In an interview today in New York, Mr. Chalabi professed gratitude to the Bush administration for toppling Saddam Hussein's government, but his specific proposals were directly at odds with the policies Washington is pursuing in Baghdad and at the United Nations. He demanded that the Iraqi Governing Council be given at least partial control of the powerful finance and security ministries, and rejected the idea of more foreign troops coming to Iraq.
Mr. Chalabi has sent representatives to France and Germany to discuss putting Iraqis back in charge under a new United Nations mandate that would end American control of the occupation, even if American troops remain in Iraq. His aides say he also plans to tell the Senate that the United Nations could save billions of dollars on Iraq's reconstruction by allowing an Iraqi administration to handle it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/23/international/middleeast/23CHAL.html

I wonder why Ahmed Chalabi has suddenly started demanding the US turn over sovereignity to the Iraqi governing council immediately... just as the French started doing the same.  Coincidence?  I doubt it.  I wonder whether our wandering allies have offered him a little incentive?  As current President of the Council, does Chalabi assume he'd be able to keep the title in the long term?  Is THAT what the French offered him? Though he DID bring the INC to the table, many still question his appointment to the governing council.  How will Jordan be able to deal with him as its President?

AMMAN, August 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A group of 21 Jordanian MPs are to call on Washington to extradite Ahmad Chalabi, a key U.S.-ally on the Iraqi Governing Council, to serve out a 22-year prison sentence for fraud, Amman press reports said Sunday, August 17.
In a public motion, 21 MPs called for an extraordinary session of parliament to discuss Chalabi's involvement in financial irregularities and his extradition to Jordan via Interpol in order to serve his sentence, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said. Chalabi, leader of the U.S. picked Iraqi National Congress, a pro-Western anti-Saddam Hussein faction which provided troops for the U.S.-led war, built and lost a banking empire in Jordan in the 1980s.
After he fled the country in 1989, he was convicted in absentia of fraud and embezzling 288 million dollars from Petra into Swiss bank accounts.
Jordanian MPs now want him to face a second trial, on additional charges of defrauding the central bank and Petra clients of 900 million dollars.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-08/17/article12.shtml

I think we need to keep a close eye on Dr. Chalabi.  As President Bush said in his speech to the UN, first Iraq needs to write a Constitution, then have elections, and only THEN can power be truly handed over to the duly-elected government. 

The Bush-bashers hate it when Iraq is compared to Germany after WWII.  So do I, in a way... we allowed Germany to be rebuilt by committee, instead of running the show as we did in Japan.  And look what a beautiful mess an international body made of Germany.  They gave us East and West Germany, and a Wall in Berlin that became a symbol of oppression.  Is THAT what we want for Iraq?  While keeping the UN from interfering, we've already outstripped the rebuilding of Germany by orders of magnitude.  Consider that it took three years to establish a central bank in Germany... Iraq did it in two months.  It took two years for Germany to field its own police force... Iraq did it in two months as well.  It took over a year for Germany to appoint cabinet positions... but it only took four months in Iraq.

I think it's best for the Iraqis as well as ourselves if we keep the United Nations out of the government processes for a while longer.

It seems as though every country in the world is voicing its opinion on how things should be run in Iraq.  Even countries who refused to have anything to do with liberating 25 million Iraqis feel the need to openly criticise the Coalition's handling of the situation. Few countries have anything good to say about the way we're attempting to simultaneously keep the peace among different racial and ethnic groups, rebuild the infrastructure neglected for thirty years, create a representative democracy among people who've never had a say in their government, and track down members of the criminal regime.  They pretend to be shocked -- shocked! -- that we haven't wrapped the whole thing up after five entire months.  (One would think the Germans at least would have a twinge of conscience, since it took the US five YEARS to perform the same job there -- and they HAD an infrastructure and an elective process in place already.) 

