On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:50:21 -0700, ralph
wrote:

z wrote:

"NOYB" wrote in message om...
and the poor ignorant wogs are too ignorant to figure this out
by
themselves, so we must protect them from voting them back in by
accident.

With logic like yours, the Nazi party would not have been outlawed in
Germany after WWII.

Instead, the Nazis were brought to the US to help set up the CIA and
other government programs.

BTW, many of the officials we have installed in Iraq are former
Ba'athists.

Absolute horsepoop. The Bush administration made it clear that former
members of the Baath party would hold no positions in the new government.

Made it clear as horsepoop, and continue to clarify it today.

Baath officials backed to rebuild Iraq
BBC News Sunday, 13 April, 2003, 14:25 GMT 15:25 UK
Baath Party members who were loyal to Saddam Hussein will take part in
the reconstruction of Iraq, according to Geoff Hoon.
"They had a system of administration that will deliver," the defence
secretary told The Observer.
And many were "perfectly decent people who have not participated in
any atrocities".
There has already been anger in the southern city of Basra after the
man chosen by the British forces there to run the city was revealed to
be a Baath Party member.
Mr Hoon told the newspaper: "It is understandable people that have
lived in dread and terror of this organisation should go and kick in a
few doors."
But he added: "We have to ensure it does not get out of hand."

Iraq's Baath Party Is Abolished
Franks Declares End of Hussein's Apparatus as Some Members Retake
Posts
(May 12, 2003)
By Peter Slevin and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 12, 2003; Page A10
BAGHDAD, May 11 -- Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of U.S. forces
in Iraq, announced today that Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which
dominated the country for more than three decades through violence and
intimidation, has been abolished, although U.S. authorities have
allowed many prominent members to return to top government positions.
The effect of Franks's declaration remained unclear, but it seemed
largely symbolic, given the party's organizational implosion and the
somewhat contradictory U.S. request that many former high-ranking
government officials, most of whom were Baath members, report to their
jobs as usual.
U.S. authorities have made "de-Baathification" a goal of the
occupation period, but have not laid out consistent rules for
accomplishing it.

U.S. vows to remove Baath officials in Iraq
Thursday, May 15, 2003 Posted: 12:49 PM EDT (1649 GMT)
• Any former Baath Party personnel will be "aggressively removed from
office" in all parts of Iraq's postwar administration.
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Iraq's U.S. administrators will "aggressively move"
to identify and remove former officials of Saddam Hussein's Baath
Party from office and are working to restore security in Baghdad, the
civilian authority's new chief said Thursday.
"Shortly, I will issue an order on measures to extirpate Baathists and
Baathism from Iraq forever," L. Paul Bremer told reporters in Baghdad.
"We have and will aggressively move to seek to identify these people
and remove them from office."
But Bremer, who assumed office Monday, said that such action would be
difficult while U.S. officials are trying to restore services such as
power, water and health care.
"In some cases, we have found, people who have offered to work with us
have turned out to be members of the Baath Party," he said. "Those
people have been put out of office when we found that out."

Officials: Ban on Baathists delays Iraqi government
Monday, May 19, 2003 Posted: 1653 GMT (12:53 AM HKT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The decision to ban senior Baath Party members
from holding jobs in a future Iraqi government will delay the handover
of control to Iraqis, senior officials with the Pentagon's Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance said.
U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer has ordered a large-scale
operation to ensure that Baath Party members are removed from critical
positions in the public sector. This ban could affect as many as
30,000 senior Baath Party members.
The delay was revealed Friday as Bremer and John Sawers, British envoy
to Iraq, met with opposition leaders.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner initially had allowed some
former Baath officials to hold positions, including interim health
minister and Baghdad University president, but the decision resulted
in protests among Iraqis. Bremer replaced Garner this week.

ANALYSIS
By Gen. Wayne Downing
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait, April 4 —
In order to establish the new Iraq that President Bush speaks of,
the grip established by Saddam's security apparatus must be broken.
This task will be difficult and, to my knowledge, the coalition plan
on how it will go about doing this is rudimentary at best. In fact,
compared with their knowledge of the Iraqi military, the U.S. and
British intelligence agencies know comparatively little about the the
extent of this Baathist web and potentially acceptable Baath Party
members.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the head of the Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs, is to be the senior U.S.
official in postwar Iraq. His office is not equipped to tackle the job
of neutralizing the Baathist security web.
The inability of the United States to get a consensus and a
working coalition of in-country and expatriate Iraqis on what will
happen after the war will bedevil Washington and U.S. military forces.
Reports from Washington do not sound encouraging, with factions
centered in the Pentagon, State Department and the CIA continuing to
advocate their own contradictory solutions.
Not only are they failing to cooperate with each other, these
key agencies appear to be actively working against each other,
promoting their favored candidates and undermining those they oppose.
The failure to develop a coherent Baath vetting process (akin
to the de-Nazification program that turned West Germany into a
functioning democracy after World War II) could prove a major problem.
"Regime change" was a major stated goal of this war, and many now
suspect there is no plan beyond the immediate goal of toppling
Saddam's regime, an eventuality that appears closer every day.
What will replace it? Unfortunately, there exists no clear
answer, even at this late date. How will U.S. administrators determine
which Iraqi civil servants may continue to serve and which are too
tainted to stay? This is key to the Pentagon's reconstruction and
humanitarian assistance plan and the timely departure of U.S. forces.
Gen. Wayne Downing, U.S. Army (ret.), is an NBC News military
analyst and former head of U.S. Special Operations Command.

kinda get the feeling they're winging it?

"winging" would appear to be a kind word. Does anyone outside the
gov't have any idea what plan or policy we are persuing? Does anyone
*inside* the gov't have any idea?

Sadly, it seems to be a mish-mash, and US soldiers are dying daily.

Anybody got a plan?
noah


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