POWELL: Progress in Iraq 'very, very impressive'

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STING2

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made his first visit to Iraq on Sunday to get a first-hand look at the situation on the ground and meet with U.S., coalition and Iraqi officials. He spoke to CNN's Wolf Blitzer via satellite from Baghdad.

BLITZER: Why do you need the United Nations now involved in this postwar reconstruction of Iraq? Why can't the U.S. and its coalition partners get the job done by themselves?

POWELL: Well, first of all, we believe that this should be an international effort. We're in the process of rebuilding a country after over 30 years of dictatorship. And the need is great. And we believe the international community should come together for this purpose. And in fact, some 30 nations are here providing forces to the Coalition Provisional Authority's activities.

We believe that with one more resolution, one with a broader mandate than 1483 and 1500, the first two postwar resolutions, with that broader political mandate, other countries in the world might find it easier to participate in either military activity or reconstruction activity.

And it also is a vote of confidence, frankly, for what the Iraqi people are now doing through their newly selected Governing Council, the new cabinet ministries that have just been formed.

People are hard at work over here, Wolf. It's very, very impressive, and I'm very encouraged by what I've seen.

BLITZER: Well, some of the critics, some of the hard-liners, if you will, are saying, well, why should France, for example, have a say in what's going to happen in Iraq, since they opposed liberating Iraq, going to war with Iraq against Saddam Hussein and overthrowing his three decades of power? Why should you now be making concessions to France or Germany or Russia, countries that didn't want you to do this?

POWELL: I'm not aware of any concessions we've made to France or Germany or Russia.

The debate we had earlier this year about going to war or not going to war is over. The international community is coming back together again. Resolution 1483 was unanimous. Fifteen hundred was unanimous. And so I think there's an opportunity to once again show solid support from the U.N.

And this is how resolutions are put together. One country puts down a draft, perhaps sponsored by another country. And then the other members of the Security Council consider it, offer opinions and suggest changes, and we work our way through it until we get a resolution that we hope most people will agree to.

Remember, there are 15 members of the Security Council, not just the United States, not just France. And all we need for a successful resolution is nine votes. And I'm confident that, with enough work and enough goodwill, we can find a way through this and get a positive vote.

BLITZER: I guess the other critics are suggesting there was a basic miscalculation in the postwar strategy that you had, that's resulting in your having now to go back to the U.N. Security Council, in effect, ask these other nations for help because you miscalculated what was going to happen.

POWELL: That's not the reason we went back to the U.N. We always knew the U.N. would play a role. Remember, the president, on many occasions, said that he wanted the U.N. to play a vital role. Why? Because the president believes in the U.N., and the U.N. is the institution that brings the whole world together.

And the U.N. has a number of agencies under it that can help the people of Iraq with their humanitarian needs, with their electoral needs, to help them write a constitution.

That's why we were so encouraged when Kofi Annan sent over Sergio de Mello, who gave his life in the cause of freedom and in the cause of reconstruction of this country and for the Iraqi people.

And so we always believed the U.N. had a vital role to play, and this resolution will further shape and define that vital role.

It's not a matter of we can't do it without the U.N. Without another U.N. resolution, we already have 30 countries here. But if more can be encouraged to come, more can be encouraged to give, then it seems appropriate. It seems appropriate to give a broader mandate in order to encourage the Iraqi people to move in the direction that they are now starting to move.

BLITZER: There's no doubt that everyone wants to wind up at the same place, namely that the Iraqis will be in charge of their country, there will be democracy there. But obviously there are serious differences, especially between the Bush administration and the French government, over how to get there.

What's the basic, big difference that you have to overcome with the government of France right now in order to get this new resolution?

POWELL: The disagreement we're having with France has to do with the timing of returning full authority and sovereignty to the Iraqi people. For reasons that are understandable, France believes that we ought to do this as quickly as possible, suggesting even perhaps within a month. The only problem with that is that there is not yet a functioning government that you can turn authority over to. And the last thing we want to do is to set up the Iraqis to fail.

They need time to bring their ministries up to speed, to man them, to start functioning. They need time to write a constitution. They need time after that constitution is written and ratified to hold elections.

