 to 2005, covers post-invasion years when sanctions were removed.

Rowat made several kinds of calculations. First, he estimated the actual change in the size of Iraq's economy. Then he considered the economic effects of foreign aid in 2005, much of it from the United States. (Because foreign aid is regarded as temporary and is expected to taper off, he said, excluding it reveals Iraq's underlying economic performance.)

Finally, he estimated how the economy might have performed had the war never happened. This last estimate, of course, depends on a host of assumptions, as Rowat would be the first to say. He assumed, for example, that in the absence of war, Iraq's economy would have been driven by the price of oil. Oil prices are, in fact, crucial to Iraq, representing 60 percent of the total economy, according to the World Bank. Rowat also assumed that the economy would have grown from 2002 to 2005 as it did from 2000 to 2001 - at a pace equal to 71 percent of the rate of increase in world oil prices.

Of course, some of the oil-price increase in recent years must be attributed to the Iraq war itself, which Rowat acknowledged but did not factor in.

Looking first at the actual Iraqi economy, he calculated that it may have grown 3.1 percent a year, on average and after adjusting for inflation, from 2000 through 2005. When he subtracted foreign aid from that total, however, he found that the economy actually contracted 0.2 percent a year over the same period.

Finally, based on the steep rise in oil prices, he estimated that without a war and with steady oil production, Iraq would have grown 12 percent a year after adjusting for inflation. That rate would have made Iraq one of the fastest- growing economies in the world, albeit one that was expanding from a very small economic base.

How realistic is this projection? It is hard to say, because so much of it depends on oil economics. Still, the IMF forecasts that the Iraqi economy will grow an average of better than 10 percent annually over the next five years.

Using Rowat's calculations, what might the economic cost of the war be for Iraq? If there had been no war, Iraq's economy in 2005 might have amounted to $61 billion in today's dollars, compared with the actual $37 billion, he estimated. That amounts to a 40 percent cut in gross domestic product per capita - an average loss of around $900 for each Iraqi in 2005.

Rough estimates of the war's overall cost to Americans are in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over a 10-year period. That works out to around 1 percent of the nation's income during that period.

For Iraq, there is no doubt that continuing violence and turmoil are hurting the economy. The IMF said in August that Iraq's oil production has not yet returned to prewar levels due to the violence, which is preventing much- needed investment, and to infrastructure problems.

While Rowat's calculations represent just one economist's efforts to wrestle with extremely limited data, his work may encourage others to follow. Assessing the war's economic cost for Iraq, of course, doesn't provide an answer to whether the war is worthwhile in the long run. But it does provide a clue.
Source

If America were to be subjected to the same rigid reparation accounting standards as Iraq was after the invasion of Kuwait, it would hurt. The above is a first attempt at quantifying the loss of income, but I doubt it will ever go much further than that. The USA is much more powerful than Iraq and won't ever face (or allow itself to be held to) a UN resolution such as number 687.


Finally, here is an article by Naomi Klein, about the war reparations that Iraq had to pay for the very short Kuwait war. Note the beneficiaries...

Reparations in Reverse

by Naomi Klein
October 14 2004

Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside-down morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq will pay $200-million in war reparations to some of the richest countries and corporations in the world.

If that seems backwards, it’s because it is. Iraqis have never been awarded reparations for any of the crimes they have suffered under Saddam, or the brutal sanctions regime that claimed the lives of at least half a million people, or the U.S.-led invasion, which United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan recently called “illegal.” Instead, Iraqis are still being forced to pay reparations for crimes committed by their former dictator.

Quite apart from its crushing $125-billion sovereign debt, Iraq has paid $18.8-billion in reparations stemming from Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. This is not in itself surprising: as a condition of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam agreed to pay damages stemming from the invasion. More than fifty countries have made claims, with most of the money awarded to Kuwait. What is surprising is that even after Saddam was overthrown, the payments from Iraq have continued.

