No doubt the Dems and anti-war creeps are bummed out to see Bush's plan succeeding in Iraq.
GOOD!!!
Posted on 05/20/2006 1:56:32 PM PDT by SandRat
This is not news worthy! No blood, no guts, no bombs. What a waste of print. (sarc off)
We are winning and the msn could care less. What a bunch of s@#t bird as#*#les!!
As always, we can depend on SRNN (SandRat News Network) to get the word out to us that the MSM will not.
I noticed two things about this story:
1.) It was number three on the CNN website below Scumbag Bonds homerun and the New Orleans election.
2.) The CNN article was EXTREMELY negative.
Only that it happened with a big BUTT MONKEY for the bombings that went on today with the appropriate whining about whay they haven't got control yet.
Here's how the Arizona Red Star er,... Daily Star is reporting it.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- After five months of often bitter wrangling over Cabinet posts, Iraq's unity government took office Saturday and vowed to fight the insurgency, restore stability and set the stage for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops.
The new permanent government resulting from December's elections in which 12 million Iraqis participated has been portrayed by Western officials as the best hope for changing the dynamics of violence in Iraq. But it must expand control and persuade insurgents, assassins and militias to stand down, with no guarantee of success.
President Bush, who is facing rising criticism at home over Iraq, welcomed the new Cabinet and promised continued U.S. help.
"The United States and freedom-loving nations around the world will stand with Iraq as it takes its place among the world's democracies and as an ally in the war on terror," Bush said in a statement.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad repeated U.S. cautions against expectations of a quick pullout of the 132,000-strong American military contingent. But, he added, "strategically, we're going to be moving in the direction of downsizing our forces."
As the Cabinet was sworn in, at least 33 people were killed in a series of attacks across Iraq, and police found the bodies of 22 Iraqis who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured by death squads that plague the capital and other areas.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the others on the 40-member Cabinet took the oath of office inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad, where American and Iraqi troops provide security from the turmoil sweeping the country.
After a two-hour delay, reportedly because of last-minute wrangling over some Cabinet posts, legislators dressed in suits or traditional Arab robes slowly filed into the parliament chamber. Outgoing members of the interim legislature greeted each other with kisses to the cheeks.
The vote of approval went quickly, with parliament members elected in Dec. 15 elections waving raised hands to ratify al-Maliki's nominees one by one.
"Despite all the attempts to disrupt the political process they have a government, a government ... of national unity for the first time," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
Blair said coalition soldiers hoped to transfer their duties to Iraqis as soon as possible, but that British troops would remain in Iraq for as long as they were needed.
"The timetable is governed by the job being done. The new prime minister today made it very clear he, like us, wants to see Iraq in control of its own destiny," Blair said.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Saturday that the new government would begin planning the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq next week. Japanese media reported Sunday that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will discuss plans to withdraw troops from Iraq at a June summit with Bush, and the start of the pullout could be in July.
Koizumi, however, later declined to say when - or if - Japan would would withdraw its troops, saying the government was still discussing it. "Even if Japanese troops do pull out from Iraq, assistance will continue in other areas," he told reporters.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim who spent years in exile in Syria during Saddam Hussein's regime, promised that restoring security would be his top priority.
"The first challenge we face is security and how to deal with the terrorist killers who are destroying the country and shedding the blood of the Iraqi people," he said.
He outlined a 34-point plan to bring security, implement the rule of law and restore basic services like electricity - now available for only four hours a day in the capital.
In a sign of the divisions that held up forming the government, al-Maliki could not work out an agreement on the Cabinet's three posts responsible for security and had to appoint himself and two deputy prime ministers to temporarily hold those positions.
Al-Maliki, who has a reputation as a hard-liner, was chosen by the dominant Shiite bloc after Sunni and Kurdish parties refused to accept Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari for a second term as head of government. U.S. officials also opposed al-Jaafari, viewing him as ineffectual. Nevertheless, Al-Maliki, 55, is politically close to al-Jaafari and largely untested as an administrator.
Hussain al-Shahristani, the Shiite Muslim chosen as oil minister, promised to increase oil production and give all Iraqis a share.
"For every Iraqi, a share in the oil wealth," al-Shahristani said.
As for the three unfilled posts, al-Maliki said he would be acting interior minister for now, and he tapped his Sunni Arab deputy prime minister, Salam Zikam al-Zubaie, as temporary defense minister. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a Kurd, will be acting minister of state for national security.
The new prime minister hopes to fill the jobs with politicians who are independent and have no affiliation with any of Iraq's sectarian militias, which are blamed for the sharp rise in Shiite-Sunni bloodshed that has raised fears of civil war.
The greatest drama of the day underlined the difficulties al-Maliki faces in calming those sectarian passions.
Sunni Arab lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq demanded the government's swearing-in be postponed until the security ministries were allotted, delivering an angry speech that lasted nearly 10 minutes before the microphone was taken away. Then he and about 10 other Sunni deputies from his Arab nationalist faction stalked out in protest.
Much more than restoring security is at stake for the government and the United States, which designed and engineered much of the transition to democracy in the three years since it invaded Iraq and set the stage for al-Maliki's coalition of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's envoy in Iraq, urged the new government to "undertake a major reconstruction of Iraq's political and social fabric."
"Iraq's citizens deserve nothing less and have every right to expect that competent, transparent government would yield improvements both in terms of public security and in the delivery of public services," Qazi said.
Many analysts fear the country's violence has assumed some characteristics of an irregular civil war, including targeted assassinations, sectarian bombings and armed groups seeking power and attacking the central government and its employees.
Many of Iraq's insurgent groups are led by Sunni Arabs, and a goal of the new government is to win the support of that formerly dominant minority and to recruit as many of them as possible into Iraq's security forces - especially in insurgent strongholds like western Anbar province.
One of Saturday's attacks, a suicide car bombing at a police station that killed at least five people, took place in Anbar city of Qaim.
In the day's deadliest assault, 19 people died when a bomb hidden in a paper bag exploded in Baghdad's Sadr City district next to a line of day laborers waiting for work.
and anything we do from here on, we will have to do in consultation with the legitimate government authority."
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