Saudi Arabia Assesses Shiite rule to giving Iraq to Iran on a "golden platter."

Again I ask, how could a PFC have access to so much secret data (250,000 and counting)?

What does "SECRET" mean? Much of what comes out seems so obvious and so not news but fascinating in a voyeuristic way. We now have more about Iraq and what those in the Middle East really think about a new Shiite power center next to Iran.

Today's Wikileak peek into US diplomacy shows the reality of the unintended consequences of our ill-conceived and ill-prepared mission in Iraq, a mission that was to be paid for by Iraqi oil but fell a trillion dollars or so short.

The same people that thought Iraq was a good idea are the same that created or supervised a system of security for US secret cables.

It has become obvious that a lot of people that confided with the US, people whose cooperation was needed by the US are now embarrassed or in trouble because of these revelations.

Why would anyone in their right mind, domestic or foreign, trust anything the US Government says or does?

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Analysts: Cables between Sunnis, U.S. diplomats might push Iraq closer to Iran


By Leila Fadel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 2, 2010; 7:35 PM

BAGHDAD - Private conversations between Sunni Arab leaders in the Middle East and U.S. diplomats, leaked in confidential State Department documents this week, may push Iraq's future Shiite-led government closer to Iran, analysts said.

The nation is already divided along sectarian lines and since the U.S. invasion in 2003 Iraq has become the center of a regional power struggle between Shiite Iran to the east and Arab Sunni neighbors to the west - a struggle that played out during Iraq's parliamentary elections in March.

The first few hundred cables leaked by the WikiLeaks Web site could further damage Shiite incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's weak relationship with Arab neighbors, countries the United States had hoped would counter Iran's influence in Iraq as U.S. influence here wanes and the U.S. military prepares for a scheduled exit at the end of 2011.

The cables show candid moments over the past two years in which, among other things, the king of Saudi Arabia called Maliki an "Iranian agent" and a "liar." Meanwhile, Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, advocated a military coup in Iraq and said that the United States should "forget democracy" there and that the country should have "a dictator."

Sunni Arab hostility toward the growing Shiite power in Iraq is no revelation. But the sensitive cables are coming out just as the recently reappointed Maliki is cobbling together a cabinet that may finally lead to a government.

"Sunni Arab dislike of a Shiite ascendancy in Iraq is well known by Maliki. But this will exacerbate the problem and may push him closer to the Iranians," said Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009. "Tehran will certainly try. We'll see if there are any Arab overture to the new government once it is formed - that would help, but I doubt it."

Iraqi officials were quick to dismiss the likelihood of lasting effects, pointing out this was more of a problem between Iran and the Arab Gulf than a problem for Iraq. A new era of Shiite Arab majority leadership was forged in Iraq following the invasion, after decades of dictatorship under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab who oppressed the Shiite majority and the Kurds. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia likened the Shiite rule to giving Iraq to Iran on a "golden platter."

"These are not secrets. We know this," said Sami al-Askari, a Shiite legislator close to Maliki. "I think it has no effect at all. With Saudi Arabia, our relationship is not good, and with Egypt our relations are not that good. It's more an embarrassment for the American establishment. How can these secret documents get out? It's shaking the entire American system."

Sunni and Shiite's Going after al-Qeada?

IRAQ: SUNNI TRIBES SEEK SADRIST ALLIES

Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - A delegation of Sahwa al-Anbar, (Anbar Awakening) the tribal alliance in the restive Sunni province of Al Anbar, has made an unprecedented visit to Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of radical Shiite imam Moqtada al-Sadr, according to pan Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat. "We have taken this step to place national interest ahead of any differences" said the head of the US-endorsed Sunni alliance Hamid al-Hayas. "This is an effort to bring closer together the Sunni and Shiite Iraqi points of view. We want to deliver a message to all the political groups to put aside their differences and act for the common good" he said.

The whereabouts of Moqtada al-Sadr remain undisclosed, but he was represented in the meeting by three MPs from the 30-strong bloc in Parliament loyal to him and prominent individuals from the Sadr City area.

At the end of the meeting the two sides signs a joint document in which they vowed to fight the terrorism of al-Qaeda. The group has become increasingly isolated within the Sunni insurgency because of its indiscriminate targeting of civilians.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been seeking to impose its fierce Salafite philosophies and strategies and consolidate its power over the many resistance groups in the Sunni Arab galaxy, some of whom view foreign fighters and Wahhabis with suspicion.

In recent months the heads of the powerful al-Anbar tribes have coalesced in a big to counteract al-Qaeda in Iraq and have begun a tentative dialogue with some elements in the al-Maliki government about entering the political process.

As well as coming under increasing pressure from US and Iraqi forces in Baquba and elsewhere, the al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters have been increasingly in clashes with other insurgent formations.

A swerve in the surge. Al-Maliki says wall will stoke Sunni-Shiite tensions.

Iraqi PM orders halt to Baghdad barrier

Qassim Abdul-Zahra, The Associated press; with files from The Los Angeles Times
Published: Monday, April 23, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt - Iraq's prime minister yesterday ordered a halt to the U.S. military's construction of a barrier separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shia areas in Baghdad after criticism over the project at home.
The challenge to the U.S. initiative came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began a regional tour to shore up support from mostly Sunni Arab nations for his Shia-dominated government as sectarian violence persists despite a nearly 10-week-old security crackdown.

The U.S. military announced last week that it was building a five-kilometre-long, 3.5-metre-tall concrete wall in Azamiyah, a Sunni stronghold in northern Baghdad whose residents have often been the victims of retaliatory mortar attacks by Shia militants following bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents.

U.S. and Iraqi officials defended plans for the barrier as an effort to protect the neighbourhood, but residents and Sunni leaders complained it was a form of discrimination that would isolate the community. A large protest was scheduled for today in the area.

In his first public comments on the issue, Mr. al-Maliki said yesterday that he had ordered the construction to stop.

"I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," he said during a joint news conference with the secretary-general of the Arab League in Cairo. "There are other methods to protect neighbourhoods, but I should point out that the goal was not to separate, but to protect."
He did not elaborate, but added "this wall reminds us of other walls that we reject, so I've ordered it to stop and to find other means of protection for the neighbourhoods." He wasn't more specific, but apparently was referring to the Berlin Wall during the Cold War and Israel's construction of a barrier in the West Bank to keep out suicide bombers.

U.S. military spokesman Lt.-Col. Christopher Garver declined to comment on whether construction of the wall would stop, saying only that all security measures were constantly under discussion.

Sectarian bloodshed continued in Iraq yesterday, with at least 72 people killed or found dead.

In the most unsettling incident, a forbidden love affair that ended with a young woman's death by stoning led to more religiously motivated killings when gunmen dragged members of a tiny religious minority off a bus and killed 23 of them, police and witnesses said.

The incident in the northern city of Mosul was shocking in its brutality and frightening for the spectre it raised -- violence between Muslims and non-Muslims aggravating the already volatile conflict involving Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds.
The victims were Yazidis, a sect that is neither Christian nor Muslim and whose followers have faced persecution from a succession of rulers.