Since Saddam was toppled in April, Iraq has paid out $1.8-billion in reparations to the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), the Geneva-based quasi tribunal that assesses claims and disburses awards. Of those payments, $37-million have gone to Britain and $32.8-million have gone to the United States. That’s right: in the past 18 months, Iraq’s occupiers have collected $69.8-million in reparation payments from the desperate people they have been occupying. But it gets worse: the vast majority of those payments—78 per cent—have gone to multinational corporations, according to statistics on the UNCC website.

Away from media scrutiny, this has been going on for years. Of course there are many legitimate claims for losses that have come before the UNCC: payments have gone to Kuwaitis who have lost loved ones, limbs, and property to Saddam’s forces. But much larger awards have gone to corporations—of the total amount the UNCC has awarded in Gulf War reparations, $21.5-billion has gone to the oil industry alone. Jean-Claude Aimé, the UN diplomat who headed the UNCC until December 2000, publicly questioned the practice. “This is the first time as far as I know that the UN is engaged in retrieving lost corporate assets and profits,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 1997, and then mused: “I often wonder at the correctness of that.”

But the UNCC’s corporate handouts only accelerated. Here is a small sample of who has been getting “reparation” awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18-million), Bechtel ($7-million), Mobil ($2.3-million), Shell ($1.6-million), Nestle ($2.6-million), Pepsi ($3.8-million), Philip Morris ($1.3-million), Sheraton ($11-million), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321-thousand) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam’s forces damaged their property in Kuwait—only that they “lost profits” or, in the case of American Express, experienced a “decline in business,” because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded $505-million in 1999. According to a UNCC spokesperson, only 12 per cent of that reparation award has been paid, which means hundreds of millions more will have to come out of the coffers of post-Saddam Iraq.

The fact that Iraqis have been paying reparations to their occupiers is all the more shocking in the context of how little these countries have actually spent on aid in Iraq. Despite the $18.4-billion of U.S. tax dollars allocated for Iraq’s reconstruction, the Washington Post estimates that only $29-million has been spent on water, sanitation, health, roads, bridges, and public safety—combined. And in July (the latest figure available), the Department of Defense estimated that only $4 million had been spent compensating Iraqis who had been injured, or who lost family members or property as a direct result of the occupation—a fraction of what the U.S. has collected from Iraq in reparations since its occupation began.

Rest here

I don't think anything more needs to be said. This is a non-issue.

IF Obama becomes president

... his job is going to be near impossible.

Just consider the following deal which the Bush administration is trying hard to get signed, sealed and delivered before the changeover. By the time (IF) he becomes president, he'll have no choice in the matter... forget about troop withdrawal, eh.

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.
Source

How the pressure is applied?
Well, like this, for instance:

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.

Source

Scott McClellan

So now all of a sudden, he sees the light.
Uh huh. Big deal.

I don't forgive, I'm still furious at the man, at all of them.
I think that he and the others who colluded and conspired to lie and mislead the American public, the world in fact, should be charged and brought to trial.
If this behaviour is not criminal, then it should be.

And now he will be making money off it too?
I hope, I really hope, that family from war casualties, injured, soldiers etc, will sue the bejezus out of him so all the money goes to a fund to treat and take care of victims, next of kin and so on. Something like that.
A person should not be allowed to profit from his or her crime, and in my opinion a crime it definitely was.

Turkey invades northern Iraq

So, it finally happened.
This should not be a huge surprise to anyone, right? It was one of the nightmare scenarios held up by anti-war wimps even before the USA invaded Iraq.
Those poor poor bastards living in those mountains, like their lives are not hard enough already.

Turkey has lately been softening up public opinion and the news media by the sorties and bombings in northern Iraq and lo and behold, they barely caused a ripple in the press. Very positive for the hawks!

Now they went in all guns blazing. Thousands of troops. This is a full-on invasion.

