Iraqi Local Council member: "We don't want the Americans to withdraw at this point..."
From the Kuwait Times:
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"Everybody has been yearning for democracy in Iraq after a long spell of sufferings under Saddam's regime," Sawn Jabouk, a member of the Iraqi Local Council, told a press conference on Tuesday at the Graduates' Association.
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She pointed out that the 1990 invasion of Kuwait was not only a crime against Kuwaiti people, it was also against the Iraqis and the Arabs. The presence of foreign forces would last only until peace and stability returned to Iraq, particularly in Baghdad. "We are not in a hurry now to let the forces leave Iraq as the situation there is still unstable. We don't want to give the mercenaries of Saddam a chance to destabilise the new government as they did by assassinating two prominent Iraqi leaders last month," Jabouk continued.
"We don't want the Americans to withdraw at this point because the situation is still critical and it would entice the remnants of Republican Guards and its mercenaries to perform further bombings to destabilise the country," she cautioned.
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Also the Local Council has set up a committee to finalise the draft of a new constitution for Iraq to be submitted in December, she added. "The new draft constitution is not a one-man show but rather is based on pluralism," she explained.
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... worrisome is the prospect of revolving-door governments; after all, Iraq experienced a succession of bloody coups from 1958 until Saddam consolidated power in the late 1970s. After his removal, the cycle of coups could resume for a number of reasons (e.g., the strong tribal influences or the highly competitive relationship between the major tribes)," she elaborated.
Even if a new regime was established after, rather than during, a US military campaign, the first government to replace Saddam could falter quickly if US forces had not intervened to prevent coups...
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Yet, apparently, Kofi Annan doesn't care about what the Iraqi people want.
I guess Iraqi democracy is less important to Kofi than the thrill of international power politics.
http://nikita_demosthenes.blogspot.com/2003_09_28_nikita_demosthenes_archive.html#106532550124449117

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