BAGHDAD, Sept. 28, 2007
Iraq PM: Senate Proposal A "Catastrophe"
Prime Minister Sharply Rejects Government Decentralization Plan Pushed By Biden, Others
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Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki looks back as he sits in his seat during the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)
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Interactive Iraq: 4 Years Later The conflict wears on as the nation struggles to rebuild.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
The measure, whose primary sponsors included presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions for the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities in a power-sharing agreement similar to Bosnia in the 1990s.
In his first comments since the measure passed Wednesday, al-Maliki strongly rejected the idea, echoing the earlier sentiments of his country's vice president.
"It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis," he told The Associated Press while on a return flight to Baghdad after appearing at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "Iraqis are eager for Iraq's unity. ... Dividing Iraq is a problem and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."
Iraq's constitution lays down a federal system, allowing Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north to set up regions with considerable autonomous powers. But Iraq's turmoil has been fueled by the deep divisions among politicians over the details of how it should work, including the division of lucrative oil resources.
Many Shiite and Kurdish leaders are eager to implement the provisions. But the Sunni Arab minority fears being left in an impoverished central zone without resources. Others fear a sectarian split-up would harden the violent divisions among Iraq's fractious ethnic and religious groups.
On Thursday, Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said decisions about Iraq must remain in the hands of its citizens and the spokesman for the supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed.
"We demand the Iraqi government to stand against such project and to condemn it officially," Liwa Semeism told the AP. "Such a decision does not represent the aspirations of all Iraqi people and it is considered an interference in Iraq's internal affairs."
In other developments:
Iraq's prime minister also said he discussed the role of U.S. troops and private security contractors in the country, stressing that Iraq is a sovereign nation and it should have control over its own security.
Security "is something related to Iraq's sovereignty and its independence and it should not be violated," he said.
Al-Maliki's comments come after a Sept. 16 shooting in central Baghdad that killed some 11 Iraqi civilians allegedly at the hands of Blackwater USA guards providing security for American diplomats.
The North Carolina-based company said its employees were acting in self-defense against an attack by armed insurgents. Iraqi officials and witnesses have said the guards opened fire randomly, killing a woman and an infant along with nine other people, but details have widely diverged.
In a related story, a congressional investigation publicized Thursday found that Blackwater triggered a major battle in Iraq by sending an unprepared team of security guards into an insurgent stronghold, a move that led to their horrific deaths and a violent response by U.S. forces. (Read more)Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has been warning about the dangers of relying on private contractors since early in the war, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
The Washington Post reported Friday that a preliminary U.S. Embassy report found the shooting involved three Blackwater teams.
It said one was ambushed near a traffic circle and returned fire before fleeing the scene, another was surrounded by Iraqis when it went to the intersection and had to be extracted by the U.S. military and a third came under fire from eight to 10 people in multiple locations.
The report said the three teams had been trying to escort a senior U.S. official who had been visiting a "financial compound" back to the U.S.-protected Green Zone when a car bomb struck about 25 yards outside the entrance. The official was unharmed, it said.
An unnamed U.S. State Department official described the report to the newspaper and stressed it was only an initial account.
The New York Times also reported Friday that the shootings occurred as Blackwater was trying to evacuate senior American officials with the United States Agency for International Development after an explosion occurred near the guarded compound where they were meeting.
Participants in the operation said at least one guard continued firing on civilians while colleagues called for the shooting to stop, according to the newspaper's account, which cited American officials who have been briefed on the investigation.
It also said those involved have told U.S. investigators they believed they were firing in response to enemy gunfire but at least one guard also drew a weapon on a colleague who did not stop shooting.
American officials have publicly remained mum on their findings pending the results of a series of investigations.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- THE NEW PLAN OF BUSH IS TO DIVIDE THE REGION . COME ON MR. BUSH THEY''RE NOT STUPIDS THE ONLY STUPIDS IN THIS WORLD IS YOU MR. PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE PEOPLE WHO''S SUPPOTING YOU .. GET OUT FROM IRAQ IDIOT. YOUR WAR IS ILLEGAL AND YOUR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY PUT IT IN YOUR OWN AZZ BAZTARD.....
- Reply to this comment
- Ioweign,
I think you are a victim of selective reading.
UN has approved the invasion and that is why US troops and leaders are immune from prosecution. Quote last week used in a CBS article.
Posted by donbl1 at 08:59 PM : Sep 28, 2007
War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government''s publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.
French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein". - Reply to this comment
- Oh, no, all my wonderful power . . . I''m melting, I''m melting!
Bye, bye, Maliki! - Reply to this comment
- Mr. al-Maliki is mistaken.
Noone''s plan for a different form of government for Iraq is a catastrophe. The senate''s plan may be short-sighted, but at least it is a discussion of something different.
What are catastrophes are (1) the state of the current Iraqi Government, (2) prospects for a viable economy in Iraq without oil production, (3) any chance that the US can be extricated from Iraq in the next decade.
After the "surge" is drawn back down, there is no forward plan for anything....which is devastating to the Iraqi people, the US military, the US economy, and the next President of the US (and Iraq). - Reply to this comment
- To describe the US'' conflict of choice in Iraq as a ''war'' is a misnomer. Iraq never declared war on the US. The US invaded Iraq, period. A more appropriate term would be ''invasion of Iraq.'' The word ''war'' used by Bush and the media serve to deceptively legitimize the conflict, because invasion of a sovereign nation is against international law. Bush and company have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity within the definition under international law. If the US today is a second-rate country, Bush and company would have rounded up to answer for their crimes. The International Court of Justice would then love to get their hands on these criminals. Power comes from the barrel of a gun, and the US has demonstrated this time and time again. American Justice is only for the rich and powerful. Saddam, like Bin Laden, is a product of US global covert operations. Uncle Sam created and supported them when their services were needed. There are no heroes in the US Government, only rogues, scoundrels, and criminals in suit.
