Iraq's Baath Party Calls the Petraeus Report a 'Cover Up'

Translated By James Jacobson

The Arab Socialist Baath Party in Iraq stressed in a statement that the report submitted by President Bush's assistants in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the leader of occupation forces, General Petraeus, was close to what Iraqis and many politicians and analysts in America and the world expected, and that the intent of the report is to cover up the rapid collapse of America's colonial occupation of Iraq.

Baath party representative Dr. Abu Muhammad said that “official America organs and U.S. media have spent the last few months loudly creating the impression that this report would take a fresh look and provide a new vision."

"In the first place, this was a device to deceive the American public. Secondly, it was intended to hoodwink international public opinion, which rejects the fascist policy of war, aggression and occupation of the Bush Administration. This deception was carried out by suggesting that Crocker and Petraeus would present an independent and precise assessment of the situation in Iraq, scientifically analyzing and putting forth a list of options that would be beneficial to the U.S., on the pretense that they aren't workers in the employ of Bush's Administration; as if at the core of their duty wasn't to beautify the ugly face of their master’s policy and strategy, who appointed them to their civilian and military positions in Iraq."

According to the Baath Party representative: Crocker and Petraeus inundated the eyes and ears of Congress members and the American people, as was expected, with an elaborate list of sterile details, figures, statistics, tables and maps of little or no real significance. This hypocritical theatrical presentation of the Americans warned about al-Qaeda, the militias loyal to Iran, and Iran’s role in undermining Iraq.

The Baath Party representative went on, "Do these two Bush Administration officials - informed by his misguided government organs - this it's possible that Iraqis, Arabs and people in many quarters of America, Europe and the world have forgotten that militia leaders are now in positions of high authority in Iraqi government departments and security agencies, which were created after the invasion by America's occupation administration? Does Bush really believe that people have forgotten that all of this was done with the complete knowledge and approval of his administration; that it is under his administration that the criminal fascist campaign of kidnapping, arrest, torture, murder, displacement and the assassination of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis began, with the full knowledge and under the eyes and ears of his forces and intelligence agencies, and that it is these that first approved of all of this? "

"Is it possible that these two and their master imagined that public opinion would overlook the fact that there was no al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the occupation; that it was the occupation that opened Iraq’s borders and facilitated the illegal entry of al-Qaeda into Iraq; and that it was they who then pretended that the terrorists had retreated to Iraq, thus obliging the U.S. to fight them here rather than on American soil - which we gather from many official American statements?"