War In Iraq [Archive] - Tapesh.Com an Iranian, Persian based Forum

RedWine

03-31-2006, 11:58 AM

The American Journalist Jill Caroll was finally released after more than 82 days of captivity - in front of the Iraq Islamic Party. She was abducted while on her way to interview a Sunni Arab politician. She said that her captors had treated her well, that she had been fed well and never threatened. “It’s important people know that I was not harmed,” she said .

Read it again: abducted on her way to interview a Sunni politician, released in front of the Iraq Islamic Party, treated well? I want to add one more clause: freed two weeks after Iran agreed to negotiate with the US over Iraq's security. Lets not forget our history: in the 1980s, several American citizens were held hostage in Lebanon. This was in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, and Iran was in dire need of American spare parts for its military. So the Israelis, understanding the political significance of hostages for the American government, suggested selling weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the hostages. Reagan agreed and authorized the CIA to sell Iran weapons through Israeli dealers, and in exchange, Iran agreed to use its influence over Hezbollah and other Islamic groups in Lebanon in order to get the Americans released: between 1985 and 1986, 44 Americann hostages were released in Lebanon. The whole scandal became known as the Iran-Contra Affair [you can read the full Congressional report on the matter here, although I don't recommend it!].

There are two distinct kinds of hostage-taking, the Zarqawi kind, and the Hezbollah kind. Zarqawi slains and murders his hostages in the most brutal fashion; Hezbollah uses them mainly as bargaining chips. Zarqawi's hostage-taking is more ideologic, whereas Hezbollah's is more strategic. This is because Hezbollah had a tangible, practical goal: to drive the Americans and the Israeli's out of Lebanon; whereas, Al-Qaeda and Sunni Wahhabists, from whom Zarqawi draws inspiration, have no such tangible goals: they want to establish an Islamic Empire, to go back to the glory days of the 7th century, to ressurect the "Pure Muhammadan Islam."

I think the the story of Jill Caroll's release fits a familiar pattern. Bush and Reagan were both tough talkers on evil-doers and evil empires, yet they both signed backdoor deals with the Bin Ladens and the Islamic Republics of this world; they both faced deep criticism for involving American troops in foreign conflicts, Reagan for the troops in Lebanon, and Bush for his continued occupation of Iraq; both presidents also faced domestic scandals and deficits.

Jill Caroll was quickly becoming the symbol of America's failure in Iraq. Who can forget her crying face, the covering of the hair, the humilitation of an American woman at the hands of a gang of Arab men? Images like this are responsible for Bush's miserable ratings - and, ironically, also for the appearance of Iran's nuclear file at the UN Security Council. After all, one of America's biggest beefs with Iran is its support of terrorist organizations. Would you, personally, have any sypmathy for a country's right to nuclear technology if that country supports those who keep such a cute female journalist - journalist for god's sake -hostage for nearly 3 months?

The parallels are just too strong. Would we be reading of an Iran-Karbala Affair in 10, 15 years?

mahsaak

04-01-2006, 05:21 AM

namanaaaaaaaaaaa?????

RedWine

10-11-2006, 12:47 PM

An estimated 655,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 who might still be alive but for the US-led invasion, according to a survey by a US university.
The research compares mortality rates before and after the invasion from 47 randomly chosen areas in Iraq.

The figure is considerably higher than estimates by official sources or the number of deaths reported in the media.

It is vigorously disputed by supporters of the war in Iraq, including US President George W Bush.

John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHBSPH) estimate that the mortality rates have more than doubled since the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, causing an average of 500 deaths a day.

I stand by the figure that a lot of innocent people have lost their life... and that troubles me, and it grieves me

President George W Bush
In the past, Mr Bush has put the civilian death toll in Iraq at 30,000, and hours after details of the latest research were published he dismissed JHBSPH's methodology as "pretty well discredited".

The John Hopkins researchers argue their statistical approach is more reliable than counting dead bodies, given the obstacles preventing more comprehensive fieldwork in the violent and insecure conditions of Iraq.

"I stand by the figure that a lot of innocent people have lost their life... and that troubles me, and it grieves me," Mr Bush told reporters at the White House.

"Six-hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just... it's not credible," Mr Bush said.

Sharp rise

The researchers spoke to nearly 1,850 families, comprising more than 12,800 people in dozens of 40-household clusters around the country.

Anti-US insurgents launch daily attacks with civilian casualties
Of the 629 deaths they recorded among these families since early 2002, 13% took place in the 14 months before the invasion and 87% in the 40 months afterwards.

Such a trend repeated nationwide would indicate a rise in annual death rates from 5.5 per 1,000 to 13.3 per 1,000 - meaning the deaths of some 2.5% of Iraq's 25 million citizens in the last three-and-a-half years.

The researchers say that in nearly 80% of the individual cases, family members produced death certificates to support their answers.

Reliable data is very hard to obtain in Iraq, where anti-US insurgents and sectarian death squads pose a grave danger to civilian researchers.

The survey updates earlier research using the same "cluster" technique which indicated that 100,000 Iraqis had died between the invasion and April 2004 - a figure that was also dismissed by many supporters of the US-led coalition.

'Survivor bias'

While critics point to the discrepancy between this and other independent surveys (such as Iraq Body Count's figure of 44-49,000 civilian deaths, based on media reports), the Bloomberg School team says its method may actually underestimate the true figure.

"Families, especially in households with combatants killed, could have hidden deaths. Under-reporting of infant deaths is a widespread concern in surveys of this type," the authors say.

"Entire households could have been killed, leading to survivor bias."

The survey suggests that most of the extra deaths - 601,000 - would have been the result of violence, mostly gunfire, and suggests that 31% could be attributable to action by US-led coalition forces.

The survey is to be published in a UK medical journal, the Lancet, on Thursday.

In an accompanying comment, the Lancet's Richard Horton acknowledges that the 2004 survey provoked controversy, but emphasises that the 2006 follow-up has been recommended by "four expert peers... with relatively minor revisions".

golgol85

10-11-2006, 11:29 PM

this broke my heart into a million pieces, what a beautiful and honest song.

donsaeid

10-12-2006, 12:20 AM

i hadnt seen that video before! Khoda javabeshono bede!

yeah i heard about 655000 person and heard NEWS CON. and news con. with bush too. which said that these were just babling!!!

Khorsheed

11-25-2006, 02:56 AM

On Jan. 1, 2007, Ban Ki-moon, South Korea's former foreign minister, will become U.N. secretary-general, following Kofi Annan's ten-year tenure. Annan inspired the world with his diplomacy and leadership on poverty reduction and human rights, but the war in Iraq divided the world and drew attention and financial resources away from crisis regions and critical long-term problems like climate change, disease control, sustainable energy, and access to water. With the recent elections in the United States and the rise of Asia's global influence, there is an opportunity to turn the world's attention to the most critical challenges facing our planet.

In addition to the long-term challenges of poverty, the environment, nuclear proliferation, and U.N. reform, the new secretary-general will inherit a long list of hotspots: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Myanmar, Sudan, North Korea, and others. Recent attempts to influence developments in these countries through threats and sanctions, and sometimes war, have failed. Most are less stable today than they were five years ago. Clearly, a new approach is needed.

The leading Asian countries, including Ban's South Korea, have long favored a balance of diplomatic approaches and economic incentives as the way to solve complex challenges. Rather than relying on sanctions and threats of force, the idea is to underpin long-term prosperity in today's unstable regions. This balanced approach is important because most of the world's hotspots are in trouble not only, or even mainly, because of politics, but because of the underlying challenges of hunger, disease, and environmental crisis.

Consider Darfur, a crisis that has been debated in the U.N. Security Council as a confrontation between the Sudanese Government and the people of Darfur. But the deeper truth is that Darfur is unstable because it is home to an impoverished and fast-growing population without adequate supplies of water, food, health clinics, schools, and other basic services. Rather than focusing on sanctions, the major powers would do much better to work with Sudan's government to propose and help to finance long-term development strategies.

Defusing the crises in Darfur and elsewhere will be among the greatest challenges facing the new Secretary-General. Yet it is vital that the United Nations not simply lurch from one hotspot to the next. The United Nations also has the unique role and opportunity to offer leadership in building a global consensus around vital long-term environmental and economic challenges facing the planet.

Climate change, deforestation, growing populations, and other ecological strains will challenge the very survival of hundreds of millions of people around the world in the coming decades. U.N. leadership will be instrumental to proposing and forging solutions to such daunting long-term global challenges.

In fact, from 1992 to 2002, the United Nations' member governments signed a number of treaties and agreements that can and should provide the foundation for long-term global solutions. Three treaties emerged in 1992 out of the so-called Rio Conference on the Environment - on climate change, biodiversity conservation, and desertification. In 2000, the member governments agreed on the Millennium Development Goals. And in 2002, they agreed on the Monterrey Consensus, pledging concrete efforts to triple aid flows to the poorest in order to reach the international goal for foreign assistance of 0.7 percent of rich-world GNP.

