CONSEQUENCES OF INVASION

"... Observed close up, without the filter of an obsequious news media, the overwhelmingly negative consequences of the occupation become impossible to ignore: the 100,000 dead (the majority of them civilians); wide-scale violations of human, political and civil rights; the destruction of the country's health, education and other crucial social systems; the massive unemployment; a violent and destabilizing insurgency that is likely to last a generation or more; the rending of a delicate social fabric that managed to survive a bloody British occupation, several wars, and the even bloodier rule of Saddam Hussein..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF30Ak02.html

BUSH LINKS BOTH 9/11 TO IRAQ, AND FUTURE OF U.S. TO IRAQ

"... They are trying to shake our will in Iraq, just as they tried to shake our will on September 11 2001... The American people do not falter under threat and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins."
-- Presidential TV address, June 28, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1517011,00.html

MISSILE DOWNS HELICOPTER

"A U.S. Apache attack helicopter crashed Monday north of Baghdad, killing both pilots, after a witness said he saw the aircraft hit by a rocket that "destroyed it completely in the air"...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-06-27-copter-crash_x.htm

Russian SA-16 shoulder-launched infra-red guided missile:
http://warfare.ru/?catid=264&linkid=1694

DEMOCRACY IN SOUTHERN IRAQ

"Shiite Islamic parties have solidified their grip, fully institutionalizing their power... Islamic Law controls the streets of Basra... Enforcers patrol the city and Shiite militiamen have taken over the police... Unmarked cars cruise the streets, carrying armed, plain-clothed enforcers of Islamic law... Residents accused of infractions are beaten or killed... A local businessman... compared the current strict rule to life under Hussein... "This is the democracy of 2005. We expected improvement, but now there's no freedom in the streets for the women. People are afraid."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-basra27jun27,1,6351590.story

U.S. TO WITHDRAW , IRAN TO STAY WITH IRAQ

"... Iraq is now led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Da'wa party, which operated in exile out of Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War. At a Baghdad news conference with Iran's foreign minister on May 18, al-Jafaari said "Let me add that the party that will leave Iraq is the United States, because it will eventually withdraw. But the party that will live with the Iraqis is Iran, because it is a neighbor to Iraq."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF28Ak01.html

THE CHANGING GOALS OF THE WAR

"... the White House and the Pentagon have always been able to change the script of the Iraqi movie. No weapons of mass destruction? No problem: let's go with "democracy and freedom to the Arab world". Terrorism? Let's fight it with "free elections". Oops, we didn't want these Iran-friendly Shi'ites in power. No problem, let's support them and use them to build an Iraqi army to fight the Sunnis on our behalf..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF28Ak05.html

U.S. NEGOTIATING WITH INSURGENTS, IRAQI GOVERNMENT NOT INVOLVED

Late June 2005
"Iraq's president has denied his government has talked to insurgents, contradicting an earlier claim by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.... Jalal Talabani said "The Iraqi government has nothing to do with the negotiations with insurgents."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4631763.stm

June 2005
"... After weeks of delicate negotiation . . . a small group of insurgent commanders apparently came face to face with four American officials seeking to establish a dialogue with the men they regard as their enemies. The talks on June 3 were followed by a second encounter 10 days later, according to an Iraqi who said that he had attended both meetings . . . further talks are planned in the hope of negotiating an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in Iraq."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1669601_1,00.html

April 2002
"... No nation can negotiate with terrorists. For there is no way to make peace with those whose only goal is death."
-- President Bush, press conference on Middle East
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020404-1.html

U.S. PRISONS IN IRAQ

June 2005
"The US military says it is expanding several Iraqi prisons, including Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, to cope with a sharp rise in detainees... The $50m construction programme will allow the US to hold 16,000 prisoners in Iraq, up from 10,000 currently...
* Abu Ghraib prison, which currently holds 3,537 Iraqi and Arab detainees, is expected to have room for another 800 inmates by the end of July.
* Camp Cropper, near Baghdad airport, which has 125 high-profile prisoners, will be expanded to contain an extra 2,000.
* Camp Bucca, in the southern port city of Umm Qasr, currently holding 6,340 detainees, will see its capacity increased by 1,400 places.
* A fourth prison is to be built from scratch in Sulaimaniya, 330km (205 miles) north of Baghdad."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4628057.stm

March 2005
AMERICAN JAILS IN IRAQ BURSTING
The American military's major detention centers in Iraq have swelled to capacity... the military is holding at least 8,900 detainees in the three major prisons, 1,000 more than in late January... in Abu Ghraib... 3,160 people are being kept, well above the 2,500 level considered ideal... The largest center, Camp Bucca in the south, has at least 5,640 detainees... never before has the system had to grapple with so many detainees..."
http://nytimes.com/2005/03/04/international/middleeast/04detain.html?hp

May 2004
PARTIAL LIST OF IRAQI PRISONS

"... Abu Ghraib... on the western outskirts of Baghdad... the number of prisoners... 8,000...
... Camp Cropper on the grounds of Baghdad International Airport
... Camp Bucca... in the southern city of Umm Qasr... 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13065-2004May9.html

