Powell: Help Requests Will Come From Iraq

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - Any request for international support in Iraq (news - web sites) after the June 30 transfer of political power will come from the Iraqi interim government, not the United States, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said.

~snip~

Powell also said the U.S.-led occupation will end on June 30. U.S. and Iraqi officials have indicated that American and other troops will remain at the request of the Iraqis under a status-of-forces agreement currently being worked out.


Powell's statement was in response to a question whether a formal request for help might go out to the new Indian government after the turnover in a month's time.


"Well, the interesting point is that I no longer will be able to answer that question because, if there is a formal request, it will not be coming from the United States," Powell said. "It will be coming from the new sovereign government of Iraq."

~snip~
more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=703&e=3&u=/ap/20040529/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/powell_iraq

Anyone buying his crap? :eyes:

[acmavm]

1. What I buy is that it will be coming from the United States through

the mouthpieces of the Iraqi interim government. Wonder if it will go over any better than our pathetic pleas for help?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. They already are: "Help us get the U.S. troops out of Iraq" n/t

[Eloriel]

3. This is going to be real interesting to watch -- here's why

Chris Floyd (fabulous columnist, possibly my favorite right up there with Krugman) put it this way:

Throughout the spring, as hundreds died in the spiraling conflict, as Regime bosses applied their hardcore "anti-terrorist" tortures to innocent bystanders raked up in their occupation nets, as Regime mouthpieces prated endlessly of "liberation" and "sovereignty," Bush viceroy Paul Bremer was quietly signing a series of edicts that will give the United States effective control over the military, ministries -- and money -- of any Iraqi government, for years to come, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bremer has placed U.S.-appointed "commissions" made up of Americans and local puppets throughout Iraqi government agencies; the ministers supposedly in charge weren't even told of the edicts. These boards "will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens," the Journal reports. Any new Iraqi government "will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials."

Earlier Bremer edicts laid the Iraqi economy wide open to ruthless exploitation by Bush-approved foreign "investors"; dominance of such key sectors as banking, communications -- and energy -- is already well advanced. The latest dictates aim to ensure that this organized looting goes on, no matter what kind of makeshift "interim government" the United Nations manage to piece together. Bush's plans to build a Saddamite fortress embassy in Baghdad and 14 permanent military bases around the country are designed to provide the knee-breaking "security" for these lucrative arrangements.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/21/120.html