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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (72461)	2/16/2005 2:46:14 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Bravo post! "THEY KNEW. Obviously there are people running around the government today who know in detail what to do about Iraq, Syria, NK, Iran, etc. They keep getting whacked upside the head by the self-serving, greedy little political ambitions of the likes of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney and the most incompetent of all...Bush." Priceless. :•) Sioux

To: geode00 who wrote (72461)	2/16/2005 5:17:30 PM
From: Crimson Ghost	Respond to of 89467

More on those "historic" iraq elections so praised by the US media. \|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\| IRAQ \|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\| IRAQ: WASHINGTON STILL MUCH IN CONTROL electroniciraq.net MILAN RAI, ELECTRONIC IRAQ - A prominent Iraqi politician in the Shia coalition told the New Yorker in January that the US had quietly told the parties before the election that there were three conditions for the new government: it should not be under the influence of Iran; it should not ask for the withdrawal of US troops; and it should not install an Islamic state. . . What has been off the agenda, due to a colossal act of media self-censorship, is the division of power between the elected Iraqi National Assembly and the unelected US-led occupation. There are several levers of power that the US has created to retain control. One US device is the Transitional Administrative Law, an interim constitution written in Washington and imposed on Iraq in March 2004. Jawad al-Maliki, member of Daawa, one of the two main Shia parties, has pointed out correctly that 'the body which we have elected has more legitimacy than this document.' Unfortunately, the TAL is self-defined as the default constitution of Iraq until a permanent constitution has been adopted in a referendum. In a clause bitterly rejected by the Shia majority parties, the TAL states that the permanent constitution must obtain the approval of at least one-third of the voters in sixteen of Iraq's eighteen provinces. This was put in to give Kurdish provinces a veto over the final text. . . If this veto is used by the Kurds, the TAL continues to be the constitution. (And, according to Article 59 of the TAL, the Iraqi military will continue to function under US command.) The effect of these provisions of the Transitional Administrative Law is to give Washington's most loyal clients in Iraq - the Kurds - a powerful veto over political progress. Another device for US control is the debt relief plan put together in November 2004, under which some of Iraq's creditor nations will forgive some of Iraq's debt (in stages), conditional upon the Iraqi government following an IMF 'liberalization' program. This program will prioritize foreign investors, privatization, and 'tax reform', but not unemployment or poverty in Iraq. . . The main tool of US control is, of course, military. As the FT pointed out recently, 'US leverage rests upon awareness among the Shia that their government is unlikely to survive a civil war without continued US support'. The Shia coalition that won the greatest number of votes in the election had to announce its list of candidates in the Convention Centre in the US-controlled 'Green Zone' in Baghdad, 'protected by US soldiers'. . . Another device for maintaining control was Paul Bremer's appointment of key officials for five year terms just before leaving office. In June 2004, the US governor ordered that the national security adviser and the national intelligence chief chosen by the US-imposed interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, be given five-year terms, imposing Allawi's choices on the elected government. Bremer also installed inspectors-general for five-year terms in every ministry, and formed and filled commissions to regulate communications, public broadcasting and securities markets.