Iraq Press Roundup

An editorial in the Association of Muslim Scholars' Al Basaer newspaper said Tuesday President Bush held a "closed" meeting about Iraq with Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

The editorial, headlined "Iraq: A hundred years of occupation," said after the talks, which included Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Bush brought "good news" to the world in a news conference during which he defended the White House's "new strategy" implemented in Iraq last year.

The editorial described Bush's "new strategy" of sending additional troops to defend the Iraqi people from elements he described as terrorists; the "surge" in which heavy attacks eliminated insurgents from their hideouts; and "teams" to help rebuild Iraq.

"Bush's announcements could be considered as a briefing of U.S. policy in occupied Iraq a few months before the election that has turned into an attempt to keep the new presidential candidates close to current U.S. policies," the paper said.

The paper said the next president, whether he or she is a Democrat or a Republican, would still use language such as "terrorists," "insurgents" and "al-Qaida" when discussing Iraq.

"The main force for change in U.S. policy will remain in the hands of the resistance through attacks that increase human and material losses and through stopping the military sources of energy by preventing Iraqi oil from flowing out," wrote Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi-born former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime.

"The Iraqi people haven't gotten any revenue from the oil that is being used to fund and is continuing to violate the Iraqi people," she said.

"The courageous resistance attacks targeting the enemy and the Iraqi people's support of these attacks is the key point for the failure of the U.S. policy in Iraq," she said.

It said the U.S. policy to stay in Iraq will continue through military bases and involve Iraq in economic and oil contracts that disinherit the Iraqi people from their wealth.

"Building permanent U.S. bases in Iraq is a necessary step for the U.S. administration as it would guarantee a permanent control over Iraq, decrease human losses that the U.S. faces today, and make use of U.S. collaborators as human shields to protect their forces and give the Iraqi resistance a bad reputation," Zangana wrote.

The Saudi-based newspaper said the Iraqi resistance's killing of nine U.S. soldiers last week was a message to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who said recently U.S. troops could stay in Iraq for another 100 years to "prevent" al-Qaida from arming and training insurgents.

It added that five years after the invasion, the Iraqi minister of electricity "hopes" that in 2011 there will be as much electricity as during the 12 years of U.N. sanctions.

It concluded that the term "national reconciliation" is invalid and that Bush's announcement of "improvements" affects Iraqis, noting that on Jan. 10 U.S. pilots dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on a neighborhood in Baghdad's southern suburbs.

"This attack is a punishment in the manner of the (Israeli army), and a response to the successful resistance attacks targeting occupation forces," Zangana wrote.

The paper said that previous attacks led to the doubling of innocents arrested, the killings of thousands and the silencing the independent voices.

"John McCain's foolish dream to stay in Iraq for 100 years … will not happen without a flow of the American blood," Zangana wrote.