MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 23 September 2003:  
     The Iraqi news that was most important the day after the historic Hurricane that closed down Washington was really buried away deep on page 23 in The Washington Post.   There rather obscured was the news that the American Empire is using not its own, nor those of  'liberated' Iraq, nor those trained by its own mighty imperial army, but rather Ghurkas of yesteryear made famous in the days of the British Raj to guard the American designated ruler of post-Saddam Iraq, Paul Bremer.  
     Meanwhile, at the U.N. today, no mention of Ghurkas nor of the very public charges from no less a Washington luminary as Senator Kennedy that billions are flowing to foreign countries and their leaders as bribe money crying out for international help from foreign mercenary troops to help the Americans control 'liberated' Iraq.   Bush was received, but certainly not warmly or with much applause.  His credibility, and that of his country, is rather battered now, the situation in Iraq and the 'peace process' rather explosive, the political nerves and budgetary jitters of Washington far more on edge than before.   More and more it's looking like Iraq could do Bush in much as Vietnam did LBJ.   With just a year to go at this point, many around the world, as well as at home, are just going to hold on at this point and hope Bush II, and all the Judeo-Christian neo-cons he brought with him, will soon go the way of Bush I.

[Washington Post - 19 September 2003 - By Al Kamen]:    The Rashid Hotel, the favored hotel for U.S. contractors, consultants and reporters, is looking like a classic "colonial outpost," with "GIs lunching on corn dogs and Southern fried chicken, defense contractors putting golf balls on the lawn, [and] women dressed in shorts that would raise eyebrows across the river," according to a Reuters wire report.

The Iraqis also play their appropriate role at the hotel on the Tigris River, working in lesser jobs as waiters, clerks, translators and such.

"Iraqi security personnel are suspect," the wire said, so the U.S. company that runs the hotel, "a subsidiary of [Vice President] Cheney's old company Halliburton, prefers Ghurkas from Nepal."

Ghurkas? The legendary fighters who carry kukris, those short, curved knives that are especially useful in decapitating enemies?

Yes indeed, the very same, though they are relying on rifles these days, said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, our colleague in Baghdad. They have been spotted guarding other places, including the presidential palace that's home to viceroy L. Paul Bremer.

The Ghurkas guard each of the hotel's 12 floors 'round the clock "at an estimated cost to the U.S taxpayer of more than $120,000 a month," Reuters reported.

Well, they did excellent work for the British Empire for many years.