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

I believe you are applying a standard that no government has met nor could ever meet. Carrington's example was no more exemplary of that age than any other (and I strongly suspect there were other factors involves even there,).

Where did the historical phrase "perfidious Albion" come from?

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From our dear neighbours across the Channel, our "traditional enemies".

"Perfidious Albion" means "treacherous Britain" ("Albion" deriving for the pre-Roman name for Britain). The phrase was coined in a poem of 1793 by Augustin, Marquis of Ximenez, who wrote, "Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion". It was popularised in 1813 when it was used as a recruiting slogan for the Napoleonic war.

They had (1759 et seq.) a lot of trouble from us in Canada.

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McTag wrote:

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday April 24, 2005 The Observer

The Iraq war was thrust dramatically into the election spotlight last night after long-sought government legal advice, cautioning that the invasion could be illegal, was leaked. ......

McTag please provide a reference to, a link to, or an excerpt from the law which Blair is alleged to have violated.

Quote:

cautioning that the invasion could be illegal

does not even rise to the level of endictment much less conviction of illegal behavior. Without a specific description of the law allegedly broken, the repeated accusation that the law was broken sinks to the level of demagoguery, and the people who repeat such accusations have sunk to the level of demagogues: that is, persons who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

Absent persuasive evidence that Blair knowingly expressed falsehoods, I think it highly probable that the people currently accusing Blair of lying are lying.

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revel wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
2. How critical to the future security of Americans is the success of US efforts to secure a democracy of the Iraqis own design.

Second question: I hope that I have never pretended to know everything but I don't see how securing Iraq is going to affect us over here. In fact it seems to have gotten all the terrorist over there into Iraq where Iraqi's can die instead of us. If that was our aim, I guess we succeeded.

I agree that "it seems to have gotten all the terrorist[s] over there into Iraq." I think it has "gotten all the terrorist[s] over there into Iraq" where the terrorists can die instead of us. While that was apparently not our aim, it would nonetheless be an excellent result.

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By the way, if the US had not invaded Iraq, how long do you think it would have taken for say less than two-dozen terrorists to be trained adequately in northeastern Iraq to replicate a suicide attack on the US (or England, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, or even Scotland Shocked

) like the one on 9/11/2001?

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Quote:

Publication] Prospect
[Date] 050421
[Headline] To catch a thief
[Author] Dean Godson

Set a thief to catch a thief" has been one of the guiding principles of American and British efforts to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Far from being pariahs in the new democratic Iraq, ex-Ba'athists constitute the backbone of the reformed Iraqi intelligence service's efforts to face down "FREs"-"Former Regime Elements," to use US military jargon. Some 9,000 servants of the ancien régime have been recalled to the various intelligence branches since the US pro-consul, Paul Bremer, reversed course last April 2004 and announced that the policy of "de-Ba'athification" had been "poorly implemented." In other words, the good FREs were supposed to carry the fight to the bad ones.

After Bremer's volte face, insurgent attacks shot up. It was perhaps coincidental-or perhaps not. But since the election, there has been a sharp fall in bombings and murders: the latest figures indicate that attacks on US forces have dropped from 140 to 30 a day. There are a number of reasons for this, including improved coalition tactics on the ground and the demoralising effects on the rebels of a successful poll.

But even if these successes are maintained, the political orientation and nature of the new Iraq will be profoundly affected by the composition of its security services. Already, many Iraqi democrats fear that there will be a reprise of the state of affairs under the monarchy: over-representation of Sunnis in the upper reaches of the armed services, which made that polity desperately vulnerable to coups.

In fact the role of ex-Ba'athists in the security forces has become one of the most controversial issues in the new democratic Iraq-and triggered bitter exchanges in the new parliament in Baghdad in early April. Shia legislators alleged that the outgoing prime minister, Iyad Allawi (himself an ex-Ba'athist) had accelerated "re-Ba'athification" during his last days in office.

Even staunch anti-Ba'athists are sceptical of some of these claims, but the attacks were sufficiently stinging to prompt the interim defence minister, Hazem Shaalan, to return to the chamber and rebut the charges. Shaalan denied that he had recruited any Ba'athists and sought instead to place the blame for any hirings at the door of the Americans and the British.