"... Our Iraqi "prison" system has now been revealed to all as 16-17 detention centers countrywide..."
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/

May 2004
ABU GHRAIB'S REPLACEMENT MAY NEED TO BE LARGE

"The Bush administration tried to erase the recent shameful images of postwar Iraq last night by saying it would demolish Abu Ghraib prison... the administration said that the demolition of the prison would symbolise a new beginning for Iraq... the US would help finance the construction of a new maximum security prison..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224116,00.html

"America's inmate population (is) almost 2.1 million people, with one of every 75 men living in prison or jail..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0528-02.htm

Blogger's note: If the Iraqis are good, law-abiding democratic citizens like we in the USA, their new prison system will need to hold 167,000 prisoners. (Population of Iraq is 25 million, of which about 12.5 million are men, divided by 75, equals 167,000.)

U. S. CANNOT SUPRESS INSURGENCY

"... Mr Rumsfeld admitted the revolt could last up to a dozen years. "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency," Mr Rumsfeld said. "We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4624385.stm

INSURGENCY IS IRAQIS PROBLEM

"... Rumsfeld... told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week... the insurgency could conceivably "go on for four, eight, 10, 12, 15 years, whatever…. We don't know. It is going to be a problem for the people of Iraq."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bushiraq26jun26,0,1423729.story?coll=la-home-headlines

IRAQ CREATING NEW BREED OF JIHADISTS

"The war in Iraq is creating a new breed of Islamic jihadists who could go on to destabilise other countries, according to a CIA report... The CIA report suggests the new breed of jihadists will be more deadly than those who fought in Afghanistan (against Russia). It said that they have learned skills in urban warfare in Iraq. the CIA report contrasts with the optimism of US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when he welcomed the prospect of Iraq as a magnet for jihadists..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1512597,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/international/middleeast/22intel.html

"... the threat may grow when the Iraq insurgency ends and fighters disperse. Militants could pose problems in their countries of origin... but... the US and the UK could also be at risk... the head of the CIA, Porter Goss, warned that unrest in Iraq was providing Islamist militants with training and contacts that could be used in new attacks abroad. "Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4122040.stm

$178 BILLION SPENT ON WAR -- $1.5 BILLION SPENT ON RECONSTRUCTION

"... the invasion and occupation of Iraq have so far cost the United States more than $178 billion... only $11 billion goes directly to reconstruction. The rest is paying for things like the Iraqi security forces... so far the Americans have only completed reconstruction projects worth less than $1.5 billion."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4618359.stm

SAME OLD TIMETABLE

"The words are almost always the same: "threat" ... "atrocities" ... "secret intelligence" ... "mission" ... "preventive" ... "fog" ... "brave" ... "terrorists" ... "Support our troops" ... "Stay the course" ... "waste"... "treason" ... "timetable" ... "withdraw" ... "tragedy" ... it (has) taken us about 2 1/2 years to move into "timetable" territory..."

"It usually takes about nine years to say them all. Americans said them about Vietnam between 1964 and 1973. The Soviets said them about Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988. Judging by that recent history, if history is our guide, it will take six more years to declare peace with honor, one more time... It will be a "tragedy" when we leave in 2012."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20050623/cm_ucrr/timetablesixmoreyearsiniraq/nc:742

ABIZAID SAYS MORE FOREIGN FIGHTERS NOW THAN BEFORE
RUMSFELD SAYS U.S. NOT LOSING THE WAR
CHENEY SAYS INSURGENCY IN LAST THROES

"... the US top Gulf commander General John Abizaid told (a) Senate committee more foreign fighters were coming into Iraq than six months ago... He said suicide bombers from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco were entering Iraq via Syria, joining others from Saudi Arabia and Jordan... Donald Rumsfeld has said the US is not losing the Iraq war..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4123808.stm

"... Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/

DEMOCRACY IMPOSSIBLE WTH THIS LEGACY

"It's virtually impossible for... Iraq to be "on its way to democracy" when real unemployment reaches a staggering 50% (a scarier prospect for most people than car bombs or snipers), 25% of children under five years old are malnourished, 78% of the households in the country (and 92% in Baghdad) have electricity only a few hours a day, only 37% of urban households (and a mere 4% in the countryside) have sewage-disposal systems, only 61% have access to drinking water, 5% of households have been destroyed by bombing or search-and-destroy missions, only one in 10 households in rural areas can be reached by a paved road, and more youngsters than in any previous generation are illiterate. This is the appalling legacy of the occupation - and the US and UN-imposed regime of sanctions in the 1990s... "
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF24Ak03.html

FIRST FREE-MARKET WAR

"... John Newton, a reader from Michigan, recently (said): "It occurred to me that we've reached the point where we've got to bribe everyone to fight this war. The Iraqi army salaries... are probably twice or three times what an ordinary Iraqi makes. And yet in a place with massive unemployment, they still desert. We have perhaps 20,000 or more "contractors" doing security work who make salaries in the six figures to be in Iraq. And now the military is offering signing bonuses of up to $40,000. For a high school kid, that is a down payment on a house and a car. That is not so easy to pass up, but the recruiters still can't get them to sign"
...between 2003 and 2005, we've moved decisively to the devolving side of our first free-market war..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF23Ak02.html

