BAGHDAD, March 31, 2007
Iraq To Relocate Arabs From Kurdish Area
Gov't Approves Plan To Foster Migration From Kirkuk Despite Criticism From Opposition Party, Turkey
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Play CBS Video Video War Of Words Over Iraq The Senate is determined to pull troops out of Iraq by April 2008, while the President refuses to abide by a timetable. The question now is which side will blink. Sharyl Attkisson reports.
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Video Congress, Bush Spar Over Iraq Democrats and some Republicans want to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and they have attached this to a troop spending bill, which Bush intends to veto. Bill Plante reports.
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Video Bush Renews Veto Promise Speaking at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, President Bush reminded lawmakers he won't accept a timetable for a troop withdrawal from Iraq. Susan Roberts reports.
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People stand by a car bomb wreck in the city of Hillah, Iraq, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, Saturday, March 31, 2007. At least two people were killed and 22 wounded, provincial police said. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)
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A wounded boy cries in pain in Imam Ali hospital, in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 30, 2007. The boy was among some 100 people wounded in a twin suicide attack on the predominantly Shiite market Shalal Thursday night. At least 82 people lost their lives. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
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A man helps his son injured in a car bombing in the city of Hillah, Iraq, Saturday, March 31, 2007. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)
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Interactive Iraq: 4 Years Later The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
Opposition politicians blasted the Kirkuk plan and Turkey already had warned that the city and its sizable Turkish minority must never become part of the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq, a likely next step.
Iraq's constitution sets an end-of-the year deadline for a referendum on Kirkuk's status. Since Saddam's fall four years ago, thousands of Kurds who once lived in the city have resettled there. It is now believed Kurds are a majority of the population and that a referendum on attaching Kirkuk to the Kurdish autonomous zone would pass by a wide margin.
Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the Ottoman Empire, has a large minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. The city is just south of the Kurdish autonomous zone stretching across three provinces of northeastern Iraq.
There were fears that scheduling a referendum that was likely to put Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, under Kurdish control could open a new front in the violence that has ravaged Iraq since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion four years ago. On March 19, several bombs struck targets in Kirkuk and killed at least 26 people.
Meanwhile, a series of bombings killed at least nine people and wounded dozens in Iraq, police said. The attacks raised to at least 517 the number of people killed in the past seven days as suicide bombers and militiamen fought back ferociously despite a U.S.-Iraqi security sweep that is in its seventh week.
In Other Developments:
Justice Minister Hashim al-Shebli said the Cabinet agreed on Thursday to a study group's recommendation that Arabs who had moved to Kirkuk from other parts of Iraq after July 14, 1968, should be returned to their original towns and paid for their trouble.
Al-Shebli, who had overseen the committee on Kirkuk's status, said relocation would be voluntary. Those who choose to leave will be paid 20 million Iraqi dinars (about $15,000) and given land in their former hometowns.
"There will be no coercion and the decision will not be implemented by force," al-Shebli told The Associated Press.
In discussing the Kirkuk issue, al-Shebli, a Sunni Arab, also confirmed he had offered his resignation on the same day that the Cabinet signed off on the plan. He cited differences with the government and his own political group, the secular Iraqi List, which joined Sunni Arab lawmakers Saturday in opposing the Kirkuk decision.
He said he would continue in office until the Cabinet approved his resignation.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 27 Comments
- Bush tried to paint the Kurds like some kind of nice guys, some happy tribe of people "oppressed" by Saddam Hussein. Now they are showing true colors - genocidal maniacs trying to build a "clean" ethnic empire and steal 1/5 of the world's oil reserves, hurray for smart Bush, another great intellectual victory for the C+ student.
- Reply to this comment
- This is old news!
- Reply to this comment
- yeah riot in Iraq made by usa we should thank bush servant of satan
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- Arabs, Kurds...
Ya know, as long as people at the bottom can't get along, the people on the top will take advantage.
Heil the heirarchial dim-wits. - Reply to this comment
- CBS: Iraq To Relocate Arabs From Kurdish Area
Gov't Approves Plan To Foster Migration From Kirkuk Despite Criticism From Opposition Party, Turkey
-Ain't this called Ethnic Cleansing?
Georgie Boy check it out... Georgie. Or is it an order from Jerusalem? And you don't discuss orders coming from Jerusalem... right Georgie?
-Is it the price for establishing a fake relative peace with Palestinians by Israel? Yes GeorgieBoy? - Reply to this comment
- grazinggoat at 01:38 PM,
Funny stuff!!!
Posted by feelfree1
-But arse008 must be so frustrated he can't even push a key, not even one, just one to Copy paste Muslim Nazi Fascist Islamic extremists... He just can't. He becomes crippled on Shabbats by the Power of God.
Thanks God for sucha benediction. God, please make Shabbat everyday for arse008, get us rid of his wealthy and rich speech. - Reply to this comment
- crater7,
Re: "The only way this engine will stop, is when it implodes on itself or the American People put a stop to it. A change is necessary and soon."
