Sunday Wash. Post: U.S. Backs Off On Some Iraq Plans

[Newsjock]

From Sunday's Washington Post. No link yet.

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
(c) 2003, The Washington Post

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The United States has backed away from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated.

... With the administration's plans tempered by time and threat, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, and his deputies are now focused on forging compromises with Iraqi leaders and combating a persistent insurgency in order to meet a July 1 deadline to transfer sovereignty to a provisional government.

``There's no question that many of the big-picture items have been pushed down the list or erased completely,'' said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq's reconstruction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ``Right now, everyone's attention is focused (on) doing what we need to do to hand over sovereignty by next summer.''

The new approach, U.S. diplomats said, calls into question the prospects for initiatives touted by conservative strategists to fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation. While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, ``ideology has become subordinate to the schedule.''

more to come

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Correction:

"Ideology has become subordinate to pucker factor".

[Postman]

2. Yeah, Iraq occupation might interfere with invasion plans for Syria..

We can't be bogged down in Iraq when we can be bogged down in Syria...

[never cry wolf]

10. Nahhh, you're timing is off

Syria is AFTER the election. This handing over of soverignty is timed for the election cycle so shrubbie can say "hey lookie here everybody, i did it, i built a democracy and they now love us for our freedoms."

[kainah]

3. and will anyone hold them accountable?

Anyone, ever??? All these people who have eagerly picked up the banner now that we're in Iraq to "bring them democracy" -- will they say anything when the election forces even that illusion to be abandoned???

[Mountainman]

4. Yes if our candidates speak up and the media listens and reports

One of the best things we have going for us is the up coming elections. None of the candidates have anything to lose by telling it like it is.

The problem is the media and how they will report the campaigns.

[aquart]

8. Now, now, we know how they're going to report

Whomever we choose will be "negative," "pessimistic," and "angry." Get used to hearing those words a lot.

In fact, we might want to co-opt them NOW, as in: George Bush is making the future a negative for our children. George Bush is bringing pessimism to millions of unemployed Americans. Does George Bush have any idea how angry Americans are over his constant, incessant lies? How cheated they feel?

Seize the words BEFORE the Republicans can lock and load them into their jamming M16s.

[terrisel]

9. Agreed!!!! n/t

[Cocoa]

18. candidate nees to declare Bush's failure

list all the promises made before the war, and demand that Bush fulfill ALL of them, otherwise the war was a failure, and all the deaths a waste.

Same with the economy, demand that the predicted 300,000 jobs/month come to pass, otherwise the tax cuts are a failure.

[Just Me]

22. Accountability should never be "wishful thinking",...

,...but, it has been and still is,...to a greater than lesser degree. However, what I "think/believe/intuit" is happening here is that the "masters of the universe" are experiencing just how little they truly "master". The smokes of illusion have carried them about as far as they can manipulate.

Holding them accountable,...will require a focused, long-term and patient effort. We just have to keep on plugging to people around us, to newspapers, to news media, via flyers, and so on. We have to be "the informers". Our impact may not be felt immediately,...but, I know for sure it will be felt over time through our neighbors, our family, our children.

Our best remedy is NOT "shock and awe" delivery. I have turned politically and religiously bent by sincere questions and conversations and concerns. I am telling you, with great care, to "pull" people towards those basic issues all care about instead of pushing them into "a side". Everything on this board could be discussed with anybody without any political or religious or racial or sexual orientation.

Accountability of those whom we elect to represent us and our country is certainly an issue every single American citizen will discuss and about which s/he is concerned about,...outside of "orientations".

We have GOT to FOCUS!!! Really.

[peacetalksforall]

5. Well, it sounds like they may have given up on the oil...

maybe Baker isn't making it - maybe there won't be enough left for all the Carlyle plus partners to benefit. Maybe they can't afford the death, suicide, and missing limb totals on the way to an election. That's alot of 'moolah' for them to relinquish. They just can't drain and ship the oil that fast, can they?

[never cry wolf]

11. Au contraire...

...they will never take their hands off the Iraq nozzle as long as the misAdministration is in office. They are handing over "soveringhty." Meaning their puppet will be sElected. By then all their oil contracts will have been signed anyway. You can bet that whoever is in charge only got there by agreeing to "play ball."

[IMayBeWrongBut]

6. Well, if you squeeze real hard you might get...

2 billion. So where is the other 30 billion comming from?

[falcon]

7. what the fuck was this all about then?

I mean it was never to get Sadam

[grytpype]

12. Operation Get the Fuck Out of Iraq Before the Election is in full swing.

Bush has fucked up so badly that all he can do is "cut and run," declare victory, blame any problems on the Iraqis, and bask in the accolades of the Republican Media.

"Success" has been defined down -- again.

[IndianaGreen]

13. By all means, let's save Bush's sorry ass!

We can't have stories about dead GI's while our Glorious Fuhrer prances about daring everyone else to "bring it on!"

[peacetalksforall]

14. Something in the back of my head...

tells me that it would be smart if the people of Iraq broke off from each other...North, South, Central with their dominant brand of culture and religion and leaders. There is little in it for them to hang together. Let our non-lustre PNAC and Carlyle executives deal with three countries. Three sets of pipeline negotiations and installation going in all directions. Might make it a little hard for them on their path to the destruction of the U.S.. But, it might make it more difficult on us.