363 TONS OF CASH SENT TO IRAQ ($12 BILLION)

"It weighed 28 tons and took up as much room as 74 washing machines. It was $2.4 billion in $100 bills, and Baghdad needed it ASAP... Republicans and Democrats appeared taken aback by the volume of cash sent to Iraq: nearly $12 billion over the course of the U.S. occupation from March 2003 to June 2004... The cash — a total of 363 tons, generated mostly from oil revenues — was Iraqi funds that had been held in trust by the Federal Reserve under the terms of a United Nations resolution. The June 2004 money transfer was needed to run the country as the interim Iraqi government took over from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority... Disclosure of the frantic transfer in the final days of U.S. control over Iraq came during a daylong hearing Tuesday that indicated growing worry from Congress over U.S. oversight of spending in Iraq..."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-cash22jun22,1,1759535,print.story?coll=la-news-a_section

MILITARY ACTION DECIDED IN 2002 BUT PUBLICLY DENIED

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
- Downing Street memo, July 23, 2002

"Our goal is not merely to limit Iraq's violations of Security Council resolutions, or to slow down its weapons program. Our goal is to fully and finally remove a real threat to world peace and to America. Hopefully this can be done peacefully. Hopefully we can do this without any military action."
- George W. Bush, October 16, 2002

http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=115410

NEW BOMBS DESTROY ARMORED HUMVEES

"Insurgents have begun to deploy devices that leave armored vehicles increasingly vulnerable... significant advancements in bomb design, including the use of "shaped" charges that concentrate the blast and give it a better chance of penetrating armored vehicles, causing higher casualties... the Army convened a conference last... where engineers, contractors and senior officers grappled with the problems posed by the new bombs... armored Humvees have been rushed to Iraq over the past year... Still... the two fatal attacks on the marines were (on) armored Humvees but,... the bombs "were so big that there was little left of the Humvees that were hit."
http://nytimes.com/2005/06/22/international/middleeast/22bomb.html?hp&ex=1119412800&en=35434288bdfcb1b2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

IRAQI LAWMAKERS CALL FOR WITHDRAWAL OF FOREIGN TROOPS

"Iraqi lawmakers from across the political spectrum called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from their country in a letter released to the media June 19... Eighty-two Shiite, Kurdish, Sunni Arab, Christian and communist deputies made the call in a letter sent by Falah Hassan Shanshal of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the largest group in parliament, to speaker Hajem al-Hassani...Shanshal said the 275-member parliament was the Iraqi people’s legitimate representative and guardian of their interests."
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=925971&C=america

NO CLIMACTIC VICTORY

"... recent comments... by Vice President Dick Cheney -- who said on May 31 that the insurgency was in its ''last throes" -- took many US officials and analysts by surprise, Pentagon officials... said in a series of interviews. The available data, they said, simply do not support such a claim.... 'We are not going to win the unconditional surrender from the insurgents and have no choice but to somehow bring them into society," said retired Army Colonel Paul Hughes, an Iraq war veteran who is now at the government-funded US Institute for Peace. ''To think there will be one climactic military event to end this is foolish. Those who cling to that don't understand."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/06/10/insurgency_seen_forcing_change_in_iraq_strategy/

IRAQI SAYS U.S. DELAYING SADDAM TRIAL, CONCEALING SECRETS

"Iraq's justice minister on Tuesday accused the United States of trying to delay Iraqi efforts to interrogate Saddam Hussein, saying "it seems there are lots of secrets they want to hide..."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SADDAM_TRIAL?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=customwire.htm

"Iraq's justice minister has accused the US of concealing information about deposed president Saddam Hussein that could be damaging to "many countries"... it seemed there were "lots of secrets" that the Americans wanted to hide..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4115976.stm

U.S. STRATEGY NOT WORKING

"... The gap between tactical victories on the one hand, and few tangible improvements in the overall Iraqi security situation on the other, is creating a widening disagreement over whether the US is winning or losing the war in Iraq... a growing number of US forces on the ground - say that Iraq's war is beyond the point where it can be won by force of arms and that "staying the course" is a recipe for a deeper Iraqi quagmire. They see few signs that the conditions for a political settlement, between the country's newly empowered Shiites and its now disenfranchised Sunni Arabs, are emerging. They point to the evidence of mounting attacks, and the increasingly sectarian nature of the violence..."

