a big log

Right now in Iraq there is a collision of two Words. The word democracy and the word dictatorship.

Iraq wants to make its own government, not build on a government given to it by the United States.

Although the Baker report by the bipartisan US Iraq Study Group raised significant points about the issues in Iraq, and seemed to provide good solutions - such as recruiting surrounding countries, and giving the Iraqi government ultimatums about what they should do, or else we leave - it was vehemently rejected by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. An article from the Guardian outlines why:

At his heavily fortified residence on the banks of the Tigris, Mr Talabani told the Guardian that the key suggestions of the long-awaited report by James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton were “the wrong medicine for the wrong diagnosis” and called them an unwarranted interference in Iraq’s internal affairs that undermined the war-torn country’s sovereignty at a crucial time.

The proposed sanctions, which I previously referred to as ultimatums, were taken as an “insult.” Because the comments come from the president, they have a gravity that they would not have, and did not have, coming from members of the press or lower-level government officials. Talabani said he would propose alternatives, allegedly having a better idea of his country’s situation than the committee that commissioned the Baker Report.

The Iraqi president said he would send a letter to President George Bush outlining the government’s thinking about “the main issues” contained in the Baker-Hamilton document.

He was most concerned about Iraq’s sovereignty, and made several comments on the issue of its absence. The troops were commanded by American officers, the government peppered with American officials - the Iraqi hand, he claims, feels constrained.

Mr Talabani insisted that violence in Baghdad could be stopped if the Iraqi government was free to exercise its proper authority.

“We can smell the attitude of James Baker in 1991 when he liberated Kuwait but left Saddam in power,” he said.

Bottom line, he’s suspicious of the Baker Report - he doesn’t agree with its proposed solutions.