OutOnBail
08-24-2004, 09:26 AM
Most Iraqis identify strongly with a tribe ('ashira), and nearly half of Iraqis are more loyal to their clans or tribes than to the national government. Thirty of the 150 or so identifiable tribes in Iraq are the most influential. Tribes are grouped into federations (qabila). Below the level of the tribe, there are the clan (fakhdh), the house (biet) and the extended family (khams).

On its accession to power in 1968, the Ba'ath party announced its opposition to tribalism (al-qabaliyya), although for pragmatic reasons, especially during the war with Iran, tribalism was sometimes tolerated or even encouraged.
Contents [showhide]
1 List of major tribes ('ashira)

1.1 Federations (qabila)
1.2 Baghdad area
1.3 Mosul area
1.4 Tikrit area
1.5 Najaf area
1.6 Other northern tribes
1.7 Bedouin tribes
1.8 Kurdish tribes
1.9 Others, to be classified
2 Related organizations
3 External links
4 References
[edit]

List of major tribes ('ashira)
[edit]

Federations (qabila)

* Al-Dulaym federation (in central Iraq)
o Al-Bu Fahd group
o Al-Bu Nimr (from al-Ramadi)
o Al-Mahamda
o Al-Falahat
o Al-Bu Fahad
o Al-Bu Diyab
o Al-Bu Issa (in Fallujah)
o Al-Karabla
o Al-Bu Issaf
* Shammar federation (north of Baghdad)
* Al-Jaburi federation (once allied to Saddam Hussein, but later turned against him)
* Al-Tikriti federation
o Al-Bu Nasir (includes Saddam Hussein)
o Al-Bu Ajeel
o Al-Shaya'isha
* Al-'Ubayd federation (in al-'Alam and Tarmiya)
* Al-'Azza federation (in Balad)
* Al-Muntafiq federation
o Al-Sa'dun
o Bani Malik
o Bani Sa'id
o Bani Hassan (southern Iraq)
o Khafaja
o Abbouda
o Al-Bu Saleh
o Al-Mayyah
o Al-Izayrij
o Bani Zaid
o Al-Sharifat
o Al-Ghizi
o Al-Hameed
* Anniza federation
o Anniza (Bedouin)
* Al-Zubayd federation
* Al-bu Lam federation
* Al-Bu Mohammed federation
* Rubai'a federation
* Ka'ab federeation
* Al-Khaza'il federation

[edit]

Baghdad area

* Hamdan (1,500,000)
* Bani Hajam (8,000)
* Bardosti
* Shumar

[edit]

Mosul area

* Al Dulaimi (100,000?)
* Al Shammari
* Tayy
* Khazraj

[edit]

Tikrit area

* Albu Latif
* Hadithiyyin
o Rifa'iyyin
o Jawa'ina
* Mushahadah (in Tarmiya)
* Luhayb (in Sharqat)

[edit]

Najaf area

* Bani Hasan
* Aal Jaryu
* Albu Dush
* Aal'Isa
* Aal Shibil

[edit]

Other northern tribes

* Hadidi
* Al-Shammawi
* Al-Obeid (in the southern Haweeja plains)
* Al-Bayati
* Al-Saadun

[edit]

Bedouin tribes

* Al-Dhufair
* Shammar
* Al-Hassan
* Al-Ghalal
* Al-Umtayr

[edit]

Kurdish tribes

* Dizai
* Zangana
* Barwari
* Khushnaw
* Shwan
* Mizuri
* Barzani
* Zibari
* Shikhan
* Surchi
* Baban
* Baradost
* Hamawand

[edit]

Others, to be classified

* Harb (in ad-Dur)
* Maghami (from Khalis)
* Al-Fallujiyyin (in Falluja)

[edit]

Related organizations

* Iraq Tribes Council
* National Council of Iraqi Tribes
* National Alliance of Tribes and Clans of Iraq
* Democratic Grouping of Iraqi Tribes
OutOnBail
08-24-2004, 09:27 AM
Buying the tribes from Saddam
By Martin Walker
UPI Chief International Correspondent
Published 4/3/2003 12:37 AM

KUWAIT CITY, April 3 (UPI) -- The striking scenes of Iraqis cheering and welcoming U.S. troops as liberators in the Shiite holy city of Najaf Wednesday came as no surprise to a handful of British and American undercover officials who have for months sought with sweet talk and hard cash to win over the country's traditional tribal sheikhs and chieftains.