"In cities like Fallujah, once thought to be decisively won by the US, engagements are on the rise, with three firefights on Sunday ending with 15 insurgents killed. In the city of Tal Afar in the north, violence still rages, despite three major US offensives there in the past two years..."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0621/p01s01-woiq.htm

BUSH DECIDED IN FEB 2002 TO OUST SADDAM

"President Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power and ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies to devise a combination of military, diplomatic and covert steps to achieve that goal... Bush has concluded that Saddam... must be removed, even if U.S. allies do not help... one foreign leader who met Bush recently came away "with the feeling that a decision has been made to strike Iraq, and the 'how' and 'when' are still fluid."
-- Knight-Ridder news service, Wed, Feb. 13, 2002
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/11809605.htm

NIXON ON IMPOSING DEMOCRACY

"Those who call for a global democratic crusade ignore the limits of our power. Recognising these limits does not mean that we should shrug off forces struggling to advance democracy of that we should give a green light to dictators poised to strike against fragile democratic regimes. But we do not have sufficient power to remake the world in our image. Even in the West, democratic government has existed for only two hundred years. Nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America cannot develop overnight the traditions, cultures and institutions needed to make democracy work. What works for us may not work for others. In these regions, democratic government does not necessarily mean good government. It could lead to majority repression of minorities and to mob rule that would make authoritarian rule enviable by comparison."
-- from book "Seize the Moment", by Richard Nixon, 1992
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671743430/103-5272111-5357446?v=glance

GUANTANAMO TO BE PERMANENT

"... Halliburton's contracting subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR)... has won a $30m (£16m) contract to help build a new permanent prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Pentagon announcement... is a further sign that the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is determined to keep the jail in operation..."

"... a Democratic think-tank, the Centre for American Progress, which urges that long-term inmates be transferred to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and tried before military courts-martial. Low value and low security risk detainees should be transferred back to their home countries..."

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=647703&host=3&dir=70

TORTURE - SADDAM WAS WORSE THAN U.S.

"... Mind you, our American friends are already, it seems, dab hands at smearing prisoners with excrement and beating them and - given the evidence I've heard from a prisoner who was at Bagram in Afghanistan - sticking brooms up men's anuses, and, of course, just killing them. Thirty prisoners have now died in US custody. I don't believe in the few bad apples line. It's happened on far too great a scale. And how do we excuse all this filth? How do we excuse ourselves for this immorality? Why, we say Saddam was worse than us.

Saddam had women raped; he shot them down into mass graves. He was much worse. But if Saddam's wickedness has to be the tuning fork against which all our own iniquities are judged, what does that say about us? If Saddam's regime is to be the moral compass to define our actions, how bad - how iniquitous - does that allow us to be?

Saddam tortured and executed women in Abu Ghraib. We only sexually abused prisoners and killed a few of them and murdered some suspects at Bagram and subjected them to inhuman treatment in Guantanamo and sent others off to be boiled and fried and killed off by our "friends" without the embarrassment of being present. Saddam was much worse. And thus it became inevitable that the symbol of Saddam's shame - Abu Ghraib - subsequently became the symbol of our shame too."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0618-29.htm

TIMETABLE SOUGHT FOR PULLOUT

June 18
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has introduced a Senate bill calling on the administration to identify its goals in Iraq and to offer a plan and timetable for achieving those goals and withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=44005&ntpid=13

June 14
"... Representative Walter Jones... a North Carolina Republican, said on ABC television Sunday that he would introduce a bill calling for a firm timetable for withdrawing US forces from Iraq... (but White House) spokesman Scott McClellan said... "We will leave when we complete the mission. We are not going to stay a day longer than what is necessary."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050613/pl_afp/usiraqwhouse

LAWMAKERS PROPOSE TESTING FOR TROOP EXPOSURE TO DU

"... Louisiana last week became the first state to require returning troops to be tested for exposure to depleted uranium.... the Connecticut House unanimously passed similar legislation earlier this month... Lawmakers from at least seven other states (are) interested in drafting similar legislation... a group of congressional Democrats would like to see DU testing standardized... 21 other Democrats introduced a bill in Congress that would require the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to report to Congress on the health effects of DU exposure, not only on veterans but also on their children born after exposure to DU munitions..."
http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/0105/CollateralRisk.shtml

U.S. LIED OVER USE OF NAPALM

Early March 2005
"... assigned by the (Ministry of Health) to assess the health conditions in Fallujah... an official... said that the U.S. military used internationally banned weapons during its deadly offensive... He said that the city is still suffering from the effects of chemical substances and other types of weapons that cause serious diseases over the long term... Fallujah residents reported that they saw “melted” bodies in the city, which suggests that U.S. forces used napalm... The United States... is the only nation in the world still using the deadly weapon."
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=7216

Early June 2005
"American officials lied to British ministers over the use of "internationally reviled" napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.... 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq... US authorities only admitted the use of the weapons after the evidence from reporters had become irrefutable... The US State Department website admitted in the run-up to the election that US forces had used MK77s in Iraq... The MK77 bombs, an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=647397&host=3&dir=62

U. S. FORMING IRAQI ARMY TO FIGHT IRAN

"... A former Pentagon official, journalist, and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb... came back from a fact-finding trip in Iraq... In a report to the council, Gelb was scathing about America efforts to train an Iraqi army.... As for plans to train a 10 division Iraqi army by next year, Gelb was scathing. ''It became very apparent to me that these 10 divisions were to fight some future war against Iran. It had nothing to do, nothing to do," with taking Iraq over from the Americans and fighting the insurgents..."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/17/facing_factsin_iraq?mode=PF

A MYSTERY OF GUERILLA WAR

"The ability of the [insurgents] to rebuild their units and to make good their losses is one of the mysteries of this guerrilla war ... Not only do [their] units have the recuperative powers of the phoenix, but they have an amazing ability to maintain morale."
--General Maxwell Taylor, American ambassador to South Vietnam, in November 1964
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF17Ak02.html

TWO DIFFERENT IRAQI RACES

"... It turns out there are two different races of Iraqis. There are their Iraqis - jihadis, Ba'athist bitter-enders, terrorists, Sunni fanatics... The thing about all of them is, without thousands of foreign military advisers, or a $5.7 billion American-financed program to train and equip their forces, or endless time to get up to speed, they take their rocket-propelled grenades, their improvised explosive devices, their mortars, their bomb-laden cars, and they fight...

