Shadowy Iraqi Office Accused of Sectarian Agenda
Interesting article about a "shadow cabinet" of Maliki advisors who are accused of a sectarian agenda and are replacing non-sectarian Iraqi Army officers.
Quote:
Iraq's prime minister has created an entity within his government that U.S. and Iraqi military officials say is being used as a smokescreen to carry out an extreme Shiite agenda that is worsening the country's sectarian divide.
The "Office of the Commander in Chief" has the power to overrule other government ministries, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources.
Those sources say the 24-member office is abusing its power, increasingly overriding decisions made by the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior and potentially undermining the entire U.S. effort in Iraq.
The Office, as it is known in Baghdad, was set up about four months ago with the knowledge of American forces in Iraq. Its goal is ostensibly to advise Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki -- the nation's new commander in chief -- on military matters.
According to a U.S. intelligence source, the Office is "ensuring the emplacement of commanders it favors and can control, regardless of what the ministries want."
A senior Iraqi army officer who is seeking help from the senior U.S. command said: "The Office is not supposed to be taking charge like this. It's overstepping its role as an advisory office. It's not a healthy thing to have. It's people with no power who want to have power."
A senior U.S. military official cited several cases in Baghdad in which Iraqi commanders considered capable by the U.S. were detained or forced out of their positions after cracking down on Shiite militias ...
Maliki's Government is Dead
I go further. I believe that Maliki's government is dead (as it regards the ability to promulgate the democratic experiment in Iraq). There is still time to turn the train, but it must not have Maliki as a passenger.
Sistani, Maliki and Sadr Versus the U.S.
Documentary Ties Between Iraqi PM and Iran, Special Dispatch-Iraq/Iran
From MEMRI
Quote:
Documents Exposed by Egyptian Government Weekly Indicate Ties Between Iraqi PM and Iranian Revolutionary Guards
To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD157307.
An investigative article by journalist Mahdi Mustafa, published March 31, 2007 in the Egyptian government weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, featured photographs of documents indicating that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has ties with Muqtada Al-Sadr and with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.(1)
The dispatch contains translations