What should we do in Iraq?

Should we "cut and run" so to speak?

Should we try to get U.N. help?

Any other alternatives?

I know that Kerry said he had a no-draft plan, but he has to know as well as anybody that we cannot continue without help and we cannot draft people.

Any solution starts with new leadership.

The "old" leadership will most certainly screw up the situation more before Jan 05.

which was put forth by a couple of "mainstream policy analysts" in an op-ed piece in the WP, calling for setting a firm date for the end of the occupation:
"That objective was wildly ambitious even before the military operation began; today it is simply unattainable in the near term. The more we talk about staying "as long as it takes" the more it appears we are trying to impose our vision on Iraq -- further alienating the Iraqi public. The danger is not that we will cut and run but that the Iraqis will insist that we get out, leaving behind a security vacuum that could ignite civil war and wider regional strife.

How can we avoid such a disaster? First, we must make clear that our military presence in Iraq is designed to permit the Iraqis to freely choose their own future -- even if it is not fully to our liking. We should indicate not just that we will leave if asked but that we will ourselves plan to end the deployment of coalition forces following the election of an Iraqi government and the adoption of a new constitution next year. We should make clear that we (as part of a wider international coalition) would be prepared to stay beyond that time -- but only at the request of the new Iraqi government, and as part of a new, U.N.-sponsored mandate on terms that are acceptable to the new Iraqi government and to us."

See the original article plus take the opportunity to tell MoveOn what you think about it at http://www.moveon.org/news/iraqsurvey.html

we should hold and election and leave a.s.a.p. maybe a couple weeks to set it up.

it's *the cradle of civilization* fcol. they don't need us. the people of iraq are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

There's something magical about Mesopotamia. It means that something different will happen in this instance than what has happened in just about every other power vacuum in the history of mankind.

It won't be just the Iraqis with personal armies who get to decide for everyone else how the country will be run, because it's the cradle of civilization.

:eyes:

fortunes, just like every other damn place. and it's gonna be like that because the saudi's say so, whether we're there or not, in the end. it's gonna be the oil that does the talking because that's the power base.

Because it's not going to be all Iraqis, it's going to be the ones who already have power.

And that's what you want?

I thought the root of "progressive" was "progress."

His is the only workable plan..Should Dubya think he might be defeated, I predict Dubya might adopt it, in spite of loosing control of the oil...Woolfowitz sounded so tonight on Leherer Report.
Europe will not enter until US cedes over its privitatization plans and control of Iraq's security and economy.
That is what Kucinich's plan is about...Not cut and run, make the arrangement so that international forces will enter. That means international control over military operations and leave the Iraqi economy alone.Then we will have to be the primary financeer of international operations for them to take over this disaster.

People with good jobs don't normally shoot and blow shit up. If they feel they have something to protect they will fight to protect it. Get rid of all US contracts with US companies. We should pay the people of Iraq to fix their country. Also we need to get the UN in ASAP and get some real elections. Even if we don't like the outcome. Next bring the troops home.

skedaddle!

We can do nothing. Bushco will do what it wants to do.

Iraqis will need to call for a mass Uprising and force the Occupation and the Multi-Corps to leave. Buscho never had an exit plan because they never planned to leave. 14 Military bases being built and this is already written in the Occupation Law, no matter what that bogus "sovereignty is or what Interim Govt. is placed.


Full Sovereignty?

Throughout the spring, as hundreds died in the spiraling conflict, as Regime bosses applied their hardcore "anti-terrorist" tortures to innocent bystanders raked up in their occupation nets, as Regime mouthpieces prated endlessly of "liberation" and "sovereignty," Bush viceroy Paul Bremer was quietly signing a series of edicts that will give the United States effective control over the military, ministries -- and money -- of any Iraqi government, for years to come, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bremer has placed U.S.-appointed "commissions" made up of Americans and local puppets throughout Iraqi government agencies; the ministers supposedly in charge weren't even told of the edicts. These boards "will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens," the Journal reports. Any new Iraqi government "will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials."


Earlier Bremer edicts laid the Iraqi economy wide open to ruthless exploitation by Bush-approved foreign "investors"; dominance of such key sectors as banking, communications -- and energy -- is already well advanced. The latest dictates aim to ensure that this organized looting goes on, no matter what kind of makeshift "interim government" the United Nations manage to piece together. Bush's plans to build a Saddamite fortress embassy in Baghdad and 14 permanent military bases around the country are designed to provide the knee-breaking "security" for these lucrative arrangements



http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/21/120.html

The US is holding US 18.8 billion of the Iraqi people's money in the Federal Reserve. That's enough to get their 3 million person civil service up and running as it ws before the damn stupid war, and there'll be plenty enough left over to get the oil industry up and running producing 6 million barrels a day. The Iraqis can start cleaning up their country, a hell of a lot more oil will go on the market and we can all just mind our own business from now on.

Funny how you don't hear Bush or anyone talking about sending this money back to Iraq.

The development fund is not solely dependent on oil money -- of which it had collected $6.9 billion by March. Under the terms of 1483 the DFI also took over all funds -- $8.1 billion so far -- in the U.N.'s oil-for-food program accounts (Russian and Chinese support for the resolution was bought by agreeing to keep the oil-for-food racket running for a few more months); various caches of Saddam Hussein's frozen assets around the world, amounting to $2.5 billion; and further cash left behind by Saddam inside Iraq, estimated at about $1.3 billion. The money is kept in an account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/salon12.htm