What Iraq will get isn't self-rule
by HAROON SIDDIQUI, Toronto Star

Post-war, America couldn't disband the Iraqi army fast enough. Now, chief U.S. administrator Paul Bremer can't reconstitute it quickly enough for the White House.

He has already twice shortened the minimal training of police and military recruits.

Crunching it further can only confirm the long-simmering suspicion that what America wants is not a real Iraqi army, lest it pose a future threat to American interests in the region, but rather security guards, policemen, intelligence agents and advance foot soldiers.

This is a tried and true colonial formula — in fact, a dead-ringer for what the British did in Iraq when faced with an insurgency after their post-Ottoman takeover in 1917.

Full story here.