- Disagreements on the running of Iraq by the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) have been made public for the first time by
Michael Rubin, who resigned from the Pentagon 10 days ago after returning
from Baghdad.
-
- In a report published in the UK Daily Telegraph, Rubin
gave accounts of fundamental divisions between British and American officials
over how to run Iraq.
-
- He suggested that British officials clearly had little
interest in pursuing the White House vision of a democratic Iraq, a keystone
of its foreign policy, and were too "soft" in confronting dissent.
-
- He also said that many American officials had been startled
at British attempts to capitalise on their presence in southern Iraq for
a "freelance" fostering of ties with Iran, one of Washington's
most implacable enemies.
-
- "That is a major policy decision for the White House,"
he said. "It should not be made in Basra [the centre of the British
zone of influence].
-
- "We got a sense that Britons were using the CPA
as an outreach to Iran, which was not the Americans' intention."
-
- Tensions between British and American officials have
long been hinted at, not least between Paul Bremer, America's proconsul,
and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former envoy to Baghdad who left -
apparently in some frustration - last month.
-
- One CPA insider said: "There was an understanding
in the CPA that Bremer and Greenstock didn't like each other. It personified
the differences between the two views.
-
- "Greenstock thought Bremer was naive; Bremer thought
Greenstock was pursuing the wrong policies."
-
- Mr Rubin concluded that the two countries' very different
histories and experience of colonialism were a major factor. "The
British feel they have more experience [in nation building] and that the
US is new to this game.
-
- "The Americans see the British as making the mistakes
of the 1920s [when Shias rose against British rule]. They think the British
don't realise that the situation has changed."
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- Fallujah Battle Resumes
-
- Occupation forces in Iraq have used F16 fighter planes
to bomb the Nizal neighbourhood in Falluja and pushed several tanks through
the only open gateway used as an exit for Iraqi families in an apparent
violation of the latest ceasefire in Falluja.
-
- The occupation forces were met with fierce resistance
by the Falluja anti-occupation fighters which forced the US tanks into
a quick withdrawal, sources in Falluja stated
-
- The US fighter planes dropped stun bombs to cover their
troops withdrawal it reported.
-
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- http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=1480
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