Loose cannons

Issue 

Not happy George!

"Two days early, with a veil of secrecy and a tight security lockdown, Washington's proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer III, handed a hollow and uncertain sovereignty to Iyad Allawi, a former Baathist collaborator of Saddam Hussein who spent most of the past three decades exiled in London, the last one of those in the pay of America's Central Intelligence Agency. It goes without saying that this is not the sort of outcome the nation envisioned when we sent our forces to liberate Iraq last year." — From New York Times editorial, June 29.

Can't fool all the people all of the time

"Sixty percent of the respondents to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll now say the war has not been worth the loss of life, up from 45 percent last August, as the insurgency began. Suddenly, Bush is confronted with the need to prove to Americans that there is an eventual way out, even at a moment when the Pentagon is considering contingency plans for bolstering the [occupation] force." — New York Times, June 29.

Side show

"This is all a theatre by Bush, the criminal, to help him with his [re-election] campaign." — Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, at his July 1 arraignment in Baghdad on charges of crimes against humanity.

Option 1

"One [option] is that we postpone elections and Allawi becomes our thug and we keep him in power because the alternatives are not good." — Retired US Marine Corps General Joseph Hoar, who commanded US forces in the Middle East under President George Bush senior, quoted in the July 3-4 Sydney Morning Herald.

Option 2

"[If elections are held in Iraq] the current people, in my judgement, will be seen as collaborators, and will largely be sidelined, and people [who] have distanced themselves from the US will come to the fore." — Hoar again.

From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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