There go the Kurds... I wonder if their fierce loyalty to the USA is about to be rewarded now.
(I'm being cynical here - I don't expect Turkey did this without getting the okay from the USA first)

The US and the Iraqi government are eager to play down the extent of the invasion. Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a US spokesman for Iraq, said: "We understand [it] is an operation of limited duration to specifically target PKK terrorists in that region." The Iraqi Foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, claimed that only a few hundred Turkish troops were in Iraq.
Source

A few hundred troops. Riiiight.

hahahahaha

hahahaha

HAHAHAHAHA


HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh die is goed!!!!!
Ik heb in tijden niet zo hard gelachen om een cartoon!




bron

Blair and Bush

So it seems Blair is back in the driver's seat. However, Labour loses more than half of it's majority seats. Somehow, that seems the most fair and just result. I would have hated for Labour to lose the elections but on the other hand, the war in Iraq and all around it certainly called for voter punishment. Let's hope Blair recognises it as such and does not believe he received a vote of confidence. He didnt.

As for Bush, he will be visiting my country soon.
I dont want him here, I wish he would not come.
Some tried to stop it via our courts.
That did not work.
So, we are stuck with that awful man coming over here, strutting over our soil and virtually bringing the country to a standstill. Margraten, Maastricht and Valkenburg have declared a state of emergency which means no-go areas, no protesting where the hallowed man could see it and so on. Air space will be closed down too.
If this is his way of thanking us for being part of the coalition of the weak and opportunistic, I wish he would rather fix the Joint Strike Fighter program so it does not cost us any more money. Like that is going to happen, huh!

Yuck, I hope these few days pass quickly and that strutting fool leaves here without opening his yob. I may not be standing over there with signs, chanting (well outside of his hearing and sight...) but like many others in this country, I would rather that man had not come here at all.

Iraq

In Britain, nobody in charge is accountable.

In America, nobody in charge is accountable.

Nobody in the US Army is accountable (except for "the few bad apples"...)

Nobody in CACI is accountable either.



What the heck, save everyone a bundle of money and just say nobody was at fault, nobody is accountable. In the same spirit, let all the political prisoners, including Saddam, go free and we all will pretend nothing ever happened.

Iraq / Tony Blair



The Whitewash II report is out.

As expected, Lord Butler clears Blair of all wrong.

In fact, nobody in government did much of anything wrong.

Poooffff, gone! NO accountability... again!

Like magic.



How likely is a Labour win at the next elections, I wonder?

The electorate is not stupid and I suspect most resent being treated like they are amnesiac idiots.



I believe there are a couple of by-elections planned for this Thursday, in areas where Labour usually has a solid majority. It should be interesting to see the results there. I hope the voters speak out, I really do.

Iraq



Bush:

"We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. "In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."



The disconnect is staggering.

As is the lack of accountability.



In a way, he is just as extremist and fanatic as those zealots of 9-11 who brought the American democracy crashing to it's knees.



I've not blogged much lately, I just don't have the heart.

I have too been busy watching the rights that we - from all over the world - have collectively worked so hard at for so many years, being ripped to shreds by zealots from America, the UK and the Muslim world: standing on the sidelines together with so many other horrified people from America, the UK and the Muslim world, seemingly unable to stop the few from decimating rights and security of the many. We speak out, we cry out, we shout out... and yet our voices are swept away by the winds of war.

Iraq

The country today took one step closer to "back to normal" dictatorship: Allawi signed a new security law, approving martial law.

The law gives Allawi "extraordinary authorities" to declare curfews, restrict communications, seize assets, restrict civic associations and assume direct command of security forces in areas deemed to be emergency zones. In those places, police and military units would have the freedom to search and detain people without judicial orders.





Blair now joined the Americans and now also says WMD's will probably never be found.

He is quite unapologetic, as is Bush. Although, that is not quite correct. Rumour has it he may soon offer a partial apology for the war!





This sorry mess has been an eye-opener for me: how little influence the rest of the world truly has, when America decides on a course of action. There is zero accountability in the world, the way the system now works.



