Army officer sends 500 fake letters to newspapers; bad stuff in Karbala

An army Colonel drew up a form letter trumpeting his unit's accomplishments around Kirkuk, and had soldiers in his unit sign it and send it back to their hometown papers. Unfortunately people caught on quickly and now it's a bit of a PR flap.

Amid the daily headlines of bloodshed and unrest in Iraq, Caraccilo wanted to draw attention to the work of his troops by mailing a form letter to soldiers' hometowns.

"The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened," reads the five-paragraph, typed letter sent in late summer.

MacDonald said no one was forced to sign the letter, though most did. At least one soldier contacted by Gannett News Service said he never signed the letter that appeared in his hometown newspaper in Charleston, W.Va. Several parents also said they knew their sons had not written the letters that appeared in local newspapers.

News of the letter-writing campaign emerged over the weekend as President Bush and other administration officials were conducting their own campaign to emphasize successes in Iraq.

Also the Boston Globe has a report. The always-interesting Justin Raimondo is on the case as well, pointing out that oil production up there is going horribly, with frequent, unreported pipeline bombings. There's talk that the Turks are going to enter the country, against the wishes of virtually every Iraqi.

There is some nasty stuff brewing at the major Shia shrines in Karbala. It seems that followers of hard-liner Moqtada al-Sadr have been trying to seize control of the shrines from the more moderate Shia who follow Ali Sistani of the group SCIRI. Sadr also stated that he wanted to form a "shadow government" but that has been withdrawn for now. Sadr has been accused of fomenting violence in Iraq. The sharp Middle Eastern professor Juan Cole has some analysis on what's going on between the Shia militias.

He also wrote a really lengthy look at the different Shia groups, such as al Dawa, SCIRI and the Sadr family for the Boston Review. If you ever wanted to know how SCIRI and the INC fit together you should look at it. His conclusion was apt:

Whether Iraq?s Sunnis will turn to radicalism and reinforce al Qaeda is as yet unknown. But what does seem clear is that the Iraq war has proved a detour in the War on Terror, drawing away key resources from the real threat of al Qaeda and continued instability in Afghanistan. The old pillars have proven more resilient than the hawks imagined. What really needs to be changed are U.S. support for political authoritarianism and Islamic conservatism, and acquiescence in Israeli land grabs on the West Bank. Those two, together, account for most of the trouble the United States has in the Muslim world. The Iraq war did nothing to change that.

A small update on the Feith-Zell-Chalabi international law firm story.

Posted by HongPong at October 15, 2003 02:13 PM
Listed under Iraq .