[dcolton]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

A step in the right direction?

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi Thursday praised a Saudi plan that would send Muslim troops to Iraq to help stem fighting that took more than 100 lives this week.

Allawi met Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and accepted an invitation to visit the White House.

He called on Muslim and Arab troops to close ranks against Islamic extremism.

"These terrorists and their conduct is far away from the values of Islam and Arab values," Allawi said. "The participation of Arab and Muslim states is important not only to support Iraq -- Iraq will be able to overcome its difficulties -- but it is important for the region to have a decisive position and decisive role against these groups that threaten the stability of the countries in the region.

"We have to stand together to confront these groups and be conscious of the Arab role and the Islamic role that should be the movement and the power behind that."

Under the proposed Saudi plan, any new Arab and Muslim troops would supplement coalition troops, not replace them, but could reduce the need for so many troops as security is restored, according to a State Department official. The Saudi initiative would involve Muslim nations that do not border Iraq, meaning Saudi troops would not be included. (Full story)

[Saad]

Seems a pretty clever idea. Replace poorly regarded Americans with more liked Muslims.

[lil'babykitten]

Won't work, the Muslim troops will be targeted just as the Iraqi police have been. What the Iraqi government thinks is a good idea, doesn't correlate with Iraqi public opinion.

[Logic]

Sounds OK, but it won't do any good unless all Coalition troops are out of the country and not only puppet regimes send their troops to Iraq. But I'm afraid this is too little too late.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by dcolton:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

A step in the right direction?

This is their second step.. they had some success here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=220247

and a rumor leaked out they got some 'good' intelegence as a result of one of them (not sure which).


Saudi Arabia's biggest fear right now is instability. Most western countries don't like them, and most of the Arab countries don't like them. By stabilizing the region means less chance of being overthrown themselves. Remember: Bin Laden waged war on them (his own country) as well.


Like em or hate em... they are a valuable asset to the US war on terror. They have caught more terrorists, and have better intelegence gathering than anyone else.


The big problem the Saudi's have is their military is quick to shoot. They have missed quite a bit of intelegence gathering by killing first, and asking questions to a corpse (or parts of it). That means less info they could potentially give to the US.