"50,000 Sunni fighters get Iraqi jobs" by Adam Schreck, Associated Press | January 20, 2010
BAGHDAD - Nearly 50,000 Sunni fighters who sided with American forces against Al Qaeda and other militants in Iraq are now in government jobs, a top official said yesterday in an attempt to soothe fears they would be neglected by the country’s Shi’ite leaders.
The announcement, made during a news conference at a US military base in the heart of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was a reminder that Iraq’s sectarian tensions remain raw and risk being stoked further as parliamentary elections approach in a matter of weeks. Many of the former Sunni fighters, part of a group known as the Sons of Iraq, were themselves former insurgents who switched sides, helping to stabilize the country....
But we won't talk to Taliban or "Al-CIA-Duh."
Pffft!
"Iraq leader seeks ruling on blacklist committee" by Adam Schreck, Associated Press | January 22, 2010
BAGHDAD - Iraq’s president sought to calm rising preelection tensions yesterday, pushing for a legal ruling on whether a political vetting panel had the right to blacklist hundreds of candidates....
The friction was on display in Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated south, where protesters yesterday beat campaign posters with shoes - a deeply insulting act in the Arab world - and set them alight while chanting slogans including “No to Ba’athists’’ in a reference to Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime’s Sunni-dominated Ba’ath Party....
The government-sanctioned body behind the ban, the Accountability and Justice Committee, is tasked with weeding out from the government and security forces hardcore supporters of Hussein’s outlawed Ba’ath Party. Like the government, the committee is dominated by Shi’ite Muslims and its decisions are seen as biased against the once-dominant Sunni Arab minority that prospered under Hussein.
Chalabi involved, or.... ?
A predecessor of the committee was known as the de-Ba’athification Commission and was created by US occupation authorities after the American-led, 2003 invasion of Iraq. That panel faced Sunni charges that it acted with excessive zeal in purging Ba’athists....
Yeah, Chalabi headed that one.
--more--"
And right on cue!
"Biden, in visit to Iraq, hopes to avert crisis before upcoming election" by Leila Fadel, Washington Post | January 23, 2010
BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad last night in hopes of defusing a political crisis over the disbarment of hundreds of candidates in an upcoming election.
Biden was scheduled to meet with US Ambassador Christopher Hill and General Raymond Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, for dinner. He will meet with top Iraqi officials today to try to help them resolve the electoral crisis. The visit showcases US concerns that the decision to bar 511 candidates - the most prominent of whom are Sunni Arabs - could stoke sectarian violence and undermine elections as the US military prepares to significantly reduce its presence here. The removal of candidates purportedly adhering to the ideals of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party could reverse efforts to bring disenfranchised Sunni communities into the fold and inflame old divisions, wiping out the security gains of the US surge.
Then the "surge" failed.
Iraq’s electoral commission chief said yesterday that he expects more candidates to be blacklisted from March Parliament elections because of suspected ties to Hussein’s Sunni-led regime, an issue that has split the highest levels of Iraq’s government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government appeared yesterday to be backing the body tasked with identifying hard-core supporters of Hussein’s outlawed Ba’ath Party. The development came just a day after President Jalal Talabani questioned whether the Accountability and Justice Committee has the authority to ban candidates.
The additional names will include military men who carried forged documents and people with criminal records, commission chief Faraj al-Haidari told the Associated Press. The proposed ban has worried US officials that such a move could undermine political stability and lead to an increase in violence ahead of the nationwide balloting March 7....
If the Americans “fail in guaranteeing democracy, they should leave right away from Iraq, because their presence means nothing,’’ said Saleh al-Mutlak, a prominent Sunni lawmaker now barred from running.
Yeah, that has been happening to AmeriKa a lot lately, that failure bit.
And no, we won't leave.
“If they can’t protect democracy, then what are they here for?’’
OIL, ISRAEL, and EMPIRE, sir!!!!
"Biden promises Blackwater case will be appealed; Vice president tries to ease Iraqi anger" by Anthony Shadid, New York Times | January 24, 2010
Wow. A crap chaser for crap.
BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden promised Iraqi leaders yesterday that the United States would appeal the dismissal of manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors involved in a deadly shooting here that has inflamed anti-American tensions.
Related: Operation Iraq: Blessed Blackwater
So the U.S. government that screwed up the case on purpose is going to appeal?
Big whoop.
Biden, tasked by the Obama administration to oversee policy in Iraq, made the statement after a day of meetings with Iraqi leaders that dealt, in part, with a political crisis that has erupted over the March 7 parliamentary elections.
American officials view the vote, a barometer of the durability of Iraq’s political system, as a crucial date in American plans to withdraw tens of thousands of combat troops from Iraq by the end of August....
I'll believe it when the MSM reports all those boots on the ground here at home, and not before.
Biden was scheduled to leave last evening after a 24-hour visit that involved meetings with most of the pivotal players in the election crisis. That dispute erupted this month after a government commission barred more than 500 candidates, accusing them of supporting Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. While some leaders have insisted that the disqualifications adhered to Iraqi law, many Sunni Muslims have seen them as score-settling by religious Shi’ite parties who suffered under Ba’ath Party rule, and American officials have worried that the move could impair the vote’s legitimacy.
Like we ever cared about a fraudulent election before when it validated our guy!
Check Afghanistan!
American officials have warned Iraqi leaders to avoid a process that, in the words of Biden’s national security adviser, Antony J. Blinken, “lacks transparency and fairness and credibility.’’
Like WE are ones to talk!
But as expected, there was no breakthrough in the meetings, and Biden, who spent the day shuttling between meetings, stressed that the United States would not impose a solution.
No, we already did when we invaded and wrote their new Constitution.
“I want to make clear I am not here to resolve that issue,’’ he said. “I am confident that Iraq’s leaders are seized with this issue and are working for a final, just solution.’’
Before his meeting with Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, though, Biden alluded to how frequently American mediation - especially his own, over the course of three trips here since he became vice president - has been necessary. In Biden’s meeting with Maliki, officials said, the prime minister insisted that the disqualifications were simply a legal issue. But Maliki’s critics have accused him of politicizing the issue as much as anyone, and in a speech on Friday, he took an especially hard line, saying that the barring of candidates in itself did not go far enough. And while many of the most senior Iraqi officials have warned the United States against interference in Iraq’s affairs, others - especially many of the Sunni politicians who were barred from running - have sought American intervention.
I mean this, you know.... pfft!
US officials have said that, despite the current political crisis, they do not foresee any delay in this August’s withdrawal of the main body of US combat troops.
Yup, COME HELL or HIGH WATER because we have OTHER WARS to GET ON WITH!!!!
A notable step in that process happened yesterday when the Marine Corps handed over security duties in Anbar province, once a cradle of the insurgency, to US Army soldiers.
Yeah, there has only been an uptick in violence out there, but who is really paying attention, 'eh, MSM?
The move formally ended the seven-year Marine presence in Iraq, in effect signaling the end of heavy combat operations.
Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, MSM.
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Related: Occupation Iraq: Non-Combat Combat
Pffft!
I guess when you just CHANGE the DESCRIPTION it is pretty easy to write an AmeriKan newspaper article, huh?
