Despair driving some Iraqis to embrace insurgency

[gottaB]

Jobless ex-soldiers are losing patience with pariah status, GEOFFREY YORK finds

BAGHDAD -- Ibrahim spends his days on his sofa at home in Baghdad, unemployed and idle, watching soccer games on television. But he is more than just an ordinary jobless man; he is a ticking time bomb, a potential guerrilla in the war against the occupying U.S. forces.

Before the war last year, Ibrahim was a captain in the Republican Guard, the elite fighting unit of Saddam Hussein's army. After 11 years in the unit, he was among the best trained and best disciplined soldiers in the country.

Since the war's end, the 29-year-old veteran has tried repeatedly to get a government job, without success. As a former member of the Republican Guard and the ruling Baath Party, he has little chance of a job in any government ministry. Now the zero point, as he calls it, is approaching.

Despair driving some Iraqis to embrace insurgency....

[enough]

1. If this is right, things are going to get a lot worse.

snip>

Of the 80,000 former members of the Republican Guard, he estimates that only 250 are now working.

snip>

[leftchick]

2. a LOT worse....

Who would have predicted that?!? :grr: