Texas Gentleman

Salim, I will answer each of the questions you ask and quoted below , however I can not answer in quite the brief form of your questions as you are requiring OTHER THAN MY WORD for it already submitted. So what I will do is research and provide with links to why I have made these serious accusations. Although these links I provide will be NEWS accounts-- my personal awareness of them come directly from the BOOTS on the GROUND in Iraq. Try and remember I am just as Interested in a Peaceful, Prosperous and Free Iraq as any of you. Your questions quoted; .......... 1. If there is such thing that you are talking about then for sure we need to go after these Shia criminals first. Because they do more harm working from within .The problem is that you are making a case based on allegations with no any prove. Is there a list other than the sixty criminals that Iraqi police had identified and follow after . .......... 2. If Maliki is releasing criminals who had killed Americans, as you just claimed, then President Bush needs to be prosecuted beacuase he keeps saying that he has full confindence in Maliki. Not only President Bush but the military commanders too.. Which one I need to believe ? .......... 3. You didn't reply to my question, where when I even might refered to such awful criteria per your strange equation ? Answer; .......... 1. from above (yes my friend there are 1000's and not only sixty) plus I don't think we need to go after these guys first.. I have never said that ! I have said we need to go after them NOW, the same as ALL murdering terrorist and insurgents. THE MFN is capable NOW.. and the only thing stopping that is Maliki's PERMISSION. These murdering criminals are the CAUSE of much ordinary Sunni resistance. (check out that link) see links for complete articles in titles below if you doubt my context (partial excerpts below) In Baghdad, a Force Under the Militias' Sway Infiltration of Iraqi Police Could Delay Handover of Control for Years, U.S. Trainers Suggest By Amit R. Paley Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 31, 2006; A01 BAGHDAD -- The signs of the militias are everywhere at the Sholeh police station. Posters celebrating Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army militia, dot the building's walls. The police chief sometimes remarks that Shiite militias should wipe out all Sunnis. Visitors to this violent neighborhood in the Iraqi capital whisper that nearly all the police officers have split loyalties. And then one rainy night this month, the Sholeh police set up an ambush and killed Army Cpl. Kenny F. Stanton Jr., a 20-year-old budding journalist, his unit said. At the time, Stanton and other members of the unit had been trailing a group of Sholeh police escorting known Mahdi Army members. "How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't even trust them not to kill our own men?" asked Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence." ------------------------------------------------- Iraqi Police Force Facing Shake-Up http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=2568329 Iraqi Interior Ministry Fires 3,000 Police Workers Accused of Corruption, Rights Abuses By DAVID RISING The Associated Press BAGHDAD, Iraq Oct 14, 2006 (AP)— Iraq's Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, whose police forces have been accused of complicity in sectarian attacks, has fired 3,000 employees accused of corruption or rights abuses and will change top commanders, a spokesman said Saturday. …………… The Shiite-led national police force, controlled by the Interior Ministry, is widely accused of being infiltrated by Shiite militias blamed in slayings of Sunni Arabs. Critics say Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been reluctant to move against the militias since many are linked to parties in his coalition. The U.S. embarked on an intensive neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep of the capital in August in a crackdown on the killings. But Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite slum of about 2 million where radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia draws much of its support, has been left alone, and U.S. commanders say they are waiting on the command from al-Maliki's government. When al-Maliki's government was formed in May, Interior Minister Jawad Bolani was given the post as top security official in large part because he had no militia links. But his lack of militia connections also has given him less leverage to make change. Earlier this month, an entire brigade of some 700 policemen was suspended from service and taken to barracks because of suspected militia sympathies. The commander of one of the brigade's battalions faces criminal prosecution and others are being investigated. The troops were suspected of allowing Shiite militias to operate freely in their area, where there had been a mass kidnapping of some two dozen people from a frozen food factory, at least seven of whom have since been found dead. ...................................................... Iraqi police rife with abuse, corruption: Ministry of Interior documents LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Iraq's police force is riddled with corruption and its officers have been involved in abductions, murders and prisoner rape, according to claims. The confidential Iraqi Ministry of Interior documents, which detail more than 400 police corruption investigations, were authenticated by current and former police officials, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing Iraqi government documents. They include reports of Iraqi police participating in insurgent bombings and releasing terror suspects for bribes, as well as selling stolen and forged Iraqi passports and beating prisoners to death. ………………… Information in the Iraqi documents reported by the Times, which cover most of 2005 and part of 2006, includes reports that: (See extensive list) ………………….. A separate report in English by private contractors hired by the US State Department to train police notes that "the current climate of corruption, human rights violations and sectarian violence found in Iraq's security forces undermines public confidence," according to the Times. "Elements of the MOI have been co-opted by insurgents, terrorists and sectarian militias. Payroll fraud, other kinds of corruption and intimidation campaigns by insurgent and militia organizations undermine police effectiveness in key cities throughout Iraq," the report added. ....................................................................... Iraqi Police Retrained as Security Challenges Persist, Corruption Taints Force But in a surprising move we saw two Iraqi police vehicles pulled over and searched. "Can we have a look in the boot?" asked Lance Cpl. Kris Moore. The 23-year-old was looking for firearms, as many of the British troops here in the south don't trust the local police. "They are quite corrupt," More said. "Some of the police stations are corrupt." And it's not just in Basra. Coalition officials admit that militias have infiltrated many of the local police across the country, and the vast majority of the 188,000 man force is not up to the job it is supposed to be carrying out. Earlier this month, the Iraqi Interior Minister took the dramatic step of standing down an entire national police brigade. Members of the 8th Brigade are suspected of assisting, or turning a blind eye to militiamen who entered a meat-packing plant and kidnapped more than 20 workers. This news came just days after U.S. forces started retraining the entire national police force. The national police force, which makes up 10 percent of the overall Iraqi police, has been in the field for more than a year. The 20,000 men are now undergoing three weeks of training and will be issued new uniforms that will be difficult to counterfeit, and will then be put back on the streets. Military officials say the Iraqi police are key to bringing security to the country, and have dubbed 2006 the Year of the Police. But nearly 10 months into the effort, senior military leaders concede that only 70 percent of the police are "partially capable" of carrying out planning and operations on their own. American leaders have complained that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has not done enough to weed out the militia members who have infiltrated the police. And, even a general with the national police force said security will come to Iraq "when politicians speak with a unified voice." ................................................................................ In Southern Iraq http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=247 Several British soldiers have died in Qarmat Ali, victims of the area's xenophobic, deeply religious and heavily armed Shiite residents and the armed wings of the local religious parties. Ideally, the city's native police force would keep the peace in Qarmat Ali, but cops here are corrupt "on an industrial scale," according to one British officer, and "infiltrated by special interest groups" -- i.e., militias and murder gangs -- according to another. The resulting three years of lawlessness have been too long, and now the coalition is eager to retake the neighborhood. .............................................................. Iraqi government investigations document rampant police corruption, abuse http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006...estigations.php Department of State press release], promising a renewed effort to instill professionalism in the force. The US State Department has noted, however, that "despite great progress and genuine commitment on the part of many ministry officials, the current climate of corruption, human rights violations, and sectarian violence found in Iraq's security forces undermines public confidence." President Bush has said that securing a legitimate Iraqi police force is crucial to an eventual withdrawal of US troops. AFP has more. ........................................ those are but a few fairly current ones like that......... there are SO MANY over 2005 and 2006 then there also are these: Ethnic Cleansing in a Baghdad Neighborhood? Baghdad raids hit death squads Iraqi police ambushed near Basra Iraq: End Interior Ministry Death Squads Ministers of Death 57 Iraqi Police Charged With Torture Iraqis charged over secret jail Iraqi Army raids murder, kidnapping cell in Sadr City Iraqi Army conducts raid to find missing Soldier Iraqi VP opposes lifting blockade around Sadr city Sadr himself approved Sadr City raid: aide hahahahahahahahahahahahahahha Iraqi "sources" says major cabinet reshuffle planned LATEST BREAKING NEWS Associated Press Blasts Kill 35 at Iraq Police Recruit HQ I will get to your other questions as time permits............ it takes longer to post em with links than to find them. Have a good day TEX

Feel so sorry that you came to such conclution.. Would you please go through my three years contributions and let me know where, when I might even refer to such discustion critera per your above equation.. Just go to my praise to Zalmai Khalil Zad efforts in bringing more Sunni Arab on board.. Still stand to my question though.. What is your option to vote for I thought I was clear about the choices you listed to vote on ... NONE OF THEM !! Salim, Recently you've maintained we (Iraq ) couldn't handle the (SHIA) militias at same time we are fighting terrorist and Insurgents .. would be a dangerous 2nd front you said, ..... and we are not strong enough to do terrorist and al Sadr at same time.. I SAY BS .. they are one and the same kind of murdering bunch with different names/sects/agendas and need to be handled NOW as part of the MAIN problem ... not later so they can continue to kill until then..... and NEVER shown ANY favors because they are part of Maliki's supporting political party. He released some (to many) Mahdi Army we captured killing some of MY children. Why should I have respect or trust in him ? Why should my children die for your politicians, who corrupted half your security forces of the MOI? ...so you can blame it on the US MILITARY? .... Maybe IT IS time we came home and you can then blame your problems on the mulla behind door # 1 or #2 after or during the time you're all killing each other. Below is a start for Maliki today, ..now let us take al Sadr down if you can't or wont !! : Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rebuked lawmakers for putting party and sectarian loyalty ahead of Iraq's stability, and said he was planning a sweeping Cabinet reshuffle. The spiraling sectarian violence has put al-Maliki under intense pressure. Responding to questions from lawmakers during a more-than one-hour closed session, he ordered them to stop criticizing his government and declare their loyalty to a unified Iraq - not their religious sects or political parties, two members of parliament told The Associated Press. found here; Blasts Kill 35 at Iraq Police Recruit HQ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