The key for today's United Nations, therefore, is not to create more goals, but to implement those that have been set. This, too, fits strongly with the spirit in which Ban has approached his new position. He has made clear his intention that the United Nations should implement the commitments that the world community has made. Without implementation, all of the treaties in the world would lead us nowhere.

During his mandate, the secretary-general will face the pressing challenge of forging a global agreement on climate change for the years beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol ends. The Millennium Development Goals remain far off track in the poorest countries, with just nine years to go. Despite a global pledge to reduce significantly the loss of biological diversity by 2010, huge areas of rainforest and oceans continue to be destroyed.

If the United States works more closely within the U.N. framework, it will find willing partners in the rising Asian powers, which are intent on using their influence and resources to solve today's challenges. After all, Asian countries are interested in global stability to underpin their own long-term development.

They are acutely aware of their increasing influential around the world, as investors, trading partners, and as contributors to and victims of environmental change. Behind the scenes, the Asian powers can help to defuse the crises in Darfur, North Korea, Myanmar, and elsewhere. And they will be crucial to forging new cooperative approaches to climate change, water scarcity, and the like.

The new secretary-general comes to office with the world yearning to solve festering problems. Importantly, there is already broad agreement on a set of shared goals. Those goals are achievable. The challenge is implementation.

Jeffrey Sachs is a professor of economics and the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. - Ed.

Khorsheed

11-26-2006, 08:24 AM

WHEN President George Bush meets Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan this week in what could be the last chance to stop Iraq's slide into civil war, a 6ft 3in former eye doctor will be top of the agenda.

Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who was supposed to follow a medical career as an ophthalmologist until a car crash killed his elder brother, catapulting him into the Syrian presidency, has emerged as the key player holding the fate of Iraq in his hands.
Indeed, so dramatic is the transformation in Assad's position that he is seen as crucial not only to a solution in Iraq, but also in Lebanon, and even as a moderating influence on Iran.

It is not out of the question that he will be invited to attend in person in Amman, even though Bush is scheduled to stay in the Jordanian capital for only 12 hours.

Officially, the meeting is to review the "new political realities" facing Bush with a new Democratic Congress, many of whose members are calling for some sort of withdrawal from Iraq. But this is a code for the increasingly desperate search by Bush for a way out of the Iraqi quagmire. The background is the escalating sectarian carnage in which more than 7,000 civilians have died in the past two months, culminating in last week's triple suicide bombing in Baghdad, which killed more than 200.

The Bush who meets Maliki is a very different man from the one who railed against the "axis of evil" and whose neo-con agenda was supposed to sweep away the totalitarian regimes of the Middle East.

As late as this summer, Washington wanted regime change in Damascus. In June, State Department officials attended meetings in Brussels and London of Syrian opposition leaders in exile as active participants. Now, humbled by the catastrophe in Iraq and facing the prospect of being a lame duck president because of the mid-term election results, Bush is executing a volte face.

Direct dialogue with Syria and Iran is likely to be one of the key items on the agenda next month of a heavyweight panel on future policy towards Iraq headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, long-time confidant of the Bush family.

Sensing a growing power vacuum with the waning of the Bush administration, the regional players have embarked on a flurry of diplomatic activity. Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, is due to fly to Tehran today to seek help in halting a descent into civil war. This follows a landmark visit to Iraq by Syria's foreign minister to restore diplomatic relations after a 25-year rupture. At the same time, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, seeing a chance to become a regional power broker, has invited Syria's president to Tehran.

But can Syria become the bridge that Washington is now seeking in the Middle East? On the one hand, Damascus does have significant influence. As a neighbour with a long land border with Iraq, it can choose whether to continue to allow its territory to be used for transiting terrorists on their way in and out of Iraq.

It has growing influence in Tehran. Threats of regime change from the US have thrown Syria and Iran together, and Iran sees Syria as "a sisterly and friendly country", according to Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani.

Syria is also a key player in Lebanon. With Iran, it backs Hezbollah's fight against Israel with money and weapons and has the capacity to destabilise Lebanon through its influence over Hezbollah members in the government.

Yet Tehran is interested only in a broader deal that links the US desire for help in Iraq with Iran's desire to be allowed to enrich uranium. Negotiations to halt Iran's nuclear programme remain stalemated, and President Ahmadinejad has just declared that "many countries have agreed to live with an Iran that has mastered enrichment."

Moreover, Assad has yet to demonstrate that he is in total control of his own country. Ever since he succeeded his father as president, he has vacillated between endorsing reform and leading a new crackdown to purge his regime of the hard-liners. The slow progress on reform stems from the opposition of an "old guard" which drags its feet in protest against political liberalisation in order to maintain its privileged position within the government.

"Syria's Ba'athist regime is among the most opaque on earth," said British commentator David Hirst, "and an abiding uncertainty is just how much the young and inexperienced president Bashar al-Assad has ever really controlled the despotic apparatus he inherited from his father, Hafez."

The regime is controlled by Alawites, a quasi-Shi'ite sect that accounts for about 11% of the population but dominates the army and the security forces.

Arab Sunnis, accounting for 60% of the population, believe they can form an alliance with Christians, Kurds, Turcomans and other minorities to challenge the Alawite hold on power.

Even so, if Assad is in control then he is playing a very strange game if he did indeed order the killing last week of Lebanon's industry minister, Pierre Gemayel, who was gunned down in a gangland-style killing.

Immediately, many Lebanese pointed the finger at Syria, just as they believe that Damascus was behind a string of 15 car bombings and five assassinations, beginning with a massive truck bomb that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others on February last year.

"We believe the hand of Syria is all over the place," said Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister.

Gemayel's funeral turned into a massive display of defiance against Syria and its ally, Hezbollah, as tens of thousands of Lebanese paid tribute to the assassinated politician.

Lebanon's government says its Syrian-backed opponents, led by Hezbollah, want to weaken it and to scupper an international tribunal being set up to try suspects in the suicide truck bombing that killed Hariri.

"The assassination is part of a series of actions that Hezbollah and the pro-Syrian camp are trying to carry out in an attempt to topple Fouad Siniora's western-backed government, to put themselves in a position to form a new coalition government," said Boaz Ganor, of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel. "The Christian side has come to realise that it has few cards left to play. Hezbollah could be in power within five years."

Even one of the US's most senior diplomats yesterday warned that Lebanon's future was at stake in a battle between "democracy and terrorism" following the killing of Gemayel.

John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations,

said it would be a "serious problem" if an investigation into Gemayel's assassination found Damascus was involved. "Then you have a further clear piece of evidence that Syria is not just a supporter of terrorism but is a state acting in a terrorist fashion," he said.

Others, even in Israel, are not so sure that the Syrian government itself was involved, finding it hard to see how Syria could possibly benefit from the killing. Zvi Barel, Arab affairs analyst of the daily newspaper, Ha'aretz, said that Syria was in the midst of chalking up significant diplomatic points that could only be harmed if it were shown to be involved in another political assassination.

Damascus had just renewed full diplomatic relations with Iraq and was on its way to achieving a semi-official stamp of approval from Washington as a positive influence in Iraq. It was also on the verge of seeing the fall of Siniora's anti-Syrian government in Lebanon.

"With three such achievements," Barel wrote, "the last thing Damascus needed was a new accusation of political murder in Lebanon." He suggested it might have been a rogue action carried out by one of Syria's intelligence arms. "If that is true, it puts President Assad in an embarrassing position, with elements of his regime working behind his back."

Yet the most significant reaction was that of Bush, who stopped short of accusing Damascus of killing Gemayel. The inside word from Washington is that Assad is at last enjoying the resumption of what Syrian embassy spokesman Ahmed Salkini calls "unofficial contacts" with the US administration.

According to Toby Dodge, Iraq political expert at Queen Mary University of London, one possible deal could be that Syria would tighten its border control and stop allowing insurgents to use Damascus as a safe haven. In exchange, the US would guarantee that it would not seek regime change in Syria.

The wider implications for the Middle East are that now that the US/UK invasion of Iraq and Israel's actions in Lebanon have shown that the region cannot be reshaped by military force, there is a recognition that a settlement will have to be negotiated, and that Syria and Iran have to be involved, not just in negotiations but in underwriting peace in the Middle East.

Could the endgame now be in sight?

Khorsheed

11-27-2006, 10:55 AM

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has arrived in Iran for key talks on his country's security situation.

Mr Talabani was expected to travel at the weekend but was delayed by a curfew imposed after bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday killed more than 200.

The president plans to meet his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The trip is part of a renewed flurry of diplomacy that sees US President George W Bush visiting Jordan this week.

The BBC's world affairs correspondent Nick Childs says the approach to Iraq has shifted dramatically in recent weeks.

He says Republican losses in US mid-term elections, increasing violence in Iraq and a new regional diplomatic assertiveness by Iran have changed the situation.

Mr Talabani's visit to Iran will be keenly watched in the West, he says.

Diplomatic muscle

Increased contact with Iran and Syria is one of the options being considered by the US Iraq Study Group, which is in its final stages of deliberation on recommending what new policies Washington could adopt on Iraq.

