Iraqi political experts unimpressed with new govt

[Robbien]

Iraqi political experts have dismissed the country's first post-Saddam Hussein government which was unveiled on Tuesday as hamstrung by Washington and manipulated by exiles. They feared the highly respected Algerian UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, was largely powerless to impose his will for a competent, technocratic government.

Despite fine words from the new leaders for a democratic Iraq, political scientists compared the line-up with the unpopular monarchy imposed by Britain after World War I that failed to drain the flow of oil revenues to London.

. . .

"How can you accept people who came with the occupiers? The people who were tortured and who suffered inside Iraq deserve these positions," said Hussein Hafed al-Ukaly from the Centre for International Studies at Baghdad University. "These people with foreign connections are not real patriots, so how can they serve our people?" he added.

. . .

But Ukaly sees this as a restrictive, short-sighted US policy which exaggerates fears that Iraq's ethnic divisions could be on the verge of erupting into sectarian warfare. "People in Iraq don't differentiate between Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, Jew, Christian. It is not necessary," said the international affairs lecturer.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=10131

No matter how many times Iraqis tell us there is no real problem about Sunni/Shiite, the media keeps beating the civil war drums.

[CulturalNomad]

1. Iraq Civil war - the Neocons wet dream

[stickdog]

2. And they won't stop stirring the pot

until they get what they want.