Flip flopper Howard.

The US have been given the opportunity on a few occasions to communicate with Iran but have refused each opportunity.

The Democrats believe that reaching some sort of solution by having discussions with Iran would be helpful to the Iraq solution.

Conditions are only deteriorating in Iraq and before the rest of the Middle East is dragged into this war - the Americans need to find a middle ground.

Remember they are the ones who invaded Iraq illegally and it's many of their foreign policies in the Middle East causing the dissension.

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Agree. Mainly because they will continue the march west.

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Wrong. Shi'a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37%. See the CIA website for yourself.

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Oil is of no value if it cannot be traded. Embargoes would be placed on all Iran in the event of an invasion.

This is an interesting development. It puts the US and Iran on the same side against the terrorists:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/alQaedalinked-group-threatens-Iran/2007/07/09/1183833378690.html

The leader of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq has vowed to attack Iranians unless Iran cuts off its support for the Iraqi government within two months.

"We give the ... Persians in general, and leaders of Iran in particular, two months to withdraw their support and presence in Iraq," Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, said in the 50-minute audiotape posted on Islamist website which has often carried al-Qaeda statements.

In the first such threat by his group, Baghdadi said that unless Iran meets his demands, the group will wage a "brutal war" against Iranians.

Iraq makes progress on constitution plan
May 16, 2007 - 8:44AM
An Iraqi committee has agreed to send to parliament a plan to reform the constitution.
It's an important step towards implementing national reconciliation laws that Washington says are critical to ending violence.
Once-dominant Sunni Arabs, who make up the backbone of the insurgency, have long demanded changes to a constitution they say concedes too much power to majority Shi'ites and ethnic Kurds, who were persecuted under Saddam Hussein.
US President George W Bush, under pressure to show tangible progress in the four-year-old war, has piled pressure on Iraqi leaders to agree power-sharing legislation.
Such laws, which include sharing Iraq's vast oil wealth and ending a ban on former members of Saddam's party from public office, are particularly aimed at assuaging Sunnis Arabs and bringing them firmly into the US-backed political process.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe welcomed the move, but said: "There is more work to be done, but this step will help in the process of bringing all Iraqis together to help build a stable, secure and unified democracy."
In another sign of political progress, Sunni Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi said the presidential council would soon send to parliament a draft proposal to allow thousands of ex-Baath party members to return to public jobs, another Sunni demand.
The council comprises Hashemi, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Shi'ite Vice-President Adel Abdul al-Mahdi.
Hashemi's Accordance Front had warned it might quit Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government if Sunni grievances were ignored, but a visit by US Vice-President Dick Cheney to Iraq last week appears to have softened the Sunnis' stance.
The bills are likely to face fierce debate in parliament.
Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, fear federalism will allow Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south, where Iraq's oil reserves lie, to break away into their own states. Sunni Arabs live mostly in central and western Iraq, which is poor in oil.

Iraq 'a terrorist Disneyland' if US goes
From correspondents in London
May 16, 2007 04:34am
A US troop pullout from Iraq would leave the country as a potent launchpad for international terrorism and Washington would be forced to go back in within a couple of years, a leading al-Qaeda expert said overnight.
Rohan Gunaratna told a security conference at Lloyd's of London insurance market that Iraq, like Afghanistan in the 1990s, would become a "terrorist Disneyland" where al-Qaeda could build up its strength unchallenged.
If US, British and other coalition troops withdrew from Iraq in the next year, he said, "certainly the scale of attacks that would be mounted inside Iraq, and using Iraq as a launching pad to strike other Western countries - countries in Europe, North America - would become such that after two or three years, the US forces will have to go back to Iraq".
The Singapore-based academic and writer said the epicentre of international terrorism had already switched from Afghanistan to Iraq.
"In many ways, the terrorist threat has now shifted 1500 miles closer to Europe."
Republican President George W. Bush is locked in a standoff with a Democratic-led Congress over funding for the war in Iraq, now in its fifth year, in which more than 3400 American troops have been killed.
Democrats are pushing for a time frame for withdrawal, something the White House opposes as sending the wrong message to US forces, allies and enemies alike. Some Republicans are also questioning the war more publicly.
Britain, the leading US partner in Iraq, is scaling back its troops there, although the idea of an immediate pullout was rejected this week by Gordon Brown, the man expected to succeed Mr Bush's close ally Tony Blair as prime minister next month.
A former head of Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6 described Mr Gunaratna's analysis as convincing.
"Clearly al-Qaeda are focusing on Iraq now, and focusing on some sort of propaganda victory over the United States," Sir Richard Dearlove said.





