U.S. General in Iraq Says Hostages Freed

One would like to know if, among those holding the Italians, there was a native speaker of Italian. The communiques to the outside world were in perfect Italian, and referred to specific events in Italy that few non-Italians would have understood.

Either there was an Italian "revert" to Islam among those who held the hostages, or a Muslim who was raised in Italy from childhood. One wants to know.

It took five Anglo-American revisions of the draft, but the UN Security Council’s finally passed a fresh Resolution for Iraq, returning formal its sovereignty to the nation, though letting Coalition soldiers stay on in-country for another 18 months or so.

Because they’ve demurred on entering Iraq while the Americans remain there, at least the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conferences & the Nonaligned Movement won’t be sending their armies’ “peace-keepers” into Iraq on behalf of the UN - as first proposed in the “plan” of Laqdar Brahimi, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Iraq - at this stage.

When Brahimi (a former Foreign Minister of Algeria) was FM of the Arab League, he negotiated the Taif Agreement, in 1992, ostensibly closing a decade of atrocious civil wars in Lebanon. The Agreement provided - through its various omissions and abnormally loose modalities - ways for fascist Syria to persist in its OCCUPATION of neighbouring Lebanon with almost 20,000 troops and nearly as many “security-agents” and “consultants”, to this day. Taif constitutes the fig-leaf for Syria’s OCCUPATION of Lebanon, which it brazenly seeks to redefine as “supervision”.

(With Damascus so glibly off the hook, with silence on the true status of Lebanon, Mr Brahimi’s slick piece of evasion lets the Arabs, the Moslems and their Third World and Western running-dogs get clean away with constantly calling Israel’s occasional, purely defensive, consisently anti-terrorist incursions into the autonomous areas of the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, “The Occupation Of Palestine” - and be given credence!)

However, there’s one particularly egregious facet of Brahimi’s UN “plan” for Iraq’s brand-new “Interim National Government” which DOES endure today - and now, with this Resolution, it’s about to be implemented. This is the superficially-sane notion of an Iraqi Administration being staffed with “local Technocrats” (bidding to clone the UN’s successful approach in East Timor).

However, in effect, in Iraq, this means that those individuals being emplaced will virtually all be former Baathists. The UN Envoy looks to have conveniently ignored the fact that in Saddam’s Iraq, any “local Technocrats” attained their posts exclusively via LOYALTY to his apparat, not through any merit, talent or expertise. (Wave goodbye to any hopes for de-Baathification!)

Granted, mistakes’ve been made by the Allies in Iraq, but one of the biggest could turn out to be inviting the UN back into the country. There are players in the UN whose vested interest is to see the failure of freedom in Iraq - though none of them necessarily want it to continue unstable.

Leaving aside Europe, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, etc, within the Arab League alone, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and “Palestine” (the latter NOT a sovereign state, but nevertheless an equal vote in the 22-strong League) badly want Iraq’s democracy to be abortive, but Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, tentatively experimenting with democracy themselves, would prefer it to work out positively - but if it doesn’t, they can bear it without excessive bother….

Resonding to the second comment, you describe a perfect "Catch 22" situation. By competently planning the Iraqi war, that is to say, by planning to wipw off the face of the earth all Baathists, would have surely caused a world outcry of genocide and justifiably so. By appointing people from the general population with no experience to run the Iraqi government would bring about cries of incompetent planning and an inevitable fall into chaos, anarchy and civil war (Sunnis, Kurds, Shiites ... need more be said?).

People who will get the job done must be appointed. Once the country is stabilized, then let the populace vote for their representatives in a new government. Who should stay (maybe those who have redeemed themselves) and who should go should be decided by the people. Who gets the country stabilized ensures that the people will have a future to vote their minds.

Hug ther are 30,00 mulsums in Italy and the Itailans are not happy about it that is why they have their new President! They remember the moors! They are now letting people shoot burglers this is a huge thing for Italy they know the threat!

U.S. Forces Free Italian and Polish Hostages in Iraq
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, June 8, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. special forces freed three Italian and a Polish hostages Tuesday south of Baghdad, the top U.S. general said, in the first successful commando raid to rescue foreigners caught up in Iraq's wave of kidnappings.
But hours after the sweep, another group of militants revealed that they had snatched seven Turkish citizens, who the gunmen said worked for Iraq's U.S. occupiers.

