and there's the dumbass again, quick not to actually even attempt to discuss anything, but to ankle bite every chance he gets. Torpedo, you are SUCH a toothless, ankle-biting dumbass.
Thanks for posting the pictures of the forgotten rusty relics of the Iran/Iraq War, which was over in 1988.
Actually, some came from the interim report done after the current war and inspections. You should read it sometime and find out what Saddam was really up to and what his future wish list was. I am sure that after he died and his piglatin sons would have taken over, it would have gotten much worse.
The rest were pictures also taken after the current war. What it all shows is that he was involved with terrorist and that he did retain what he could for after the sanctions were lifted.
If you refuse to see what is in the pictures and ignore the reports done by investigators, then I do not know what else to say or show you to convince you.
I would think if you have these pictures, Dan, the Bush people have them. Why don't they show them over and over again, like you? If this is clear and convincing proof, as you seem to claiming.
"ONE soldier fought off scores of elite Iraqi troops in a fierce defense of his outnumbered Army unit, saving dozens of American lives before he himself was killed. Another soldier helped lead a team that killed 27 insurgents who had ambushed her convoy. And then there was the marine who, after being shot, managed to tuck an enemy grenade under his stomach to save the men in his unit, dying in the process.
"Their names are Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt. Rafael Peralta. If you have never heard of them, even in a week when more than 20 marines were killed in Iraq by insurgents, that might be because the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized their actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II."
and....
".....the military is more reluctant than it was in the last century to promote the individual over the group; and the war itself is different, with fewer big battles and more and messier engagements involving smaller units of Americans. Then, too, there is a celebrity culture that seems skewed more to the victim than to the hero."
"Collectively, say military historians, war correspondents and retired senior officers, the country seems to have concluded that war heroes pack a political punch that requires caution. They have become not just symbols of bravery but also reminders of the war's thorniest questions. "No one wants to call the attention of the public to bloodletting and heroism and the horrifying character of combat," said Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina. "What situation can be imagined that would promote the war and not remind people of its ambivalence?"
"Says the guy who threatened to kill me on Nov. 11th, 2003."
And you've gotten a lot of mileage out of it. Haven't stopped talking about it for going on two years. Think about that for awhile.
He wanted to drown you in one of these urban lakes didn't he? That'd be pretty tough. They're shallow. You'd just splash around a cuss for awhile, eventually someone would call it in on a cell phone and the Park Police would show up and haul in both of your sorry asses.
November 11 is my birthday. Veteran's Day. The Day Bill Fold threatened to drown torpedo. Whattaya know?
So according to you two bozos, threatening to kill someone is not hateful.
Liberal compassion at it's finest. Now if it was a conservative threatening to kill a liberal, well, that would be a whole different story, wouldn't it?
"So according to you two bozos, threatening to kill someone is not hateful."
Threatening to kill somebody in Lake Como is ridiculous. By the time it was over, there'd be rollerbladers in the fight. Not an ideal site for a murder.
some [photos] came from the interim report done after the current war
The rest were pictures also taken after the current war.
Grandpa Dan, I appreciate that you aren't vitriolic like some of Bush's supporters are, and you haven't called me any names or implied that i am a marxist or a terrorist sympathizer. Believe me, it makes a world of difference.
However, I can easily show you how mistaken you are to assert that recent pictures taken of war relics approximately two decades old do not transform the war relics into evidence of contemporary activity.
I still have my papers from my military service. I can take pictures of them, but those pictures say nothing about what I'm currently doing or what i intend to do.
You should read it sometime and find out what Saddam was really up to and what his future wish list was. I am sure that after he died and his piglatin sons would have taken over, it would have gotten much worse.
I have no doubt that Saddam tried to start a nuke program in the past. ditto for his bio and chem weapons. The difference between now and then is that we know now how he did that, and we know how to prevent him from doing it again, without invading and occupying Iraq. Another, major difference between now and then is that Hussein would have had to start from scratch. Operation Desert Fox destroyed Saddam's CAPABILITY to restart his programs. The FACILITIES that were constantly under watch previously, were destroyed, IN 1998.
