*An exploding mine wounded seven American soldiers in a vehicle that ran over it early Saturday near the border with Syria.

*In Najaf crowds demonstrated in protest of Friday's bombing. Some anti-American slogans were heard (the US is blamed for not providing enough security.) Najaf police have arrested some 19 suspects in Friday's massive car bombing. They say that some have confessed, and that some have clear ties to al-Qaeda and/or Saddam's secret police. I'd take all this with a large grain of salt. Apparently the criterion for arresting people was that they weren't local Najafis and were different in dress or outward appearance. A couple of Basrans in a coffee house were taken away in handcuffs at first, but the US military expressed extreme skepticism that they were involved. The Najaf police chief appears to have described some Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians picked up as "Wahhabis." Only most Saudis and Qataris are really properly so called, which does not increase confidence in the Najaf police's cultural knowledge of Sunnis. CNN kept talking about 2 Pakistanis arrested, but the UPI and other print articles do not refer to them. It is no doubt a confused scene. As for the alleged confessions, I suspect that a hapless Sunni looking at the furious crowds of Shiites in the street and promised police protection if he will cooperate might well choose to enter the penal system than to try to walk the streets again after having been fingered as a suspect. The Pakistani newspaper Dawn characterized the likely perpetrators as a mix of Saddam loyalists and Sunni radicals, and that is entirely possible. But I would be very surprised if the Najaf police have already cracked the case the way that they claim.

*A good overview of Saturday's events in Najaf is by Dawn (Karachi). See

http://www.dawn.com/
2003/08/31/top10.htm

In Arabic, the equally good al-Hayat article is worth looking at.

http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/
08-2003/20030830-31p01-01.txt/story.html

*Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum, a moderate Shiite cleric with ties to al-Da`wa and the Khoei foundation, announced that he was suspending his membership in the American-appointed Interim Governing Council because the IGC was unable to provide security. He complained bitterly that al-Hakim, the Najaf authorities, and the US all had been tipped that there would be a bombing aimed at assassinating al-Hakim, but that no extra steps had been taken to keep him safe. He maintained that some 600 people had been wounded in the blast. This qualified resignation clearly a protest against American failure to make Iraq secure in the post-war period. It is also a blow to the Bremer administration of Iraq, since Bahr al-Ulum is popular and a more credible liberal than Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Abdul Aziz, the brother of the late Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, who slain in the Friday attack, is the head of the paramilitary Badr Corps and has spoken about a vision of Iraq as an Islamic Republic in the far future, though it might have a democratic government in the short term. It seems clear that American nation-building attempts in Iraq have been hit by an earthquake.

*It is increasingly clear that the $4 bn. a month the US pays to keep its troops in Iraq is a pittance compared to what the Bremer administration will need for rebuilding Iraq. Although Bernard Lewis and the neocons promised us that Iraqi petroleum would pay for reconstruction, sabotage has made that impossible so far. So, folks, your tax dollars will be used to reconstruct a wealthy petroleum country in the Middle East. In other news, financial analysts are complaining about the complete lack of transparency in the circa $6 bn. Iraqi budget overseen by Mr. Bremer. Wouldn't we want to start new traditions of open information, democracy and transparency there?

*Bulgarian troops in Karbala have received rocket-propelled grenade fire for the fourth time, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat, and Bulgarian officials in Sophia are begining to worry about their troops being in a highly unsafe environment. Apparently danger was not what they thought they were signing up for when they joined a superpower in a coalition of the willing. It is remarkable that the Western press is almost silent about these attacks in the Shiite south, which clearly is not as stable as Mr. Bremer had claimed it was.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas near Baquba northeast of Baghdad fired rocket-propelled grenades at a US convoy, killing one US soldier and wounding four others. One of the wounded soldiers will have to lose his leg. A fair-sized bomb went off Friday outside the British military headquarters in the southern city of Basra, destroying two automobiles 100 yards from the HQ. No casualties were sustained from this bomb, which the British communique called "small."

*The black Toyota Land Cruiser (some say it was a Volkswagen bus) was parked at the south entrance of the shrine of Imam `Ali and its attached mosque. Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, 63, and his entourage emerged from the entrance and got into three black Toyota Land Cruisers. Al-Hakim always exited from the south gate after giving the Friday prayer sermon at the Imam Ali mosque. Suddenly the fourth vehicle, which resembled those of al-Hakim, exploded, sending spurts of flame into the sky. The ayatollah's Land Cruiser was left a tangled and charred mess, as were the other two with his aides. The adobe covering of the shrine entrance collapsed on other worshippers then about to exit. As of Friday evening, 17 corpses had been pulled out of the rubble there, but more were believed trapped beneath it. Two buildings on the other side of the street collapsed, one of which had a restaurant in it, and the other of which had a retail store. The customers were buried under the broken buildings. Ayatollah al-Hakim had delivered a sermon in which he had once again condemned Saddam and the Baath Party. (al-Zaman, al-Sharq al-Awsat)

Al-Hakim's political rival, the young Muqtada al-Sadr, immediately condemned the bombing and called for a three-day closure of offices to mourn the fallen religious leader. (Some analysts suspect Muqtada's followers, the Sadrists, in the bombing, but as you will see below I find that not very likely. It is true that there was no love lost between them.) Baqir's brother, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, serves on the American-appointed Interim Governing Council. He condemned the attack and pledged that their organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would continue. He is now the head of it.

Baqir's father, Muhsin al-Hakim, had been the highest-ranking Shiite jurisprudent in Najaf in the 1960s. He died in 1970. Baqir was active in the al-Da`wa Party, which aimed at establishing a state based on Islamic law in Iraq, in the 1970s. In the late 1970s, in particular, the Shiites in Iraq were restive (it was the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). Baqir was imprisoned for a time, and survived several (some say 7) assassination attempts. In 1980 he fled to Iran, at a time when Saddam was killing Shiite clerics he feared after the Iranian Revolution. Membership in the al-Da`wa Party was declared a capital crime. Saddam also invaded Iran. Baqir was involved in the establishment of an umbrella group for Iraqi dissidents in Tehran called the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in 1982. It included al-Da`wa initially. In `1984, al-Da`wa withdrew from SCIRI (or SAIRI), to maintain its independence. In 1984, as well, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim became the head of the Supreme Council.

SCIRI sent agents over the border to blow up things in Iraq, and developed a paramilitary called the Badr Brigades (later it grew to become the Badr Corps).
The Badr fighters infiltrated into Iraq, often through the swamps in the South, to carry out guerrilla attacks on the Baath government.

In the run-up to the American war on Iraq in 2002-2003, Baqir al-Hakim proved willing to cooperate with the Americans, despite being a hardliner close to Iranian Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. Al-Hakim believed in Khomeini's theory of clerical rule, but he was a pragmatist willing to accept a pluralistic, parliamentary government in Iraq initially. He thought the Shiite majority would eventually create an Islamic Republic there on the Iranian model. He met with Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and other dissident groups, and SCIRI representatives held talks with the Americans.

Al-Hakim had an on-again off-again relationship with the US. He opposed a US occupation of Iraq, and wanted an immediate transition to a new Iraqi government, of which SCIRI would form part. He at one point threatened to have the Badr Corps fire on US troops if they tried to occupy the country. There were in fact firefights between the Badr Corps and the Marines in places like Baquba, and the US eventually insisted on the disarming of the Badr Corps. Al-Hakim initially declined to have SCIRI be part of the Interim Governing Council appointed by Paul Bremer, insisting that such a council should be elected. In this period he gave a sermon in Najaf in which he said that the US had shown its true colors as the Great Satan. In the end, he gave in and allowed his brother, Abdul Aziz, to serve on the IGC, but in return demanded that the US drop several other prospective appointees. He clearly did not like the US or the US occupation, and wanted a quick US withdrawal, but he was pragmatic enough to want his SCIRI to be well positioned to succeed the US as a major political force when they withdrew.

