: re: U.S. Sees Risks in Assisting a Compromised Iraqi Force

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 12:13 PM
Subject: re: U.S. Sees Risks in Assisting a Compromised Iraqi Force
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

  The U.S. can play no productive role in Iraq until we disown al-Maliki's lie. He is not in command of the Iraqi army. He is in command of a Shiite sectarian militia in army uniforms. L. Paul Bremer and he purged that force of all other elements. Sunnis were segregated into "Awakening" brigades and the Kurds have kept their own PeshMerga.  If there is to be a legitimate government of Iraq, it--and its armed forces--will have to represent more than the majority. It will have to represent the people. al-Maliki has shown neither inclination nor competence to do that. To back him now would be to set ourselves against legitimate government.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/us-sees-risks-in-assisting-a-compromised-iraqi-force.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0