None of the above is a viable option and NOT representative of any views I have. ....None of that truly represents the situation on the ground. Some need to look farther than their Shia Proud glasses are allowing them. The Shia factions are becoming their own worst enemy. A few facts: Minister of Defense (MOD) : 'Abd al-Qadir Muhammad Jasim al-'Ubaydi (a Sunni?) The Iraq Regular Army (IA), is under the Minister of Defense As of May 15, 2006, 117,900 MOD personnel have been trained and equipped, including 116,500 in the Iraqi Army, Support Forces, and Special Operation Forces. This is 86% of MOD authorized force strength. This fall, the Iraqi government and Multinational Forces-Iraq announced the expansion of the Army by three divisions and increase the manpower of the Army by 37 percent over the next nine months. This includes: - 18,000 new personnel to replace combat losses, desertions, etc. - 12,000 new personnel to over-man the combat battalions at 110 percent (this will account for the Army's liberal leave policy.) - 18,700 new personnel to establish 3 new Division headquarters, 5 new Brigade HQs, 20 new Battalions and 1 new Special Operations Forces Battalion. - 10,000 new personnel will be trained every 2 months. Minister of Interior (MOI) : Jawad al-Bulani (A Shi'ite) aligned with Chalabi's Shi'ite Political Council, and ran as part of the UIA slate in January 2005. Resigned his party membership immediately prior to his appointment as interior minister on 12 June 2006. Local Police, National Police, Border Forces are under the Minister of Interior The “National Police” refers to units formerly known as the Ministry of Interior National Special Police (e.g., National Police Commandos and Public Order Battalions) and not to the Iraqi Police Service (“beat cops”), which is a national police service. 145,500 MOI personnel, including police, National Police, border forces, and other MOI personnel, have been trained and equipped, which reflects 77% of the MOI authorized end-strength. The MOD and the MOI are on track to complete initial training and equipping of 100% of their authorized end-strength by the end of December 2006 While those MoD and MoI actual MEMBERS should need NO HELP from ANY private Shia Militias, is it a conscious decision of Maliki not to disband them? WHY NOT ? to use against the al-Qaeda claims of 12,000 fighters available? or the insurgent Sadddamist numbering maybe another 12,000 ? .... or maybe another 12,000 Syrian/Iranians/Saudi/Yememi’s suiciders/terrorist etc.? 36,000 in TOTAL insurgency if you believe their own claims... even if double those numbers, the ISF is enough if they didn't have to also quell factional SHI-ITE militias fighting each other and disrupting the efforts of legitimate ISF/MNF forces totaling more than 300,000 LAWFUL Iraq ISF forces (including MNF)! HOWEVER: While your (MoD) Iraqi Army Proudly functions well against both Sunni Insurgency and the Terrorist, (PRIME TARGET) it is quite another thing regarding the MoI forces who are corrupted, and religiously sectarian. Unfortunately it is the MoI who has control over the MAJORITY of the weapons purchased for the ISF vs. the MoD and is made up from what used to be Badr Corp with a lesser extent of Sadr Militia infiltrated. In September 2003 Leaders of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI) confirmed that the group's armed force, the Badr Corps, remained active despite a US demand that the (ALL) militias disband. It is this group of militia that IRAQ POLITICIANS legaly included into the MoI security forces. The Mahdi Army (who mostly refused to join) fights with them and the MOD's IA & MNF forces causing nearly as much death to Shi-ites as ALL terrorist & Sunni insurgency combined. Niether the IA or the MNF trust them. Both attack the Iraqi Army and MNF interventions to stop them from random Sunni killings OR battles between each other. Both of them revenge kill each other and ANY Sunni on sight. Both are loyal to themselves and not a National Iraq. South of Baghdad in Iraq has become a pitiful place (as soon as it was handed off to MoI forces from the British) ....that is because of SHIA religious militias and MoI corrupt police units, not the Sunni insurgency or terrorist. This is the un needed 2nd front that will destroy your country Salim. Until the unlawful Shia Militias disband and the MOI forces become loyal to IRAQ ONLY and not individual religious sects/ political groups you're in for a hard slog of death and destruction. PS: Salim & Tajer, I stand by my statements ...they are NOT intended to insult ... they ARE intended to shock your biases. All Shia GOOD + all Sunni BAD = WRONG & BIASED .......................................................................... Correction: the above should read; The Mahdi Army (who mostly refused to join) fights with them and AGAINST the MOD's IA & MNF forces causing nearly as much death to Shi-ites as ALL terrorist & Sunni insurgency combined.

Salim, if most Iraqi's believe this is not already the case as you don't believe it is, then we (US) should leave now. Iraqi's are very quick to take credit, but even quicker to blame someone else. As I've said before, your Iraqi pride far exceeds your ability at this time. Apparently, what you think is best..... is ALREADY UNDER IRAQ GOVERNMENT CONTROL.......so allowing the SHIA militia's to run wild (as your Government has and still does and as you have requested) is killing all the Sunni's, and each other (Mahdi vs. Badr.) THAT is your biggest problem today, Maybe US troops should redeploy to IRAQs borders sealing them from anyone coming in who can't irrefutably prove they are Iraqi born, while letting you all go at it till the last SHIA stands ? That might at least get the Terrorist, Syrians and Iranians out of the equation !!!!!

that is completely absurd and a disgusting IRAQI rumor from the ARABIC PROPAGANDA PRESS !!!

Salim, This announcement was good also because the US election hope from the majority of the Democratic anti-Iraq War party supported with mostly anti-Iraq War US media, terrorist enemy propaganda and atrocious Arabic press can no longer distort this. It’s out there for ALL to hear coming out from the IRAQI Government (with Bush and Maliki together). The only thing really new here though, is in announcing agreement on the benchmark timelines as goals to pursue. At first that was even denied by Maliki when our Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad announced it thoughtlessly earlier, instead of allowing Maliki to do so or before Maliki was ready. This regrettably spurred speculation and rumor amongst normal Iraqi conversation in the casba. However it changed no facts. Bush, the US Military, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad (since coming to Iraq) and General Casey have fully supported Maliki since he took office following Iraq’s elections. Anything you may believe differently is pure MEDIA distortion, ENEMY propaganda or idle speculation and rumor. For you to say, that NOW, finnaly with Iraq in control of security, you will do better than the MFN coalition does is more hope than fact. The Iraqi Government ( Maliki) has been in control of MFN Security operations almost since he formed a Government. And ever since then, the anti-Iraq Government insurgency and most terrorist began primarily attacking the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police and Iraqi civilians more than the American led MFN coalition until lately. The enemy will always attack the weakest link. THe recent stepped up attacks on US Soldiers is desparate hope in influencing the US Elections pure and simple. It has also been very costly to the enemy. The announcement now also does another thing…… it puts Maliki front, forward, and square in the spotlight having to take responsibility (which he has always had) without any deniable plausibility (when things don’t go how he thought they would)… For example:, first he said he had no knowledge of some operations, then backtracks saying he had approved them, but didn’t think they would be carried out so heavy handed (more force than necessary??). He was wrong then and that is a valid criticism. When he has earlier released some Sadr militia leaders captured fighting Iraqi and MFN troops previously he was wrong and that is a valid criticism. He has said he would disarm the Shai Militia's and has not even started. That is a valid critcism. Iraqi’s don’t hesitate to criticize the USA, but you as Iraqi’s hardly have the ability to match your pride. I don’t mean that in mean spirited way, except to point out that your Government forces are not yet strong enough to do the job alone fighting terrorist, insurgent Saddamist or the uncontrolled Iraqi militias. We’ re there to help you have a decent life and not because we like living and dieing in Iraq. America AND Iraqi forces will make regrettable mistakes as will our leaders. War is by nature is chaotic mass confusionwhen the bullets are flying and your people are dieing. We have to remember who our allies are. The MFN coalition is doing the best to train and equip the IA and IP (to take the lead) but many recruits turn out more loyal to Iraq Militias in a fight and infiltrated the IA, IP to start with. Still many others are the best Iraq could wish for, being very brave and increasing in numbers. There or other IA brigades who can operate almost unassisted from the MFN . If you live in Iraq then you be the judge first hand if these links below are propaganda. It is so easy to go and see for yourselfs. Coalition aids Iraqi Forces during Ramadan Sunday, 22 October 2006 Limits of power: keeping the lights on in Iraq Monday, 23 October 2006 Iraqis keep eye in sky during Ramadan Tuesday, 24 October 2006 Coalition, Iraqis developing goals Tuesday, 24 October 2006 Iraqi Soldiers, Police score multiple victories against terrorists and insurgent forces Tuesday, 24 October 2006 Training centers prepare for influx Wednesday, 25 October 2006 Iraqi NCOs graduate in Mahmudiyah Thursday, 26 October 2006 Iraqis, Coalition unite in poverty fight Friday, 26 October 2006 Operation Helping Hands success Friday, 27 October 2006 Troops extend helping hand to town Friday, 27 October 2006 Engineers ensure freedom of movement Friday, 27 October 2006 Coalition helps save crops Saturday, 28 October 2006 Iraqi Army making waves on Euphrates Saturday, 28 October 2006 Marines working to build effective force Sunday, 29 October 2006 Iraqi Army dents IED production Sunday, 29 October 2006 U.S. contractors improve Police facilities Sunday, 29 October 2006 Salim, you will not find a person that supports the US led Coalition and Iraqi Government goals for Iraq more than I do. What I do not accept and will not support is leaving Iraqi militias running amuck with death squads killing innocent Iraqis and MY blood…. US & Coalition soldiers. The Sadr Militia and Badr Brigade rank right up there with the Saddamist and al Queda in Iraq. They are murderous thugs and that is not propaganda. I WILL NOT ACCEPT THEM being important to Iraqi politics as you have said. This has gone on TO LONG A PERIOD. Maliki had better take, or allow to be taken, much stronger actions in disarming these militias and soon or I will join the chorus to bring my kids out of Iraq. Iraq will no longer be worth their sacrifice to me. This is were you and I disagree. Maliki has NOT handled the Militias politically so far. That game is badly broken and Malikis handling of it has cost to many lives already. Maliki has been given all the latitude with al Sadr’s militia any American support left will tolerate. Believe me we will handle Sadr and pacify Sadr City, given the green light to do and it wont be pretty but it will be over. If the Other Shi’it’s in Iraq can not stand for that, then its time the US left Iraq. Should the US leave and Iraq then becomes a threat to my country, we will not be back to help you, but to destroy you as a threat Something none of us want to happen who cares for Iraq’s future.

Salim, I appreciate your enthusiasm in the reuters report ---- peace in 6mos ? I would like to point out to you news from rueters is unreliable at best. Their reporting is always inconsistant and as unreliable as Al Jezzera and as famous for thier ANTI-AMERICAN propaganda. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The primary target of the joint Iraqi and U.S. raid inside Sadr city on October 25 was directed as Mahdi Army commander Abu Dura (or Abu Deraa), a death squad leader believed to be responsible for some of the worst sectarian killing in and around Baghdad. The initial raid led to a follow on operation in Sadr City, after "credible intelligence indicating that criminals involved in the kidnapping of a US Soldier were located in a Sadr City mosque" was although it is unclear if this intelligence was obtained during the initial raid. Note the Coalition now believes the Mahdi Army may be complicit in the kidnapping of an American soldier - an incident that will only increase the pressure on Sadr. At the initial target - a Sadr City residence believed to be hiding Abu Dura - 10 Mahdi Army fighters were killed, 2 were wounded and 10 captured, In the follow on raid at the mosque, three Mahdi Army fighters were killed. No Iraqi troops or Coalition forces casualties were taken during the fights. The raid was lead by the 1st Iraqi Special Operations Forces, and supported by U.S. embedded trainers and air assets. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=c...=6801&Itemid=21 The 1st Iraqi SOF reports directly to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who initially protested the raid and claimed he wasn't aware of it. Maliki has since backtracked from this statement, and now claims "the raid had his backing but argued that it was conducted in a heavy handed way that could wreck a political deal he had worked on with Muqtada al-Sadr," according to Reuters. Maliki has to walk the line as a politician, and as an Iraqi politician has his Iraqi constituents to consider at times. He must not always be seen as being in lockstep with the Americans/Coalition, particularly when Iraqis are killed. Richard Fernandez sums up Maliki's dilemma nicely: Legally Iraq is a sovereign country, which the US must treat it as any other country from the perspective of US national interest. Theoretically Maliki is under no obligation to obey Washington, which is correspondingly under no compulsion to support Maliki. While America would prefer to see a stable government in Iraq that is ultimately a task that cannot be delegated to Americans indefinitely. So expect some hardball to be played as this is the way of relations between nations. That said, Maliki's statements imply he values American support less necessary than the goodwill of his Shi'ite base. Or that he perceives Shi'ite support as so important that he's willing to risk American goodwill. How solid that Shi'ite base will prove, is open to question. He also must be concerned with the very real threat that Sadr's Mahdi Army possesses to his and his family's safety. Sadr is not above the art of assassination. An Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for Sadr for his role in the murder of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, the influential, pro-American Shiite Cleric, at the steps of the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. This warrant is still outstanding. Sadr has evaded this charge, as well as responsibility for the uprising in Najaf and southern Iraq and Baghdad during the spring and summer of 2004. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In other Mahdi Army news .......................................... — A fierce battle between police and militia gunmen northeast of Baghdad Thursday left 30 people dead and 42 wounded, a police official said. The new violence came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of five servicemen killed in action in Anbar province on Wednesday. The gunmen fighting police in the city of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, were believed to be members of the Mahdi Army militia, loyal to hard-line anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Ghassan al-Bawi, police chief of surrounding Diyala province. The dead included 12 police officers and 18 militants, he said........................................ U.S. intelligence reports describe Anbar as virtually lawless, with well-armed Al Qaeda-backed insurgents filling the political vacuum. President Bush cited Anbar province in a press conference on Wednesday, calling it one of the biggest challenges to U.S. and Iraqi military forces, and a key battleground in the fight against terrorism. ............................ Mahdi militiamen have recently flooded into the area 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, forcing large numbers of residents belonging to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority to flee their homes. Mahdi fighters killed scores of Sunnis in massacres last week in the nearby city of Balad, forcing U.S. troops to return to the area after Iraqi security forces were unable to stem the bloodshed. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has come under criticism in the U.S. for failing to take decisive action to end the carnage, leading to signs of strain in his relationship with Washington. Earlier this week fighting broke out between the Mahdi Army and Badr Brigade-aligned police in the southern city Amarah in which 31 people were killed, including six police officers murdered by gunmen who stormed their homes. In other violence Thursday, Iraqi police reported killing a suicide car bomber as he attempted to drive an explosives-packed car into a check point north of Baqouba.