SCIRI probably has no significant grass roots in Iraq. There seems to be some loyalty to it in Baquba and Kut, eastern cities near Iran. It has proselytized in Basra and elsewhere in the South. But it seems a minority taste for most Iraqi Shiites. The Sadrists, who may number 2 million, dwarft SCIRI, which I suspect is just a few tens of thousands.

The U.S. has lost a pragmatic quasi-ally who signalled by his cooperation with the Americans that it was all right for Shiites to work through Bremer for a strong position in the new Iraq. Most other Shiite clerics refuse direct contact with the Americans. This bombing has certainly made Iraq even less governable.



*My reasoning in blaming the Baath Party for the bombing:


I saw Judith Yaphe of National Defense University interviewed by Soledad O'Brien on CNN Friday evening, and she gave an excellent overview of the possible perpetrators: Sadrists, Baathists and Sunni radicals.

In my NPR interview on Friday afternoon with Robert Siegel, I blamed the Saddam loyalists. Here is my reasoning:

I don't believe that Muqtada al-Sadr or his followers would risk damaging the Shrine of Imam `Ali, among the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, with a huge truck bomb. They are if anything overly sensitive to the holiness of Shiite symbols. I know it is easy for secularized Westerners to be cynical about an argument that "he wouldn't do that." But I really do not think someone with his views and context would.

Moreover, it is not his modus operandi. Muqtada's people have mobbed opponents, have stabbed them, have beaten them up and put them into the hospital, have surrounded their houses, and have threatened them. But they have never set off huge bombs. The most some of the ones in Sadr City (East Baghdad slums) have done is toss a grenade into a liquor store or cinema house, typically when no one is there, to enforce their puritanism.

If Muqtada had wanted Baqir al-Hakim dead, he could have simply sent another Shiite to worm his way into al-Hakim's confidence and stick a shiv between his ribs. It is the Sunni Baath who could not have gotten close to him in this way so easily (a Tikriti accent can be heard, and there are lots of minutiae about Shiism a Sunni Baathist could not easily know). A remoter way of assassination thus makes sense for the Sunni Baath. This explosion almost certainly killed and wounded persons who have some loyalty to the al-Sadr family, even if they attend Friday prayers at the Imam Ali mosque rather than in Kufa. Why would Muqtada take such a shotun approach?

I also do not believe that Sunni radicals would set off a bomb next to Ali's shrine. He is the fourth caliph of the Sunnis. Even though some extreme Wahhabis might dislike the idea of a shrine to anyone (and 19th century Wahhabis even targeted the tomb of the Prophet in Medina), it just does not fit their m.o. In all of al-Qaeda's history, they have bombed embassies and foreign ships and foreign buildings, not Muslim holy places.

In contrast, this move makes perfect sense for Saddam loyalists. They have not scrupled to damage the shrine in the past, when they put down the 1991 uprising. Saddam sent out a videotape around August 15 calling on the Shiite clergy to declare jihad against the Americans. All of the major Shiite clerics, including Baqir al-Hakim rejected and derided this call. I believe that this bombing was the Saddam loyalists' response to that rebuttal. It also punishes Baqir al-Hakim for cooperating with the Americans and for his years of guerrilla attacks on the Baath from Iran.

The Baathists may also hope that the al-Hakims and their followers will blame the Sadrists, provoking civil unrest that contributes to the country's ungovernability for the Americans.

The Najaf bombing looks an awful lot like the bombing of the Jordanian embassy and the bombing of the UN headquarters. I now think all three are the work of Saddam loyalists, not of Sunni radicals with al-Qaeda links. All three targeted key de facto allies of the US, and have resulted in isolating it further. The Red Cross, Oxfam, and other aid agencies have much reduced their operations after the bombing of the UN headquarters, and IMF and World Bank officials have left, postponing important economic measures. Major Shiite clerics other than al-Hakim and his brother Abdul Aziz have refused direct contact with the Americans, and this reluctance is likely to have just been reinforced.

My considered opinion is that Saddam and the Baath loyalists have reverted to their old 1960s cell structure and are carefully planning out a series of high-profile attacks that have great strategic yield. The Baath wasn't much as a military power in the 1990s, but as masters of dirty politics they still have no peer. Ask Abdel Karim Qasim, the Arif brothers, and the thousands of dead among the al-Da`wa Party officers and rank and file.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Breaking news. Nearly 100 people have been killed and hundreds more wounded by a hug car bomb blast in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq. Among the dead is Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head since 1984 of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. His brother, Abdul Aziz, is a member of the Interim Governing Council appointed by the Americans. The blast occurred in front of the shrine to Imam Ali, which was slightly damaged.

It seems to me clear that this bombing was the work of Saddam loyalists. Baqir al-Hakim had waged a long terrorist and guerrilla war against the Baath. He cooperated with the Americans. When Saddam called on Shiite clergy to declare jihad on the US a couple of weeks ago, Baqir and others rejected the call forcefully and attacked Saddam as a tyrant. No believing Shiite would blow up a huge bomb right in front of Imam Ali's shrine. The truck bomb has become a signature of the remnants of the Baath, as with the attack on the United Nations HQ. The Saddam loyalists may hope that Shiite factions will blame one another and fall to fighting an internal civil war, adding to the country's ungovernability for the Americans.

More as details become available.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas in Falluja set off a bomb that wounded four US soldiers on Thursday. Hundreds of townspeople rallied after the attack for a march through town, chanting slogans in favor of Saddam Hussein and against George W. Bush. In a macabre scene, some displayed charred cloth that they said came from the clothing of some of the wounded soldiers. US soldiers searched part of the town after the attack. In the south on Weds. night, one British soldier was killed and another wounded in the village of Ali al-Sharqi, where they appear to have been ambushed by an angry mob, from which they took rpg fire. This incident recalls the attack at Majar al-Kabir at the end of June. Although the South is quieter than the Sunni Arab triangle, it can be dangerous as well. The reporting does not really give any motive for the attack.

*Al-Qaeda has posted a new letter on its site, written by a fallen leader killed in a gun battle in Saudi Arabia recently, which addresses the Iraq situation. Al-Qaeda feels that the fall of the Baath is favorable to the radical Islamist cause, since it discredits secular Arab nationalism. Al-Qaeda is convinced that radical fundamentalism (of course they don't call it that) will fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the regime. The scarey thing is that if Falluja and Ramadi are any guide, they might be right, at least about the Sunni Arab Iraqis.

Arabic URL: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/
view/news/2003,08,29,189885.html

*About 35 Iraqis are murdered in Baghdad alone every day, most in gang-related violence, according to Rosalind Russell of Reuters. That is an annual murder rate of nearly 13,000, for this one city, population 5 million. The murder rate for the United States, a country of over 280 million, in 2000? 16,000! Nor is Iraq just a violent society; physicians at Baghdad hospitals say they have never seen anything like it! Baghdad was quite safe under Saddam as long as you weren't involved in dissident politics. I'd say that for the US to allow this level of homocide is probably even a violation of its duties under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as an Occupying Power. No wonder women are afraid to go to hospitals for health care. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld likened the homicide rate in Iraq under US rule to that of Washington DC (in 2002 there were 163 murders in this city of 570,000. If DC were ten times as big, i.e., as big as Baghdad, that would only be 1,630 per year.) Nope, Mr. Rumsfeld, the comparison doesn't work. He was talking, of course only about US military deaths (which are already rather more than the number of murder victims in DC, anyway); I guess Iraqi murder victims don't count. But guess what? The Iraqi public really minds this crime wave, and it is turning them off to cooperation with the US.
See
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/
reuters08-28-073516.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Al-Zaman led yesterday with a horrifying story of burglars killing two families in Baghdad and attempts at looting a moneychanger's office and car theft by criminal gangs, if corroboration were needed. AFP says that families with missing members throng to the morgue in fear of finding them there.

