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Biden (D): Split Iraq Into 3 Different Regions

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The destruction of a sovereign nation in Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization. A Republican or a Democrat, what’s the difference? In the end it’s the American empire and the 21st century PNAC ME mirage that seems to be destiny of our foreign policy. Horrible.

Sen. Joseph Biden Proposes Partitioning Iraq Into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni Regions

WASHINGTON May 1, 2006 (AP) — The senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed Monday that Iraq be divided into three separate regions Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni with a central government in Baghdad.

In an op-ed essay in Monday’s edition of The New York Times, Sen. Joseph Biden. D-Del., wrote that the idea “is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group … room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests.”

The new Iraqi constitution allows for establishment of self-governing regions. But that was one of the reasons the Sunnis opposed the constitution and why they demanded and won an agreement to review it this year.

Biden and co-writer Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledged the opposition, and said the Sunnis “have to be given money to make their oil-poor region viable. The Constitution must be amended to guarantee Sunni areas 20 percent (approximately their proportion of the population) of all revenues.”

Biden and Gelb also wrote that President Bush “must direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008 (while providing for a small but effective residual force to combat terrorists and keep the neighbors honest).”

The White House (Condi Rice) on Sunday defended its prewar planning against criticism from an unlikely source former Secretary of State Colin Powell.


Appropriate photo: invasion based on lies! (AP)

Juan Cole’s Informed Comment:
Colin Powell was pushed out as secretary of state because he sought to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, according to the Daily Telegraph. In another part of the interview, Powell criticized Rumsfeld for sending so few troops into Iraq …

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Kurdistan
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“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”

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