Reply #26: Count this among the reasons given to not make this war. [View All]

[donkeyotay]

The Zinni quote, "We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started." pertains to this thread posted by pirate smile:

By Steve Fainaru and Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 15, 2005; Page A01

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Police and security units, forces led by Kurdish political parties and backed by the U.S. military, have abducted hundreds of minority Arabs and Turkmens in this intensely volatile city and spirited them to prisons in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, government documents and families of the victims.

Seized off the streets of Kirkuk or in joint U.S.-Iraqi raids, the men have been transferred secretly and in violation of Iraqi law to prisons in the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, sometimes with the knowledge of U.S. forces. The detainees, including merchants, members of tribal families and soldiers, have often remained missing for months; some have been tortured, according to released prisoners and the Kirkuk police chief.

...

If you could see our house on any day, you'd see that we're having funerals without the corpses," Ramadan said. "Children are looking for their fathers, wives don't know the fate of their husbands, and mothers are dying 40 times a day."

Ramadan said he had "anger in his heart."

"Tomorrow, I could recruit the entire tribe," he said. "I could block the street in Kirkuk and kidnap 40 Kurds. When you lose patience, you can do anything."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401828.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1549416