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Chalabi Speaks
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
During an interview on BBC Radio 4 this morning Mr Chalabi denied that he wanted to lead Iraq, and suggested that the Iraqi people don't like the UN either...
Still, I'm sure that we can turn this thread into an anti-US rant, without much effort...
BBC Website
Mr Chalabi, 58, repeated his denials that he wanted a high-profile political role in the country he fled as a boy in 1956.
He was flown into Iraq by US forces a few days before the fall of Baghdad and has the support of Vice-President Dick Cheney and a number of other leaders in the Bush administration. But he told James Naughtie that he preferred to less of a prominent role than in the mid-1990s when he tried to organise an uprising against Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq.
"I have waited all my life to come home," he said.
"I want to work on building civil society as a basis for democracy."
He said he was confident a liberal democracy would work in Iraq, though he has had to travel encircled by private armed guards since returning.
"People are fed up with totalitarianism and repression... They think they have won against Saddam," he said.
"[They] feel victorious... which is ironic because there is a foreign army here. But they feel that they are the allies of the foreign army."
Mr Chalabi said the apparent rise of Shia clerics as local leaders and political organisers was a "distorted view".
"No-one has control over towns... over streets. It is a euphoria of expression [where] piety becomes a political act because [the people] have been denied that."
It was a transitory movement with "no momentum", he said.
'Smoking a cigar with Saddam'
Any UN ambition to take a role in rebuilding Iraq would not be popular, Mr Chalabi said.
"The Iraqi people view the UN as a de facto ally of Saddam" because they had seen UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "smoking a cigar with Saddam", he said.
"The reality of the situation will imply that the UN cannot have a role."
Still, I'm sure that we can turn this thread into an anti-US rant, without much effort...
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Comments
Either the Bush Administration or the State Department don't like him either. I could swear it was the Bush Administration.
and interesting commentary on the man, his background and how he is viewed in Iraq:
http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper659.html
The real test of all Bush's wonderful sentimental rhetoric and promises to the American public about democracy is coming and it looks like self determination might not be conducive to the US business interests currently setting up for the long haul.
Itll be interesting to hear how warmly the American public back home feels toward Iraq then should the puppets be booted democratically and US companies don't get the oil rights. I suspect there would be a sudden and complete condemnation instead of praise for their democratic decision.
Iran's true intentions are known: they sent 5,000 nuts into Iraq.
The US plans to have 4 military bases in Iraq. One will be the Baghdad airport. Supposedly, the Baghdad airport was partially a military airport.
I read a report that Iraqi democracy is 5 years away. Others have said 6 months. Rebuilding Iraq I read will take 10 years.
I wonder what the psychological (right word?) affects of finding these massive graves of political prisoners from Saddam will have on the Iraqi people? I'd love to see a type of holocost museum attached to one of Saddam's palaces.
I am hardly surprised that talk of when this supposed democracy will be established are continually shifting. Truth is the Bush admin had sketchy plans for the aftermath going into this and given how many of their presumptions have already proven false, they wont likely even be in office when the dust finally settles.
Best we can hope for is that Bush is out after next year and is replaced by an administration with some real intelligence in world affairs who will do the only right thing and pull our troops out completely and leave Iraq to the Iraqis completely as should be the case.
Then we can move on to the real problem in the Middle East, the Sharon govt!
Clinton spoke out about how the Bush Administration has broken ties with countries America has been allied with for centuries.
My dad bought 8 bottles of French Merlow this weekend for $39. Some day I'm gonna come home from school and find a French flag flying alongside the American one...my dad hates this boycotte stuff.
Don't count on the Bush admin to resotre our economic stregnth, they are good at making war and domestic paranoia, nothing more.
Perhaps you are starting to see that behind all the rhetoric and fuzzy sentimental claims about democracy the only real interest for which they were willing to spend over 20 billion dollars to oust Saddam was to get this new profit centre as economic leverage.
Itll be superbly ironic if the Iraqis manage to send Bush's planned lackies packing and renationalise the oil fields again so they can keep their revenues in the country. Seeing Bush's presumptions come crashing down around him would be priceless!