The trip was delayed by the Sadr City bomb attacks on Thursday

Speaking last week before the delay to his trip, Mr Talabani said the agenda would be "strengthening relations and Iraq's security".

Some analysts say he may use the visit to urge Iran not to use Iraq as a tool in its conflict with the US while Iran may try to exert its diplomatic muscle ahead of any future negotiations with the US on Iraq,

The US has accused Iran of funding Shia militants in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

Mr Bush will meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in Jordan this week while Vice-President Dick Cheney has just been in Saudi Arabia.

Our correspondent says the Bush administration clearly remains dubious about engaging Iran but adds that US influence on events in Iraq may be becoming more limited just when the need for a clearer exit strategy is becoming politically more acute.

Khorsheed

11-27-2006, 11:10 AM

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Smugglers were loading gasoline on a ship at an illegal port in southern Iraq when police surprised them with a raid that ended with five smugglers and two policemen dead.

The October clash at Abu Flus was one of many attempts by security forces trying to stop smuggling of Iraqi petroleum products to neighboring countries, a practice that is costing the country billions of dollars every year.

Smugglers are selling millions of gallons of Iraqi gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel outside the country every year. They then reap huge profits by selling the petroleum products back to the government for import.

"The most serious challenges facing the oil industry are smuggling and terrorism. They are both hitting the national economy, robbing Iraq and blocking development," said Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad.

Despite the fact that Iraq has the world's third largest proven oil reserves, the government is forced to import refined oil products to cover domestic demand. As recently as September, the country's three main refineries were working at half their pre-invasion capacity, processing only about 350,000 barrels day compared with about 700,000 barrels a day before March 2003.

Aging refineries, corruption and attacks by insurgents on infrastructure, such as pipelines, have been blamed for the production shortage.

In September, the oil ministry estimated that it would spend $800 million on imported oil products in the last four months of the year.

Many people try to subsidized their meager incomes through purchasing government-priced oil products and selling them to smugglers who take the products by boat or tanker trucks to Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Jihad said Iraq buys oil for about 54 cents a quart and sells it within the country for between 7 and 13 cents, subsidizing the remainder.

"This is encouraging smuggling to neighboring countries," Jihad said.

Jihad said it was impossible to calculate how much petroleum is smuggled. Sabah al-Saidi, who heads the Iraqi parliament's anti-corruption committee, said the Oil Ministry inspector general has listed 13 Iraqi companies smuggling oil and says they are backed by Iraqi political groups.

"We are losing an average of $700 million a month. Most of the products are smuggled by sea."

In a report two weeks ago on smuggling, Iraqi government said security forces had captured two tanker trucks in the southern province of Basra while trying to smuggle kerosene.

"The main mission at the oil ministry is to eradicate this phenomenon," said Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani in a recent television interview.

Amer al-Baldawi, who serves on the Iraqi parliament's economic committee, said one solution would be to raise prices in Iraq to those in neighboring countries.

Gasoline at some Baghdad gas stations costs about a dollar a gallon, but it takes hours of waiting in the line to fill up. On the black market, gasoline costs about $1.40 a gallon.

In the United Arab Emirates, by contrast, it costs about $1.76 a gallon and in Syria and Jordan it's about $2.40 a gallon.

More than 90 percent of the Iraqi government's income comes from oil exports.

Iraq's oil industry losses since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003 stand at about $15 billion, Jihad said.

Before the war, the Beiji refinery, the country's largest, produced more than 2.5 million gallons a day, nearly half what the country needed. But, Jihad said, the refinery currently produces only about 400,000 gallons a day.

Oil smuggling first began in the 1990s when Iraq was under U.N. sanctions. The government was in dire need of hard currency, and smuggling oil to Iran and selling it to international markets as Iranian oil was the easiest way to get cash.

The chaotic security situation and continuous attacks on pipelines, tanker trucks and refineries have had an enormous impact on Iraq, which has the world's third largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In a bid to curb the smuggling, the government has stopped supplying some gasoline stations near the border and is forcing fishing boat owners to prove they truly are fishing before they can buy gasoline. All boats using the Shatt al-Arab waterway that leads to the Persian Gulf now must be registered.

Khorsheed

12-01-2006, 01:53 AM

The governor's office in this tense city had rarely been so crowded. Friends, colleagues and officials were queuing to congratulate Abdul Rahman Mustafa on surviving the second assassination attempt on him within a fortnight.

A suicide bomber blew himself up on Tuesday when the governor's motorcade slowed for roadworks. The armour-plated car was badly damaged, but the only fatality besides the bomber was an Iraqi civilian. Still shaken two hours later, Mr Mustafa told me he was undeterred and would carry on.

Like every other Iraqi city, ***kuk has seen a rising tide of violence. Two years ago you could drive there from Baghdad. This time I reached it by coming south from the relative safety of Kurdistan in an armoured pick-up with five Kurdish peshmerga soldiers in the back.

The main hazard is the roadside bomb - 663 have gone off already this year, with another 334 detected before they did any harm. They are almost always targeted at officials, police or US and Iraqi army convoys. ***kuk has so far been spared the carnage of Baghdad and Basra, where car bombs and mortars are launched at crowds of civilians.

Indeed ***kuk is the story of a war that hasn't happened. With a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans vying to control a province rich in oil, it was the place which most analysts focused on in the first weeks after the US toppled Saddam Hussein. It seems long ago now, but the argument then was that if violence were to break out in the "new Iraq", it would pit Arabs against Kurds, not Sunni against Shia, and the cockpit would be ***kuk.

Whether Iraq is in the midst of a civil war or an insurgency has become a crucial question in the US, with obvious policy implications. For Iraqis it is academic. They see both wars happening together, with the chaos further compounded by criminal gangs who kidnap and murder for cash.

In ***kuk, by contrast, there is only an insurgency. Ethnic war has not broken out. The picture is not so good in the other Iraqi territories with large Kurdish populations, many of which the Kurds call historically theirs. Tens of thousands of Kurds are being intimidated to leave Mosul in slow-motion ethnic cleansing. In Khanaqin, in eastern Iraq, thousands of Arab settlers who had been brought in by Saddam Hussein were summarily evicted in 2003.

But by and large the Kurds are playing fair. In Kurdistan they have enjoyed autonomy since 1991, and they pride themselves on building the kind of democracy the US hoped to install throughout Iraq after 2003. The rolling hills of their fertile region are as different from the flat lands and date-palm groves of Mesopotamia as is the political and security climate. Foreigners and locals can walk the streets and sit in cafes with no fear of kidnap or sudden death.

The Kurds are better off than if they had full independence. This would provoke regional tension, particularly from Turkey. It would also end their current position of having considerable influence in Baghdad's government, with the hope that the "disputed territories" may become theirs by non-violent means.

The bad side, as many Kurds see it, is that they are still tied economically to Iraq. Their electricity comes from the national grid, which means rations of only two hours a day, as bad as Baghdad. They have no refinery for the oil they produce. They live off revenue from the central budget, with their rightful share always cut or delayed unfairly, officials complain.

But Kurds are waiting for the referendums, promised for next year under Article 140 of the new Iraqi constitution. They would allow people to vote to join Kurdistan. Not just in ***kuk, but in all other disputed territories there is supposed to be a census in July and a referendum in November. The first stage, due by March, is "normalisation", which means the return of tens of thousands of displaced people and the restoration of their homes or compensation.

Kurdish politicians claim to be confident that they have the votes to win. Only violence can prevent it, they say, which is why ***kuk is suffering from an insurgency. "Implementing Article 140 is not in the Ba'athists' interest," Rizgar Ali Hamajan, the provincial council's chairman, told me. "It will wipe out their Arabisation policy. So they create security problems. They want to make it hard for contractors to work, tell people the provincial council is doing nothing and pave the way for ethnic conflict."

But there are more important reasons why the process is way behind schedule. Western officials in ***kuk describe next year's deadlines as "risible". Article 140 is "hopelessly vague", making no attempt to explain who will delineate the disputed territories' borders, how a census will be conducted, and what the eligibility criteria will be for voting in the referendum.

Arab and Turkoman politicians want to delay it, preferring the status quo. "The best thing for ***kuk would be to create a special kind of independent entity where all nationalities and minorities can take part. We need dialogue, negotiation and compromise," says Tahseen Saray Khaya, a member of the Turkoman Front. He accuses the Kurds of packing the voter rolls by bringing in people from the north who were never displaced.

The International Crisis Group, an independent thinktank, proposes a similar plan for special status, though only for 10 years. Western officials call it a non-starter, since it would require amending the constitution. They expect the referendum issue will ultimately be decided by a political bargain in Baghdad, rather than ***kuk. Iraq's majority Shia government will do a deal with the Kurds to delay the crunch.

How that will be sold to the increasingly impatient Kurds is crucial. Without clear milestones towards an eventual vote or major concessions on other issues dear to the Kurds, there could be a political and social explosion in ***kuk. On the other hand, holding an unprepared vote and letting ***kuk join Kurdistan against Arab and Turkoman wishes could add ethnic conflict to the city's current insurgency.

