THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Bush has great imagination. Must consider the source. He still hasn't figured out what the consequences are.

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Hindsight's great isn't it?

At the time of that speech, it was irrefutable. That's why we invaded. To refute the evidence.

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my comments are in blue

old europe wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
First, I don't think Condi was lying in 2001 when she said that. I think Condi said in 2001 what she believed in 2001 to be true. Notice, Condi did not say that in 2003 before we invaded Iraq.

yep. I found that suspicious, too.
"too?" I didn't find it suspicious.

ican711nm wrote:
Second, the fact that Saddam's forces did in fact enter northern Iraq several times shows that his lack of control of northern Iraq did not prevent him from attempting to gain control when he chose to do so. See the quote that follows.

Quote:
Encyclopedia Britannica On Line
www.Britannica.com
History > The Republic of Iraq > Iraq under Saddam Hussein > First Persian Gulf War > The invasion
…
Only with Western intervention did the Kurdish refugees feel they could return to their homes in northern Iraq. In April 1991 the United States, the United Kingdom, and France established a “safe haven” in Iraqi Kurdistan, in which Iraqi forces were barred from operating. Within a short time the Kurds had established autonomous rule, and two main Kurdish factions—the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in the north and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the south—contended with one another for control. This competition encouraged the Ba'thist regime to attempt to direct affairs in the Kurdish Autonomous Region by various means, including military force. The Iraqi military launched a successful attack against the Kurdish city of Arbil in 1996 and engaged in a consistent policy of ethnic cleansing in areas directly under its control—particularly in and around the oil-rich city of Karkuk—that were inhabited predominantly by Kurds and other minorities.

irrelevant, because the year mentioned is 1996. But, in 2001 Condi said (I have to repeat this) "He does not control the northern part of his country." Which is a good thing. Because you believe what she said was true.
All I said was that I believe she wasn't lying; that is, I believe she believed that what she said in 2001 was true. I don't believe it was true then, or later at the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003.

Happens to be: 2001 was the year Ansar al Islam was founded in northern Iraq:

Quote:
It was formed in December 2001 as a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan

So, obviously, it was founded after Saddam lost control over the north.
Saddam wasn't unable to gain control in the north until Iraq was invaded in 2003.

ican711nm wrote:
Third, the US specifically requested Saddam to extradite the leadership of the al Qaeda in northern Iraq and thereby granted to Saddam clearance to attack and remove the al Qaeda in northern Iraq.

Now, this is very much how you are interpreting it. Had Saddam sent a few fighters to the north to bomb the 'bases', I doubt very much that the US would have said "Hey, he's in violation of another UN resolution, but he's so much on our side! Fabulous!"
How else shall what Powell said in his speech to the UN 2/5/2003 be rationally interpreted?

Quote:
To the UN, Colin Powell alleged, 2/5/2003:
OLD: www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/17300pf.htm
NEW: www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/17300.htm
1. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.

2. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq. … Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.

3. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still remains at large, to come and go.

ican711nm wrote:
While choosing to enter other parts of northern Iraq to serve his own purposes, Saddam chose not to enter the al Qaeda part of northern Iraq, when he had clearance to do so, to remove al Qaeda leadership and bases.

Proof for that, ican? He entered the northern part with military forces after 2001? Never heard that before.
I don't know whether he did or not. That's not the point. The point is there was nothing to prevent him from entering that part of northern Iraq in which the al Qaeda bases were located.

ican711nm wrote:
Fourth, not having control does not mean unable to gain control.

Don't understand. Care to elaborate?

I'd be delighted to. I'll try three examples.
I'm piloting an airplane and have inadvertently flown into a thunderstorm in Instrument Meterological Conditions. The airplane goes into what we aviators euphemistically call Unusual Attitudes; that is I completely lose control of the airplane. Then because I chose to try I subsequently gained control and flew out of that thunderstorm.

Here's a better example. At the beginning of WWII the US lost control of Midway and Wake Islands. The US subsequently chose to try and did gain control of those islands.

An even better example. Saddam lost control of northern Iraq after the 1991 war. He subsequently tried and did gain control of part of it. At the US's invitation, he could have, had he chosen to, subsequently try to gain control of that part of northern Iraq in which the al Qaeda bases were located. He chose not to.

