As the anti-war movement plods it's way through yet another workweek, for as we know even those with moral ascendancy do need to eat and pay bills, those plodding in the other direction are working out the final details..
One topic that's been quite popular with the motk, is what's going to happen to Iraq once Hussein's no more than a blurb in the history of what will soon become just another Middle Eastern country again..
Well, they've been busy, those boys in the back room..
Among the other parts of the post-Hussein plan..
Iraqi military forces would be gathered in prisoner-of-war camps.. Ba'ath opposition members now receiving U.S. training at an air base in Hungary serving as part of the guard force. The Iraqi troops would be vetted by U.S. forces, and those who were cleared, beginning with those who "stood down or switched sides" during a U.S. assault, would receive U.S. training to serve in what one official called a "post-stabilization" force... Now there's a time-honoured tradition being maintained.. find those who can't be trusted to have strength of conviction and give them a rifle and the power to use it..
U.S. forces would secure any weapons of mass destruction that were found, including biological and chemical weapons stores. "At an appropriate time," according to an an official, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency might, let's stress that word might, be brought in to examine weaponry, scientists and documentation.
Now, as well as a 'consultative council', an Iraqi commission would be formed to reestablish a judicial system. Yet another commission would write a new constitution, although officials emphasized that they would not expect to "democratize" Iraq along the lines of the U.S. governing system. Instead, they speak of a "representative Iraqi government"..whatever that might be.. considering the differences in religous denominations, tribal affiliations, and general traditional trains of thought..
They say the decision to install U.S. military and civilian administrations for an indeterminate time, stems from lessons learned in Afghanistan. There, power has been diffused among three power bases..U.S. military forces still waging war against the remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda, a multinational security force of several thousand troops in which the United States doesn't take part, and the interim government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. And they're having a wonderful time.