Showing his colors Maliki rejects American pressure to shut down Shi'ite militias: The Iraqi PM publicly denounced American calls for a timetable to shutdown militias and decried US operations against death squads, including operations against Sadr City. "We expected it," US officials said. (AP/Breitbart) Maliki has nailed his colors to the mast on this issue at least. Legally Iraq is a sovereign country, which the US must treat it as any other country from the perspective of US national interest. Theoretically Maliki is under no obligation to obey Washington, which is correspondingly under no compulsion to support Maliki. While America would prefer to see a stable government in Iraq that is ultimately a task that cannot be delegated to Americans indefinitely. So expect some hardball to be played as this is the way of relations between nations. That said, Maliki's statements imply he values American support less necessary than the goodwill of his Shi'ite base. Or that he perceives Shi'ite support as so important that he's willing to risk American goodwill. How solid that Shi'ite base will prove is open to question. The Badr Brigades and Madhi Army have continually clashed as they strive to control the Shi’ite areas and its valuable oil resource. Although enmity between the two militias dates to the 1990s, it is now rooted in the desire of their political sponsors to dominate Iraq's Shiite community. They focus particularly on the Shiite heartland south of Baghdad, a region stretching over nine provinces that is home to Iraq's holiest Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala and much of the country's oil wealth. The rivalry could shatter the unity of the Shiite community at a time when many of its members feel threatened by the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and are alarmed by what they see as a gradual shift of U.S. support away from them and toward Sunnis. The Sunni Arab minority oppressed the Shiite majority for decades before Saddam's ouster. A Shiite official who has regular contact with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, said al-Sistani was discreetly trying to defuse tensions between the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army. The Opinion Journal has a letter from a sergeant in a US Army intelligence unit which argues that despite the fact that Iraq is legally a "sovereign nation", in reality it is now a bag of murderously opposed factions. If this analysis is correct, Maliki isn't really the prime minister of a country so much as the spokesman for a coalition. ............................... This breakneck pace with which we're trying to push the responsibility for governing and securing Iraq is irresponsible and suicidal. It's like throwing a brick on a house of cards and hoping it holds up. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)--a joint term referring to Iraqi army and Iraqi police--are so rife with corruption, insurgent sympathies and Shia militia members that they have zero effectiveness. Two Iraqi police brigades in Baghdad have been disbanded recently, and the general sentiment in our field is "Why stop there?" I can't tell you how many roadside bombs have been detonated against American forces within sight of ISF checkpoints. Faith in the Iraqi army is only slightly more justified than faith in the police--but even there, the problems of tribal loyalties, desertion, insufficient training, low morale and a failure to properly indoctrinate their soldiers results in a substandard, ineffective military. A lot of the problems are directly related to Arab culture, which traditionally doesn't see nepotism and graft as serious sins. Changing that is going to require a lot more than "benchmarks." In Shia areas, the militias hold the real control of the city. They have infiltrated, co-opted or intimidated into submission the local police. They are expanding their territories, restricting freedom of movement for Sunnis, forcing mass migrations, spiking ethnic tensions, not to mention the murderous checkpoints, all while U.S. forces do . . . nothing. ... The problem is that there's nothing to give stability and support to. We hollowed out the Baathist regime, and we hastily set up this provisional government, thrusting political responsibility on a host of unknowns, each with his own political agenda, most funded by Iran, and we're seeing the results. The intel sergeant's solution is to go back to the very beginning and start again. We need to backtrack. We need to publicly admit we're backtracking. This is the opening battle of the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We cannot afford to lose it because of political inconveniences. Reassert direct administration, put 400,000 to 500,000 American troops on the ground, disband most of the current Iraqi police and retrain and reindoctrinate the Iraqi army until it becomes a military that's fighting for a nation, not simply some sect or faction. Reassure the Iraqi people that we're going to provide them security and then follow through. Disarm the nation: Sunnis, Shias, militia groups, everyone. Issue national ID cards to everyone and control the movement of the population. ......................... Reasserting US sovereignty over Iraq and attempting to build a unitary nation will prove very difficult and probably impossible to effect. It may just be possible if a bipartisan commitment to Iraq can be found. But this is doubtful. Many have written about how wonderful it would have been if the old Saddam crowd had simply been left in charge, but it is questionable how stable the basically unstable imposition of Sunni majority rule would be. It would not last forever. And like it nor not, Sunni rule is irrevocably broken, largely due to US power and the rise of the Shi'ite militias is evidence of that. In one sense, the US defeated Saddam's Army and the Sunni insurgency too well. Is that to be regretted? Another letter writer at Opinion Journal argues that Iraq would have remained a problem, maybe a worse problem, if Saddam had been left in charge. .......................... It is possible--I'd say likely--that had we not removed Saddam, we'd find ourselves in a much worse place today than we are. At the time of President Bush's decision to remove Saddam, U.N. sanctions were crumbling. Shortly thereafter Saddam would have had piles of money to spend on weapons, suicide bombers and bribing Russians, Chinese, the French and various U.N. factotums. If Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction then (a dubious proposition even now), he would have imported and built a stockpile by now. The United States' credibility as a serious world power would be nil. Threatening Saddam for more than a dozen years (through the Bush and Clinton and Bush administrations) without once following through on those threats would mean we'd have no influence in any crisis whatsoever. Our position now is certainly not a good one--but had we not followed through on our threats, we'd be in a much worse place than we are. It's always a mistake to see the world as it is today and mistakenly compare it with the world as it was on a day in the past. It's harder to do, but infinitely more useful, to try to compare today's situation with that in which we'd find ourselves if we had done nothing. ............................ It's probably fair to say that America has swapped one set of threats for another. There is no more Iraqi threat to Saudi or Gulf oil fields; no more need to worry about an Iraqi nuclear program; no more need to station the Navy in the Gulf. But the load has been transferred to the ground forces. And in place of the threat represented by Saddam, there are a new set of threats that may lurk in the dogfight that is emerging among the different ethnic groups. A few posts ago I remarked that the closest historical analogue to Iraq was the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, also a former ethnically mixed Ottoman state. That experience provides a benchmark against which to measure the length and duration of the challenge that Iraq represents as well as to understand the incentives of ethnic politics. The debate over how to handle the Yugoslav wars revolved around those who wanted to let the "ethnic cleansing" happen on the way to a more stable set of boundaries and those who wanted to keep the old Yugoslavia a multiethnic place. To some extent those are also the issues in Iraq now. The current Iraqi constitution, with its provision for federal states, reveals a preference for devolution among at least some Iraqis. But it is important to remember there were always a large percentage who believed in Iraq as a country; who thought of themselves as fundamentally Iraqi. Even surveys recently taken show a surprising support for a united Iraq. But the hope of achieving such a unitary, multicultural society is slipping away. And the terrible possibility emerges that the new Iraqi government is part of the problem and not part of the solution. While on the subject of comparisons with Yugoslavia it may be useful to remember that the architects of its civil war purposely stirred up trouble with the idea of grabbing pieces of the disintegrating state. It's certainly plausible to imagine Iran and perhaps Syria licking their lips at the thought of picking up the pieces of Saddam's old domain. For them unrest is not a bug; it's a feature; disturbance not an aberration but an opportunity. One solution to an Iraq divided by tribal and religious loyalties is to let it divide in a semi-orderly way yet manage the separation so that one doesn't finish up with a dozen Somalias but a number of stable areas. The problem, as the fighting between the Badr Brigades and the Madhi Army shows, is that some way of dividing up the oil resource still must be found. Without some kind of central government to ensure that revenues are shared the seeds for future regional war will be planted. One simply remembers why Saddam went to war against Kuwait. It was for oil. The task of managing peaceful devolution -- if that goal is not changed by unforseen events -- requires resources. It may require the half million men that the intel sergeant mentions or it may require less. One officer writing from Iraq to whose reference I've forgotten believes that only "unconventional solutions" will work. No massive armies of occupation, but more Lawrences. I hope he's right. Lawrence's greatest talent was his ability stir up ethnic unrest. He achieved no Arab state. But whatever the mission, it will require something. And that something will not be provided without a bipartisan commitment to midwifing the successor Iraqi state or states. More importantly, it will require an agile national leadership which can act opportunistically within the framework of a strategy rather than simply to implement a fixed vision. Perhaps the real flaw in Iraq was not a lack of force but a lack of imagination. From one perspective Iraq provides an opportunity perhaps of historic proportions; certainly Iran and neighboring countries with far fewer resources have treated it as such. The last three years have shown how ill equipped, politically and operationally, America has been to make use of that opportunity. That needs to change, a change should begin with the way Washington's bureaucries do business under any administration. Washington is not the seat of empire. It's the seat of local politics with the reach of empire.

...... Meanwhile, a group of tribal leaders (click here) from Anbar province asked Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday (Sept 19) to recognize a newly formed council of chieftains and its force of 20,000 fighters as the new provincial government in the volatile Sunni insurgent stronghold. Sheik Fasal Gaood, a prominent tribal leader, said about 1,000 sheiks and other local officials attended a meeting in Ramadi last Thursday and formed a 43-member Anbar Salvation Council, representing 18 major tribes, to fight al-Qaeda and other insurgents. "The situation right now in Anbar is total chaos. There is no government, there is no authority, there is no law," he said. "We want to launch a strike to end the terrorists once and for all in Anbar." The conference, known as the Anbar Awakening, called on Maliki to sack the existing provincial government and replace it with the Salvation Council. "The governor of Anbar is an extremist and Islamist, and he has links to the terrorists," said Sheik Hameed al-Haes, the leader of al-Boodyat, one of the major tribes in Anbar. "That's why we want to replace him." Dabbagh, the government spokesman, said the prime minister welcomed the support of the tribes in combating insurgents and would consider their requests. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't understand this Salim: "The other Sadamists tactic is to work hard to reach the Americans through some Arab and American brokers that they are still ready to do all requested services as they always did in the past, if they get another chance... This might be a possible solution for Americans and for Iraq too; the question is if this is a realistic one... I personally don’t think so. We're you talking about the above Anbar Council Sunni's Salim? ... because that might work bringing them in under the IRAQ governemnt control and NOT as a private militia BUT ! I dont see Bush negotiating with the Saddamist insurgency ever (especialy to give them ANY power back)... who knows what a Democrat would do, lets hope we (especialy Iraq) doesn't get that opportunity to find out.