The goal expressed by many other countries is to get more Arab nations involved in the security forces of Iraq, and to get US troops off the street -- and out of the way -- as quickly as possible.  I wonder whose purposes would be served by that.  Certainly not those of the Iraqi people, nor our own. Personally, I say that only countries who have sent troops or money should have any say at all in the governance of Iraq.

The one group of people whose opinions aren't being asked by the critics of President Bush and the United States is... the Iraqi people themselves.  You can't trust media reports written -- or at least filtered through -- Stateside desk-bound writers and editors.  (Isn't it curious how we began to hear about nothing but the problems in Iraq once most of the embedded reporters returned home?  Until then, the shrill cries of "Quagmire! Quagmire!" were lost in the flood of good news coming directly from the front lines.) 

More recently, hundreds of independent newspapers have sprung up in Iraq. In a fierce Darwinistic battle for success, the papers that best reflect the mood and attitudes of the majority are winning. One of the fastest-growing newspapers is Iraq Today (http://www.iraq-today.com/index.html), which recently ran an interesting editorial by its managing editor, Mustafa Alrawi (who has also written for the JordanTimes). 

On the face of it, wouldn't it have been better from the beginning to have Arabic speaking soldiers in Baghdad, who can relate to the local culture in a way a Westerner can only dream of? How much easier would it have been for the CPA to win hearts and minds, if they had more Arabs delivering their message? Having Muslim troops stationed in a Muslim country makes sense, doesn't it? A Saudi Arabian officer, or a Jordanian trooper would be much easier to trust than one with the Stars and Stripes on his uniform, right?
Wrong. Evidence on the ground suggests that the absence of Arab involvement in Iraq is actually not a bad thing at all. The truth is that most Iraqis would rather have an American dominated force here, than an Arab one.
In contrast, the US spilled the blood of its own people to liberate them from Saddam's tyranny. No matter how bad things are here right now, friends, colleagues and relatives assure me that with the pressure of living under the old regime gone, life is one hundred percent better.
http://www.iraq-today.com/news/editorial/00009.html

A month ago, they ran another editorial by Sarmad S. Ali containing a diatribe against those attacking Coalition forces:

Don't you think that a heavy price was paid for your liberation and that you yourselves should reimburse Coalition forces for their losses during and after the war? Instead you reciprocate with grenades, roadside bombs, mortar rounds, and explosive-laden trucks, forgetting that the soldiers and officers themselves are not responsible for the intractable problems from which you suffer. If you must blame anyone, blame the leaders of the Coalition and the officials who run this country, and stop punishing the innocent.
Do you think that your operations against innocents, humanitarian organizations and Iraqi bystanders can be called "resistance" or "jihad"? Who told you that, when you murder Christians, that you are killing "unbelievers"? Muslims and Christians lived in peace and brotherhood under the tent of the Prophet Mohammed long ago.
Why can't you follow the Prophet's example? Will there come a day when even Christian Iraqis are to be liquidated? Haven't you considered that those Americans you have been killing have families waiting for their return home, just like yours wait for you?
http://www.iraq-today.com/news/editorial/00003.html


Others are not so complimentary... but that's freedom of speech for you!

The words of the new administration should turn into actions in order not to be interpreted as mere slogans that have nothing to do with the real situation we are in. Iraqis need to taste freedom sweet, steering clear of the bitterness that they had too much of.
http://www.iraq-today.com/news/editorial/00007.html

Others speaking their minds openly for the first time in decades have questions they want answered:

Who do these ministers represent, their parties or their communities? And, more importantly, can they rise above their political allegiances? In this way, they could be recognized nationally.
After all, governments are national institutions and should not reflect narrow interests of certain groups or certain political parties. Worse than this is when narrower interests determine the national interest of a nation, as in the case of the former regime of Saddam. In the emerging Iraq with people having great expectations for democracy, this should not be allowed.
http://www.iraq-today.com/news/editorial/00008.html

I'm glad most of the Iraqi people seem to understand what the US and our coalition partners have done for them. As more of them feel able to voice their opinions every day, soon we may not have to rely on the New York Times editors sitting at ther desks to tell us how they feel the Iraqi people feel.  

