Word: isg
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...many Iraqis will be alarmed by the ISG's proposal to change the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq, essentially turning them into detached observers. Few people outside Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone believe that Iraqi security forces are anywhere near ready to take over the primary security responsibility from the U.S. troops. They point to the utter failure of a massive security operation to stanch the sectarian bloodletting in the Iraqi capital - despite the presence of over 40,000 Iraqi soldiers (and 7,200 U.S. troops), the violence has grown substantially worse...
...often part of the problem. The police, in particular, are thoroughly infiltrated by Shi'ite militias and are frequently complicit in the kidnapping and murder of Sunnis and the ethnic cleansing of mixed neighborhoods. If the U.S. mission in Iraq is, indeed, redefined along the lines suggested by the ISG, things are more likely to get worse than better...
...third decision in the spring of 2003--to make the search for WMD the highest intelligence priority--also hampered the U.S. ability to fight the insurgents. In June, former weapons inspector David Kay arrived in Baghdad to lead the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which had 1,200 intelligence officers and support staff members assigned to search for WMD. They had exclusive access to literally tons of documents collected from Saddam's office, intelligence services and ministries after the regime fell. Kay clashed repeatedly with U.S. military leaders who wanted access not only to the documents but also to some...
Indeed, a covert-intelligence officer working for the ISG told TIME correspondent Brian Bennett that he had been ordered in August 2003 to "terminate" contact with Iraqi sources not working on WMD. As a result, the officer says, he stopped meeting with a dozen Iraqis who were providing information--maps, photographs and addresses of former Baathist militants, safe houses and stockpiles of explosives--about the insurgency in the Mosul area. "The President's priority--and my mission--was to focus on WMD," Kay told TIME. "Abizaid needed help with the counterinsurgency. He said, 'You have the only organization in this...
...ISG also got a major boost from the United Steel Workers of America union (uswa), which made major contract concessions to Ross to help get the business underway. So far, uswa seems to view Mittal's move as positive. Says union president Leo Gerrard: "Larger, stronger steel companies benefit our members and retirees." And outside analysts see a good fit between Mittal's surfeit of raw materials and ISG's demand for them. Raju Daswani, head of research at industry analysis firm Metal Bulletin Research, says: "Mittal [has] a lot of raw material production, but not much exposure...