Iraq’s Sunnis

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/opinion/14fri1.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Iraq's%20sunnis&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 9:17 AM
Subject: re: Iraq’s Sunnis
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

To say that Washington "did almost nothing to restrain" the Baghdad government in its discrimination against Sunnis is technically correct, but dishonest. "Debaathification" was L. Paul Bremer's announced policy, barring Sunnis from office in both the government and the army. More recently, the Bush administration diverted interested Sunnis into the Awakening Counsels, thereby further purifying the Iraqi army along sectarian lines. If there is to be a peaceful unified sovereign Iraq, it must have non-sectarian national institutions. As long as the government and army are perceived as Shiite bastions, the American occupying army will be needed to forestall civil war.

Barry Levine