BAKU - Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Saddam Hussein is - already was - totally beside the point. Only in the past few months have we learned the extent to which the Saddam system sub-contracted a great deal of decision-making to different Iraqi elite - from tribal sheikhs to businessmen and Sunni and Wahhabi religious leaders.
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The most popular political party on the sprawling campus of Baghdad University is not the widely-despised Ahmad Chalabi's neo-conservative-backed Iraqi National Congress. It is the Iraq Islamist Party.
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Online that avalanches of people are just waiting for June 2004 to see what kind of government the Americans will allow, and if they are not satisfied, then they will join the resistance. But there are also many people - Sunni and Shi'ite - who fear that some Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) members may turn violent, afraid of losing power. Rival Kurdish chieftains Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani - both on the IGC - keep their strong peshmerga private armies.
Chalabi has his own CIA-trained army, complete with American weapons. According to new Iraqi policemen who defected to Amman, Jordan, the bulk of the new Iraqi police is also inclined to join the resistance.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EL20Ak01.htmlIs a civil war looming? This is a must read for those interested in the Middle East.