*It has for some time been clear that much of the inaccurate information the US and Britain received about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction came from Iraqi expatriates and defectors. NYT correspondent Judith Miller has been exposed by her colleagues as relying on corrupt financier Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Pentagon-backed "Iraqi National Congress" for her reporting about Iraqi chemical weapons. We all saw former Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidir Hamza come on television all last year insisting that Iraq had a big nuclear weapons program even after 1998 (he was contradicted by other expatriate Iraqi nuclear scientists, but somehow Hardball and O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes did not have them on. Now the LAT and UPI are reporting a US government theory that some of the expatriates were fed disinformation by Saddam before they left, because Saddam hoped that the US would be afraid to attack him if he had big WMD stockpiles. Well, anything is possible. But Chalabi and Hamza had been outside Iraq for 40 and for 12 years respectively, and their misiniformation wasn't from the Baath. The US was snookered by these expatriates, all right, but it wasn't mostly Saddam's doing. Chalabi has been rewarded for lying to us (not to mention embezzling millions) by an appointment to the Interim Governing Council. I don't know what happened to Hamza, but I imagine he'll do all right for himself out of it all. And, of course, there were those forged letters purporting to be from Niger, which presumably came from the expats or from other forces (Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is another potential suspect) who wanted a US war against Iraq.

You can't blame the expats for wanting the US to overthrow Saddam, really, or for lying to get that result. What is shocking is that high officials of the US government like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush should have based so much of their policy on the gossip of expats who had no real on the ground intelligence to share. This whole experience should make the US doubly suspicious of Iranians who want Washington to overthrow the mullahs in Tehran, and of those who are allied with these expats, such as the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy, whose deputy director Patrick Clawson has been vocally supporting the terrorist group Mujahidin-e Khalq. (Makes you wonder what kind of deal the MEK has cut).

See also Glen Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker, "20 Lies about the Iraq War":
http://www.endthewar.org/features/20lies.htm

*US military spokesmen have acknowledged at last that a military helicopter deliberately blew down a Shiite banner from a telecom tower, which resulted in demonstrations in Baghdad. They at first denied it. The helicopter crew will apparently be reprimanded for poor judgment. The banner addressed the Imam Mahdi, or Shiite promised figure analogous to the Return of Christ, and its dislodging was viewed as a slap in the face by the Sadrist sect in Baghdad.

*The rector of al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, Dr. Muhammad Tantawi, has repudiated a fatwa or legal ruling given by one of his colleagues, which forbade Muslims to cooperate with the Iraqi Interim Governing Council appointed by the Americans. Tantawi said that the ruling was merely the opinion of a private individual and did not represent the views of al-Azhar as an institution, which concerns itself in any case only with Egyptian affairs. -Al-Hayat. This backtracking almost certainly comes as a response to severe pressure from the Egyptian government, which in turn was probably pressured by the US embassy in Cairo. That the Hosni Mubarak regime does favors like this for the US is one reason that there is no US pressure on it to democratize, in contrast to Iraq. The US is still a status quo power in the Middle East, despite all the neocons' talk about democratization, and Egypt is a pillar of the status quo, what with its peace treaty with Israel and military alliance with the US.

Arabic URL: http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/
nafrica_news/08-2003/20030828-29P01-02.txt/
story.html

A debate has broken out in Bulgaria about whether to send 15-20 civilians to help administer the city of Karbala, now under military control of the Bulgarian contingent. Some fear that the civilians' lives will be put in danger.
http://www.novinite.com/
view_news.php?id=25618

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Two US soldiers died in Iraq on Wednesday and nine were wounded. US Central Command said that "One soldier was killed and three injured in an explosive device attack in Fallujah." Another was killed in Baghdad when guerrillas attacked a military convoy; two of his colleagues were wounded. Guerrillas also attacked a convoy near Baqubah, wounding two US soldiers and an Iraqi worker, and killing another Iraqi. Guerrillas in Ramadi wounded two US soldiers. In Baghdad, two Iraqi policemen died in a running gun battle with car thieves that left a looter and a moneychanger dead, as well.

*The Shiite Da`wa Party in Iraq has strongly condemned the guerrilla attacks and sabotage that have plagued the post-Saddam era. In an interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat, the party spokesman, Abdul Karim al-`Anzi said that these acts damaged Iraq and were being committed by left-over Baathists. He wanted to know where these guerrillas were when Saddam was killing Iraqis all those years. He said that his party, like all Iraqis, rejected Occupation, and implied that he wanted a hand-off to an elected Iraqi government as soon as possible. He said that his party is cooperating with the "good believers" of the Interim Governing Council, even though it had severe reservations about that body being appointed rather than elected in some fashion by the Iraqi people, and about the American veto over its decisions. He also severely criticized the IGC for concerning itself with bureaucratic minutiae that are meaningless to most Iraqis, while doing nothing about the lack of water, electricity, gasoline and security. Although the August president of the IGC, Ibrahim Jaafari, is a leader of the London branch of al-Da`wa, al-`Anzi seems to deny that Jaafari is in any way representing the party. Asked about the differing responses to the Occupation of the southern Shiites and the guerrillas of the Sunni Arab triangle, al-`Anzi insisted that all the major Shiite clergy had rejected the Occupation.

Al-`Anzi was not terribly clear as to why, if the Occupation is rejected, it is so terrible to fight it. He seems to imply that violence against the US at this juncture will harm Iraqis, and that political groups must work with the IGC to get a transition to a new Iraqi government on a short timetable. (The IGC is saying that they will appoint a government within two weeks and have a new constitution ready within a year).
(Arabic:
http://www.asharqalawsat.com/
view/news/2003,08,28,189713.html

The tone this major party leader takes should give no comfort to the US administration. al-Da`wa has some grass roots in Iraq. And, it is clear that they are holding their nose about the Occupation only because they hope it will be brief. The US shouldn't dawdle about handing civil administration over to an Iraq government as soon as elections can be held.

And that's another thing. Mr. Bremer seems to think you can't have elections until you have a constitution. But that's not how it happened in Afghanistan. Surely you could pass a basic Organic Law governing national governing offices and elections, and then work out the details of the Constitution after the elections? In some sense, isn't that what happened in the US, which already had a government under the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution was drafted in 1789? French Foreign Minister Villepin's suggestion that elections be scheduled for later this year sounds good to me.

*Richard Perle, powerful member of the Defense Advisory Board that counsels the Pentagon, has "admitted" that the US "made a mistake" in not working more closely with the "Iraqi opposition." The press even seems to be buying this load of horse manure and reporting it with a straight face. All Perle is doing is criticizing the State Department and the CIA for refusing to work with the corrupt expatriate financier Ahmad Chalabi, who seems to have struck some sort of shady deal with the Defense Department that if they would only put him in power, he'll give them everything they want (including Iraqi recognition of and provision of oil to Israel). Actually, refusing to preside over the coronation of Chalabi, who has no support whatsoever inside Iraq, was among the few things the US got right. The CIA and State called this one.