It is hard to verify the accuracy of Shaalan's assertion. What can be said, though, is that the organising principles of the Iraqi intelligence services are opaque-which explains much of the anger of the newly elected Iraqi legislators. The intelligence services submitted no budgets to the old unelected assembly. And under an emergency decree passed by Allawi in 2004, they now have the authority to conduct their own prosecutions and arrests, as well as run prisons and interrogation centres.

Few think that the incoming government, headed by the Shia Islamist Ibrahim Jaafari, will tolerate this state of affairs for long. One of the critical issues in Iraqi politics is to what extent the coalition will permit the Iraqis to effect tat-heer, or "cleansing," of the intelligence services. In other words, a classic "who rules?" struggle.
The story of re-Ba'athification is peculiar indeed. With the insurgency gaining momentum in late 2003 and early 2004, American and British forces desperately needed whatever trained personnel came to hand. As casualties grew, the need for "Iraqisation" or the handing over of responsibility to local security forces grew ever more urgent, especially in a US presidential election year. After the alleged disaster of the disbandment of the Iraqi army in May 2003, which was said to have put thousands of discontented officers on to the streets with nothing to do but join the insurgency, de-Ba'athification itself became seen as a liability. Who knew better how to handle the terrorists than their former comrades-in-arms-subject, of course, to the appropriate vetting? It also became imperative to ensure that the disempowered Sunnis were not allowed to coalesce into a single united bloc. What better token of their stake in the new Iraq than reintegration into the key organs of state?

The roots of the re-Ba'athification policy go back much further than that, though. Much of the debate in Washington has been fought out between neoconservative proponents of democracy, concentrated at the Pentagon and the office of the vice-president and "realists" at the state department and the CIA. The latter group feared a Shia-dominated democracy getting too close to Iran and destabilising their Sunni Arab clients in neighbouring states. To realists, the problem with Iraq was not the Ba'ath party but Saddam and his henchmen. They wanted a far more limited "de-Saddamisation." Throughout much of the 1990s, the "realists" did not seek a popular uprising to overthrow Saddam. Instead, they craved a coup from within the Ba'athist hierarchy.

It was the realist faction, with British assistance, which prevailed in Washington over the neocons and which helped place Allawi in the prime minister's office. He was a key figure in one of multiple failed coup attempts sponsored by the CIA out of Jordan in the mid-1990s. One of his main lieutenants was Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani. Like so many of these officers, Shahwani left the country more because he had fallen out of favour rather than out of a wish to construct a democratic Iraq. Today, he is head of the new Iraqi intelligence service, commanding a 1500-strong paramilitary force known locally as the Shahwanis..

The new intelligence service seems to be thoroughly unrepresentative of the society which it seeks to defend- both in political and sectarian terms. In a country that is 60 per cent Shia, best estimates suggest that a mere 12 per cent of the intelligence services now come from the majority community. Some reports indicate that Shahwani personally vets every Shia candidate. Sectarian affiliation alone does not, of course, connote suitability or unsuitabiliy for appointment; about 40 per cent of Saddam's foreign intelligence service was composed of Shias.
Yet even if not a single member of this new service is conspiring with his old Ba'athist chums in the insurgency, the imbalance creates at minimum a big perception problem. If you were a Shia or an anti-Saddam Sunni who had just come through 35 years of hell, would you assist the new Iraqi security forces or the coalition when they are bulging full of your former tormentors? This is a society of mistrust-especially after the failure of the 1991 uprising-and the coalition has done little to alleviate such sentiments. Many democrats also fear that the recent fatwa issued by a prominent group of Sunni clerics called the Muslim Scholars Association-calling for Sunnis to join the security forces but to abstain from assisting the occupiers-presages a further programme of infiltrating the organs of state.

One of the key issues here is quis custodet? The CIA's Iraqi station is now said to be the largest in the world, amounting to around 500 personnel, many of whom are based in the same buildings as their Arab counterparts. But few observers reckon that the agency has the linguistic or cultural abilities, let alone the manpower, to maintain full control of thousands of ex-Ba'athist protégés. After all, the latter enjoy the priceless advantage of operating on their own terrain.