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McGentrix wrote:

Hindsight's great isn't it?

At the time of that speech, it was irrefutable. That's why we invaded. To refute the evidence.

McG, sorry: May 29, 2003 was after the invasion. He just lied.

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The article C.I. posted is from Feb. 5, 2003. A bit prior to the invasion.

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McGentrix wrote:

The article C.I. posted is from Feb. 5, 2003. A bit prior to the invasion.

Sorry. I thought you referred to when Bush said "We found the weapons of mass destruction."

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I "know" it's before the invasion. It's obvious that their sources for all their information was lacking in many ways. Even the intelligent agecies warned this administration about their lack of independent confirmation of what they shared. There were many media coverage about this very subject after both Bush and Powell's speech. I'm sure a search will bring up thousands of hits.

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old europe wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
Hindsight's great isn't it?

At the time of that speech, it was irrefutable. That's why we invaded. To refute the evidence.

McG, sorry: May 29, 2003 was after the invasion. He just lied.

Naaa! He didn't lie. The fool actually thought we had found them. Subsequently he corrected his statement and stated we hadn't found them.

However, just this week we learn from the NYT that large amounts of WMD stuff was pilfered from several storage facilities in the Baghdad area after we invaded but before we could stop the pilfering. Of course, that doesn't mean that any of that stuff was ready-to-use WMD and consequently couldn't be considered an imminent threat--only a growing threat..

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Here's a good start. http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1%3Baction=display%3Bthreadid=12441

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To sum things up, ican:

Saddam's crime was not trying to regain control about an area he had lost control over and where, after he had lost control, as a merger of Jund al-Islam and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, Ansar al Islam was founded, which allegedly had contact to Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad, which was probably led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is alleged to be a senior al Qaida associate of Osama bin Laden.

Heck, reason to bomb Baghdad, for sure!

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ican711nm wrote:

old europe wrote:
McGentrix wrote:
Hindsight's great isn't it?

At the time of that speech, it was irrefutable. That's why we invaded. To refute the evidence.

McG, sorry: May 29, 2003 was after the invasion. He just lied.

Naaa! He didn't lie. The fool actually thought we had found them. Subsequently he corrected his statement and stated we hadn't found them.

However, just this week we learn from the NYT that large amounts of WMD stuff was pilfered from several storage facilities in the Baghdad area after we invaded but before we could stop the pilfering. Of course, that doesn't mean that any of that stuff was ready-to-use WMD and consequently couldn't be considered an imminent threat--only a growing threat..

Holy cow, ican! A whole post by you that I can agree with! Duh... Very Happy

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Holy cow is right! Even I agree with ican. Miracles never ceases if we wait long enough.

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old europe wrote:

To sum things up, ican:

Saddam's crime was not trying to regain control about an area he had lost control over and where, after he had lost control, as a merger of Jund al-Islam and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, Ansar al Islam was founded, which allegedly had contact to Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad, which was probably led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is alleged to be a senior al Qaida associate of Osama bin Laden.

Heck, reason to bomb Baghdad, for sure!

It was reason to replace Saddam's regime. Removing those bases would not of itself stopped those bases from being re-established once we pulled out. We have to replace Saddam's regime with a democratic government of the Iraqis own design in order to reduce the chance of those bases being re-established in Iraq.

The same logic applies to our invasion of Afghanistan. Destruction of al Qaeda bases is not enough. In Afghanistan we have to replace the Taliban regime with a democratic government of the Aghanistanis own design in order to reduce the chance of those bases being re-established in Afghanistan.

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old europe wrote:

...Saddam's crime was not trying to regain control about an area he had lost control over and where, after he had lost control, as a merger of Jund al-Islam and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan, Ansar al Islam was founded, which allegedly had contact to Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad, which was probably led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is alleged to be a senior al Qaida associate of Osama bin Laden....

ican711nm wrote:

It was reason to replace Saddam's regime.

Okay. Was trying to understand you. Do now. Must go to bed. ' later!

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How could Bush affect the 'free and fair' Iraqi election?
Read on ...