We want to turn the government over from us to the Iraqi people, but with an Iraqi leadership that has been elected by the people, not just a group of individuals who have been appointed. And I think that's the flaw in the French plan. And we've had open discussions with our French colleagues about it.

Let me also remind you, it is not the U.S. versus France. There are, once again, 15 nations in the Security Council. And France has been most outspoken with respect to this issue, and I hope we'll find a way to bridge the difference between us and France.

Where we all agree, all 15 nations, that as soon as it is possible, we want authority to go back to the Iraqi people, totally. The United States and its coalition partners do not want to stay here one day longer. And, Wolf, I just met for an hour and a half with the new Governing Council. They've got ideas. They've got economic ideas. They've got political ideas.

I just met before that with the new foreign minister who succeeded in persuading the Arab League to seat him as representing Iraq. They've declared within the last two days that they will have an independent judiciary.

After this interview is over, I'm going to go meet with the Baghdad City Council, representatives of city councils all across this country. And so there is political life returning here on a democratic basis. The Iraqi people are being presented a future so totally different from the horrible past from which they've just come out.

And while people argue and debate, which is the right thing to do in a democratic system, about the difficulties that lie ahead, don't forget the achievements that we have obtained, and don't forget Saddam Hussein is gone. That awful regime is gone. That threat to the region is gone. And a new democratic Iraq will arise from this, even though it will take a lot of work, a lot of money and a lot of goodwill. It will happen.

BLITZER: As you know, the debate here in the United States is intensifying. Your critics are speaking out in ever-more-forceful words, criticizing the policy, especially the postwar policy. [Some critics compare the effort to the war in Vietnam.]

Mr. Secretary, you served in Vietnam. This is a sensitive subject for you and for a lot of Americans. Is this another Vietnam?

POWELL: No. And, you know, we ought to stop with these rather bizarre historical allusions back to something that happened 25, 30 years ago. Let's deal with the facts on the ground and where we are now.

We have removed a dictatorial regime. There will be no more mass graves. These people will no longer be oppressed. We're restoring the basic services that the society needs, electricity, water, sewage.

Everybody is eating. Everybody now has access to health care. The universities are open, the schools are being opened. Security is slowly being re-established.

Yes, it's a little unstable in the central part of the country. We are taking casualties. We regret each and every one. But we knew it would be difficult, and we are encouraging more and more people to contribute to our work here. And from what I have seen here over the last several hours, just in the last several hours, listening to Ambassador [L. Paul] Bremer and his people, General [John] Abizaid, General [Ricardo Sanchez], and their staff, but more importantly, speaking to Iraqis, the Governing Council, new ministers have been appointed and other Iraqis I have spoken to and look forward to speaking to this afternoon, there's a sense of hope here even in this time of difficulty.

And those who are so critical of the administration might want to hold their fire a bit. They may also resemble those who were so critical of the way the war was being fought the first few days of the war.

BLITZER:The deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, one week into the war, at the end of March of this year, told the U.S. Congress [That Iraqi oil revenues would finance much of the reconstruction]. He was obviously wrong on that specific point, that the Iraqis could finance their own reconstruction and do it soon.

POWELL: The oil revenues of the Iraqi people will be used to operate the government, but the infrastructure was so broken once we got in here and had a chance to see it, as a result of 30 years of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, that the need is far greater than we thought. And now we have to respond to that need.

And it will be a combination of contribution of the American people, other nations around the world participating in financing the reconstruction, and, yes, the revenues that will be generated by the Iraqi people through the sale of their oil.

BLITZER: Right, we get that. But Wolfowitz was clearly wrong when he thought that the Iraqis could finance this reconstruction on their own, largely, and do that relatively soon. That was way overly optimistic.

POWELL: Well, in light of what we have found out, it wasn't an accurate statement at the time. And I think Paul would agree to that.
 
Similar article with some points repeated from above.



BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday dismissed criticism of U.S. strategy in Iraq, saying miscalculations are not the reason for Washington's push for more international support in the mission there.

