SEARCHING FOR END TO THE WAR
...The commander, Brig. Gen. Shakir Hulail Hussein al-Kaabi, was chosen this summer by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad to lead the Iraqi Army’s Fifth Division in Diyala Province. Within weeks, General Shakir went to Colonel Jones with a roster of people he wanted to arrest.
On the list were the names of nearly every Sunni Arab sheik and political leader whom American officers had identified as crucial allies in their quest to persuade Sunnis to embrace the political process and turn against the powerful Sunni insurgent groups here.
“Where’s the evidence?” Colonel Jones demanded of General Shakir. “Where’s the proof? What makes us suspect these guys? None of that stuff exists.”...
To that, Colonel Jones recalled, the Iraqi commander replied simply, “I got this from Baghdad.”...
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...“We are really painting them into a box here,” he said. “If you want to have a fight for the next 20 years, it’s here. I can’t imagine anybody who has seen war who wants that to happen. It’s the innocents, it’s these farmers out here, it’s these kids who pay the price. But these interests are colliding and they don’t care about that. Power is what they’re going after, consolidated and uncontested political power.”
“I think the sectarian war is coming this way,” he added.
Sectarian Harassment
Despite a population that is 50 percent Sunni Arab, Diyala has a Shiite-dominated government, because many Sunnis boycotted provincial elections last year. Now, much of the provincial police leadership appears to be allied with Shiite militias, American commanders say.
The Diyala police chief, Ghassan al-Bawi, “is stacking the deck in a sectarian manner,” Colonel Jones said. “We believe there are death squads that are operating, if not sponsored by the police, certainly with the knowledge of the police.”
THE LEGITIMATELY elected authority here is majority Shi'ite. They are seeking to control the Sunnis that stood in defiance of the elections. The Sunnis are viewed by Baghdad as the issue, however, the same Sunnis are viewed by the USA commander to the area as the answer to the divisive problem that exists in Iraq. There isn't even agreement between the 'freely elected' central authority in Baghdad and the USA commanders. Do you actually think this war is ever going to end ?
By overriding the elected authority, and invading cities of Shi'ite majority the people are more confused than we are about who really is in control in Iraq and where the madness of this occupation ends and when. Will it end with the destruction of the Shi'ites? Is this just another way of killing them without justification? How do we know the Sunnis that are seen by the USA as a venue of change to cooperation aren't involved with al Qaeda in one form or another? Has anyone asked the George Bush 'freely elected' government exactly why these people were being arrested and why?
