preview.tinyurl.com/w3hvt -> www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20061108-1440-eln-iraq-us-election.html
By Christopher Bodeen ASSOCIATED PRESS 2:40 pm November 8, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Col. Al Kelly, whose brigade patrols dangerous Shiite neighborhoods on the north side of Baghdad, believes Donald H Rumsfeld did the best he could, made tough decisions and "now he's paying for it." "He made hard decisions no one else would make," said Kelly, 45, of Weldon, NC, after President Bush announced that he was replacing Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief with former CIA director Robert Gates. Jesse Riggin, who returned to the US in late September after serving a year with the 101st Airborne Division in Tikrit, said it's difficult to discern the reasons for Rumsfeld's resignation. "It's very hard to say whether that's due to our policies or just due to the overall climate." "A lot of it has to do with the political climate and the pressure that's being put on Rumsfeld and the Bush administration by the media." While US troops have complained Rumsfeld sought to control Iraq with too few troops, many Iraqis say the US-led forces failed to offer day-to-day protection against insurgent and militia attacks. Some expected Rumsfeld's resignation and the Democrats' gains in Congress to improve security and spur an earlier withdrawal of US troops. "I expect a major change in military commands in Iraq," said Hassan al-Sunnaid, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party. "We have to wait and see the strategy of the new secretary (Gates) and how we will deal with him. We hope he will be more effective and more serious in achieving security in Iraq." "The Bush administration including Rumsfeld was able to topple Saddam Hussein's regime but it did not succeed in administering Iraq," al-Sunnaid said. "Defense officials, on top of them Rumsfeld, failed and so did the American ambassador. Changing Rumsfeld should have happened a year ago because their work in Iraq did not achieve any results." Hassan Rhadi, a Shiite and one of several ministers of state without portfolio in the al-Maliki Cabinet, said a new defense secretary "would only mean a change in tactics, but not in strategy. We will not judge the successor until see what he will do in Iraq." As the House of Representatives returned to Democratic control and the Senate hung in the balance, Iraqis took note of the results, which came on a day when at least 66 more people were killed in vicious sectarian attacks. A Shiite woman, who identified herself as Um Assad, mother of Assad, probably spoke for most Iraqis when questioned about the election as she shopped near the National Museum. "We hope that they (the Democrats) will be kind to our people and understand our problems," she said. Zeki Nayif, a Sunni dressed in traditional Arab garb, spoke bluntly as a group of men at a newspaper kiosk gathered around. We want security and peace to prevail," he said, then walked off. Ala Abid Ali, a Shiite among the group, was of the same mind: "As far as I'm concerned I hope that the Democrats will work for providing security for the Iraqi people, who are suffering greatly." Iraqi politicians opposed to the continued US presence in the country were delighted with the outcome. "The vote shows the Iraqi and American people are of one mind about withdrawing US troops," said Falah Hassan Shanshal, who leads the parliamentary bloc of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "We hope the Democrats don't forget their campaign promises. If they don't, we will deal with them in a brotherly way once the last American soldier pulls out from Iraq," he said. Even moderate Kurdish lawmaker Mohamoud Othman saw the shift to Democrats as a result of the Bush administration's "bad policy of spending too many lives in Iraq and too many billions of Americans' tax money." "Today he (Bush) was taught a lesson," said Othman, whose fellow Kurds are deeply indebted to the US for allowing the ethnic group to establish a virtually autonomous region in the north of Iraq.
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