The most effective way of monitoring the ex-Ba'athists' activities is by changing the intelligence service's recruitment policy-to achieve a better balance between the old and the new Iraq. Certainly, many putative applicants from the ranks of the Shia Islamists either lack the skills or else are loyal to Tehran, but it would be wrong to infer from this that clandestine skills are the preserve of the representatives of the ancien régime. Both the Iraqi National Congress and the Kurdish PUK ran counter-intelligence programmes against Saddam's regime.
One lesson which could be learned from the Ba'athist insurgents is their cohesiveness, even as they speak in an increasingly Islamist voice. Ideological commitment is a great asset. The best guarantee of a reliable intelligence service is one that is staffed by people loyal to the vision of a democratic Iraq. For as fans of Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief know, it can be hard to distinguish between the reformed diamond thieves and those who are still wedded to the bad old ways.

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Ican you missed the point. The point was that we have dragged the terrorist into Iraq and they are killing Iraqi's now. Bush even egged them on to do it as though it is better to kill Iraqi's than for any of us to be killed.

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Quote:

Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post reports, that the security situation is deteriorating in palpable ways. "In city after city . . . security forces who had signed up to secure Iraq and replace U.S. forces appear to have abandoned posts or taken refuge inside them for fear of attacks. ''We joined the police, and after this, the job became a way of committing suicide,'' said Jasim Khadar Harki, a 28-year-old policeman in Mosul, where residents say patrols are dropping off noticeably, often appearing only in response to attacks. Tips from Mosul's residents have dropped off as well, with residents doubtful that police can protect informants from retaliation."

Al-Hayat reports that Shiite-Sunni tensions in Iraq are boiling over. The new governor of Najaf, Asad Abu Kalal, threatened the Sunni Arabs with reprisals, during the funeral Saturday for victims of an attack on congregatnts at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad on Friday. He demanded that the Association for Muslim Scholars (a hardline Sunni group that often functions as the political wing of the guerrilla movement) "dissociate itself from the criminals." Th governor of Najaf is from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite, fairly hardline group long in exile in Iran.

Abu Kalal said, "We hold responsible the members of the Sunni branch . . . and demand that they issue statements and halt these criminal actions, so that we are not constrained to react . . ."

Ghazi al-Yawir, the Sunni vice president, formed a Sunni Arab committee to negotiate with prospective prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari. They are asking for 7 cabinet posts, at least one of them a powerful one like Defense.
Sun, Apr 24, 2005 5:00

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revel wrote:

Ican you missed the point. The point was that we have dragged the terrorist into Iraq and they are killing Iraqi's now. Bush even egged them on to do it as though it is better to kill Iraqi's than for any of us to be killed.

I understood that was your point. I understand that is your point now.

I disagree with your point. We seek to save the Iraqis from their terrorist murderers as quickly and as cheaply as we can; and not to relocate the terrorists to Iraq to kill Iraqis instead of Americans.

That point of yours is part of the standard insane liturgy of the Bush&Adm opposition disposed to see every bad consequence of our invasion of Iraq in terms of their perceived intention of Bush&Adm to cause that bad consequence. That opposition requires intensive therapy to recover from their continuing flight from reality, but I doubt they ever will recover no matter how well things actually turn out. I wish they could find some other way than obstructing US anti-terrorist efforts to express their paranoia and revulsion of Bush&Adm. It puts us all at too great a risk.

I think the past, current and future intention of Bush&Adm is exactly what they said and are still saying it is: destroy international terrorism. The terrorists understand that if they lose in Iraq they will likely lose everywhere. They realize that they lose in Iraq when Iraq is itself able to defend itself against these terrrorists. That I believe is the obviously real reason the terrorists have swarmed like locusts into Iraq from the rest of the world, and that is the reason why these terrorists are killing all the Iraqis they can who they think cooperate or they think may cooperate with the elected government of Iraq.