They've dropped the security level in the US. If you think about it, my town is almost directly east of Washington D.C. So I could hear the jet flights over the ocean.
Ive said it before, ill say it again, the American public has been lied to by an administration so corrupt it makes the Clinton administration look like a nunnery.
The biggest bigots in the world are Muslim extremists. And I view all of them as enemies.
I want to see a democracy in Iraq with all groups represented. And if that shakes up the Middle East: good.
Point is pnj, it doesnt matter what you or I, or even Bush wants if we are to prove to the world (and especially the Middle East) that our claims to support their self determination and their democratic will are to be more than just pretty sounding words.
Democracy doesnt hold up when it is dictated.
So if you wish to remain true to your oft claimed belief in the right of the Iraqis to choose for themselves then you cannot turn and condemn them if they choose leaders who dont bow the knee to Washington.
Anything less and you might as well admit that you believe in conquering and dominating foreign countries to expand Bush's visions of empire.
I think the only hope for world peace is to destroy the radical Muslim movement...not wait for them to attack us. I do think there's a lot of truth in what you say too Clandestine regarding corporate greed/motives.
Western countries already have their hands on the Iraqi oil too.
Or perhaps we could do something about Arafat too, his instringence cost the last peace deal. You cannot approach the Israel/Palestine problem from just one direction.
This is the moment when I have to say, "I don't care" because that's not my problem.
What I see is a free Iraq, and that was all I wanted from this war.
Actually he can. Just as I comdemned the Americans for electing Bush.
2. Actually untrue. The last significant proposal for peace (camp David 2000) was fully acceptable to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority until Barak started carving away further chunks from what had been agreed by both sides initially. This fact was pointed out already some time ago but just for you MoK, Ill once again post the details of how Barak derailed that process...
http://gush-shalom.org/media/barak_eng.swf
3. I really don't care that you don't care seeing as how this point was not for you but for pnj. And you must see something that even the Iraqis dont yet see. I hope you are right but matters at this time remain firmly under the thumb of Washington. When they pull out and stop trying to dictate what the Iraqis will or wont do, Ill agree that they are truly free.
4. You have a point. He undoubtedly would condemn any decision that didnt satisfy Washington since the Washington spin factory would more than likely spew out sufficient vitriole to convince the gullible masses that our kindness was not duly appreciated by the Iraqis for not bowing to our will. That however remains to be seen. It's very unlikely that Washington will permit their expenditure of over 20 billion dollars so far in this conflict to result in anything that would deny America an even bigger financial return.
So the war may not end up with US contracts.
But hang on, isn't that what it was all about?
Barak, not Sharon - who you claim to be the biggest threat to ME peace. Perhaps there is a lesson there.
Interesting imagery, shame about the bias of the site though. Perhaps they would do well to show what the Palestinians have now, as a result of the withdrawal of Arafat.
So why walk away?
I dont' care that you don't care that I don't care
I was just making a point that a large % of this site is not US based and the lies told to the US public don't affect or worry us.
And the thing I see is something most Iraqis see. That they are allowed to move freely, exclaim free thought and, as todays events have shown, practice their religion - somthing they haven't been able to do for a quarter of a century.
that will never happen. Just as it doesn't happen in the UK, nor does it happen for the US. Other countries will always try to use their influence.
Indeed I do, I mean it's not like you have celebrated the US' use of the last free election
To the victors go the spoils...
I only posited the suggestion of their not snapping up the contracts to illustrate that self determination would be far too risky for Washington to permit. In which case no doubt will remain that Bush's agenda is one of conquest not liberation.
Which is it?
Either they will, or they won't, get the contracts...
No contradictions there. Simply a critical analysis of what our goal truly is in conquering Iraq and what the Iraqi people themselves are increasingly saying about it themselves.
Nevertheless, given the history of Iraq and its disdain for foreign occupation and rule, I believe we may well see the rise of civil unrest and perhaps a self determined ousting down the road. Whereupon, I would consider it well with the Iraqi's rights to renationalise the oil sector and boot the US firms out once again.