Think Progress

The balance of power in Iraq.

By Faiz Shakir on Apr 16th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

Lt. Col. Chris Pease said he asked a young Iraqi street cop to give him an honest analysis of what’s going on in the street. “He said to me, ‘Do you want me … to tell you the truth?’” Pease recalled. “His assessment was that the militias are everywhere … and his officers weren’t going to do anything about that because their units are infiltrated, and they know what the cost would be for working against the militias.”

Comments
22

22 Responses to “The balance of power in Iraq.”

Monkey Knut Wrench says:

let me tell you Jaafari was on the news in the uk and says Iraq wants US troops there but under Iraqi control , until this happens expect no goverment to be formed or any saddam trial to continue
April 16th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Monkey Knut Wrench says:

Jaafari does not want American occuppying troops in Iraq, He wants the troop to be under Iraqi control thats what the problem is a the moment, and i aggree with his point , ever wondered whats taking so long to form a goverment , this is it
April 16th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Monkey Knut Wrench says:

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is momentary” Mahatma Gandhi
April 16th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Barfly says:

#1

Well that ain’t gonna happen; the wingnuts (as well as the military)would go ballistic if someone in the administration even hinted at American forces being under Iraqi control. Gonna be a long, bloody summer.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Outraged says:

If that happens then will the Repugs give Bush Hell for allowing US troops to be under outside control like they did when Clinton allowed US troops to be under UN command….of course not. But that may be the only thing Bush can do to even try and save this mess he has created. If he thinks he can just walk away and invade Iran and still have US personnel in the new Baghdad embassy he will be sentencing even more Americans to death.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
GSD says:

Remember George W. Bush saying that the US will never get a “permission slip” from another country for the US troops to act.

Yep. I also heard Fatuous Freddie Barnes when talking about the effort to remove Jafaari. “Well, he barely even won the election”. Meaning of course that removing him would be no big deal because he “barely won”….

Wonder if Fatuous Freddie would apply the same logic to George W. Bush and his popular vote loss on 2000?

Not likely.

-GSD

Boy, they have sure created a heckuva nation over there in Iraq. Call it eo-Con World.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
GSD says:

Neo-Con.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
beep52 says:

I guess this is what Bushco meant when they said they were creating new realities.
April 16th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
wondering? says:

I hate Republicans, Do I need help or am I normal?
April 16th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Mary Poppin says:

#9 I don’t know if I hate the Republicans. I hate what they stand for.

Like giving tax cuts to the rich. there name calling, not raising the minimun wages, a good medicare drug plan, trying to take our right to privarcy away and so on.
April 16th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
koalablue says:

He said to me, â€˜Do you want me â€¦ to tell you the truth?

He was probably thinking of retiring at the time. Like all the retired Generals speaking out now. Or of course Shenski, wonder if Pease has already named the street cops replacement.
April 16th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Erroll says:

As the article states, despite the administration’s claims, civil war is already taking place in Iraq. In an article written last October, ret. General William Odom said: “Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That’s civil war. We created the civil war when we invaded; we can’t prevent a civil war by staying”. This is the major difference between the generals who have come forth now to criticize Rumsfeld and the administration and Odom. Odom recognizes that it is the presence of the United States military that is exacerbating the situation in Iraq while these generals have made sure never to utter the word withdrawal despite, as Odom acknowledges, it is the United States that is the main contributor to the chaos that is going on in Iraq.
April 16th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
wisedup says:

Think of all the LIVES that would have been saved if bush 41 had finished the job in the gulf war. What a deadly mess we have now. The bushes are….”The Worst Presidents in the World”.
April 16th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Vance says:

#13, I f Jeb ever tries to run for anything bigger than gov…..I only hope a true patriot talks him out of it…..and ends his pipe dream. With kindness.
April 17th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Vance says:

Lots of space between those lines…..
April 17th, 2006 at 6:27 am
Thot's says:

and gas is over 70.00 per barrell …of course this only helps dick cheney out on his stock options…….he needs help…….

and Congress is only going to meet for 60 days this year so I guess that means gwbush and co will be making all the decisions and creating bills and passing bills .. some kind of demoracy we have here in georges americka…….