The Bush&Adm want the Iraqi government to quickly reach the point where the US can risk leaving Iraq without fear the terrorists will re-constitute their training programs. Bush&Adm with good reason anticipate that such re-constitution will evitably lead to future assaults on the West in general and the US in particular.

So do I.

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ican711nm wrote:

McTag wrote:
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday April 24, 2005 The Observer

The Iraq war was thrust dramatically into the election spotlight last night after long-sought government legal advice, cautioning that the invasion could be illegal, was leaked. ......

McTag please provide a reference to, a link to, or an excerpt from the law which Blair is alleged to have violated.

Read this

A government at bay over Iraq war legality
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
25 April 2005
The Iraq war was thrust to the top of the election agenda last night after the Attorney General's advice to the Prime Minister over the legality of the conflict was leaked.
The leak sparked the most bitter personal attacks on Mr Blair of the campaign so far with Michael Howard, the Tory leader, calling the Prime Minister a "liar". Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said it would put trust in Mr Blair at the heart of the election and turn the contest into a referendum on Mr Blair's integrity.
Sensing that the tide could swing against Mr Blair, the Liberal Democrats today publish anti-war advertisements depicting Tony Blair and George Bush smiling together with the message: "Never again".
Mr Kennedy will call for a fresh Falklands-style public inquiry into Mr Blair's conduct over the war. "Tony Blair claims his government has been open and straightforward on Iraq but every piece of information has been wrung out of them in the face of stiff resistance," he will say. … (More)

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=632773

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Well McTag, I read your piece and I don't see in it any assertion that Britain's participation in the Iraqi intervention would be illegal.

Instead there are lawyerly suggestions that it "would be safer to have a second UN resolution", and that critics could argue that only the UN can determine if the provisions of its earlier resolutions have been broken, Sounds like typical lawyerly advice to me expressing only the hazards of an action, which, while not clearly illegal, could be so characterized by political foes.

It is noteworthy that at the same time the American President had already expressed very clearly his view that previous Security Council resolutions have been repeatedly broken and flouted by Saddam (as was patently obvious to all - including those UN senior staffers ands a few British & French politicians on the take from Saddam's oil for food program), and that, if the UN refused to act, it would become irrelevant with respect to the Iraq matter and other international issues as well.

The UN could have responded to Bush's clear statement that he intended to decide for himself what course of action with respect to Iraq would be appropriate, and that he interpreted previous UN resolutions as already granting whatever authorization might be needed from that body. Instead the UN continued to equivocate - and take its bribes.

No one schooled in the real world actions of people and organizations in political situations could reasonably conclude that this was an illegal action. It does lack the overwhelming clarity required to prevent the political enemies of those who acted from claiming that it was illegal. However that isn't saying much at all.

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Those "lawyerly suggestions", George, came from Lord Goldsmith, the
Attorney General.

His report - as presented - was the UK's legal justification for the war.

Intersting summary here:

Quote:

In quotes: Blair and Iraq weapons
Here are some of the key statements made by the prime minister about Saddam Hussein's weapons - before and after the war.
10 April 2002, House of Commons

"Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked.

"He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."

24 September 2002, House of Commons

"It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability..."

25 February 2003, House of Commons

"The intelligence is clear: (Saddam) continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression.

"The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death."

11 March 2003, MTV debate

"If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them."

18 March 2003, House of Commons

"We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."

4 June 2003, House of Commons

"There are literally thousands of sites. As I was told in Iraq, information is coming in the entire time, but it is only now that the Iraq survey group has been put together that a dedicated team of people, which includes former UN inspectors, scientists and experts, will be able to go in and do the job properly.

"As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction."

8 July 2003, Evidence to Commons liaison committee

"I don't concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong.

"I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes."

16 December 2003, Interview with British Forces Broadcasting Service

"The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles."

16 December 2003, Interview with BBC Arabic Service

"I don't think it's surprising we will have to look for them. I'm confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what's happened to those weapons because he had them."

4 January, 2004, Speech to British forces near Basra, Iraq

"Repressive states are developing weapons that could cause destruction on a massive scale."

