The Armageddon Plan

Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, along with then-President Gerald Ford, April 28, 1975.
Already during 1981-1992: Cheney and Rumsfeld Practice Secret Continuity of Government Plan, Later Activated on 9/11
Sources:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0143034898/centerforcoop-20
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-14.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55877-2004Apr6
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416535748/centerforcoop-20

Throughout the 1980s, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are key players in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan administration. Presently, Cheney is working as a Republican congressman, while Rumsfeld is head of the pharmaceutical company G. D. Searle. At least once per year, they both leave their day jobs for periods of three or four days. They head to Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, DC, and along with 40 to 60 federal officials and one member of the Reagan Cabinet are taken to a remote location within the US, such as an underground bunker. While they are gone, none of their work colleagues, or even their wives, knows where they are. They are participating in detailed planning exercises for keeping government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Unconstitutional 'Continuity of Government' - This highly secret “continuity of government” (COG) program is known as Project 908. The idea is that if the US were under a nuclear attack, three teams would be sent from Washington to separate locations around the US to prepare to take leadership of the country. If somehow one team was located and hit with a nuclear weapon, the second or third team could take its place. Each of the three teams includes representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, CIA, and various domestic-policy agencies. The program is run by a new government agency called the National Program Office. Based in the Washington area, it has a budget of hundreds of million dollars a year, which grows to $1 billion per year by the end of Reagan’s first term in office. Within the National Security Council, the “action officer” involved in the COG program is Oliver North, who is a key figure in the mid-1980s Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan’s Vice President, George H. W. Bush, also supervises some of the program’s efforts. As well as Cheney and Rumsfeld, other known figures involved in the COG exercises include Kenneth Duberstein, who serves for a time as President Reagan’s chief of staff, and future CIA Director James Woolsey. Another regular participant is Richard Clarke, who on 9/11 will be the White House chief of counterterrorism (see (1984-2004)). The program, though, is extraconstitutional, as it establishes a process for designating a new US president that is nowhere authorized in the US Constitution or federal law. After George H. W. Bush is elected president in 1988 and the effective end of the Soviet Union in 1989, the exercises continue. They will go on after Bill Clinton is elected president, but will then be based around the threat posed by terrorists, rather than the Soviet Union (see 1992-2000). According to journalist James Mann, the participation of Rumsfeld and Cheney in these exercises demonstrates a broader truth about them: “Over three decades, from the Ford administration onward, even when they were out of the executive branch of government, they were never too far away; they stayed in touch with its defense, military, and intelligence officials and were regularly called upon by those officials. Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States.”

USA-Iraq Fail to Meet Long-term Agreement Deadline

These days you are obliged to read Chinese papers and while they write in English about Iraq, you can avoid reading the nonsense about sports.

