Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (15892)	11/11/2003 7:27:36 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793669

Another take on the same thing: (FT -UK...) 'US infighting' blamed for Iraq failures By James Drummond in Baghdad and James Harding and Guy Dinmore in Washington Published: November 11 2003 21:19 \| Last Updated: November 11 2003 21:19 Iraq's foreign minister on Tuesday blamed "geriatric ambassadors" from the west and "American infighting" for many of the problems and the security failures bedevilling the US-led occupation of Iraq. The stinging attack from a leading Iraqi on the US-run occupation came as Paul Bremer, the US chief civilian administrator in Baghdad, cancelled a meeting with visiting Polish prime minister Leszek Miller to return at short notice for talks in Washington. US officials said Mr Bremer was making a regular trip back to Washington. But abandoning a scheduled meeting with the leader of a key member of the "coalition of the willing" added to the sense of an increasingly febrile mood in the Bush administration over the governance of Iraq. In response to complaints from unnamed Bush administration officials that Iraq's interim Governing Council has become an obstacle to progress, Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, launched an angry defence of the IGC. "I think this debate about the ruling council - that it is not doing its work, that it is not taking decisions - this is unfair," Mr Zebari said in an interview. "It has nothing to do with the performance, with the working of the governing council . . . American infighting among themselves between different departments over policy . . . has created many, many of the difficulties that we are going through," he said. CONT' at: news.ft.com

To: NickSE who wrote (15892)	11/13/2003 9:39:53 AM
From: NickSE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793669

Is This Hussein's Counterattack? washingtonpost.com .....One senior commander in Baghdad said he believes there are three levels within the insurgence, all with Baathist loyalists at the core. The smallest attacks, such as sniping on Army patrols, he said, are being carried out by perhaps eight to 10 neighborhood-based cells in Baghdad, each with about 25 members. At the next level -- conducting attacks using improvised roadside bombs against U.S. troops -- he said he suspects there is a citywide organization of Baathists with links to criminal gangs. Finally, for the major, mass casualty suicide bomb attacks, such as the one on the Italian military police headquarters, he said he thinks that Baathists are working with foreign fighters "intent on jihad," or holy struggle. The Iraqi fighters also show increasing sophistication. For example, this summer roadside bombs generally were controlled by wires, one Army officer said; more recently, some have been detonated by signals from cellular telephones. Likewise, some of the mortars fired on U.S. installations in Baghdad have been buried in gardens or kept under garbage cans. Attackers drop two or three shells into the buried mortar tube and then speed away on motorcycles while the shells are airborne.....