Saturday, October 07, 2006

VP Abdul Mahdi: US Military Part of Problem;
4,000 Iraq police killed in past 2 years

The deaths of two more US Marines were announced on Friday.

Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi said on Friday that the lack of a Status of Forces Agreement is among the main reasons for political gridlock in Iraq. The US military can act as it pleases, he complained. It is one more decision-making center among many. The lack of a SOFA is in fact among the main legal pitfalls in Iraq.

About 4,000 Iraqi police have been killed and more than 8,000 injured over the past two years, the U.S. commander in charge of the police training said Friday.

AP reports drily that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki castigated Iraqi political parties for having militias and demanded that they dissolve them, while he was being guarded by the Badr Corps, the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of al-Maliki's honored guests. This is like demanding that wine makers agitate for prohibition.

Yahya Barzinji reports on why many observers believe that the Kurds are gradually moving toward independence. He quotes Kurdish leaders denying any such intention.

Richard Engel reports that US troops in Iraq are questioning why they are there and what exactly their mission is. He tells of how they find evidence that some among their colleagues, the Iraqi police, are actually secret death squad members who murdered a Sunni Arab man and tossed his body in the street.

Colin Powell's wife says that Bush used her husband to sell the Iraq War. Too right. And it is impossible to watch a virtually all-white Republican Party install a couple of high-profile African Americans and use them as fall guys with thinking that there is something unsavory and racist about it.

posted by Juan