"The most important duty of a tribal chief is knowing when to switch sides," one British official with knowledge of the undercover operation told United Press International. "In Najaf, the al-Jaburi tribe understood that Saddam Hussein's time was over. "

Afghanistan was the model for the operation, where a handful of CIA agents spent $70 millions to buy ? or perhaps rent ? the loyalties of Afghan tribal chiefs in the campaign against the Taliban in the fall of 2001.

"The Iraqi tribes knew instinctively what was going on," the British official noted. "The week that The Washington Post reported that $70 million had been spent on the Afghans, they all knew that figure ? and several said openly that Iraq was a much more important country ? and would cost a lot more."

There are about 150 major tribes in Iraq, and close to another 2,000 another smaller tribes or clans, some of them little more than extended families of fewer than 1,000 people.

The big traditional tribes such as the al-Jaburi and the Beni Hasan, the Bardosti and Shammari and al-Dulaimi, have been dominant players in the region's tribal mosaic for centuries before the British carved the state of Iraq from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire 80 years ago.

The British also understood the importance of securing the loyalty of the tribal sheikhs. To this day, a prized possession of many tribeswomen, to be worn only at weddings of formal occasions, is a necklace made of British gold sovereigns from the 1920s ? relics of another time when Western troops had to navigate the shifting loyalties of the tribes.

Traditionally rural-based, the tribes have managed to survive the process of modernization that turned desert nomads into urban dwellers. Scholars in Kuwait reckon that between a third and a half of the Iraqi population would identify their primary loyalties to their tribes, rather than to the national government in Baghdad.

Ironically, Saddam helped this process. Although his Baathist party in the 1960s and 1970s tried to crush the tribes as alternative power bases, he has more recently worked to win them over by restoring judicial authority to the sheiks and channeling money for public works through them. And despite repeated attempts at land reform, more than half of Iraqi land is "owned" by tribes rather than by individuals.

Three years ago, Saddam's regime tried to transfer land near Basra to some loyalists, and the Beni Hasan tribe rose in outrage. At least 24 Iraqi soldiers were killed, and 14 of the Beni Hasan before Baghdad dropped the plan ? largely because other tribal sheikhs warned that they too opposed any tampering with tribal land rights. Last week, the abortive uprising against Saddam's forces inside Basra began when a junior sheikh from the Beni Hasan was shot for being lukewarm in his loyalty.

It was the strain of the Iran-Iraq war, that lasted throughout the 1980s, that forced Saddam to woo the tribes. He needed their political support and their men for his army. When the sheikh of the large al-Jaburi tribe died, and there was a dispute over which clan leader would succeed him, Saddam saw his chance. He backed the son, Machan al-Jaburi ? and once installed, the new sheikh delivered 50,000 men to the Iraqi army for the Iran war. The al-Jaburi became favored and powerful, and public money for roads and schools and housing was steered their way, enhancing the sheikh's influence as he delivered jobs and other favors to his people.

But tribal loyalties can shift fast. Once he suspected the al-Jaburi were becoming too strong, he sacked the two al-Jaburi ministers and cut off the flow of funds. In January 1990, the al-Jaburi tried to mount of military coup with their officers. It failed, but the cautious sheikh was in Paris, and was able to continue running tribal affairs from across the border in Syria. The al-Jaburi officers mounted another coup attempt in 1993 ? a desperate last-ditch affair, as Saddam steadily purged the al-Jaburi from the military. Then the Baghdad regime patched up relations with a newly installed sheikh. The tribal vendetta continued ? three years ago, al-Jaburi officers in the Republican Guard were shot after another coup attempt.

Governments in Baghdad come and go, but the tribes go on forever. Saddam, who has faced revolts from the al-Jaburi, the al-Dumaini, the bani Hajam and the Beni Hasan, knows they cannot be crushed, but only bought, cowed or accommodated. Now the Americans and British are playing at the same game.

