Paul Reynolds (BBC): US gambles on Plan B

From the BBC Online
Dated Saturday November 15

US gambles on Plan B
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online World affairs correspondent

The sudden decision by the United States to hand over power by the end of June next year is a recognition that its present policy has failed - but the new policy, plan B, is also something of a gamble.
The change of direction will enable President Bush to be able to proclaim during his visit to Britain starting on 18 November that an end to the occupation is in sight.
That will help him not only internationally, but domestically, as he sizes up his prospects in the presidential election next year.
But this is not the end of the crisis - the success of the new approach depends on the Iraqi people accepting the legitimacy of the transitional government which is to take power.
If the resistance simply transfers its attentions from the occupation forces to the new authorities, then there could be civil war.
The Kurds in the north would not accept an Iraq dominated by resurgent pro-Saddam elements; nor would the Shias in the south.

Read more.

am I good, or what.

That goal is to loot Iraq.

This is more typical equivocation from the Bushies. We see in it a legalistic description of ending the occupation (turning power over to a trnsitional government), but US troops remain until after elections are held in late 2005.

As long as foreign troops remain on Iraqi soil to enforce whatever decisions are made by the authorities, it is an occupation. As long as the Iraqi authorities are making decisions to sell the country to transnational corporations, it is an occupation.

The occupation will end when an Iraqi government that is responsible to the Iraqi people assumes control and makes decisions about Iraq's economic infrastructure for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Until then, it's a colonial occupation and one that the Iraqis have every right and every reason to resist.

..this occupation will go on indefinitely!!

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. troops will not withdraw anytime soon.

"The timetable or the way ahead that the Governing Council has been describing relates to the governance aspects of the country and not to the security aspects," Rumsfeld said in Japan. "That's on a separate track."

more...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031116/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_464&cid=540

and here i thought we weren't interested in staying... just 'liberating' :puke:

peace