Iraq and the United States have failed to meet their deadline of a long-term security deal and turn to work on some "bridge agreement" that would set a framework for U.S. troops presence in Iraq after 2008. The deadline of July 31, put forward last November by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and U.S. President George W. Bush, has passed without signing the long-awaited pact, though U.S. officials declared repeatedly both countries were close to conclude the deal. Both countries intended to reach the security agreement by the deadline, but the proposed agreement had always been under fire from U.S. congressmen to Iraq's anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iran.
The United States and Iraq were working on two pieces of agreement, one is the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) and the other is Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said in a statement. "The SFA covers the entire range of bilateral relations including economic, cultural, diplomatic, etc. The SOFA covers military cooperation," it said, asserting that United States has such long-term agreements with many countries. The United States and Iraq are working on some short-term "bridge agreement" or a "memorandum of understanding" (MoU) instead, after the long-term agreements of SFA and SOFA missed their deadline amid disputes and criticisms. The reason for such short-term agreement is that signing SFA and SOFA agreements would take several years of negotiations, but the UN mandate for U.S. troops in Iraq will expire by the end of 2008. The MoU "would allow the United States to continue military operations in Iraq until an SOFA could be completed," the U.S. embassy said. The two sides confirmed that negotiations are underway despite the time of the negotiations, which kicked off in March, is running out.
Observers see the U.S. administration is in a hurry to seal a kind of agreement before the U.S. presidential elections this fall. They pointed out that the U.S. administration needs a long-term troops presence to defend its allies and interests in Iraq and to encourage foreign investment in the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed Shiite government is facing harsh criticisms against the agreement with the United States and is trying to balance its attitude in the negotiations. The Iraqi government needs a security agreement with the Americans to protect itself from its foes inside Iraq, while it has to keep in line with other Shiites in Iran and inside Iraq who oppose permanent U.S. troops presence in the country.
Not only Shiites, the majority of Iraqis see the agreement as a surrender of Iraq's sovereignty to an occupying force and fear it would lead to a permanent presence of U.S. troops. Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Thursday urged the Iraqi government not to sign the agreement and offered public and political support for Maliki's government if it refrains from signing the agreement.
Earlier, Sadr called on followers to hold weekly protest against the negotiations until the government agrees to a referendum on the U.S. presence. Thousands have responded to his call.
Iran opposes any deal between Baghdad and Washington extending the presence of U.S. troops in its neighbor.
Iraq's Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite, went further and doubted whether his country could sign a security agreement with Bush's administration or even with the coming administration after the presidential elections in the United States. "I am not sure whether this will happen during either administration, but if Iraq's demands are met, then we may reach a protocol or a sort of agreement," Mahdi was quoted as saying in an interview with local media issued on the website of the Iraqi presidency council. "We are not going to sign a treaty, this is unlikely," he said, adding that Iraq needs agreements that could control the actions of foreign troops on its land.
Observers questioned how strong Iraq's negotiation position is in such agreement with the world supreme power. It is believed that the Iraqi government's room to maneuver may be limited due to its dependence on U.S. troops to secure its borders and protect it from armed groups that defy its authority. However, if Baghdad fails to reach agreement with Washington, it could seek a further extension of the UN mandate, though it has said the current extension is the last one.

Talk Show Host Calls for Murder

Michael Reagan says activist should be killed for treason

Nationally syndicated conservative radio host Michael Reagan called for the murder of a political activist on June 10. Reagan, a frequent guest on cable news shows and the son of President Ronald Reagan, singled out 9/11 activist Mark Dice by name and called several times for his assassination.
(Click here to listen to a 3 minute audio clip.)
Reagan had learned that political activists had reportedly been sending letters and DVDs to troops in Iraq, advancing the theory that the U.S. government had carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks. For promoting this unpopular view, the talk show host advocated that these activists should be killed as "traitors":
"We ought to find the people who are doing this, take them out and shoot them. Really. You take them out, they are traitors to this country, and shoot them. You have a problem with that? Deal with it. You shoot them. You call them traitors, that's what they are, and you shoot them dead. I'll pay for the bullets."
Even more troubling was the call for violence against a specific individual: "How about you take Mark Dice out and put him in the middle of a firing range. Tie him to a post, don't blindfold him, let it rip and have some fun with Mark Dice."
Reagan subsequently had Dice on his show (6/16/08) as a guest and stated, “I’m sorry for what I said.” As an explanation, Reagan offered, "Sometimes radio hosts we get fired up and angry and we say things that are actually stupid, and we make mistakes."
Reagan's "mistakes," unfortunately, have repeatedly involved advocating murder to his audience. On August 15, 2006, Reagan called for violently killing babies who were reportedly being named for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah: “Naming their children 'Hezbollah,' you know what I’d get 'em for a first birthday? I’d put a grenade up their butts and light it. Happy Birth-day, baby. Bye bye.”
In response to a caller who pointed out that children are not responsible for the names they are given, Reagan repeatedly asserted, "So what’s wrong with killing the mothers and the babies?"
On December 5, 2005, Reagan said Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean "should be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq War." (Watch clip on the Media Matters website) This was in response to Dean's statement (WOAI-AM, 12/5/05) that "the idea that we're going to win this war is just plain wrong."

