CIA Officers Warn of Iraq Civil War.

[MAJMike]

CIA officers warn of Iraq civil war

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said Wednesday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment that President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.

The CIA officers' bleak assessment was delivered verbally to Washington this week, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved.

The warning echoed growing fears that Iraq's Shiite majority, which has until now grudgingly accepted the U.S. occupation, could turn to violence if its demands for direct elections are spurned.

Meanwhile, Iraq's Kurdish minority is pressing its demand for autonomy and shares of oil revenue.

"Both the Shiites and the Kurds think that now's their time," said one intelligence officer. "They think that if they don't get what they want now, they'll probably never get it. Both of them feel they've been betrayed by the United States before."

These dire scenarios were discussed at meetings this week by Bush, his top national security aides and the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity.

Another senior official said the concerns over a possible civil war weren't confined to the CIA but are "broadly held within the government," including by regional experts at the State Department and National Security Council.

Top officials are scrambling to save the U.S. exit strategy after concluding that Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani, is unlikely to drop his demand for elections for an interim assembly that would choose an interim government by June 30.

Bremer would then hand over power to the interim government.

The CIA hasn't yet put its officers' warnings about a potential Iraqi civil war in writing, but the senior official said he expected a formal report "momentarily."

"In the discussion with Bremer in the last few days, several very bad possibilities have been outlined," he said.

Bush, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, insisted that an insurgency against the U.S. occupation, conducted primarily by minority Sunni Muslims who enjoyed power under Saddam Hussein, "will fail, and the Iraqi people will live in freedom."

"Month by month, Iraqis are assuming more responsibility for their own security and their own future," the president said.

Bush didn't directly address the crisis over the Shiites' political demands.

Shiites, who dominate the regions from Baghdad south to the borders of Kuwait and Iran, comprise some 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.

Several U.S. officials acknowledged that Sistani is unlikely to be "rolled," as one put it, and as a result Bremer's plan for restoring Iraqi sovereignty and ending the U.S. occupation by June 30 is in peril.

The Bremer plan, negotiated with the U.S.-installed Iraqi Governing Council, calls for caucuses in each of Iraq's 18 provinces to choose the interim national assembly, which would in turn select Iraq's first post-Saddam government.

The first direct elections wouldn't be held until the end of 2005.

In an interview with Knight Ridder on Wednesday, a top cleric in the Shiite holy city of Najaf appeared to confirm the fears of potential civil war.

"Everything has its own time, but we are saying that we don't accept the occupiers getting involved with the Iraqis' affairs," said Sheikh Ali Najafi, whose father, Grand Ayatollah Bashir al Najafi, is, along with Sistani, one of the four most senior clerics. "I don't trust the Americans -- not even for one blink."

If the United States went ahead with the caucus plan and ended the military occupation, the interim government wouldn't last long, he said.

"The Iraqi people would know how to deal with those people," he said, smiling. "They would kick them out."

[ivalis]

A cheeseburger could see this coming from a mile away and before our ill thought invasion. Yugoslavia after Tito.

[MillRatUSMC]

Lebanon 1975-1990
Not only is Lebanese politics still marked by sectarianism, said analysts, but the antagonisms among the various sectarian interests is greater than ever. None of the nation's major politicians is regarded as a truly national figure. Rather, each represents mainly the interests of his own clan--Christian Maronites, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims or Druze.

The Taif agreement also foresaw the withdrawal of tens of thousands of Syrian troops from Lebanese territory. But 10 years later, the Syrian troops remain, now complemented by hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers. The Syrian presence has left Lebanon a sovereign state in name only, but it has also kept a lid on disputes among the country's competing sectarian factions.

"The guns have fallen silent. That's all that's happened," said Tewfiq Mishlawi, a political analyst. "Emotions have yet to reconcile. Hatreds have yet to be removed."

Iraq 2004-and beyond
Not only is Iraqi politics still marked by sectarianism, said analysts, but the antagonisms among the various sectarian interests is greater than ever. None of the nation's major politicians is regarded as a truly national figure. Rather, each represents mainly the interests of his own clan--Kurds, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims.
After a bloody civil war.
Someone might state this;
"Emotions have yet to reconcile,
Hatreds have yet to be removed."

Now the question might be;
How do we prevent all this from happening?
All will be seeking power and a share of the oil's wealth.
How did we get in this mess?

Semper Fidelis
Ricardo

[yellowwing]

Does anyone know how long Union troops occupied the South after the Civil War/War Between the States?

I know its a bit of a different situation because it happened in our own house. It wasn't since the last few years that Vicksburg celebrated the 4th of July, a 100+ year grudge. And we are civilized!