CIA report: Iraqis losing faith in U.S. A new top-secret intelligence report warns that Iraqis are losing faith in U.S.-led occupation forces, a development that is increasing support for the resistance, officials said Wednesday. CIA and White House officials refused to confirm the existence of the report, which came to light amid urgently scheduled White House meetings with the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. But two other senior U.S. officials said the report painted a worrisome picture of the political and security situation there. http://www.msnbc.com/news/992513.asp?vts=111220031742&cp1=1
I started re-reading Loren Baritz's Backfire last night and was well-reminded that the blindfold of American culture during the Vietnam war was directly responsible for failure there. You see, there is still the indefatigable notion that the USA is righteous in every endeavor due to its Judeo-Christian heritage and that the rest of the world wants to be "just like us". So if this CIA brief is accurate, then some have clearly learned this lesson and are wise to shine a very bright light so as to avoid similar national pain. Not to mention several folks within government are deliberately leaking this stuff because there should be more public scrutiny.
A new Gallup poll of residents of Baghdad have found that only 5 percent of those polled believe the United States invaded Iraq to "assist the Iraqi people" and only 1 percent believe the U.S. invaded to establish a democracy there. 43 percent of those polled feel the U.S. invaded to "rob Iraq's oil." (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/12/159247)
But really, it's just a few Ba'athist loyalists and al-Queda terrorists right? "I want to join these Iraqi fighters. I want to hit the Americans, the infidels," said Ali Ahmed, 10. (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3805307) Well, maybe not.