Reagan's distributor, Radio America, also distributes the G. Gordon Liddy Show. Liddy, a former Nixon aide sent to prison for the Watergate break-in, also has a history of calling for violence over the airwaves, repeatedly advocating that listeners shoot federal law enforcement officials in the head. For example, on August 26, 1994, Liddy told his listeners:
"Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bullet-proof vests.... They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

Needless to say, calls for violence against those one disagrees with are dangerous and corrosive to the public discussion. A responsible distributor has rules against such on-air death threats--and consequences when such rules are violated.



ACTION:
Ask Radio America to explain its policies regarding calls for violence on its nationally syndicated programming. Does the company really permit its hosts to call for murder on the air?

Reagan's show is broadcast on "more than 150 stations," according to Radio America. If the show broadcasts near where you live, contact the local station management and ask them to stop broadcasting death threats on your local public airwaves.

CONTACT:
Radio America President Jim Roberts
703-302-1000 ext 215.
Email: jroberts@radioamerica.org

We have Seen the Enemy and He Is Us

Last train from Baghdad
Improbably, an opportunity has arisen in Iraq for the United States to attain two of its most important goals, namely obtaining some legitimacy for the "government" of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and getting American troops out of his country at the same time.
This could be the last international express leaving Baghdad Central Station, and the United States and its armed forces should be on it.
The opportunity arises from a breakdown in negotiations to draw up a status of forces agreement and a so-called security framework, which is an unequal alliance in all but name.
Washington should be dancing in the streets. There could at this point be no better way for American troops to exit Iraq than in response to a request from the Iraqi "government." Contrary to the neocon's promises, the Iraqis did not welcome American troops with flowers, but they might be willing to toss a few in front of U.S. forces as they pull out.
The United States could then withdraw from a failed enterprise with flags flying and drums rolling, maintaining a halfway credible pretense that the American nation did not lose the war in Iraq. American policymakers are not likely to do better than that.
At the same time, the Maliki "government" in Baghdad has a heaven-sent opportunity to acquire what it needs most, namely some legitimacy. So long as it is propped up by American troops, it will remain in the eyes of almost all Iraqis as acquiescing in a foreign and non-Muslim occupation of a Muslim country, a 21st century equivalent of the Vichy regime in France that collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces during World War II.
But if the Maliki government ordered the Americans out, it would suddenly begin to look like a real Iraqi government. That is far from enough to restore a state in Iraq, but it would be a step in the right direction.
There is little doubt that if a referendum were held in Iraq on sending the Americans home, it would win in a landslide. Iraqi politicians know where their public is on this issue, and like politicians everywhere they want to swim with the tide.
Moreover, some seem to sense that the Americans' time in Iraq is ending if not over. As usual, the Desert Fox, Moqtada Sadr, is making all the right moves. He is positioning himself as leader of all Iraqi resistance to the American occupation, not just head of a Shiite faction.
By welcoming Iraqi troops -- many of whom are his militiamen -- into areas he controls but fighting the Americans, Sadr is splitting his opposition. Most importantly, he is maintaining his credentials as the Iraqi leader least willing to condone a continued occupation, thereby gaining that decisive quality, legitimacy.
If the Iraqi government orders American troops out, the result would be a win-win situation. America would win, and so would Iraq. In fact, it would be a win-win outcome, and there's the rub. The third winner would be Iran. A Shiite-dominated Iraq free of American occupation would have a close relationship with Iran. In fact, in order to defend itself in a nasty neighborhood Iraq would probably conclude a formal alliance with Iran.
The Bush administration's response should be a rapprochement with Iran. After all, the United States' real enemy is not any state but the non-state forces of Fourth Generation War. But that is not how the Bush administration will view the matter.
On the contrary, faced with the possibility of an Iranian strategic victory, courtesy of the American troops who overthrew Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the U.S. government is likely to take the fool's way out, escalation. Inside the White House bubble, the argument for attacking Iran might become irresistible, driven as it would be by panic.
The outcome of such folly could very well include the loss of the American army now in Iraq, not to mention another doubling in the price of oil. As usual under the second-worst president in American history -- Woodrow Wilson still ranks No. 1 -- we have seen the enemy, and he is us.
All the U.S. government has to do to get out of Iraq with some dignity while strengthening the government it installed there is to push that government into ordering U.S. forces home. That should be easy enough; what intransigence in the ongoing negotiations cannot achieve a few million Swiss francs should certainly manage. Instead, the Bush administration will refuse to board the last train out of the station, then blow up the railroad. If it were happening to someone else, it would all be comical.