In that case ***kuk would no longer be the story of a war deferred. The ethnic cleansing already under way in Mosul could accelerate and spread to Baghdad, where some 100,000 Kurds still live. Iraq is already suffering from a war between insurgents and the Americans, and the Sunni versus Shia clashes which flow from it. Can it survive the horrors of war number three?

Khorsheed

12-02-2006, 01:10 AM

TEHRAN (IRNA) –- Substitute Friday prayers leader of Tehran Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said here Friday that Americans have no other option but to immediately depart Iraq.

"It would be more to your interest to leave Iraq today than tomorrow, warning that Iraq's occupation is not a cinch," said Ayatollah Khatami in his second sermon to this week's Friday prayers congregation.

Ayatollah Khatami also held the U.S. responsible for insecurity in Iraq. "We are unfortunately witnessing very painful days in Iraq; there is growing insecurity (in Iraq) due to the wrong policies of the U.S. in the region; they (the occupiers) want to win bread through insecurity."

He said insecurity has gone to such an extent that the U.S. President George W. Bush failed to visit Iraq and chose Jordan as venue of his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The cleric also ruled out rumors that Iran has a role in insecurity in Iraq.

"The claim that Iran has a role in insecurity in Iraq is a sort of blame game. After having a bad dream, Americans bring to power another dictator like Saddam in Iraq.

"If Americans want their wish to come true, they should immediately leave Iraq; the Americans are trapped in a quagmire in Iraq, having no way to return or proceed."

Ayatollah Khatami also blamed Americans for fanning the Sunni-Shia conflict. "Americans are playing blame games to provoke the Shia-Sunni war and they have hidden themselves behind. Unfortunately some press in the region, too, add fuels to the flame, trying to fan insecurity."

The cleric then cautioned those caring for Islam that the U.S. is the main enemy of Islam.

"The U.S. is siding neither Shiites nor Sunnis and these people want to remain in the region through such mischiefs," announced Ayatollah Khatami.

mike435

12-02-2006, 01:19 AM

good one thing i agree with these retard of dictators

Khorsheed

12-02-2006, 01:25 AM

which retard dictators?

RedWine

12-05-2006, 11:28 AM

No one knows who killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. We do know, however, that the main witness cited in the UN report, Zuhir Mohamed Said Saddik, “has been convicted of embezzlement and fraud among other crimes” (Der Spiegel) which casts grave doubt on the credibility of his testimony.

No problem; the Bush administration has used convicted fraudsters to make their case for war before, particularly in the case of Iraq where the specious claims of Ahmed Chalabi appeared consistently on the front page of the New York Times creating the rationale for the invasion. But, Sadik’s trustworthiness is even more uncertain than Chalabi’s. “Sources in the UN say that Sadik had undeniably lied” and had received money for his testimony. “According to a statement by his brother, Sadik had called him from Paris in late summer and said, “I’ve become a millionaire!” (Der Spiegel)

Indeed; lying can be a profitable choice when it serves the greater objectives of American-Israeli foreign policy.

None of this suggests that Syrian intelligence wasn’t involved in the assassination. It very well may have been. It simply proves that the report of German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis is inconclusive and may have been the result of American coercion. At the very least, the report fits rather nicely with the Bush administration’s stated goals for regime change in Damascus and redrawing the map of the Middle East.

If Mehlis was truly serious about finding out who the assassins really are, rather than carrying out a political vendetta for the United States, he would be devoting more energy to uncovering the details related to the white Mitsubishi Canter Van that carried the explosives. The history and origins of this van, which was stolen in Japan on Oct. 12, 2004, are critical to the investigation as journalist Robert Parry points out in his recent article “The Dangerously incomplete Hariri Report”. But, then, few who have been following the Hariri assassination have any misgivings about the real motives behind the Mehlis Report. The Hariri investigation is just the pretext for the forthcoming military action against Syria.

Already the western press has swung into high-gear reiterating the blistering rhetoric emerging from the White House and its acolytes’ at the State Dept. Ambassador John Bolton, the Bush administration’s mad-hatter at the UN, has repeatedly threatened Syria with swift action although the facts are still uncertain.

"This is true confessions time now for the government of Syria”, Bolton warned. “No more obstruction. No more half measures. We want substantive cooperation and we want it immediately."

As many have suspected, the volatile Bolton was dispatched to the UN to pave the way for war with Syria and Iran. His baseless attacks on Damascus have done nothing to disprove that conclusion.

Fans of the much-maligned “paper of record” will be glad to see that Judith Miller’s chair at the Times has been filled by her equally-competent protégé, Warren Hoge. Hoge has already produced 4 front-page articles on the Hariri case invoking the same demagoguery, unsubstantiated allegations and damning insinuations as his mentor Miller. In essence, the Times has already condemned poor Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by framing the uncorroborated evidence in a way that excludes every other suspect and by repeating the constant refrain “sanctions” 7 times in one article alone. Judy Miller’s early retirement has not dulled the Time’s appetite for reiterating fictions on its front page. Predictably, no mention of the witness Sadik’s shaky testimony has appeared in any of America’s leading newspapers.

http://judicial-inc.biz/pics/paage_6.jpg

Sound familiar?

So, what’s the game-plan? Can the Washington warlords really be considering another invasion just to depose what Paul Craig Robert’s calls a “mild mannered ophthalmologist”?

The real reasons for regime change in Syria have less to do with Hariri’s assassin and more to do with oil and Israel. An April 20, 2003 article in the UK Observer, “Israel seeks Pipeline for Iraqi Oil”, clarifies this point.

The Observer notes that Washington and Tel Aviv are hammering out the details for a pipeline that will run through Syria and “create an endless and easily accessible source of cheap Iraqi oil for the US guaranteed by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia”. The pipeline “would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke.” This is the driving force behind the confrontation with Syria. At present, Bashar al Assad refuses to normalize relations with Israel until Israel surrenders the land it seized in the Golan Heights during the 1967 war. Israeli hawks have no intention of returning the land and are planning to remove al Assad instead.

It’s widely known that Israeli Intelligence (Mossad) is already operating in Mosul where the pipeline will originate and have developed good relations with the Kurds in the area. The only remaining obstacle is the current Syrian regime which has already entered the US-Israeli crosshairs. Originally, the pipeline was the dream of the Israeli Minister for National Infrastructures, Joseph Paritzky, who said that it would “cut Israel's energy bill drastically - probably by more than 25 per cent - since the country is currently largely dependent on expensive imports from Russia.”

The Observer quotes a CIA official who said: 'It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel's energy supply as well as that of the United States. The Haifa pipeline was something that existed, was resurrected as a dream, and is now a viable project - albeit with a lot of building to do.”

James Akins, a former US ambassador to the region and critic of the pipeline plan said, “This is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil, for the United States and its ally.'”

“Wipe out Syria”? That’s pretty blunt talk from a diplomat.

Akins is not kidding. Washington and Tel Aviv are fully committed to toppling the Assad government. Many of the same people who are connected to the ongoing Fitzgerald investigation, (Wurmser, Libby, Perle, Feith, Hannah, Wolfowitz) authored a report outlining the neocon agenda in the Middle East for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. The report, “A Clean Break; A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, campaigned for the very policies that are currently being executed by the Bush administration. The strategy calls for a “roll-back" of regional threats to Israel, help to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and striking "Syrian military targets in Lebanon”. To deny that America is now fighting Israel’s war is shortsighted to the point of blindness.

The title of the Wurmser-Feith’s-Pearl document tells the whole story. “A Clean Break” conveys the message that Israel should abandon giving back land in exchange for peace with the Palestinians. (as per Oslo) “Securing the Realm”, however, is equally attention-grabbing in that it articulates the real objectives of its authors; to reestablish the ancient kingdom of Israel; a kingdom that will undoubtedly mean West Bank-type apartheid and Guantanamo-type justice for 1 billion Muslims in the region. Regime change in Syria is a crucial step to realizing that goal.

Syria poses no threat to America’s national security. We have no dog in this fight. The real threat is those who now operate freely within the foreign policy establishment, using the US military to further their own self-serving objectives of controlling Middle East oil and securing an imaginary Israeli empire. Neither of these is in the national interest, and both have put America’s future greatly in doubt.

RedWine

12-05-2006, 11:30 AM

U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister's Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a "bonus" the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

The new pipeline would take oil from the ***kuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years.

The National Infrastructure Ministry has recently conducted research indicating that construction of a 42-inch diameter pipeline between ***kuk and Haifa would cost about $400,000 per kilometer. The old Mosul-Haifa pipeline was only 8 inches in diameter.

National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month. Paritzky added that the plan depends on Jordan's consent and that Jordan would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to piped through its territory. The minister noted, however, that "due to pan-Arab concerns, it will be hard for the Jordanians to agree to the flow of Iraqi oil via Jordan and Israel."

Sources in Jerusalem confirmed yesterday that the Americans are looking into the possibility of laying a new pipeline via Jordan and Israel. (There is also a pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.)

Iraqi oil is now being transported via Turkey to a small Mediterranean port near the Syrian border. The transit fee collected by Turkey is an important source of revenue for the country. This line has been damaged by sabotage twice in recent weeks and is presently out of service.