"... American military men, whatever they call these insurgents, have a sneaking respect for them. You can hear it in many of the reports from Iraq. They are - a typical word used by military officers there - "resilient". No matter what we throw at them, they come back again. All on their own they develop sophisticated new tactics. Facing terrible odds, when it comes to firepower, they are clever, dangerous, resourceful opponents. The adjectives, even when they go with labels like "terrorists", are strangely respectful...

"Then there's this other race of Iraqis, our Iraqis, the ones who scatter "like cockroaches". They are... not resilient, not resourceful, not up to snuff, not willing to fight, all too ready to flee, and, in the eyes of American military men on the scene, frustrating, cowardly, child-like, and contemptible..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF17Ak02.html

MOMENTUM FOR WITHDRAWAL

"American people are edging toward creating a momentum for America's withdrawal from Iraq... the Pew Research Center's report on Monday states... "Support for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq continues to inch up from 36% last October to 42% in February, and 46% currently"...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF16Ak01.html

"... a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by a Republican who supported the war, plans to introduce a resolution calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq beginning in October 2006..."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/06/16/pressure_growing_to_plan_iraq_exit?mode=PF

EVENTS LEADING TO THE INVASION OF IRAQ

February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.

On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,
"It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime."

March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose -- see below.

October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the Administration to junk the State Department "coup" plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq. And elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the "sale of all state enterprises" -- that is, most of the nation's assets, "… especially in the oil and supporting industries."

2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for Iraq include plans for protecting "property rights." The result was a pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients. Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order these giveaways into Iraq law.

Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields. He works directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. "There were plans," says Carroll, "maybe even too many plans" -- but none disclosed to the public nor even the US Congress.

January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.

March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls "Operations Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) begins. (Invasion is re-christened "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

And the rest is history.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-29.htm

REASONS FOR BEING IN IRAQ

Q. So, why are we there?
A. To remove the chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons that Saddam Hussein was about to hand over to the terrorists, posing an imminent threat to U.S. security.
A. To sever the link between the 9/11 terrorists and the Iraqi dictator.
A. To remove a brutal and despotic menace to stability in the Middle East.
A. To establish an Iraqi democracy as a model for change in the Islamic world.
A. To make the world safer.
A. To "finish the job" that Bush's father started in the Gulf War, and to avenge Saddam's apparent attempt to assassinate the elder Bush.
A. To secure Iraq's oil supply, thus perpetuating America's dependence on petroleum rather than launching a major drive toward energy independence.
A. To divert attention from the fact that we were unlikely to find Osama bin Laden and to concentrate instead on an enemy we could easily defeat on the open battlefield.
A. To attract terrorists from around the world to fight a consolidated war against the United States at a remote site, far from American soil.
A. To create a bigger, more telegenic war than the one in Afghanistan in order to appeal to the rising conservative tide at home -- especially after 9/11 -- and to win back the Senate for Republicans.
A. To slap down a dictator that the United States had helped in the past, especially in his war against Iran, but who then turned on his American benefactors.
A. To launch a latter-day crusade against Islam.
A. To do a favor for Israel.
A. To demonstrate that the United States is the world's only superpower and that it's willing to act in defiance of allies and apart from the United Nations.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5457220.html?SID=oqrj5fq8ak6c852tpioohcb144

SUNNI SUICIDE BOMBERS

"... a dozen or so Sunnis engage in suicide bombings over the course of a given month.. What sort of population produces such a steady trickle of suicide bombers?... One cannot dismiss the suicide campaign of the Iraq resistance as Islamist extremism, because their leaders derive from Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime... Evidently, the Sunnis see their prospects differently than does Bush... The Mesopotamian Sunnis... well may understand their position better than does the president of the United States... Rather than Wal-Mart and the Parent Teachers' Association, Iraq's Sunnis see an endless horizon of poverty and humiliation... Sudden impoverishment motivates men to fight to the death..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF14Ak01.html

TUBERCULOSIS RETURNING DUE TO POOR LIVING CONDITIONS

".... an increase in Tuberculosis (TB) cases in the southeastern city of Amarah (is) fueled by a shortage of medicine and poor living conditions. The disease, which has been under control in the area for more than 50 years, has been rising steadily since the conflict in 2003... A survey on living conditions, released by the UN and the Iraqi government in May, stressed that standards had seriously deteriorated over the past two years with poor access to clean water and adequate healthcare..."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/51007b865953730046262b715e8ef91a.htm