11 January 2004 , Interview with BBC Breakfast with Frost

What you can say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam's programmes and about his weapons that we acted on that, it's the case throughout the whole of the conflict.

I remember having conversations with the chief of defence staff and other people were saying well, we think we might have potential WMD find here or there.

Now these things didn't actually come to anything in the end, but I don't know is the answer. And what I do know is that the group of people that are in there now, this Iraq survey group, they produced an interim report."

25 January 2004, Interview with the Observer newspaper

"I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the intelligence was genuine.

"It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation."

3 February, 2004, evidence to Commons liaison committee

"What is true about (ex-Iraq Survey Group head) David Kay's evidence, and this is something I have to accept, and is one of the reasons why I think we now need a new inquiry - it is true David Kay is saying we have not found large stockpiles of actual weapons."

6 June, 2004, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

"What we also know is we haven't found them [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq - now let the survey group complete its work and give us the report... They will not report that there was no threat from Saddam, I don't believe."

6 July, 2004, evidence to Commons Liaison Committee

"I have to accept we haven't found them (WMD) and we may never find them, We don't know what has happened to them. "They could have been removed. They could have been hidden. They could have been destroyed."

14 July, 2004, statement on the Butler report

"We expected, I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons after we entered Iraq.

"But I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy."

28 September, 2004, keynote Labour conference speeech

"The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that and accept it. I simply point out, such evidence was agreed by the whole international community, not least because Saddam had used such weapons against his own people and neighbouring countries.

"And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.

"The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."

"I can apologise for the information being wrong but I can never apologise, sincerely at least, for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison."

29 September speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme

The prime minister was asked about UN secretary general Kofi Annan's assertion that the war with Iraq was illegal.

"That is his view - it is not our view," Mr Blair said.

"The view we took at the time and we take it now is that the war was justified legally because he [Saddam Hussein] remained in breach of UN resolutions."

Source with additional links to the full stories: BBC

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Walter,

So what? He is just a lawyer, and his advice was quite lawyerly. You have reenforced my point.

Thanks for the litany of Blair's statements. Nothing new there and no real contradiction. All the world knows we have found no WMDs in Iraq, and both the UK and the US have openly stated this. That doesn't change the facts of Saddam's refusal to comply with UN actions designed expressly to prove he didn't have them, and other bits of intelligence that still strongly suggest he was either in possession of them or working towards it.

As has been expressed ad nauseum on these threads, the WMD matter was but one of many excellent and sufficient reasons to take out Saddam. Its particular significance was that it was the only reason France and Russia would permit in the discussions and actions of the Security Council, with respect to their former client and co-conspirator in Iraq.

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April 25, 2005

Rice and Cheney Are Said to Push Iraqi Politicians on Stalemate

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and JOEL BRINKLEY

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 24 - Worried about a political deadlock in Iraq and a spike in mayhem from an emboldened insurgency, the Bush administration has pressed Iraqi leaders in recent days to end their stalemate over forming a new government, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney personally exhorting top Kurdish and Shiite politicians to come together.

The White House pressure, reported by Iraqi officials in Baghdad and an American official in Washington on Sunday, was a change in the administration's hands-off approach to Iraqi politics. The change was disclosed as insurgents unleashed a devastating technique, with twin double bombings at a police academy in Tikrit and an ice cream parlor in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad that killed 21 and wounded scores more.

In both attacks, a second bomb detonated within minutes after the first, killing and wounding policemen and bystanders who had rushed to care for victims of the initial blasts.

The explosions hit two of the favored targets of Sunni Arab insurgents: police recruits, whose training is critical to improving security in Iraq and providing the United States an exit strategy; and Shiites, who make up a majority in Iraq but nearly three months after national elections have yet to form a new government - a failure that American officials fear is giving strength and confidence to the insurgents.

Washington's approach to the political negotiations had emphasized that the Iraqis needed to form their own government without interference. But American and Iraqi officials have increasingly blamed the delay for a rise in violence in recent weeks that has killed more than a hundred Iraqis and threatens to destroy what remains of the political and security momentum that followed the successful Jan. 30 elections.