The president not only lied about whether or not there were stockpiles of weapons, but when that lie was exposed BY HIS OWN HAND-PICKED EXPERTS, he resorted to the lie that Saddam had the FACILITIES to restart his weapons programs.
When that lie fell apart, the president resorted to the lie that the "programs" were intact, relying upon documentation that the Iraq regime was required to keep in order to show what had been destroyed!
If we throw away that lie, too, then we are left only with the "intentions" of the Iraq regime, and for evidence of that, Bush and his people resorted to the "dual-use" argument, effectively arguing that Iraq would have to de-industrialize to comply with UN resolutions. It's an absurd argument.
But I will grant that Saddam was a wily and possibly a dangerous character. I'm not convinced that his regime could have long endured a steady effort by the United States and Europe to remove him from power through covert and diplomatic means. He was not a threat that was anywhere near the danger we faced from the Soviet Union.
As for his sons: I've heard that canard. I don't believe it. Hussein's death or removal from power would have been the end of the dynasty. Quesay would almost certainly have killed his brother, and Qusay would never have been able to hold onto power. He was deranged to the point of disability. Baathist control of Iraq would have passed to Damascus, and we would have seen a struggle between Syria and Iran to control Iraq. And we may see that in any case.
"The negotiations were stalled on a number of issues, including the role of Islam in the state, the rights of women and the distribution of power between central and regional governments. Issues that had seemed to have been settled, like the sharing of oil revenues, came unraveled."
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 14 - Iraqi leaders remained deadlocked Sunday over major issues in the country's new constitution, raising the possibility they would fail to meet the Monday deadline and push the country toward a political crisis.
With several questions unresolved, Shiite leaders said Sunday that they were considering asking the National Assembly to approve the document without the agreement of the country's Sunni leaders. Such a move would probably provoke the Sunnis, whose participation in the political process is seen as crucial in the effort to marginalize the Sunni-dominated guerrilla insurgency.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders said they were also considering giving themselves more time to reach a deal, though it was by no means certain that they could without amending the interim constitution, the law currently in force. That would require a three-fourths majority of the 275-member National Assembly.
If the deadline is not met nor the interim constitution successfully amended, the law appears to require dissolving the National Assembly and holding new elections. Shiite and Kurdish leaders said late Sunday that they were discussing that possibility, but said that they hoped to avoid it.
"That is the worst option, and we want to avoid it all costs," said Ali al-Dabbagh, one of the Shiite leaders charged with writing the new constitution.
The negotiations were stalled on a number of issues, including the role of Islam in the state, the rights of women and the distribution of power between central and regional governments. Issues that had seemed to have been settled, like the sharing of oil revenues, came unraveled.
American officials here have been pushing the Iraqis to meet the Aug. 15 deadline, arguing that any delay in the political process, devised to culminate in democratic elections in December, could risk strengthening the insurgency. A stalemate could also stall the Bush administration's plans to begin reducing the number of troops here as early as next spring.
The deadlock reflected a lack of consensus on basic questions underlying the nation's identity, a consensus which has largely eluded this country since it was carved from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
The disagreements run almost entirely along ethnic and sectarian lines, reflecting the deep divisions among Iraq's majority Shiites and the Kurdish and Sunni minorities.
The principal unresolved issue is whether to grant to the country's Shiite majority an autonomous region in the south. Shiite leaders are demanding that nine provinces in southern Iraq - half of the provinces in the country - be allowed to form a largely self-governing region akin to the Kurdish autonomous region in the north.
The leaders of Iraq's Sunni population staunchly oppose the Shiite demands, contending that if the Shiites and the Kurds were both granted wide powers of self-rule, there would be little left of the Iraqi state. The issue of Shiite autonomy is especially significant because the richest oil fields are situated in the extreme south of the country.