"We always knew the U.N. would play a role," Powell told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

"The president on many occasions said he wanted the U.N. to play a vital role. Why? The president believes in the U.N., and the U.N. is the institution that brings the whole world together," he said. After arriving in Baghdad on Sunday, Powell met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiaar Zeebari, the coalition-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and coalition civilian and military leaders.

"There is political life returning here on a democratic basis," he said. "The Iraqi people are being presented a future so totally different from the horrible one from which they've just come out."

That future will include a duly elected, sovereign government, Powell said, and the United States and its coalition partners will hand over power to that government once it is in place. The U.S. disagreement with the French over a new U.N. resolution mandating broader international cooperation in Iraq is one of timing, the secretary said.

"France believes that we ought to do this as quickly as possible, maybe even within a month," Powell said. "The only problem with that is that there is not a government that you could turn authority over to."

"The last thing we want to do is set them up to fail," he added. "We want to turn the government over from us to the Iraqi people with a leadership that is elected, not one that is appointed. That rush is the flaw with the French plan."

Powell said he "hoped" an agreement with the French could be reached, but, he said, "All we need for a successful resolution is nine votes."

Zeebari said after his meeting with Powell that stability was a prerequisite for Iraqi sovereignty and that he hoped to see Iraq with an elected government by the middle or end of 2004.

Powell also said he was impressed with the progress of the work he'd seen in Baghdad and predicted that the future Iraqi government "can be a model for this region and for the rest of the world."

Earlier, Powell told reporters that terrorist infiltration posed a "major new threat" to Iraq's stability, but that the U.S.-led coalition would not allow it to derail the reconstruction of Iraq.

He left Geneva, Switzerland, on Saturday after meeting with the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council about the U.S.-sponsored draft resolution bringing the international community into the rebuilding of Iraq.

Powell said a proposal from the French -- who teamed with Germany and Russia to oppose the war -- was unrealistic. (Full story)

U.S. control over the reconstruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure is at the heart of the disagreements between the five permanent members, which are the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China.

The United States is expected to present to the world body a single version of the draft resolution next week.

Arriving for Saturday's meeting, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the talks had been cordial and instructive.

International differences
Diplomats have agreed not to speak publicly about the proposals, but some details about the plans have been released.

The U.S. draft resolution calls for the authorization of a multinational force under a "unified" U.S. command. It would allow the U.S.-selected governing council, together with the United States and the United Nations, to set a timetable to draft an Iraqi constitution and to hold elections.

France and Germany -- one of 10 rotating members of the Security Council -- want the resolution to set a timetable to transfer authority to Iraqis. They also want greater international control over funds to reconstruct Iraq, particularly through the Development Fund for Iraq, set up to hold oil revenues. According to a previous resolution, the United States has lead authority over spending that fund, but with international oversight.

In a sign of consolidation, the French-German proposal endorses the Iraqi Governing Council and the cabinet of ministers "as the trustee of Iraqi sovereignty until the processes leading to an elected and fully representative government are completed."

Russia's proposal says a multinational force in Iraq should have a one-year mandate that the Security Council could extend. Under the proposal, the mandate would expire when U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reports to the council that the "political process" had made sufficient progress and troops would no longer be needed.

Diplomats said Syria and Chile, two other rotating council members, have proposed separate ideas.

Syria's proposal is described by one diplomat as a call for "an internationalization of the political and economic structures of Iraq aimed to win the heart of the Iraqi population to help them accept the takeover" of the country.

All of the Security Council member nations say they want power in Iraq to be transferred to Iraqis as soon as is feasible. The United States differs with these other members, though, over how the transfer should take place and how quickly it could be done.
 
Sting, I like your optimism. It means hope, and we're f:censored:ked without hope. I'd be really happy if everything turned out OK for the Iraqi people. It's unsettling with bombings and killings but hopefully this won't last.
 
Yea right. And those mobile weapons labs were real too.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4723.htm

Descent Into Lawlessness

By Jeffrey Fleishman
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 16, 2003

BAGHDAD ? A sourness stings the morning air as men with wooden coffins tied on taxis come to collect the murdered: a boy shot in the face during a carjacking, a ruffian stabbed in a neighborhood fight, a sheik ambushed by his rivals, a son with a bullet through the heart.