Iran is invaded by our military and the great MSM has only taken sound bites from his statements about Israel and Palestine
What President Ahmadinejad Said About Israel and Iran’s Nuclear Program

Full text of President’s Ahmadinejad address

“Palestine is the meeting point of right and wrong. Freedom for Palestine is the present aspiration of humanity. We must believe that good will prevail and evil will disappear. We must believe that Palestine will be free soon.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12758.htm

I am Jewish and I firmly believe Israel is wrong and I’m afraid, as a friend and I were taking over dinner that Israel has become like the man who killed 6 million Jews for no reason other than they were Jews and I’m fear that Israel is doing the same killing Arabs for no other reason than they are Arabs…..

Why is America killing Arabs for no other reason than they are the Owners of the richest Natural Resources on this Planet! gwbush is a greedy Stalinst ba%%%rd! rumsfeld is like hitler’s second in command…

The B%%%rd(rumsfeld) enjoys torturing and watching people going crazy under the pressure of torture..
April 17th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Jaded Prole says:

Thank you Thot’s for restoring some faith in my people. Most American Jews seem to have become good Germans where Isreal is concerned and any criticism is actively quashed due to the influence of AIPAC.

As for Iraq, We’ve created a monster and if/when we attack Iran, you can bet those militias will react in their defense.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Dr. Feelgood says:

Wondering #9,

It is quite normal to hate American Republicans. Everyone is doing it all over the world. They even hate Americans who are not Republicans for allowing these criminal morons to come to power. You had your chance to shoot them and you only appeased them.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Bruce Gorton says:

Dr Feelgood

I don’t hate Americans, as a South African I can actually see how the Neo-cons ended up where they are, and how common sense failed to be applied.

Our Neocons were all about family values, Culture, Nationalism, and the fight against terrorism and communism. In order to face this dire threat, they created one of the most detailed and organised forms of segregation the world has ever seen and pretty much ran South Africa’s economy into the ground. Meanwhile everybody else was so focussed on how stupid these idiots were, that nobody really noticed that they were crooks too. Heck, Bush’s 2004 election strategy had its mirror in 1949.

If you look at it honestly the stupidity of the fascist governments of Europe is probably what let Mussolini and Hitler get away with what they were doing for so long. People just cannot seem to grasp the fact that stupidity and evil are far from being mutually exclusive.

I don’t hate Americans, because I know how America came to be where it is today. I pity Americans, because I know where America is headed if it doesn’t heed the lessons learnt by the rest of us.

The centre needs to vote, before it is lost.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Democrat Soldier says:

#10 – Don’t forget that Republicans now only stand for the rich, special interests, big government, and big corporations. Rather than supporting the American citizenâ€™s rights that are guaranteed in the Constitution, the Republicans have sold their collective souls. Rather than stand for the values they held a decade ago, they are now the paragons of special interests over the American citizens right and the Constitution.

Donâ€™t worry, things will change this coming mid-term election. The Republicans will lose seats, and the republican moderates and fiscal conservatives will begin to â€œtake backâ€ the Republican party from the neo-con â€œborrow and squanderâ€, anti-Constitution, special interests, big-government, mega-corporate whores theyâ€™ve become. Only, by then it will be too late for the Republicans and theyâ€™ll be out of power.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:35 am
thoughtcriminal says:

The time has clearly come to pull all US troops out fo Iraq; this would put an end to the violence. It would, however, all put an end to US corporate ambitions to control Iraq’s oil and water resources, as well as to the Project for a New American Century ‘neocrazy’ plans to have a geostrageic military platform in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the time has come to withdraw all troops from Iraq. The notion that civil war will erupt if we do that is just so much crap – it already is a civil war fueled by US ‘divide and conquer’ strategies.
April 17th, 2006 at 10:25 am
progressive and proud says:

Trolls…any ideas?
April 17th, 2006 at 11:21 am

The balance of power in Iraq.

The balance of power in Iraq.

22 Responses to “The balance of power in Iraq.”

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