IRAQ WRAPUP 1-Iraqis put on brave face after Rumsfeld remarks

[sabra]

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GRA739658.htm

IRAQ WRAPUP 1-Iraqis put on brave face after Rumsfeld remarks
27 Jun 2005 13:31:25 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD, June 27 (Reuters) - Iraqi leaders put on a brave face on Monday after Washington acknowledged that it would be up to them -- not American forces -- to defeat an insurgency that could last a decade or more.

Asked to respond to comments by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Sunni insurgency in Iraq would last years, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said it was impossible to predict how long it would take to defeat it.

"Politics is not mathematics," he told a conference in London.

Violence, which has worsened sharply in the two months since Jaafari's Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government took office, continued unabated, with U.S. forces reporting a helicopter crash and at least one U.S. soldier gunned down.

Rumsfeld's remarks appeared to signal a change in U.S. rhetoric ahead of President George W. Bush's keynote Iraq speech planned for Tuesday. Just a few weeks ago Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgency was in its "last throes".

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[magellan]

1. It would end a lot sooner

...if the Iraqis were actually given the democracy they were promised.

[Teaser]

4. actually doubtful.

Iraq is a flywheel threatening to fly apart. I don't think anything, democracy, dictatorship, a bazillion dollars, can stop that now.

There's a line from the last starfighter that I find appropriate to this situation. One "evil" alien commander looks up at another in panic, as his fleet is being demolished. "What do we do now?"

The other commander pulls himself erect, his automated monacle adjusts itself, and he says with great dignity:

"We die."


That's about where Iraq is right now.

[magellan]

5. We're talking about the "insurgency", right?

I think getting out, taking our puppet government with us, and actually giving the Iraqis full autonomy and self-determination is what many of them want after 2 years under occupation. It won't stop the sectarian in-fighting or the radical Islamic militants, but our presence and influence is the overriding source of unrest.

[mom cat]

7. Unfortunately, it will not be the commanders dying with dignity

But the unfortunates suffering and dying in misery.

[central scrutinizer]

2. Dammit, Jim

I'm a doctor, not a mathematician.

[aden_nak]

3. Damn it, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a Secretary of Def. . . oh, crap!

[louis-t]

6. Insurgency in its last throes

for another 5,6,8,12 years? Why does ANYONE still believe these bastards?