from Friday's WSJ:
Like most notables who assembled in Basra to organize, Sheikh
Muzahim voiced ambivalent feelings about where to go from here. He
showed little desire for a complete break with the past. "Not all
the people in Baath are bad. Most aren't," he said. In fact, the
new Basra administration includes some Baathists, and also members
of the area's dominant Saadoun tribe.
His priority: "to bring back police and to bring back security." He
said he had given orders to Iraqi policemen to return to work -- not
easy, considering that the war gutted most police stations and that
coalition forces forbid Iraqis to carry weapons. Sheikh Muzahim said
existing senior officers will lead the police. He also reappointed a
Baathist as civil defense chief. "We know them, we will check them, and
we will select the best of them," Sheikh Muzahim said.
(at http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB105000955752323600,00.html if you subscribe. I'll email it if anyone wants the whole sordid story; contact me offlist.)
Curtiss
> Violence broke out in Basra after a sheikh asked by British commanders to
> become the new leader of the province was revealed to be a former
> brigadier-general in Saddam Hussein's army and a one-time member of the
> Ba'ath party.
> Several hundred protesters hurled stones at the house of Sheikh Muzahim
> Mustafa Kanan Tamimi as he met other local dignitaries to discuss how to
> restore order.
>