Ms. Rice on Friday telephoned Iraq's new president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, to urge him to complete the government "as soon as they could" and "to get a status of where things were," a senior State Department official in Washington said Sunday. The official stressed that Ms. Rice did not tell Mr. Talabani how to form a government, just that the process needed to be concluded.

Also, Adil Abdul Mahdi, a leading Shiite politician selected as one of the new Iraqi vice presidents, met with Ms. Rice and Vice President Cheney at the White House, the official said, where he was also told that the White House wanted to see a government formed right away.

"It has taken awhile, and this is also a reflection of the fact that the Iraqis themselves are pushing for a quicker government," the senior official said. Ms. Rice told both Mr. Talabani and Mr. Mahdi that more than enough time had passed, and a government needed to be formed now, the official said. "We know it is not an easy thing to do, and this is the first time for them."

The impact of the White House pressure was unclear. On Sunday, Shiite leaders once again predicted they were on the verge of announcing their new government, perhaps as soon as Monday. Similar predictions have been proved wrong several times in recent weeks.

But the Shiites added a new twist on Sunday, declaring they would no longer hold out for a deal with Ayad Allawi, the outgoing prime minister. Dr. Allawi, a secular Shiite who is not liked by the main Shiite political alliance, had demanded several key posts for his party, including either defense or interior minister, oil or finance minister, and deputy prime minister.

In an interview Sunday, Ali al-Adeeb - a Shiite member of the National Assembly and a leader in Dawa, the party of the newly appointed prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari - said, "Allawi is out of the cabinet. We don't need any delay because of this issue." Many Shiites believe Dr. Allawi is too sympathetic to Sunnis, while many Kurdish officials fear Dr. Jaafari is too Islamist.

Late Sunday, another Shiite alliance adviser cautioned that while the "current discussions" do not include Dr. Allawi, it was unfair to say he has been ruled out of the cabinet "because there is no government yet." He predicted that the Shiites would not be able to announce a cabinet on Monday. A senior Allawi aide, Rasim al-Awadi, said Sunday afternoon that "we've heard nothing yet from" the Shiites about Dr. Allawi's demands for cabinet posts.

The Shiite alliance controls a narrow majority of the 275 seats in the National Assembly, while the Kurds have 75 seats and Dr. Allawi's party 40 seats. On top of the squabble between the Shiites and Dr. Allawi, some Kurdish political leaders and others have been trying to slow the political process to force Dr. Jaafari out of his new post. Under the interim constitution, the prime minister would relinquish the post if he fails to form a new government one month after his appointment. That clock runs out May 7.

Many American officials say the political slowdown in Baghdad is hurting the ability of Iraqi security forces to repel and pursue insurgents. Some regional government leaders are appointing police and security officials without consulting with the Interior Ministry, as required by law. Elsewhere, American officials say, the political vacuum has led to apathetic law enforcement and public administration.

"They need to get going on variety of fronts," an American official in Baghdad said Friday. "None of the Iraqis we talk to think that the security situation in the past month has improved. A number of them think the security situation has grown more difficult."

The violent streak that extended into Sunday began with the dual car-bomb strike at the police academy in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown and a heartland for Sunni Baathists 100 miles north of Baghdad. A car bomb exploded inside the grounds of the academy, followed less than half an hour later by another bomb, an official at the Interior Ministry said. At least six Iraqis were killed and 30 wounded.

Sunday night a similar and deadlier strike hit the Al Riadhy ice cream parlor in the capital's Shula district, a working-class neighborhood in northwest Baghdad where many poor Shiites from places south like Kut and Diwaniyah migrated in the 1980's seeking work. The first bomber struck about 8:50 p.m., and the second blast rang out five minutes later, an Interior Ministry official said. At least 15 people were killed and 50 wounded.

The American military also reported two deaths at the hand of insurgents: On Saturday, a sailor assigned to the Second Marine Division was killed by a homemade bomb while conducting operations in Falluja. The Marines released no other details. In eastern Baghdad, a soldier from Task Force Baghdad was killed just after dawn on Sunday when his patrol was hit by a homemade bomb.

