bushie: "the Iraqi people are taking charge of their own destiny,"

[Kadie]

bushie speaks:

Bush: Saddam's Ouster Inspired Reformers
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, March 19, 2005

(03-19) 07:24 PST Waco, Texas (AP) --


The U.S. military victory against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq gets the credit for "inspiring democratic reformers from Beirut to Tehran," President Bush said Saturday.


"Today, women can vote in Afghanistan, Palestinians are breaking the old patterns of violence, and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are rising up to demand their sovereignty and democratic rights," Bush said in a weekly radio address that marked the two-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.


"These are landmark events in the history of freedom," he said.


With his primary rationale for the war — Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — discredited, Bush has turned to the argument that the war in Iraq was justified because it freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and now gives the Middle East a model for democracy.


Bush said "the Iraqi people are taking charge of their own destiny," citing the country's first free and fair elections in its modern history, this week's first meeting of the Transitional National Assembly and the upcoming drafting of a constitution for a "free and democratic Iraq."


more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/19/national/w072400S76.DTL



The Iraqis speak:


Young Iraqis cast doubtful eyes toward their future
Colin Freeman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Saturday, March 19, 2005


Baghdad -- Amid the jumble of makeup and hairbrushes she stashes in her handbag, Ruaa Jamal packs one distinctly unladylike item. Whenever she travels to work alone, a 4-inch switchblade is ready at the flick of a button to ward off the robbers and rapists who now plague Baghdad's women.

The rise of women secretly armed is just one of many signs that, exactly two years after the opening salvos of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, personal safety remains the overriding concern for most Iraqis.

Whether the random violence from insurgents and criminals is better than the targeted violence of Hussein's regime is a matter of personal opinion. What few Iraqis doubt, though, is that compared to the same time 12 months ago, things seem notably worse.

In March 2004, life here seemed to be slowly turning the corner. Iraqi security forces were showing signs of improvement, while the insurgency seemed to have lost its way. Foreign investors were coming in, businesses were beginning to thrive once more, and the mobile phone network -- the first real sign of reconnection with the outside world -- had just gotten up and running.

Now, those same indicators all point in the opposite direction.

more...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/19/MNGT5BS30T1.DTL

[realFedUp]

1. freedom is just changing around the deck chairs on the Titanic

They are in Shiite shape over there and
the Bushies are pulling all the strings.

[seabeyond]

2. what made the "turn the corner" such a dark place

lets remember a year ago. that was the time we were finding out so many things. please help me remember

money assigned there went to florida and other places not middle east
we were seeing to thievery from halliburtin
we were seeing the iraqi'a werent getting jobs
we were seeing abu ghab?sp
we were seeing thru eyes of soldiers, seeing iraqi's as animals
there wasnt electricty.
admins hired torurers of past
we saw chalabi's dirty hands
closing of iraqi free media

i remember a year ago. the iraqi's gave us a year honeymoon. then they saw bush wasnt going to do for them. that is when u.s. shifted to occupier