In response to rumors about the possible ***kuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline, Turkey has warned Israel that it would regard this development as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations.

Sources in Jerusalem suggest that the American hints about the alternative pipeline are part of an attempt to apply pressure on Turkey.

Iraq is one of the world's largest oil producers, with the potential of reaching about 2.5 million barrels a day. Oil exports were halted after the Gulf War in 1991 and then were allowed again on a limited basis (1.5 million barrels per day) to finance the import of food and medicines. Iraq is currently exporting several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.

During his visit to Washington in about two weeks, Paritzky also plans to discuss the possibility of U.S. and international assistance for joint Israeli-Palestinian projects in the areas of energy and infrastructure, natural gas, desalination and electricity.

mike435

12-05-2006, 05:18 PM

theit is allways room for romantic concpiriousy theory not sating that it is a lie
just a thoght

RedWine

12-13-2006, 10:07 AM

The wars in Vietnam and Iraq differ in major respects, but U.S. policy in both suffers from the same fatal flaw. The publication of National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's Nov. 8 memorandum shows a critical similarity between the American approaches to these wars.

In both cases the United States has tried to turn a nation into something alien to its nature. Now as in Vietnam, the U.S. government is refusing to base its policies upon reality and is looking for a local leader who can make political bricks without straw to build the nation the United States has in mind. For that reason, the intervention in Iraq, like that in South Vietnam, seems almost certain to end in failure.

Hadley's memorandum provides a very rare glimpse of what someone in the administration is actually thinking. He wants a united, democratic, moderate Iraq in which all Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds can live, but he doesn't know if Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki shares this goal. Not surprisingly; since he belongs to a Shiite political party with a terrorist past, Maliki seems to be representing the interests of the Shiites, and giving Muqtada al-Sadr's militias a free rein.

According to Hadley, Maliki either doesn't know what is happening or isn't telling his American interlocutors the truth. Hadley assumes that Maliki's recent clashes with American authorities are attempts to act like a strong leader, which he has failed to do towards the Shiite militias.

The national security adviser barely considers the more likely possibility that Maliki knows and supports what those militias are doing. Like so many American policymakers in so many other wars, Hadley, following President Bush, thinks he knows exactly what Iraq needs; the problem is that so few Iraqis seem to agree.

South Vietnam's governments also had serious problems. The Diem regime (1954-63) wanted to defeat or at least contain the Viet Cong but could not rally non-Communist South Vietnamese behind it, prompting the United States to abandon it.

From November 1963 until June 1965 the United States tried to find a government that would fight the war IT wanted to fight, but many South Vietnamese wanted a settlement with the Viet Cong instead. Washington had to settle for a military government that was never popular and eventually failed. Had the United States respected the realities on the ground, South Vietnam could have had a coalition government by 1965. It might even have survived. Even if it hadn't, the United States and South Vietnam would have been spared enormous suffering.

Hadley's memo proposes to re-create Maliki. Rather than replace him, he actually wants to detach him from his current Shiite political base and build him a whole new one. The United States might "use our own political capital to press moderates to align themselves with Maliki's new political bloc" and "consider monetary support to moderate groups that have been seeking to break with larger, more sectarian parties." Four years into the war, Hadley also wants to build him a whole new police force. He also speaks of letting Maliki control more Iraqi troops, indicating that most of them are now under American command.

The suggestion that Maliki should completely recast his political base is about as realistic as asking President Bush to replace half his cabinet with Democrats, and just as likely to happen. (Similarly, some Americans in 1963 thought that Diem could continue in office if he fired his brother Nhu - about as likely as President Kennedy firing his brother Robert, the attorney general.) Since the administration apparently has no intention of abandoning its fantasy of the new Iraq, it will, like the United States in Vietnam, be tempted to seek Maliki's replacement when he does not change. He is already the administration's third chosen prime minister.

Alternatively, some administration figures reportedly want simply to abandon the effort to bring the Sunnis on board and give the Shiites free rein. This rather desperate step might eventually crush the insurgency, but it would undercut every Sunni regime in the region - including American allies there - and almost certainly mean a bloodbath on a massive scale.

The time has come to stop sacrificing Iraqi and American lives for a hopeless vision of a unified, democratic and pluralistic Iraq. More than ever, the American people need leaders willing to choose among real options.

RedWine

12-13-2006, 10:08 AM

Although President Bush has long denied that the Vietnam and Iraq wars are in anyway comparable, his mid-November visit to Vietnam forced him to confront the issue anew.[1] While Press Secretary Tony Snow and Secretary of State Condolezza Rice were busy deflecting questions about the relevance of the U.S.’s experiences in the Vietnam War to the one in Iraq, the President told reporters that there was “one lesson.” We Americans, the President said, “tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while.... We'll succeed unless we quit.”

Sadly, the President is a poor student of history. To date the war in Vietnam is the U.S.’s longest. Clearly the desire for instant gratification was not an issue in America’s defeat there. More important, however, are the depressing similarities between the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. Iraq has become another American Vietnam–a tragic, unnecessary, and divisive failure in counter-insurgency and nation-building.

Historians and other commentators in these pages have suggested many parallels and analogies between the U.S.’s war in Iraq and other conflicts (see HNN’s Hot Topics: Iraq Analogies: It's Vietnam. It's Lebanon ...). While there are many significant differences between the wars in 1960s and 1970s Vietnam and Iraq today, the closest relevant American experience to the war in Iraq is the Vietnam War. As Dale Andrade and Lt. Col. James H. Willbanks (ret.) point out in the U.S. Army journal, Military Review: “Vietnam is the most prominent historical example of American counter-insurgency–and the longest.” The U.S. should, they urge, “apply the lessons learned” there “to Iraq and Afghanistan.” The wars in Vietnam and Iraq, as Andrade and Willbanks, suggest are very similar in several fundamental aspects. [2]

Both of these wars began as attempts to preserve American “security” through nation-building–the creation of pro-American, “democratic,” capitalist client states in Vietnam and Iraq. As these two conflicts developed, they came to stand as the central front in the broader global ideological conflicts the United States government was fighting–the Cold War in Vietnam’s case; the war on terror in Iraq’s.

In these two conflicts the U.S. government’s top policymakers were terribly ignorant of the political, social, cultural, religious, and historical realities of the countries that they were making war in. This led them to colossal errors of judgment regarding the prospects for success in using military force to export American-style democracy and economic freedom to Vietnam and Iraq. They compounded this error by making military force their primary instrument in nation-building. This is a task for which the U.S. military was and still is ill-suited.

Tragically, both wars were unnecessary. Neither communism in South Vietnam in 1965 nor Baathism in Iraq in 2003 threatened American national security or any fundamental U.S. interests.

The two wars were also undeclared. Neither Presidents Johnson nor Bush bothered to follow the Constitution and ask Congress to declare war–something that might have resulted in a careful and reasoned public debate about what was at stake and whether American lives and treasure should be risked in pursuit of it. And, the congressional resolutions authorizing the use of U.S. military force in Vietnam and Iraq were obtained by Presidents Johnson and Bush through deception. Although they denied it at the time, the two Presidents were determined to go to war when they requested congressional action.

The Iraq war, like Vietnam before it, is a guerrilla war and a civil war. The U.S. military today, like its predecessor in the 1960s, is designed to fight conventional (army-to-army) wars; this was despite its failure in Vietnam. Consequently, both wars found American officers and troops unprepared for combat with an enemy indistinguishable from the civilian population. With little knowledge of Vietnam, Iraq, or how to fight guerrilla war, American officers and soldiers adopted strategy, tactics, and behaviors that oppressed and humiliated the civilian population and thereby provided the insurgents with a steady stream of recruits and popular support. Adding more American troops in Vietnam simply stimulated more opposition and escalated the level of violence. The same holds true for Iraq today.

In South Vietnam the United States built up a weak, ineffectual, and corrupt client state that could not win popular support. The failure of the South Vietnamese state meant that the American strategy to Vietnamize the war was doomed. Corruption and incompetence pervaded the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)’s officer corps, while its soldiers were undisciplined and often unwilling to fight with the same fervor as their opponents. Sadly, the current Iraqi government and army show the very same traits as their South Vietnamese counter-parts.

In both conflicts yawning credibility gaps opened between optimistic pronouncements of the presidents and their civilian and military spokespeople on the one hand, and the bloody realities of the war on the ground in Vietnam and Iraq on the other. The deceptions by the Johnson (and Nixon) and Bush administrations, the obvious political and military failures in the field, and the tragic waste of life and treasure made the Vietnam and Iraq wars unpopular among the American people.

The beginning of the end of the U.S.’s war in Vietnam came with the Tet offensive in January, 1968. Tet made it abundantly clear that the Johnson administration’s claims of winning the war were wrong. It also showed that all too many South Vietnamese did not want U.S. troops in their country and that they did not support the American vision for it. After Tet increasing numbers of Americans saw the war as unwinnable, and turned against it. By August of 1968 a Gallup poll reported that over half of the Americans it surveyed (53.46 percent) believed “the U.S. made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam.” [3] A year and a half after the offensive 60 percent of Americans told Gallup’s pollsters that they wanted either to end the war or U.S. involvement in it. [4] Without popular support in South Vietnam or the U.S., the U.S. government lost the Vietnam War.

