Iraqi Policewomen Ordered To Turn In Guns

The Skinny: Iraqi Official Tells A U.S. General That Men Will Protect Them

(CBS)  The Skinny is Keach Hagey's take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.

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Just in case there's anyone out there still unsure about the whether nation-building is a bad idea, the Los Angeles Times brings a gem of a story about how you can lead an Iraqi horse to the water of equal-opportunity employment, but you just can't make him drink. Not even when your country is paying the water bill.

The Iraqi government has ordered all policewomen to hand in their guns for redistribution to men or face having their pay withheld, the Times reports. The move thwarts a U.S. initiative to bring women into the nation's police force.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, issued the order late last month, according to ministry documents, U.S. officials and several of the women. Probably sensing this was going to tick off the Americans, ministry officials refused to pick up the phone or return messages when Times reporter Tina Susman called asking for an explanation.

Critics say the move is the latest sign of the religious and cultural conservatism that has taken hold in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein ushered in a government dominated by Shiite Muslims. Other recent signs include a dozen women killed by religious militants in Basra for not covering their hair or dressing modestly. In Baghdad, once a secular metropolis, it is rare to see women without scarves covering their hair.

U.S. trainers began recruiting women in early 2004 and were so swamped with applicants they had to turn many away. By the end of that year, about 1,000 women had graduated. Since U.S. authorities handed over responsibility for police recruitment and training to Iraqi authorities in February 2006, the number of female recruits has dropped to virtually zero.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who has led the effort to recruit female officers, said an official in the Interior Ministry told him: "Females are taken care of by men in our country. They are not out there being police officers."

Huckabee Takes Heat For Cuba Flip-Flop

Even in his weaker moments, it's easy to see why Mike Huckabee seems to have the word "likable" tattooed across his dimpled face.

Yesterday, after getting called out in the last few days for radically changing his stance on the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba in an bald attempt to suck up to Florida primary voters, the Los Angeles Times reports, he stood before a crowd at a Cuban restaurant in Miami and basically admitted as much with startlingly little embarrassment.

"Rather than seeing it as some huge change, I would call it, rather, the simple reality that I'm running for president of the United States, not for re-election as governor of Arkansas," he said. "I've got to look at this as an issue that touches the whole country."

Of course, cornered men are often candid. In 2002, while Arkansas governor, he wrote a letter to President Bush saying the embargo was bad for his state's rice growers.

Now that he's staring down Florida's crucial Jan. 29 Republican primary (in which Cuban exiles make up 10 percent of the voters) he's had a drastic change of heart. He has vowed to come down even harder than Bush on Fidel Castro's regime and pledged to veto any effort to end the sanctions.

His far-less-likeable rival, Fred Thompson, still pouting because Huckabee was stealing the social conservative votes he had been banking on, gave reporters quotes from Huckabee's 2002 letter before the GOP debate on Spanish-language network Univision.

Yet somehow, Huckabee managed to turn the flip-flop into a comfy pair of beach sandals - the kind that Florida primary voters might themselves wearing.

"I really wasn't aware of a lot of the issues that exist between Cuba and the United States," Huckabee said, adding that his flexibility on policy should be viewed as a good thing. "I'll be the first to tell you I'm always subject - and I hope we all area - to learning, to growing, and never being so stubborn and maybe bull-headed."

Waterboarding Is Torture, Says Ex-CIA Officer

The furor of the missing CIA interrogation videos has brought one former spook out of the shadows to set the record straight: The waterboarding of the al Qaeda terrorist suspect he helped interrogate "probably saved lives," he told the Washington Post, but he now regards the tactic as torture.

That seems like a logical conclusion if the story he tells is true. John Kiriakou served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan and participated in the capture and questioning of Zayn Abidin Muhammed Huseein abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking al Qaeda member captured after Sept. 11, 2001.

Abu Zubaida, we can assume from his bio, was one bad dude. But he broke in just 35 seconds after interrogators strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning.

After initially being ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative, he told interrogators he'd tell them whatever they wanted.

Which, of course, was the problem. In documents prepared for a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, where he is still held, Abu Zubaida asserted that he was tortured by the CIA, and that he told his questioner what they wanted to hear to make the torture stop.

Kiriakou says that Abu Zubaida's information averted further attacks, but the added that "Americans are better than that." The CIA has generally supported such coercive techniques as necessary, while the FBI has opposed them as counterproductive and unreliable.

Kiriakou's remarks came a day before top CIA officials are to appear before a closed congressional hearing to account for the decision to destroy recordings of the interrogations of Abu Zubaida and another senior captive.

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[ramos937]

The embargo (sanctions) againist Cuba is a huge mistake. The only country that observes this is us. All other countries gladly provide CUBA with what it needs with no competition from the US.

[libsluvsuvs]

public restrooms soliciting ***, buying male prostitues and meth, doing altar boys, etc., etc., etc., clearly proves.


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Posted by formrusmcsgt at 08:59 PM : Dec 11, 2007
+ report abuse


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sounds more like what your typical liberal would do in a day to day basis..those are no longer NEWS when a liberal does it..its called profitable tv show

[p-syrus]

Bzzt, wrong Jihadi! What was the last time any Muslim nation voted?

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Turkey is probably the best example of a muslim country with an active democratic government. Egypt, & Indonesia also have actively disputed elections.