"This is not just about toppling Saddam with briefcases full of cash or telling their people it is time to welcome the coalition troops," notes the British official. "The tribes play a long game. For them, the real currency is not just money but privileges and the promise of roles and influence in the post-Saddam government, whatever the United Nations or the Iraqi exile groups may say."
Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International
OutOnBail
08-24-2004, 09:58 AM
http://www.tonyblair.hm/iraq/iraq_ethno.jpg

QUOTE: MEND on the march

Posted: 25 Apr 2008 09:34 PM CDT

"Our candid advice to the oil majors is that they should not waste their time repairing any lines as we will continue to sabotage them. We have time on our side and there is so much to be destroyed." Joseph Gbomo, spokesman for MEND.


As anticipated, MEND has quickly found a new "Joseph Gbomo" and is back in action as a charter member of the shadow OPEC. It's a great demonstration of how quickly open source warfare can bounce back from seemingly fatal blows. NOTE: The combination of a labor strike at Exxon (850,000 barrels a day) and systems disruption aimed at Shell and Chevron (~500,000 barrels a day) has shut down 50% of Nigeria's oil production. The oil markets responded to this loss of production from a major producer and drove prices to nearly $120 a barrel.

April 26, 2008
TALKING BUSINESS
Horatio Alger Multiplied by 1.3 Billion

By JOE NOCERA
“My generation is very lucky,” said Feng Jun.

Mr. Feng, the chief executive of Aigo, a large Chinese consumer electronics company, is a classic Chinese entrepreneur: starting with $31 in his pocket, he has built a business whose products are a staple of urban China, including digital cameras, MP3 players and a new iPhone-like all-in-one device. Before telling me his Horatio Alger story, though, he had something he wanted me to understand.

“My mother and father went through the Cultural Revolution,” Mr. Feng said. “They had no chance.”

He continued: “When I was in grammar school, the Cultural Revolution ended. When I graduated from university in 1992, that was the year of real reform. Deng Xiaoping encouraged students to go into business and become entrepreneurs. Before then, if you wanted to be an entrepreneur, you would sink like a stone. But after that, anyone could be an entrepreneur.”

I spent two weeks in China, hardly enough time to begin understanding the place — as if a country as vast and varied and complex as China can ever be truly understood by a foreigner. But as I headed back to New York, Mr. Feng’s quote stuck with me. It resonates with so much else I saw and heard.

First, it helps explain why most of the Chinese chief executives I met — every one a company founder — were in their 30s. Though Mr. Feng began his company 16 years ago, he is just 39, and absolutely brimming with entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

You hear constantly that China is a country of young people — the average age is 33 — but you really see it in business, where just about everybody seems to be under the age of 40. For people over the age of 50, sadly, as Mr. Feng said, they had no chance. The risk-taking impulse, and so much else, was crushed by the Cultural Revolution.

Secondly, it’s a reminder just how quickly China’s economic rebirth has taken place. Mao Zedong died in 1976. Four years later, the country’s first special economic zone, explicitly created to encourage entrepreneurial capitalism, was established in the southern city of Shenzhen. What China has done in less than three decades is nothing short of astonishing. As Byron Wien, the chief investment strategist for Pequot Capital Management, wrote last summer, “Nothing I have read, heard or seen will dissuade me from my view that China has made more economic progress in the last 30 years than any country in history.” It is impossible to visit today’s China and disagree.

Third, modern China surely shows that trickle-down economics is not just supply-side propaganda. Deng Xiaoping, the driving force behind the move to capitalism after Mao’s death, famously said, “To get rich is glorious.” And goodness knows, lots of people have gotten rich.

But look at what else happened: motivated by the prospect of wealth, people started companies. And as those companies succeeded, millions of new jobs were created. In Shanghai — a place with more entrepreneurial energy than any place I’ve ever visited, including Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Houston during the 1980s oil boom — you can practically see wealth being created before your very eyes. If Shanghai doesn’t make you a believer in the power of capitalism to improve lives, nothing will.

Yes, in much of China, the deal is still a pretty raw one for most laborers, who live far from their families, working under arduous conditions for low wages. And like most first-time visitors, I was appalled by the pollution, especially in Beijing. (Are they really going to run a marathon there?) But even these problems are beginning to get attention, as the country moves to higher-value products, and as the environment becomes a public policy priority, thanks in part to the Olympics.

•

But can it last? There are, undeniably, signs of a bubble economy — wheeler-dealers everywhere, Internet companies with no real business models, private equity and venture capital rushing in helter-skelter, rising inflation, a volatile stock market that moves on rumors and hot tips.