Iranian will like this very much ..Congratulations Iran! They will be very pleased to hear this news. ........................................................................... They are the most anti Iranian clergy in Iraq.. In Najaf they call them The Arabic hawza!! AlIraqi The article says al Sadr is Iranian BACKED (not Iranian) .... meaning he is recieving much of his financing, mostly newer Russian/French, some blackmarket American made RPG's and anti tank weapons, night vision, communications and other sophisticated equipment that not even Sodamm Insane had ... FROM IRAN to fight the Americans and MFN!! The Saddamist and al Quaeda are getting the same weapons and equipment from SYRIA. Those are KNOW FACTS by the MFN. We know it because the US Army and British have captured a good deal of it from his and the other militia's, insurgents and terrorist organizations, but it keeps on coming. Now I don't argue Muqty may be anti- Iranian clergy, but he is NOT anti taking their money and weapons for his militia. The Iranian Mulla's don't care as long as he stirs up civil strife in Iraq and uses it against the MNF, Americans or Sunni. It's a win win for Iran and Syria and it must STOP. Maybe you can tell me why he's gone to Iran often ? Yes the people in Sadr city are very poor, easily influenced with money and he is taking advantage of that paying them with Irainian money to do his dirty work. Do you think they (the poor) contributed at the Mosque to fund his militia ? On another aside ... are you aware of THE ANBAR SALVATION COUNCIL ?

October 25, 2006 Back to Sadr City Iraqi and Coalition forces raid one of Sadr's offices in his Baghdad stonghold The pressure on Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian backed leader of the Mahdi Army responsible for much of the sectarian violence in Baghdad, has been ratcheted up by Iraqi and Coalition forces. Just one day after U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad informed the press that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "has agreed to getting rid of the militias," Iraqi and Coalition forces strike in the heart of Sadr's center of power: Sadr city. The Associated Press reports, based a military press release, that “Iraqi army special forces, backed up by U.S. advisers, carried out a raid to capture a 'top illegal armed group commander directing widespread death squad activity throughout eastern Baghdad...' Iraqi forces were fired upon and requested backup from U.S. aircraft, which used 'precision gunfire only to eliminate the enemy threat.'” Map of Baghdad. Note that Thawra is now Sadr City.]Click to view. Al-Iraqia television reports "a booby-trapped motorcycle, weapons and explosives were found during the raid." An Iraqi police colonel states four were killed and 18 wounded during the raid, while Reuters puts the number killed at 5. There is no word if the Sadr commander has been captured. Expect Sadr to run a public relations offensive, using the deaths to his advantage, as he has done in the past after raids on his offices in Baghdad. The raid in Sadr follows yesterday's raids on Sadr offices in the city of Hillah, as well as recent fighting in Amara and regular operations against Sadr's forces in Diwaniyah and elsewhere in southern Iraq. The U.S. is continuing its policy of forcing Sadr to a decision point: disband the militia and enter the policy process as a legitmate actor, or battle it out openly against the elected government of Iraq and Coalition and Iraqi forces.

Quess what ? we have to many DEMOCRATS IN OUR STATE DEPARTMENT (above example) who would like nothing better than to cut and run. Guys like the above 'diplomat' are as we say in Texas ......all HAT no CATTLE !!!! October 21, 2006 Mahdi Army, Iraqi Police Clash in Suwayra Sadr's attacks coincide with al-Qaeda bombing, media campaigns and 'marches' in western Iraq. Shades of the Fall of 2004... The Iraqi Army in Amara. (check the links underlined below) One day after the Mahdi Army attacked police stations in Amara and were beaten back by Iraqi Army and police units, Sadr's militia struck again in the town of Suwayra, a town about 30 miles south of Baghdad. AFP reports "some 150 Mahdi Army militiamen armed with AK-47 assault rifles attacked a police station in the Tigris town... eight gunmen died and two civilians were wounded." Sadr's claims that there are elements of his militia that are 'rogue' look less and less credible as each day passes. The Mahdi Army attempts to justify the attack against the Iraqi Police because of a purported U.S. raid on Sadr's office in the city. "A spokesman for Sadr's office in Suwayra said the attack on the police station was a response to an earlier raid by U.S. military forces, backed by helicopters, on a Sadr office. Hamid al-Zargani said the U.S. raid killed six people," according to AFP. The Mahdi Army, unable or unwilling to strike back at U.S. forces, hits the police forces of the legitimate government of Iraq, a government which their leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, purportedly supports. Also note that U.S. security forces are operating in Iraq under the auspices of the United Nations and at the behest of the Iraqi government. The situation in Iraq today resembles that of the fall of 2004, when Sadr conducted his second uprising in Najaf just as al-Qaeda in Iraq was in control of Fallujah. It is believed an informal alliance existed between Sadr and al-Qaeda as each struck at American and the nascent Iraqi government forces. Now, Sadr's forces are probing Iraqi police and Army units in the southern Shiite regions, as al-Qaeda in Iraq is vying for control of Ramadi and Baghdad is the focal point of sectarian violence. Sadr's Mahdi Army attacks in Suwayra and Amara, coupled with a protest in Baghdad of the arrest of Sheikh Mazen Al Saedi, occurred just as al-Qaeda in Iraq declares a rump Sunni State and announces the creation of the "Mutayibeen Coalition," a union of six Anbar tribes and three small insurgent groups. Al-Qaeda's media campaign was in overdrive the past week. The “Ministry of Information in the Islamic State of Iraq” issued a press release on the Friday bombings in Baghdad. Al-Qaeda conducted mini-marches in Haditha, Haqlaniyah, Anah and Bani Daher on Friday. Note that a 15 minute march through a town does not demonstrate any degree of control, and al-Qaeda does not administrative control over territory in Anbar, with the possible exception of a few neighborhoods in Ramadi. According to an intelligence source, the al-Qaeda demonstrators took heavy casualties after their march in Ramadi. Sadr and al-Qaeda are tuned into the U.S. political cycles, and are well aware of the results of dramatic announcements of Islamic States, increases in sectarian violence, suicide campaigns and attacks on Iraqi police and Army units have on the American electorate and the political elite. The questions are: will the Coalition and Iraqi government take on Sadr, secure Baghdad and clear Ramadi, just as was done in Fallujah after the 2004 Presidential election? Does the U.S. and Iraqi governments have the political will and resources to get the job done? By Bill Roggio | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraq is a mess and I don't need the atrocious Arabic, our liberal media or the moron Democrats to tell me this. (so whats new) Sure, there is a Sunni led insurgency of Saddamist, along with the Islamic terrorist groups like al-Qaeda being pounded daily, and led more everyday by the Iraqi Army (IA) and the uncorrupted parts of the Iraqi Police (IP) with US troops and MNF’s backing them up, (mostly US) BUT: It’s been long enough for the Prime Minister of Iraq to stop and take out Sadr and his thugs, along with ANY other NONE IRAQ GOVERNMENT militia’s. As each day passes without anything happening on this, the current crop of elected Iraqi officials seem more in it for themselves or their factional interest, than for Iraq. Trying to reconcile these non Iraq government militias and insurgency into being good citizens as the current Prime Minister thinks is an exercise in futility. The Saddamist insurgency can either be defeated or killed, but the Islamic terror groups must be killed or captured. Preferably Killed No Iraqi can honestly say the Sadr Brigade organization is not behind the Shiite Death squads killing Sunni’s at random and other criminal enterprises. He is a murdering criminal and a thug. Sadr’s militia and other Shi’ite’s retaliating tit for tat indiscriminately on any Sunni has turned most non Saddamist and moderate Sunni unhelpful to the new Iraq government and probably aiding the insurgency strictly for surviving another day. Sadr's militia has to go! For the sake of Iraq, I hope Bush and our General’s start demanding more from the Iraqi leaders, because right now we (the USA and coalition MFN) are taking it in the ass daily from Sadr and other allied Muslim Groups of his ilk. It’s a vicious cycle. If Bush doesn't take some very serious actions against Sadr and his kind by December (after our elections) I will no longer support this mess. You can either fight to win or try to please everyone by bowing down to thugs like Sadr. Seems we've chosen the later by allowing the Iraqi Government take its lead in their faulty reconciliation plan. badWord, the Democrats could do that by just leaving. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here’s what an Iraqi Blogger has to say: …….. let’s take a look at some of the recent bigger stories. First there were the clashes in Diwaniya which can be seen as relatively good news since the operations led to the arrest of a vicious criminal who ordered the slaughter of a dozen Iraqi soldiers who ran out of ammunition during previous clashes back in August. The funny thing is that Sadrists say it was not them who clashed with the raiding force and insist it was the residents of Diwaniya who did! Yeah sure, civilian residents organized 10 RPG teams out of the blue to attack that Abrams tank and defend the militia lieutenant! Ironically even the rival Badr leader Hadi al-Amiri insists it wasn't the Mehdi militia. The IA and US army say it was Sadr's militia, the international media says so too and people in Iraq and especially in Diwanaiya know that too…Do they want us to buy their claims that such organized and heavily armed groups can find a place and act independently against the government and the MNF in provinces where the Sadrists and other politico-religious factions virtually control everything? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My anger right now is mostly directed at Maliki and his corrupt government letting thousands die because they are too scared to stand up to the evil in Iraq. Where are all the moderate Muslims in Iraq? Where are the marches against Sadr, or against the weak government? I keep hearing excuses like "the Iraqi army’s too weak to fight the Sadr army" that’s BS! How hard is it to walk up to these guys and arrest them? Can the Iraqi soldiers fire a gun? If they can't, I'm sure the US army can! Time to end the games and start shooting these a-holes! I think a lot of Americans are in a sour mood because they see nothing new.... only the same old crap, letting the enemy and incompetent Iraqi officials run the circus. That must change now! And if anyone thinks we can deal with Iran without solving Iraq's problems first they are sorely mistaken. If we even touch their nuke sites now with one small bomb they will immediately start a huge gorilla war in Iraq making Vietnam look like a walk in a park. Does anyone honestly think Bush is going to have our soldiers in an Iraq-Iran Muslim holy war costing an ungodly number of deaths and probably the resurrection of the draft? …..No way! So it would then leave us stuck with TWO Jihadist countries who scared America off. Well, that won't work at all! If anyone wants that to happen, then elect Democrats in November. Bush needs to turn it up and we need to turn the Democrats down. NOTE some of the above taken from others comment on another website who I agreed with (wish I had kept their addy's for credit)

THanks

Can't these annoying ad bots above be blocked by the Moderator or this sites service provider ??

