World-News

IRAQ could break up into different parts eventually, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, said yesterday as she acknowledged the limitations to what could be achieved by coalition forces.

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2417832,00.html


From Information Clearing House

Iraqi army officers are reportedly planning to stage a military coup with U.S. help to oust the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15388.htm



So much for an independent and democratic Iraq!": Bush tells Maliki government to tackle militias or face penalties

The White House confirmed yesterday that it had set "benchmarks and milestones" for the Iraqi government to disarm militias and take other concrete steps to stabilise the country.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15392.htm



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Maliki

https://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5226/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Guardian [UK]
by staff

10/23/06

Americans, Iraqis and many others must have wondered just what George Bush meant in his weekly radio address on Saturday when he insisted: 'Our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging. Our goal is victory.' The president's comments can only be counted as bizarre at a time when concerns about the deteriorating situation have reached a 'tipping point' due to a combination of events on the ground in Baghdad, Amara and elsewhere -- and the impending decimation of the Republicans in the November 7 Congressional elections. Mr Bush's nonsensical message, a variant of his stock line about 'staying the course,' is likely to be quickly forgotten. The phrase that will be long remembered is that of Alberto Fernandez, head of public diplomacy at the state department: he told al-Jazeera that US policy in Iraq had suffered from 'arrogance' and 'stupidity.' Recent days have seen policy-makers in Washington scuttling to catch up with ordinary voters, and with some leading Republicans, who have had enough of this misconceived and incompetent war, their interest galvanised by leaks from James Baker's blue-ribbon, bipartisan Iraq study group. Mr Bush and Condoleezza Rice both say there is no fundamental shift of strategy in the offing, merely a review of 'tactics' in pursuit of a stable democracy. But talk of milestones, yardsticks and benchmarks attests to an increasingly urgent desire to quit before the going gets very much worse...

https://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1928837,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Asia Times
by Jim Lobe

10/23/06

While Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's continued tenure in office has been the subject of a surge of speculation over the past weeks, it may be US President George W Bush's continued reign -- at least over Iraq policy -- that appears most endangered at the moment. While no one is talking about a classic coup d'etat against the US president, as is being rumored about the increasingly hapless and seemingly helpless Maliki in Baghdad, Bush's mantra about 'staying the course' in Iraq is now seen as so delusory as to require some form of serious adult intervention...

https://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ24Ak02.html



Time for truth & consequences

Common Dreams
by Dave Lindorff

10/23/06

The Bush administration, losing the war in Iraq, has come with a 'new' strategy: setting a timetable for Iraq's puppet regime and its fledgling army to 'stand up' to the task of running the country so that the U.S. military can 'stand down.' If you think this brilliant 'new' plan sounds remarkably like the one proposed earlier this year by many Democrats, who were accused at that time of 'cutting and running' for proposing just such a withdrawal timetable, you're right. It also sounds like yet another one of those Bush/Rove scams that are pulled out at each election to trick gullible voters into thinking the president is actually going to do something dramatic when he is really just talking. The truth is this plan is no more serious than Bush's early announcement of a plan to send Americans to the moon and on to Mars...

https://www.commondreams.org/views06/1023-20.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

On the day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, senior British intelligence officials told their American counterparts that they would not support retaliatory action against Iraq, a new book claims.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1928874,00.html


From Information Clearing House

Leaset we forget the victims killed prior to Bush Invasion of Iraq

A documentary film by John Pilger

Sanctions enforced by the UN on Iraq since the Gulf War have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, including over half a million children - many of whom weren't even born when the Gulf War began.

Click to watch
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15385.htm

https://www.commondreams.org/news2006/1023-01.htm

--------

Active-duty service members organize against Iraq war
https://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5230/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=duty