*Incidentally, the Defense Department neocons seem to have floated a trial balloon about an Iraqi oil pipeline to Israel, which the State Department promptly shot down.
State says no such project can be discussed for two years, after which it will be up to the Iraqi people to decide, though it seemed to petroleum experts unlikely that a) the northern Kirkuk fields, which are declining, could support another pipeline in addition to the existing one to Turkey or b) that it would make economic sense to try to have a pipeline from the new southern fields all the way up to Israel. And, by the way, if the pipeline to Turkey is vulnerable to terrorism (it was hit again Weds.), imagine what would happen to an Iraqi pipeline to Israel. Finally, even if this idea were practicable, it wouldn't be helpful to US policy goals in the Middle East to talk it up right now. The thing I mind most about the neocons aside from their rigid ideology is there complete lack of tact.

*The US has caught a handful of Saudis who slipped across the border to attack US forces. But apparently there are more fighters from other countries, such as Yemen and Syria. The Saudis say they have no information on the matter and that policing the Iraq-Saudi border (over 400 miles long) is a US responsibility now. Earlier press reports talked of some 3,000 Saudi youth gone missing and suspected of having gone off to Iraq to fight a jihad. Some of the foreigners may also have come for the looting. See

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?
StoryID=20030827-042903-9490r.

*Index (with apologies to Harper's). According to Jim Sciutto of ABC
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/
World/iraq030827_reconstruction.html:

-Number of 27 major Iraqi cities where water is dirtier and less often available now than under Saddam: 12
(includes Baghdad, Najaf & Tikrit)

-Cost of providing clean, reliable water to Iraqis: $16 billion.

-Percent by which Saddam's regime outproduced the current American administration in electricity: 28

-Cost of modernizing the electricity grid: $2 billion

-Amount of money Bremer administration in Iraq has left: $10 million

-Percentage of the former 3 mn. barrels of oil per day that is now being pumped by the US in Iraq: 55

-Number of times the oil pipeline to Turkey has been set ablaze: 2 (the second time was 27 August).

-Number of 240 Iraqi hospitals that have reopened: 240

-Percentage of women who are too afraid of being kidnapped to leave their homes to go to a hospital: 100

-Percentage of Iraqis unemployed: 60

-Percentage of Americans who were unemployed in the Great Depression of the 1930s: 25

-Number of troops in the Iraqi army in March, 2003: 400,000

-Number of troops in the Iraqi army now: 12,000


*President Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates (a small Gulf federation) said Wednesday that his government had closed down the office of an Arab League Center that had been accused of promoting religious bigotry, especially anti-semitism. It had received government money and was called the Shaykh Zayid Centre for Coordination and Follow-Up. Shaikh Zayed's statement said that the Center "had engaged in a discourse that starkly contradicted the principles of interfaith tolerance, directives were issued for the immediate closure of the centre." It added that Shaikh Zayed "has always been a strong advocate of interfaith tolerance and harmony among religions, as constantly reflected in his words and actions. This respect for all faiths is a basic principle of Islam."

The closure appears to come in large part because of a student campaign waged at Harvard University that argued that Shaikh Zayed's gift of $2.5 million should be returned to him, given the activities of this center. The campaign, headed by Rachel Fish, was called MoralityNotMoney and its statement said that "The Centre published a book claiming that the American government masterminded the September 11 attacks, hosted notorious Holocaust deniers, and featured a lecture by a Saudi professor who claimed that Jews use gentile blood for holiday pastries. The Los Angeles Times quoted the Centre's director as saying the "Jews are the enemies of all nations." "

Congratulations to Ms. Fish and the other Harvard students for forcing this change, which seems to me quite a significant victory against bigotry in the Middle East.

On the other hand, Ms. Fish now works for the David Project, the Web site of which doesn't appear to be as upset about anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab sentiments. I guess at 50 I should just give up looking for fair-minded heros and be satisfied with the few flawed ones we have. Maybe if some Palestinian analogues to Ms. Fish can accomplish something with regard to the racism directed against them in the US, it will all even out. But it would be nobler if people also cared about bigotry not directed at their own ethnicity.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?
StoryID=20030827-042903-9490r.

*My remarks about the unwisdom of putting Bulgarians in charge of Karbala yesterday elicited the following response:

Dear Professor Cole:

I read your weblog regularly and always with pleasure. I found your comments suggesting that Bulgaria was an inappropriate ally for the "Coalition of the Willing" to be off base, however.

You are certainly correct, that Bulgaria under Communism (and before) engaged in occasional forced Bulgarization programs and that the most recent, in the late 80's, culminating in 1989, was the cause of mass emigration to Turkey. It should be noted that the assimilation program was framed in ethnic rather than religious terms (not all Muslims were targeted, only ethnic Turks). More importantly, the policy was soundly rejected by the post-Communist regime. Since then, most (though of course not all) of the erstwhile muhacir from this period have returned to Bulgaria (in particular because of Bulgaria's greater success in its application to EU membership). Ties between Turkey and Bulgaria have been generally warm and anti-Muslim intolerance, while still evident, has largely been pushed to the fringes of political discourse.

None of this, of course, makes the case for a slip-shod "Coalition of the Willing" rather than the legitimacy a UN coalition force would bring. I share your dim view of the Bush administration's policy on that count. But I see nothing in Bulgaria's post-communist past that should prevent it from taking a role in the occupation.

Best wishes,

Howard Eissenstat

Howard Eissenstat
Department of History
Loyola Marymount University
One LMU Drive, Suite 3500
Los Angeles, CA 90045-2659

I'm glad to be corrected about current government attitudes to Muslims. But I remain skeptical of putting the Bulgarians in charge of Karbala.

The US State Department Human Rights report for Bulgaria is at:

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/
hrrpt/2002/18358pf.htm

It isn't as awful as I feared, but there are significant problems. 17 major properties belonging to Muslims have still not been returned to them. As for "ethnic" versus "religious" persecution, I don't think a clear distinction can be made in the Balkans. Muslim converts intermarried with immigrant Ottomans of various ethnicities. Anyway, Saddam also sent "Persian" Iraqis out of the country, but everyone knew it was also a way of hitting the Shiites. Religious and ethnic hatreds are usually intertwined, and a clear distinction between Slav and "Turkish" Muslims could never be maintained. The Serbian extremists viewed all Bosnian Muslims as alien Turks, after all.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Two US soldiers died in Iraq in the past 36 hours. Guerrillas attacked a US convoy between Falluja and Ramadi, killing one soldier and wounding two others. Another soldier died when an Iraqi automobile struck him as he was changing a flat tire near Tikrit.

*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has issued a strongly worded condemnation of the failure of the US to provide security in Iraq. "The Iraqi people have, since the fall of the previous regime, suffered from bad secuirty conditions and an increase in crime, to which citizens have been exposed throughout Iraq." He condemned as "sinful" the latest of these breaches of security, the bombing of the office of his colleague Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim in Najaf on Sunday. He called on "those concerned" "to put an end to this dangerous phenomenon and to take the necessary steps to improve the security situation, including a strengthening of national Iraqi forces charged with providing security and stability, and supporting them with sufficient personnel and materiel." In a related story, the son of Grand Ayatollah Sa`id al-Hakim, Muhammad Hussein al-Hakim, rebuffed an American request to meet with them. He said "We do not want direct contact with the Americans. What we need is for the national forces to be free to act." He called on the Americans to increase the number of border outposts, suggesting that foreigners may have been behind the bombing. -Al Zaman
(
http://217.205.164.249/azzaman/
http/display.asp?fname=/azzaman/
articles/2003/08/08-26/995.htm

*Ahmad Safi, a key aide to Grand Ayatollah Alis Sistani gave an interview yesterday to al-Hayat newspaper. Al-Safi told journalist Ibrahim Khayyat in Najaf that the American occupation is unacceptable, and that there might be a resort to arms by Shiites as a last resort if it isn't ended in a timely manner.