Some Thoughts of a Layman on Economics

Historically, it is no accident that excessive consumption has profoundly permeated our culture. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), developed by Simon Kuznets in 1941 and the leading economic indicator for measuring the health and prosperity of national economies, is virtually useless in achieving its putative objective. Defined as “the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a given country in a given period of time”, GDP results in economic policies that are formulated to ensure the maximum growth of GDP from year to year. To reduce the concept of GDP to its simplest terms, an economy is defined as healthy only if people consume more.

Forming the basis for many other economic measurements, it weakens their usefulness. For example, when comparing national debt or tax revenue to previous time periods or to other countries, the methodology requires using the ratio of these amounts to GDP because total tax revenues and debt are meaningless without comparing them to the wealth of a country.

Alarmingly, the rate of growth as measured by the GDP has risen by 261% since 1972 based on the current value of the American dollar. The implications for pollution waste, global warming, water, energy are directly related to the growth in consumption.

By only measuring consumption, GDP is rife with flaws that completely undermine its value as a measurement of human well-being financially or otherwise. Consider the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 in Prince William Sound where ten million gallons of crude oil were spilt. Estimated total costs of recovery from this disaster were US$7 billion and included cleanup costs, loss of vessel, loss of cargo, salvage costs, fines, penalties, insurance payouts and legal costs. In addition, it is impossible to measure the loss of 33,126 birds, 3,000 sea otters, and the impact on bears, whales, sea lions, salmon and a myriad of other animals.

Every single dollar spent on the Exxon Valdez disaster would have contributed to the GDP as every expense reflected the consumption of a good or service. In other words, US$7 billion was part of the” total market value of all final goods and services produced within a given country [U.S.].” The GDP was boosted by the disaster but there were no benefits to a single citizen of the U.S. (unless you want to count the employment of people in the industries which were part of the recovery in which case you would have to define the US$3 trillion spent on the war and occupation of Iraq as a benefit to society). Referred to as negative counting which includes divorce, cigarettes, alcohol, and automobile accidents, it artificially boosts the value of the GDP without providing any benefits.

As well, GDP fails to reflect the distribution of income in society or who is doing the consuming. Despite the fact that the GDP has been continuously rising over the previous decade, the gap between the rich and poor has widened. In fact, Simon Kuznets predicted income equality for both poor and rich countries with his inverted U-shaped curve. His explanation for the growing inequality in countries with increasing wealth resulted from a shift from agricultural to industrial sectors.

One of the measurements used to calculate the distribution of income is the Gini Coefficient which ranges from zero (perfect equality) to one (all wealth is concentrated in one person). In 1967, the Gini Coefficient was .394 in the U.S. whereas in 2001, it was .466. To emphasize the inefficacy of the GDP, it must be noted that although the United States has the highest GDP among all nations, the United States has the highest Gini Coefficient among thirty of the wealthiest countries.

Using linear regression least-squares analysis comparing the Gini Coefficient to GDP, the regression coefficient for the years between 1992 and 2001 is .679 which shows a fairly strong linear relationship. In other words, as the GDP increased, the gap between the rich and poor increased.

A very significant deficiency in the GDP is the failure to incorporate externalities into its calculation. Externalities are costs that are excluded from the price but paid for either by society or people who suffered as a result of production. Externalities include damage to the environment, health costs borne by those who suffer from the lack of health and safety measures in the workplace or toxic substances used in production or that result from production and depletion of natural resources.

Development of alternatives to the GDP began in 1989 but have been routinely ignored by political leaders and captains of industry inasmuch as GDP does not measure pollution, depletion of resources, or inequitable distribution of income. Recognition of these flaws would pressure the government to adopt policies that actually benefited all members of society and respected the environment.

