Iraq Press Roundup

Al Sabah newspaper in an editorial Wednesday titled "Reforming U.S. mistakes in Iraq: An objective view" said those who follow the situation in Iraq see President Bush’s backing of the Petraeus-Crocker report as “a challenge in the face of Democrats.”

"Bush's decision is a dismissal of U.S. public opinion, which still calls on the Bush administration to bring the troops back home," it said.

The paper said though the report praised Iraqi security forces, the "fruit" of the report was that Bush ordered a "partial withdrawal" of 30,000 troops by July 2008, "keeping the 150,000 troops” remaining in Iraq.

"From the objective point of view, withdrawing 30,000 troops is, in fact, a twisted attempt to keep the original number before the partial withdrawal," the editorial said.

"This is a gambit that aims to absorb public anger, and to prepare for the coming elections," the paper said.

The editorial said the Bush administration's plan was to keep the Iraqi government weak in order to keep troops in Iraq for at least 10 years.

"In addition to other mistakes committed in Iraq, the U.S. has committed another mistake by keeping troops for such a long time and turning Iraq into a field for international struggles," the paper said.

The paper the United States contributed to more chaos and filled Iraqi lives with more pain, suffering, loss of hope and social and economic problems. It said a major U.S. mistake was its agreements with those it called members of al-Qaida and the Baath Party. It said the U.S. support for the groups made them a part of the Iraqi security forces.

The report said the groups that cooperate with U.S. troops "have … started again killing Iraqi civilians on sectarian reasons."

Baghdad-based Al Mada carried a front-page editorial with the headline: "Did the U.S. really have an example in Iraq?"

It said prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Arab writers considered the U.S. plan to spread democracy would be along the lines of what took place in Japan and Germany after World War II.

It said the U.S. idea was to replicate the spread of democracy in Japan and Germany following the end of World War II. The paper said that didn't happen 4½ years after Baghdad "fell into the hands of Washington."

The editorial reported that U.S. conservatives said "the fight with al-Qaida, the split between Shiites and Sunnis, some countries’ use of Iraq to face Washington have turned Mesopotamia into a place that lacks control over the security and political situation."

It said that, according to the conservatives, the reason democracy is failing is because "Iraqis lived under a long-term and violent dictatorship … making our mission hard to accomplish.”

"We cannot treat the problem by negotiating ideologies, we have to treat the case by answering the question: 'Why did the U.S. come to Iraq?'" the paper said.

"The U.S.," the editorial said, “entered the region through the Iraqi gate and is using it as a tool to (affect) neighboring countries,” including Turkey through the relationship between Washington and the Kurdish Workers Party.

"Washington is oblivious to the existence of this party in northern Iraq, and the goal behind that is to create a new scene in the Middle East,” the editorial said. “In the meantime, there is no evidence of a rebuilding of a 'new Iraq.’"