Saturday, May 01, 2004


Yahoo! News - Saddam's Old Soldiers Patrol Falluja in U.S. Deal
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Soldiers of the old Iraqi army led by one of Saddam Hussein's generals patrolled the city of Falluja Saturday, a year after George W. Bush declared the U.S. "mission accomplished" in ousting the Iraqi regime.

Mired in a bloody, month-long siege that was costing lives on both sides and outraging Iraqi and wider Arab opinion, U.S. Marines pulled back Friday and entrusted security to local police and a new force of ex-soldiers under General Jasim Mohamed Saleh, formerly of Saddam's feared Republican Guard.

A Pentagon spokesman said the United States, which had made a point of excluding senior figures from the old regime, was going in to the deal in Falluja with its "eyes wide open," aware of the risks of dealing with the relatively unknown Saleh, whose influence over -- or links with -- the insurgents are unclear.

And U.S. efforts to maintain the goodwill of those Iraqis who did welcome the overthrow of the Baathist state, such as the Shi'ite majority to the south, have been hampered most recently by a scandal over the abuse of prisoners by military jailers.

The whole Arab world was outraged by photographs published this week showing U.S. troops abusing detainees in Saddam's once notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Saturday, a London newspaper published images showing British troops, who control the Shi'ite south of Iraq around Basra, engaged in similar ill treatment.

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...." Dammit Roger, it looks as if we were fooled again.