BUT OUR TRIBES ARE THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE! (via The Edge of England's Sword):

Buying the tribes from Saddam (Martin Walker, UPI, 4/3/2003)

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 ...

The Iraqi chiefs must have fallen out of their chairs when they read that the Afghan tribes sold out so cheap. I bet they were expecting billions. Probably the WaPo story was disinformation, put out to bargain the Iraqis down.

The more we learn of how methodically and meticulously the Bush administration prepared for this war, the more impressed I am. A success like this doesn't come from luck. But thinking about all that went into it, it's hard to imagine George Bush starting another one before the 2004 election.

Posted by Paul Jaminet at April 3, 2003 9:59 PM