Indeed, some Sunni leaders say the Shiite demand for self-rule is largely a cover for hoarding the bulk of Iraq's oil revenues. On Sunday, an agreement on sharing oil revenues between the central and regional governments fell apart, with the Shiites demanding more control.
Under prodding from the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, the Shiites agreed to hold off on their demands for regional autonomy, in exchange for a mechanism in the constitution that would allow them to achieve that autonomy later. Under the formula favored by the Shiites, provinces could set up autonomous regions if they secured majority votes of their people, the provincial assemblies and the National Assembly.
But Sunni leaders rejected that proposal, saying it would only slow down, but not significantly hamper, the Shiite drive for self-rule. While accepting Mr. Khalilzad's basic formula, the Sunnis said they would insist on two-thirds majorities in all the voting.
"If we accept federalism, the country will be finished," said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni leader on the constitutional committee.
Late Sunday, after many hours of negotiating, some Shiite leaders said they were so impatient with what they described as Sunni intransigence that they began to threaten to ram the constitution through the National Assembly without Sunni support.
Theoretically, at least, that was possible. Sunnis constitute only about 20 percent of the population, and they hold virtually none of the seats in the National Assembly, in part because they boycotted national elections in January. If the Shiites and the Kurds united around the proposed constitution, they could probably secure enough votes for its approval in the National Assembly, and in the nationwide constitutional referendum scheduled for Oct. 15.
Under the rules agreed to last year, the Sunnis could defeat the constitution, but only if they could muster a two-thirds majority voting against it in 3 of Iraq's 18 provinces. The Sunnis are believed to constitute a majority in three provinces, but some Shiite leaders said they were untroubled by the prospect of a Sunni veto.
"The Sunnis have to find a two-thirds majority, and they can't," said Sami al-Askary, a Shiite member of the constitutional committee.
Pushing the constitution through without the Sunnis, though, would almost certainly bring a Sunni reaction. Sunni leaders suggested that they could back out of the political process altogether, raising the prospect of a Sunni boycott of the Oct. 15 referendum and the Dec. 15 elections.
American leaders fear that failing to bring the Sunnis along into the political process would only further intensify the insurgency, which is already attacking American forces an average of 65 times a day here.
As the Aug. 15 deadline approached, it was difficult to differentiate between credible threats and high-stakes bargaining. There were suggestions, for instance, that the Shiite leadership itself was not unified on the federalism question. One of the Shiite leaders, Abdul Aziz Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq, who was expected to attend a meeting of the top political leaders on Sunday night, surprised many when he failed to show up.
Among the other questions still unresolved are the role of Islam in the state, including a proposal by the Shiites to include a political role for the Shiite religious leadership in Najaf. The power granted to Islam in the new constitution could affect the rights of women, particularly if Islamic law is allowed to govern marriage and family disputes.
Iraqi leaders have still reached no agreement on the city of Kirkuk, which is divided among three ethnic groups but claimed by the Kurdish regional government. The Kurds are pushing for a timeline to reverse decades of Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" policy that would require the repatriation of tens of thousands of people.
Also on Sunday, the American command announced the deaths of five American soldiers, all from roadside bombs. In the bloodiest attack, a bomb killed three American soldiers on patrol on Friday in the city of Tuz, north of Baghdad. A fourth soldier was wounded.
On Sunday, another roadside bomb killed an American solider and wounded three others near the western town of Rutbah. A fifth American soldier was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, and another was wounded.
The propaganda war continued as well. In a statement posted on the internet, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia warned the Sunni clerics against urging their faithful to take part in the referendum on the constitution. The warning appears to be a reaction to the fact that many Sunni preachers, in contrast to the elections in January, are urging Sunnis to vote this time.
"Be informed that this conspiracy is to get America out of the logjam that it fell into," the statement reads. "We in the Al Qaeda organization will manifest the backsliding of all who call for the writing of the constitution and arbitrating on other than God's laws."
when do we invade the country responsible for this bit of terrorism?
never did solve that one, did we?
of course, it would be hard to invade ourselves, wouldn't it?
