Looks like Mudtaco al-SadSack is about to get his arse handed to him on a platter (..'bout damn time..):
U.S. says time running out in Fallujah crisis
Troops poised to attack if rebels don't give up arms
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. authorities escalated the pressure on besieged insurgents in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah yesterday with a series of blunt warnings that if they did not lay down their arms, U.S. soldiers would attack within days.
A senior Bush administration official in Washington said that although a decision had not yet been made to attack pending a final round of negotiations, "there isn't much time left." He said the administration felt a sense of urgency because the insurgents had turned over only old and outdated weapons and because Fallujah faced an imminent human crisis, with residents in dire need of food and medicine.
"Our patience is not eternal," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokes-man for the U.S.-led military command in Baghdad.
The U.S. warnings came as L. Paul Bremer, chief of the U.S. occupation authority, delivered a stark television address yesterday in which he declared that "Iraq faces a choice" and that the U.S. plan to bring stability and democracy here may not succeed unless ordinary Iraqis come quickly to its defense.
"If you do not defend your beloved country, it will not be saved," he said.
Bremer's 20-minute speech marked his first substantial comments to Iraqis since the worst violence of the yearlong occupation erupted late last month, amid the deaths of some 100 U.S. soldiers, attacks on supply convoys, kidnappings and killings of foreigners and the announced withdrawal of 2,000 troops from three allied countries.
As U.S. officials warned of a looming confrontation in Fallujah, Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. envoy enlisted by President Bush to help put together a plan for an Iraqi government, warned that any military action would be counterproductive. .
"When you surround a city, you bomb the city, when people cannot go to hospital, what name do you have for that?" Brahimi said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos in Paris for ABC's "This Week," to be aired tomorrow. "And you, if you have enemies there, this is exactly what they want you to do, to alienate more people so that more people support them rather than you." He added: "I very much hope - I don't know all what is happening now - but in this situation, there is no military solution."
An attack on Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, risks inflaming Shiites as well. Earlier U.S. attacks on Fallujah aroused widespread anger across Iraq, and driven many Shiites to offer food and other support to the Fallujah insurgents.
In a political appearance, Vice President Dick Cheney, while not mentioning Fallujah, listed terror attacks in Karbala, Najaf and Baghdad, as well as cities in other countries, in a broader warning of U.S. resolve in the global campaign against terrorists.
"Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with, it can only be destroyed," he said. "And that is the business at hand."
Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, suggested in an interview yesterday that he was likely to ask for another extension in the current troop levels in Iraq, now at 135,000, and might even ask for more troops beyond that.
Taken together, the comments yesterday marked a change in the recent upbeat tone of U.S. officials as the Bush administration has begun to lay its plans for a transition to Iraqi self-rule on June 30.
Bremer, in particular, abandoned the celebratory tone with which he marked the anniversary a month ago of the U.S. invasion, offering instead a sober list of specific programs aimed at reclaiming public opinion that seems to have veered sharply against the Americans as the security situation has deteriorated.
He said he would approve an immediate injection of $500 million to build local projects like roads and schools that employ Iraqis. In addition, he said he would authorize $10 million for a study on how best to memorialize the hundreds of thousands of victims of Saddam Hussein.
Bremer also told Iraqis that, even after the June 30 handover of sovereignty, U.S.-led forces would remain in the country. His pledge on the extent of sovereignty turned over seemed fuller those of several Bush administration officials in Washington, who have said in recent days that any new government would be limited in its abilities to pass laws or overrule U.S. decisions here.
Meanwhile a second standoff with Shiites showed no signs of easing. In his Friday sermon, the rebel Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led a broad and violent anti-American uprising earlier this month, threatened to launch suicide attacks if occupation forces invade Najaf or Karbala, two cities south of Baghdad held holy by Shiites.
"We will be human time bombs which would explode in their faces," Sadr said at the grand mosque in Kufa, which like the adjacent city of Najaf, is encircled by 2,500 U.S. soldiers who have vowed to kill or capture al-Sadr.
Inside Karbala, a Bulgarian soldier was shot in the head, and later died, after an attack on a military convoy yesterday by militiamen loyal to al-Sadr.
marinij.com
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