Iraq Resists Occupation Therapy

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday April 25, 2003 15:37 by James McKenna jimmymac61 at hotmail dot com

Liberation Therapy to Oust Occupiers

A senior Shiite Muslim cleric Sayyed Ali al-Waethi states an unbending tenet: "We do not put our hand in the hand of foreigners. People should rule themselves by themselves. The Americans should leave our country peacefully"

The interim American leader of Iraq, the retired general Jay Garner, yesterday hosted his first meeting with 60 Iraqi Intellerctuals and community leaders in a walled compound ringed by tanks, armoured vehicles and scores of troops in full battle dress.

Several delegates, who would not give their names, said they did not know why they had been invited or what the meeting was about.

"They sent a soldier with a message to my house yesterday and told me I had to be here at 10am. That's all I know," one of them said.

Kanan Makiya a close ally of the Pentagon's protege, Ahmad Chalabi, warned there was "a very short window of time" to act, especially in southern Iraq, where radical Shiite clerics are rapidly moving to gain political influence. Speaking about US plans he said , "It is a process that can go dangerously wrong". And it looks like it as.

Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of the U.S. ground forces in Iraq, is drafting a proclamation stating that in the absence of a new government, the U.S.-led "coalition forces" retained full authority within the country.