Monday, June 27, 2005
Insurgency's "Final Throes" May Last 10+ Years
Somebody better tell Dick Cheney that Donald Rumsfeld contradicted him:
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Iraqis may fight rebels for years, says RumsfeldOddly enough, the rather obvious tensions between the Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds were not considered by W and his Bush League minions in their rush to war. Fortunately, initial fears of casualties caused by US armored vehicles slipping on the vast number of flower petals thrown by grateful Iraqis turned out to be as illusory as the WMDs they were hunting.
By Alastair Macdonald
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that American forces would not defeat Iraq's rebels but would make way for Iraqis to put down an insurgency that could go on for a decade or more.
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"That insurgency can go on for any number of years," Rumsfeld said in a U.S. television interview. "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency.
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The insurgency appears driven partly by fears among some in Saddam's formerly dominant Sunni Arab minority that they will lose out in an Iraq run by a Shi'ite majority government. It has drawn support from foreign Arabs, most of whom are Sunnis, who want to wage holy war against the West and the Shi'ites.
(Source: Reuters, June 26, 2005)