Asked about Sistani's preferences with regard to the drafting of a new constitution, Al-Safi said that the chief religious leaders of the Iraqi Shiites want the whole people to be able to choose. He regretted that both under the monarchy and in the republic, a sigificant proportion of the people had been left voiceless. He stressed that the religious leadership viewed the constitution as an absolutely central issue. He insisted that all Iraqis be able to see in the constitution safeguards against their being tyrannized. Al-Safi said that there were three camps on the issue of the constitution. One wanted it written by foreigners outside Iraq, another wanted it written by expatriate Iraqis, and a third wanted it written by Iraqis inside Iraq. He said that the important thing is that it be written by Iraqis, and by Iraqis with a strong sense of the Iraqi nation, such that the drafters can be objective and set aside their sectarian or sectional interests. "For this reason," he added, "the religious leaders believe that a committee must be formed, and that a group of people must be elected to draft it, such that the people have confidence in the drafters. After it is drafted, it must be voted on in a popular referendum."

Asked about Hussein Khomeini's recent call for a separation of religion and state, al-Safi said no one in Iraq wanted to repeat in Iraq the mistakes of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He implied that in Khomeini's Iran, religion had been politicized. In contrast, he said, politics needed to be infused with religion, as did economics and the wider society. The tool for this infusion of religion was the fatwa or legal ruling, which would be given with regard to certain key issues. [Al-Safi is saying that the clergy needn't rule, as in Iran, but that religion should have a major influence, through the mechanism of the fatwa].

The Arabic interview is at
http://www.daralhayat.com/
special/features/08-2003/
20030826-27p10-01.txt/story.html.


*Polish troops moving in to replace the US Marines in the Shiite holy city of Karbala have already come under mortar fire, according to Andrew England of AP. The Monday night incident resulted in no casualties, according to Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski in Warsaw. He said, "Those were warning shots indicating that there are still people ready to fight for Saddam Hussein's ideas.'' Maybe; but it seems to me that there are few Baathists left in Karbala, and it is more likely that the fire came from radical Shiites seeking to set the right tone in a new relationship with the Poles. The Poles have put the Bulgarians in charge of Karbala city itself, and the US Marines have just handed the city over to Lt. Col. Petko Marinov and his 250 Bulgarian troops. There has already been a roadside bombing of one of their vehicles; again, no casualties.

I find all this Coalition of the Willing business troubling. Bulgarians are 83% Christian and only 12% Muslim, and the government has very bad relations with Muslims they consider ethnic Turks, chasing a lot of Bulgarian Muslims out of the country in recent years. Are these really the people you want in charge of one of the holiest shrines in the Muslim world? They are unlikely to have any Arabists. And, what are they speaking when communicating to the Americans? Russian? I wouldn't say cultural sensitivity to the sensibilities of Muslims is their strong suit, and that is what we desperately need in Karbala of all places.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3074257,00.html
and

http://www.hrw.org/reports
/1989/WR89/Bulgaria.htm


*Al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, Egypt, among the preeminent Sunni Muslim religious institutions in the world, has issued a fatwa or legal ruling forbidding Muslims from any cooperation with the appointed Iraqi Interim Governing Council, according to IslamOnline. It gives the text as saying, "“The council lacks religious and secular legitimacy, as it had been imposed on the Iraqis under the power of occupation and does not conform to Islam’s established principle of shura (counseling)." The ruling argued for popular sovereignty: “Iraq is an Islamic country whose government should be legitimate and set up in accordance with the principle of Shura.” This language echoes the ruling of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani saying that the delegates to the constitutional convention must be elected rather than appointed by the Americans. Popular sovereignty appears to have become a key legitimizing idea even among conservative clerics in the Middle East.

*The words of Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraqi, at a recent news conference, according to Australian Broadcasting Co. reporter Geoff Thompson were as follows:

Ambassador Bremer was asked whether it might be more accurate to say that perhaps it was the presence of American forces in Iraq which had turned Iraq into a new battleground in the United States war on terror.

PAUL BREMER: No, it would be completely inaccurate because Iraq under Saddam Hussein for 20 years was identified as a state sponsor of terrorism, correctly in my view. This was a state which sponsored terrorism, it is no longer a state which sponsors terrorism, I don't sponsor terrorism, I try to defeat it.

Thompson contrasts this denial to the statements made to him in Baghdad of two members of the Interim Governing Council appointed by Bremer:

YOUNADEM KANA: Yeah, for sure it's a magnet for terrorists, yeah. For sure it's a magnet for terrorists and especially the most fanatic extremists, let's say, bin Laden's group al-Qaeda, for example – yes, it's a magnet. . . . It's more easy for them to reach . . . Americans, not only for Americans, for all Coalition forces, even allies. (Kana is the Christian representative on the IGC).

Thompson then quotes Muhyi al-Kateeb [former Iraqi ambassador and more recently proprietor of a gasoline station in the US]:

MUHYI AL-KATEEB: Because we have no control of our borders yet, so it is heaven for terrorism.

GEOFF THOMPSON: As long as there is an American presence here it's going to be an attractive place for terrorists looking to target Americans?

MUHYI AL-KATEEB: I agree.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Do you see a certain irony in the fact that America's war on terror, in a sense, made the invasion of Iraq and the ousting of Saddam Hussein possible politically, and now in fact it's attracting, it's attracting people who wish to battle America on that front?

MUHYI AL-KATEEB: It is ironic. But this is the reality of it. I mean, our borders are open and they're very long ones too, and we have a lot of neighbours that don't like what is going on inside Iraq. So I assume that they are going to use that to, maybe to send some signals to the Americans on the Iraqi soil, unfortunately.

The entire piece is online at:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/
content/2003/s932829.htm

*For the illegal pilgrim trade of Iranians to the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, see James Hider's smart piece in CSM. He points out that this illicit pilgrim trade poses severe security problems. But Iraqi border police and US forces at the moment are unable to do anything about it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003
/0827/p17s01-woiq.html

*The Shiite custom of temporary marriage is reappearing in Iraq, according to Hannah Allam of Knight-Ridder. In Islam, marriage is a contract between husband and wife. In Sunni Islam, the contract is for life except if terminated by divorce. In Shiite Islam, there are two kinds of marriage--the lifetime contract, and mut`a (Persian: sigheh) or temporary marriage. In temporary marriage, the contract specifies a time period during which the marriage is valid, after which it lapses. A lot of Western (and Sunni) observers deride temporary marriage as a form of prostitution, but this charge is at least somewhat inaccurate. Children born during a temporary marriage have full rights, and during the term of the marriage the woman is a recognized wife. Americans who shack up with one another for a few months and then move on are basically engaged in mut`a, common-law style, except that US law is usually far less kind to the offspring of these unions. All that said, as it is practiced in contemporary Iran and Iraq, mut`a socially disadvantages women and reinforces patriarchy. I say socially rather than economically because both societies have a lot of war widows, and polygamy and mut`a are ways for them to have husbands in societies where many of the eligible men in their age range were killed in the Iran-Iraq war or other violent conflicts. (The medieval European solution to the problem of there being more women than eligible men was to get them to a nunnery. In contemporary America, there is also a surplus of women, especially in the Vietnam generation; a lot of women are just left without mates.) Of course, in a welfare state where women were truly equal to men, the women would not need to contract temporary marriages or become a second wife to ensure financial survival. But that anyway does not describe Iraq at the moment. I think the practice is on the whole a bad one, but I am just suggesting we not be too quick to condemn the women who adopt it, for most are pretty desperate. See
http://www.realcities.com/
mld/krwashington/6623752.htm.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Today I fulfilled my sad duty to Navy Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman of putting up an archive of his email messages to me. Kylan was shot dead in al-Hilla while with the Marine expeditionary force on August 21. The archive is large (400 k) and so may load slowly for those with slow connections. I apologize in advance about that. The archive is at http://www.juancole.com/archives/kylan.htm .


