These "Iraqis" who say we can stay until 2011 aren't really Iraqis you know

[NNN0LHI]

These are people who have spent most of there lives in Europe, the USA and elsewhere. Bush had them shipped in after the US invaded and occupied Iraq.

Don


http://www.cfr.org/publication/8061/iraq.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fpublication_list%3Fgroupby%3D0%26type%3Dbackgrounder%26filter%3D405%26page%3D5#1

What is the makeup of the new cabinet?
It is religiously and ethnically diverse. The largest number of appointments went to Shiites, who make up some 60 percent of the Iraqi population and hold 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly, which approves the cabinet. Kurds, some 20 percent of Iraq's population, hold 75 parliamentary seats and won the second largest number of appointments. Sunni Arabs, some 15 percent to 20 percent of the population, won only 17 parliamentary seats because of their low turnout in the January 30 elections. However, to better reflect the country's ethnic and religious balance--and to help curb the Sunni insurgency--Prime Minister Jaafari awarded nearly one-fifth of his cabinet posts to Sunni Arabs. The cabinet, once finalized, will include 17 Shiites, nine Kurds, eight Sunnis, two Turkmen, and one Christian. At least six of the cabinet members will be women.

Who holds the top posts?
Prime minister: Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The prime minister served as the first president of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), the 25-member governing body appointed by the U.S.-led occupation government in July 2003. Born in Karbala, Jaafari is the chief spokesman for the Dawa Party, a Shiite Islamist group that was founded in Iraq in the late 1950s and was later banned by Saddam Hussein's regime. He earned his medical degree from Mosul University. Jaafari fled Iraq for Iran in 1980, then moved to London in 1989.

Deputy prime minister: Ahmed Chalabi.
A secular Shiite and former Pentagon favorite, Chalabi, 60, fell out of favor with Washington over U.S. claims he provided inaccurate prewar intelligence and passed U.S. secrets to Iran. Chalabi denies any wrongdoing. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-educated mathematician who spent years in exile in the Middle East and United States, Chalabi has made a political comeback in Iraq. He played a pivotal role in forming the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a coalition of Shiites that won just over half the National Assembly seats in the January 30 elections. But he remains unpopular with Sunni leaders because he opposes allowing former senior members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to have roles in the new government.

Deputy prime minister: Rowsch Shaways.
Shaways served as president of the Kurdistan National Assembly in northern Iraq. He earned a doctorate in engineering in Germany and returned to Iraq in 1975 to join the Kurdish resistance to Saddam Hussein. A senior member of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), one of the two main Kurdish political parties, he became the deputy prime minister of the joint Kurdistan regional government in 1992, after the withdrawal of Saddam Hussein's forces from the Kurdish-held area protected by a U.S.- and British-enforced no-fly zone.

Deputy prime minister:
Abed Mutlak al-Jiburi. A Sunni native of Kirkuk, Jiburi is a former major general of the 16th Division of Saddam Hussein's army, who gained recognition for his military skills during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and later served as dean of Iraq's Military Academy. He holds degrees in military engineering and law.

Minister of defense: Sadoon al-Dulaimi.
A Sunni native of Ramadi, Dulaimi was a former officer in Saddam Hussein's General Security Directorate, but faced a death sentence in the late 1980s on allegations he participated in a failed assassination plot against Saddam Hussein. He fled Iraq for Britain, where he earned his doctorate in socio-psychology and joined the Iraqi opposition in 1990. After Saddam's regime fell in 2003, he returned to Iraq to run the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies. Dulaimi, whose organization has held polls showing Iraqis' unfavorable views of the U.S. presence in their country, has tribal ties to al-Anbar province, a rebellious Sunni stronghold in western Iraq.

Minister of oil: Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum.
The son of Mohammed al-Uloum, a prominent opposition Shiite cleric, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum was oil minister under the IGC. Uloum holds a doctorate in oil engineering from the University of New Mexico and has worked on oil projects in the United Kingdom, the United States, and North Africa.

Minister of interior: Bayan Jabr.
A Shiite activist from Maisan province, exiled by Saddam Hussein's regime during the 1970s, Jabr later joined the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an anti-Saddam group formed in Iran in 1982. He was the organization's representative in Syria during the 1990s. Jabr served as housing minister in Iraq's first interim government, led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Baghdad University.

Minister of foreign affairs: Hoshyar Zebari.
A leading figure in the KDP, Zebari, a Kurd, was an opposition leader and KDP spokesman in the United States and Britain. Since June 2004, he has been interim foreign minister. He holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Essex in Britain.

[msblueinredstate]

1. It will take that long

to get them all out.

[floridablue]

2. No matter what they decide.

I do not think the Kurds are going to give up their gains to a Baghdad government run by Shites. And as long as the Sunni tribes have guns and ammo financed by the Saudi's they won't give up their territory either.

[louis-t]

3. Chalabi still involved?

Why isn't he in jail?

[nichomachus]

5. WHat do you have to do

to be kicked out of this group? He's a con artist, a corporate crook, an Iranian spy -- and they're still playing footsie with him.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that he has some really nifty photographs of people in the Bush administration in flagrante delicto, if you catch my drift. Maybe Dubya and Condi playing Strict School Marm and Stubborn Little Boy.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R