Pakistan in the past could also have been. Were it not for Bush''s mideast folly it might already have returned to a democratically disputed system of government.

Want to go down the list of "christian" countries with pathological governments, hmmmm? :-)

[p-syrus]

Bzzt, wrong Jihadi! What was the last time any Muslim nation voted?

----------

Turkey is probably the best example of a muslim country with an active democratic government. Egypt, & Indonesia also have actively disputed elections.

Pakistan in the past could also have been. Were it not for Bush''s mideast folly it might already have returned to a democratically disputed system of government.

Want to go down the list of "christian" countries with pathological governments, hmmmm? :-)

[p-syrus]

Bzzt, wrong Jihadi! What was the last time any Muslim nation voted?

----------

Turkey is probably the best example of a muslim country with an active democratic government. Egypt, & Indonesia also have actively disputed elections.

Pakistan in the past could also have been. Were it not for Bush''s mideast folly it might already have returned to a democratically disputed system of government.

Want to go down the list of "christian" countries with pathological governments, hmmmm? :-)

[justsane-2009]

hey gunownerdan---they ruled that a suicide; as in, he killed himself.

[formrusmcsgt]

"We may not approve of Islamic morality, but at least there IS some, which is more than we can say for atheist America"--Posted by Kaelinda

Morality and religion are not one in the same thing Kaelinda, as the plethora of "believers" who been caught in public restrooms soliciting ***, buying male prostitues and meth, doing altar boys, etc., etc., etc., clearly proves.

[formrusmcsgt]

Bzzt, wrong Jihadi! What was the last time any Muslim nation voted?

Your bigoted agenda is all to clear. Just as the "know-nothings" merged seamlessly into the KKK. you anti_jewish scum hide in the antiwar movement to promote your fascist agenda. Drop dead.

Posted by gkc99 at 07:24 PM : Dec 11, 2007

Pakistan - August 27, 2004

Egypt - September 7, 2005

Syria - April 22 and 23, 2007

Iran - June 18, 2005

[feelfree1]

denn034,

re: "Let''s just be honest about it. It probably would''ve happened after we left anyway."

Excuses and blame. Republican, are you?

[feelfree1]

gkc99,

Re: "Feel free to move to your favorite theocracy any time."

No thanks. I''m not religious.

[denn034]

Let''s just be honest about it. It probably would''ve happened after we left anyway.

[gkc99]

Much like the fascistic Israeli theocracy, we really can''''t call it a democracy."--Posted by FeelFree1


Bzzt, wrong Jihadi! What was the last time any Muslim nation voted?

Your bigoted agenda is all to clear. Just as the "know-nothings" merged seamlessly into the KKK. you anti_jewish scum hide in the antiwar movement to promote your fascist agenda. Drop dead.

[gkc99]

"We may not approve of Islamic morality, but at least there IS some, which is more than we can say for atheist America"--Posted by Kaelinda


Feel free to move to your favorite theocracy any time. We''re not going to drink your poisoned Koolaid!

[feelfree1]

Kaelinda,

Re: "If the Iraqi people are happy in a theocracy, it''s their right to live that way."

Iraq had always been a secular society under Saddam, with routine intermarriage, Western tastes, and women held in high regard, even holding positions of authority in the Iraqi government.

Our fraud-based war of aggression against Iraq has forced a theocratic/fascistic government model upon them, as well as a far sharper rate of death and misery than Saddam was ever able to inflict.

This is the reality of their "liberation".

Much like the fascistic Israeli theocracy, we really can''t call it a democracy.

[kaelinda]

If the Iraqi people are happy in a theocracy, it''s their right to live that way. We in America have chosen a secular society, preferably (according to many) without any god at all. We may not approve of Islamic morality, but at least there IS some, which is more than we can say for atheist America.

[rfcnj68]

PULL OUT GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT GOD FORSAKEN COUNTRY AND LET THEM DO AS THEY PLEASE. IN THE END THEY WILL KILL EACH OTHER OFF IF WE LET THEM. DID WE LEARN NOTHING FROM THE CRUSADES THEY LIKE HOW THEY LIVE SO LET THEM GO WORRY ABOUT OUR HOME AND OUR PROBLEMS.

[dscott407]

kansas1946...I agree with your post. This is not a very positive sign at all. Sounds more like backward progress to me.

[kansas1946]

Critics say the move is the latest sign of the religious and cultural conservatism that has taken hold in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein ushered in a government dominated by Shiite Muslims. Other recent signs include a dozen women killed by religious militants in Basra for not covering their hair or dressing modestly. In Baghdad, once a secular metropolis, it is rare to see women without scarves covering their hair.

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Yes, we have done the Iraqi''s a big service by allowing the men to start repressing women. Saddam didn''t allow that, but now the men can do as they please with women. Beat them, murder them, stone them, etc. I bet Iraqi women will forever love GWB for setting them free.

[donbl1]

J, Hamas exists to be radical and anihilate Israel forcing the Jews to all leave.

Just not going to happen.

But, without that level of anger and intensity, Hamas can not exist and the leaders of Hamas want to continue.

[j-whitman]

dontb1,,,, Isreal''s response with tanks & air craft is about as smart as trying to kill a fly on your nose with an ice pick