[lbo-talk] ooops

[Dennis Perrin]

> As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq's future mount, Bush
> administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites'
> organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an
> anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country.
>
> The burst of Shiite power -- as demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands
> who made a long-banned pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala yesterday --
> has U.S. officials looking for allies in the struggle to fill the power
> vacuum left by the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

Jimmy Kimmel showed clips from that march on his show last night, and after
a few seconds of pure theocratic frenzy, complete with self-inflicted
bloodletting, Kimmel turned to his bandleader and said, "You think Saddam
Hussein had a point keeping these people down?"

And just before that, on "Nightline," I caught Koppel, yes, Ted Koppel,
grilling former CIA head James Woolsey on the lack of WMD in Iraq. "Where
are they?" he kept asking. Woolsey shifted in his chair and tried to finesse
the question, but the strain in his face gave away the game.

ABC -- Where more Americans get their news than from any other source.
Really.

DP