Airedale Airedale Airedale, I DO NOT, NOR HAVE I EVER put trust in much coming from Professor Juan Cole. I was TOTALLY taken aback when he opined reasonable assumptions concerning a Sistani Vs. Mookey rivalry. Usually Cole’s “Blame America First” with his perusal reconstructs of demented terrorist stances and promoting their propaganda more intensely. This was probably the ONLY thing I have ever agreed with him on politically or morally. Personally, I think Juan Cole is another Edward Siad/Noam Chomsky type major terrorist sympathizer, enabler and lying propagandist from the EXTREME LEFT of American academia. My girlfriend is still laughing she say; “he don’t know you well very well does he ?” As far as Sistani or the Pope ? Neither has a monopoly on GOD ! Nor do JEWS or anyone else ! All that going on IS NOT BECAUSE OF JEWS (thats the excuse)…. It’s gone on for centuries PRIMARILY because of the JEW HATRED promoted in the Qu’ran, one of the few things Shia/Sunni agree on, ...THAT is sick. BTW 1. JENNIN ---- MOSTLY STAGED ISLAMIC THEATRICS 2. QANNA ---- SEE #1. BTW 2 (from Cal Thomas today) Donald Rumsfeld reminded the free world are in a: "global struggle against violent extremists." "one side puts their men and women at risk in uniform and obeys the laws of war, while the other side uses them against us." "One side does all it can to avoid civilian casualties, while the other side uses civilians as shields, and then skillfully orchestrates a public outcry when the other side accidentally kills civilians in their midst. One side is held to exacting standards of near perfection; the other side is held to no standards and no accountability at all." Rumsfeld noted how the enemy uses our media to undermine American resolve, "planning attacks to gain the maximum media coverage and the maximum public outcry." And then, most importantly, he said: "If we left Iraq prematurely - as the terrorists demand - the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us - and all those who don't share their militant ideology - to leave what they call occupied Muslim lands, from Spain to the Philippines, and then we would face not only the evil ideology of these violent extremists, but an enemy that will have grown accustomed to succeeding in telling free people everywhere what to do." For those who claim Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terrorism, Rumsfeld noted, "This enemy has called Iraq the central front in the war on terrorism." During World War II, U.S. and German forces fought the battle of Hurtgen Forest. It began Sept. 19, 1944 and ended Feb. 10, 1945. That was one battle in a strategically insignificant corridor of barely 50 square miles east of the Belgium-Germany border. The Germans inflicted more than 24,000 casualties on American forces, while another 9,000 Americans were sidelined due to illness, fatigue and friendly fire. Had live TV beamed this battle to America, there might have been an outcry that the policy was failing and somehow a cease-fire and an accommodation with Hitler should be achieved. America won that war because the objective wasn't to understand the Nazis, or to reach an accommodation with them; the objective was to win the war. Anything less in this war - against an equally evil and unrelenting enemy - will mean defeat for the United States and for freedom everywhere. That's what Rumsfeld was getting at when he said, "We can persevere in Iraq or we can withdraw prematurely, until they force us to make a stand nearer home. But make no mistake: They are not going to give up, whether we acquiesce in their immediate demands or not." Rumsfeld is right. BTW 3. you probably noticed PC for me is GONE ! a spade is a spade .... who says the playing field has to be level ??

The most important man in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has warned that the United States will face dire consequences in the region if it does not move swiftly to broker a ceasefire in Lebanon. Reluctant as I am to say it, Juan Cole has the most interesting analysis of the implications that I have been able to locate: Sistani is taking such a hard line on this issue not only because he feels strongly about it (his fatwa against the Jenin operation of 2002 was vehement) but also because he is in danger of being outflanked by Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's Mahdi Army is said to be "boiling" over the Israeli war on Hizbullah, since after all the Sadrists are also fundamentalist Shiites and they identify with the Lebanese Hizbullah. There have already been big demonstrations in Baghdad against the Israeli attacks, to which Sadrists flocked but probably also other Shiites. Sistani cannot allow Muqtada to monopolize this issue, or the young cleric's legitimacy will grow among the angry Shiite masses at the expense of Sistani's. Sistani is not linked to Hizbullah, which is strongly Khomeinist in orientation. Sistani largely rejects Khomeinism. He told an Iraqi acquaintance of mine, "Even if I must be wiped out, I will not allow Iraq to repeat the Iranian experience." When Sistani had his heart problems in summer, 2004, he flew to London via Beirut. He stopped in Beirut several hours, and Nabih Berri came out to the airport to consult with him. Berri is the speaker of the Lebanese parliament and the leader of the Amal Party. Amal is the party of the secularizing, moderate Lebanese Shiites. It was more militant in the 1980s but it mellowed. So Sistani's political ties in Lebanon go to Amal much more than to Hizbullah. Sistani has many followers or "emulators" (muqallidun) among the Lebanese Shiites, though the hard core Hizbullahis tend to follow Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran instead. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Muqtada al-Sadr. & Sadr's Mahdi Army are as destructive to a free Iraq as was Saddamn, as are Sunni Militia's and insurgency. Iraq needs to get over this Sunni/Shiit crap and get on with living together peaceful. Iraqi's and Muslims in general need to get over their hatred of Jews if they are ever to survive in peace. I'm pissed off in Texas, Your religion is supressing & killing more Muslims than anything else in the world today.... moderate it before we all are killing one another. Tex

Iraq Announces Info From Al-Zarqawi Raid Jun 15, 6:22 AM (ET) By KIM GAMEL BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday a "huge treasure" of documents and computer records was seized after the raid on terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout, giving the Iraqi government the upper hand in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie also said he believed the security situation in the country would improve enough to allow a large number of U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq by the end of this year, and a majority to depart by the end of next year. "And maybe the last soldier will leave Iraq by mid-2008," he said. Al-Rubaie said a laptop, flashdrive and other documents were found in the debris after the airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader last week outside Baqouba, and more information has been uncovered in raids of other insurgent hideouts since then. He called it a "huge treasure ... a huge amount of information." When asked how he could be sure the information was authentic, al-Rubaie said "there is nothing more authentic than finding a thumbdrive in his pocket." "We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaida in Iraq," al-Rubaie said, adding that the documents showed al-Qaida is in "pretty bad shape," politically and in terms of training, weapons and media. "Now we have the upper hand," he said at a news conference in Baghdad. "We feel that we know their locations, the names of their leaders, their whereabouts, their movements, through the documents we found during the last few days." Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, pressed forward with his initiative to crack down on violence in Baghdad. Government forces fanned out across Baghdad for a second day, setting up checkpoints and frisking motorists. Al-Maliki has promised the crackdown would not target any ethnic or sectarian group. Gunmen killed an engineer and kidnapped another, and a detergent factory worker was shot to death as he was headed to work elsewhere in western Baghdad, police said, but no major violence was reported in the capital, a day after al-Maliki's major security operation was launched. Elsewhere, however, gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque near Tikrit, killing four people and wounding 15, including a fundamentalist Sunni cleric who has spoken out against the killing of Iraqis as part of the insurgency. In addition to announcing the security crackdown, al-Maliki opened the door Wednesday for talks with insurgents opposed to the country's political process as part of a national reconciliation initiative, but he said any negotiations would exclude terrorist groups. The plan could include a pardon for some prisoners. A senior White House official said the Iraqis have indicated that they are looking for "models" in national reconciliation. Another official said al-Maliki had inquired whether Bosnians or South Africans might be able to provide expertise. "There is also a space for dialogue with insurgents who opposed the political process and now want to join the political process after offering guarantees," al-Maliki said. "But on the other hand we are not going to negotiate with the criminals who have killed the innocent." A top al-Maliki adviser told The Washington Post the plan could include pardons for those who had attacked U.S. troops. Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi told the Post "there is a patriotic feeling among the Iraqi youth and the belief that those attacks are legitimate acts of resistance and defending their homeland. These people will be pardoned definitely, I believe." The security crackdown in Baghdad includes a curfew extended by 4 1/2 hours - from 8:30 p.m. until dawn - and a weapons ban. The government did not say how long the crackdown would last and declined to give precise numbers about checkpoints and troops. Operation Forward Together, involving 75,000 Iraqi army and police forces backed by U.S. troops, began Wednesday at a crucial time - one day after Bush visited Baghdad to reassure Iraqis of Washington's continued support and exactly a week after al-Zarqawi's death in a U.S. airstrike. During Bush's visit, Iraq's Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi asked him for a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, the president's office said. "I supported him in this," President Jalal Talabani said in a statement released Wednesday. Al-Hashimi's representatives could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. Bush made it clear that a U.S. military presence - now at about 132,000 troops - would continue, although he stressed the fate of the Iraqis was in their own hands. Al-Hashimi also said there were "promises to free about 3,500 detainees" by June 26, the statement from Talabani's office said. That number that would be above the 2,500 to be freed as part of a bid by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to soothe Sunni Arabs over allegations of random detentions and maltreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. More than 450 detainees were being released Thursday as part of al-Maliki's national reconciliation efforts, according to the U.S. military. Many Baghdad residents were hopeful about al-Maliki's efforts, although some were clearly impatient as they waited for 15 minutes or more to get through the checkpoints. "The reconciliation plan should exclude those responsible for bloodshed of the Iraqi people," resident Abdul-Sada Ali told AP Television News. "It is a very good step by Mr. Nouri al-Maliki." The security operation was al-Maliki's first major action since his new government of national unity was sworn in on May 20, and a week after he gained the consensus he needed from Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups to fill three key posts - defense, interior and national security. --- Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Qais al-Bashir contributed to this report. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060615/D8I8JAC80.html

Text of President Bush's statement in the Rose Garden on Thursday on the death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as transcribed by the White House: Good morning. Last night in Iraq, United States military forces killed the terrorist al-Zarqawi. At 6:15 p.m. Baghdad time, special operation forces, acting on tips and intelligence from Iraqis, confirmed Zarqawi's location, and delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq. Zarqawi was the operational commander of the terrorist movement in Iraq. He led a campaign of car bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that has taken the lives of many American forces and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Osama bin Laden called this Jordanian terrorist "the prince of al-Qaida in Iraq." He called on the terrorists around the world to listen to him and obey him. Zarqawi personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He masterminded the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was responsible for the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, and the bombing of a hotel in Amman. Through his every action, he sought to defeat America and our coalition partners, and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which al- Qaida could wage its war on free nations. To achieve these ends, he worked to divide Iraqis and incite civil war. And only last week he released an audio tape attacking Iraq's elected leaders, and denouncing those advocating the end of sectarianism. Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again. Iraqis can be justly proud of their new government and its early steps to improve their security. And Americans can be enormously proud of the men and women of our armed forces, who worked tirelessly with their Iraqi counterparts to track down this brutal terrorist and put him out of business. The operation against Zarqawi was conducted with courage and professionalism by the finest military in the world. Coalition and Iraqi forces persevered through years of near misses and false leads, and they never gave up. Last night their persistence and determination were rewarded. On behalf of all Americans, I congratulate our troops on this remarkable achievement. Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue. Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders. Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to al-Qaida. It's a victory in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide of this struggle. A few minutes ago I spoke to Prime Minister Maliki. I congratulated him on close collaboration between coalition and Iraqi forces that helped make this day possible. Iraq's freely elected Prime Minister is determined to defeat our common enemies and bring security and the rule of law to all its people. Earlier this morning he announced the completion of his Cabinet appointments, with the naming of a new minister of defense, a new minister of the interior, and a new minister of state for national security. These new ministers are part of a democratic government that represents all Iraqis. They will play a vital role as the Iraqi government addresses its top priorities _ reconciliation and reconstruction and putting an end to the kidnappings and beheadings and suicide bombings that plague the Iraqi people. I assured Prime Minister Maliki that he will have the full support of the United States of America. On Monday I will meet with my national security team and other key members of my Cabinet at Camp David to discuss the way forward in Iraq. Our top diplomats and military commanders in Iraq will give me an assessment of recent changes in the political and economic and security situation on the ground. On Tuesday, Iraq's new ambassador to the United States will join us, and we will have a teleconference discussion with the prime minister and members of his cabinet. Together we will discuss how to best deploy America's resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself. We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continued patience of the American people. Yet the developments of the last 24 hours give us renewed confidence in the final outcome of this struggle: the defeat of terrorism threats, and a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren. May God bless the Iraqi people and may God continue to bless America.

