Iraq

The Us started this war on terror and has gone way over there head...we're already trillions of dollars in debt. Iraq is a mess. Innocent Iraqis are being killed and Im appauled and suprised that Britain agreed in the first place to send soliders to Iraq. Its ashame what is being done there and most of the public is unaware of the prison camps and etc etc. The majority of Americans do not approve of the war in Iraq anymore. Its like Iraq is being conquered...theyre government was thrown out and a new puppet governement has been put in its place..now you tell me how democratic that is? I hope that all the soliders in Iraq leave soon, cuz there is no ligitimate reason for them to be occupiing iraq. So many people are dying and for what?

Salam

Iraqi Shi'ite Cleric Moktada Sadr escaped an assassination attempt last night. He was lightly hurt in the attack.

Already a hothead, I can sense he is now going to be very pissed.

US Marines are in a long hot summer.

Omrow

Omrow a day has passed, and that is the only I have of Moqtadr being attacked... where did you hear it from? (I would have expected it to be big news... but it probably got drowned out in the rest of the chaos...)

It only happened on Sunday. Mortars were fired on his Najaf home. The firebrand cleric escaped a direct hit.

http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.php?id=34817&adid=world

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-03-26-mortar-attack_x.htm

I would have expected more publicity around that...

Why? He is already humiliated the US once. They dont want to provoke the Mahdi Army again.

Zarqawi ‘not leading Iraq unrest’

Jordanian al-Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been forced to step down as leader of a coalition of Iraqi militants, a leading Islamist claims.

Huthaifa Azzam, whose father was a mentor of Osama Bin Laden, said Zarqawi was replaced by an Iraqi two weeks ago.

Mr Azzam claimed some were unhappy about Zarqawi’s tactics and tendency to speak for the insurgency as a whole.

However, experts say choosing an Iraqi as political leader is a tactic aimed at giving the insurgency an Iraqi face. [Read More...]

The Guardian - Wednesday April 5, 2006

I will not be forced out by US and UK, says Iraqi PM

Leader's first interview since Rice and Straw's move to break deadlock

Jonathan Steele

Iraq's embattled prime minister has defiantly refused to give up his claim to head the country's next government in spite of strong American and British pleas for an end to a deadlock which has paralysed the country for almost four months.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in Baghdad - his first since Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw pleaded with him and his rivals for an immediate agreement to prevent a slide to civil war - Ibrahim Jaafari insisted he would continue to carry out his duties.

"I heard their points of view even though I disagree with them," he said, referring to Ms Rice and Mr Straw's hectic arm-twisting visit to the Iraqi capital which ended on Monday.

Mr Jaafari won the nomination for Iraq's leadership by a single vote within the Shia bloc that came out on top in last December's election. But the bloc controls less than half the seats in parliament and so long as the Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties refuse to back him, Iraq is left in a political vacuum. Mr Jaafari, a former doctor who spent years in exile in Britain while Saddam Hussein ruled, will not give way to other candidates from his bloc who have wider support.

Using the argument that the US and Britain had toppled Saddam in order to bring democracy, he turned it against them. "There is a decision that was reached by a democratic mechanism and I stand with it ... We have to protect democracy in Iraq and it is democracy which should decide who leads Iraq. We have to respect our Iraqi people," he said.

Tampering with democracy was risky, he insisted. "People will react if they see the rules of democracy being disobeyed. Every politician and every friend of Iraq should not want people to be frustrated," he said. "Everyone should stick to democratic mechanisms no matter whether they disagree with the person," he added pointedly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1747064,00.html