One of these alternatives is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) which incorporates the following factors: income distribution index, value of household work and parenting, value of higher education, value of volunteer work, cost of crime, loss of leisure time, cost of underemployment, cost of household pollution abatement, cost of automobile accidents, cost of water pollution, cost of air pollution, loss of wetlands, loss of farmland, loss of primary forests, depletion of nonrenewable energy resources, carbon dioxide emissions damage, and costs of ozone depletion.

Comparing the variations in the GDP to GPI from 1982 to 2004 reveals the extent to which incorporating factors related to the quality of life for everyone varies the outcome.
Richard Nixon (1970): “Our gross domestic product will increase $500 billion in the next years.”

Year GDP GPI

1982 +4.0% +1.2% Ronald Reagan

1983 +8.7% +4.2%

1984 +11.2% -1.2%

1985 +7.3% +2.3%

1986 +5.7% +0.9%

1987 +6.2% -1.9%

1988 +7.7% +0.6%

1989 +7.5% +1.3% G.H.W. Bush

1990 +5.8% +0.6%

1991 +3.3% -0.8%

1992 +5.7% -0.3%

1993 +5.0% +1.3% Bill Clinton

1994 +6.2% +0.3%

1995 +4.6% +3.8%

1996 +5.7% +1.9%

1997 +6.2% +0.5%

1998 +5.3% +2.2%

1999 +6.0% +5.4%

2000 +5.9% +1.0%

2001 +3.2% -3.9% George Bush

2002 +3.4% +3.5%

2003 +4.7% +1.3%

2004 +6.6% +2.5%

Average +5.9% +1.1%

An average growth rate of 5.9 in the GDP would be considered a healthy expansion of the economy while a growth rate of 1.13% in the GPI would be considered very poor. In fact, a recession is considered to be two consecutive quarters of negative growth and there were five years of negative growth in the GPI. Business and political leaders would be confronted with a formidable challenge if they were forced to explain the contrast in these two measurements and why they have not implemented policies to correct the problems exposed by the GPI. A genuine answer would divulge the synergistic relationship between big business and government.

New Danger Ahead in Iraq

It is not all going very well in Iraq, but we did not notice because we looked at the race for the Presidency of the USA to observe the effects of Barack Obama’s trip to the Near East and Europe. Renewed increase of violence caught our attention. What’s going wrong?
The Voice of Iraq – Aswat Alraq had some of the answers.

BAGHDAD, July 26 (VOI) – A parliamentarian from the Iraqi National List (INL) on Saturday said that the delay in passing the provincial council elections law does not serve the interests of the country or the political process.
"We, the Iraqi National List, will vote again for the law inside the parliament because we believe that it is not in the interest of the country or the political process to delay it," Izzat al-Shabandar told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI).
"If the law is passed against by the parliament, it will be a success for the political process. If not, the Iraqi people will have to take a stance on it," the parliamentarian noted.
The INL holds 20 seats in the 275-member parliament.
On Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament, with the approval of 127 deputies out of 140 who attended the session, passed the law on provincial council elections, which includes an article postponing the elections in the city of Kirkuk sine die.
Lawmakers from the Kurdistan Coalition (KC), the second largest bloc with 53 out of a total 275 seats, had withdrawn from the session in protest against Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani's decision to have a secret balloting over article 24 of the law, pertaining to the status of Kirkuk. Balloting over all the other paragraphs of the law, however, was open.
On Wednesday, the presidential board, with the unanimity of President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies Adel Abdelmahdi and Tareq al-Hashimi, rejected the law in a rapid reaction one day after the Iraqi parliament passed it during a session that raised hue and cry over its constitutionality.
The law drew angry reactions from the Kurds, who considered the way the law was passed as a "twisting of the constitution," threatening to use the right of veto, granted by the Iraqi constitution for the presidential board, headed by President Talabani, a Kurd, to reject the law and return it to the parliament for debate.
The local elections should be held by the end of this year. All political blocs agreed on a new law on elections, hoped by the Iraqi government and other political parties to help end violence in the country through containing a number of armed groups into the current political process.
The law on provincial council elections, seen as supplementary to the law on regions and non-regional provinces, specifies the system of government in Iraq, and if applied, a federal system may be established in the country with three separate regions, a call echoed by some Iraqi political parties.