You're an American, crabweed? Really, when did this happen?
When my America mother gave birth to me. Why? When did you ever become an American? When you first crawled out from under a rock or sometime later?
and whatever happened to you not wanting me to talk to you? You keep asking me ignorant questions.
Luv2Fly 8/4/05 9:08am
Don't you think that argument is a bit undercut by what we know for a fact today? That the WMDs in question were destroyed in 1991?
Desert Fox was an attempt to destroy facilities and storage areas that were SUSPECTED of having WMDs by some (not all) UN inspectors.
Prove that you don't have a dog. My friend, the inspector, says he thinks you have a dog, and that you keep hiding it when he comes over.
Grandpa Dan Zachary 8/4/05 8:16pm
Thanks for posting the pictures of the forgotten rusty relics of the Iran/Iraq War, which was over in 1988.
"I don't want to start a "Bill Fold is an expert" round of bullshit.....
Â
Why is today any different?
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and there's the dumbass again, quick not to actually even attempt to discuss anything, but to ankle bite every chance he gets. Torpedo, you are SUCH a toothless, ankle-biting dumbass.
Thanks for showing everyone YOUR attempt at a discussion. I hope you're having a splendid day. How's the family?
damn you are one stupid fuck, Torpedo
Things ok? How's work go'in?
remember this?
"Quit talking to me crabgrass" - Torpedo-8
Why yes i do, Mr. crabgrass. I believe that pertains to YOU talking to me, sir.
and I'm not gonna stop responding to your attempts to talk to me.
it's a two way street, these conversation deals.
You don't want me to talk to you, try not trying to talk to and about me. See how that works, dumbass.
I believe the definition of a loser is someone who scams the taxpayers for 30 years.
Thanks for posting the pictures of the forgotten rusty relics of the Iran/Iraq War, which was over in 1988.
Actually, some came from the interim report done after the current war and inspections. You should read it sometime and find out what Saddam was really up to and what his future wish list was. I am sure that after he died and his piglatin sons would have taken over, it would have gotten much worse.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html
The rest were pictures also taken after the current war. What it all shows is that he was involved with terrorist and that he did retain what he could for after the sanctions were lifted.
If you refuse to see what is in the pictures and ignore the reports done by investigators, then I do not know what else to say or show you to convince you.
I would think if you have these pictures, Dan, the Bush people have them. Why don't they show them over and over again, like you? If this is clear and convincing proof, as you seem to claiming.
Don't blame the media for not producing enough "good news" stories from Iraq. Heroism is not as popular, with, even the military.
"ONE soldier fought off scores of elite Iraqi troops in a fierce defense of his outnumbered Army unit, saving dozens of American lives before he himself was killed. Another soldier helped lead a team that killed 27 insurgents who had ambushed her convoy. And then there was the marine who, after being shot, managed to tuck an enemy grenade under his stomach to save the men in his unit, dying in the process.
"Their names are Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt. Rafael Peralta. If you have never heard of them, even in a week when more than 20 marines were killed in Iraq by insurgents, that might be because the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized their actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II."
and....
".....the military is more reluctant than it was in the last century to promote the individual over the group; and the war itself is different, with fewer big battles and more and messier engagements involving smaller units of Americans. Then, too, there is a celebrity culture that seems skewed more to the victim than to the hero."
Typical liberals. Our soldiers dying is now "good news".
Typical liberals. Heroic soldiers and their stories should not be told.
Take a flying leap pathetic left wing wackjobs.
it's NOT good news... that's the point, dumbass.
I don't think he even read the story.
From the same link:
"Collectively, say military historians, war correspondents and retired senior officers, the country seems to have concluded that war heroes pack a political punch that requires caution. They have become not just symbols of bravery but also reminders of the war's thorniest questions. "No one wants to call the attention of the public to bloodletting and heroism and the horrifying character of combat," said Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina. "What situation can be imagined that would promote the war and not remind people of its ambivalence?"
