Posted on 10/30/2003 8:15:33 AM PST by a_Turk
Baghdad, Iraq - The Iraqi Governing Council is using Monday's car bombings in Baghdad to argue that the U.S. occupation authority should turn over internal security to Iraqis, council members say.
The U.S.-appointed council has tried before to convince Washington to cede control of most security functions to an Iraqi civil defense militia that would report to the Interior Ministry. But the Bush administration has resisted the idea, arguing that Iraqis are not ready to take control of their own security.
After Monday's bombings, the council renewed its push for a civil defense force that would hunt down insurgents and help foil attacks. Council members argue that Iraqis are better suited to weeding out Saddam Hussein supporters and to identifying foreign fighters who have slipped into the country.
"There was a major security failure on Monday, and the Iraqi people blame the Americans and the council, even though we have little control over security," said a council member who asked not to be named. "We're making the argument once again that a well-trained Iraqi defense force will be more effective than what we have now."
At meetings with U.S. officials Tuesday and yesterday, council members also challenged Washington for consistently singling out Syria and Iran as the countries from which foreign fighters are infiltrating into Iraq. Several council members told U.S. officials that they have evidence many more Arab fighters have slipped in from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, according to two people at the meetings.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
A civil defense force is being trained up as we speak, along with the Iraqi police, facilities protection service, border service and New Iraqi Army. The issue is how fast they can be trained up and whether control of these forces should be transfered to the Governing Council at this time. Also, I believe SCIRI wants to legitimize its own Badr brigade militia as an alternative power base to the official security forces. That would be a mistake. Finally, why doesn't the Governing Council get cracking and decide on a plan for the Constitutional Convention. Will they at least have one by the Dec. 15 Security Council deadline? We can't wait forever to see progress in the setting up of a democratic constitution.
There isn't any unifying ideological base for such a convention. It will take many, many years of education and foreign administration for one to arise. There is no sense of what being an Iraqi means.
Fear of Hussein was the only thing that kept the country together. There is no conceptual replacement for that yet.
Regardless of the foreign policy requirements of the present administration, years are required for the construction of a stable and intact New Iraq.
Any attempts to the otherwise, ignoring the reality of the situation, are doomed to failure.
Currently Iraq is a black hole which draws every jihadist in the Arab and Islamist world. They must be defeated, and that means we must take the battle to them. This means expanding military and propaganda operations.
It is necessary for this administration to clearly understand the threat that Islamists pose to civilization. It is necessary for the Peresident to educate the nation as to the exact nature of the problems that lie ahead, and to prepare us for what must necessarily be a long, drawn out global struggle.
Trying to get the country to accept spur of the moment crisis management and playing on the electorate's hopes for a quick solution is, quite frankly, a grave disservice to the nation and to civilization.
In the non Western world we are not dealing with a mindset amenable to propositional logic. It is one unable to distinguish between what could possibly be true and what actually is true.
The only thing that succeeds in this intellectual universe is the fait accompli, and the only thing that persuades is brute force.
Until Islamism and its allies have been militarily castrated they will be considered potential victors in this fight. That means that everyone in Iraq will be hedging their bets, and will enthusiastically support the strongest at the moment.
Only when US and allied forces are the undisputed conquerors and have provided a long, sustained period of unambiguous public order, and Islamism is removed from public awareness, can any ideological replacement for the dread of Saddam begin to emerge. Only when that ideological replacement has taken root and flourished in peace for a long time can any constitution based on that ideological replacement be formulated, and only when that constitution has provided a long period of public order will it be accepted by the majority of Iraqis.
It is necessarily a long, drawn out process, requiring more time than the administration has allowed for.
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