It is not very strange with the Kirkuk question unsolved. The Kirkuk region is oil rich and original Kurdish territory. During the Baath regime Kurds were pressed to leave and Sunni and Baath Arabs came in their places. After the fall of the regime the Kurds came back demanding the ownership of their confiscated houses and properties again. Most Arabs refused and so the conflict came alive. The Kurds want all their territories back. Juan Cole, the astute observer, says: "The conflict between Kurds and Arabs over Kirkuk is a crisis waiting to happen." He also cites Al-Hayat, as claiming that not only do the Kurds want to control Kirkuk, an oil-rich province in Iraq's north, but they plan to annex three other provinces where Kurds live: Diyala, Salahuddin, and Ninewa. That's not likely, but they do want Kirkuk, and the vetoed election law would have limited the Kurds' ability to press their gains there.
Of course, that’s very likely, no doubt about that, but there is another question involved too. Like all the states in the Near East has Iraq a Wahabitisch kind of Islam too and this fanatic Arab Sunnis, a minority, are on the side of Al Qaeda in Iraq, most foreign combatants but not all, and the remains are under protection of some sheiks in the West and of course they were most active to take over Kirkuk during the Baath regime while Baath was dominant in their home regions. So, as far as Al Qaeda in Iraq still exists it is there, in the West and in Kirkuk and from there they attack pilgrims, occupiers and government’s institutes with suicide attacks.

SULAIMANIYA, July 30 (VOI) - Thousands of the Sulaimaniya residents on Wednesday staged a demonstration protesting the passage of the provincial council elections law.
"Thousands staged today a peaceful demonstration in separate areas in Sulaimaniya and they gathered in front of the Sulaimaniya province's building at the center of the city," Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq (VOI) correspondent in the city said.
Local police chief Brigadier Hassan Nouri had said Tuesday tight security measures have been put in place in preparation for a demonstration that is scheduled to take place in Sulaimaniya city condemning the passage of the provincial council elections law.
On Monday, a total of 22 civilians were killed and 150 others were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of demonstrators, who took to the streets in downtown Kirkuk, condemning the passage of the provincial council elections law, which includes an article postponing the city's elections.
Last July 22, the Iraqi Parliament, with the approval of 127 deputies out of 140 who attended the session, passed the law on provincial council elections.
Last Wednesday, the Presidential Board, with the unanimity of President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies Adel Abdelmahdi and Tareq al-Hashimi, rejected the law in a rapid reaction one day after the Iraqi Parliament passed it during a session that raised hue and cry over its constitutionality
Sulaimaniya, the capital city of Sulaimaniya province, lies 364 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

A statement from the Iraqi president office branded “passing the law for provincial councils as an unconstitutional violation and against the will of the main second Iraqi constituent (Kurds) and the principle of national accordance”.
The announcement added “president Talabani urged the presidency board not to pass the law”.
The Sadrist bloc holds 30 out of the parliament’s total 275 seats while Kurdish coalition has 53.
Tarzi branded “the walkout of Kurdish lawmakers as a legal right since it did unsettle the quorum”.
Kurds make up one of three main groups, and their boycott of the vote means the bill could be sent back to parliament through a president’s veto.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants the election to take place on October 1, but the Electoral Commission says it will not have time to organize it by then, even with the law in place.
Earlier, Faraj al-Haidari,time was running out to hold polls this year, because the commission needed time to prepare, and decided to postpone them until December.
The law had been held up by a dispute over what to do about voting in multi-ethnic Kirkuk, where a dispute is simmering between Kurds who say the city should belong to the largely autonomous Kurdistan region and Arabs who want it to stay under central government authority.
Arabs and Turkmen believe Kurds have stacked the city with Kurds since the downfall of Saddam in 2003 to try to tip the demographic balance in their favor in any vote. Arabs encouraged to move there under Saddam Hussein's rule fear the vote will consolidate Kurdish power and they sought to postpone it, a proposal Kurdish politicians have rejected.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and add another article that the Kurds found unacceptable: that each ethnic or sectarian group gets a set allocation of seats and voting is between individual candidates from those groups. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen get 10 seats each. Minority Christians get two.

