Iraqis' Bitterness Is Called Bigger Threat Than Terror

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/international/middleeast/17MILI.html

New intelligence assessments are warning that the United States' most formidable foe in Iraq in the months ahead may be the resentment of ordinary Iraqis increasingly hostile to the American military occupation, Defense Department officials said today.

That picture, shared with American military commanders in Iraq, is very different from the public view currently being presented by senior Bush administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who once again today listed only "dead-enders, foreign terrorists and criminal gangs" as opponents of the American occupation.

The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were concerned about retribution for straying from the official line. They said it was a mistake for the administration to discount the role of ordinary Iraqis who have little in common with the groups Mr. Rumsfeld cited, but whose anger over the American presence appears to be kindling some sympathy for those attacking American forces.

Other United States government officials said some of the concerns had been prompted by recent polling in Iraq by the State Department's intelligence branch. The findings, which remain classified, include significant levels of hostility to the American presence. The officials said indications of that hostility extended well beyond the Sunni heartland of Iraq, which has been the main setting for attacks on American forces, to include the Shiite-dominated south, whose citizens have been more supportive of the American military presence but have also protested loudly about raids and other American actions.

I don't know what to say. This is an incredible sensory barrage of damning press and media I've been seeing. Is it because I mostly get my news from DU?

from the major papers and online news sources have been putting a very bad light on the * admin. I have not read one thing that was in any way a positive piece. I think the dam is finally busting wide open.

into this!? After all we just bombed the shit out them a little..

Only killed how many? a few thousand?

And didn't get the power back on for them, yet, but hey they secured the ministry of oil. No wonder the Iraqis are sabataging the oil lines...

I'm sure most of the Iraqis, except maybe those who had it good under Saddam Hussein's rule, are happy he's gone, but they're now tired of seeing foreigners who are of a different culture and different religion, ordering them around, lording it over them. Imagine yourself in their place. I have, and I wouldn't like it at all.