Institute for Public Accuracy - Analysis of the Escalating Warfare in Iraq

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
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PM Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Analysis of the Escalating Warfare in Iraq

The New York Times website reports this afternoon: "Fighting in two
of Iraq's largest cities threatens to destabilize a long-term truce
that had helped reduce the level of violence in the five-year-old war."

Raed Jarrar, currently in Washington, D.C., is available for interviews.

RAED JARRAR, jarrar.raed@gmail.com, http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com

Jarrar, who was born and raised in Iraq, is Iraq consultant for
the American Friends Service Committee. He said today: "Preparations
for the next Iraqi elections are underway now. The Iraqi executive
branch, controlled by the five Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish separatist
parties, wants to make sure their rivals won't win the next
provincial elections expected to take place before October. But
unlike other pre-election preparations that might include TV
advertisements and sticking posters around the streets, the
separatist Shiites in the Iraqi executive branch sent 50,000 Iraqi
troops, backed by U.S. troops, to Basra to destroy and kill their
rivals (the nationalist Shiites)."

Jarrar added: "This Shiite-Shiite fight is an excellent example
of how the Iraqi civil conflict is more about political/economic
issues rather than sectarian and religious as the U.S. mainstream
media and politicians have been repeating for years."