U.S.-led coalition forces insist that stability is returning to Iraq. The ledger in the Baghdad morgue tells a different tale.

The number of reported gun-related killings in Baghdad has increased 25-fold since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. Before the war began, the morgue investigated an average of 20 deaths a month caused by firearms. In June, that number rose to 389 and in August it reached 518. Moreover, the overall number of suspicious deaths jumped from about 250 a month last year to 872 in August.

The Baghdad morgue is beyond full. Refrigeration boxes that usually hold six bodies are crammed with 18. An unidentified corpse is dragged across the floor beneath the blue glow of an insect-repelling light. Five others ? two pocked with gunshot wounds ? lie on steel tables. With quiet determination, pathologists lift their scalpels, chart their findings and fill the waiting coffins.

Most of the dead here are not casualties of military actions or terrorist attacks, such as last month's bombing of the United Nations headquarters, which killed at least 20 people. Nor are they American soldiers.

Instead, they are everyday civilians, victims of the violence that has become a fact of life in a city that wakes and sleeps to the cadence of gunfire and unrelenting crime. The coalition forces and the new Iraqi police have been unable to stop the torrent of mayhem springing from robberies, carjackings and just plain anger.

Many killings, according to police and pathologists, are rooted in revenge. Saddam Hussein's ousted regime murdered tens of thousands in its ongoing terror campaign, but its omnipresent security force limited animosities among tribes and clans.

With that shackle broken, the slights and anger that accumulated over the years are being settled with a sort of frontier justice, especially against Baath Party loyalists and other remnants of Hussein's regime.

The equation is further complicated by the thousands of criminals Hussein released from prison in the months before the March invasion by U.S.-led coalition forces. And by the tens of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles and pistols that make every neighborhood an arsenal. Coalition troops confiscated heavy weapons in July but allowed Iraqis to keep some light arms for self-defense. These guns often lead to murder.

The rash of bloodshed provides a stark indication that Iraqi society is careening out of control and that Hussein's aftermath carries its own incomprehensible brutality.

Bodies are fished out of the muddy-green Tigris. They are pulled from alleys, gathered from rooftops and lifted from garbage piles. Some are left on the roadside, like that of Bashar Khammas Mohammed, a 26-year-old taxi driver who was strangled with his own headdress. They are then brought to the morgue, where a meticulous man wearing rubber gloves ties strings around their wrists and assigns each of them a number.

"We are a people not yet suitable for democracy," said Sattar Mohammed, who waited the other day with an open coffin to pick up his slain neighbor. "We need to be strictly handled. We need a tight fist over us. We lived like that for 30 years under Saddam Hussein, but now people are free, and they're acting on their will. It is dangerous."

That grim assessment is echoed often.

"I've been working in this morgue for 29 years," said pathologist Abdul Razzaq Ubaidi. Each of his pale blue folders holds a sheet of paper describing a body. "It used to be accidents and natural deaths. Now there are too many weapons in society. We used to dissect six or seven bodies a day, but now we do 25 to 35 a day, and 80% of them are bullet injuries. We have more freedom, but with the absence of security there is more freedom for murder."

A state of lawlessness has resulted as Iraqi society veers between the end of tyranny and unfulfilled promises of stability from an embryonic U.S.-backed government struggling to bring a new form of administration to the country. The police force is understaffed at 38,000 officers nationwide, although it is expected to grow to 65,000. Baghdad has more than 5,000 officers, down from 17,000 before the war.

The death of Sheik Abdul Jabar Farhan Salman, according to authorities, appears to have been caused by a mix of revenge and opportunism. A member of the powerful Bu-Issa tribe in the city of Fallouja, the sheik controlled much of the region's cigarette market. Rich enough to escape the turmoil of postwar Iraq, Salman moved his family to Amman, Jordan. He visited Iraq frequently to check on his business.