MILITARY ACTION WON'T END INSURGENCY

"... senior American military officers in Iraq... Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman... (and) Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander... have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to (the) insurgency... the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics..."
"Lt. Col. Frederick P. Wellman, who works with the task force overseeing the training of Iraqi security troops, said the insurgency doesn't seem to be running out of new recruits... "We can't kill them all," Wellman said. "When I kill one I create three."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11879336.htm

SUPPORT FOR WAR DROPPING

"... In the Gallup Poll, 56% say the Iraq war wasn't “worth it”... the top reasons cited are fraudulent claims and no weapons of mass destruction found; the number of people killed and wounded; and the belief that Iraq posed no threat to the United States.... On ABC's This Week, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., an ardent supporter of the invasion, called on Bush for a timetable for withdrawing troops. “I feel that we have done about as much as we can do,” he said..."
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050613/1a_lede13.art.htm

NEWSWEEK ASSESSMENT OF IRAQ

"Rod Norland, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief for the past two years ("I went to Iraq as an unabashed believer in toppling Saddam Hussein") has written a sobering assessment of the war that goes far beyond the nearly 1,700 U.S. dead. Here are some quotes from his essay in the June 13 issue:
"The most powerful army in human history can't even protect a two-mile stretch of road."
"The four-square-mile Green Zone ... could be a showcase of American values and abilities. Instead the American enclave is a trash-strewn wasteland of Mad Max-style fortifications."
"Some of the worst ambassadors in U.S. history are the GIs at the Green Zone's checkpoints. They've repeatedly punched Iraqi ministers, accidentally shot at visiting dignitaries and behave... with all the courtesy of nightclub bouncers."
"Most of (the $7 billion in taxpayers' money for reconstruction) goes to U.S. contractors who spend much of it on personal security. Basic services like electricity, water and sewers still aren't up to prewar levels."
"U.S. troops will be in Iraq "probably for years to come."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0613-23.htm

REDUCED MORTALITY AMONG U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ

Modern lifesaving techniques have reduced mortality dramatically among U.S. troops in Iraq over previous wars:
WAR / KILLED IN ACTION / LETHALITY OF WOUNDS
Revolutionary War / 4,435 / 42 percent
Civil War (Union Force)*/ 140,414 / 33 percent
World War I / 53,402 / 21 percent
World War II / 291,557 / 30 percent
Korean War / 33,741 / 25 percent
Vietnam / 47,424 / 24 percent
Desert Storm / 147 / 24 percent
Operation Iraqi Freedom / 1,665 ** / 10 percent
*Authoritative statistics on Confederate forces aren't available.
**As of June 1; comprises killed in action, natural and accidental deaths.
-Source: Department of Defense, New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11836323.htm

FROM BRITISH BRIEFING ON WAR PLANNING

Justification
11. US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community. Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law.
Benefits/Risks
19. A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point.
-- from the briefing for British ministers produced by the Cabinet Office on July 21, 2002
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758,00.html


BRTISH WAR BRIEFING IN JULY 2002

"Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.The briefing paper is... the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it..."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html

BALKANIZATION OF IRAQ: USE CIVIL WAR TO DIVIDE AND RULE

"... (There is) a plan to break up Iraq into three Shi'ite southern mini-states, two Kurdish mini-states and one Sunni mini-state - with Baghdad as the seat of a federal government.... The plan was allegedly conceived by David Philip, a former White House adviser working for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). The AFPC is financed by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has also funded both the ultra-hawkish Project for a New American Century and American Enterprise Institute.

"The plan would be "sold" under the admission that the recently elected, Shi'ite-dominated Jaafari government is incapable of controlling Iraq and bringing the Sunni Arab guerrillas to the negotiating table. More significantly, the plan is an exact replica of an extreme right-wing Israeli plan to balkanize Iraq - an essential part of the balkanization of the whole Middle East. Curiously, Henry Kissinger was selling the same idea even before the 2003 invasion of Iraq..."

"... this is classic divide and rule: the objective is the perpetuation of Arab disunity. Call it Iraqification; what it actually means is sectarian fever translated into civil war. Operation Lightning - the highly publicized counter-insurgency tour de force with its 40,000 mostly Shi'ite troops rounding up Sunni Arabs - can be read as the first salvo of the civil war..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF10Ak03.html

ELECTION WAS TO LEGITMIZE OCCUPATION

"In reality, the electoral process was designed to legitimize the occupation, rather than ridding the country of the occupation ... Anyone who sees himself capable of bringing about political reform should go ahead and try, but my belief is that the occupiers won't allow him."
- Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF10Ak03.html

SAFE DRIVING IN IRAQ

"I asked him what vehicle he drove: a Suburban was his reply. I suggested he use a less American-looking vehicle that would not let would-be attackers know they were coming a mile away. His reply: "then the Americans soldiers might shoot at us". With the Suburban, he chose the lesser of two risks. Make your own deductions about life in Iraq for Iraqis."
-- A Star from Mosul, Blog of Najma, a 17-year old schoolgirl, Friday, June 10, 2005
http://astarfrommosul.blogspot.com/