Whatever reasons individual nations, and even individual people, may have had for supporting the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, it was a good and necessary thing to do.  For the Iraqi people, it was the only "reason for war" that really mattered a damn.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Hurricane Isabel roared ashore in North Carolina yesterday, Democrats in Washington DC firmly fixed the blame on President George W. Bush for the ease with which the storm entered the United States, and the destruction it caused.

"Bush's lax support of Homeland security is to blame for this disaster," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma) as he was bundled into an extra-large limo by his aides for a fast trip to the airport. "If only he had tightened our borders properly, this would never have been allowed to happen."  Added Senator Kennedy to his driver, "Don't you dare take me to Reagan Airport; I get heartburn every time I go near it."

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) gave a statement to reporters, saying "This Administration's lack of diplomacy is entirely to blame for the strength of this hurricane. If only President Bush had embraced Fidel Castro and dropped all restrictions and sanctions against Cuba, this never would have happened; we would have seen a storm of good-will from the happy people of Cuba instead of this destruction. This President has failed us by allowing this storm to take place."  As she spoke, the Representative's aides were preparing a reception for Isabel, including a huge sheet cake with a stylised hurricane and the words "Congratulations on Your Immigration, Isabel!" and party favors consisting of offers of free tuition and drivers' licenses in a variety of names.

Presidential hopeful Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-Mo) was, of course, absent, but sent a prepared statement that "This President is a miserable failure ©".  Another Presidential hopeful, Governor Howard Dean, stated that "this President failed in diplomacy... as President, I would have met the storm in advance and made peace with it, making certain to give in to its demands in order to reduce the damage it would cause."  When asked how many members of the National Guard he would deploy to help during the emergency, Dean replied "I don't know how many we have, and I don't have to know, but I'm sure that when I'm President, I can always find someone around who knows these things."

Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) took the opportunity to add $100 million in pork barrel spending earmarked for West Virginia federally-funded programs to FEMA's operating budget for next year, to fund such projects as the "White Pillowcase Project", which will insure that all white males in the state are provided with white pillowcases at federal expense.  "This President took the opportunity to don the garb of a Gorton's Fisherman," stated Senator Byrd, "in order to declare a state of emergency in a state he was not even in at the time!" 

Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry (D-Ma) both voted to fight Hurricane Isabel, then viciously attacked President Bush for doing so.  "I only voted for this fight in order to convince the storm the United States meant business," stated Kerry. "Had I known that anyone would actually take my vote seriously, much less act upon it, I might have voted the same way. Or not. I'm a Vietnam Veteran ©, you know."

Where are the weapons of mass destruction Saddam admitted he had only a few short years ago? Only the most naive or rabidly anti-American Bush-basher would claim they never existed, since UNSCOM as well as every intelligence service in the West had hard evidence on top of Iraq's admissions. Certainly the thousands of Kurdish dead at Anfal found out Saddam had chemical weapons. (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/) The only questions were: how MUCH? what KINDS? Now, we have a new one: where are they NOW?

Now, our intelligence sources can disclose exclusively that the relocation of Iraq’s WMD systems took place between January 10 and March 10 and was completed just 10 days before the US-led offensive was launched against Iraq. The banned arsenal, hauled in giant tankers from Iraq to Syria and from there to the Bekaa Valley under Syrian special forces and military intelligence escort, was discharged into pits 6-8 meters across and 25-35 meters deep dug by Syrian army engineers. They were sealed and planted over with new seedlings. Nonetheless, their location is known and detectable with the right instruments. Our sources have learned that Syria was paid about $35 million to make Saddam Hussein’s forbidden weapons disappear. [4 May 2003]
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=482

Mossad (Israeli intelligence service) has been telling us since before the invasion of Iraq began that large amounts of Iraq's illegal weapons were moved out of the country in huge tanker trucks. Liberals commonly have one main response to this news (discounting the usual vitriolic ad hominem responses): "That's stupid! You can see anything moving in that country! Satellites would have seen 'giant tanker trucks' moving around Iraq!"

