An online Financial Times article (which seems only accessible by going to antiwar.com first) reports that The Iraqi Coalition of National Unity (ICNU), which appeared in the city last week riding on US special forces vehicles, has taken to looting and terrorising their neighbourhood with impunity, according to most residents….
Other Iraqi exiles, brought in by the CIA and US special forces to help assemble a local government over the next few days, say the militia is out of control.
“They are nobody, and nobody has ever heard of them, all they have is US backing,” said an Arab journalist.”
Rumsfeld is so arrongantly convinced that America’s presence is going to ensure Iraq’s slow-but-sure emergence as an orderly democratic nation. On TV today, he stated that he was certain that the embedded journalists will come home with wonderful stories about how efficient and successful the American armed forces are in handling the the growing chaos and keeping unnecessary harm at a minimum. I guess he doesn’t bother to investigate factual first-hand accounts; he prefers to make up the news in advance and then let the American press know exactly what he expects them to report.

My mother calls. Put on CNN she says. They