This is something that needs serious attention. It is not good that the balance of power has shifted so far towards one country. When the rest of the world feels there is no redress, no fairness, this will eventually lead to destabilisation.



To achieve a more just and peaceful world society, we need to curb excessive power and the ability for one country to go on a rampage as the US together with Britain, have done in the case of Iraq.



I hope the coming American elections will be a start. However, I dont expect Kerry to be the solution - though his actions may be more moderate than Bush's. There needs to be a change in attitude top to bottom in the American administration and the American public. In this, Moore's movie may ring in the beginning of some introspection and change. I certainly hope so.



Iraq should not happen again, ever!

(Didnt they say that about Vietnam too, a couple of years ago...?)

Iraq

Bremer issued a bushel of new edicts, almost 100 of them, tossed the keys to Iraq into Allawi's lap two days ahead of schedule and hightailed his Gucci-and-combat-boot-clad self out of the country, post-haste. Between Negroponte and Allawi, my guess is elections will go out the window and - minus a couple of thousand bodies later - Iraq will be back exactly where Saddam left off.



A plus for the current American administration is that the wretched country will now do the decent thing and disappear from the headlines. With the help of the oh so compliant American press, who would much rather focus on whether Kerry has had Botox injections or the level of wealth his wife enjoys.



Now, for the elections in America. May the Americans regain their common sense and vote this idiot and his neocon entourage from office in overwhelming numbers. Four more years of him, and we will without any doubt be entangled in a world war of epic proportions, as he will invade more countries. This I do not doubt. A fanatic missionary, which the man basically is, he believes so strongly in his faith's world view that he would shape it into that image.

Iraq



It seems the job is almost done.

Pretty soon, Iraq will be much the same as before.

A different, more compliant leadership, same repressive country.

A good oil-producing "partner" for the USA.



Malik Dohan al-Hassan, justice minister in the caretaker Iraqi government:

"The idea of imposing exceptional laws is under study"

Martial law would also be an option, according to this minister.



Mr. al-Khuzaei, the defense minister also has less than democratic views on insurgents, he :

vowed this week that his government would track down insurgents "from house to house and from street to street, by all means available."

"We will cut off the hands of those people; we will cut their necks if it is necessary to do so,"



His views are shared by Col. Haydar Abdul Rasool, an officer in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps:

"Right now we can only open fire on people if they threaten us. We should have more freedom to act. We must have more brutal laws. The American laws are weak laws."



The Bush administration has the means to sell (spin) it to the American people in such a way, that it seems like a good idea...

Iraq

If you are not careful, you could be decapitated... by all the bullshit spin whizzing by in America these days.



In publishing a report that cited no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the Sept. 11 commission actually meant to say that Iraq had no control over the network, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.



As the White House strove to curb potential damage to President Bush's credibility on Iraq, his closest aide on international security denied any inconsistency between the bipartisan panel's findings and Bush's insistence that a Saddam-Qaeda relationship existed.



"What I believe the 9-11 commission was opining on was operational control, an operational relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq which we never alleged," Rice said in an interview with National Public Radio.



"The president simply outlined what we knew about what al Qaeda and Iraq had done together. Operational control to me would mean that he (Saddam) was, perhaps, directing what al Qaeda would do."



Unbelievable.

Without a blush.

She has no shame...

They have no shame!

Iraq

Brigadier General Mark Hertling, one of the top US commanders in charge of Najaf:

"The Moqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone."

"Over the past several days, Moqtada's militia has lost much of their stomach for fighting."



He also declared victory in Kut, Diwaniyah and Karbala:

"We have also destroyed their weapons stores and their offensive capability."

"What remains of them, which is a very small force, will take advantage of the governor's announcement to disperse if not disband."



And so on, and so forth.

Well, okay.

Whatever it takes to stop the shooting up of holy shrines.

Whatever it takes to stop the slaughter.

Whatever it takes.



You want to hear that you won?

OK: you won.

Happy? Good.

Now, bugger off, go back home.

Conquer and occupy no more.