HEH! Just like Pavlov's dog, the wackjobs here are so predictable. Damn you idiots are easy.
Easy to what? You made a comment, we answered it. I thought that's what we do here.
What's this? Rick playing dumb?...funny.
Just looking for answers you're not giving.
So according to Fold's reasoning, we should have more wars so more veterans can be in congress to oppose wars.
Brilliant Fold!!!
The only question you asked was "easy to what"?
The answer: Easy to set up.
Set up for what?!
"You are truly, one pretty-hateful person....."
Says the guy who threatened to kill me on Nov. 11th, 2003.
Your hypocrisy knows no bounds, tubby.
this only reinforces his claim.
"Says the guy who threatened to kill me on Nov. 11th, 2003."
And you've gotten a lot of mileage out of it. Haven't stopped talking about it for going on two years. Think about that for awhile.
He wanted to drown you in one of these urban lakes didn't he? That'd be pretty tough. They're shallow. You'd just splash around a cuss for awhile, eventually someone would call it in on a cell phone and the Park Police would show up and haul in both of your sorry asses.
November 11 is my birthday. Veteran's Day. The Day Bill Fold threatened to drown torpedo. Whattaya know?
So according to you two bozos, threatening to kill someone is not hateful.
Liberal compassion at it's finest. Now if it was a conservative threatening to kill a liberal, well, that would be a whole different story, wouldn't it?
"So according to you two bozos, threatening to kill someone is not hateful."
Threatening to kill somebody in Lake Como is ridiculous. By the time it was over, there'd be rollerbladers in the fight. Not an ideal site for a murder.
Click here for views of the Golf Clubhouse, Lake Shore, Picnic Shelter, trails and Frog Pond
I'd take any threats from him as serious.
no, just that someone threatening to kill youdoesn't mean youaren't hateful.
someone threatening to kill you is not proof that you aren't hateful... on the contrary, it suggests that maybe you are.
saying "someone threatened to kill me" is not a good defense when you are accused of being hateful.
How do we know you're not a burrito short of a combination plate, JT?
LOL! I'm the one threatened but the left wing wackjobs make Fold out to be the victim.
Now wonder America has a disconnect with liberal thoughts and values.
How do we know you're not a burrito short of a combination plate, JT?
You don't.
I haven't threatened you though. Have I?
"Eat Pedo's shorts"...Was that coming from a 12 year old?
You're right, Foldo. Why would anyone take a death threat seriously from such a sane person such as yourself?
Should i make phone calls like you did when you went crying to the VFW???
Still crying about it. Buck up, tubby.
What'd you do to lose the 25 pounds, Bill?
Your body mass index is 26.4. Get below 25 and you've done it.
<http://www.caloriecontrol.org/bmi.html>
Grandpa Dan Zachary 8/7/05 8:59am
Grandpa Dan, I appreciate that you aren't vitriolic like some of Bush's supporters are, and you haven't called me any names or implied that i am a marxist or a terrorist sympathizer. Believe me, it makes a world of difference.
However, I can easily show you how mistaken you are to assert that recent pictures taken of war relics approximately two decades old do not transform the war relics into evidence of contemporary activity.
I still have my papers from my military service. I can take pictures of them, but those pictures say nothing about what I'm currently doing or what i intend to do.
I have no doubt that Saddam tried to start a nuke program in the past. ditto for his bio and chem weapons. The difference between now and then is that we know now how he did that, and we know how to prevent him from doing it again, without invading and occupying Iraq. Another, major difference between now and then is that Hussein would have had to start from scratch. Operation Desert Fox destroyed Saddam's CAPABILITY to restart his programs. The FACILITIES that were constantly under watch previously, were destroyed, IN 1998.
The president not only lied about whether or not there were stockpiles of weapons, but when that lie was exposed BY HIS OWN HAND-PICKED EXPERTS, he resorted to the lie that Saddam had the FACILITIES to restart his weapons programs.
