Black On Iraq One Year Later Eric Black

Black on Iraq, One Year Later

Eric Black of the Minneapolis Star Tribune contributes among the better entries in the “War in Iraq: One year later” genre of which we will see so much this week. (Truth in advertising: I’m quoted).

Black writes ‘ “The ability of these Shiite leaders to quickly demonstrate that they can get thousands of people into the street on their call was something the U.S. planners hadn’t anticipated, and it shows us there were religious and political movements of great scope and importance that organized covertly in the late Saddam period that we didn’t know about,” said Cole . . . Events have also shown that U.S. planners had underrated the level of Iraqi nationalism, Cole said. Iraqis may have hated Saddam and been glad to see him go, but as nationalists they could not be expected to be happy about foreign troops controlling their country, he said. ‘