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Another perceptive Post from Keith,
Thanks.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 7:01
AM
Subject: [Futurework] A very, very
worried Bush
If it's any consolation to some FWers, it is obvious that Bush
is desperately worried now about the situation in Iraq.
Within days,
three astonishing volte faces have been taken:
1. The Americans (via
the Iraq oil authority) have given up on the idea of pumping out oil through
the northern pipeline that runs through Turkey, and will now attempt to do so
through the south. (The oil authority and the oil corporations involved met in
London, not Baghdad, for security reasons.)
2. Bush has shifted
responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq from Rumsfeld and the Pentagon
towards Condoleezza Rice and her State Department. What makes this even more
astonishing is that Bush didn't tell Rumsfeld beforehand, never mind
discussing it with him! (At least the State Department will be able to
apply more Arabic experience and infinitely more intelligence to the problems.
However, I fear that the situation has already become too complicated for them
to sort out. The nearer the date for the production of the Constitution,
the more complicated the environment will become.)
3. Bush has reneged
on promises to the Kurds by appearing to accept help from Turkish troops. Thus
he risks the whole situation in northern Iraq, which has been generally
peaceful, with no vandalism or sabotage, precisely because the Kurds are
expecting some sort of almost-independent status from the new Constitution. I
cannot think that Bush will be so stupid as to accept the Turkish offer but if
he does then I would expect the Kurish region to be as unstable as the Sunni
areas of western Iraq.
------------
I see in today's NYT that
the American Army have now lost track of hundreds of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that were part of the arsenal of
Saddam Hussein and captured by the American invasion. The result is that they
daren't open Baghdad International Airport to commercial traffic. What
glorious incompetence! Apparently army planes have already been shot at by
portable weapons but keot secret.
In the months before the invasion I
wrote on FW that the Americans would be unable to patrol Baghdad except in
tanks. Technically, I have been wrong. But, as more American soldiers continue
to get killed almost every day while on patrol, I cannot think that they'll
agree to continue for much longer without going out in tanks or armoured
vehicles. It will be either mutiny or tanks.
Perhaps Bush has already
heard of intimations of this. Perhaps this is the reason why Bush has given
Rumsfeld the boot. A possible mutiny by American soldiers would not do Bush's
credibility much good in his penultimate election year.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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