Well, I'm glad you all brought that up. World Tribune.com (http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/), an internet newspaper devoted to international news (and often quoted on The Drudge Report at http://www.drudgereport.com/), recently ran two very relevant stories:

U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have finally been located.
Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly impossible for the United States and its allies, because the containers with the strategic materials are not in Iraq.
Instead they are located in Lebanon's heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents, Geostrategy-Direct.com will report in Wednesday's new weekly edition.
U.S. intelligence first identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon in January 2003. The significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time. [25 August 2003]
http://216.26.163.62/2003/ss_iraq_08_25.html

U.S. intelligence agencies are weighing numerous reports that Iraq diverted weapons of mass destruction to Syria and Lebanon to hide them from United Nations weapons inspectors and American forces in Iraq.
In testimony Sept. 16, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, referred to reports that Iraqi WMD had been transferred to Syria. "We have seen these reports, reviewed them carefully, and see them as cause for concern," he said. [17 September 2003]
http://216.26.163.62/2003/ss_iraq_09_17.html

Is it still "stupid" to suspect that Saddam secretly moved most, if not all, of his banned weapons out of the country when it became certain the United States would invade, right under the noses of UNMOVIC inspectors headed by Hans Blix? There was no way to tell at the time exactly how much he had, how much was moved, and how much was still left in the country. Iraq was not fully cooperating with the inspections, despite their terrific misdirection of destroying a couple of illegal missiles a day. (Well, it fooled those who desperately wanted to be fooled.) Saddam wasn't exactly declaring his WMD at the border, and those tanker trucks were curiously devoid of signs reading "WMD: 10,000 liters -- CAUTION!"

Soon weapons expert David Kay, heading the Iraq Survey Group (the 1,400-member team searching for WMD production facilities and stockpiles, if any) will deliver his report. Most likely, the only physical evidence Saddam left that was easy to find were those pieces either too big to move, or too expensive to destroy. Then, all eyes will turn to Hezbollah, and Lebanon.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's claims of ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda terrorists are being tested in federal court, where the family of the FBI's late counterterrorism chief has sued Iraq over the Sept. 11 hijackings.
The wife and children of John O'Neill, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, allege that Iraq began communicating with Al Qaeda as early as 1992, provided training to Usama bin Laden's warriors and sent intelligence agents to work with the terror network in Afghanistan.
The evidence, the sources said, includes statements by Iraqi defectors and Al Qaeda prisoners that Iraqi intelligence provided Al Qaeda with training in document forgery and chemical and biological weapons in a series of contacts that spiked in 1996, and again after 1998.
O'Neill was one the FBI's top terrorism experts, leading investigations into such attacks as the 2000 USS Cole bombing. He left the FBI shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks over an investigation into his loss of a briefcase with sensitive FBI documents. He accepted a job as chief of security at the World Trade Center in New York City and was in the towers when they collapsed.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97457,00.html

AT LAST! The O'Neill case may finally prove Saddam's material support and training of the 9/11 hijackers beyond the shadow of a doubt. John O'Neill knew more about al-Qaeda than anyone (well, any non-member), and tried in vain for YEARS to make the Clinton administration listen to the evidence of their involvement with Iraq. He finally left the FBI in 2001 -- and was almost immediately murdered by them, along with so many others in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. At least the media is paying SOME attention to this case, unlike the case decided against Iraq by Judge Harold Baer on 7 May of this year which they almost completely ignored.  Testimony in that case was given by former CIA director James Woolsey, terrorism expert Dr. Laurie Mylroie, and three of the instructors from Salman Pak, Saddam's terrorism training school about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. 

