[Swamp_Thing]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6965081/

I hate to say i told you so, but i told you so.

[Bobboau]

realy? I thought you told me that the election was a sham and that Alawy was going to win despite what the majority of Iraqis 'wanted'.

[Ghostavo]

Am I the only one that finds the Bush government (which is conservative IIRC) wanting that a secular liberal government took place, funny?

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Bobboau
realy? I thought you told me that the election was a sham and that Alawy was going to win despite what the majority of Iraqis 'wanted'.

[Bobboau]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
Am I the only one that finds the Bush government (which is conservative IIRC) wanting that a secular liberal government took place, funny?

no, your not the only one.

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by Bobboau
realy? I thought you told me that the election was a sham and that Alawy was going to win despite what the majority of Iraqis 'wanted'.

???
Can you please quote me on that? Or are you just saying what you think i said?
The elections were a sham, that much is correct. That Alawy was going to win is completelly false.

[Bobboau]

my mistake you did indeed predict this, I must have been thinking of someone else,
but you did say that this turn of events was somehow what what the US wanted, and now it seems as though you have reversed that position.

[redmenace]

I am not sure he knows what he thinks.

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by Bobboau
my mistake you did indeed predict this, I must have been thinking of someone else,
but you did say that this turn of events was somehow what what the US wanted, and now it seems as though you have reversed that position.

I didn´t say it was what the US wanted, i said it COULD be used by the US to act on Iran. The shiite victory was pretty much a sure thing, long before the elections took place. The shiites comprize 60% of the population. It was logical to expect they would win. Why the US went ahead and "allowed" it to be so, is yet open to discussion. They could have just let their puppet rule for a few years, before they even considered allowing a vote to take place. Sure, we know they were pressed to hold elections as soon as possible, they had to hold elections or risk the public opinion turn on them because they had promised democracy for Iraq.
The question now is, will the shiites be allowed to rule, and will the US comply with the new govt.´s wishes? There is a heavy possibility that the new govt asks the US to leave. Will they comply? We don´t know. What we do know is that the US holds Iran as an axis of evil nation, and that the new iraqi govt. shares the same views as Iran. Some would say it´s more than just sharing. They are 2 sides of one coin.
The religious leader of 60% of iraqis is iranian, afterall. I doubt he would just let the americans invade his home country from Iraq, without doing the impossible to stop it.

And if you think the US is not invading Iran, i just say this:
They already have.
The US is flying drones into Iran almost daily. There are special forces operating inside Iran as we speak. Ergo...


EDIT: Article on the drones flying in Iran.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6523495/

[01010]

I wonder how much executive power Bush administration members hold over any administration that comes to power in Iraq. Or it could just be the case that they actually don't give a **** now they have the oil they were after.

[aldo_14]

It would somewhat hypocritical were a government elected thanks to religion to criticise the election of a government based on religion, wouldn't it?

[01010]

Hypocrisy, in this day and age, with our steadfast and truthful politcal leaders, never, I refuse to believe it.  

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by 01010
I wonder how much executive power Bush administration members hold over any administration that comes to power in Iraq. Or it could just be the case that they actually don't give a **** now they have the oil they were after.

Yup, it was all about TEH OILZ!!!1!1

[Gank]

Course it was, what else?

On Dec. 22, 2004, Iraqi Finance Minister Abdel Mahdi told a handful of reporters and industry insiders at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi explained: "So I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it into American corporate hands. According to the finance minister, foreigners would gain access both to "downstream" and "maybe even upstream" oil investment. This means foreigners can sell Iraqi oil and own it under the ground - the very thing for which many argue the U.S. went to war in the first place. As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report explained back in 1992, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the [Middle East] region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil." While few in the American media other than Emad Mckay of Inter Press Service reported on - or even attended - Mahdi's press conference, the announcement was made with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson at Mahdi's side. It was intended to send a message - but to whom? It turns out that Abdel Mahdi is running in the Jan. 30 elections on the ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the leading Shiite political party. While announcing the selling-off of the resource which provides 95 percent of all Iraqi revenue may not garner Mahdi many Iraqi votes, but it will unquestionably win him tremendous support from the U.S. government and U.S. corporations. Mahdi's SCIR is far and away the front-runner in the upcoming elections, particularly as it becomes increasingly less possible for Sunnis to vote because the regions where they live are spiraling into deadly chaos. If Bush were to suggest to Iraq's Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that elections should be called off, Mahdi and the SCIR's ultimate chances of victory will likely decline./

I'll add that the list of political parties Mahdi's SCIR belongs to, The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), includes the Iraqi National Council, which is led by an old friend of the Bush Administration who provided the faulty information they needed to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq, none other than Ahmed Chalabi.

It should also be noted that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi also fed the Bush Administration cooked information used to justify the invasion, but he heads a different Shia list which will most likely be getting nearly as many votes as the UIA list.

And The UIA has the blessing of Iranian born revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani issued a fatwa which instructed his huge number of followers to vote in the election, or they would risk going to hell.

Thus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal with the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings in Iraq. Regardless of what happens in the elections, for at least the next year during which the newly elected National Assembly writes a constitution and Iraqis vote for a new government, the Bush administration is going to control the largest pot of money available in Iraq (the $24 billion in U.S. taxpayer money allocated for the reconstruction), the largest military and the rules governing Iraq's economy. Both the money and the rules will, in turn, be overseen by U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals who sit in every Iraqi ministry with five-year terms and sweeping authority over contracts and regulations. However, the one thing which the administration has not been unable to confer upon itself is guaranteed access to Iraqi oil - that is, until now.

Also interesting:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB15Ak02.html
Not sure how accurate it is but atimes is pretty impartial.

[redmenace]

They did not win a majority, only a plurality.

[Flipside]

Of course, were I in his position, I'd charge them the bloody Earth for the Oil Fields in the first place.

Fact is, there still only 20 odd years of supplies under there, so what good ar empty holes in the ground going to do Iraq? Better to take as much of the greedy bastards money as possible, and let them worry about Terrorist attacks on Oil wells etc they'll lose interest once it runs out, but you'll at least have the money.

Quite frankly, it's going to be the only way to get America off his back, and the closest thiing they are going to get to compromise.

[Gank]

Aye but 20 years of oil at increasing prices and demand equals a hell of a lot of money

They won enough that a government cannot be formed without them, so basically they have all the power.

Edit, actually they did win a majority, 51%

[aldo_14]

Well, someone's making a few bob, anyways

[Gank]

On one occasion, $1.4bn had to be transported to a bank in three helicopters, as it weighed 14 tons, but no deposit slip was obtained when it was paid in.

Jesus Christ

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=693&e=6&u=/ap/20050213/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_loose_cash

More on it

Oh and look he wants more tax money:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20050214/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq

[Rictor]

Bwhahaha!

8 billion out of 20 total is missing. They'de do better to just throw it out of airplanes over Bahgdad.