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JoFerret Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 09:19 PM
Original message
Bremer is powerless to restrain the US military
Edited on Wed Apr-14-04 09:21 PM by JoFerret
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=511587

"It is very difficult to know who is taking the decisions on the American side," said Hussain al-Shahristani, an influential Shia figure, in an interview with The Independent. "You hear one thing from Bremer and another thing from the US army."

<snip>

The US Marines have undertaken to subdue Fallujah, west of Baghdad, apparently without regard for civilian casualties. Doctors in the local hospital estimate these to total more than 600 dead and 1,200 wounded, many of them women and children. Iraqi politicians believe that Mr Bremer knows the siege is provoking a backlash against the occupation, but cannot restrain the US military.

"There will be a massacre if the Americans go into Najaf," declared Dr Shahristani. He pointed out that the office of Sadr is close to the holy shrine of Imam Ali, sacred to 130 million Shias, which would certainly be damaged in the fighting. If Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the revered religious leader of the Iraqi Shia, strongly condemns an American incursion then Shia leaders believe that there will be an uprising all over Iraq.

Earlier Sadr said: "I fear only God. I am ready to sacrifice my blood for this country. I call on the Iraqi people not to let my killing put an end to their rejection of the occupation."

Dr Shahristani, imprisoned for many years by Saddam Hussein until he escaped during the 1991 Shia uprising, said there was less likelihood of fighting in Kerbala, where Sadr's forces are weaker. But in Najaf his militiamen control the shrine of Imam Ali, with its golden dome, in the centre of the city.

He estimated that "some 15 per cent of Iraqi Shias support Sadr and the same proportion dislike him intensely. The majority do not accept his methods but they think that he has been unfairly treated by the US when they closed his newspaper and arrested or shot at his supporters".

<more>
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NMDemDist2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 09:25 PM
Response to Original message
1. oh what a bring down after reading the first 7 days of this site
600 dead and 1200 wounded. That's so sad. I HATE THESE REPUKES.
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JohnOneillsMemory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:12 PM
Response to Original message
2. KICK> THIS IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT n/t
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IthinkThereforeIAM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:21 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. Kickx2...

...I got a chill down my spine reading that. Iraq is on the verge of chaos.
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jcldragon Donating Member (228 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:14 PM
Response to Original message
3. ...
Perhaps they want to punish them for not believing that we are there to liberate them?
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dogonarug Donating Member (170 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 02:24 AM
Response to Reply #3
14. "Hearts and minds"
We will win their hearts and minds...thats just two bullets apiece
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Eye and Monkey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:22 PM
Response to Original message
5. I don't see Bremer being any sort of real "good-cop".
It seems to me more like "hand and glove".
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peterh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:30 PM
Response to Original message
6. It makes you wonder….who the fuck is in control….
The twit defers….what ever so and so wants…he gets…
The 911 commission is unclear on who’s in charge…..

I think Abbott & Costello may be our shadow government…
Who's on First? What's on Second? IDon'tKnow who's Third.
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CHIMO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:37 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Who IS On First?
Who is Abbot and who is Costtello?
Blair will be in town and who is going to be screwed!
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daleo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 10:37 PM
Response to Original message
7. Negroponte is rumored to be slated to replace Bremer
I am sure that he wouldn't even think about restraining the military.
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Zhade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 02:31 AM
Response to Reply #7
15. Ah, but remember, he's great at "coalition-building".
:eyes:

Yeah - like Negroponte, a man who backed death squads, is going to be able to build a coalition to join in on committing war crimes!

Far more countries are discussing getting the hell OUT of Iraq than going IN to that firestorm.

This is going to be a bad weekend.
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readmylips Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-14-04 11:28 PM
Response to Original message
9. How can Bremer in charge? Not evenl US Military is....
in charge. The hired-hand soldiers run over anybody and everybody. They don't report to Bremer nor the US. They have their own commandos, and their goal is to kill anything that moves.

Our poor teenage soldiers are useless and made to be worthless against the hired-soldiers. Those hired soldiers have no conscience. Our young soldiers are still in a dream of innocence. I am so mad at God. I don't see where he's showing mercy for the innocent Iraqi people and for our young soldiers. If He parted the red sea, I wan to see Him part bushes' head in half.
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cliss Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 12:24 AM
Response to Original message
10. 2 possibilities;
General Sanchez, who I believe is the army commander in Iraq. Or: his boss, Donald Rumsfeld.

Honestly, I don't know who is worse. Bremer is no better, either (George Bush's cousin).

Either way, it appears that there is chaos. If they do go into Najaf and start shooting, they will inflame Iraq in an inferno. I have to assume that they will disregard the religious nature of this city and maybe even bomb their mosque. The US bombed a mosque earlier this week because they said they were hiding munitions there.

Count on the entire muslim world to get sucked in at that point.
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cornfedyank Donating Member (642 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 12:34 AM
Response to Reply #10
12. i think the plan is to get enough of them pissed off enough
to ask or demand that we leave.
they get a united country.
our marines get to come home.
any thing is better than this... i wish it was a joke.
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cornfedyank Donating Member (642 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 12:28 AM
Response to Original message
11. i call on the iraqi people...............the great uniter ....BU_ _ SH_ _.
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Merlin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 12:42 AM
Response to Original message
13. There is no longer any doubt: the US is adopting Israeli tactics...
...in immitation of the enormous success Sharon has had in bringing peace to that region through his enlightened policy of punishing whole communities for the acts of a few. It is a policy guaranteed to win the hearts and minds of the citizens of these cities. They surely will deeply love and admire their American liberators as they gaze into the lifeless eyes of a dead son, killed by a US sniper, or the mutilated limbs of a husband burned beyond recognition by an F-16 bomb.

Our leaders are so very wise. It is enough to make a grown man cry.
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Cronus Protagonist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 04:46 AM
Response to Original message
16. I see it's all going according to plan
This isn't a mistake, it's the plan. Bush and his buddies have been saying for a while the task is to flush them out and kill them. This is the flush part. Next come the killing fields.
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-15-04 04:52 AM
Response to Original message
17. Very helpful. Thanks. n/t
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