Sunday, January 04, 2004

Blair's blunder. According to a reporter friend of mine in Iraq, while Blair was on a surprise visit to troops in Basra today, he slipped up and talked about “weapons that can cause distraction on a massive scale.” This verbal flub was confirmed by the BBC’s political editor Andrew Marr. AP, Reuters and other news outlets I quickly scanned didn’t report the mistake. My friend and I suspect they reported off a transcript that Blair’s people had cleaned up — and understandably so! Anyway, no big deal here; I just found it amusing. Possibly even Freudian. We now return you to Mars,... [Back to Iraq 3.0] 1:47:40 PM    comment () CIA plans new secret police to fight Iraq terrorism. Nine months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime and his feared mukhabarat (intelligence) operatives, Iraq is to get a secret police force again -- courtesy of Washington. [...] Its ranks are to be drawn from Iraqi exile groups, Kurdish and Shi'ite forces -- in addition to former mukhabarat agents who are now working for the Americans. CIA officers in Baghdad are expected to play a leading role in directing their operations. [...] The scheme is believed to have been heavily backed by Vice-President Dick Cheney, a key advocate of the war to oust Saddam. After deciding in November to accelerate the handover of political power to a sovereign Iraqi authority, Mr Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials are anxious that Iraq should not fall under radical Islamist control or degenerate into civil war. "The presence of a powerful secret police, loyal to the Americans, will mean that the new Iraqi political regime will not stray outside the parameters that the US wants to set," said Mr Pike. "To begin with, the new Iraqi government will reign but not rule." [news.telegraph.co.uk] Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. 1:39:03 PM    comment ()

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