"We walked out because of the illegality of this article and because the speaker wanted a secret vote, which is not constitutional," said Fouad Massoum, head of the Kurdish bloc.
Washington has been urging a speedy provincial election, which it sees as a pillar of national reconciliation, but the poll is also proving a potential flashpoint for tensions.

It seems that orthodox muslims are used for the new surge of violence, happily to do it out of their feelings of revenge on the Awakening who defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq. A one-day round-up:

A roadside bomb planted outside the residence of Dawa Party member, Abdulrahman Mohammed Dawood in Zafaraniyah, southeastern Baghdad exploded injuring Dawood and two of his security detail at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by Awakening Council, a US backed militia, in Adhamiyah at 9 a.m. killing two members. The gunmen used silencers on their weapons, said Iraqi Police.

One unidentified body was found by Iraqi Police, Thursday. It was found in Nidhal Street, central Baghdad.

Nineveh: A suicide car bomber targeted a checkpoint manned by Iraqi Army in al-Intisar neighbourhood, eastern Mosul killing two soldiers, injuring two others.

Diyala: A female suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt targeted an Awakening Council Commander in Baquba, Naeem al-Dulaimi at 3 p.m. Thursday. The explosion, which took place in a car dealership while Dulaimi was checking a car killed him, his two security guards and four civilians, injuring at least twenty four others including women and children. '

The final crisis-to-be is the Sadr vs. Badr one. The Times today suggests that Sadr is weakening:
The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq.
Don't believe it. Sadr's rivals, ISCI, don't have anything like the popular base that Sadr has. And underneath Sadr is a volatile mix of neighborhood, local and regional militias, mosques, and economic fiefdoms that won't yield easily to ISCI and Maliki. Perhaps in future fighting, when politics don't serve to gain the unity-state, Sadr's forces are dependent on Iran, however, for arms and cash, Iran may be in the driver's seat.
Just the other day, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps crowed that the United States has failed to establish install an anti-Iranian regime in Baghdad, and he's completely right.
So Iraq is still poised to explode, and Iran may be in control. McCain's solution: provoke a showdown with Iran. Obama's solution: try to make a deal with Iran to stabilize Iraq. I'm not sure either "plan" will work, but with support of Russia and the European Union Obama has the best papers. McCain is chance less, because what he says is always over strained by his desire to “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran…” That’s where Russia - most likely the EU too - is on the side of Iran to guarantee Iran’s safety against foreign threats which can urge Iran to go nuclear.
McCain will love the Iranian nuclear option, because he has by then a clear mandate to start WWIII, bur the Obama-USA, Asia, Russia and Europe are not admiring such a mass destruction of suicidal Republican America and the world.