There is a gold rush mentality, a powerful sense that you have to do a deal right this second, or somebody else will snatch it out from under you. These are attributes I also saw in Houston and Silicon Valley — and, well, you know how those booms turned out.

Yet who can really argue against China’s continued growth? It’s been mainly the coastal cities that have prospered so far. There are hundreds of millions of people in other parts of China where capitalism is just starting to take root. In a country of more than 1.3 billion people, “only” 162 million use the Internet (as of 2007) and what they see there is strictly censored. In a country with 20 percent of the world’s population, China accounts for only 2 percent of world consumption. Forget about exports — the growth of the domestic economy alone should keep China’s economy from stalling out.

Plus, of course, China has well over $1 trillion in foreign reserves — most of it in dollars, thus propping up our own consumption habits, thank you very much — which it can spend to unleash entrepreneurial instincts in the rest of the country. The government defines progress almost entirely in economic terms. Surely, such progress will leach beyond the big coastal cities, as the prospect of “glorious” riches loom.

•

Here’s another impression I came away with. Inch by inch, the intellectual property situation seems to be improving.

Admittedly, this is hardly obvious. Counterfeit goods are everywhere; even at the Great Wall, I was offered some great deals on fake Rolex watches. Cheap, pirated CDs and DVDs are equally ubiquitous. It doesn’t take more than a few days in China to see why Western movie and music company executives tear their hair out.

On the other hand, in the last few years the government has issued edicts calling on companies and government agencies to use — and pay for — licensed software. Lenovo, the Chinese company that makes the ThinkPad laptop, has been a leader in pushing the government to do more in this regard.

Alas, enforcement is still lax, but about a year ago, the government also mandated that computer manufacturers preload a licensed operating system instead of simply taking it; many of the big manufacturers now do so. Indeed, a number of big, publicly held Chinese companies, which five years ago would have used pirated software, now buy legal, licensed products from software vendors.

Including, of course, Chinese software vendors, like Caxa Technology, the company I mentioned in last week’s column. Do potential customers sometimes steal Caxa’s software? Yes, said Yi Lei, the chief executive. But most big customers are buying his product, and using it legally. “The rapid growth of Caxa shows that we are succeeding,” Mr. Yi said.

Hence the real reason that China is likely to start respecting intellectual property: China now has some skin in the game. More and more, it is not just Western companies with intellectual property to protect; Chinese companies like Caxa and Lenovo also need to have their intellectual property protected.

In addition, many Chinese companies talk about wanting to instill a culture of innovation, rather than slavishly copying the innovations of others. But innovation is impossible without intellectual property protection. After all, what’s the incentive to invent something new if your competitor can steal it with impunity?

I saw recently that Gucci won a big lawsuit — in China — against a Chinese company that was using its logo illegally. And Andrew Rothman, a China analyst with the investment firm CLSA, noted in a paper last September that “last year, China passed the U.S. to become the world’s most litigious country in terms of intellectual property disputes.” Most of the lawsuits, he added, were brought by Chinese companies against other Chinese companies. I never thought I’d see the day when an uptick in litigation was a sign of progress, but there you go.

•

My last interview in China was with a teacher-turned-businessman named Michael Yu. He is the founder and chief executive of New Oriental, a Kaplan-style company that he began in 1993 and has since become the largest private education company in China. In 2006, it went public, transforming Mr. Yu into a billionaire. On the day I met him, he was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and sneakers. At 45, he was the oldest chief executive I met in China.

The interview was one of the most enjoyable hours I spent in China. Mr. Yu, it turned out, had been through a lot to get to this point — he’d been run out of Beijing University after a public humiliation, had struggled to get a government license to start his first school and had had to slay many dragons along the way. His was hardly a get-rich-quick story, and Mr. Yu told it without an ounce of braggadocio. “Michael built a business before he did an I.P.O,” said New Oriental’s chief financial officer, Louis T. Hsieh.

Though he professed to be a poor manager — “that’s why I hired these guys,” he laughed, pointing to Mr. Hsieh and another executive — Mr. Yu had the qualities you yearn to see in any company leader. He clearly cared deeply about his company and its mission. He wanted to see his employees succeed. He was straightforward and charismatic.

