"Two more months before switch...to guerrilla struggle"?? A Times

[Gloria]

Pulled from the World Media Watch so someone will read it!


1//Asia Times Online September 19, 2003

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EI19Ak02.html



The Roving Eye

(JUST) ALIVE AND KICKING IN BAGHDAD

By Pepe Escobar

BAGHDAD - "Saddam is in Baghdad." The former University of Baghdad student, recently graduated, is adamant. "Here he is very well connected, and as he has so much money, he can bribe anybody," adds another.



(SNIP)

Baghdadis once again listen to that ghostly voice from the past with cool detachment. But what the former students are saying basically mirrors what a Jordanian intelligence source with extensive contacts in Iraq told Asia Times Online in Amman. Colonel Joe Anderson, commander of the 101st Airborne's 2nd Brigade in Mosul, is searching the wrong place, in the Kurdish north of the country. "Elvis" - as the GIs call him - has not left the building. Elvis-Saddam continues to operate in the bowels of the Iraqi capital itself.



(SNIP)



The convergence of views between Baghdad students and the Jordanian intelligence official is remarkable - and is widely shared by the popular voice of the bazaars. The perception is that "the Americans" engineered both the UN bombing that killed special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and the Najaf bombing that killed Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim (the Jordanian insists the Israeli Mossad was responsible for the Hakim bombing, which benefits the Americans by splitting the Shi'ites and pitting Sunnis against Shi'ites). All agree on what the US agenda is: to maintain a perpetual state of chaos, enforce the control of the fabulous Iraqi sources of energy, and use this new, sprawling military base in the heart of the Middle East to harass Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

(snip)

The resistance will get much stronger - and this has nothing to do with Saddam's flurry of cassettes. There seems to be an overall consensus in Baghdad that most Sunnis are on "wait and see" mode for two more months before they switch overwhelmingly to guerrilla struggle. And the Shi'ites will also be waiting for another two months. This seems to be the final window of opportunity for the CPA and the Governing Council to alleviate the daily hell faced by the Iraqi population.

MORE

[Cha]

1. Thanks, Gloria! This is Super Interesting! So the Iraqis

think the bushes engineered the UN and the Mosque Bombings?

I wouldn't put it past them but who knows?

Well, if what the bushwa wants is a "perpetual state of chaos" then they'll be getting what they want all right. :-(

[Carmerian]

2. I'm curious about this line

"The Americans stay on another planet - in bunkers. Humvees venturing out on patrol are subject to all number of attacks in broad daylight. Like this Wednesday, when a still sweating resident of Zayouna tells how he saw, through his rear-view mirror, a Humvee being hit by a roadside bomb and another backing up to collect two dead American soldiers and speed away. He can hardly believe that his car was not hit. Locals inevitably tell a foreigner: 'Don't be near any Humvees or jeeps, even walking in the street. The American soldiers are so frightened they start shooting at random every time they hear an explosion.' "


WTF?

[Gloria]

3. It sounds familiar after today's events......

eom