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*A US soldier was reported killed Monday of "non-hostile gunfire," presumably a firearms accident.

*Angry crowds about 2,000 strong filled the streets of Najaf Monday for a funeral procession for the bodyguards killed on Sunday by a bomb meant for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim. They vowed revenge, and some were overheard blaming young Shiite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr and his Sadr Movement for the bombing. Sadr spokesmen have denied responsibility for the attack. As usual, Neil MacFarquhar of the NYT does an excellent job in profiling the factions
at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/
international/worldspecial/26SHII.html?
ex=1062475200&en=
257c754560ee043e&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE .
The Najaf bombing was condemned by Lebanon's Hizbullah Shiite militia, which urged Iraqi Shiites to unify. (Hizbullah and Amal, the two main religious Shiite groups in Lebanon, fought one another bitterly in the mid to late 1980s, much weakening the political clout of the Shiites, so Hizbullah knows whereof it speaks).

*A large, peaceful demonstration was held by Shiites from the slums of Sadr City in front of the US headquarters in Baghdad on Monday according to Tarek al-Issawi of AP. They said they were protesting the lack of security in Najaf that allowed a bomb to go off near the offices of al-Hakim on Sunday, as well as the recent attack by Sunni Kurds on Shiite Turkmen at the village of Hauz Kharmato. After an hour, the demonstrators moved on to the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which they charged with having begun the fighting in Hauz Kharmato and then having spread the conflict to the city of Kirkuk. Some 11 persons have died in that fighting. The PUK blames the rioting on provocation by agents provocateurs of Saddam Hussein.

Note that initial press reports, including some in Arabic, were confused, and I remember them saying that it was the Kurds who were the Shiites at Hauz Kharmato (Also given as Tuz Kharmato). This was an error, and I apologize; I have fixed it in the postings below. Most Turkmen are Sunnis, and so are most Kurds. But both groups have small Shiite minorities. The Shiite Turkmen are the descendants of the Turkic Qizilbash tribesmen who conquered Iran in the late 1400s and helped establish the Shiite Safavid state in 1501. But, other, Sunni Turkmen had been in part responsible for spreading Sunni Islam in Anatolia in the medieval period.

It is actually quite interesting that the Arab Twelver Shiites of Sadr City are identifying with the Turkmen Shiites. The Turkmen tend to follow heterodox forms of Shiism that most Twelver clergymen would see as heretical or theologically extreme (ghulat). That the Sadrists and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are attempting to make a claim to representing these northern populations that practice a kind of folk Islam points to an increasingly politicization of religion and of religious identity. Most Twelver Shiites in Iraq and Iran normally could not care less if Alevi Turks in Turkey get into a fight with the Sunnis, since the Alevis are also heterodox Shiites. The Turkmen of Hauz Kharmato are unlikely to be more bookish and orthodox than the Alevis. Another point: The Sadrist demonstrators in Baghdad may have been attempting to divert attention from the charges that they were behind the Najaf bombing, by turning the focus to conflicts in the distant north.

The Turkmen Front of Northern Iraq sent a message to the foreign ministry of Turkey asking that Turkey send in troops to protect the Turkmen. Turkey in turn complained ot the US about their treatment by the Kurds. This set of exchanges is also ironic, since the ruling party in Turkey is a Sunni religious party. The same sort of people who support the "Justice and Development" or Ak party have in the past been involved in persecution of Shiite Alevi Turkeys in Turkey, who are little different from the Turkmen of Hauz Kharmato. So, Turkey and some Turkmen see the conflict as a racial clash between Turks and Kurds, whereas for Iraqis, this issue is being painted as a Sunni-Shiite conflict.

The Turkmen are such a small group, probably 400,000, that ordinarily, in domestic terms, it would have been unlikely that Turkmen-Kurdish violence could pose a threat to the stability of the Iraqi North (the Iraqi Kurds are some 4 million strong, or ten times as numerous). But if the Turkmen really can get Turkey seriously involved, that creates a nightmare scenario. Remember that Kirkuk is an oil town, and that Iraqi exports of petroleum to Turkey, worth $7 mn. a day, have to go through this region, which will be difficult if ethnic fighting and foreign intervention destabilize it.

For a quick overview of these ethnic and religious issues, see
http://www.theestimate.com/public
/041803.html and
http://www.theestimate.com/
public/050203.html.

The author, presumably Michael Dunn (who also edits The Middle East Journal notes:
"The third major group in northern Iraq are the Turkmen (also Turkoman, Turcoman, etc.), whose origins are from Central Asia. They are Oghuz Turks, and though their name is essentially the same as that of the Turks of Turkmenistan, they have intermingled through the centuries with other Turkish speakers, including Ottoman Turks from Anatolia and Azeri Turks from Iranian and former Soviet Azerbaijan. Like their Central Asian ancestors, they remained semi-nomadic horsemen until fairly recently, then settled in the cities of northern Iraq and in Diyala in eastern Iraq. Some estimates put the total Turkmen population of Iraq at around 400,000 to 500,000, most but not all of them in the north. These numbers, like all numbers on this subject, are in dispute: some Turkmen say there are three million; some Kurds say only about 300,000. Turkmen advocates insist that Kirkuk and Mosul were once essentially Turkmen cities which have been taken over by Arabs and claimed by Kurds. Generally speaking, villages are either all Kurdish or all Turkmen. The major point of dispute is Kirkuk, though Mosul is also a flashpoint. Turkey sees itself as the protector of the Turkmen minority, and this, combined with Turkey’s own internal problem with Kurdish separatists, creates one of the most volatile potential points of conflict, as the world was reminded when Kirkuk fell to the Kurds."

*For the ways in which the US is cooperating with Iraqis with unsavory pasts, including some associated with the notorious Anfal campaign that used poison gas against the Kurds, see Nir Rosen's fine exposé at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03236/214533.stm.

*As if terrorism, al-Qaeda infiltration, low-grade guerrilla war, and sabotage against petroleum pipes, water and electricity stations were not enough, Iraq is now increasingly facing a big problem with the drug trade. A delegation of concerned citizens of Basra came to Baghdad to complain, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat. The drugs are being almost openly smuggled in from several neighboring countries, especially Iran. Some coffeehouses in Basra have apparently more or less put drugs on the menu. People in Karbala and Najaf, the Shiite shrine cities, are complaining that so-called pilgrims who ostensibly are coming from Iran to visit the holy shrines are often in fact drug smugglers. The report did not say what drugs were being most often purveyed, but one suspects it is marijuana and Afghan opium/heroin.




