Allan Barigye
And what exactly did I state last night? Do you know what Edward Pojim said
when I made the very same revelations last night? He said I was rumbling. On
record I do not know this ambassador and I have never talked to him, how did
we end up saying the exact same thing and on a same day? For you really have
to be an idiot not to realize the danger of this administration and to many
nations it has failed to show leadership..
There is a massive problem with this administration and its stupidity has
cost a whack of lives out there.
EM
On the 49th Parallel
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Allan
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2014 5:46 AM
To: U-A-H
Subject: {UAH} Iraqi ambassador slams Obama, praises Bush
Ambassador praises Bushs ownership of relationship
By Guy Taylor-The Washington Times
iRAQ ambassador
<http://www.thedesertreview.com/wp-content/upLoads/2014/01/iRAQ-ambassador.p
ng>
Speaking out: Lukman Faily, Iraqi ambassador to the United States, says the
Obama administration is not as engaged in his countrys future as was the
Bush administration, but adds that sectarian divisions are not about to
erupt into civil war. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)
WASHINGTON D.C. Iraqs ambassador to Washington says the Obama
administration doesnt fully grasp the consequences of failing to more
aggressively combat a surging al Qaeda threat inside his country, pointedly
suggesting that President Obama has been less engaged with Baghdad than his
predecessor.
The administration has to have a better understanding of any adverse
impact of any delay in provision of support to Iraq, Ambassador Lukman
Faily told The Washington Times in an interview Wednesday. It cannot afford
a whole town or province of Iraq falling to al Qaeda and becoming a safe
haven. Its against the U.S. strategic interest. Its against the U.S.
national security to do that.
Asked whether the White House could do more to facilitate a tighter
relationship with Iraq, Mr. Faily said, to a certain extent they can. But
we are no longer in a period in which we had President Bush, who took
ownership of that relationship.
With al Qaeda-linked violence surging in Iraq, Mr. Faily urged U.S. leaders
in both parties to stop allowing military and nation-building resources for
his country to become embroiled in domestic U.S. politics even as he
dismissed suggestions that Iraq is in danger of falling into a full-fledged
civil war between its Shiite and Sunni populations.
I personally think that its tragic that the issue of the whole American
project in Iraq is now becoming a ball in relations to the party politics
within D.C., the ambassador said. I dont think its beneficial for the
United States. Its definitely not beneficial for Iraq to become a tool in
Republican versus Democrat or whomever.
This is not helpful for U.S. security, it is not helpful for us, it is not
helpful for the region.
Given word of The Times interview with Mr. Faily, the White House
responded Wednesday evening that there is a high level of engagement between
U.S. and Iraqi officials and that the U.S. is providing extensive military
support to Iraq through Washingtons Foreign Military Sales program, but
that the Iraqi government needed to take the lead on countering terrorists
in the nation.
National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told The Times in an
email, We are committed to partnering with the government of Iraq to build
their capacity to fight terrorism, but the solution to this issue must be an
Iraqi-led solution.
Still, Mr. Faily made the remarks as violence appeared to be spreading
Wednesday beyond Iraqs western Anbar province, where al Qaeda-linked
militants have claimed control of the city of Fallujah and parts of the city
of Ramadi for more than a week.
Authorities said militants killed 12 government soldiers during an attack
on Iraqi army barracks north of Baghdad Wednesday, according to a report by
The Associated Press.
Al Qaedas gains in Anbar have added fuel to a political fight in
Washington over whether the U.S. military should return to Iraq. Some
Republicans argue that the Obama administration moved too hastily in pulling
U.S. forces out of Iraq two years ago and has not done enough since to help
the U.S.-trained Iraqi military maintain security.
The administration announced this week that it would increase and
accelerate delivery to the Iraqi military of surveillance drones, as well as
air-to-surface Hellfire missiles. But the situation presents a difficult
challenge for the White House particularly because Mr. Obama ran for
office six years ago on a promise of ending the war in Iraq.
Mr. Faily appeared to take pains to avoid open criticism, but he said the
Obama administration has been notably less willing to buy in to a strategy
of providing deep support to Baghdad than the Bush administration was.
That reluctance, he suggested, puts the U.S. in the position of ignoring a
major strategic interest, particularly since the production of oil in Iraq
has the potential to increase to a level in which it can really stabilize
world energy, he said. Iraq is the only country with that capability or
potential.
The ambassador suggested that Washingtons indifference toward Iraq may
date to the 2011 decision for the U.S. to begin withdrawing troops. Some on
Capitol Hill believe the move was fueled as much by U.S. politics as it was
by Iraqi desires to claim a sense of sovereignty after nearly a decade of
American military intervention.
You have a reflection of, should we have left or should we have not left
at the end of 2011, Mr. Faily said. To me, in our analysis of that, the
abruptness of the U.S. forces leaving, versus our own Iraqi desire to have
sovereignty, what we are seeing now is the immediate aftermath of those two
things in which there was no clarity to the day-after scenario.
Its not a matter of blame. Its a matter of short-termism arriving over
the national strategic interests of the countries, he said. For example,
the U.S. forces left, but by the time they left, we had no air force. And
then we were blamed [by Washington], why the Syrian overflights took place.
We had no air force, we cant force a plane down. And now were asking for
F-16s, and the U.S. says, why do you need F-16s?
Mr. Faily said Baghdad also has struggled to cope with the flow of al
Qaeda-linked Sunni Muslim extremists across the Syria-Iraq border.
The ambassador sought to downplay a narrative that has become common in the
U.S. media: that the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister al-Maliki
has fomented sectarian tensions by ignoring the plight of the Sunni
population.
Human rights groups have accused the al-Maliki government of strategically
and politically alienating Iraqs Sunnis. Some leading foreign policy
analysts in Washington have gone so far as to suggest that the governments
posture has prompted residents in Sunni-dominated areas to tolerate the
presence of al Qaeda-linked groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the
Levant, which seized control of Fallujah last week.
The resurgence of al Qaeda and other extremist movements, and the growing
depth of its sectarian and ethnic divisions, is the fault of its political
leaders, not outside states or a lack of Iraqi nationalism and inherent
forces within Iraqi society, stated a report released Monday by Anthony
Cordesman and Sam Khazai, who are analysts with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
Mr. Faily dismissed criticisms of Mr. al-Malikis handling of the situation
and asserted that the Iraqi prime minister is deeply sensitive to the
challenges of growing a national Iraqi identity that includes people from
across the nations diverse religious, ethnic and economic landscape.
He said the al-Maliki government is trying to come to grips with how to
respond effectively but carefully to the developments in Fallujah in such a
way that does not inflame moderate Sunnis. We have not made an attack on
Fallujah because we dont want to cause casualties. So we dont want to
throw the baby out with the bath water, he said. We want to distinguish
and isolate the terrorists or the extremists from the people.
We do not want to be indiscriminate in our killing of al Qaeda and others
as well, he added, asserting that the al-Maliki government wants citizens
in the region to feel that their lives are sacred as Iraqis.
Mr. Faily said the process of being sophisticated in our selection as to
who are the terrorists and jihadists should be helped by intelligence from
the United States, cooperation and data analysis and counterintelligence
measures as well as the provision of military hardware.
The ambassador also called on U.S. leaders to understand that Iraqi society
is far more complex than the Sunni and Shiite sectarian divides commonly
referenced in the U.S. media.
While he acknowledged that the region is going through polarization
between Sunni and Shiite powers with Iraq sandwiched between the Sunni
kingdom of Saudi Arabia on one side and the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran
on the other, Mr. Faily downplayed the notion that the two Muslim sects
inside Iraq are on the verge of civil war.
To prove his point, he asserted that Sunnis fleeing al Qaeda-linked
violence in Anbar province are finding refuge in Shiite areas. When people
in Fallujah and Anbar now have problems and they are running away from their
cities, they are going to Karbala and Najaf to take safe haven, he said.
These are pure Shiite towns. You dont take refuge in your opposite sect if
you have an issue of sectarianism.
He added that sectarianism in Iraqi politics should be viewed within the
context of the tumultuous path the nation is traversing from the decades of
dictatorship under Saddam Hussein to becoming a plural and diverse
democracy.
Unfortunately, its not as binary as Shiite-Sunni. I wish it was, but it
is not, Mr. Faily said.
He acknowledged that, from Washington, the political divisions in Baghdad
may appear disastrous when they are in fact progressing through the
difficult process of creating a plural democracy in wake of dictatorship.
He called on U.S. leaders from both sides of the political aisle, and
particularly on Capitol Hill in Washington, to make more of an effort to
understand the complexities of Iraqi political society. U.S. congressmen
have to have better understanding of the politics, and not look at Iraq in a
binary way as Sunni-Shiite-Kurd, he said. It wont work. Im a Kurd and a
Shiite. Where does that put me in this paradigm?
--
*A positive mind is a courageous mind, without doubts and fears, using the
experience and wisdom to give the best of him/herself.
We must dare invent the future!
The only way of limiting the usurpation of power by
individuals, the military or otherwise, is to put the people in charge -
Capt. Thomas. Sankara {RIP} 1949-1987
*Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable**
*J.F Kennedy
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