Friday, June 16, 2006

Just Another sign

Of just how screwed up things are in Iraq. Iraqi officials have now admitted that they don't even control their own prisons, independent militias do.

Iraq's prison system is overrun with Shiite Muslim militiamen who have freed fellow militia members convicted of major crimes and executed Sunni Arab inmates, the country's deputy justice minister said in an interview this week.

"We cannot control the prisons. It's as simple as that," said the deputy minister, Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei, an ethnic Kurd. "Our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."


But, when they step up, we can stand down.

Just another useless soundbite, that offers no real hope, and no real plan.


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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This has been brewing for decades and Saddam managed to keep it in place. Bush just opened Pandora's box.
I'm not sure if Americans are to blame for the situation. Religious differences are quite deep rooted. It will take loonies like Pat to sort things out there.

Jon said...

Our major fault was taking the lid off the box, with out a clue about what would happen (some in the US did have a clue, they were ignored or told to go away) or a plan on what to do.

Our hubris assured this failure

Lynne said...

Independent corporations control our prisons.

Unknown said...

While the situation in Iraq is worrisome, rather than just go on about how wrong Bush was, or how he messed everything up, what about coming up with ideas on how to fix the mess. If we want Republicans out of power, we need to give the people a real alternative that deals with the issues rather than merely delve on the failures of the current administration. Most people already know what these are, hence Bush's low poll numbers, however democrats have failed to provide either a coherent or realistic alternative. Bring the troops home now, doesn't work, it is just a cop-out, and shows a complete lack of misunderstanding of the enemies we face. Iraq may have not been about al Qaeda, WMD or nukes, but if we abandon it now, it will become a more dangerous breeding ground for terrorists that would eclipse Afghanistan post-Soviet withdrawal.

Jon said...

NYkrinDC

I Have laid out aplan a number of times, anda number of other voices have alos hinted to this same comcept.

The US has to appoligise to the world, and beg for help.

It is that simple.

Iraq will only start to calm down when US forces are out, but US forces can not leave with the nation as unstable as WE MADE IT.

There has to be an international police force (peace keepers), backed by a NATO quick reaction combat force stationed in near by countries. The boot on the ground in Iraq must be mostly Islamic, and seen as non occupying, and there need to be about 250,000 of them.

The US can supply the air power (stationed outside the country), some of the NATO reaction force (again outside the country) and then UN Peacekeepers (paid for by us, again we are the ones who are responsable) in Iraq in the hundreds of thousands.

That has a slight chance to work, but the harsh reality is

1. The war should never had been started

2. There needed to be 3x as many troops in Iraq when the war was over.

3. Because of 1 and 2 there is now a religious civil war, that may be unstopable by any means.