Agreed.
www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow - Reply to this comment
- formrusmcsgt,
Re: "Victory", at this stage, means finding someone else to blame for the debacle so as to avoid Bush having the legacy of a complete idiot."
Nice one!
grazinggoat at 01:38 PM,
Funny stuff!!! - Reply to this comment
- WORLDS GREATEST MILITARY BLUNDER CONTINUES; Surge-Purge, Bull Shift. There are not enough troops in the entire military to fix this mess. This president has started the mechanics of an engine that will continue forever. Bush has isolated the United States from the rest of the world. There will be a day when we will need the help of our allies, but they won't be there. The only way this engine will stop, is when it implodes on itself or the American People put a stop to it. A change is necessary and soon.
- Reply to this comment
- War lovers talk about victory when they can't even define it intelligently.
Posted by Iceman_1960 at 02:01 PM : Mar 31, 2007
"Victory", at this stage, means finding someone else to blame for the debacle so as to avoid Bush having the legacy of a complete idiot.
He tried to bully the Dems into taking some of the heat off of him, historically speaking, by supporting his endeavor so he could say "see? you guys were all for it, too"...
They wouldn't bite and Dubya will fade the heat for his boondoggle all by his lonesome as a result and be viewed by history as an inept, idiot of a president - which is as it should be. - Reply to this comment
- "The attacks raised to at least 517 the number of people killed in the past seven days as suicide bombers and militiamen fought back ferociously despite a U.S.-Iraqi security sweep that is in its seventh week."
I'm still waiting to hear someone define "victory in Iraq" other than to repeat the words of pickup truck bumper stickers or Pie-in-the-Sky flights of rhetoric that would embarrass Pollyanna.
War lovers talk about victory when they can't even define it intelligently. - Reply to this comment
- Instead of the "decider", Bush should be known as the "prostituter".
He has prostituted our moral authority in dealing with future illegal invasions.
He has prostituted our relations with our allies by telling the majority of them to all get pumped.
He has prostituted our troops by wasting them in a boondoggle with no chance of success.
He has prostituted our treasury to pay for the boondoggle instead of spending it here for real benefit to us all.
And, on top of all that, he has prostituted our national dignity by turning this country into an agressor nation. - Reply to this comment
- The war in Iraq is being won by China.
That's not a joke.
China actually wants the U.S. to waste enormous amounts of money in Iraq, thus diminishing America as a future economic rival.
This plausible theory has been put forth on the McLaughlin Group and elsewhere. - Reply to this comment
- The one predictable thing about all of Bush's plans is that they all end in more blood spilled and money wasted. Bush's Presidency is an absolute failure.
Posted by micma at 01:31 PM : Mar 31, 2007
More than that, it's a disgrace. - Reply to this comment
- "The arse008 is on shabbat today. No rich contribution from him today. Thanks God for this." Posted by grazinggoat
lieberman008 isn't Jewish. He just exploits Israel's security concerns to gain his real objective:
A militarized America perpetually at war.
As long as he isn't asked to (a) fight in war, or (b) pay slightly higher taxes for "frivolous things" like decent VA hospital care for wounded troops. - Reply to this comment
- It won't matter, oil will stop flowing in the Middle East soon and the Muslims will be happy to be isolated from the rest of the world to kill each other off. Just who will win? Iran or Saudi Arabia?
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- "President Bush, the American military and U.S. diplomats in Iraq have expressed cautious optimism about the crackdown on violence that began Feb. 14..."
If there's one attribute George W. Bush lacks, it's caution.
His father was ridiculed relentlessly about his "prudence," but it was that virtue that prevented a hasty and reckless drive on Baghdad during the first Gulf War.
Future historians will be giving the elder Bush his due tribute for that restraint. It prevented a bloody quagmire from claiming hundreds of thousands of military and civilian deaths back in 1991.
That was a "Mission Accomplished" worthy of thge name. The first President Bush liberated Kuwait in a war lasting less than a year. - Reply to this comment
- The arse008 is on shabbat today. No rich contribution from him today. Thanks God for this.
- Reply to this comment
The one predictable thing about all of Bush's plans is that they all end in more blood spilled and money wasted. Bush's Presidency is an absolute failure.- Reply to this comment
- [President Bush, the American military and U.S. diplomats in Iraq have expressed cautious optimism about the crackdown on violence that began Feb. 14 in Baghdad, Anbar province and regions surrounding the capital, but the ease with which suspected al Qaeda suicide bombers have continued striking Shiite targets has cast a shadow over the effort.]
... suspected al qaeda suicide bombers? who's investigating ... alberto gonzalez?
this is clearly proof that bush was either completely correct about iraq (al qaeda is everywhere) ... or ... they haven't yet been told about those little 'issues' between the shia and the sunni. - Reply to this comment
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