When that lie fell apart, the president resorted to the lie that the "programs" were intact, relying upon documentation that the Iraq regime was required to keep in order to show what had been destroyed!
If we throw away that lie, too, then we are left only with the "intentions" of the Iraq regime, and for evidence of that, Bush and his people resorted to the "dual-use" argument, effectively arguing that Iraq would have to de-industrialize to comply with UN resolutions. It's an absurd argument.
But I will grant that Saddam was a wily and possibly a dangerous character. I'm not convinced that his regime could have long endured a steady effort by the United States and Europe to remove him from power through covert and diplomatic means. He was not a threat that was anywhere near the danger we faced from the Soviet Union.
As for his sons: I've heard that canard. I don't believe it. Hussein's death or removal from power would have been the end of the dynasty. Quesay would almost certainly have killed his brother, and Qusay would never have been able to hold onto power. He was deranged to the point of disability. Baathist control of Iraq would have passed to Damascus, and we would have seen a struggle between Syria and Iran to control Iraq. And we may see that in any case.
The war was pointless.
What'd you do to lose the 25 pounds, Bill?
He had the rocks removed from his head!
Shiites, Kurds could shut out Sunnis
Constitution stalls on eve of deadline
"The negotiations were stalled on a number of issues, including the role of Islam in the state, the rights of women and the distribution of power between central and regional governments. Issues that had seemed to have been settled, like the sharing of oil revenues, came unraveled."
Iraqis Consider Bypassing Sunnis on Constitution
By DEXTER FILKINS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 14 - Iraqi leaders remained deadlocked Sunday over major issues in the country's new constitution, raising the possibility they would fail to meet the Monday deadline and push the country toward a political crisis.
With several questions unresolved, Shiite leaders said Sunday that they were considering asking the National Assembly to approve the document without the agreement of the country's Sunni leaders. Such a move would probably provoke the Sunnis, whose participation in the political process is seen as crucial in the effort to marginalize the Sunni-dominated guerrilla insurgency.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders said they were also considering giving themselves more time to reach a deal, though it was by no means certain that they could without amending the interim constitution, the law currently in force. That would require a three-fourths majority of the 275-member National Assembly.
If the deadline is not met nor the interim constitution successfully amended, the law appears to require dissolving the National Assembly and holding new elections. Shiite and Kurdish leaders said late Sunday that they were discussing that possibility, but said that they hoped to avoid it.
"That is the worst option, and we want to avoid it all costs," said Ali al-Dabbagh, one of the Shiite leaders charged with writing the new constitution.
The negotiations were stalled on a number of issues, including the role of Islam in the state, the rights of women and the distribution of power between central and regional governments. Issues that had seemed to have been settled, like the sharing of oil revenues, came unraveled.
American officials here have been pushing the Iraqis to meet the Aug. 15 deadline, arguing that any delay in the political process, devised to culminate in democratic elections in December, could risk strengthening the insurgency. A stalemate could also stall the Bush administration's plans to begin reducing the number of troops here as early as next spring.
The deadlock reflected a lack of consensus on basic questions underlying the nation's identity, a consensus which has largely eluded this country since it was carved from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
The disagreements run almost entirely along ethnic and sectarian lines, reflecting the deep divisions among Iraq's majority Shiites and the Kurdish and Sunni minorities.
The principal unresolved issue is whether to grant to the country's Shiite majority an autonomous region in the south. Shiite leaders are demanding that nine provinces in southern Iraq - half of the provinces in the country - be allowed to form a largely self-governing region akin to the Kurdish autonomous region in the north.
The leaders of Iraq's Sunni population staunchly oppose the Shiite demands, contending that if the Shiites and the Kurds were both granted wide powers of self-rule, there would be little left of the Iraqi state. The issue of Shiite autonomy is especially significant because the richest oil fields are situated in the extreme south of the country.
Indeed, some Sunni leaders say the Shiite demand for self-rule is largely a cover for hoarding the bulk of Iraq's oil revenues. On Sunday, an agreement on sharing oil revenues between the central and regional governments fell apart, with the Shiites demanding more control.
