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Old 10-06-2004, 11:37 AM
muspell muspell is offline
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i do think he would have. i remember bush and rumsfeld repeatedly saying, if more troops were asked for, they would send them. however, that is just idle speculation, since bremer never did ask.
"Everything's going according to plan, sir.... just double the amount of troops so we can provide the safety we should.". Anyway, you are remembering very wrong if you mean to say you think Bush and Rumsfeld was suggesting to send more troops right after the war "ended". That didn't happen. In fact, it is well known that Rumsfeld ignored advice from Pentagon and from people on the ground about the amount of troops, and did not admit that the operation would not be a complete breeze for quite some time. Of course, he insisted that there were enough troops, and that a legion of soliders were being sent(all the time) but that's not exactly the same.

The actual decision to send more troops to Iraq now is yet to be finalized, though. Lucky for those who don't want the draft, I guess.
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that is utterly stupid, according to international law the occupier is responsible for provide safety (i.e. shoot looters) in occupied territory, once that occupational status is lost, there is no longer a legal base for using the army to police.
I should probably have written "Illegal occupier", or perhaps "invader" instead.
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do you know how long it took in my country to get an elected government back after it had been defeated in WW2? also our constitution was written by people, who had been handpicked by the allies and not legitimated by the german people.
Yes? I'm merely recounting how things happened. The point is that the ones not "truly representative" are the ones that ended up in the interim government anyway. And the target was always to make the transition to an interim government as fast as possible, to get the troops out, to "get the Iraqis in charge" as the hawks would say. Yet everything that was actually done seems to have caused just about the opposite.
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ah, and it is welcome now to come out and say this? you are painting bremer as a victim, who was forced to say things he didnt want to say and hold his tongue about things that concerned him.
Am I? You can't seriously say that it is just as damaging to Bush when Bremer says this now, as it would've been if he had said it right after the war "ended". Then it would've put Bremer automatically on the side of the Bush- bashers, the skeptics - or generally the ones spitefully in opposition and that would say anything to damage Bush. Now, due to the miracle of american media and short term memory, he can safely say what he does and at the same time assure people that the best thing that has ever happened to Iraq was the "regime change". It's different, see? But I don't think of Bremer as a victim, I think he simply couldn't have concieved of the thought of actually going against the policy decisions from Washington.
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you still have american bases in germany too, why not complain about them? my city was officially under allied occupation until 1991 and it certainly did not feel like we had a puppet government.
It occurs to me, though, that perhaps it is not the best comparison, post war Germany and Iraq? There were a few more labour unions in Germany than Iraq, I think, and it had perhaps been a democracy for some time before as well. Perhaps Bush and Rumsfeld also though the situation would be the same in Iraq as Germany? That is, without considering the fact that post- war planning for Germany started two years before the war ended. Possibly that is why their insane prospect was so far removed from reality as it could've been. And Bremer should've seen this, as many others on the ground did, but Bremer just bides his time and finds an opportunity to "regret" his obviously unavoidable mistake when it's too late to do anything about it. It's just laughable that the bootlicker actually can get away with it.
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