Top Iraqi candidates won't press for withdrawal of U.S. troops

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Politicians from the two leading tickets in Sunday's Iraqi elections backed away Tuesday from earlier campaign promises to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American forces.

The decision not to set a deadline underscores concerns that Iraqi troops are nowhere near ready to police their violence-wracked country and removes one possible point of friction between the new government and the Bush administration.
...
The change is especially significant for the United Iraqi Alliance, favored by many to dominate the balloting. Until this week, its campaign materials listed its No. 2 promise as "setting a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational forces from Iraq."
But the alliance rewrote its campaign materials this week, revising its platform....
...
With only five days remaining before Iraqi voters choose a national assembly, the decision by leading candidates to forsake any plan to press the United States troops to leave means the next government will face the same conundrum that plagues current leaders: Iraqi troops can't fight a sophisticated insurgency without the help of U.S. forces, but the United States' presence only fuels the insurgency.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10731283.htm

[bemildred]

1. They won't last a week with US troops out, eh? nt

[meisje]

2. They don't have a choice

[Voltaire99]

6. Exactly: they don't wish to be executed by US troops

The decision not to set a deadline underscores concerns that Iraqi troops are nowhere near ready to police their violence-wracked country and removes one possible point of friction between the new government and the Bush administration.

So goes the establishment spin.

In actuality, as Seymour Hersch, the greatest living US journalist, explains in a speech available today from democracynow.org, the US is busy slaughtering without discrimination or conscience in ways that are as vile as those used against civilian Vietnam. (Towards the last quarter of the speech, he recounts how the New Yorker obtained its infamous photos of Abu Ghraib; to say the least, the speech is for strong stomachs only.)

These candidates simply wish to live, which requires serving the invader. Typical colonial reality.

[PartyPooper]

3. The US plans to be there for decades to come.

Didn't they build at least 5 large and "permanent" military bases?

[Emillereid]

4. The last number I heard was 14 --

the parties have probably been told they won't be allowed to win if they insist on asking us to leave. This election is a complete farce -- and no one, including those running put any real stock in it as a turning point of anything.

[Pam-Moby]

5. Yes I do think I did read that somewhere..!

[pinniped]

7. Oh really? How do they feel about outside interests...

coming in to plunder the black gold?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/26/BUG6IB0AEJ1.DTL

Seeking Iraq's oil prize
Government may allow foreign petroleum firms to invest

The Iraqi government that emerges from Sunday's election may open its oil business to foreign investment, and international petroleum companies are jockeying to curry favor with the war-torn country.
--
snip-->>
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The idea of bringing international companies and their money into Iraq's oil business isn't new.

In the 21 months since Saddam Hussein's ouster, the interim Iraqi government and its American advisers have suggested several times opening up the country's oil industry, which is saddled with ancient equipment and sabotaged by insurgents. But many Iraqis bridled at the notion that the country's oil reserves should be controlled by foreigners.

The widespread conviction in the country that the United States invaded to seize their oil hasn't helped.
--

It is a damm fact.