QUOTE]Here are some rules for forming a government after a parliamentary election:

' After a general election, in general, the party with the most MPs become the government, and the party with the next lowest number of MPs forms the official opposition. This always happens if one party has a majority of MPs. The leader of the government party will become the Prime Minister. The government in the House of Commons sits on the government benches, and the opposition and all other MPs sit on the opposition benches on the other side of the House.

It is usually necessary for a government to have the majority of the MPs in the country. If no party has an overall majority, the party with the most MPs has the first chance to form a coalition. In a coalition government, the government consists of two parties rather than one, and there will need to be some compromise on issues where the parties disagree, although the coalition will almost certainly be between parties with similar views. It is usually advantageous to both parties, who have more power together than they would otherwise. '

Do you note how if a party has 51% in this parliamentary system, it automatically gets to form a government?

So why is the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shiite parties that can count on about 53% of the members of the Iraqi parliament to vote for it in the wake of the Jan. 30 elections, not able to form a government? If it were the Labor Party in the UK, which is the parliament described above, Ibrahim Jaafari would already be Prime Minister.

The US spiked the Iraqi parliamentary process by putting in a provision that a government has to be formed with a 2/3s majority. This provision is a neo-colonial imposition on Iraq. The Iraqi public was never asked about it. And, it is predictably producing gridlock, as the UIA is forced to try to accommodate a party that should be in the opposition in the British system, the Kurdistan Alliance.

Likewise, in France, a simple majority of the National Assembly can dismiss the cabinet. Likewise in India. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2/3s super-majority is characteristic of only one nation on earth, i.e. American Iraq. I fear it is functioning in an anti-democratic manner to thwart the will of the majority of Iraqis, who braved great danger to come out and vote.

It is all to the good if the Shiites and Kurds are forced to come to a set of hard compromises. But not everything can be decided at the beginning of the process. Some issues (Kirkuk is a good example) must be decided by a long-term negotiation. I perceive this latest Kurdish demarche to consist in a power play where they grab all sorts of concessions on a short-term basis, just because they are needed to form a government, even though no national consensus has emerged on these issues.

I think there is also a real chance that Iraqis will turn against the idea of democracy if it only produces insecurity, violence, and gridlock.
Mon, Mar 14, 2005 0:30[/QUOTE]

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=MAFAL&SECTION=HOME

Five Killed in Three Baghdad Car Bombs

By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Kurdish and Shiite leaders agreed to convene Iraq's new parliament on Wednesday even if they fail to iron out some wrinkles in their deal to form a coalition government. Three car bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing at least five people, police said.

Shiite officials said Monday that they also agreed to reach out to the country's Sunni Arab community to name the parliament speaker for the 275-member National Assembly that is to convene for the first time since Jan. 30 elections.

On Tuesday, a car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy exploded on a road near the main avenue leading to Baghdad's international airport, police Capt. Thamir Talib said. Four civilians were killed and seven were wounded, including two police officers, he said.

In a report unconfirmed by U.S. officials, witnesses said some U.S. troops were also wounded. When U.S. forces arrived on the scene to evacuate them, another car bomb exploded, wounding more troops. One Humvee was destroyed and two civilian cars were in flames, witnesses said.

A U.S. military spokesman said he was checking into the report.

Another suicide car bomb exploded in northeastern Baghdad, killing one child and wounding at least four people, including a police officer, police Col. Muhanad Sadoun said. The bomber was trying to hit a traffic police patrol but crashed into a tree, Sadoun said.

Separately, a U.S. Marine with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force died Monday in Anbar, a troubled province that has been a hotbed of guerrilla activity and includes the cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Qaim, officials said Tuesday.

The Shiite clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance and a Kurdish coalition, which won the two biggest blocks of seats in Jan. 30 elections, agreed last week to form a coalition government with Islamic Dawa party leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister. In return, Jalal Talabani will become Iraq's first Kurdish president.

"We discussed the blueprint of the agreement reached Thursday. Some issues were revised and those revisions are still being discussed," alliance member Ali al-Dabagh told The Associated Press.

Al-Dabagh expressed optimism a final deal would be reached soon, but added that even without an agreement "the first session of the National Assembly will be held on Wednesday anyway."

