Iraq...what is going to happen and what will Bush/Rove do?

The government has just been named.

In charge of oil?

Chalabi.

Worked out well for the US, oil interests, and the neoconservatives too...a symbiotic relationship all the way round. Well, not maybe all the way round. There are those 100,000 dead Iraqis.

Lord Goldsmith's legal opinion reveals the full extent of the attorney's concern about the risk of Britain being hauled before international courts which would even scrutinise allegations of war crimes by British troops.

It warns that British troops must use no more force than necessary to get Iraq to disarm. The attorney also makes it plain to Mr Blair that, in law, regime change could not be an objective of military action - a problem which did not concern the Bush administration.

His warnings to Mr Blair were not shown to the cabinet, which saw only Lord Goldsmith's later parliamentary answer, stripped of any of his earlier caveats.

There are those 100,000 dead Iraqis.

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL,
International Herald Tribune

Published: October 29, 2004

PARIS, Oct. 28 - An estimated 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a direct or indirect consequence of the March 2003 United States-led invasion, according to a new study by a research team at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The WP fronts a look at Iraq's constantly failing electrical grid, where after investing at least $1.2 billion over the past two years the average daily output is still lower than prewar levels. A recent poll found that Iraqis ranked the lack of electricity as their biggest problem, ahead of crime. Now that the new Iraqi government has taken over, U.S. officials insist they are not responsible for fixing the electricity and are only supporting local officials in the task.

U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Published: May 1, 2005


Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.

The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."

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Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.

Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

A source at the Iraqi defence ministry said: "We expect these facilities will ultimately be to the benefit of the domestic forces, to be handed over when the US leaves."

I did. Unfortunately, I've learned that people do not always say truth.

blatham wrote:

I did. Unfortunately, I've learned that people do not always say truth.

As I see it, you seem to believe that's the case unless the US government suspects them of being a terrorist ....

Ticomaya wrote:

As I see it, you seem to believe that's the case unless the US government suspects them of being a terrorist ....

I like you. Stop being so fukking dull.

...

I don't believe they were using the same definition of "permanent" that you are though Blatham.

Permanent means buildings vs. tents. plumbing instead of barrels. concrete instead of sandbags.

You are thinking it means "For US use only". It doesn't, although I do not find the thought of a continued US prescence in the mideast unappealing. I'd like to see it more along the lines of what we have in Germany instead of what we have near the DMZ in Korea.

Doubts about the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq were raised last night after the Cabinet Office rejected calls for an audit to be published on the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over their own security.

The request to publish the report by the retired US General Gary Luck was made under the Freedom of Information Act by Sir Menzies Campbell, the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats. But it was rejected on the grounds that it would "impact negatively upon the UK's international relations".

MPs said the report suggested that the withdrawal of some coalition troops later this year would be a gesture to relieve pressure in the US and Britain for the pull-out to begin, but that Iraqi forces were not ready for a large-scale reduction in US and British troops....