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Bekijk Volledige Versie : New Iraq ' well on way to becoming Islamic state'



lennart
30-10-03, 01:47
New Iraq ' well on way to becoming Islamic state'

By David Rennie in Washington

29 October 2003: (The Daily Telegraph) THE United States is failing in its mission to create a secular, overtly pro-Western Iraq, a leading adviser to the American administrator Paul Bremer said yesterday.

Instead, the new, democratic Iraq appears bound to be an Islamic state - with an official role for Islam, and Islamic law enshrined in its constitution.

That prospect is triggering alarm and opposition from the White House and the Pentagon, Noah Feldman, a leading American expert in Islamic law, told The Daily Telegraph.

Dr Feldman served as senior constitutional adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, working closely with Mr Bremer. Returning from Baghdad this summer, the New York University law professor now works as an unpaid adviser to the CPA, to the White House, and to different factions in the Iraqi Governing Council.

"The end constitutional product is very likely to make many people in the US government unhappy. It's not going to look the way people imagined it looking," said Dr Feldman.

"Any democratically elected Iraqi government is unlikely to be secular, and unlikely to be pro-Israel. And frankly, moderately unlikely to be pro-American."

While these predictions are spreading alarm inside the administration, Dr Feldman advocates dealing with Islamic democrats.

He argues that Islamic parties will rise anyway, and are most dangerous when forced underground by secular autocrats. Such views led Pentagon officials to accuse Dr Feldman of being "soft on Islam".

"When I tell them these things [Islam and Islamic law] are going to be in the constitution, people are very concerned about it. They want to know what can be done to avoid these things. There's still a hope that the country will be as secular as possible.

"But frankly nothing in Iraq is going to look the way people imagined. Maybe if people had taken that on board, they might have felt differently about the plan for an invasion."

The hawkish idealists who pushed hardest for regime change in Iraq saw the fall of Baghdad as the first step towards remaking the Middle East.

In their vision, Iraq would rise up as a democratic, secular, free market capitalist beacon to its neighbours - guided, at least initially, by such exiled leaders as Ahmad Chalabi, a secularist and Pentagon favourite.

In their plan, the country was to be turned into a federation of 18 or so provinces, preventing such powerful ethnic factions as the Kurds from setting up autonomous fiefdoms that might split the country apart and threaten the stability of an already volatile neighbourhood.

Yet the Kurds have made it plain that they expect to emerge with an autonomous Kurdish region, and will not support any constitution that would split their territory into mini-provinces, Dr Feldman reported. Though US allies, the Kurds retain 40,000 men under arms, and have declined US invitations to disband such militias.

Pentagon officials sent Dr Feldman to Baghdad for his knowledge of Islamic law. In many ways he was an unlikely candidate: he is a Democrat, Jewish and still only 32.

One senior administration official declared before the war that the first foreign policy of a democratic Iraq would be to recognise Israel.

"I don't know what he was smoking when he said that," said Dr Feldman. He argued that Iraqi-Israeli relations were off the radar, as Washington struggled simply to keep Iraq from slipping into disaster.

Copyright: Daily Telegraph. UK

Tis te hopen dat die neocon gekken snel doorkrijgen hoe democratie werkt.

lennart
30-10-03, 01:50
Give Iraqis control of security, leader tells US

Michael Howard in Baghdad and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday October 29, 2003
The Guardian

Responsibility for the internal security of Iraq should be handed over to Iraqis as soon as possible, a key member of the Iraqi governing council urged yesterday.
Dr Mahmoud Osman, one of the six most prominent members of the US appointed body, said: "The coalition should leave these things to Iraqis, we could do a much better job.

"If we don't act soon more and more innocent Iraqis will die, more American soldiers will be hit, and the terrorists and pro-Saddam people will have achieved their goal of disseminating fear and panic."

A joint security committee, which includes governing council members as well as the US chief administrator, Paul Bremer; Lt Col Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US ground forces in Iraq; and Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, will meet within the next few days to hammer out a joint policy on the deteriorating security situation in the country.

Dr Osman said the plans call for the country's police to be given "a bigger budget, more manpower and more technology and weapons"; a strengthening of the civil defence force to protect Iraq's key infrastructure sites; turning more of the party militias into regular forces; and recalling former Iraqi army officers who were neither involved in war crimes nor senior members of the Ba'ath party.

Dr Osman suggested that leaders of the the country's regional factions could also be brought into the security process.

Sheikh Ali Mohammed al-Abbassy, who heads the million-strong Beni Hassan faction in the areas south of Baghdad, said he and other leaders would "impose order" if given the authority. "We are just waiting for the word," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1073013,00.html

Kortom Amerikanen weg en wel nu.