On Sept. 1 at 10:20 p.m., the sheik was driving his white Nissan near a Baghdad crossroads when two cars appeared beside him and gunmen firing 9-millimeter automatic pistols shot him in the heart and shoulder.

He died not much more than a quarter-mile from the Khadra district police station, where U.S. military police stand lookout from sandbag bunkers.

"It seems to be a case of revenge," said Lt. Col. Sabah Majeed Latif, an Iraqi police commander. "Those who killed him stole nothing. Only a few members of his tribe knew he was back in town.... There was hostility toward him, and it looks as if his cigarette rivals wanted to get rid of him."

Silver-rimmed glasses riding low on his nose, Dr. Faik Amin Bakr, director of the Baghdad Forensics Institute, sat at his desk staring at the statistics. They were daunting. In July 2002, he said, suspicious deaths in Baghdad were already high at 237 ? a figure not taking into account those who disappeared at the hands of Hussein's security forces. A year later, with U.S. troops on the ground, the figure had more than tripled to 751.

"When you see people killed every day, you imagine the insecure situation in the country," Bakr said. "It is difficult to blame somebody," he added later. "Something should be done by the coalition forces.... It is their job and duty."

The morgue itself was a victim of crime during the war. Looters stole steel gurneys and electric autopsy saws. Some of the doctors today ? who earn $180 a month ? must now cut by hand. Like the rest of Baghdad, the morgue faces sporadic shortages of electricity, water and gas. There is also a lack of needles, sutures and other supplies. Bodies appear constantly, as if from a tide. They are photographed, and some ? including 21 last Friday ? go to the grave in anonymity. "Something should be done," Bakr said.

The scent of death outside the autopsy room intensified in the desert heat of a recent afternoon. With wooden coffins borrowed from neighborhood mosques across the vast city, families arrived in the alley to collect their dead. Some coffins were communal and stained with the blood of earlier victims.

Wrapped in carpets and lowered from the roofs of taxis and minibuses, the coffins were placed by the morgue door until names were called and bodies carried into the sunlight and loaded for the 110-mile journey to the holy city of Najaf for burial.

Men spoke of revenge while they were waiting. Some fidgeted with the pistols hidden beneath their shirts. The men were mostly quiet, but the women, dressed in black robes that billowed through the alley, beat their chests and wailed.

"My tragedy is greater than yours!" yelled one woman. "They killed my boy!"

A pickup truck pulled up. A man got out. His son, who had refused to give his car to a thief, lay in the back with a bullet through his face. Another boy crouched and cried. The morgue door opened and the father bowed his head. Two more coffins arrived, and by midmorning the alley was full.

Fadhil Abbas Jasim had his brother's blood on his shirt. Khudhayr, 23, had been stabbed, then shot after a marketplace quarrel with a drug addict named Adil.

"My brother had a skirmish with him," said Fadhil, who sat at the morgue with a coffin. "Adil stabbed him in the wrist. My brother wrestled the knife from him and came home. I was going to the marketplace to see what happened. I told Khudhayr to stay at home. But he ran out to buy a pack of cigarettes and when he stepped outside, Adil shot him with a Kalashnikov. He shot 12 bullets and hit my brother six times.

"I dragged my brother into the house. He was dying.... Adil shot him because he had lost face in the marketplace after my brother took the knife from him. The neighbors fetched me a jeep and I drove Khudhayr to the hospital, but the doctor said he had been dead for some minutes.... I brought him here to get a death certificate so he can be buried. I paid $7 for it. They gave my brother a number on his wrist. I'm waiting to pick him up."

Dr. Ubaidi, seeing patients at a nearby clinic, must hurry to the morgue.

The pathologist says he collects bullets and traces the path of death. He takes X-rays, draws diagrams. He seldom talks of justice. A murder's motive has little meaning for him. Science, he says, is where he prefers to dwell.

On this day, he was delayed, swarmed by his patients with their sick babies, stiff legs and fevers.

One woman had an eye injury. Ubaidi put down his pale blue folders and set about examining her.

"I should be in the autopsy room," he said, "but as you can see, the living are interfering with my work on the dead."
 
Ummmm....

