Their are two reasons anyone over there would be resistent... a) they think the way the Americans are handling things is bad...but I'd like to see them step up and try to reorganize Iraq... b) they remember what Sadaam did to those who supported America during the first Gulf War...and hence they don't want it to happen again... The rest support us....
Tikrit, being Saddam's home, is one of the places that got favored treatment over the years... in terms of electrical and water distribution etc. It shouldn't surprise that more of them are bent out of shape now that those still limited resources are being distributed evenly throughout Iraq. Hey, <b>rvolkin</b>, would it be possible to get your relative to post here? That could be illuminating.
The CIA did say there was no chance Saddam would work with Al Qaeda unless he was attacked, but they also said Iraq had WMD programs, so I'd take this with a grain of salt. http://www.msnbc.com/news/992513.asp?0si=- CIA report: Iraqis losing faith in U.S. Lack of confidence in coalition may be helping resistance ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — A new top-secret intelligence report warns that Iraqis are losing faith in U.S.-led occupation forces, a development that is increasing support for the resistance, officials said Wednesday. ‘These are very intelligent moves that the bad people are making. ... Time is not on our side.’ — SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ CIA AND WHITE HOUSE officials refused to confirm the existence of the report, which came to light amid urgently scheduled White House meetings with the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. But two other senior U.S. officials said the report painted a worrisome picture of the political and security situation there. The report suggests that spiraling violence and a lack of confidence in the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council may be bringing efforts to a turning point, sending more Iraqis over to the side of insurgents fighting occupation troops, two officials said on condition of anonymity. Questioned by reporters after he met Wednesday morning with President Bush, Bremer said, “I think the situation with the Iraqi public is, frankly, not easy to quantify.” Bremer said his provisional authority had conducted opinion polls and other assessments to take the Iraqi temperature. He said it was obvious that insurgents had been “trying to encourage the Iraqi people to believe the United States is not going to stay the course,” and he added, “I don’t think that that’s going to work.” Asked about the increase in guerrilla attacks on coalition forces in Iraq, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Wednesday on CBS’s “The Early Show” that “these are very intelligent moves that the bad people are making. ... Time is not on our side.” AGGRESSIVE RAIDS MAY ALIENATE IRAQIS Because the report is classified, the U.S. officials declined to furnish details, talking about it only in general terms and only on the ground that they not be publicly identified. On the subject of the increasing violence, one official noted that U.S. forces were already using more aggressive raids and other tactics to try to fight insurgents, which officials fear could alienate more Iraqis. For instance, U.S. forces responded with aerial bombing and mortars over the weekend in a show-of-force response to the downing of a U.S. helicopter last week. Wednesday, U.S. troops opened fire by accident on a car carrying a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, the Iraqi administration said. The council member escaped injury, but the driver was hurt. A defense official said Wednesday that the administration worried that support of coalition partners could also wane as more international contingents suffer casualties in Iraq. He spoke after authorities reported a truck bomb attack Wednesday against the headquarters of the Italian Carabinieri police in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. The attack killed at least 25 people, including 17 Italians. Meanwhile on the political side, the CIA report warns, appointed Iraqi leaders do not appear to be up to the job of governing or working toward holding elections, an official said. He would not say what, if any, recommendations the CIA made in the report, which was delivered to the administration Monday. White House press secretary Scott McClellan would not comment on the report, but he said: “There are a lot of indications to show that the Iraqi people want the coalition forces to stay and finish the job. They do not want to return to the days of a brutal, oppressive regime. They recognize that there is a better future coming for them.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported on the CIA assessment in Wednesday’s editions, said the report found that it was impossible to completely seal Iraq’s borders against infiltration by foreign fighters. The report also raised concern that majority Shiite Muslims could begin joining minority Sunnis in turning against the occupation, the newspaper said. © 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
I agree with your first two statements, but I'm not sure about the third. Remember -- America has been Iraq's sworn enemy for the last 20 years. Why would that change overnight? Because we invaded and overthrew their government? I doubt too many Americans would welcome Iraqi liberators. It's insulting to Iraqis for us to presume what is best for them. It's their country -- we should definitely support them -- but let them determine their own future. What's best for America isn't necessarily what's best for Iraq.
Another day, another rationale for Iraq war Jules Witcover Originally published Nov 12, 2003 WASHINGTON - President Bush, in his shifting rationales for the war in Iraq, is now justifying it with a grand vision of extending democracy throughout the Middle East and beyond. He laid it out in his speech here the other day characterizing the American occupation as the beginning of what will be "a watershed event in the global democratic revolution." In the process, the president compared his pre-emptive war to the fights against the Kaiser in World War I, against Hitler and Hirohito in World War II, and against the Soviet Union and communism in the Cold War. As he put it, it's all part of the noble mission of freeing "oppressed people until the day of liberation and freedom finally arrives." That was certainly a quantum leap from the simple justification on which he sold the Iraq invasion to the American people. Then the war's rationale was stated as the need to remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that supposedly imperiled the United States and others. An accompanying rationale for immediate military action was to bring about "regime change" in Iraq by removing Saddam Hussein, seen as the embodiment of that threat and a cruel dictator who inflicted unspeakable horrors on his own people and neighbors. When neither of these was persuasive enough to win a more specific resolution of support from the U.N. Security Council, the United States and Mr. Bush's limited "coalition of the willing" swiftly achieved the "regime change" part with Mr. Bush's military "shock and awe" invasion. Few contended before or after that getting rid of Mr. Hussein was not a welcome outcome. But debate continued about whether that goal had been a sufficient reason to launch a pre-emptive war if the threat from him was not immediate and real. That's why the failure so far to turn up the alleged weapons of mass destruction or the ability to deliver them has continued to haunt the Bush administration, especially as the aftermath of the invasion has proved to be so perilous and costly in American lives. That fact explains the recent public relations push by the administration to counter public doubts about the stated imperative of the invasion, the CIA intelligence on which it was based and how that intelligence was used by President Bush and others to sell the war to the American people. The president's speech was only the latest effort to put the most defensible face on a war whose necessity remains seriously challenged, for which financial support has been granted grudgingly by Congress and both military and financial aid flatly refused by most other major nations. The question now is whether American voters who were led to believe that the invasion of Iraq was a matter of our national security will accept Mr. Bush's latest characterization of the war as part of a long-range mission to democratize the Middle East. In his speech, Mr. Bush did not hesitate to cast his Iraq adventure in the starkest of terms. "The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world," he said, "and increase dangers to the American people and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region." The cliché of the month here is that Iraq is not Vietnam, and in many ways it is not. The American involvement in Vietnam was in direct response to requests for aid from an ally attempting to repel an invasion, which certainly is not the case in Iraq. But the drip-drop of American deaths and casualties in Iraq is not unlike what happened in the early stages of the U.S. effort in Vietnam, which in time became a political nightmare for Lyndon B. Johnson. If American voters do continue to support the war in Iraq, it more likely will be out of their commitment to our troops there than to a moral crusade only now offered as the latest reason for present and future sacrifices. Jules Witcover writes from The Sun's Washington bureau and appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-op.witcover12nov12,0,1454679.column?coll=bal-pe-opinion