RedWine

12-13-2006, 10:08 AM

The U.S. was defeated in Vietnam, not because, as President Bush suggests–the American people were quitters without the necessary will to go the long haul, but because the war could not be won on terms that policymakers sold it to the American people–bringing democracy and economic freedom to South Vietnam. The then Lieutenant John Kerry aptly summarized these sentiments in his 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy.... They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace....

This history is being repeated in Iraq today. Iraqi Army units have mutinied rather than join U.S. forces a fight to end the sectarian violence in Bagdad. A recent poll by the University of Maryland reveals that 78 percent of Iraqis believe the U.S. presence is "provoking more conflict than it is preventing," and 71 percent want the U.S. to withdraw in a one year. The last six months of Washington Post/ABC News polls show that nearly 60 percent of Americans believe the Iraq war is not worth fighting.

The comments of President Bush, Secretary Rice, and other top officials regarding the lessons of the Vietnam War for Iraq suggest that America’s political and military leaders have long been in a state of denial regarding the Vietnam War and its relevance to the conflict in Iraq. Their refusal to seriously and openly engage the historical experience of America’s Vietnam War and ask what went wrong with the U.S.’s war effort in Vietnam helped lay the foundation for the current debacle in Iraq. The Vietnam War highlighted the great difficulties in nation-building and the limits of American power, particularly military power, to export American-style democracy and freedom. The U.S. military could not compel the Vietnamese to support the government Americans sponsored and helped setup in South Vietnam. The U.S. government’s civilian arm proved incapable in getting its Vietnamese clients to construct a government and economic system that won widespread support among the South Vietnamese people. The result was the U.S.’s defeat in Vietnam. Tragically, the U.S. government is losing in Iraq for many of the same reasons.

Although the final chapter on the Iraq War is yet to be written, the Vietnam experience suggests that exiting the Iraq quagmire poses serious challenges. The decisions taken in 1969 by President Richard Nixon and his National Secretary Adviser, Henry Kissinger (now one of President Bush’s trusted foreign policy advisers on Iraq), resulted in a widening of the war. The rise of the Khmer Rouge and the conversion of Cambodia into killing fields was one horrific consequences of this decision. Nixon (and Ford) and Kissinger’s failure to negotiate a sustainable peaceful settlement left the region ablaze. Shortly after U.S. forces left (1973), its client state in South Vietnam fell to the Vietnamese communists in 1975. It would take nearly 15 years of successive wars involving Vietnam, Cambodia, and China before relative peace was restored to this part South East Asia in the early 1990s.

Americans would do well to avoid a repeat of the bungled Vietnam War exit in Iraq. Unlike South East Asia, U.S. prosperity and security depend on the free flow of Middle Eastern oil. A series of wars following the U.S.’s withdrawal from Iraq would cost Americans dearly. There is also the possibility, however remote, of the creation of an Islamist jihadist regime in Iraq, or in the Sunni part if the country fragments, that could sponsor terrorist attacks against the U.S.

The U.S.’s government’s repetition of the Vietnam War in Iraq makes its Middle Eastern war doubly tragic. A detailed historical understanding of America’s Vietnam War on the part of the President and other U.S. policymakers could have helped the nation avoid the current debacle in Iraq. Instead this history was denied, or at best received extremely superficial attention, as President Bush’s “instant success” comment indicates. This enabled the Bush administration and large majorities in Congress to launch the U.S. on another mistaken nation-building venture that had little prospect for success. The result is a war in Iraq like the one in Vietnam–another losing war effort with American and Iraqi blood and treasure being freely squandered in the process. Iraq in short, has become Arabic for Vietnam.

NOTES

1. E.g.:

Q: Do you see, as some of your critics do, a parallel between what's going on in Iraq now and Vietnam?

THE PRESIDENT: No.

Q Why?

THE PRESIDENT: Because there's a duly elected government; 12 million people voted. They said, we want something different from tyranny, we want to live in a free society. And not only did they vote for a government, they voted for a constitution. Obviously, there is sectarian violence, but this is, in many ways, religious in nature, and I don't see the parallels.

(Press Conference of the President George W. Bush, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, June 14, 2006, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060614.html; “President Bush's Election News Conference,” CQ Transcripts Wire in washingtonpost.com, November 8, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com).

2. Dale Andrade and Lieutenant Colonel James H. Willbanks, “Cords/Pheonix: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future,” Military Review (March-April 2006), pp. 9, 22

3. The Gallup Poll #769, 9/26/1968 10/1/1968, Gallup Brain.

4. The Gallup Poll #784, 7/10/1969?7/15/1969, Gallup Brain. This percentage is drawn from the 71.6 percent of those surveyed who answered yes to the question: “have you given any thought about what this country should do next in Vietnam?”

RedWine

12-14-2006, 03:56 AM

اشپيگل آن لاين- فرانك والتر اشتاين ماير، وزير خارجهء آلمان دربارهء سياست آلمان و ارزش مذاكره با سوريه و ايران با اشپيگل به گفت وگو پرداخته است.

شما به تازگى با كاندوليزا رايس ديدار داشته*ايد. آيا احساس مي*كنيد آمريكا قرار است سياست*هاى خود را در عراق تغييردهد؟

در گفت وگو با رايس به اين نتيجه رسيدم كه سياستگذاران آمريكا دريافته*اند كه در عراق به پيروزى نايل مي*شوند.با وجود اين طى بحث*ها در واشنگتن مشخص شد كه شك و ترديد بسيارى دربارهء توصيه*هاى مهم بيكر مبنى بر مذاكره با سوريه و ايران وجود دارد.

آيا منظور شما اين است كه طى گفت وگوها اميدهايتان كاهش يافته است؟

اين مساله هنوز در واشنگتن در حال بحث و بررسى است. هنوز هيچ تصميمى در زمينهء سياست*هاى آتى آمريكا اتخاذ نشده است. رييس*جمهور بوش اعلام كرده است كه تا پايان سال جارى دربارهء سياست خود در عراق به روشنى صحبت خواهد كرد.

از حزب دموكراتيك مسيحى درخواست شده تا حضور بيش*ترى در عراق داشته باشد. آيا شما كمك بيش ترى ارايه خواهيد داد؟

ما سياست*هاى دولت سابق آلمان را دنبال مي*كنيم. سربازان آلمانى به عراق اعزام نخواهندشد. ولى اين امر به اين معنا نيست كه ما هيچ كمكى نخواهيم كرد. ما در امر بازسازى عراق و آموزش به ماموران پليس به فعاليت*هاى خود ادامه مي*دهيم.

متاسفانه امنيت عراق به طوركامل تامين نشده است.شرايط امنيتى سبب شده تا از اعزام غيرنظاميان در امر كمك رسانى به بازسازى عراق جلوگيرى كنيم.به همين دليل در حال حاضر فكر نمي*كنم بتوانيم كمك بيشترى در اختيار اين كشور قراردهيم.

از نظر سياسى چه كمكى مي*توانيد براى حل اين بحران به عراق ارايه كنيد؟

از اين به بعد تمام تلاش*ها بر اين امر معطوف شده كه از تجزيهء عراق جلوگيرى شود.سياستمداران دوست دارند دربارهء تماميت ارضى كه به هر قيمتى بايد حذف شودصحبت كنند.

چرا اين گونه است ؟آيا آسان*ترين راه حل تجزيه كشور به سه بخش مجزاى كردنشين، شيعه و سنى نيست؟

خير اين خطرناك ترين راه حل است زيرا مرزهاى مجزاى اين سه بخش بحث*هاى بسيارى را برخواهد انگيخت.بر سر تعلق منطقهء غنى از نفت كركوك به كردها يا سني*ها بحث*هاى زيادى خواهد شد؟سني*ها و شيعه*ها منطقهء وسيع*ترى از بغداد را در اختيار خواهند گرفت.من متقاعد شده*ام كه تجزيهء كشور جنگ و خونريزى را در پى خواهد داشت و نبايد فراموش كرد كه كشورهاى همسايه نيز ممكن است در اين جنگ و خونريزى درگير شوند.تركيه و عربستان سعودى نيز در اين باره هشدارهايى داده*اند.

كميتهء بيكر پيشنهاد داده است كه سربازان آمريكايى تا بهار 2008 از عراق عقب نشينى كنند.آيا اين ايدهء خوبى است؟

در واشنگتن دولت به خوبى از خطراتى كه با خروج سريع سربازان آمريكايى ممكن است رخ دهد، آگاهى دارند.براى رسيدن به هدف خاتمهء جنگ داخلي، گروه*هاى مذهبى و قومى بايد در روند آشتى ملى با يكديگر متحد شوند.

