Bremer insists Iraqis are extremely grateful

[Maple]

Iraqis are extremely grateful, civilian head says
By Patrick Bishop
(Filed: 19/09/2003)

Two subjects have the power to ruffle Paul Bremer's urbane demeanour.

One is the idea that Americans may be growing uneasy with the progress of their country's mission in Iraq.

The second is the suggestion that some Iraqis may be less then wholly grateful for their deliverance from Saddam Hussein.

He does not believe that the misgivings shown by recent polls in the United States exist. As for the Iraqis, his experience while travelling round the country is that "there is enormous gratitude for what we have done".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/19/wirq119.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/09/19/ixnewstop.html

[Caution]

1. In other news

Democrats insist that Bremer is a blithering idiot.

[Friar]

11. lol

no shit. Is there a non-idiot in this adminstration?

[fizzana]

2. He probably travels around with a phalanx of guards and gets

to meet only certain selected and pre-approved people.

[Brucey]

3. Well, if you kill everyone who disagrees with you,

the remaining will probably be on your side. (But watch out for those damn converts who take time coming to see what you're doing).

[sfecap]

4. They sure seemed grateful in Tikrit...

...hell, they were dancing in the streets after they watched a crew pulling dead Americans out of the vehicle that had been RPG'd.

Yep, they are grateful, allright....just not for the Americans.

[barbaraann]

5. I saw him last night on tv talking about restoring the marshes

that the Marsh Arabs live in. He said it would take decades to restore them so that the Marsh Arabs could resume the lives they had led for thousands of years.

I wanted to scream at him WHAT ABOUT THE ECOLOGY IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY, MR. BREMER??!! While they are forking over millions to Bechtel or Halliburton to restore Iraqi wetlands they preside over as much environmental destruction as they possibly can in this country so that their buddies can profit.

I guess the plan is to have their buddies get millions to restore the US environment after they destroy it. What an amazing business model.

[OrdinaryTa]

6. They'd Be Even More Grateful to See Us Leave

Maybe Bremer gets the kind of intelligence that Bush gets: what he wants to hear. It's possible that some Iraqis are glad the United States invaded, but it's unlikely that this number is very large.

[ET Awful]

7. Yup they're grateful . . . .

That bullet in your head is just a traditional way of saying "THANK YOU."

[Sagan]

8. what a little weasel

If I travelled around Mississippi in a caravan of heavily guarded vehicles, going from mansion to mansion, I would conclude that Missississpi is a very safe and prosperous place.

I submit that Mr. Bremer ought to take a stroll down main street in Baghdad, accompanied by only two or three bodyguards. He should ask the common Iraqi citizen about how grateful they are.

[gratuitous]

9. Sure they are

They just have a hard time showing it.

[Brian Sweat]

10. I am sure that all of the Iraqis are greatful

except for the ones that are not. You know, the ones that are blowing up our troops.

[ThomWV]

12. Extremely Grateful

I presume that their extreme gratefulness explains the half dozen+ dead GI's this week.

Thom

[rocktivity]

13. Bremer, Meet Riverbend

http://www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

...For every 6 hours of electricity, three hours of darkness...

Some raids are no more than seemingly standard weapons checks. Three or four troops knock on the door and march in. They check bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and gardens...All you have to do is stifle your feelings of humiliation, anger and resentment at having foreign troops from an occupying army search your home.

Some raids are, quite simply, raids. The door is broken down in the middle of the night, troops swarm in by the dozens. Families are marched outside, hands behind their backs and bags upon their heads. Fathers and sons are pushed down on to the ground, a booted foot on their head or back...

...More and more females are being made to quit work or school or college. I spent last month trying to talk a neighbor's mother into letting her 19-year-old daughter take her retests in a leading pharmaceutical college. Her mother...demanded to know what she was supposed to do...if anything happened to her daughter, "Hang it on her tombstone with the consolation that my daughter died for a pharmaceutical degree??? She can sit this year out..."

...After the war, when there wasn’t enough cooking gas to go around, people who sell the gas began mixing kerosene with the cooking gas which resulted in some horrific explosions. Every time we change cylinders, I have a crazy urge to run out of the kitchen and wait to see if it explodes...

And that's just from this past week.


rocknation

[kentuck]

14. Yes...especially the ones we're paying more than they have ever made..

to work with us. Now it's not a bribe. We just pay them very good for their services. And they are extremely grateful for that. Unfortunately, we can't bribe each and every one so we will continue to have explosions, etc..