Article

2003-06-11 Iraq

Coalition Forces Round Up 397 Suspects in Iraq

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Posted by Steve 2003-06-11 11:33 am|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 {sarcasm on}Nice job, Fox, considering Central Command sends this out in a news release daily and the story quotes direcly from the news release.{sarcasm off}

Operation Peninsula Strike
COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE
COALITION EFFORTS AID IRAQâS RECOVERY (June 11, 2003)

Posted by Chuck 2003-06-11 12:01:37|| [blog.simmins.org] 2003-06-11 12:01:37|| Front Page Top

#2 wapo this AM did a very good articale on situation in Karbala - not a single attack on US troops, power back to double pre-war levels, still some grumbling about corrupt police, clerics cooperating, some clerics grumbling, local mayor afraid of clerics, wants US troops to stay.

Altogether a different picture from focus on Baghdad and Sunni regions. Also quite different from impression of a month ago, that Shiites were on verge of rebellion.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-06-11 12:35:47|| 2003-06-11 12:35:47|| Front Page Top

#3 LH, I was going to bring that story here but it was rather long. The link is here. This story and the one a month ago about how well things were going in Kirkuk suggest strongly that in the end, what really matters is a local US commander with the smarts and authority to do the right things in each city and region. When we do it right, that part of Iraq starts to work.

Posted by Steve White 2003-06-11 13:02:01|| 2003-06-11 13:02:01|| Front Page Top

#4 maybe so steve - but i dont think the problems in fallujah and tikrit are due to the US local commanders in question.

What this suggests to me is that Iraq under the Baath was virtually an apartheid state a dictatorship of Sunni Muslim Arabs over Shiites and Kurds. Even many of those Sunni Arabs who didnt participate in the regime benefited from it. And almost all Sunni Muslim Arabs therefore have reason to fear change. Therefore there is almost no opposition to the occupation in the Kurdish zones, such opposition as there is in the Shiite zones is moderate, concerned with details of occupation and the jockeying for future power. The only place real hatred for us exists is in the Sunni heartland - and while even there there may be many who are friendly to us, there is enough residual baathism to start and maintain a vicious cycle of terrorist resistance and crackdown.

Im not saying this to indicate that the situation in the Sunni heartland is hopeless - rather I think our patience might be greater if we understood better the parameters and motives of the resistance, rather than seeing it as pervading Iraq and being based on some general nationalist opposition to occupation.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-06-11 13:22:44|| 2003-06-11 13:22:44|| Front Page Top

09:26 liberalhawk
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