August 17, 2007 (LPAC)--Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the number two U.S. commander in Iraq, declared to reporters at the Pentagon, this morning that he wants to "finish off" the Shiite militias in Iraq and eliminate the "rogue Iranian influence," which is directly attacking the Iraqi government. He continued the drumbeat against Iran, claiming that the U.S. is making "progress" in getting Iraqis to reject "Iranian's lethal support inside their country." "Once that occurs," he said, "I think we'll be able to eliminate this threat from inside of Iraq." When asked to reconcile his repeated claims, over time, about the supposed threat from Iran with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's recent statements that he doesn't see Iran as a destabilizing force, he replied that it's the Iraqi Shia extremists that are carrying out the attacks, and that they're being trained by the Iranian Quds force, and that Maliki knows all that. However, he admitted that the U.S. has not been able to establish whether or not the alleged Quds force activities are, in fact, supported by the Iranian government.

Otherwise, Odierno's briefing was characterized by phony optimism about "progress" on the ground in Iraq. He claimed that Al Qaeda has been chased off to the remote corners of the country and are not able to carry out major attacks in population centers, as shown by the massive suicide bombing earlier this week in northern Iraq west of Mosul, that security is generally improving, that sectarian violence is generally down and that the functioning of government ministries is improving. One reporter commented afterwards, "Well, we just got [General] Petraeus's report," which, as LPAC reported, yesterday, is actually being written in the White House.

In response to this report on the Odierno press briefing, Lyndon LaRouche said today that you have to look at the logic of the situation to understand what is now happening. Yesterday Maliki announced a new alliance of moderate Shias and Kurds, but without Sunni moderates, who, he said, refused to join. LaRouche asked why are there no Sunnis in the alliance? The implication is that this is a mistake, but the mistake has a reason. The reason is that the Sunnis, under Saudi Arabian leadership in league with the Cheney faction, is running a game for extended war in the region. The game includes dumping Maliki through a Sunni operation against the Maliki government. This is being run by the Cheney faction using Saudi channels to destabilize the Maliki government and to forge a Sunni vs. Shia operation in the region. The Maliki governing alliance is a reaction against this operation being orchestrated by Cheney with the Saudis.