http://www.juancole.com/
Friday, September 14, 2007
Bush's 'Troop Withdrawal' Branded Phony;
Sattar Assassination a blow to Bush Optimism;
1 million Dead in Iraq? Our national discourse has now reached a point
where it is a journalistic coup just to point out when a politician is lying.
Thus, the headlines that Bush's 'troop cuts,' announced in his speech last
night, are phony, and reflect normal rotations.
Patrick Cockburn, whose excellent reporting is deeply informed by his risky
forays into the real Iraq,, analyzes the meaning of the assassination of Sattar
Abu Rishah for Bush's policies, and finds that ' His killing is a serious blow
to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who
have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni
rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.
See article below.
Tina Susman reports the results of a recent British poll done in Iraq, which
concludes that as many as a million Iraqis have died in war-related violence
since late March of 2003. This estimate is higher than that in the Lancet study
of last fall, since that study simply looked at excess deaths from all kinds of
violence above what one would have expected from the baseline of 2002. That is,
the Lancet study included criminal violence, tribal feuding, etc., not just
military or guerrilla actions. The combination of the two, however, makes the
Lancet study's conclusions seem unassailable and if anything conservative.
David Broder thinks that US Ambassador in Iraq Ryan Crocker was admitting to
Lindsay Graham that the US might push for a vote of no confidence in the
al-Maliki government. Graham should please explain to us how the biggest bloc
in parliament, the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, is going to come up with a
candidate substantially more effective than al-Maliki is. The UIA under the
Iraqi constitution would form the next government.
Frank Davies confirms my own analysis that the Democrats lack the ability to
get the US out of Iraq. Many readers suggested the route of cutting off funds
and refusing to present any other Defense budget, but realistically speaking
that is a very dangerous ploy that could get them defeated in the next election
as obstructionists. And if they are defeated, the Republican Party will keep
the US in Iraq, so what would be the point?
The NYT reports that the compromise on the draft petroleum bill crafted by oil
minister Hussein Shahristani with the Kurdistan Regional Government appears to
have collapsed amid acrimony. Passing an oil law was put forward by Bush last
January as one of four benchmarks that had to be met by June. The Kurds are now
demanding Shahristani's resignation, since he calls independently-negotiated
oil deals struck by the Kurdistan government with Hunt and other oil companies
'illegal' because they were not cleared by Baghdad. Children, can you spell
'Fort Sumter'?
The Kurds are also upset that the referendum on adding oil-rich Kirkuk province
to the Kurdistan Regional Government is certainly going to be postponed from
the planned date of late 2007.
At the Global Affairs blog, Barnett Rubin reflects on how his posting on a
possible 'Iran war rollout' has been received in the blogosphere.
At the Napoleon's Egypt blog, an eyewitness account of the Battle of the Nile.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/14/2007 06:19:00 AM 0 comments
An assassination that blows apart Bush's hopes of pacifying Iraq Last week
George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar
province. This week General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a
model for Iraq. Yesterday Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar
Friday, September 14, 2007
By Patrick Cockburn
Ten days after President George Bush clasped his hand as a symbol of
America's hopes in Iraq, the man who led the US-supported revolt of Sunni
sheikhs against al-Qa'ida in Iraq was assassinated.
Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a
roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home
in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American
political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq.
His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq,
General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once
the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was
attainable across Iraq.
On Monday General Petraeus told the US Congress that Anbar province was "a
model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose
al-Qa'ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology".
But yesterday's assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere
who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed. "It
shows al-Qa'ida in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy," General
Petraeus said in reaction to the killing. But Abu Risha might equally have been
killed by the many non al-Qa'ida insurgent groups in Anbar who saw him as
betraying them.
>>> More at
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2962054.ece
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