oh dear....Mr Allawi said he didn't tolerate this kind of stuff...looks like he's being seriously overwhelmed!
---the blunder continues---
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A Victory for Terror
By BERNHARD ZAND,
Der Spiegel
Published: January 10, 2005
ashington and Baghdad are still sticking to plans to hold Iraqi elections at the end of January. In light of increasing attacks and calls for postponing the election, however, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is getting nervous. Even influential tribal leaders are now yielding to Islamic fundamentalists as open war rages around Baghdad.
It was an astonishing figure, even for Iraqis. Last week the head of Iraqi intelligence, Mohammed Shahwani, reported that the Iraqi terrorist and resistance movement numbered 200,000. The figure, according to Shahwani, includes about 40,000 bomb experts and sharpshooters, as well as 160,000 part-time guerillas and supporters who are harboring resistance fighters and terrorists and providing them with logistics services.
The 150,000 US troops stationed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers face a powerful combat force -- 20 divisions, motivated to the core, and apparently able to claim seemingly unlimited recruitment capabilities.
No one at the Pentagon has denied General Shahwani's numbers, even though they exceed Washington's previous estimates by a factor of about ten. According to US military expert Anthony Cordesman, the numbers coming from Baghdad are realistic. Cordesman believes that they confirm something that the Pentagon has consistently denied -- that the resistance movement in central Iraq now enjoys "broad support" among the population.
A few weeks ago, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned that the Iraqi government expects the violence to increase leading up to the planned Jan. 30 elections. Despite these expectations, Allawi's nerves and the confidence of his administration have been shaken by what has been happening in Iraq's Sunni triangle, even though events in Iraq have been somewhat overshadowed by news from South and Southeast Asia. The number of attacks has been consistently on the rise, with more than 200 casualties within the past three weeks. More than 80 police officers have already been killed in the new year. Another high-ranking administration official, the governor of Baghdad province, Ali al-Haidari, was assassinated only last Tuesday.
Attacks on election workers have become increasingly targeted and extraordinarily cold-blooded. Without even bothering to conceal their faces, terrorists allowed themselves to be filmed in broad daylight during an execution in Baghdad's Haifa district in late December. Since then, hundreds of election workers in Mosul and in Anbar province have simply abandoned their positions. Allawi, who had declared 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces to be "stable and peaceful" during his last visit to Washington in September, appears to have abandoned his illusions, now referring to the security situation in Iraq as "our catastrophe." Last Thursday, he extended the state of emergency in Iraq until early February.
Election obstacles
Only three days earlier, Allawi had telephoned US President George W. Bush, who had just returned to the White House to celebrate Christmas. It was an emergency call. Although advisors to the US president say that the purpose of the conversation was to discuss "obstacles" leading up to the election, they believe that Allawi has already resigned himself to the possibility of postponing the election.
Others in Baghdad have long since openly accepted postponement. Iraq's ministers of justice and planning have both spoken in favor of delaying the election. Last week interim Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawer, previously Washington's poster child of a Sunni leader committed to the election, attempted to shift responsibility to the United Nations, saying that sticking to the January date would be a "very bitter challenge," and that the UN should "examine whether or not the scheduled date is feasible."
Yawer's words brought him a call from Washington. Although little is known about the conversation, sources say President Bush, speaking to his Iraqi counterpart, "emphatically" insisted that the elections must be held at the end of January, as planned.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, this is precisely the "official position" of his government. Nevertheless, Zebari only managed to increase confusion among Iraqis surrounding their government's official and unofficial positions on the election.
According to a high-ranking source in the US administration, while there appears to be some debate in Baghdad concerning the election, President Bush remains adamant. Bush has apparently told Allawi that his administration, after all, has managed to make good on its promises and honor its commitments, including Allawi's own assumption of office in June 2004.
A Victory for Terror
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