Account of Broad Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand

[RedEarth]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 8, 2004
Account of Broad Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand
By JAMES RISEN

ASHINGTON, April 7 — United States forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials said Wednesday.

That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.

But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.

A year ago, many Shiites rejoiced at the American invasion and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who had brutally repressed the Shiites for decades. But American intelligence officials now believe that hatred of the American occupation has spread rapidly among Shiites, and is now so large that Mr. Sadr and his forces represent just one element..

Meanwhile, American intelligence has not yet detected signs of coordination between the Sunni rebellion in Iraq's heartland and the Shiite insurgency. But United States intelligence says that the Sunni rebellion also goes far beyond former Baathist government members. Sunni tribal leaders, particularly in Al Anbar Province, home to Ramadi, the provincial capital, and Falluja, have turned against the United States and are helping to lead the Sunni rebellion, intelligence officials say.

The result is that the United States is facing two broad-based insurgencies that are now on parallel tracks.


more.......

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/international/middleeast/08SHIA.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

[Melinda]

1. Such obvious liberal media bias (lies) - we all know the WH is truthful...

so stop posting this stuff!! :eyes:

</sarcasm>

[callous taoboy]

5. All right, Melinda

The bush-gollum pic has me with tears streaming down my face. Too damn funny.

[yellowcanine]

2. Rummy and Myers might be mistaken? Do tell.

What are the chances of that happening? Someone had better investigate the source of all of this untidiness. Maybe we need a new Whitehousekeeper?

[Terran]

3. The adults are in charge

Never ceases to amaze me that half the people here at DU have a far better understanding of what's really going on in Iraq than Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz do. It should be *obvious* from the shabby way we've been treating all Iraqis, in general, since the invasion, that dissatisfaction with the occupation would be broadly based on not caused merely by a rabble-rousing cleric. If only ordinary people would wake up and educate themselves, these fools would be impeached tomorrow.

[Miss Authoritiva]

7. About those adults...

Whenever I hear that phrase -- The adults are in charge -- I always flash back to my first-grade, duck-and-cover drills during the Cuban Missile Crisis, because we were always sternly told to listen very carefully to the grown-ups' instructions. All the kids knew it was bullshit (or holy bullshit, as this was a Catholic school): particle board desks were no protection against nuclear blasts.

And that is why Rumsfeld and Myers and Powell and Cheney and Bremer and Wolfowitz always remind me of waiting for Armageddon with a bunch of hyperventilating nuns.

[Cocoa]

4. the White House believed that stupid poll

[Mountainman]

6. Well which group is welcoming us with open arms?

I think they are trying to send us away with small arms.