Military officials also said they captured four more Iraqis suspected of involvement in the downing of a civilian helicopter last week that killed six American security contractors and five others. The four Iraqis join six Iraqi suspects who were seized early Saturday morning after Iraqi tipsters led soldiers to the suspects' truck and homes, according to military officials.

Also, Pakistani officials said Malik Mohammed Javed, a Pakistani Embassy official kidnapped two weeks ago in Iraq, was freed on Sunday.

"He has reached the Pakistan Embassy in Baghdad," the Pakistani information minister, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, told The Associated Press. "He is safe," Mr. Ahmed said, but he refused to provided any other information and declined to say whether ransom was paid.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad for this article and Joel Brinkley from Washington. Adbul Razzaq al-Saeidy contributed reporting from Baghdad.

source

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In my humble opinion the whole idea of the past election bring Iraqi's democracy seems more of a morbid joke everyday.

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12 reasons why we (uk) invaded Iraq and Tony Blair had to lie about it.

1. The worlds biggest oil fields in Saudi and Kuwait were found way back in the 1930s and 40s. There has not been a major oil province discovered since 1970. Half the worlds oil production comes from the 100 biggest fields and nearly all are over 25 years old.
2. Its for the UN not Tony Blair to decide on whether its resolutions have been breached.
3. OPEC countries have lied about their reserves because of the quota system.
4. War without an explicit UN resolution could make it open to legal challenge. (Something Blair promised Michael Boyce Chief of Defense Staff would not happen).
5. Even BP admits its statistics in its respected Statistical Review of World Energy are just lifted from "official" sources, and not their own figures.
6. The work of the UN weapons inspectors was ongoing.
7. Horizontal drilling and steam injection will not close the gap between supply and demand.
8. UN resolution 1441 did not confer a legal basis for invasion.
9. Tar sands and shale have low Energy Out/Energy In ratio. And they are messy, produce vast amounts of CO2 and will only make about 10 mbpd oil equivalent of the supply by 2030.
10. Resolutions 678 and 687 did not confer a legal basis for invasion.
11. Even if oil does not peak soon, tanker capacity and refinery capacity will not be able to cope. Why not? Because Big Oil knows the era of homo hydrocarbonaceous is drawing to a close, so they haven't bothered investing i.e. looking for, drilling for, and adding refining and transport capacity for oil that they know AINT THERE.
12. The US arguments on legality were not applicable in Britain.

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georgeob1 wrote:

All the world knows we have found no WMDs in Iraq, and both the UK and the US have openly stated this. That doesn't change the facts of Saddam's refusal to comply with UN actions designed expressly to prove he didn't have them, and other bits of intelligence that still strongly suggest he was either in possession of them or working towards it.

I still don't understand how one can cite Saddam's failure to comply with the UN resolutions as evidence of evildoing, whilst ignoring the UN afterwards and invading Iraq without any UN resolution whatsoever.

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He failed to comply with the agreement under which the coalition suspended hostilities in the Gulf War. That alone was sufficient reason for the resumption of hostilities under long-standing provisions of international law.

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We were spending inordinate amounts of $$$ keeping planes in the air over the northern and southern no fly zones 24/7. We were losing people doing that. We were being shot at dong that. Saddam was refusing or thwarting the U.N. inspectors at every turn. And a huge percentage of the U.N. security council, the U.K. administration, the former and present U.S. administrations and congress, and our allies believed Saddam had WMD. All those people knew he had them in the past and had used them, and all believed he would use them again. That he had them appears to have been an untruth. It does not follow that those who believed he had them lied about their motives for the invasion.

At some point you don't let a tyrant thumb his nose at U.N. resolutions and refuse to comply when he is perceived as a very real threat to his neighbors and is believed to be harboring, financing, and exporting terrorism.

And though not cited as a primary reason for the invasion, there was also the extreme hardship the sanctions were imposing on the innocent Iraqi people due to Saddam not using the OFF funds as the U.N. had sanctioned and directed.

The U.S., U.K. and allies did not invade illegally and in fact moved between a U.N. reluctance to authorize invasion and a speculated U.N. resolution that would forbid invasion.

