IRAQIS PROTEST BUSH'S PLAN ON KEEPING U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ

Bush and Cheney and their gang have only three months left in office. The election for a new president is only two and half weeks away. For those reasons, the U.S. government should not be ramming through a status-of-forces agreement with the government of Iraq. Any decision or agreement should be left to the new president.

The proposed agreement calls for U.S. forces to be in Iraq until 2011. This is unacceptable. The world sees Americans as occupiers, not as liberators. The U.S. needs to pull out as soon as possible. Consider the demonstration today by tens of thousands of Shiites against the proposed agreement.

Hamza Hendawi writes in the website of The Washington Post:

"Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraq's parliament to reject a pact that would extend U.S. presence in Iraq for three years as tens of thousands of his followers marched through Baghdad's streets Saturday to reinforce that demand.

"The large turnout points to trouble ahead for the U.S.-Iraqi security deal as Sunni and Shiite lawmakers weigh the political risks associated with the far-reaching agreement."

The BBC reports on the Shiite demonstration:

"Chanting slogans and waving banners, tens of thousands of Shias, mainly young men, marched on the eastern suburb of Sadr City towards the centre of Baghdad.
"The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says Moqtada Sadr's militant opposition to the US presence has strong grassroots support among many Shias - and this was a physical manifestation of that opposition."

I applaud the protesting Iraqis. They want the foreign Americans out of their country. If the roles were reversed and Iraqis were the invaders and occupiers, who would find it strange that Americans would be protesting without end? Instead of trying to saddle the next president with his ill-conceived foreign adventure in Iraq, Bush should quit trying to make a deal on keeping American troops in Iraq. The sooner they come home, the better for both the U.S. and Iraq.

BUSH WAR MONGERS PAINT IRAN AS "ENEMY"

The word must be passed down from Bush and Cheney - prepare the American people to think that Iran is the "enemy" and is supplying IED's and other deadly munitions to the Shiite militia. Witness Bush the other day at a news conference with Afghan president Karzai claiming without any basis in reality that the Iranian government and its leaders have expressed a desire for nuclear weapons. In fact, Iran has never expressed a desire to have nuclear weapons, only nuclear power for its grids. But Bush wants Americans to believe that those Iranians are an imminent threat! War is the only answer! Bomb Teheran!

Switch to the U.S. military in Iraq, especially former White House aide and now chief military public affairs officer, Gen. Bergner, who claims, again without evidence, that Iran is training, arming and supporting militiamen who kill U.S. troops. Even Sen. Joe Lieberman got into the act last month by sponsoring a resolution calling on Iran to stop killing American soldiers. Unbelievably, the rest of the feckless Senate went along with Lieberman, even though there is not one shred of evidence that Iran is clandestinely involved in the war.

Juan Cole in Informed Comment has this perspicacious analysis of the American war mongers and saber rattlers:

"The US military appears to continue to ascribe all roadside bombings in Baghdad deploying explosively formed projectiles to Shiite militiamen, but this conclusion is shaky for all sorts of reasons. There is every reason to believe that Sunni Arab guerrillas could manufacture these devices, since the plates involved are made for the Iraqi oil industry, as well. And, if Iran did give any to anyone it would have been to the Badr Corps paramilitary, which may have failed to secure its warehouses or which may have some corrupt members that have sold off some of the munitions.

"Unfortunately, the Pentagon allegations, which are attempting to implicate Iran in the killing of US troops, have already been used by Senator Joe Lieberman in a saber-rattling resolution against Tehran, and are a foot in the door for the war party in Washington with regard to getting up military action against Iran. That it is mostly based on innuendo, unsubstantiated assumptions, and faulty reasoning will do us no good if the politicians start believing this stuff and using it to throw more billions to Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other arms manufacturers."

PENTAGON ARMING AND SUPPLYING SHIITE MILITIAS WHEN IT LOSES CONTROL OF WEAPONS

Oh this is good. I posted this morning on Gen. Ray Odierno claiming that Iran is arming and training and supplying Iraqi Shiite militias in their fight against the U.S. forces. Later on today comes news that the Defense Department cannot locate hundreds of thousands of weapons, such as AK -47s supplied to the Iraqi government.

Nick Childs writes for the BBC:

"The GAO says that, of some 185,000 assault rifles and 170,000 pistols that the Pentagon says it supplied to the Iraqi security forces, it can account for less than half: there is a discrepancy of 110,000 in the case of AK-47s, and 80,000 pistols.

"The gaps in the figures for body armour and helmets are even bigger - only 80,000 out of a total of 215,000 sets of body armour accounted for, and only 25,000 out of 140,000 helmets."

So let's put two and two together. Odierno claims Iran is arming Shiite militias who attack U.S. troops. But the Pentagon admits that it allowed some 165,000 weapons to go "missing." Why then must Iran have anything to do with "arming" and "supplying" Shiite militias. All that supplying and arming is being done by none other than the Pentagon and the Defense Department. There is no reason or necessity to lay the blame on Iran. Put it on those culpable, the generals and the colonels in the Pentagon.