The rescue raid came after days of observing the kidnappers' hideout, discovered earlier by coalition troops, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.

In Baghdad, the top U.S. general in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said suspects "involved in the kidnapping" were detained in the operation.

The three Italians and the Pole were all at the same location, Sanchez said.

The three Italians, and a fourth who was slain by the kidnappers, were snatched April 12 during the height of a wave of abductions of foreigners, sparked by intense violence that began in April.

Up to 40 people from several nations were abducted in the flurry of kidnappings, though most were later freed, usually after intercession from Iraqi Sunni clerics.

Still known to be in the hands of kidnappers are Pfc. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, and two truck drivers: an Egyptian and another Turk.

Sanchez gave few details on the raid but said that the freed men were in the coalition's control and "are in good health" and that there were no reports of any exchange of fire during the operation.

The commander of the Polish-led multinational force, Gen. Miecyzslaw Bienek, said U.S. special forces carried out the raid.

"It's the Americans who freed the hostages," Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Boguslaw Majewski said in Warsaw.

The hostage-takers "certainly were captured," Berlusconi told private TG5 TV. "The operation was carried out without bloodshed."

The go-ahead for the raid was given "when it was clear it could be carried out without bloodshed and without risking the lives of our fellow citizens," Italian Deputy Premier Gianfranco Fini told reporters.

The construction company that employed the Polish hostage, Jerzy Kos, said special forces including Polish troops had located the hide-out earlier.

Kos, 64, who works for the Jedynka construction company, was abducted last week after seven men stormed the company's Baghdad office. Another Polish employee abducted at the same time managed to escape. Five Iraqi employees were initially reported kidnapped alongside the Poles. The company and Sanchez made no mention of their fate.

"I am happy that our colleague will be coming home and will be with his family tonight," said Thomasz Gielzecki, Poland's chief diplomat in Baghdad.

The Italian hostages - Roberto Cupertino, Salvatore Stefio and Maurizio Agliani - were in Iraq as private security guards. The slaying of the fourth hostage, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, was videotaped by his kidnappers, who made the footage public. His body was later returned to Italy.

"This is a great day for the released hostages, for the families, for Italy, for all of us," said Gian Ludovico de Martino, the top Italian diplomat in Iraq. "We should remember the fourth hostage, Quattrocchi, who was killed in captivity."

But the kidnappings showed no sign of ending.

The captors of the seven Turkish hostages demanded that private companies working under contract with the U.S.-led coalition leave Iraq in a statement released with a video showing some of the captives obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

"If [the companies] don't cancel their contracts with the Americans and pull out their personnel, they will be targeted by the Iraqi resistance," it warned.

The video showed three of the hostages, crouching on the floor in front of an Iraqi flag and holding their passports, opened to the photo page. The men were surrounded by men whose faces were covered in scarves, two of whom carried assault rifles while another held a rocket-propelled grenade.

Four other hostages were shown to reporters separately.

"We urge the Muslim Turkish people ... to stand by the side of their Iraqi, Muslim brothers in their crisis by refusing to work with the occupation forces," said one of the masked men.

"We also ask the companies that deal with the occupation forces to cancel their contracts and withdraw its personnel from Iraq in order for the hostages to be released," he said.

The militants, who identified themselves as the United Armed Iraqi Resistance, did not say how the hostages were kidnapped. It said the hostages were working "to serve the interests of the occupation forces in Iraq."

Many of the kidnappings since April are thought to have been by Sunni Muslim guerrillas leading the insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation, though Shiite militants carried out at least one, and others appear to have been by criminals.

Maupin, the U.S. soldier last seen in an April 16 videotape being held by gunmen, was snatched seven days earlier in an attack on a fuel convoy he was escorting west of Baghdad.

Two other Americans - William Bradley, of Chesterfield, N.H., and Timothy Bell of Mobile, Ala., truck drivers employed by the Halliburton subsidiary KBR - are missing since that attack.

Four KBR employees were killed in the attack, and another U.S. soldier in the convoy was found dead later. A seventh KBR employee, Thomas Hamill of Mississippi, was kidnapped and escaped from his captors May 2.

Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give them Strength and Courage to stay the course to Victory and ease the Hearts of those who have lost love ones let them Know their cause is Just Amen