Pollies want to ban Islamic minarets
correspondents in Zurich
May 15, 2007 08:08pm
A GROUP of right-wing politicians are gathering signatures to try to force a national vote on banning the construction of minarets in Switzerland, the leader of the campaign said today.
The planned building of minarets, the towers attached to mosques from which the Islamic call for prayer is issued, in small Swiss towns has sparked local protests.
A group of politicians from the Swiss National Party and Federal Democratic Union are seeking to prevent the construction of minarets in national law, saying they are a symbol of power and threaten law and order in Switzerland.
The campaign has to gather 100,000 signatures by November 2008 to force a national vote on the initiative which, if it gains a majority vote, would then be written into law.
"We have no doubt that we'll reach the goal," said Ulrich Schlueer, a Swiss National Party parliamentarian for Zurich who is heading the initiative. "We've now been collecting for a week and we've already got 10,000 signatures."
There are currently only two minarets in Switzerland, in Zurich and Geneva. The call to prayer is not made from these minarets.

Islamists starved of funds


ISLAMIC extremists in Australia are being starved of money by an unprecedented crackdown on the secret flow of funds from Saudi Arabia.

ASIO and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have quietly spearheaded the disruption of funding from Saudi charities and Saudi nationals, reducing it to only a trickle after concerns the money could be used to fund terror plots in Australia.
The Government's push has robbed local extremists of a traditional source of funding from a country that has invested more than $120 million into Australia's Islamic community since the 1970s.
Saudi Arabian money has been used to build mosques and schools in Australia but it has also helped to promote extreme Wahabist interpretations of Islam.
Saudi Arabia has been accused by the US Government of tacitly funding extremism via quasi-government charities that promote Wahabism.
Washington says Saudi government-sanctioned charities have secretly bankrolled the Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah, responsible for killing 92 Australians in the two Bali bombings.
Despite this, Australia has won strong Saudi government backing for its crackdown here, with Riyadh instructing its embassy in Canberra to alert DFAT to any Saudi funds flowing into Australia.
Islamic sources claim less than $1million has flowed into Australia from Saudi Arabia in the past 12 months - barely one-fifth of estimated funding levels before the September 11 terror attacks of2001.
The Australian understands that ASIO has issued confidential reports opposing the proposed use of Saudi funds to build mosques in Belmore in Sydney in 2004 and the Park Holme mosque in Adelaide this year.
The ASIO assessments prompted DFAT to express concern to the Saudi Government, which promptly cut the flow of Saudi funds for the projects.
The "tip-off" agreement between the two countries was initiated by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in 2004 after a visit to Saudi Arabia.
"As a result of my visit to Saudi Arabia, they introduced a new system of transparency,' Mr Downer told The Australian yesterday.
"Prior to that system we don't know what funding they provided so we can't compare what was done before with what is done now, but we do know that they now report (to us)."
Saudi Arabia's co-operation with Canberra on the issue of funding is part of its renewed global effort to rebut allegations that its charities are used as fronts to provide funding for extremists around the world.
"The Saudis have proved true to their word so far about consulting with us about Saudi funding proposals," one well-placed government official said.
However, Australian authorities remain wary about the possibility of private funds flowing into Australia without the knowledge of either government.
The Government carefully monitors the activities of Saudi diplomats in Australia, who are believed to directly pay the wages of selected imams in Australia.
One of these imams, Mohammed Swaiti, was removed this month as the spiritual head of Canberra's Abu Bakr Mosque amid claims he was too radical in his teachings.
In January, the reconstruction of Adelaide's Park Holme mosque was halted when planned Saudi funding was withdrawn by the Saudi Government after DFAT expressed concerns about the project.
The mosque is considered Adelaide's most radical prayer centre. It was frequented by an Australian Iraqi Kurd, Warya Kanie, who was captured in Baghdad in October and detained for engaging in anti-coalition activities.
Similarly, Saudi funding of Sydney's Belmore mosque was halted in 2004 after concerns were expressed about the mosque's links with radical sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud.
The Saudi embassy did not return calls from The Australian yesterday.



I wondered where terrorists get funding from. That is only the funds they tell us about.
JJJ - the above newsreport answers your queries.

Hi JJJ,
We see things differently.
You can poke fun at anything you want.  Isn't that a great feaure of a free society ?

Quite unlike an islamic country, where questions are crushed.

It is madness - can we be sure that he really is being sent there?  Iraq is such a desperate, filthy and out of control civil war - all sides are blowing each other up and nobody is safe.

The insurgents would love to capture Harry.  They could demand anything they wanted - first and foremost - get the Americans out!