Iraq Leaders Seek Greater Role Now in Running Nation

[kskiska]

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 26 — With an advanced degree in engineering and a high technology career behind him in Britain, Hayder Awad Aabadi, Iraq's new minister of communications, smiles when asked whether Iraqis are ready to run their country again.

He will get the telephones working in Baghdad by the end of November, he says. He will build a state-owned mobile telephone network by piggybacking on existing infrastructure. He will thwart saboteurs who have been cutting the fiber optic lines around the capital.

"Iraqis are a very proud people," Mr. Aabadi said in an interview in his spare office, which is situated away from the front of the building to protect him from car bombs. "They will not be motivated in a situation where things are run by a foreign occupying power."

Impatience is beginning to grow here as Iraqi officials chafe at the strictures of an American occupation, which, they say, has in some cases slowed reconstruction because power is centralized in the hands of the military commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and the civilian occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2003/09/27/international/middleeast/27COUN.html?hp

[Cappurr]

1. In other words....wait till OUR kind of government is installed

And for Gods sake, make sure all the big American corps are well ensconsed and making their billions while paying the Iraqi subcontractors shit.



And by the way, Karzai isn't too good of an example There is a big scandal over there now with the government officials and the warlords (all paid big bribes by US to cooperate) are living large in Kabul, driving nice cars, going to fancy resturants and shopping in Western like stores, even living in a fancy hotel at 150 A night, while the lives of the regular Afghanis haven't improved a bit.

Its all about money and business. And Gas and Oil. It is not about human beings who should benefit when their government benefits.

[kskiska]

2. Exactly…

(end of article)

Some senior American and British officials say privately that they are concerned that if an election was held today, a Shiite muslim cleric might well dominate the polling on the strength of the 60 percent Shiite share of the population.

Many Iraqis today say such concerns are exaggerated, that Shiites are divided along secular and religious lines and are unlikely to vote as a bloc unless they perceive a threat that they will be disenfranchised as they were in 1932, when the British withdrawal and Sunni duplicity excluded them from political power.

Still, senior American officials say they are hoping that six months to a year of constitution writing and preparations for national elections will provide a process from which a moderate and secular Shiite leader will emerge to head the first democratic government here, one that would have the independence and self-assurance to avoid tilting toward the conservative Islamists of Iran.