IRAQ PAYS $200 MILLION PER MONTH TO IMPORT GAS

"Oil-rich Iraq pays 200 million dollars a month to import gasoline, according to... Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum... US officials started importing gasoline in 2004 from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among others, to deal with shortages which caused long lines at gas pumps around the country. For nine months, the US paid for "humanitarian" imports of gasoline out of 18.4 billion dollars appropriated by Congress for reconstruction aid. Iraq now pays for the imports from its crude oil sale profits..."
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/business/?id=13556

RECRUITING INCENTIVES FOR IRAQ

"The U.S. Army has slipped further behind its recruiting goals amid the Iraq war... The Army hopes to raise the maximum cash bonus for new recruits to $40,000 and begin a pilot program to give up to $50,000 in home-mortgage assistance to people who volunteer for eight years of active-duty service..."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8760618

DELAY IN CONSTITUTION COULD SWELL INSURGENCY

"... The Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) of March 2004 dictates the pace and process of constitutional drafting and adoption. According to its terms, drafting must be completed no later than 15 August 2005 and the text put up for popular referendum by 15 October, with elections for a full-term assembly to follow by 15 December... failure to get the constitutional endeavour right risks increasing popular discontent and swelling the ranks of the insurgency.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=3506

"... it is June 11 and the constitutional committee has still not been finalized, the likelihood that a whole constitution can be drafted by August 15, which always seemed a stretch, has become completely absurd."
http://www.juancole.com/

IRAQI ARMY

"... according to the U.S. military... there are 107 operational military and special police battalions. As of last month, however, U.S. and Iraqi commanders had rated only three battalions capable of operating independently..."

"I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato.... "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060902245.html

FIRMS HIRED TO DO PROPAGANDA IN IRAQ

"Army command hires three firms to sway Afghans and Iraqis... The U.S. Special Operations Command has hired three firms to produce newspaper stories, television broadcasts and Web sites to spread American propaganda... may spend up to $100 million for the media campaign in the next five years.... Winning the contracts were Science Applications International Corp., SYColeman Inc. and Lincoln Group Corp... Video products will include newscasts, hour-long TV shows and commercials... Federal law prohibits sending propaganda to Americans, and some experts worry that psychological warfare messages, especially disinformation efforts, might blow back to American audiences via the Internet and satellite news channels..."
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783204555

AMBASSADOR CONFIDENT THAT U.S. DOES NOT WANT BASES OR RESOURCES

The person nominated to be the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq... Zalmay Khalilzad says... “I know from President Bush, I know from other senior officials, that there is no U.S. plan for permanent military bases in Iraq or plans for usurping Iraqi resources.”
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/06/504d9fbb-7847-449f-a4d8-6e21f3529604.html

"US military to build four giant new bases in Iraq... commanders are planning to pull back their troops from Iraq's towns and cities and redeploy them in four giant bases... the four probable locations (are): Tallil in the south; Al Asad in the west; Balad in the centre and either Irbil or Qayyarah in the north... The new buildings would be constructed to withstand direct mortar fire... the decision... is seen by some as a sign that the US expects to keep a permanent presence in Iraq..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1489979,00.html

SADDAM TRIAL SPEED-UP DENIED, SET FOR 2006

June 5:
"... the Iraqi Special Tribunal has abandoned the strategy urged by American lawyers who have guided much of its work since it was established by the American occupation authority last year... The Americans favored trying Mr. Hussein only after cases against some of his top aides were completed, allowing prosecutors to build up a pattern of "command responsibility" that led conclusively to Mr. Hussein... the most effective way of implicating Mr. Hussein in mass killings in which there was no clear documentary proof of Mr. Hussein's involvement, and of which Mr. Hussein's defense lawyers have said that Mr. Hussein was unaware at the time...
"But... spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari... said... that the government wanted the trial to begin within two months. ... the government preferred an approach that concentrated on 12 "fully documented cases"... sufficient to ensure that Mr. Hussein, 68, would receive the death sentence... "The position of the government is to speed up the trial".
http://nytimes.com/2005/06/05/international/middleeast/05cnd-trial.html?hp&ex=1118030400&en=0535acdfe33a1126&ei=5094&partner=homepage

June 7:
"... the Special Tribunal, set up in late 2003 to try senior members of the former regime, issued a statement saying no date had been set... (it) also denied a decision had been made to focus on just a dozen of the crimes of which Saddam is accused... In the past, tribunal officials have indicated that Saddam's deputies will be brought to trial first and Saddam himself may not appear in court until 2006."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=K5DZ0IVDY1LPOCRBAEZSFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=8718948

WAR COULD LAST SIX YEARS

"... Vice President Dick Cheney recently predicted on CNN that fighting in Iraq should end before the administration leaves in 2009. If U.S. forces leave that year, the war will have lasted six years."
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-895732.php

PRIMARY FORCES - OCCUPATION AND RESISTANCE

"... (Although) the winning ticket was elected after a campaign centered around promises of a timetable for US withdrawal, its leadership abandoned this demand while the occupation celebrated the huge turnout in Shi'ite and Kurdish areas as an endorsement of the occupation...