- Reply to this comment
CBS,
Re: The latest on al-CIA''da. They "killed" another "#1". I think that they are hoping that you will hype this nonsense up a bit.
Re: "Top al-Qaida operative in Iraq killed"
BAGHDAD, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. military officials Friday said a top al-Qaida terrorist cell leader in Iraq was killed this week by coalition forces.
Characterizing him as a "senior foreign al-Qaida terrorist," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief of staff of the multinational forces in Iraq, spoke during a press briefing on the death of Abu Usama al-Tunisi, whom the general called "a close associate and part of the inner circle of close advisers to Abu Ayyub al-Masri ... the overall leader of al-Qaida in Iraq."
###
Ooga-booga!- Reply to this comment
- never a war the south couldn''t lose.
jefferson davis lost his,
johnson lost his
bush will lose his.
the south has lost every war they started.
idiot southern creeps are only good for sunday afternoon parades
in their tight-butt uniforms.
ha,ha,ha.
war, division, arrogance, phony christian creeps, crooked republican snakes...
nothing good comes out of the south! - Reply to this comment
- OH MY GOD... IF THIS IS THE SENATE PROPOSAL SOLUTION OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERMENT ON IRAQ OH MEN ... MAYBE THE UNITED STATES MUST GET OUT FROM IRAQ NOW BEFORE IT''S TOO LATE.. THIS IS NOT A STUPID GAME.. ALL THE REGION WARNED THE UNITED STATES NOT TO SUPPORT SUNNI MILITIAS BECAUSE THEY''RE VERY DANGEROUS... NOW THE UNITED STATES WANTS THIS MISSION IMPOSSIBLE COME ON. GET OUT FROM THE REGION NOW.. IDIOTS... OR COULD AFFECT U.S. SECURITY...
- Reply to this comment
The pro-Zionist fools have been trying to carve up Iraq for a long time. It''s not going to happen, unless we manage to murder another 10 million Iraqis, or so.
Thing don''t look good for Al-Maliki, when the U.S. is finally thrown out of Iraq, and the Iraqis choose legitimate leaders.
###
Dear CBS,
No daily dose of stupidity about the notorious and imaginary "al-Qaeda-in-Iraq" hoax in this article?
You are slipping.- Reply to this comment
- Ioweign,
I think you are a victim of selective reading.
UN has approved the invasion and that is why US troops and leaders are immune from prosecution. Quote last week used in a CBS article. - Reply to this comment
- Ice,
Got a little computer problem but I did eventually scroll all the way down and see it.
The War was a bilateral effort. No way around it. What we should all be upset with is the management of the war.......
Posted by donbl1 at 06:38 PM : Sep 28, 2007
Your above post is mute ! The war is illegal.
We signed the UN Charter. We are bound to our Treaties through the Constitution. We violated the UN Charter with this pre-emptive invasion.
The are also serious legal questions surrounding the conduct of the war in Iraq and the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said of the invasion, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." - Reply to this comment
- The catastrophe is the entire Iraq war. We will be well out of it.
- Reply to this comment
- In 2002 I did not think the Iraqis were worth any American lives (I''ve changed my mind since; one of very few people to move toward accepting the war now than back then). I remember how disappointed I was that 69% of the House and 77% of the Senate (including 29 of 21 Democrats) voted for the war. I was even more disturbed that 68% of Americans were eager for war in March 2003. When I remember all this, I think it is now absolutely ridiculous to argue that Americans did not overwhelmingly support the Iraq war or did not have in front of them all the justifications for the war spelled out by the 107th Congress in their AUMF against Iraq.
I still think it would have been more prudent not to act until the Iraqis rose up against Sadam themselves, but all this whining about not knowing what we were doing or why it was done is a disgrace, because the evidence is right there in Congress''s own records. - Reply to this comment
- J, The management of the war is flawed because of unwarranted loyalty to key individuals who could not get the job done: Rumsfeld, Casey, Abijaid and etc.
Bush should have pulled the trigger on them sooner and we would be farther along than we are towards ending this thing. - Reply to this comment
- Oh j-whitman grow a brain. Even Hillary has said she doesn''t know if she would be willing at this time to say she would be out of Iraq in two years. So just drop this Krap about the current administration will you.
- Reply to this comment
- donbl1,,,, Now we are in a situation that a growing number of republican''s in Congress are being pushed by thier voters to get thier demands for forcing this administration to give actual plans for ending this Iraq War of Roses than this administration is willing to give. ---
--- They openly say this war won''t end untill Bush is out of office & openly support the end of it during the next administration. - Reply to this comment
- donbl1,,, Lets take it a bit further,, Was it truely a War was a bilateral effort ????
I don''t think so -- Don''t forget the hype of Iraq being the cause of 9/11 & all the poison GOP rhetoric blaming members of Congress for being pro-terrorist & un-Patriotic. Not to mention the creationist intel.
.. Republicans created such a biased public outrage, it forced much of that democratic vote. - Reply to this comment
- donbl1,,, Now you''re talking bro, it is the management of the war we should be upset with....
... But them again if the management of the war was terrible so had to be the management of the conception of it as well ---- It''s the same "Decider" - Reply to this comment
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