Under prodding from the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, the Shiites agreed to hold off on their demands for regional autonomy, in exchange for a mechanism in the constitution that would allow them to achieve that autonomy later. Under the formula favored by the Shiites, provinces could set up autonomous regions if they secured majority votes of their people, the provincial assemblies and the National Assembly.
But Sunni leaders rejected that proposal, saying it would only slow down, but not significantly hamper, the Shiite drive for self-rule. While accepting Mr. Khalilzad's basic formula, the Sunnis said they would insist on two-thirds majorities in all the voting.
"If we accept federalism, the country will be finished," said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni leader on the constitutional committee.
Late Sunday, after many hours of negotiating, some Shiite leaders said they were so impatient with what they described as Sunni intransigence that they began to threaten to ram the constitution through the National Assembly without Sunni support.
Theoretically, at least, that was possible. Sunnis constitute only about 20 percent of the population, and they hold virtually none of the seats in the National Assembly, in part because they boycotted national elections in January. If the Shiites and the Kurds united around the proposed constitution, they could probably secure enough votes for its approval in the National Assembly, and in the nationwide constitutional referendum scheduled for Oct. 15.
Under the rules agreed to last year, the Sunnis could defeat the constitution, but only if they could muster a two-thirds majority voting against it in 3 of Iraq's 18 provinces. The Sunnis are believed to constitute a majority in three provinces, but some Shiite leaders said they were untroubled by the prospect of a Sunni veto.
"The Sunnis have to find a two-thirds majority, and they can't," said Sami al-Askary, a Shiite member of the constitutional committee.
Pushing the constitution through without the Sunnis, though, would almost certainly bring a Sunni reaction. Sunni leaders suggested that they could back out of the political process altogether, raising the prospect of a Sunni boycott of the Oct. 15 referendum and the Dec. 15 elections.
American leaders fear that failing to bring the Sunnis along into the political process would only further intensify the insurgency, which is already attacking American forces an average of 65 times a day here.
As the Aug. 15 deadline approached, it was difficult to differentiate between credible threats and high-stakes bargaining. There were suggestions, for instance, that the Shiite leadership itself was not unified on the federalism question. One of the Shiite leaders, Abdul Aziz Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq, who was expected to attend a meeting of the top political leaders on Sunday night, surprised many when he failed to show up.
Among the other questions still unresolved are the role of Islam in the state, including a proposal by the Shiites to include a political role for the Shiite religious leadership in Najaf. The power granted to Islam in the new constitution could affect the rights of women, particularly if Islamic law is allowed to govern marriage and family disputes.
Iraqi leaders have still reached no agreement on the city of Kirkuk, which is divided among three ethnic groups but claimed by the Kurdish regional government. The Kurds are pushing for a timeline to reverse decades of Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" policy that would require the repatriation of tens of thousands of people.
Also on Sunday, the American command announced the deaths of five American soldiers, all from roadside bombs. In the bloodiest attack, a bomb killed three American soldiers on patrol on Friday in the city of Tuz, north of Baghdad. A fourth soldier was wounded.
On Sunday, another roadside bomb killed an American solider and wounded three others near the western town of Rutbah. A fifth American soldier was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, and another was wounded.
The propaganda war continued as well. In a statement posted on the internet, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia warned the Sunni clerics against urging their faithful to take part in the referendum on the constitution. The warning appears to be a reaction to the fact that many Sunni preachers, in contrast to the elections in January, are urging Sunnis to vote this time.
"Be informed that this conspiracy is to get America out of the logjam that it fell into," the statement reads. "We in the Al Qaeda organization will manifest the backsliding of all who call for the writing of the constitution and arbitrating on other than God's laws."
She's just politicizing her sons death.
Maybe she's sick of war.
That doesn't mean she's deserving of a private meeting with the President.
She tragically lost her son, and on Friday, she lost her husband who couldn't stand with her when the going got tough.
Maybe she doesn't have much more to lose.