Gates: US Will not Pledge to Defend Iraq
Prince Andrew thinks Bush is weak in the area of British Empire history, and that the stubborn disregard of British experiences and advice is part of the reason for the debacle.
The Status of Forces Agreement envisioned by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will not contain any provision that the US will come to Iraq's aid if it is attacked. Such a commitment would have required approval of the Senate. Note that US presidents have designated 14 non-NATO allies, who have special access to US weaponry. The US has not committed to defend any of them against aggression, unlike the case with NATO itself.
The Iraqi parliament's approval of the new budget has been delayed over how much to allot to the Kurds.
About 100 guerrillas of "al-Qaeda in Iraq" have established themselves in other countries, as Iraq has become too difficult for them.
The Iraqi government is finally repairing the Askariyah Shrine (golden dome) of Samarra, a Shiite holy site that Sunni Arabs have bombed twice. The February, 2006, bombing set off an orgy of sectarian violence that lasted a year and a half.
The US military is exhausted from frequent and long deployments to Iraq, with no end in sight. The shell game of removing the extra troops sent in for the escalation in 2007 (the "surge") and allowing urban guerrillas to substitute themselves for them will not actually alleve anything.
Reuters reports political violence in Iraq for Wednesday:
' MUQDADIYA - Five headless bodies were found in a village near the town of Muqdadiya, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said.
BAQUBA - Three headless bodies were found near the city of Baquba, 65 km (45 miles) north of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said. . .
BAQUBA - Three women and one man were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle near Baquba, police said. . .
MOSUL - Two policemen were killed and three others, including a civilian, were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Mosul, police said. . .
SAMARRA - Gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers in an attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint in the city of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. One civilian was wounded by random fire which broke out after the attack. . .
SAMARRA - Gunmen killed Issam Hassani, a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hardline group of Sunni clerics, in his shop in Samarra on Tuesday, police said.
BAGHDAD - Three people were wounded by a roadside bomb near al-Andalus Square in central Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - The bodies of four people were found in different districts of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said. . .
NAJAF - Police said they found the bodies of a 16-year-old girl and young man in the city of Najaf, 160 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad. The girl had been stabbed and the man had suffered severe head injuries.
DIWANIYA - Four people were killed and nine others wounded, including seven policemen, when a roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying detainees in the city of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.
HILLA - The body of a man who had been shot in the head was found near the city of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
TUZ KHURMATO - A woman was killed and two men wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a minibus on Tuesday in the town of Tuz Khurmato, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.'
McClatchy has more
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/07/2008 12:30:00 AM
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8 Comments:
No country will invade and occupy Iraq, having seen what happened to the USA, the hyperpower.
Incursions, and air and artillery attacks are taking place by Iran and Turkey now while the Americans are on maximum strength in Iraq. No response, except support for the Turks. This is with the US legaly obliged, as the command of the so called multinational force, to defend Iraq.
What is left is defending the criminal and hugely unpopular Iraqi government. This is both wrong and very costly.
The right question to ask is whether the USA will prop up a puppet regime or not. It is also against international law to interfere in, let alone dictate, the internal affairs of other nations.
Remember the Reagan fiasco in Lebanon? Multiply by a very large number to get Iraq.
Some how Prince Williams comments are fair, however one would think the same comments apply to Tony Blair.
The Prince's belief in British expertise would be more convincing if there was evidence that British High Command had complained exhaustively about post-war planning in Iraq before the war. So far, the evidence is that it did not complain, and one might therefore conclude that both militaries are equally dim.
The House of Windsor is so oversupplied with princes these days that keeping up with them is hardly worth it. Still, it seems to be Prince Andrew, Prince William's uncle, who is criticizing Bush.
Prince William may agree with his uncle's assessment, but probably lacks the gravitas to say so in public. Also William is second in line to the throne, and in royal/political circles that perhaps constrains him in ways that his uncle is not.
(As if I knew anything about it.)
FYI, your posting about "Prince William's" comments. After following the link the article is really Prince Andrew's comments.
Have you seen this online movie:
www.zeitgeistmovie.com
I'd be interested in your opinion of the topics discussed.
Petition to Stop Blair heading the EU as President. You signed yet Juan?
Please display this petition.
ref : “The Status of Forces Agreement envisioned by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will not contain any provision that the US will come to Iraq's aid if it is attacked.”
Perhaps even more important, imho, The Agreement contains no provision that IRAQ will ‘stand up’, so to speak, and come to the aid of American forces, when they are attacked...
...as we have been, relentlessly, and i daresay will continue to be in harm's way, so long as the US chooses to occupy IRAQ, irregardless of the number of combat brigades so deployed.
Providing no apparent path for American forces to ‘stand down’ thus, The Agreement codifies nothing more than a Status Quo of Forces : this bizarre stasis, indeed ~ with Americans in defensive posture, isolated (to this day, culturally ignorant and socially apartheid), the impotent occupiers of a failed State; while ‘IRAQ’ remains a nonmember of The Iraq Coalition.
The machine gun of capitalism
Dead soldiers, peak oil and mind-boggling profits; praise Jesus, the machine's still working
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/02/06/notes020608.DTL&hw=mark+morford&sn=002&sc=455
The largest corporation in the world, the one which has consistently raked in the largest and most appalling profits of any organization on Earth, a company so powerful and deeply influential to the machinations of our own nation, our government, the globe, so ingrained and unstoppable that no president, no administration, no nuclear warhead to its CEO's home planet stands a chance of slowing it down or altering its behavior in any significant way because there is simply far, far too much money involved in its nefarious endeavors, has recently posted the largest profit of any company in American history.
Yes, the Exxon Mobil corporation sucked in a staggering $11.7 Billion in a single quarter ( more than $40 Billion for the year, a new record for an American company ) thanks largely to record-breaking prices for a barrel of oil, which are of course only record-breaking because, well, the cheney / bush administration has essentially engineered the economy and launched a bogus war and desiccated the American idea exactly so they would be.
Oh yes, two more trifling stories, buried beneath the nauseating Exxon headlines and the tales of looming economic struggle: More US soldiers are dead in Iraq as a result of Bush's failed war, US military spending in 2009 will reach its highest levels since WWII ( $515 Bllion + ) and nearly 100 more civilians are dead in another bombing in Baghdad because the US troop surge is working so well. Oh wait.
Do you feel the righteousness? The inspiration? Can you sense the deep connection between these stories? Because the truth is, they merely add up to the heartwarming conclusion that, without a doubt, American capitalism is still firing on all cylinders. Praise!
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