For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim was slightly wounded in the neck by flying glass on Sunday when a bomb went off outside his offices in Najaf shortly after he finished his prayers. Three of his bodyguards who went to investigate the bomb were killed, and ten of his aides were wounded. Sa`id al-Hakim is one of four senior ayatollahs who constitute the Religious Institution (al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah) in Najaf, the preeminent seminary center for the training of Shiite clergymen. He is a close colleague of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Both Sistani and Sa`id al-Hakim are political quietists who have declined to campaign vigorously for the expulsion of the Americans. Last week when a tape attributed to Saddam Hussein called on the Shiite clergy to declare jihad or holy war against the US, Sistani and his colleagues openly refused to do so, and condemned Saddam's long years of tyranny. (Sa`id al-Hakim himself has called for calm, despite what he says is a failure of the US to fulfill its promises). It may well be that this bomb was the Baathist reply to this show of defiance by the leading Shiite clergymen.

Some suspicion naturally also fell on the militant Sadrists, followers of young Shiite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr, some of whom have firebombed liquor stores and cinemas in the past. Muqtada's spokesman denied that he was behind this bombing, though, and I think that is right. The modus operandi is more that of the Baath resistance, and Muqtada has been careful to avoid overt, planned violence against rivals lest his movement be closed down by the Americans before it can position itself to take power.

It may also be that the Baathists are trying to provoke violence among the Shiite factions so as to make Iraq even more ungovernable. Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim is the uncle of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose brother, `Abdul Aziz, serves on the Interim Governing Council. But Sa`id is not associated with SCIRI; he is much closer to Sistani. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim suggested that the bombing was intended to provoke a Sunni-Shiite war, and was planted by Baathists for that purpose. He also said that he held the US, the occupying power under international law, responsible for providing security to Iraqis. (al-Sharq al-Awsat).

The clergy in Najaf have been asking the US administration for more security for some time. The Najaf ayatollahs are among the more respected in the entire Shiite world, and to have them blown up while supposedly under US protection makes the US look very bad in the Shiite world. This point is more especially true since the bomb went off so close to the shrine of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. If that shrine had been damaged, there would have been hell to pay.

Hundreds of local people surrounded Sa`id al-Hakim's house as he and others wounded were taken off to the hospital. (Al-Zaman, WP)

Iran condemned the bombing and complained that the US should be providing the Iraqis with better security than it is.

*The tension between Sunni Kurds and Shiite Turkmen in the north remained high on Sunday. The office of Muqtada al-Sadr strongly took measures to support the side of the Shiites, according to al-Hayat. Muqtada also condemned any attempt to isolate the north from the rest of the country. He complained about ongoing ethnic cleansing [presumably of Shiite Turkmen] in the Kurdish areas. There were demonstrations in Ankara against the Kurdish police having fired on Turkmen demonstrators. The Turkmen representative on the Interim Governing Council, Songol Habib Omar Chapouk, called for the Kurdish militias that control Kirkuk to be disarmed, and said that Kirkuk "is a Turkmen city". She warned of ethnic violence if the situation is not calmed. (- al-Hayat). Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Kurdish Patriotic Union sent delegations to Kirkuk in hopes of calming the situation. Note that most Turkmen are Sunnis, but the spark for this particular conflict had been ignited in a fight between the small Turkmen Shiite minority and Sunni Kurds at the village of Tuz Kharmato. The ethnic conflict in Kirkuk between Kurds and Turkmen is probably an all-Sunni affair. (revised 8/26/03)

*In Karbala, the atmosphere was tense after the Marines there closed the offices of Hizb al-Wahdah (the Unity Party) the day before yesterday (al-Hayat). Large crowds have gathered to protest the decision. There is a lot of bad feeling toward the Marines going back to recent incidents where they shot into civilian crowds on receiving gunfire from among the demonstrators. One was killed and nine wounded a few weeks ago. The Islamic Unity Party is headed by Muhammad Qasim (Kassim or Qassim), and it initially welcomed the Americans (see
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/
issues/iraq/after/2003/0429timetable.htm). Unfortunately al-Hayat did not say why the US troops closed the office or what the issues are here.

*An Iraqi feminist organization charges that organized criminal gangs have kidnapped over 400 women in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam on April 9, either holding them for ransom or selling them into sexual slavery. The women have held demonstrations demanding more security for women at Firdaws square in downtown Baghdad. (AFP). Another feminist group has criticized the Interim Governing Council, demanding that a percentage of government jobs be set aside for women and that women have substantial representation among the drafters of the new constitution. (Al-Sharq al-Awsat).

*Iraqi police officers will be sent to Hungary for an 8-week police training course at a former Soviet base, according to de facto Baghdad police chief Bernard Kerik. The police academies inside Iraq are too small for the job. On their return, the officers will receive four to six months on the job instruction. The first group of 1500 officers will begin training within four months, while 28,000 will be graduated during the next 18 months. These 28,000 new recruits will be added to the 37,000 former Baathist policemen who have been reinstated by the US, for a total of 65,000, which is what the US thinks Iraq needs. (-NYT). I've heard Kerik say in interviews that the 37,000 former Baath police he has now are "all that he can trust". I.e., if more than that were called back up, you'd start getting some very dirty, bad characters. I don't know how the 37,000 have already been vetted so fast, but I'd be surprised if they don't already include at least some bad characters. No one has talked about the ethnic make-up of the police. Are the 37,000 reconstituted by the US primarily Sunnis? If so, that could be a problem, especially if the US isn't careful from where it recruits the new 28,000. It is also worrisome that it will take 18 months to get the police force up to its required strength. It is probably true that the Iraqis can police better than US GIs, but the policework needs to be done now, as the recent bombings prove.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Gunmen killed three British soldiers in the southern port city of Basra on Saturday. Details are contradictory and sketchy. Some reports say they had a bomb tossed at them, others wonder if their unmarked car just came to be targeted by car thieves.

*Ethnic violence near Kirkuk as Shiite Turkmen clashed with Sunni Kurds over a rebuilt Shiite shrine to the 4th Imam, `Ali Zayn al-`Abidin (-WP). Intervening US troops killed three on each side, and the total number of dead is 11. There are still lots of ethnic tensions in the north, among Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs. Kurdish-Turkmen fighting has international repercussions, since Turkey will take the side of the Turkmen and will see the Kurds as treacherous. Turkish officials have frequently threatened to intervene in Iraq if they feel the Kurds become too threatening to their interests. (revised 8/26/03)

*A fuel tanker blast in Basra on Saturday killed or wounded dozens of people. There appears to have been a fight over the fuel, leading to an act of arson and thus the explosion. See
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/
arabtimes/breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=2489

*French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepin said Friday that the best way to deal with Iraqi resistance to the Anglo-British occupation is to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people more quickly. He called for UN-assisted elections for a parliament by the end of this year (i.e. Dec. 2003). US officials such as Paul Bremer have said that parliamentary elections must await the writing of a new constitution and, of course, of new electoral laws, as well as the compiling of voting lists. Villepin warned that there was no military solution to the unrest in Iraq, and that a transfer of sovereignty was the only practical step.

