Bush Has Created a Terrorist State in Iraq

This has been the most back asswards and painfully intellectual experience of my life. Listening to George W. Bush make an absolute military fool of himself and then having to listen to his excuses for his mistakes over the last four years. For all his ideas, I truly believe I trust his intentions with his latest scheme - to secure Baghdad. He may have finally realized that the men he is dealing with in that city - ruled by corrupt power-seeking former revolutionaries with militias full of murderous delusional failures of seminary students - are leading the newest and most sinister terrorist government in the world. I am essentially accusing George W. Bush and his policies of creating a terrorist state in Baghdad.

For the last four years, Iraq has become a cesspool of corrupt former revolutionaries and mobsters (I'm looking at you Muqtada al-Sadr), hell-bent on carving out their "fair" share of what will be a new order in the new Iraq. No matter how much the bush Administration sugarcoats it, the Baghdad government is precisely the opposite of what we had been led to believe George W. Bush had set out to destroy - terrorist-sponsoring states.

Look at the logic. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has created for himself and his government a consistent and disturbing track record of behavior. I will use two of the most recent examples to demonstrate what I mean.

A couple months ago, George W. Bush went to Jordan to meet with Prime minister Maliki. They were going over security - obviously. What disturbed President Bush and demonstrated to me the man still had a conscience was when the Prime Minister disagreed with the idea of a new security operation in Baghdad. He wanted American troops to redeploy to fight Sunni insurgents in the infamous al-Anbar province west of Baghdad. The problem with this is that all the developing security problems are popping up in Baghdad - the entire purpose of the meeting.

Those problems in Baghdad are sectarian. They involve militias ethnically cleansing major neighborhoods in the city - mostly Shi’is pushing Sunnis out of the city and driving them either across the Euphrates River or making them into Syrian or Jordanian refugees. The Iraqi police, which have been infiltrated by the Badr Brigades (a Shiite militia) and the Mahdi Army (a Shiite militia), have been accused of these crimes. Maliki, who himself is a Shiite - as is most of his government - tried to sell his idea on the basis it involved Iraqis taking control of security.

Unfortunately, Maliki is also a malicious and developing tyrant who has essentially turned a blind eye to crimes perpetuated by Shiites against Sunnis, while trying to utilize every asset he has to only stamp out Sunni insurgent activity.

LAST MONTH, Shi’i Iraqi troops that were part of the latest security "surge" in Baghdad were accused of assaulting and raping a Sunni girl in her home. It turned into one of the most awkward domestic political disputes in modern Middle Eastern history. All Sunni politicians sympathized with the young girl - but all Shiite politicians accused her of fabricating the story. Within hours the Iraqi Prime Minister was hailing the soldiers as heroes. He refused to investigate the incident.

He is not the only sectarian politician in Iraq, but he is assuredly no many with whom the United States can work to secure the alleys of Baghdad - and thus the rest of the country. The suggestion US troops stay in al-Anbar provoked Bush to order the "surge," BECAUSE Maliki was trying to get US troops out of the way so Shiite insurgents could freely impose their will on the Sunni inhabitants of the city. There is no reason to believe a Sunni Prime Minister might not do the same thing at this point in Iraqi history, but either scenario would only prove this point - Iraq has become what George W. Bush claimed to have been seeking to destroy - A TERRORIST STATE.