Spending time in the United States after a tour of Iraq can be a disorienting experience these days. Within hours of arriving here, as I can attest from a recent visit, one is confronted with an image of Iraq that is unrecognizable. It is created in several overlapping ways: through television footage showing the charred remains of vehicles used in suicide attacks, surrounded by wailing women in black and grim-looking men carrying coffins; by armchair strategists and political gurus predicting further doom or pontificating about how the war should have been fought in the first place; by authors of instant-history books making their rounds to dissect the various fundamental mistakes committed by the Bush administration; and by reporters, cocooned in hotels in Baghdad, explaining the carnage and chaos in the streets as signs of the country’s impending or undeclared civil war. Add to all this the days alleged scandal or revelation an outed CIA operative, a reportedly doctored intelligence report, a leaked pessimistic assessment and it is no wonder the American public registers disillusion with Iraq and everyone who embroiled the U.S. in its troubles. It would be hard indeed for the average interested citizen to find out on his own just how grossly this image distorts the realities of present-day Iraq. Part of the problem, faced by even the most well-meaning news organizations, is the difficulty of covering so large and complex a subject; naturally, in such circumstances, sensational items rise to the top. But even ostensibly more objective efforts, like the Brookings Institutions much-cited Iraq Index with its constantly updated array of security, economic, and public-opinion indicators, tell us little about the actual feel of the country on the ground. To make matters worse, many of the newsmen, pundits, and commentators on whom American viewers and readers rely to describe the situation have been contaminated by the increasing bitterness of American politics. Clearly there are those in the media and the think tanks who wish the Iraq enterprise to end in tragedy, as a just comeuppance for George W. Bush. Others, prompted by noble sentiment, so abhor the idea of war that they would banish it from human discourse before admitting that, in some circumstances, military power can be used in support of a good cause. But whatever the reason, the half-truths and outright misinformation that now function as conventional wisdom have gravely disserved the American people. For someone like myself who has spent considerable time in Iraq a country I first visited in 1968current reality there is, nevertheless, very different from this conventional wisdom, and so are the prospects for Iraq’s future. It helps to know where to look, what sources to trust, and how to evaluate the present moment against the background of Iraqi and Middle Eastern history. Since my first encounter with Iraq almost 40 years ago, I have relied on several broad measures of social and economic health to assess the country’s condition. Through good times and bad, these signs have proved remarkably accurate as accurate, that is, as is possible in human affairs. For some time now, all have been pointing in an unequivocally positive direction. The first sign is refugees. When things have been truly desperate in Iraq in 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape. In 1973, for example, when Saddam Hussein decided to expel all those whose ancestors had not been Ottoman citizens before Iraq’s creation as a state, some 1.2 million Iraqis left their homes in the space of just six weeks. This was not the temporary exile of a small group of middle-class professionals and intellectuals, which is a common enough phenomenon in most Arab countries. Rather, it was a departure en masse, affecting people both in small villages and in big cities, and it was a scene regularly repeated under Saddam Hussein. Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television sets and we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004. A second dependable sign likewise concerns human movement, but of a different kind. This is the flow of religious pilgrims to the Shiite shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Whenever things start to go badly in Iraq, this stream is reduced to a trickle and then it dries up completely. From 1991 (when Saddam Hussein massacred Shiites involved in a revolt against him) to 2003, there were scarcely any pilgrims to these cities. Since Saddams fall, they have been flooded with visitors. In 2005, the holy sites received an estimated 12 million pilgrims, making them the most visited spots in the entire Muslim world, ahead of both Mecca and Medina. Over 3,000 Iraqi clerics have also returned from exile, and Shiite seminaries, which just a few years ago held no more than a few dozen pupils, now boast over 15,000 from 40 different countries. This is because Najaf, the oldest center of Shiite scholarship, is once again able to offer an alternative to Qom, the Iranian holy city where a radical and highly politicized version of Shiism is taught. Those wishing to pursue the study of more traditional and quietist forms of Shiism now go to Iraq where, unlike in Iran, the seminaries are not controlled by the government and its secret police. A third sign, this one of the hard economic variety, is the value of the Iraqi dinar, especially as compared with the regions other major currencies. In the final years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, the Iraqi dinar was in free fall; after 1995, it was no longer even traded in Iran and Kuwait. By contrast, the new dinar, introduced early in 2004, is doing well against both the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial, having risen by 17 percent against the former and by 23 percent against the latter. Although it is still impossible to fix its value against a basket of international currencies, the new Iraqi dinar has done well against the U.S. dollar, increasing in value by almost 18 percent between August 2004 and August 2005. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis, and millions of Iranians and Kuwaitis, now treat it as a safe and solid medium of exchange. My fourth time-tested sign is the level of activity by small and medium-sized businesses. In the past, whenever things have gone downhill in Iraq, large numbers of such enterprises have simply closed down, with the country’s most capable entrepreneurs decamping to Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey, Iran, and even Europe and North America. Since liberation, however, Iraq has witnessed a private-sector boom, especially among small and medium-sized businesses. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as numerous private studies, the Iraqi economy has been doing better than any other in the region. The country’s gross domestic product rose to almost $90 billion in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), more than double the output for 2003, and its real growth rate, as estimated by the IMF, was 52.3 per cent. In that same period, exports increased by more than $3 billion, while the inflation rate fell to 25.4 percent, down from 70 percent in 2002. The unemployment rate was halved, from 60 percent to 30 percent. Related to this is the level of agricultural activity. Between 1991 and 2003, the country’s farm sector experienced unprecedented decline, in the end leaving almost the entire nation dependent on rations distributed by the United Nations under Oil-for-Food. In the past two years, by contrast, Iraqi agriculture has undergone an equally unprecedented revival. Iraq now exports foodstuffs to neighboring countries, something that has not happened since the 1950s. Much of the upturn is due to smallholders who, shaking off the collectivist system imposed by the Baathist’s, have retaken control of land that was confiscated decades ago by the state. Finally, one of the surest indices of the health of Iraqi society has always been its readiness to talk to the outside world. Iraqis are a verbalizing people; when they fall silent, life is incontrovertibly becoming hard for them. There have been times, indeed, when one could find scarcely a single Iraqi, whether in Iraq or abroad, prepared to express an opinion on anything remotely political. This is what Kanan Makiya meant when he described Saddam Hussein’s regime as a republic of fear. Today, again by way of dramatic contrast, Iraqis are voluble to a fault. Talk radio, television talk-shows, and Internet blogs are all the rage, while heated debate is the order of the day in shops, tea-houses, bazaars, mosques, offices, and private homes. A catharsis is how Luay Abdulilah, the Iraqi short-story writer and diarist, describes it. This is one way of taking revenge against decades of deadly silence. Moreover, a vast network of independent media has emerged in Iraq, including over 100 privately-owned newspapers and magazines and more than two dozen radio and television stations. To anyone familiar with the state of the media in the Arab world, it is a truism that Iraq today is the place where freedom of expression is most effectively exercised. That an experienced observer of Iraq with a sense of history can point to so many positive factors in the country’s present condition will not do much, of course, to sway the more determined critics of the U.S. intervention there. They might even agree that the images fed to the American public show only part of the picture, and that the news from Iraq is not uniformly bad. But the root of their opposition runs deeper, to political fundamentals. Their critique can be summarized in the aphorism that democracy cannot be imposed by force. It is a view that can be found among the more sophisticated elements on the Left and, increasingly, among dissenters on the Right, from Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska to the ex-neoconservative Francis Fukuyama. As Senator Hagel puts it, you cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy. I would tend to agree. But is Iraq such a place? In point of fact, before the 1958 pro-Soviet military coup d’etat that established a leftist dictatorship, Iraq did have its modest but nevertheless significant share of democratic history, culture, and tradition. The country came into being through a popular referendum held in 1921. A constitutional monarchy modeled on the United Kingdom, it had a bicameral parliament, several political parties (including the Baath and the Communists), and periodic elections that led to changes of policy and government. At the time, Iraq also enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, plus the widest space for debate and dissent in the Muslim Middle East. To be sure, Baghdad in those days was no Westminster, and, as the 1958 coup proved, Iraqi democracy was fragile. But every serious student of contemporary Iraq knows that substantial segments of the population, from all ethnic and religious communities, had more than a taste of the modern worlds democratic aspirations. As evidence, one need only consult the immense literary and artistic production of Iraqis both before and after the 1958 coup. Under successor dictatorial regimes, it is true, the conviction took hold that democratic principles had no future in Iraq a conviction that was responsible in large part for driving almost five million Iraqis, a quarter of the population, into exile between 1958 and 2003, just as the opposite conviction is attracting so many of them and their children back to Iraq today. A related argument used to condemn Iraq’s democratic prospects is that it is an artificial country, one that can be held together only by a dictator. But did any nation-state fall from the heavens wholly made? All are to some extent artificial creations, and the U.S. is preeminently so. The truth is that Iraq one of the 53 founding countries of the United Nations is older than a majority of that organizations current 198 member states. Within the Arab League, and setting aside Oman and Yemen, none of the 22 members is older. Two-thirds of the 122 countries regarded as democracies by Freedom House came into being after Iraq’s appearance on the map. Critics of the democratic project in Iraq also claim that, because it is a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state, the country is doomed to despotism, civil war, or disintegration. But the same could be said of virtually all Middle Eastern states, most of which are neither multi-ethnic nor multi-confessional. More important, all Iraqis, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, and sectarian differences, share a sense of national identityuruqa (Iraqi-ness) that has developed over the past eight decades. A unified, federal state may still come to grief in Iraq history is not written in advance but even should a divorce become inevitable at some point, a democratic Iraq would be in a better position to manage it. What all of this demonstrates is that, contrary to received opinion, Operation Iraqi Freedom was not an attempt to impose democracy by force. Rather, it was an effort to use force to remove impediments to democratization, primarily by deposing a tyrant who had utterly suppressed a well-established aspect of the country’s identity. It may take years before we know for certain whether or not post-liberation Iraq has definitely chosen democracy. But one thing is certain: without the use of force to remove the Baathist regime, the people of Iraq would not have had the opportunity even to contemplate a democratic future. Assessing the progress of that democratic project is no simple matter. But, by any reasonable standard, Iraqis have made extraordinary strides. In a series of municipal polls and two general elections in the past three years, up to 70 percent of eligible Iraqis have voted. This new orientation is supported by more than 60 political parties and organizations, the first genuinely free-trade unions in the Arab world, a growing number of professional associations acting independently of the state, and more than 400 nongovernmental organizations representing diverse segments of civil society. A new constitution, written by Iraqis representing the full spectrum of political, ethnic, and religious sensibilities was overwhelmingly approved by the electorate in a referendum last October. Iraq’s new democratic reality is also reflected in the vocabulary of politics used at every level of society. Many new words accountability, transparency, pluralism, dissent have entered political discourse in Iraq for the first time. More remarkably, perhaps, all parties and personalities currently engaged in the democratic process have committed themselves to the principle that power should be sought, won, and lost only through free and fair elections. These democratic achievements are especially impressive when set side by side with the declared aims of the enemies of the new Iraq, who have put up a determined fight against it. Since the country’s liberation, the jihadist’s and residual Baathist’s have killed an estimated 23,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, in scores of random attacks and suicide operations. Indirectly, they have caused the death of thousands more, by sabotaging water and electricity services and by provoking sectarian revenge attacks. But they have failed to translate their talent for mayhem and murder into political success. Their campaign has not succeeded in appreciably slowing down, let alone stopping, the country’s democratization. Indeed, at each step along the way, the jihadists and Baathists have seen their self-declared objectives thwarted. After the invasion, they tried at first to prevent the formation of a Governing Council, the expression of Iraqs continued existence as a sovereign nation-state. They managed to murder several members of the council, including its president in 2003, but failed to prevent its formation or to keep it from performing its task in the interim period. The next aim of the insurgents was to stop municipal elections. Their message was simple: candidates and voters would be killed. But, once again, they failed: thousands of men and women came forward as candidates and more than 1.5 million Iraqis voted in the localities where elections were held. The insurgency made similar threats in the lead-up to the first general election, and the result was the same. Despite killing 36 candidates and 148 voters, they failed to derail the balloting, in which the number of voters rose to more than 8 million. Nor could the insurgency prevent the writing of the new democratic constitution, despite a campaign of assassination against its drafters. The text was ready in time and was submitted to and approved by a referendum, exactly as planned. The number of voters rose yet again, to more than 9 million. What of relations among the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds the focus of so much attention of late? For almost three years, the insurgency worked hard to keep the Arab Sunni community, which accounts for some 15 percent of the population, out of the political process. But that campaign collapsed when millions of Sunnis turned out to vote in the constitutional referendum and in the second general election, which saw almost 11 million Iraqis go to the polls. As I write, all political parties representing the Arab Sunni minority have joined the political process and have strong representation in the new parliament. With the convening of that parliament, and the nomination in April of a new prime minister and a three-man presidential council, the way is open for the formation of a broad-based government of national unity to lead Iraq over the next four years. As for the insurgency’s effort to foment sectarian violence a strategy first launched in earnest toward the end of 2005 this too has run aground. The hope here was to provoke a full-scale war between the Arab Sunni minority and the Arab Shiites who account for some 60 percent of the population. The new strategy, like the ones previously tried, has certainly produced many deaths. But despite countless cases of sectarian killings by so-called militias, there is still no sign that the Shiites as a whole will acquiesce in the role assigned them by the insurgency and organize a concerted campaign of nationwide retaliation. Finally, despite the impression created by relentlessly dire reporting in the West, the insurgency has proved unable to shut down essential government services. Hundreds of teachers and schoolchildren have been killed in incidents including the beheading of two teachers in their classrooms this April and horrific suicide attacks against school buses. But by September 2004, most schools across Iraq and virtually all universities were open and functioning. By September 2005, more than 8.5 million Iraqi children and young people were attending school or university an all-time record in the nations history. A similar story applies to Iraq’s clinics and hospitals. Between October 2003 and January 2006, more than 80 medical doctors and over 400 nurses and medical auxiliaries were murdered by the insurgents. The jihadists also raided several hospitals, killing ordinary patients in their beds. But, once again, they failed in their objectives. By January 2006, all of Iraq’s 600 state-owned hospitals and clinics were in full operation, along with dozens of new ones set up by the private sector since liberation. Another of the insurgency’s strategic goals was to bring the Iraqi oil industry to a halt and to disrupt the export of crude. Since July 2003, Iraq’s oil infrastructure has been the target of more than 3,000 attacks and attempts at sabotage. But once more the insurgency has failed to achieve its goals. Iraq has resumed its membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and has returned to world markets as a major oil exporter. According to projections, by the end of 2006 it will be producing its full OPEC quota of 2.8 million barrels a day. The Baathist remnant and its jihadist allies resemble a gambler who wins a heap of chips at a roulette table only to discover that he cannot exchange them for real money at the front desk. The enemies of the new Iraq have succeeded in ruining the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, but over the past three years they have advanced their overarching goals, such as they are, very little. Instead, they have been militarily contained and politically defeated again and again, and the beneficiary has been Iraqi democracy. None of this means that the new Iraq is out of the woods. Far from it, Democratic success still requires a great deal of patience, determination, and luck. The U.S.-led coalition, its allies, and partners have achieved most of their major political objectives, but that achievement remains under threat and could be endangered if the U.S., for whatever reason, should decide to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory. The current mandate of the U.S.-led coalition runs out at the end of this year, and it is unlikely that Washington and its allies will want to maintain their military presence at current levels. In the past few months, more than half of the 103 bases used by the coalition have been transferred to the new Iraqi army. The best guess is that the number of U.S. and coalition troops could be cut from 140,000 to 25,000 or 30,000 by the end of 2007. One might wonder why, if the military mission has been so successful, the U.S. still needs to maintain a military presence in Iraq for at least another two years. There are three reasons for this. The first is to discourage Iraqs predatory neighbors, notably Iran and Syria, which might wish to pursue their own agendas against the new government in Baghdad. Iran has already revived some claims under the Treaties of Erzerum (1846), according to which Tehran would enjoy a droit de regard over Shiite shrines in Iraq. In Syria, some in that country’s ruling circles have invoked the possibility of annexing the area known as Jazirah, the so-called Sunni triangle, in the name of Arab unity. For its part, Turkey is making noises about the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which gave it a claim to the oilfields of northern Iraq. All of these pretensions need to be rebuffed. The second reason for extending Americas military presence is political. The U.S. is acting as an arbiter among Iraq’s various ethnic and religious communities and political factions. It is, in a sense, a traffic cop, giving Iraqis a green or red light when and if needed. It is important that the U.S. continue performing this role for the first year or two of the newly elected parliament and government. Finally, the U.S. and its allies have a key role to play in training and testing Iraq’s new army and police. Impressive success has already been achieved in that field. Nevertheless, the new Iraqi army needs at least another year or two before it will have developed adequate logistical capacities and learned to organize and conduct operations involving its various branches. But will the U.S. stay the course? Many are betting against it. The Baathists and jihadists, their prior efforts to derail Iraqi democracy having come to naught, have now pinned their hopes on creating enough chaos and death to persuade Washington of the futility of its endeavors. In this, they have the tacit support not only of local Arab and Muslim despots rightly fearful of the democratic genie but of all those in the West whose own incessant theme has been the certainty of American failure. Among Bush-haters in the U.S., just as among anti-Americans around the world, predictions of civil war in Iraq, of spreading regional hostilities, and of a revived global terrorism are not about to cease any time soon. But more sober observers should understand the real balance sheet in Iraq. Democracy is succeeding. Moreover, thanks to its success in Iraq, there are stirrings elsewhere in the region. Beyond the much-publicized electoral concessions wrung from authoritarian rulers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, there is a new democratic discourse to be heard. Nationalism and pan-Arabism, yesterdays hollow rallying cries, have given way to a big idea of a very different kind. Debate and dissent are in the air where there was none before a development owing, in significant measure, to the U.S. campaign in Iraq and the brilliant if still checkered Iraqi response. The stakes, in short, could not be higher. This is all the more reason to celebrate, to build on, and to consolidate what has already been accomplished. Instead of railing against the Bush administration, Americas elites would do better, and incidentally display greater self-respect, to direct their wrath where it properly belongs: at those violent and unrestrained enemies of democracy in Iraq who are, in truth, the enemies of democracy in America as well, and of everything America has ever stood for. Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe today’s Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life? AMIR TAHERI, formerly the executive editor of Kayhan, Irans largest daily newspaper, is the author of ten books and a frequent contributor to numerous publications in the Middle East and Europe. His work appears regularly in the New York Post. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Producti...Taheri_0606.htm