Yeah, PNAC, Carlyle, and our industrial-military-banking-media cabal: just finish off this country financially. Just deplete the energies and taxes of our 0 to 100 hour week workers in America. And get the remainder of former citizens of Iraq who won't be working on the pipelines busy. Get those Sunnis writing code. Get those Kurds smelting. Get those Baathists knowledgeable about off shore banking and find them an island. Finish us 'murca. It's just bodies, limbs, psychologically damaged youth and citizens, after all. Expendable all. Irrelevant all.

Just raise our glasses (containing only a trace of arsenic) - to the United States of the Middle East. Too bad 'bout 'murca. It was once a great country.

Imagine - the history books will state that the people of a great country helped finance the traitors who destroyed it while the great land of antiquity and the bible rose again with the help of an acronym foundation and secretive overlaying partnership-rulers. The citizens were told they had a constitution and some rights to brag about, but 'they was robbed' and didn't even notice until it was too late. The theives practiced imperialism right in front of the eyes of supposedly free people and the people became slaves again.

[scarletwoman]

16. Awesome post...

"The theives practiced imperialism right in front of the eyes of supposedly free people and the people became slaves again."

Beautifully succinct and dead on. I very rarely post anymore, but I simply had to comment on yours -- well-said! I am particularily glad that you've brought up the tripartition of Iraq -- it is probably the best hope for the Peoples of that land.

"Freedom" and "Democracy" have become nothing more than code words for predatory capitalism. One notices that "Sovereignty" and "Self-determination" are NEVER mentioned.

sw

[Newsjock]

15. How the LA Times spins the exact same story

Also from Sunday's paper; no link yet. The contrast is amazing.

Iraqi Handover Process Still Fluid
By Doyle McManus and Sonni Efron
c) 2003, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has proclaimed two highly ambitious goals for the U.S. occupation of Iraq in the next six months: first, to crush the anti-American insurgency and then, on June 30, to transfer sovereignty to a still-unformed Iraqi government.

To do so, Bush and his right-hand man in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, must make a series of critical decisions that may determine whether the U.S. invasion is remembered as a triumph or the overreach of an arrogant superpower.

Underlying almost every choice is a basic dilemma: Is it more important to do Iraq ``right,'' to make sure stability and democracy take firm root -- or to do it ``quick,'' before majorities of Iraqis and American voters decide that the occupation has become too great a burden?

more to come

[scarletwoman]

17. Oops...

How ironic, I just posted above that one never sees the term "sovereignty" being used in reference to "democratizing" Iraq, and then here it shows up in your LATimes snip:

...on June 30, to transfer sovereignty...

(what I get for breaking my self-imposed hiatus from posting... :eyes: )

sw

[0007]

19. junior and Blair will be educated by the great Qhadafi

Check out Qhadafi's website of profound wisdom
http://www.algathafi.org/Index_e.htm

[scarletwoman]

21. Thank you for that link.

I suspect that your post may have been meant sarcastically, but I found that ALGathafi site quite interesting.

I've now read through his entire piece about Kashmir and -- idiosyncratic phrasing and spelling aside -- have found it a rather astute piece of analysis. But then, I have long held a different view of this man than the accepted conventional wisdom/ politically correct patriotic American view.

sw

[kskiska]

20. WP Link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35053-2003Dec27.html

[gulliver]

23. Operation Bush/Cheney

Everything will be jettisoned that doesn't produce a result that is sellable for the 2004 elections. Bush/Cheney will do anything to win. There will be a facade of sovereignty in place in Iraq regardless of all other considerations. Nothing matters more than the asses of the asses who got us into this mess.

Billions will be poured in to hide rough spots. Iraq will be a pig in lipstick by July 1, and the GOP bots will be swearing it's Miss America.

[VolcanoJen]

24. Operation Republican National Feel-Good Convention

This story is absolutely chilling, and I'm glad it's getting front-page splash treatment in the Post.

Their incompetence and over-reaching knows no bounds.

[Crunchy Frog]

25. So the neocon ideologues

are bumping up against the reality that Iraqi society is not a blank slate and they're not going to be able to impose their vision of a neocon utopia on it.

I love it when ideology gets its face smacked by reality.

[hellhathnofury]

26. "Operation Cut and Run"

My guess is that the plan is to get a friendly dictatorship, yank half the troops out and procede with economic imperialism.

Not that the administration has a clue, but MacArthur practically wrote half the Japanese constitution. They need a parliamentary system, not a federal one. A confederacy with 3 strong federal states within a reduced type national government dealing only with foreign policy and investment would work too. You could allow for religion within the individual states and a secular evenly split national government. I doubt this group has thought through anything but American style democracy though, chimps.

[JNelson6563]

27. they will really drop the ball on this

and hand us the election. Fools.

Julie

[TacticalPeek]

28. Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

Its about my new toy.

Yes, I know it was at the top of my list. And I sure do appreciate how you got it for me and all, just like Karl promised me you would if I shut my eyes and believed real, real hard.

My problem is that it doesn't work like the pictures in the catalog made me think it would work. Its always falling apart no matter how I put it together. And it has sharp edges that sometimes hurt me, and things that pinch and so on. Its just so much trouble trying to make it work that its no fun to play with now. And its so not shiney anymore.

So, no offense Santa, but I'd like to return it, and I need you to take it back pretty soon. Like, real quick, you know? You'll need to send your team back down here fast, say by next summer at the latest. I know that's a lot of trouble, but this just won't wait until your trip next Christmas. I'll be glad to pay for your extra trouble, and Karl says the money won't be a problem.

In fact, I'll throw in something extra for you, since I need next year's present a little early, say a couple of months. I know I can depend on you because you've always come through for me for every Christmas I can remember.


Your special admirer,

George W. Bush
The President of the United States of America

P. S. That's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, America, don't forget.