"By April, the whole issue of the election and the new government had faded into the background as an onslaught of car bombings exchanged headlines with two new military offensives by the American military... These recent developments have demonstrated that the occupation and the resistance continue to be the two primary forces in the country..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF08Ak01.html

ROAD MAP FOR IRAQ NEEDED

"... The Iraqi crisis won't be solved and the security situation won't enhance without an Iraqi Road Map that both demands that the occupation forces leave completely and pay compensation for the unjustified mess they caused, and stops the current violence cycle, guarantees the safety of all Iraqis, and encourages them to join the political path of rebuilding their country."
-- Raed Jarrar, the Baghdad Blogger, Friday, June 03, 2005
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

TROOPS REFUSE TRAINING FOR FEAR OF REPRISALS

"Iraqi troops refuse to attend U.S. army training... An Iraqi army unit has been disbanded after it refused to attend a U.S. training course in Baghdad... The soldiers... who had been receiving a salary of around $300 a month... said they had refused to attend training because they feared reprisals from locals if they were seen to have cooperated with the Americans..."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BAK445092.htm

TWO VIEWS OF FALLUJAH RECONSTRUCTION

"Sen. Mitch McConnell's itinerary last week included a day in Iraq... went to Baghdad and Fallujah... Fallujah, which had been a seething center of insurgency, the city "is calm now and getting back to normal, and (the Iraqis are) reconstructing the city," McConnell said..."
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050605/NEWS0104/506050438

"The failed siege of Fallujah... the US attempt to rid the city of resistance fighters in an effort to improve security in the country continues to plague the residents of Fallujah, and Iraq as a whole... Simmering anger grows with time among Fallujansises... who, after having most of their city destroyed by the US military onslaught, have seen promises remain mostly unfulfilled... Doctors working inside the city continue to complain of US and Iraqi security forces impeding their medical care... "the Ministry of Health was delivering aid into the city, but now this is prohibited, for unknown reasons"... "There is some reconstruction, but this is only being done by Fallujans and because the government of Iraq is only helping just a little"... "only 10% of the promised compensation had been paid out to date, and added that the health situation was "horrible, we are now having cholera outbreaks"... Recent drinking water tests performed by SCHRDF found that there was no potable water available inside Fallujah... "There are plenty of women in Fallujah who have testified they were raped by American soldiers. They are nearby the secondary school for girls inside Fallujah. When people came back to Fallujah the first time they found so many girls who were totally naked and they had been killed"... "people will never forget what was done to them and their city. I don't think we'll see the end of this. People will never forget to have their revenge on the American troops..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF03Ak01.html

RATE OF KILLING SAME AS UNDER SADDAM

"... Bayan Jabr, the Iraqi Minister of the Interior, that 12,000 Iraqis have died in the guerrilla war during the past 18 months... The 12,000 figure over 18 months would equal about 8000 deaths a year or 22 per day... The Baath Party was in power for about 35 years. If it had killed 8000 civilians per year, that would be 280,000 persons. That is about what is alleged... In other words, Bayan Jabr's figures suggest that in US-dominated Iraq, people are dying so far at about the same rate as they did under Baath rule..."
-- Juan Cole, Informed Comment, Friday, June 03, 2005
http://www.juancole.com/

DUAL-USE BIO AND CHEMICAL WEAPON MATERIALS MISSING

"The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) has not returned to Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003... (but its)... satellite imagery experts said... Equipment and material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons have been removed from 109 Iraqi sites... the dual-use equipment could be used for legitimate but also "for prohibited purposes"... Last year, the UN nuclear watchdog reported that 350 metric tons of high explosives had gone missing in Iraq around the time of the US-led invasion..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4607629.stm

MOVING TOWARDS OPEN CIVIL WAR - 800 DEATHS IN 5 WEEKS

May 11, 2005
"... the election... has had very little consequence on the reality of what's going on on the ground, as we move towards an open civil war there..."
--Seymour Hersh in interview
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051205K.shtml

June 3, 2005
"... More than 800 people, including US military personnel, have died in violence since the new Iraqi government took over in Iraq on 28 April..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4606287.stm

IRAQI CHILDREN MORE MALNOURISHED THAN BURUNDI, UGANDA, HAITI

"... the rate of malnutrition among Iraqi children has almost doubled since Saddam Hussein's ouster in April 2003. Today, at 7.7 percent, Iraq's child malnutrition rate is now roughly equal to that of Burundi, an African nation ravaged by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than the rates in Uganda and Haiti..."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0602-23.htm

U.S. BEGAN WAR IN 2002

"It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.
But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050613&s=scahill

"... We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq."
-- President's Radio Address (ironically) entitled "Denial and Deception", March 8, 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030308-1.html

U.S. LOST GRIP ON IRAQI POLITICS

"... the US has long lost its grip on Iraq's political process. “We are losing control,” said one veteran Arabist in the administration... He described the US embassy in Baghdad, without an ambassador for about six months, as “out of the loop” and not involved in significant decisions taken by the new transitional government
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9506bdfe-d1ff-11d9-8c82-00000e2511c8.html