I don't know from where Zeyad had such report. I had my own contacts within Sader city who are anti alsader, that firmly and laughted at such news as they never heard about it. The only incident that might look like the Nogadishu style was the one related to an Alqaeda suicider . ..It is a well known story, you can ask Zeyad about need to be more carefull dealing with un official sources. This is the ,MPG video recorded on a bystanders cell phone of supposedly this clerics killing by the Medhi Army. http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/mahdiarmy.mpg THE US ARMY says the whole scene was restaged ...... probablyby Sadr's militia the Medhi Army.

March 28, 2006 Sunday's Gunfight in Iraq By Jack Kelly A shoot out Sunday in Baghdad indicates U.S. authorities now consider Shia militias a greater danger than al Qaida. "Deaths from revenge killings now exceed those from terrorist or anti-government activity," StrategyPage noted Sunday. The Iraqi government and the U.S. military have issued starkly different accounts of a gunfight around a mosque in northeast Baghdad that was being used as a headquarters by the Moqtada al Sadr's militia, the "Mahdi army." An Interior Ministry spokesman said 22 "bystanders" were killed. An aide to al Sadr said 25 "innocent men" were killed. The dead included the mosque's 80-year-old imam, they said. Multi-National Force Iraq said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops conducted a raid to disrupt a terrorist cell. Sixteen "insurgents" were killed, 15 arrested, and a hostage was freed. "No mosques were entered or damaged in this operation," the MNF-Iraq press release said. An AP videotape "showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's living quarters, attached to the mosque itself," wrote AP reporter Steven Hurst. A spokesman for the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shia religious parties who hold a plurality of seats in the Iraqi parliament, denounced what it called the "cold-blooded" killing of "unarmed" people. Jawad al Maliki demanded that control over all security matters be restored to the Iraqi government. Mr. Maliki's demand may have been prompted as much by a raid by U.S. troops Sunday on an Interior Ministry building where 17 Sudanese were being held. Ten Interior Ministry troops were detained briefly. The raids occurred a day after U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad urged the Iraqi government to crack down on militias. The Mahdi army, which is financed by Iran, is thought to be responsible for most of the revenge killings of Sunnis in the wake of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra in February. The news media reported accurately that the gun fight at the mosque was the worst clash with Sadr's militia in months, but didn't put it into context. It was nothing like August of 2004, when U.S. troops killed more than 2,000 members of the Mahdi army in battles in Baghdad and Najaf. If the Shia militias have become the number one security problem in Iraq, it is less because the threat they pose has grown than because that posed by Sunni "insurgents" has receded. If Sunday's moves marked a concerted campaign against radical militias, "this indicates the U.S. and Iraqi army are calculating there is enough space to open a second front," said military blogger Bill Roggio. Back on March 18th, StrategyPage reported that: "the U.S. has told Iran that the Iraqi Shia militias being supported by Iran (the Badr and Sadr organizations) are going to get taken apart soon, and Iran is well advised to back off when this happens." "Al Qaida is beaten, and running for cover," StrategyPage said Sunday. "The Sunni Arab groups that financed thousands of attacks against the government and coalition groups are now battling al Qaida, each other, and Shia death squads." A crackdown on Shia militias poses a huge political problem for Ibrahim al Jaafari, who owes his nomination by the UIA for a second term as prime minister (he won by a single vote) to the support of the Moqtada al Sadr. This likely accounts for the harsh rhetoric coming from the Interior ministry, which is thought to be heavily infilitrated by the Iranian-backed militias. Shias comprise more than 60 percent of Iraq's population, and a conflict with them would be disastrous. But while al Jaafari has a problem with the crackdown on militias, other Shias do not. The Moqtada did not get on the good side of Iraq's most influential cleric, the Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, when he tried to have Sistani assassinated. In 2004, most residents of Najaf expressed gratitude to U.S. troops for liberating them from the Mahdi army's brief occupation of their town. "Iraqi Shia Arabs fought against Iran during the 1980s war, not because they loved Saddam, but because they feared Iranian domination," StrategyPage said. "The Sadr and Badr groups are vulnerable in this area." The Iraqi officials who criticized Sunday's raids are allies of al Jaafari. The incidents may break the deadlock over the formation of a new Iraqi government, by causing the single largest group in the UIA, the SCIRI, to break away and join Kurds, Sunnis, and secular Shia parties in making SCIRI leader Abdel Mahdi prime minister. "One has to wonder if that wasn't by design," Bill Roggio said. "The Coalition has been telegraphing this move for some time." Email: jkelly@post-gazette.com Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ht_in_iraq.html at March 28, 2006 - 09:03:56 AM CST