The Way to a Time Table

One of the major questions in Iraq is the position of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Is he really independent and not leaning on help from Iran? If he gets Iranian help he is not different from the Badr militia which is the military arm of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. Maliki has been in exile in Iran and Syria during the Baath regime and the Badr militia are trained and armed by Iran. That’s no secret. It is the reason why Muqtada al Sadr finds more support in the Iraqi people who don’t want to become a satellite of Iran. This is an ethnic question, because most of the Iraqi Shiites are Arab citizens and Iranian Shiites are Persians. The ancestors of Muqtada al Sadr came from Lebanon and they have a more modern feeling about freedom of religion and still be themselves very orthodox, guarding their societies against strange influences. Well, that’s not to call very radical in the Near East, but you cannot imagine that Muqtada al Sadr will allow strange Persian Shiite influence and also not a western influence from foreign occupiers or extreme Sunni combatants of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
Until march 2008 Nouri al Maliki was cooperating with the occupiers and of course this was held for collaboration with the enemy by the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, from which 94% wants the foreign troops out of their country. Especially for the Shiites the Iraqi country is a kind of holy land with different holy cities and there is an infidel in charge or no infidel presence to be allowed. So, the collaboration of the government of Maliki meets harsh resistance from different groups, the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites and Nouri al Maliki’s friendship with Iran and their support makes things more worse for him, but he is the protection for Persian Shiites. The fight for power between Al Sadr and Al Maliki has to be fought in Bagdad’s Sadr City and the harbour town Basra with other cities in the Southern regions where Shiites are dominant. To gain control over Basra was the goal of Al Maliki’s attacks in March 2008 and he did not succeed. The governments army, police and other institutes are heavily infiltrated by Muqtada’s followers and so he is not out of control when he announces a cheese fire to limit the losses. His military power is not very strong, with a lack of weaponry in the Mahdi Army and his fighters have to feed their families. When they fight, they levy taxes on the public and when that situation has to last too long, they become unpopular. The function is that Muqtada al Sadr can show his great influence. He can invoke massive violence and he can take violence down as he wishes. The Mahdi Army disappears from the streets, but don’t think that the “winner” is in charge. After all Muqtada al Sadr has a strong coalition with Sunnis and Kurds and leads the opposition in the Parliament, his primary battleground.
So, when Nouri al Maliki could not weaken the position of Muqtada al Sadr, Al Maliki became in great danger, because of the developments in the neighbouring state Iran, where Russia guaranteed the security against attacks from outside with something in return. The former Sovjet giant does not like the Iranians to have atomic weapons, nor that they gain great influence in Iraq, which is a threat for the Arab nations. So, they want to control both against dangerous developments and with a friendly state at the Gulf they can put through their products like oil and natural gas to the Indian Ocean, a centuries old Russian wish.
So, Iran is not allowed by its mighty friend to interfere in Iraq and risk an American attack for that. In that case they lose the Russian support, but the consequence is, that Nouri al Maliki stands alone as soon as the allied occupiers are going home. He needs new protection and the best protection is to stand up against the USA. That has united the different political parties and by now the government gains its first country wide support. The difference is still that Nouri al Maliki wants a federal state, divided by ethnic and religious borders, while the opposition wants restoration of the unity-state, like during the Baath regime, but without a dominant group in charge, a balanced power sharing and sharing the wealth of the oil to be spent in public services and equal benefits.
It will be a hell of job to clean the institutions from corruption and power abuse but the concept is admirable. Political unity and descent rivalry on some political differences is no danger. There are elections at October 1, 2008. Therefore we have now the idea of a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops, and it is no longer the exclusive point of view for a Democratic candidate to be the Democratic nominee for Presidency. The idea is shared by Iraq from Al Maliki to all the parties and down in the public. The year 2010 seems to be the common agreement.
There are three figures opposing this, President Bush, who wants only to speak about a time horizon, Republican nominee John McCain, still looking for a long term control over Iraq and Tehran.
Tehran?
That’s right. As has happened so often in recent years (driving the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, Iran’s greatest foes, from power), Mr. Bush finds himself pushing a policy that coincides with Iranian interests. From the start, Tehran has wanted to frustrate American goals in Iraq but not defeat them. So long as the United States is bogged down there, the clerics reason, it won’t have the desire, domestic political support and wherewithal to attack them.
How did we reach this point?
The Iraqi about face on timetables came to light in news reports about talks between the U.S. and Iraq on security agreements. U.S. troops are currently operating under a United Nations mandate that will expire in December and needs to be replaced if the American military is to continue to operate legally inside the country. It quickly became clear that any deal was likely to be short-term, and unlikely to openly sanction the long-term presence of American forces. But details of that future agreement are under dispute.
The Elections Complicate Everything
Iraqi leaders fear that they could be punished in provincial elections planned for later this year if they agree to a deal that spells out a long-term presence for American forces. Some clerics have pushed the Iraqi government to reject any kind of deal with the Americans. It’s possible that any deal may have to be postponed until after the provincial elections.
Of course, the American elections have not made anything clearer, as the bickering about Senator Obama’s timetable underscored. There is some support for a short-term deal that could be renegotiated later, with the eventual winner of the presidential campaign.
Any Deal May Be a Short-Term Deal
The New York Times’ Alissa J. Rubin reported that American officials are no longer confident that a complete security agreement can be reached this year. Iraq’s foreign minister has raised the possibility that even if an agreement was reached, it would be a short-term pact.
Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has also said that he favours a short-term deal over a longer four-year agreement.