“We didn’t just do this to get rich,” he said. “We are doing it to enrich other people’s life. The I.P.O. is a dot on the road. You do not change your road because you have money or because you have an I.P.O.”

China has plenty of problems: Tibet, pollution, political repression, the Great Firewall, you name it. Even so, it is hard not to be optimistic when you meet someone like Mr. Yu. If he is the future of Chinese business, then that future is very bright.

Tang Yicheng contributed reporting

April 26, 2008
Shiite Cleric Tells Followers to End Fighting and Unite Iraqis

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Under pressure from Iraqi government troops and the American military and with his eye on coming provincial elections, Moktada al-Sadr called on his followers Friday to stop the bloodshed, unite with all Iraqis and focus their firepower on driving out the “occupation forces,” meaning the United States military and its foreign allies.

The statement, read at Friday Prayer, the most important formal worship of the week for Muslims, appeared to be part of a calibrated political strategy on the part of Mr. Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric, of emphasizing his profile as a nationalist who cares about all Iraqis and playing to the Iraqi public, which generally responds enthusiastically to antioccupation exhortations.

Mr. Sadr’s overtures to the Iraqi government come at the same time that a coalition of Sunni politicians is preparing to rejoin the government. Mr. Sadr’s followers and Tawafiq, the coalition of Sunni parties, are looking to the provincial elections scheduled for October, which are a dress rehearsal for the general elections that will take place in 2009.

Both Mr. Sadr’s movement and Tawafiq discouraged their followers from participating in elections in 2005 and regretted the decision. They want to compete in the next round.

“People learned a lesson, and now they know everybody should get prepared for the next election,” said Haithem al-Hussaini, a spokesman for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the rival Shiite party to Mr. Sadr’s.

Other groups are also lining up, announcing the formation of new political fronts and exploratory committees. Adnan Pachachi, a secular politician, said Friday in an interview that he and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi are working to put together a new secular political front, which they hope will bring together secular Sunnis and Shiites. The Awakening Councils, made up of primarily Sunni tribal leaders, held a conference last weekend to discuss the formation of a political party so that they, too, can get on the ballot.

But Mr. Sadr’s moves are among the most complex, in part because he is a key participant in the struggle within Iraq’s Shiite majority, and a master at alternating between hard power and soft power — bullets and words, guns and butter — to boost his political position.

On Friday, he appeared to have decided the time was ripe to back away from a military approach, which he had employed in recent weeks. His people were being killed by American and Iraqi troops; civilians were caught in the cross-fire, which made the public less likely to support him; and the Parliament was reviewing legislation that would outlaw participation in the elections by parties that have militias.

In the Friday Prayer in Sadr City, Sheik Hassan al-Athary, who delivered the sermon, called in effect for a cease-fire among Iraqi factions, setting the stage for Mr. Sadr to step back into the political sphere. “My brothers in the Iraqi Army and police and my brothers in the Mahdi Army, stop shedding the blood of each other,” he said, adding, “and on behalf of Moktada I say, I will not accept anyone who raises his hand against another Iraqi.”

Mr. Sadr issued eight edicts using bellicose language when he referred to the Americans, but conciliatory words when he talked about other Iraqis. He urged his followers “to wage open war against the Americans” but forbade them from “raising a hand against another Iraqi citizen.” He urged the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police to stop cooperating with the Americans, and he asked the government to purge the militias within the ranks of the police and the army. He said he would oppose any American military bases in Iraq.

Mr. Sadr’s followers were subdued as they listened while his instructions were read from the pulpit. In Sadr City, the poor neighborhood that is his Baghdad stronghold, the prayer was punctuated only by occasional group chants. The gathering was larger than it has been the past few weeks because cars equipped with loudspeakers had driven through the streets urging people to attend the prayer to hear “an important announcement from Sayyid Moktada.” Sayyid is an honorific reserved for those who are descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the most revered figures in Shiite history.

Iraqi government officials expressed skepticism at Mr. Sadr’s purported olive branch, making clear that he had not gone far enough for them to talk with him. “There is no negotiation with anybody,” said Yasseen Majid, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, “because the prime minister declared there is no negotiation or conversation with anybody carrying weapons against civilians, or against the Iraqi government or against the Iraqi Army or the police.”

