The Trial of Saddam Hussein and The Fallout of The War

The Trial of Saddam Hussein

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The fallout in the Middle East from the regime change in Iraq

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Lost Without Trace

Congratulations to President Shrub for engineering a situation in Iraq, whereby over 190,000 weapons supplied by the US have gone missing.

Over 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, distributed to Iraqi forces by the US, are missing. It is assumed that they simply haven't been "lost", but are now in the hands of those intent on causing chaos and bloodshed.

A report from the government accountability office (GAO), said that US military officials did not know what had happened to 30% of the weapons the US had given to Iraqi forces since 2004.

Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Centre for Defence Information, said:

"They really have no idea where they are.

It likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors
."

The watchdog said that weapons distribution was rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly in 2004 and 2005. During that period, security training was led by General David Petraeus.

Ironically he is now the top US commander in Iraq, and the one that Shrub is waiting to hear from in September; when the final decision to pull US forces out of Iraq will be forced on Shrub, like it or not.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

The Disunity Government of Iraq

Those of you who still believe that the current political situation in Iraq is viable, in the long term, may need to revise your opinions.

Another nail has been driven into the coffin of the "unity" government of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, as five ministers withdrew from cabinet meetings. This is less than a week after the main Sunni Arab bloc quit.

Nearly half, that's 17 in total, of al-Maliki's cabinet have now quit or are boycotting meetings. There are no longer any Sunni members of cabinet.

Al-Maliki has been accused of not responding to demands for political reform.

The only way to force political compromise and action, from the "unity" government, is to withdraw the military support it receives and relies on from the US; ie the troops should be withdrawn.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Back To The Stone Age

Congratulations to President Bush for his "competent" handling and "management" of post invasion Iraq.

It seems that despite once being a wealthy, technologically advanced country with very respectable reserves of oil, Iraq is now teetering on the brink of returning to the stone age.

Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse; because of insurgent sabotage of infrastructure, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid.

Electricity Ministry spokesman, Aziz al-Shimari, said that power generation nationally is only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages are the worst since 2003, after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad power supplies have been sporadic all summer and are down to just a few hours a day, if that. The water supply in the capital has also been severely curtailed by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.

Mission accomplished!