US troops defend raid, say Iraqis faked "massacre" By Alastair Macdonald Mon Mar 27, 6:00 PM ET U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi'ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque. "After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was. There's been huge misinformation," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said. He rejected the accusations of a massacre that prompted the Shi'ite-led government to demand U.S. forces cede control of security but declined to spell out which group he believed moved the bodies. Government-run television has shown footage of bodies lying without weapons in what Shi'ite ministers say is a mosque compound run by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The security minister accused Iraqi and U.S. troops of killing 37 unarmed men. Giving the first U.S. military briefing on Sunday's events in Baghdad, Chiarelli said the raid by about 50 Iraqi special forces troops backed by some 25 U.S. "advisers" had been the fruit of long intelligence work. But he said he did not know the religious affiliation of 16 "insurgents" who were killed. An Iraqi was freed who had been taken hostage that day and threatened with death if he did not pay a $20,000 ransom, he said. Three fighters were wounded and 18 other people detained. Chiarelli insisted the compound was not a mosque but an office complex. Neighbors and aides to Sadr call it a mosque and say it was once offices for Saddam Hussein's Baath party. "There was gunfire from every room," he said. Major General J.D. Thurman, whose division controls Baghdad, said: "If it was a mosque, why are they using it as a place to hold hostages?" He added that weapons, including 34 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were also found. ADVISERS Chiarelli stood by the U.S. account, disputed by Sadr aides and other Shi'ite leaders but which is broadly in line with police reports and some local witnesses who spoke of a fierce gun battle around the site. He said an Iraqi special forces unit with about 25 U.S. advisers, trainers, medical and bomb disposal crew in support arrived to raid the site at nightfall and were immediately fired on from a number of buildings around the compound. The troops "cleared the compound," he said, killing or capturing those inside. "It was Iraqi forces who did the fighting," he stressed. Thurman said U.S. helicopters were in the air at the time but only in support of another mission. All the dead were killed by Iraqi fire, Chiarelli said. Chiarelli identified the hostage as a dental technician and said: "He was shown a picture of his daughter and told if he didn't pay $20,000 he was going to be dead the next day." Asked about the apparent surprise, not to say disapproval, of the operation in the ruling Shi'ite Alliance bloc, Chiarelli said: "It was coordinated through military channels. Not every operation we run is coordinated with every politician in Iraq." Though he declined to be drawn on the possible involvement of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, whose political leaders have led condemnation of the raid, Chiarelli said: "I think the backlash has been caused by the folks who set the scene up." Both generals praised the unidentified Iraqi unit involved for its record of discipline and minimizing the use of force. Chiarelli said: "They don't go in guns blazing." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The militants loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his militia, including the Other militias need to be dealt with.. not defended by Everyday Iraqi's in my opion. Moqtada al-Sadr needs to go !!

Salim, why were you so quick to blame the AMERICANS ?? .. the hearts and minds you'd better start winning back is the US PUBICS.. many here are getting fed up with the 8th century barbaric mentality of seemingly everyday IRAQI's and their childish but lethal internal power struggles. So you think you are disappointed ??? US, Mahdi forces clash Healing Iraq has news that a US force has clashed with Moqtada al Sadr's troops: American forces clashed with Mahdi army militiamen at the Ur district (Hayy Ur), west of Sadr city in Baghdad. It seems an American force attempted to raid a husseiniya in the area and was resisted by militiamen inside. Between 18 and 21 militiamen have been killed, and the Al-Mustafa Husseiniya was reported to be badly damaged in the ensuing firefight. I was on the phone with a colleague who lived there and he described it as a battlefield. Apache helicopters and jet fighters are still circling the area. Al-Iraqiya TV just aired some images from the husseiniya. 17 'guards' were killed. One of the corpses carried a Da'wa party (Iraq organisation) ID, and another carried an ID issued by the Islamic Conference of Iraqi Tribes. Someone in the background was asking the cameraman to film grenades lying around the corpses, to which the cameraman responded: "I can't show our guys' grenades." No, these are American grenades," the man in the background explained. "Oh, okay I'll film them." Al-Iraqiya TV was very critical of the attack, and is describing those killed as martyrs. The BBC confirms the clash. At least 18 Iraqis have died in clashes between US troops and militants loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr at a Baghdad mosque, Iraqi sources report. The US military said it was investigating the reports, which came from Iraqi police, medical sources and Mr Sadr's aides. "The American forces went into Mustafa mosque at prayers and killed more than 20 worshippers," Hazim al-Araji told Reuters news agency, citing a larger death toll than the 18 counted by medical sources. AFP news agency said residents close to the scene reported hearing gunfire and ambulances, while black-clad members of Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army could be seen in the streets Update Bill Roggio's post on the US clashes with the Mahdi Army are well worth reading. The impending fight against the Shiite militias, and particularly Sadr's Mahdi Army, has been telegraphed for some time. On March 18, Strategy Page predicted the ensuing conflict: The U.S. has told Iran that the Iraqi Shia militias being supported by Iran (the Sadr and Badr organizations) are going to get taken apart soon, and Iran is well advised to back off when this happens. ... Earlier this week, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, accused Iran of sponsoring the Shiite militias and inciting sectarian violence, and alluded to a future reckonning with the militias; "The militias haven't been focused on decisively yet ... The move against Sadr's militia and elements in the Interior Ministry may be isolated incidents, or may be the opening rounds of a campaign to fangled the radical Shiite elements inside and outside the government. If the move is a concerted campaign against the radical militias, this indicates the U.S. and Iraqi Army are calculating there is enough 'space' to take on a second front; the security forces can safely handle both the Sunni led insurgency and combat operations against Sadr's Madhi Army. Another possibility is the rogue militias can no longer safely be ignored, as their actions have now exceeding the threshold of tolerable violence and threaten to plunge the nation into civil war. Commentary Earlier, Zeyad at Healing Iraq had reported on the Mogadishu style desecration of a Sunni clerics corpse, as Sadr's men dragged his body around like a sack of trash. Zeyad said, "Note that life looks absolutely normal in the surroundings. You can see children running about, stores open, religious holiday flags and even a traffic jam. Perhaps Ralph Peters will happen to drive by with an American army patrol and enjoy the scene of children cheering for the troops, while wondering where his civil war is, dude." Additional information in via the International Herald Tribune reports that Iraqi forces were active in this raid. The article details other actions which Iraqi troops have been involved with, but which required American backup. Bill Roggio has an update with finer grained detail on the units involved: "elements of the 1st Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade..." with "U.S. Special Operations Forces... in an advisory capacity only." Plus some discussion on whether the building raided was a full-fledged mosque or a "prayer room". The participation of Iraqi forces is good news, as it suggests a that some Iraqi officials are onboard. The spin is already in. The BBC is reporting "The American forces went into Mustafa mosque at prayers and killed more than 20 worshippers". Healing Iraq notes that even on tape an Arabic speaking listener can hear the cameraman saying: Someone in the background was asking the cameraman to film grenades lying around the corpses, to which the cameraman responded: "I can't show our guys' grenades." "No, these are American grenades," the man in the background explained. "Oh, okay I'll film them." Al-Iraqiya TV was very critical of the attack, and is describing those killed as martyrs. So "martyrs" it is. If things don't fall apart in the coming days then the crisis will probably have passed. But the reaction of the Shi'a to this attack bears watching. From events in the past, I don't really expect any gratitude to be shown by either Sunni or Shi'a leaders for actions taken by the US to protect them against the depredations of militias. There might be some "gratitude" but what's more important is simply keeping people quiet and safe. Just my opinion. More Update Iraq the Model has some observations about the raid in which US and Iraqi troops are said to have massacred worshippers in a mosque. Anyway, footage from the scene shows burned vehicles outside the husseiniya, empty smoke grenades and inside the place there were empty shells of BKC machine gun (the main gun mounted on most of the Iraqi army vehicles) the BKC is not a one-GI carried gun but is rather used as a supportive-fire kind of weaponry and if soldiers were to execute armless people this would not be their gun of choice because AK-47s or pistols could do the job with less noise and are much easier to carry and it makes more sense to think that this weapon was fired by the people who were hiding inside the husseiniya especially that this gun is abundant at the arsenals of militias. Also the use of smoke grenades means the assault team was expecting-and likely encountered-resistance from inside the target building. There's also the burned vehicles on the street which indicate there was gunfire coming from inside the building because the MNF report says that Iraqi soldiers were fired at "after they entered their objective" and it makes no sense at all to fire at the street behind you when you're under fire from the building you are already inside. However, the best evidence that proves that members of Mehdi army were inside the building came from a prominent Sdarist parliamentarian and spokesman of the Sdar trend; Baha' al-Aaraji told al-Hurra this evening that "worshippers from inside the besieged husseiniya talked to us in person on the phone and asked for help…". So I wonder why would 'innocent ordinary worshippers' have the personal phone numbers of parliament members and Sadr office officials?!! Bill Roggio believes we have to understand the raid and its denunciations within the context of Iraqi politics. The raid on Sadr's milita should not be viewed as an isolated event, but as part of the continuing struggle to form the Iraqi government. The issue of the militias, and particularly Sadr's Mahdi Army, as well as Sadr's influence in the government, has come to a head. Last week, we discussed the creation of the Security Council, as well as a potential split between SCIRI and the United Iraqi Alliance over the selection of Jaafari as prime minister: Commentary Everybody has to get patted down before entering the government. Probably one of the reasons the negotiations to form a government are taking so long is that nobody trusts anybody to keep their guns out of the political arena. In some strange way these raids are part of the democratic process. Emphasis on strange. posted by wretchard at 12:41 PM | 188 comments links to this post

What We've Gained In 3 Years in Iraq By Donald H. Rumsfeld Sunday, March 19, 2006; B07 Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that "time is not on our side"and that "morale is down." Others have described a "very dangerous" turn of events and are "extremely concerned." Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates -- who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years. The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case. Fortunately, history is not made up of daily headlines, blogs on Web sites or the latest sensational attack. History is a bigger picture, and it takes some time and perspective to measure accurately. Consider that in three years Iraq has gone from enduring a brutal dictatorship to electing a provisional government to ratifying a new constitution written by Iraqis to electing a permanent government last December. In each of these elections, the number of voters participating has increased significantly -- from 8.5 million in the January 2005 election to nearly 12 million in the December election -- in defiance of terrorists' threats and attacks. One of the most important developments over the past year has been the increasing participation of Iraq's Sunni community in the political process. In the volatile Anbar province, where Sunnis are an overwhelming majority, voter turnout grew from 2 percent in January to 86 percent in December. Sunni sheiks and religious leaders who previously had been sympathetic to the insurgency are today meeting with coalition representatives, encouraging Iraqis to join the security forces and waging what violent extremists such as Abu al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda followers recognize as a "large-scale war" against them. The terrorists are determined to stoke sectarian tension and are attempting to spark a civil war. But despite the many acts of violence and provocation, the vast majority of Iraqis have shown that they want their country to remain whole and free of ethnic conflict. We saw this last month after the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra, when leaders of Iraq's various political parties and religious groups condemned the violence and called for calm. Another significant transformation has been in the size, capability and responsibility of Iraqi security forces. And this is vitally important, because it is Iraqis, after all, who must build and secure their own nation. Today, some 100 Iraqi army battalions of several hundred troops each are in the fight, and 49 control their own battle space. About 75 percent of all military operations in the country include Iraqi security forces, and nearly half of those are independently Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-conducted and Iraqi-led. Iraqi security forces have a greater ability than coalition troops to detect a foreign terrorist's accent, identify local suspects and use force without increasing a feeling of occupation. It was these Iraqi forces -- not U.S. or coalition troops -- that enforced curfews and contained the violence after the attack on the Golden Dome Shrine in Samarra. To be sure, violence of various stripes continues to slow Iraq's progress. But the coalition is doing everything possible to see this effort succeed and is making adjustments as appropriate. The rationale for a free and democratic Iraq is as compelling today as it was three years ago. A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbors, will not conspire with terrorists, will not pay rewards to the families of suicide bombers and will not seek to kill Americans. Though there are those who will never be convinced that the cause in Iraq is worth the costs, anyone looking realistically at the world today -- at the terrorist threat we face -- can come to only one conclusion: Now is the time for resolve, not retreat. Consider that if we retreat now, there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have the will to face them again. Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis. It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because it was too hard or too tough or we didn't have the patience to work with them as they built free countries. What we need to understand is that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want the coalition to succeed. They want better futures for themselves and their families. They do not want the extremists to win. And they are risking their lives every day to secure their country. That is well worth remembering on this anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The writer is U. S. Secretary of Defense.