دولت آلمان در چنين شرايط سياسياى چه نقشى را ايفا مي*كند؟

من اطمينان دارم تا آن*جا كه بتوانيم كمك*هاى سياسى و ديپلماتيك در اختيار عراق بگذاريم ولى بايد منتظر ماند و ديد كه آمريكا به چه اتفاق آرايى دست خواهد يافت.در واقع، آخرين سفر من به خاورميانه نشان داد كه از حضور پررنگ تر آمريكا در عراق استقبال مي*شود.

در ماه سپتامبر كاندوليزا رايس گفت كه سفر شما به دمشق اشتباه بود.آيا هنوز هم او چنين عقيده*اى دارد؟

احتياط*هاى آمريكا نسبت به سوريه كاملاً شناخته شده است.من و رايس دربارهء دمشق اتفاق نظر داريم.هنوز به عقيدهء من، امتناع از شركت درگفت*وگو نبايد روش استاندارد براى برخورد با مشكلات باشد.

درگيرى در عراق به شدت به روابط آلمان -آمريكا آسيب رسانده است.آيا شرايط عادى خواهد شد؟

ما دربارهء رويكردهاى مختلف بحث كرده*ايم. دلايلى وجود دارد كه هنوز هم داراى ارزش هستند.طى سال*هاى اخير ما با حسن نيت تمام در امور جهانى تلاش كرده ايم.

RedWine

12-14-2006, 03:58 AM

بنا بر گزارش واشينگتن پست دولت عربستان سعودی هشدار داد که اگر آمريکا نيروهای خود را از عراق بيرون بکشد، اين دولت ممکن است به گروه های سنی کمک مالی
بکند تا با شيعه ها بجنگند. اين پيام توسط ديک چنی که ماه گذشته يک سفر ناگهانی به سعودی داشت با دولت آمريکا داده شده است. خاندان سعودی ميگويد نگران آن است که سنی های عراق با حملات گسترده اکثريت شيعه روبرو شود و نفوذ ايران در عراق افزوده شود. خبرگزاری دموکراسی ناو که اين خبر را مخابره کرده افزوده سفير سعودی در آمريکا پرنس تورکی الفيصل نيز استعفا داده است.
خاندان های چني، بوش و سعودی شرکای نفتی ديرين هستند. اگرچه مواضع جديد حاکی از جنگ نومحافظه کاران با ديدگاه های بيکر است، اما کمتر ناظر مستقل ترديد دارد که دولت های منطقه اعم از سنی و شيعه تاکنون نيز به جنگ شيعه - سنی در عراق کمک کرده و به آن دامن ميزنند و پيچ جديد فقط بخشی از واقعياتی را که اعلام نميشد عيان ميکند. در عين ائتلاف سنی ها - آمريکا، در يک بازی موازی آمريکا با گروه هايی از شيعه ها نيز همکاری دارد و از جمله حکومت بخشی از عربستان به شيعه های موتلف آمريکا وعده داده شده و نقشه های آن نيز پخش شده است.

RedWine

12-14-2006, 10:50 AM

NRK (the Norwegian State TV channel) showed a shocking documentary film last Tuesday.

23 billion USD (in dollar notes), which had been blocked from Iraqi bank accounts and also from the UN oil fund, were sent by plane to Iraq. They should be used to build and repair Iraqi infrastructure like hospitals, water supplies, sewage systems etc.

Now the 23 billion USD have dissappeared! They have been stolen by corrupt Iraqi politicians and by US war profiteurs.

Next to nothing has been done with the water supplies, the sewage system and the hospitals. The latter do not even have the most critical equipment for saving lives. Tens of thousands of children have died because of polluted water and no equipment on the hospitals to save their lives.

Still anyone who support the US occupation and robbery in Iraq?

RedWine

12-17-2006, 04:27 AM

نوری المالکي، نخست وزير عراق در کنفرانس کنترل و مقابله با خشونت ها ی فرقه ای و قومی از سربازان و افسران صدام خواست که به ارتش عراق بپيوندند .

نخست وزير عراق درخواست کرد تمامی سربازان و افسران نظامی که در زمان حکومت صدام حسين مشغول خدمت بوده اند، به ارتش ملی عراق پيوسته و بار ديگر به کشور خود خدمت کنند .

پس ازسرنگونی صدام حسين در عراق، تمامی افسران بعثی از ارتش اخراج شدند و افسران عالی رتبه و ارشد نيز متواری شده ويا از عراق خارج شدند .

موفق الربيعي، مشاور امنيت ملی دولت عراق، پيشتر در گفت و گويی اعلام کرده بود که به زودی تدابيرتازه ای برای مقابله با ناامنی در عراق به اجرا در می آيد .

بسياری از سياستمداران مرتبط با حزب بعث نيز از ساختار سياسی تازه عراق اخراج شده اند که نخست وزير عراق خواهان بازگشت اين افراد به فعاليت سياسی است .

نوری المالکی از پارلمان عراق درخواست کرده قوانين بخشش عمومی و عفو اين افراد را تدوين و برای اجرا به دولت ارايه کند تا اين افراد نيز خود را در آينده و سرنوشت عراق سهيم بدانند.

بسياری از سياستمداران مرتبط با حزب بعث نيز از ساختار سياسی تازه عراق اخراج شده اند که نخست وزير عراق خواهان بازگشت اين افراد به فعاليت سياسی است .
آقای المالکی از جمع زياد شيعيان، سنی ها و کردهايی که در اين کنفرانس حاضر بودند، خواست تا جنگ داخلی را کنار گذاشته و به جای ايجاد ناامني، در اداره کردن عراق کمک کنند .

نخست وزير عراق برای سربازان بعثی پيش شرط هم گذاشت و از آنان خواست پس از حضور در ارتش، اختلافات را کنار گذاشته و به عراق متحد وفادار باشند .

وی در ادامه گفت برای افراد ارتش در زمان حکومت بعثي، بازنشستگی نيز در نظر گرفته شده و به آنها پرداخت می شود .

اين درخواست از سوی سنی های حاضر در پارلمان عراق مطرح شده که مورد موافقت المالکی هم واقع شده است .

وی در ادامه خبر داد که با نيروهای آمريکايی به توافق رسيده تا با همکاری با نيروهای عراقي، امنيت عراق را به عراقی ها واگذار کند .

المالکی گفت: ما از نيروهای بين المللی حاضر در عراق تشکر می کنيم که برای خلاصی از دست ديکتاتورها به ما کمک می کنند اما انتظار داريم با نيروهای عراقی همکاری کرده و امنيت را به آنها بسپارند .

نيروهای آمريکايی تا به امروز ۳۰۰ هزار سربازعراقی را تعليم داده اند و خود نيز ۱۳۵ هزار نيرو در عراق متمرکز کرده اند .

آمريکا هم از برگزاری کنفرانس کنترل و مقابله با خشونت در عراق استقبال کرده است .

RedWine

12-20-2006, 04:25 AM

Ex-NSC Official Says White House Is Stifling His Criticism of Iran Policy

A former top White House official accused the Bush administration yesterday of trying to muzzle his criticism of its Iran policy and of falsely alleging that his writings contained classified material to prevent them from being published.

Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst who became a senior director for Middle East policy for the National Security Council before leaving the administration in 2003, said the White House decided that substantial passages of an opinion article he had written for the New York Times involved classified information. Leverett said the article was only a summary of a longer paper he had written a few weeks earlier -- which had been cleared by the CIA as containing no classified information.

He said no fact in the proposed Times article differed from the earlier paper, which he wrote for the Century Foundation.

The assertion that the Times article contained classified information "is false," Leverett said yesterday in a speech about his policy proposals at the New America Foundation. "Indeed, I would say that claim is fraudulent. The people making that claim know it is not true."

Leverett voted for George W. Bush in 2000 but since leaving the White House has emerged as a fierce critic of administration policy, particularly toward Iran. His paper for the Century Foundation made the case for engaging with Tehran on a comprehensive basis to seek a "grand bargain" with the Islamic republic -- at a time when administration officials have resisted pressure to enter in talks with Iran on Iraq and other issues.

"The White House is using the rubric of protecting classified information, not to protect classified information, but to limit the dissemination of the views of someone who is very critical of their approach to Iran policy," Leverett said. The Times article was written with his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett, an Iran specialist who is also a former NSC staff member in the Bush administration.

White House and CIA spokesmen adamantly disputed Leverett's charges. NSC spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that career staff members on the access and records management staff, who determine whether classified material is involved, made the ruling without political appointees being involved.

Johndroe and CIA spokesman Mike Mansfield said that, in a lapse, the CIA did not circulate the Century Foundation paper to the White House. Johndroe said sections of that paper probably would have been deemed classified. "It was an oversight," Mansfield said. "It should have been shared with them."

As a former CIA official, Leverett is required to submit his writings for pre-publication review. Mansfield said that the CIA reviews the material only to determine whether it is classified but decided to send the proposed op-ed article to the White House, which had an interest because Leverett had once served there.

Leverett said it is his understanding that this is the first time the White House has reviewed his writings, and that it occurred because the White House had complained to the CIA about other articles. Mansfield declined to comment on whether any of Leverett's previous articles had been sent to the White House for review.

