Did Rummy leak
Does anyone else think Rummy might have leaked his own memo to embarass Bush in payback back stabbing for the Condi promotion without consulting with him first?
The blood is starting to flow in the Bush administration.
BBB
(EDITED) Re BBB:
On the nose, and it ain't the first time either..........
I rather doubt BBB's hypothesis ... for a variety of reasons. While there is always friction and contention between the Dept. of State and the Dept. of Defense, there is nowhere as much "Warfare" as some would like to think. While they may not all be on the same paragraph every time, the Current Administration is definitely all on the same page. And, while I fully suspected such would be the case, frankly, it is gratifying to learn for certain that indeed difficulties, shortcomings, and unexpected turns of event are being recognized and addressed. Contingency planning is a strong suite of that crew.
Yes, the oil :wink:
But the Iraquian population (in poll[s]) don't bother much about that:
Quote:(AFX-Focus) 2003-10-23 16:02 GMT: BREAKING NEWS
Iraqi majority view US as occupation force - poll
BAGHDAD (AFX) - An increasing number of Iraqis view the US forces as "occupiers" not liberators and say they want an Islamic-style democracy, citing Iran as a model, according to a new poll released today.
The results found 67 pct of Iraqis view the US-led coalition as an occupying force, while only 46 pct of the population considered them as such when US troops rolled into Baghdad on April 9, said the Iraqi Centre for Research and Strategic Studies.
Over the same timeframe, those who viewed the US forces as liberators slumped from 43 pct to 15 pct, the study said.
Asked about a future Iraqi government, 33 pct said they favour an Islamic model, as opposed to 30 pct who said yes to a Western-style democracy.
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lr/np/ims/
timber, It's nice that the oil revenues of Iraq will be transparent, but France, Germany, and Russia still will not contribute any more to the rebuilding of Iraq. Except for Japan, what other countries are "contributing, and how much?"
BBB, that is the first thing I thought of when I read the Rumsfeld memo!
Here ya go, c.i. , with more to come in the next few weeks:
$3bn-$5bn from the World Bank
$1.5bn from Japan
$835m from Britain
$300m from Spain
$231m from the European Union
$32.6m from Sweden
Obviously -like always- it depends where you look at:
Quote:
So far, Japan has pledged $1.5 billion for 2004; South Korea has agreed to $200 million, and Canada, $150 million. The World Bank has said it will lend Iraq $3 billion to $5 billion over the coming five years.
Spain pledged $300 million through 2007 and Britain $439 million for 2004-2005. An Italian foreign ministry official said Rome would give around $174 million over the next three years. All three governments were firm supporters of the U.S.-led invasion.
Smaller pledges came Thursday from Sweden, Belgium and the Philippines.
The European Union's head office has limited its contribution to one year, promising $233 million.
source: Washington Post [quotation], NYT, Spiegel, Guardian, Times, USToday
According to past history, I wonder if those pledges are 100 percent dependable?
CI -- What is the history with respect to pledges of this kind? Any research at hand?
Tartar, Most countries, even poor ones, contribute to other countries of lesser means. Even though Germany said they will not contribute to Iraq's reconstruction, they have been contributing money to Iraq for many years.
Of those listed, the only entity without a track record of reliability is the EU ... and that's just because it hasn't been around long enough to eastablish much of a record. It may last long enough to establish a track record, despite France and Germany.
Sorta funny ... the folks who were raggin' that "Nobody's helping" now grab for the "Maybe they don't mean it" straw.
I think the history of the dependability is interesting -- part of the diplomatic structure. A great deal goes on behind closed doors, obviously, and transparency only exists between the spectators and the outside of the door!
timberlandko wrote:Sorta funny ... the folks who were raggin' that "Nobody's helping" now grab for the "Maybe they don't mean it" straw.
Or maybe to the ... "Its cause the US was forced to give them their way in the end" one ... as noted in the item linked earlier already too:
U.S. Set to Cede Part of Control Over Aid to Iraq
Again the wrote:Under pressure from potential donors, the Bush administration will allow a new agency to determine how to spend billions of dollars in reconstruction assistance for Iraq, administration and international aid officials say.
The new agency, to be independent of the American occupation, will be run by the World Bank and the United Nations. They are to announce the change at a donor conference in Madrid later this week.
The change effectively establishes some of the international control over Iraq that the United States opposed in the drafting of the United Nations Security Council resolution that passed on Thursday. [..]
[D]iplomats say other countries were unwilling to make donations because they saw the United States as an occupying power controlling Iraq's reconstruction and self-rule. [..] European countries, [..] a World Bank official said [..] "want their own say over how the money is spent." [..]
[T]he previously set up entity, the Development Fund for Iraq, which is run by the occupation administrators and the Iraqis [..] has given big contracts to American companies like Halliburton and Bechtel.
But the new agency could open up that process and award contracts through bidding practices open to global companies. Donors could also give directly to Iraq, specifying that their own companies do the work. [..]
In June, when plans for Madrid got started, World Bank and United Nations officials said donors began pressing for an agency outside the control of the occupation.
At first, the Defense Department, which runs the occupation, resisted handing over financial control of Iraq's rebuilding. [..] The administration changed its mind in recent weeks, in part because of the support of Mr. Bremer.
"We had to act because the international community was stonewalling us on aid," said an administration official. According to the official, Mr. Bremer said, "I need the money so bad we have to move off our principled opposition to the international community being in charge." [..]
The still relatively small donations from non-coalition countries, apart from Japan, evidences that the trust in the new arrangements is still conditional, but at least an opening was created after the US finally gave in.
Kinda like, is the glass 1/2 full or 50% empty
timberlandko wrote:IILZ, research the difference between Chapter VI resolutions, under which all of the resolutions pertaining to Israel fall, and Chapter VII Resolutions, under which the pertinent resolutions in the Iraq matter fall. There is no basis for enforcement of Chapter VII resolutions; they call on the parties to a dispute to negotiate. No negotiation is provided under Chapter VII resolutions; they are demands for compliance on the pain of sanction up to and explicitly including armed intervention.
Which further proves my point. We pressured the UN into laying economic sanctions on nations we don't like because they refused to extradite people we wanted. Boo hoo. On the other hand, the Isrealis have gotten away with much more serious crimes with no real consequences. Another example of America twisting the UN to give global legitimacy to actions that reflect American interests.
Quote:I make no claim of trying to defend the best interests of the UN; the US did nothing more than put its money where the UN's mouth was. I have no interest in the best interest of the UN. Apparently, neither does the UN.
It is the idea that America was taking some noble action by stepping in to correct the misguided UN that bugs me. We use the UN as a tool of our foriegn policy, that is all. In those rare instances that we are unable to control UN policy (ie- waging an unjustified war) we simply ignore them.