Sting thanks for posting the two articles. I found them both interesting.

Hopefully things can work themselves out at the UN level and we can get back to the business of rebuilding.
 
It's a mess. No one should have to live like this. I hope they can get it worked out. Unfortunately, Iraq has been either a mess or under a dictatorship for centuries. Who knows how long the current mess will last? Ugh.:scream: :scream:
 
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I was going to post that very arcticle Scarletwine.


"We are a people not yet suitable for democracy," said Sattar Mohammed, who waited the other day with an open coffin to pick up his slain neighbor. "We need to be strictly handled. We need a tight fist over us. We lived like that for 30 years under Saddam Hussein, but now people are free, and they're acting on their will. It is dangerous."


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Scarletwine,

Can you name one UN Security Council resolution passed against Saddam that he complied with?

Baghdad was in fact a city of order prior to the Coalition invasion. Primarily because of Saddam's security services would round up any trouble makers and execute them or give them to his sons to torture in creative ways. People were held in check with the fear of murder by Saddams security services. 1 million Iraqi's died under Saddam's rule, a rule that would of continued if policies other than the one chosen by the Bush administration had been pursued.

Already, the Bush administration has trained over 50,000 new Iraqi Police officers. The goal is for 200,000 Iraqi Police officers by January 2005. These Police officers are being well trained and anyone affiliated with the prior regime in a significant way is being filtered out.

While there are many problems in Baghdad at the moment, they pale into comparison the problems that Saddam Hussein caused and would have continue to cause if Saddam had not been overthrown.

As US soldiers, Diplomats, and other Civil Affairs officers continue their hard work, Iraq will continue to move foward towards the goal of being a stable democracy. The Bush Administration has created the opportunity for the Iraqi people to be free and for the world help Iraq achieve that freedom. Although the Germans and French are not on board yet, I believe they will be in the future. They were already on the wrong side of history back in the Spring, and I think they want to be on the right side of history now. I can't imagine that the Germans and French would view punishing the USA and other for what they felt was a unilateral move is more important than helping Iraqi's build a stable democracy.

While there continue to be problems in the short term, over the long term, History will be on the Bush administrations side.
 
I just hope they can do something about those damn pseudo-Wahhabist outfits like the ones who blew up the UN building, the Shia mosque and other insane attacks. That's really what's making me nervous, all of these crackpot operations that are trying to screw the infrastructure building. :mad: :mad: :censored: :censored: :censored:
 
nbcrusader said:
Is the motivation eternal reward for killing religious rivals?

No, it's eternal reward for "martyrdom". The Wahhabists claim that the Shia are "infidels" because they revere Moslem saints, their mosques are too ornate, etc, etc. They want to die fighting these "infidels". Actually, however Islam forbids suicide and any killing except that done in self-defense. Wahhabism is the brand of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia and some of these crackpots are from Saudi Arabia. However most Saudis do not approve of these nuts, they are just extremely conservative Moslems. That's why I and others call the terrorists "pseudo-Wahhabists" so as to not insult ordinary Saudis. Needless to say there is a tremendous amount of controversy in the West and in more moderate Islamic countries like Turkey and Jordan over the role of Wahhabism in terrorist/extremist thought. The Saudis took some controversial passages out of their religious textbooks. It was claimed that they'd inspired terrorists. But most Wahhabis are not really political; they are more "quietest" and want a reward for a virtuous life, and that's that, they're not into power.
 
nbcrusader said:
Is there eternal reward for killing infidels?

No, not according to the Koran or Islamic scholars or ordinary Moslems. I think the terrorists think there's something virtuous in knocking out "infidels", although they emphasize eternal reward for dying for the faith. They are in the "Ghazi" warrior tradition, the people who died fighting for the Ottoman Turks against the Byzantines. However, this was "folk Islam" as opposed to a careful study of the Islamic faith, just as it was "folk Christianity" for the Crusaders to knock off "infidels" taking the Holy Land during the Crusades and to do dastardly things like sacking Constantinople in 1204. One thing that makes this so messy is that it's so historically rooted. So many mistakes have been made.
 
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