Again, that our primary reasons for invasion proved to be based on faulty intelligence does not negate the positive results from the invasion, namely the considerable humanitarian support we have been able to provide for the Iraqi people not the least of which is the ability for them to determine their own destiny.

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McTag wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
McTag wrote:
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday April 24, 2005 The Observer

The Iraq war was thrust dramatically into the election spotlight last night after long-sought government legal advice, cautioning that the invasion could be illegal, was leaked. ......

McTag please provide a reference to, a link to, or an excerpt from the law which Blair is alleged to have violated.

Read this

A government at bay over Iraq war legality
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
25 April 2005
The Iraq war was thrust to the top of the election agenda last night after the Attorney General's advice to the Prime Minister over the legality of the conflict was leaked.
...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=632773

Your quote is not responsive to my request to you:

Quote:

McTag please provide a reference to, a link to, or an excerpt from the law which Blair is alleged to have violated.

The best I could find scanning your reference link is not responsive either.
Here that best is (emphasis added by me):

Quote:

Attorney General's warnings
25 April 2005

The UN - not Mr Blair - had the power to rule that Iraq was not complying with its resolutions.

The Attorney General argued that in law, there was a strong case that the United Nations should determine whether Iraq had ignored the demand that its weapons of mass destruction be destroyed.

The paper is said to have warned that the UN security council, not individual members, should decide whether Iraq had complied with Resolution 1441, passed in November 2002. The resolution itself confirmed that Iraq "has been and remains" in material breach to earlier resolutions, but says further breaches would be reported to the security council "for assessment".

UN Security Council resolution 1441 might not be sufficient legal basis for war.

Lord Goldsmith's advice appears to have warned that the precise wording of resolution 1441 fell short of the legal definition required formally to authorise war. Resolution 1441 said that "the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations". However, the use of the term "serious consequences" is not as strong as the term "all necessary means", the international term for military action, which were the words contained in resolution 678 that authorised force in the run up to the first Gulf War a decade earlier.

Lord Goldsmith expressed caution about going to war without a second United Nations resolution.

Lord Goldsmith's opinion is said to have warned Tony Blair that, while he could go to war without a second UN resolution, it would be desirable and "safer" to obtain a resolution explicitly authorising military action.

At the time, ministers were still working frantically to secure a second resolution.

However, the Prime Minister was saying at the time it was London's "preference" to have a new resolution, whilst leaving the door open to action without such a resolution.

Mr Blair was told there were risks in relying on previous UN resolutions to justify military action.

Lord Goldsmith argued that it could be difficult to revive the authority for military action in UN resolution 678 in 1990, given that 678 authorised action to remove Iraq from Kuwait and did not explicitly authorise an invasion of Iraq. Such a caution is important because Lord Goldsmith's final opinion authorising war did revive 678, arguing that "Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the ... effect of resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. All these resolutions were adopted under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which allows the use of force for the ... purpose of restoring international peace and security."

Lord Goldsmith pointed to the latest work by Hans Blix and his team of UN weapons inspectors.

Lord Goldsmith's advice was written on 7 March, 2003 as Dr Blix reported that United Nations weapons inspectors were making some progress in Iraq. His report praised Iraq's decision to destroy 34 outlawed missiles as "substantial" and said inspections "may yield results." Dr Blix argued that some Iraqi actions were "active" or "proactive". He noted that inspections based on intelligence tip-offs had found "no evidence". However he did say that Iraq's moves "cannot be said to constitute 'immediate' co-operation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance."

Lord Goldsmith said that American statements on the legality of war were not applicable in Britain.

He said that the White House did not face the same legal problems as Britain after the United States Congress had given President Bush special powers to go to war. Mr Bush secured overwhelming votes in both houses of Congress giving the President the right to launch a military strike, even without the backing of the United Nations. They voted to allow him to "use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate ... against the continuing threat posed by Iraq". Washington had insisted that a second resolution was desirable but not necessary.
25 April 2005 01:06

...

©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

McTag, please quote the specific law that Blair allegedly violated.

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

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