Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Another key chairman-to-be, Joseph Biden, who will take over the Foreign Relations Committee in January, was miffed that the commission dismissed his proposal to federalize Iraq, setting up Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions run by largely autonomous governments. Shortly after the 96-page report's public release, Biden issued a lengthy critique of its recommendations. The changes the commission proposed, Biden complained, "are necessary, but not sufficient to achieve the objective most Americans share: to leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind." The commission's proposal to beef up U.S. military trainers embedded in Iraqi units while withdrawing...
...million now lives in the "highly insecure" provinces of Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala and Salah ad Din. Bush blames the increasing violence on al-Qaeda, but the report notes that that the terror group is now responsible for only a "small portion" of it. The sectarian violence between Shi'a and Sunnis in and around Baghdad "causes the largest number of civilian casualties. Iraq is in the grip of a deadly cycle...
...from being part of the solution, the Iraqi military and police forces are 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...
...Shi'ite politicians such as radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and President Bush's recent visitor, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, are also keen to see the Americans back off. With U.S. forces no longer in charge, there will be no restraining the Shi'ite militias - including those controlled by al-Sadr and al-Hakim - from bullying and butchering the Sunni minority. In Washington, al-Hakim was careful to emphasize he doesn't want Americans to leave. But Shi'ite leaders want the U.S. to focus on defeating the Sunni insurgency, not on the Shi'ite militias...
...Ironically, the other group likely to welcome the ISG report is al-Qaeda in Iraq. The terrorist organization would like nothing better than to see the back of the Americans so they can claim "victory" in their jihad - and then concentrate on slaughtering Shi'ites...