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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (106343)	7/18/2003 7:48:45 PM
From: marcos	Respond to of 281500

Iceland is getting involved now? .... wow, that is news ... well they should smarten up that PNAC bunch in a hurry, eh '... guidance from the worlds oldest democracy ... '

To: michael97123 who wrote (106343)	7/18/2003 8:47:33 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Neither Germany nor Japan were "liberated". Both were conquered and occupied. The US still has troops in both Germany and Japan 50 years later.

To: michael97123 who wrote (106343)	7/19/2003 2:59:07 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

Iraqi Shiites rise up in anger at US forces BAGHDAD (AFP) - Thousands of Iraqi Shiites shouted anti-US slogans in the heart of the nation's capital even as the coalition forces sought to paint a rosy picture about their reconstruction efforts. The Shiites, the country's majority population, punched their fists in the air and chanted "Down, Down USA" outside the presidential palace, home to the US overseer here Paul Bremer. The protestors, about 3,000, yelled "We are soldiers of Sadr," a reference to the prominent cleric Moqtada Sadr who fired off a vitriolic denunciation Friday of the US-led occupation and the new transitory 25-member Governing Council under its wing. The street demonstration came only hours after the senior US military commander in Iraq (news - web sites), Ricardo Sanchez, called the rebuilding effort "way ahead of schedule" and "truly amazing and heartwarming." The protests ignited after Sadr's followers claimed US soldiers and armoured vehicles surrounded the cleric's home for several hours in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of Baghdad, as helicopters hovered overhead. The army had no immediate confirmation of the incident in Najaf where Sadr's supporters had also taken to the street in anger. Further south, in the Shiite heartland, demonstrations also flared in the port of Basra, an AFP correspondent reported, with protestors hurling stones. The British forces stationed in Iraq's second largest city said they were not aware of the protest. It was a loud and alarming message from the Shiites who, until now, had gone along tacitly with the US presence here, unlike the country's Sunni Muslim minority, thought to be the source of a guerrilla-style insurgency campaign against US forces. A US soldier was gunned down in Baghdad early Saturday in the latest attack by unknown assailants believed to be followers of ousted Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), who himself hails from the country's Sunni Muslim community. He was the 35th US soldier to be killed in action since major combat was declared over on May 1. While the US regional commander, General John Abizaid, conceded this week guerrilla tactics were being used against his troops, he refused to consider the conflict more than a low-level war of attrition. But a radicalized Shiite community under Sadr, who called Friday for the organisation of a Muslim army and the shutdown of US-backed television and radio stations, could drastically change the equation. His militia, or self-proclaimed "Mehdi Army", started recruiting Saturday in the Baghdad Shiite suburb of Sadr City, named after the cleric's father who was assassinated in 1999 by Saddam's security agents. The Shiite protests gave a prophetic air to a new report by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) urging the coalition to speed up the handover of power to the Iraqi people and bring back security and basic services. "There is a pressing need to set out a clear and specific sequence of events leading to the end of military occupation," Annan said in the report to be delivered to the UN Security Council next week. The lack of a homegrown and democratically-elected Iraqi government and the imposition of a US-chosen interim Governing Council rank at the top of a litany of Iraqi complaints surrounding the US-led occupation. With both the Sunnis who propped up Saddam and the Shiite majority long suppressed under his rule now turning on the 25-member council, Annan warned that an externally-imposed government would not work. Looking beyond the security question, the World Bank (news - web sites) and the UN warned at a conference in Baghdad that the country had a major challenge in its transition from a state-controlled economy to a free market. Iraq faces a "very difficult economic transition ... that must not be underestimated," Joseph Saba, the head of the World Bank in the Middle East, told AFP. story.news.yahoo.com