Political Progress in Iraq!

[ChumpDumper]

I guess the neocons are trying to figure out how to spin this one.

Sadr's movement pulls out of Iraq alliance
Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:55pm IST

By Dominic Evans and Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The political movement loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew from Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Alliance on Saturday, leaving Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition in a precarious position in parliament.

The move further weakens Maliki's coalition in parliament, which even before the defection had failed to press through key laws aimed at reconciling Iraq's warring majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs.

His coalition now has around half the seats in the 275-seat parliament, although it could survive with the support of a handful of independent lawmakers.

"The political committee has declared the withdrawal of the Sadr bloc from the (Shi'ite) alliance because there was no visible indication that the demands of Sadr's bloc were being met," the Sadr movement said in a statement released at a news conference in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

An adviser to Maliki said the government had no immediate comment.

The decision by Sadr's movement to quit the Shi'ite Alliance in parliament was not unexpected after the cleric pulled his six ministers from the cabinet in April.

Maliki can still count on the backing of two other Shi'ite Islamist parties and the two main Kurdish parties in parliament, and so far no party has launched any push for a no-confidence vote in his government.

Sadr's bloc in the past has noted a host of grievances, including Maliki's refusal to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq....

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-29552320070915

[smeagol]

This war sucks.

Next!

[boutons_]

dubya lies, again:



Al-Qaeda's Goal: See for Yourself

September 17, 2007

One of George W. Bush's key arguments for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely is that al-Qaeda wants to "drive us out." But U.S. intelligence has intercepted an internal al-Qaeda communique that says almost the exact opposite.

The letter written by senior al-Qaeda operative Atiyah Abd al-Rahman states that "prolonging the war is in our interest." Yet, President Bush is rarely challenged when he asserts the opposite, and few members of Congress seem aware of the Atiyah letter, which was translated and analyzed by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

To help clarify this issue, we have posted the relevant excerpt at http://www.consortiumnews.com/prolongingwar.pdf as well as the entire letter at http://www.consortiumnews.com/atiyah-letter.pdf (the relevant excerpt is at the top of page 17). For the fuller context of this letter, you can go to Consortiumnews.com's "Gen. Petraeus & the 'Central Front' Myth" or see the new book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.

By e-mailing this item to your congressional representative or to someone you know at a news organization, you can help spread the word on this important reality -- that "prolonging" the U.S. military occupation of Iraq is just what al-Qaeda's leadership wants.

http://consortiumnews.com/2007/091707a.html

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Serious majorities of Iraqis and US, plus the rest of the world, want the US out, but AQ, having suckered the US into Afghanistan, is happy to kill US citizens there and in Iraq. dubya can't get anything right. http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

[boutons_]

What They're Saying in Anbar Province

By Gary Langer
The New York Times

Sunday 16 September 2007

In his address to the nation on Thursday, President Bush singled out progress in Anbar Province as the model for United States success in Iraq. The president's claims echoed those made earlier in the week by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, in his Congressional testimony. And they raised a question worth examining: Do United States military alliances with Sunni tribal leaders truly reflect a turning of hearts and minds away from Anbar's bitter anti-Americanism?

The data from our latest Iraq poll suggest not.

Al Qaeda, it should be said, is overwhelmingly - almost unanimously - unpopular in Anbar, as it is in the rest of Iraq. But our enemies' enemies are not necessarily our friends. The United States, it turns out, is equally unpopular there.

In a survey conducted Aug. 17-24 for ABC News, the BBC and NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, among a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqis, 72 percent in Anbar expressed no confidence whatsoever in United States forces. Seventy-six percent said the United States should withdraw now - up from 49 percent when we polled there in March, and far above the national average.

Withdrawal timetable aside, every Anbar respondent in our survey opposed the presence of American forces in Iraq - 69 percent "strongly" so. Every Anbar respondent called attacks on coalition forces "acceptable," far more than anywhere else in the country. All called the United States-led invasion wrong, including 68 percent who called it "absolutely wrong." No wonder: Anbar, in western Iraq, is almost entirely populated by Sunni Arabs, long protected by Saddam Hussein and dispossessed by his overthrow.

There are critical improvements in Anbar. Most important have been remarkable advances in confidence in the Iraqi Army and police. In ABC's survey in March, not a single respondent rated local security positively - now 38 percent do. Nonetheless, nobody surveyed in Anbar last month gave the United States any credit. Ratings of living conditions remain dismal: respondents were deeply dissatisfied with the availability of electricity and fuel, jobs, medical care and a host of other elements of daily life. And the violence, while sharply down, has hardly ended: One in four reported that car bombs or suicide attacks had occurred near them in the last six months. Last week's murder of Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, an Anbar sheik who had allied himself with the United States, only underscored this grim reality.

Anbar's tribal leaders may have any number of motivations for their alliance with the United States. It's been reported that the United States government has provided them arms, matériel and money, as well as undertaking more than $700 million in reconstruction projects in the province.

( throw $$$ at them, dubya, that'll make them love ya! http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

But it seems clear that popular sentiment in Anbar is another matter entirely. Indeed, one other result from our poll may be of particular interest to Anbar's tribal leaders and the United States military alike: Just 23 percent in Anbar expressed confidence in their "local leaders"; 77 percent had little or none. That's better than it was in March - but still nearly the lowest level of confidence in local leaders we measured anywhere in Iraq.

Confidence in local leaders, as it happens, is lower only in Diyala - the other province Mr. Bush mentioned in his speech as a focal point of progress in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/opinion/16langer.html?ref=world

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0 provinces out of 2, "politcal (popular) success" http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

you're doing a heckuva job, dubya!

[Yonivore]

This war sucks.
Is there a war that doesn't?

[Holt's Cat]

This war is AWE-SOME because we are fighting for FREE-DOM!!!!111

[clambake]

does this mean that Al-Sadr isn't allowed to give orders to our troops anymore?

will he be relegated to just killing them,now?