...according to courtroom testimony by three of the camp's instructors, the facility was a virtual hijacking classroom where al-Qaeda recruits practiced overcoming U.S. flight crews using only small knives - a terrorist technique never employed before 9/11.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/5/9/72820

Salman Pak's use as a hijacking school was discussed in the media almost immediately after 9/11, and yet they never seemed able to make the connection between the existence of a hijacking school in Iraq, hijackers flying planes into buildings using the same methods taught at the school, and the Bush administration's insistence that Iraq was part of the war against terror.

Through a translator, [Iraqi defector Sabah Khalifa] Alami described, according to the Wall Street Journal ("The Iraq Connection" by Micah Morrison, 5 Sept. 2002), a daily regimen of exercises on kidnapping, assassination, and -- using a Boeing 707 parked inside the complex -- how to hijack a plane or bus without weapons. He said that a separate group of non-Iraqis were being similarly trained by Saddam's intelligence service, the mukhabarat. Asked about the plane by an interviewer for Front Line [in September 2001], he said "Yes, there's a real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp."
http://edwardjayepstein.com/2002question/salmanpak.htm

And then, when our troops approached Salman Pak... there was the plane, just as described.

SALMAN PAK, Iraq -- The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off. Good for hijacking practice, U.S. Marines speculated Sunday [April 6, 2003] as they examined an Iraqi training base about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
...U.S. officials and others have long suspected the camp trained terrorists. Two former Iraqi military officers told the New York Times and PBS's "Frontline" in the fall of 2001 that Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs were brought here to practice hijacking planes and trains, planting bombs and staging assassinations.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/2003/04/07/news/nation/5574507.htm

When does two plus two NOT equal four? When you're using Liberal math, of course.

It looks like the the pro-abortion argument -- I don't say "pro-choice" like they want me to, nor do I say "pro-life" -- is about to take a BIG hit.  It seems that the latest technology can clearly show the faces of babies smiling and crying in the womb. (http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12773312,00.html)

Now, no one can tell -- yet -- exactly WHY they smile and cry in there.  When asked, the recalcitrant infants refuse to answer.  There aren't even any statistics yet on how early this behavior starts.  But none of that matters, and I'll tell you why: PICTURES.

Mohammad Khatami, Iran's President, can't be very happy this weekend.  The IAEA issued a deadline of 31 October '03 for Iran to fully disclose all its nuclear programs.  Normally, a deadline from the UN is treated by rogue nations like Iran the way we would treat the rumor of an invasion from the Moon. In other words, a pretty lame joke. "Hey Mohammad, the UN is giving us a deadline!" "Ooh, I'm quaking in my sandals. Better warn our grandchildren; they may have to do something about it someday. I slap them with my shoe!"

They're not doing that this time.

If the Iranians are laughing about the IAEA deadline, the laughter no doubt seems forced as they glance to their west, towards the country where Saddam Hussein once laughed at UN deadlines, too.

They know he's not laughing now. 

When President Bush cited the 17 violated UN resolutions as one of the reasons to remove Saddam from power (http://www.broadbandc-span.org/downloads/hjres114.pdf), some people thought that was a pretty lame joke, too.  As usual, they missed the point entirely.  The reason UN deadlines were treated with such contempt by dictators was that they knew such deadlines would never be enforced.  That's what President Bush knew before going to the UN for resolution #1441... that there was really no chance it would ever be honored by Saddam Hussein's government or enforced by the UN. 

But we were ready to enforce it, and we did.

Those on the Left scream that Bush undermined the United Nations. Those on the Right grumble that the UN was always useless, and Bush just showed the world how irrelevant they were.  They all missed the point of President Bush citing those UN resolutions as a reason for toppling Saddam's government.

For the first time in decades, a UN deadline is being treated seriously by a dictator. Mohammad Khatami may not be too worried about the UN enforcing its resolutions and deadlines... they never do.

But I'll bet he's worried that the US will enforce them.