A senior official in the government who is close to Mr. Maliki, and who said he could not be quoted because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said the government could not respond to Mr. Sadr because his positions changed like the wind, and that it was better to watch his actions.

“Every day there is an announcement, which one is true, which one reflects his real position. A few days ago he called for ‘open war’ against the government,” said the official, adding that Mr. Maliki did not accept Mr. Sadr’s “war” on the American troops.

Many followers said after the Friday Prayer that they had little hope that the government would respond to Mr. Sadr’s offer, but that it was the right step to take.

“I think the Iraqi government will not calm down; they will escalate their operations,” said Hussain Mohamed Hassan, 24, an engineering student.

“The government doesn’t care about the Iraqi people,” he said.

But another man, who also came to the prayer, said he thought the government ignored Mr. Sadr at its peril. “His movement is very large, everyone wants to be able to say they are a friend of his because we are getting close to the elections,” said Ra’ad Alami, a journalist in Sadr City who runs a Web site.

Indeed, late Friday, the tide seemed to be turning in Mr. Sadr’s direction with the announcement by the speaker of the Parliament that a committee had been formed to approach Mr. Maliki on Saturday to discuss a way to help the people of Sadr City with food, water, electricity and supplies for hospitals. If there are humanitarian efforts under way, it is less likely that the clashes would continue at the same pitch.

Already, on Friday it seemed quieter in Sadr City, with fewer attacks on American and Iraqi troops. Samera Tula, who had been seared over much of her body when a propane tank accidentally exploded at her home on Thursday, died Friday despite the efforts of American army medics and Iraqi doctors to save her.

Elsewhere in Iraq, it was a day of scattered violence. In Tikrit, north of Baghdad, a police officer who taught in the police academy was killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded as he turned the key in the ignition. In Falluja, in Anbar Province, a homemade bomb went off in the Raqib mosque, injuring four civilians and a police officer. The target of the attack was apparently the imam of the mosque, Sheikh Khalid al-Jumali.

Also on Friday, American military officials announced the death of an American soldier on Thursday. The soldier was killed by in a bombing south of Baghdad.

In Iskadariya, near Hilla in the south, an explosion in an oil pipeline sparked a huge fire and injured eight Iraqi soldiers, according to Iraqi Army officials. The pipeline runs between the Dora refinery and the southern provinces.

Pipelines in the region have been a frequent target for insurgents. But an Iraqi Army official, who would not give his name because he was not authorized to speak, said that the explosion was “a result of maintenance mistakes and not insurgency actions.”

Reporting was contributed by Erica Goode, Michael R. Gordon and Tareq Mahir from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Hilla, Falluja and Salahuddin Province.

Feith describes roles of State Dept., CIA in Iraq occupation fiasco

Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith said last week that the biggest mistake made by the Bush administration in the Iraq was not transferring authority to Iraqis right away.
“I think the biggest error we made was establishing an occupation government,” Feith said on WJLA’s “This Week in Defense News. “We had a plan before the war to set up Iraqis and put them in charge of their own country a lot earlier and as I deal with it in the book, that plan came undone and I think it was a big mistake.”

Douglas J. Feith, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at Washington Foreign Press Center briefing on "Operation Enduring Freedom: 1 Year After." fpc.state.gov
Feith was discussing his book War and Decision, one of the first inside accounts of the Pentagon’s policymaking on Iraq.
Defense officials said the major error was made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, who rejected a Pentagon plan to install what Feith called Iraqi “externals,” Iraqis who had lived outside the country, to take power.

Bremer rejected the Pentagon plan and instead listened to CIA and State Department officials who insisted that Iraqi expatriates, like Ahmad Chalabi, would not be accepted.

The strategic error has led to the insurgency and U.S. occupation.

Feith said one of the main problems in administration policymaking was opposition to the president from Secretary of State Colin Powell and his key aide, Deputy Secretary of State Rich Armitage.

“There were important matters on which Secretary Powell and his deputy, Rich Armitage and people at the CIA were basically not in line with the thinking of the President,” Feith said. “Now, that's not a bad thing inherently, but my view was that if they were not in line, they should have brought forward a serious argument and proposed an alternative strategy. That was never done.”

Powell did not support Bush’s policies and “should have stepped aside” for another secretary who would support the policies.