"It is very disappointing to me that former colleagues at the CIA have proven so spineless in the face of this kind of tawdry political pressure from the White House," Leverett said. He said CIA officials told him that they felt the article "did not contain classified information, but they had to bow to the wishes of the White House."

Leverett said the CIA ordered two sections concerning U.S. dealings with Iran in his article to be heavily redacted, even though the material had appeared in news reports or had been discussed publicly by administration officials.

One section described Iran's cooperation in helping create a new government in Afghanistan, which Leverett said in his Century Foundation paper led Iranian officials to believe the two countries were on the cusp of a diplomatic opening. But that ended when Bush named Iran as part of the "axis of evil," he said.

The other section concerned his description of an offer the Iranian foreign ministry sent the administration in 2003, through Swiss diplomatic channels, to resolve outstanding bilateral issues with the United States. The White House rejected the approach, which has been widely described in news reports since then.

"The administration's handling of Iran policy has been the strategic equivalent of medical malpractice," Leverett said.

RedWine

12-24-2006, 04:00 AM

As the United States debates what to do in Iraq, this country’s Shiite majority has been moving toward its own solution: making the capital its own.
Large portions of Baghdad have become Shiite in recent months, as militias press their fight against Sunni militants deeper into the heart of the capital, displacing thousands of Sunni residents. At least 10 neighborhoods that a year ago were mixed Sunni and Shiite are now almost entirely Shiite, according to residents, American and Iraqi military commanders and local officials.

For the first years of the war, Sunni militants were dominant, forcing Shiites out of neighborhoods and systematically killing bakers, barbers and trash collectors, who were often Shiites. But starting in February, after the bombing of a shrine in the city of Samarra, Shiite militias began to strike back, pushing west from their strongholds and redrawing the sectarian map of the capital, home to a quarter of Iraq’s population.

The Shiite-dominated government publicly condemns violence against Sunnis and says it is trying to stop the militias that carry it out. But the attacks have continued unabated, and Sunnis have grown suspicious.

Plans for a new bridge that would bypass a violent Sunni area in the east, and a proposal for land handouts in towns around Baghdad that would bring Shiites into what are now Sunni strongholds underscored these concerns.

Sunni political control in Baghdad is all but nonexistent: Of the 51 members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, which runs the city’s services, just one is Sunni.

In many ways, the changes are a natural development. Shiites, a majority of Iraq’s population, were locked out of the ruling elite under Saddam Hussein and now have power that matches their numbers.

The danger, voiced by Sunni Arabs, is that an emboldened militant fringe will conduct broader killings without being stopped by the government, or, some fear, with its help. That could, in turn, draw Sunni countries into the fight and lead to a protracted regional war, precisely the outcome that Americans most fear.

“They say they’re against this, but on the ground they do nothing,” said Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, a Sunni. He moved his family to the better-protected Green Zone in October.

The debate reaches to the heart of the American enterprise here. While President Bush is considering more troops, some in the Shiite-dominated government say the Americans should stay out of the sectarian fight in Baghdad and let the battle run its course. Getting involved would simply prolong the fight, they say.

At an army base in northern Baghdad, an Iraqi general moved his hand across a map of the capital. The city is dividing fast, he said, writing, “Sunni” and “Shiite” in graceful Arabic script across each neighborhood.

“Now we face a new style of splitting the neighborhoods,” said the general, a Shiite. “The politicians are doing this.”

Neighborhoods in the east — most vulnerable to Shiite militias from Sadr City, the largest eastern district and one of its poorest — have lost much of their minority Sunni populations since February. Even the solidly middle-class neighborhoods of Zayuna and Ghadier, very mixed as little as six months ago, are starting to lose Sunnis.

In Baladiyad, a once-mixed area of eastern Baghdad, workers smoothed mortar onto brick. A Shiite mosque was taking shape.

On the same block, a half-finished Sunni mosque stood deserted, its facade hung with peeling posters of last year’s leaders. Less than a mile away, another mosque has never been used.

“They can’t come here now,” a Shiite worker said. “They are Sunni.”

Further south, in the neighborhood of Naariya, a Shiite refugee family sat in a darkened living room in a house they recently occupied.

The house belonged to a Sunni family, but they had fled after a spate of killings, and the local office of Moktada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric, had arranged for Shiites to move in.

The new family’s scant belongings hung on the wall: a portrait of the father, now dead, and a broken revolver. Somebody else’s clock chimed. Mattresses and couches of the previous owners packed the room.

“They told us it’s safe here, it’s a Shiite neighborhood,” said Mustafa, one of the sons. “The Mahdi Army is protecting the area,” he said, referring to Mr. Sadr’s militia. Family members declined to give their name for safety reasons.

RedWine

12-24-2006, 04:00 AM

The family has no sympathy for the Sunnis. They fled Baquba, a relentlessly violent town north of Baghdad, after Sunni militants killed their father, a man in his 70’s; kidnapped a brother; and shot another brother dead.

Around 400 Shiite families have fled from Baquba to Naariya and a nearby neighborhood, Baghdad Jedidah, over the past few months, said Mustafa, citing local officials in Mr. Sadr’s office.

“We are a ship that sank under the ocean,” said his mother, Aziza, 46.

Besides, Mustafa said, Shiite militias pursue only Sunnis with suspicious affiliations. The Sunni militias, on the other hand, “are killing anyone who is Shiite,” Aziza said. (A relative in a separate conversation said one of Aziza’s sons had killed more than 10 Sunnis since coming to Baghdad this fall. The family denied any involvement in militias.)

Aziza added, “My husband was an ordinary man.”

But a divided Iraq can destroy ordinary people.

A Sunni man named Bassim, his Shiite wife and their three small children said Shiite militiamen forced them to leave their home in Huriya, west of the Tigris, one chilly afternoon this month. Bassim left two jobs as a butcher and a hospital cleaner because they were in very Shiite neighborhoods.

“My husband is a Sunni, but he has nothing to do with insurgents,” said his wife, Zahra Kareem Alwan, holding her sobbing daughter on her hip in a school in Adel, a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad where families took temporary refuge. Boxes of water were stacked in a corner.

Last week, the family was moved to an empty house farther west. They did not know the owner.

Shiite leaders argue that the Iraqi Army would not allow massacres. They say Americans will be embedded with units as a safety check.

In Huriya, it was an Iraqi Army unit that helped Ms. Alwan and other families into trucks and brought them to Adel. An American colonel advising the Iraqi Army unit that controls the area said that Shiites occupied the houses within 48 hours. Americans counted about 180 families who had fled. The Iraqi general said it was 50.

Shiite political leaders were skeptical.

“These are lies,” said Hadi al-Amiri, head of the security committee in Parliament and of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite parties.

“It’s merely propaganda to create fears among Arabs,” he added, a reference to Sunni Arab countries.

The main problem, Mr. Amiri said, was Sunni insurgents and their suicide bombs.

“They want to go back to the old equation, when they were the officers and the Shia were just soldiers and slaves,” Mr. Amiri said, with an intensity that spoke of deep scars inflicted by the past government, referring to the loyalists to Saddam Hussein. “This will never happen again. They should believe in the new equation.”

Using the unlikely analogy of Mr. Hussein draining the marshes in southern Iraq to destroy the marsh Arabs, Mr. Amiri talked about ways that Baghdad could be encircled to choke off the supply lines of Sunni militants, for instance, by fortifying a network of rivers, a dam, and several highways.

“He divided it, drained the water, and within two to three years it was a desert,” he said. “I believe Baghdad will be like this.”

Militias are already doing their part to defend Shiites. In a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, refugees from the embattled northern village of Sabaa al-Bour, many of them women in black abayas, gathered in October asking for food and shelter.

Killings of Shiites in the town had enraged leaders in Baghdad. But weeks had dragged on, and one morning in October, a volunteer walked through the refugees telling them to go back home.

The Mahdi Army was there now, she said. The town was now safe for Shiites.

Shiites are also making inroads on local and federal levels. Baghdad’s municipal government is taking bids for designs of a bridge that would connect Greyat with Kadhimiya, two major Shiite areas in northern Baghdad on opposite sides of the Tigris River. Adhamiya, a Sunni area where the bridge is now and where it has been closed, would be bypassed altogether.

“The former regime refused to make the connection because it would strengthen the Shia,” said Naem al-Kaabi, a deputy mayor of Baghdad.

In another plan that appears intended to repopulate heavily Sunni-controlled areas with Shiites, the Ministry of Public Works has proposed giving land to victims of violence inflicted by Mr. Hussein and by insurgents since 2003. The plots would be in six towns outside Baghdad — Abu Ghraib, Taji, Salman Pak, Husseiniya, Mahmudiya and Latifiya, according to a local official familiar with the plan.

Sunni militants now control the towns and have conducted brutal campaigns to eliminate Shiites. Mr. Hussein gave favors to Sunni tribes there to protect against Shiites from the south. Few Sunnis claim compensation as victims of violence, since the application requires visits to police stations and hospitals, places no longer safe for Sunnis.

It was not clear how soon the plan would be carried out. A previous proposal, made by the Iraqi cabinet last year, would give some land in heavily S