Yahoo! News - U.S., Iraq Official Clash on Timetable: "The Bush administration is locked in a deepening dispute with the leader of Iraq (news - web sites)'s American-installed interim government, Ahmad Chalabi, over a timetable for self-rule — still another complication for U.S. efforts to rebuild the country"
...... "Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution analyst and co-author of a book on Bush's foreign policy, said the split is putting the administration in an embarrassing position.
The Iraqi authorities are 'not legitimate because we installed them,' Daalder said. 'And so we now have a problem of going against the people we put in power, saying they can't be trusted.' "

Yesterday Bush told the UN that events in Iraq should be determined by Iraqi's, not outside parties. "President Bush suggested that ..."The process should be 'neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties,"

Clearly, the US is an outside party. Yet, here is the leader of the Iraqi governing body that the US set up calling for rapid transfer of sovereignty to Iraqi's and guess who objects? The US. Pretty much calls Bush's bluff, don't you think?

I have posted some of the analysis of Bush's UN speech yesterday on this blog. It was a sad speech, full of bluster, as well as gratuitous and misleading statements. Really an exercise in hollow, insincere and contradictory claims--masking his true agenda--over reasonable policy.

His administration's hold on Iraqi sovereignty is basically illegal, and here he is resisting the calls of the very people he is trying to install in power. It's nonsensical, farcical. Could only happen with Bush. Fool on us for allowing him to get away with this BS. He needs to be held to account, and the chilling effect of his projected paranoia ended by either impeachment or defeat in 04.
- posted by geoff @ #