Barham Saleh, a Kurd, indicated the two groups want to reach out to other factions to fill some Cabinet posts.

He said Shiite and Kurd negotiators planned to meet Tuesday with representatives from interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List, which placed a distant third in the parliamentary elections.

The interim government, meanwhile, announced that Iraqi security forces had captured two of ousted leader Saddam Hussein's relatives in his hometown of Tikrit and alleged they helped launch terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Its statement said one-time Saddam bodyguard Marwan Taher Abdul Rashid and Abdullah Maher Abdul Rashid were arrested last Tuesday. State-run Iraqiya television said the two men were cousins and Abdullah was a brother-in-law of Saddam's slain son Qusai.

Abdullah was strongly believed to have "used big amounts of money that he received from Qusai ... to finance terrorism in Iraq," and Marwan "has been involved in a number of attacks against the security forces," the government statement said, giving no other details.

Al-Dabagh declined to discusses details of the issues that had snagged the Shiite alliance's talks with the Kurds, but did say that the negotiators meeting at a home inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone talked about who should get the parliament speaker post.

"We still do not have an agreement on who will be parliament speaker," he said. "We do not want to name the speaker; the Sunnis must participate in this decision." He said they would meet with Sunni Arab representatives Tuesday.

Sunni Arabs, who make up only about 20 percent of the population but were the dominant group under Saddam's regime, largely stayed away from the elections - either to honor a boycott call or because they feared being attacked at the polls by insurgents.

The United Iraqi Alliance has proposed Sheik Fawaz al-Jarba, one of the few Sunni Arabs in its coalition, to be speaker. It was unclear if he would be acceptable to the Sunni community.

Sunni Arabs are thought to make up the core of the insurgency and including them in a future government or in the political process is seen as a way to isolate the militants.

The Shiite alliance won 140 seats in the National Assembly, but need the Kurds' 75 seats to assemble the two-thirds majority required to elect a president, who will then nominate the prime minister.

---

Associated Press writers Qasim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Kirkuk contributed to this report.

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Gelisgesti wrote:

Quote:

...

The US spiked the Iraqi parliamentary process by putting in a provision that a government has to be formed with a 2/3s majority. This provision is a neo-colonial imposition on Iraq. The Iraqi public was never asked about it. And, it is predictably producing gridlock, as the UIA is forced to try to accommodate a party that should be in the opposition in the British system, the Kurdistan Alliance.
...

That should be decided by the newly elected Iraqi assembly itself. The US Constitutional Convention established its own ratification number (i.e., 9 out of 13 states). Why can't the newly elected Iraqi Assembly itself make its own decision too, regardless of what anyone else thought or thinks? After all, the US objective is a democracy of the Iraqis own design.

Quote:

Article VII
The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying the same.

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,
G. Washington-Presidt. and deputy from Virginia
New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King
Connecticut: Wm: Saml. Johnson, Roger Sherman
New York: Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey: Wil: Livingston, David Brearly, Wm. Paterson, Jona: Dayton
Pennsylvania: B. Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robt. Morris, Geo. Clymer, Thos. FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouv Morris
Delaware: Geo: Read, Gunning Bedford jun, John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jaco: Broom
Maryland: James McHenry, Dan of St Thos. Jenifer, Danl Carroll
Virginia: John Blair--, James Madison Jr.
North Carolina: Wm. Blount, Richd. Dobbs Spaight, Hu Williamson
South Carolina: J. Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler
Georgia: William Few, Abr Baldwin

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Ican, do you realize what this means ......... we agree 100% on something....... AIIEEEEEE
Run away run away!!! it's the last sign of the Apocalypse .....

So it is written that the elephant shall lie down with the donkey and they shall become one in the last days
Shocked

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Don't worry, Ge, I thought the same thing during a discussion about using an Alaskan-style model for sharing of oil profits in Iraq about 500 pages ago (sheesh, lol). It'll pass quickly.

An open statement: what interesting politics this region would have if the violence wasn't a factor!

I mean, the sectarian nature of the thing really adds to the heat of debate, yaknow?

Cycloptichorn

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Then you too have felt cold icy fear ... Brother

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THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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