Rumsfeld in Iraq

US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq yesterday. Iraq-based Christopher Allbritton, blogger and journalist-for-hire, says the real reason behind the visit, unreported in the Western media, is American concerns that deposed Ba’ath party members will be completely purged from vital governmental positions, when they are, in fact, essential for the “rebuilding” of the country. Ironic, to say the least.

“Despite American proconsul L. Paul Bremer’s orders in May 2003 to dissolve the Ba’ath Party and sweep them into the dustbin of history”, Allbritton writes, “America now finds itself in need of many of those guys it threw out in the street two years ago. Former Ba’athists fill top leadership spots in the new Iraqi Army and in the Interior Ministry, among other positions. Education and Health ministries are full of ex-Ba’athists.”

“In other words, the United States, which spent billions of dollars and lost more than 1,500 soldiers to topple Saddam’s Ba’athist regime, is now warning the new regime headed by religious Shi’ite Ibrahim al-Jafari not to get rid of all of the Ba’athists.”

What kind of democracy is the “Coalition of the Unwilling” truly building?

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