*I heard Alex Witt on MSNBC rather indignantly ask a guest this morning why the US should surrender any control of Iraq to UN member nations, since it was the US that fought the war (with Britain) and those two made the sacrifices. I was stunned. First of all, this business of reporters and anchors tossing around so much attitude really must stop. That wasn't her role. If she wants to play Bill O'Reilly, she should get a talk show and give up anchoring. Second, the sentiment is inane. No one said the US had to give up control of Iraq (as though it has much control). The negotiations at the UN are about what it would cost the US to acquire some new allies who would send substantial numbers of troops into Iraq. What should those countries put their troops in harm's way for the sake of US political, economic and military goals? The Bush administration wants to treat India and Pakistan like Gurkhas, the loyal Nepalese troops who fought for the British Empire for "salt." Those countries have their own domestic politics and international interests, and aren't going to just be ordered around by Bush for the sake of a little bit of foreign aid or a benign countenance in Washington. So, Ms. Witt, you should answer the question. Why should they? France and Russia, likewise, aren't going to get involved gratis. But the US Defense Department does not want to give up any control, or accept any constraint on the tendering of Iraq reconstruction and petroleum contracts. O.K. If they want all the goodies for themselves, the Americans should bite the bullet and take complete responsibility for Iraqi security themselves. Problem is, they don't have a large enough army to do that on their own, and they also lack the political legitimacy in the Arab world that the UN has. As the French say, tant pis. Too bad. I'm still waiting to hear any of the warmongers like The National Review apologize to the French and admit they were right about almost everything: no WMD in Iraq, no al-Qaeda ties, and no real casus belli, plus the danger of throwing the country into chaos.

*Kidnappings, 60% unemployment, worry about feeding one's children so desperate it drives people to crime . . . A harrowing report on what it is really like to be an Iraqi in Basra is at:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/
national/136024_yahya21.html.

*The French-based group Doctors without Borders has packed up and left Basra out of severe security concerns. These guys operated in Afghanistan and are known to be so brave as to border on foolhardiness. If they think Iraq is that unsafe, it is a very, very bad sign.

*One of the items the Bremer administration in Iraq always cites as evidence of progress in rebuilding is that the court system and appointment of judges has gone well, and the legal system is now functioning. Serious doubt is cast upon this claim in an article by James Varshney of the Newhouse News service. He depicts a system riddled with corruption and cronyism:
http://www.newhousenews.com
/archive/varney082203.html





For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*It is with great sadness that I report that a friend of Informed Comment, Naval Reserve Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman (31), was killed Thursday near al-Hilla. The wire services said: "BAGHDAD: A US serviceman on duty with a Marine unit was shot dead south of Baghdad, the US military said today, as the UN prepared to fly out more staff in the wake of this week's truck bombing attack. A gunman shot the serviceman yesterday after approaching his vehicle, which had been caught up in traffic in the city of Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. The attacker escaped into a crowded market. " Kylan had studied, and later taught, at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and was an Arabist. He was called up in January, and was scheduled to go home at the beginning of September. He had planned to begin a Ph.D. in Middle East Studies at George Washington University. He was bright and informed. An article about him is: http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/
iraq/bal-te.md.huffman23aug23,0,1855968.story?
coll=bal-local-headlines

Like many real military people, Kylan thought the Iraq war was a big mistake. But he also felt he had a duty to keep the US military as informed as it could be. He emailed me before he went to Iraq.

(For a fuller archive of Kylan's messages, see http://www.juancole.com/archives/kylan.htm).

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 05:25:28 0000 (UTC)
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
To: Juan R. Cole
Subject: update
Cc: nizami@earthlink.net
X-Mailer: Earthlink Web Access Mail version 3.0

Juan - quick update for you on Umm Qasr port facility, derived from newsletters of Barwil Agencies. The contractor in charge, SSA Marine, has hired Barwil Agencies to work as one of the agents in the port. Updates can sometimes be found at www.ssamarine.com or www.barwil.com.

As of late June / early July, there were ongoing security problems, including a major sulfur fire at the old terminal, which damaged the sulfur facility and loading equipment. A badge entry / access control system is being set up as a result. SSA Marine has also reportedly hired a private security firm, Olive Security, as well as an Iraqi group called Basra River Services (armed former Iraqi Navy and Coast Guard personnel) to secure the port facility. This appears to have had an effect, and vessels have been unloading containers, palletized goods, and bulk food (reportedly 84,500 tons bagged rice and 17,460 tons wheat flour last week).

Bechtel has gotten a substation running, which is supplying power to the new port, including container cranes. As of last week, however, the cranes still needed additional testing and re-certification, as they were damaged by looters after the war. Work is also continuing on the grain elevator, and ships wishing to discharge any cargo will have to be able to do so by themselves. Another problem is truck transportation from the port facility to the ultimate destination. While many trucking companies have hired private security, there is still no insurance available to cover loss in transit - not surprising.

A dredge has been operating at the quay and entrance channel, with draft at one berth at 12.5 meters, which should be adequate for most any ship which might call.

Customs is in place to check goods and manifests, but there is not yet any provision for immigration, so no one is allowed to debark and enter Iraq from shipboard.

Incidentally, I may be headed back to Iraq, to Basra and Hilla, next month. I'll keep you posted if I go, and send you a narrative and pictures if I come back...luckily I won't be headed to Sunni country, but I guy I knew (and who was a good friend of a friend) was killed near Hilla not long ago enroute to relieve an ambushed unit.

Cheers,

Kylan


I told him to be careful out there.

He said:


Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 16:10:20 +0300
Subject: Re: update
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
To: "Juan R. Cole"

Oh, I'll be careful as careful as I can, and I won't be going unarmed
this time. Unfortunately, the body armor they provide us won't stop
rifle ammunition, even on the trauma plate over the heart. Command
detonated mines combined with small arms / RPG ambushes on the highway
are another concern. In addition, the folks I'm supposed to be
briefing were mortared the other day during a meeting, and had one
round hit the building, knocking people off their chairs inside, and
wounding a Marine on the roof. Should be interesting ;)

I wouldn't worry too much about Abu Hatim; he seems like a pretty
decent guy from what the Brits say, for a guerilla leader trying to
transition to politics, anyway. And he's not at all connected to Imad
Mughniya and the guys from Lebanese Hizballah...

More later,

Kylan


Another message:


From: "Jones-Huffman, Kylan (LT)"
To: "'Juan R. Cole"
Subject: thanks!
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 11:33:14 -0000

Juan - thanks for concisely laying out a position on Iraq which takes into account reservations about the way the war was sold and spun, but which doesn't, in a fit of righteous indignation, advocate actions which would essentially punish Iraqis for American mistakes. Enough of that will happen anyway, without the assistance of the morally certain - it's always the poor average person who gets it in the neck.

My boss here reminded me that it is still dangerous in Iraq, especially in Hillah, and asked whether I really wanted to go on my planned trip next month (Navy intel types aren't usually keen to be shot at). I told him that, now that we are there, we can't afford to fail, for our own sakes as well as that of the Iraqi people. If there is something I can do to make a direct contribution, I feel that I have an obligation to do so. And in this case, I think that I can make a contribution, if only by helping to sensitize people to issues like the Karbala shrine shooting (which no one appears to be taking seriously - perhaps I'll be able to find out whether there is more behind it). Naturally, I don't much want to be ambushed and suck up an RPG, but I'm in a position to do some good, so I wouldn't feel right sitting safely here in the air conditioning.

One detail - Ansar al-Islam, as I understand it, is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, led my a fellow named Mullah Krekar (recently expelled from Sweden or Norway?) and an off-shoot of the IGK. It doesn't have much of anything to do with Pakistan, except insofar as the same Gulf mujahidin facilitation network which feeds the Kashmiri and Chechnyan conflicts also feeds AI. In addition, there appear to be some links to Jordanian extremist Abu Mu'sab al-Zarqawi, whose group is alleged to work on low-grade, improvised toxins and poisons, among other things.

Thanks again for putting out timely, informative information. I refer everyone I know to your website.

Cheers,

Kylan



Just before he left:


From: "Jones-Huffman, Kylan (LT)"
Cc: "'nizami@earthlink.net'"
Subject: trip to Iraq
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:55:27 +0100


Well, travel plans finally fell into place at the last minute, and I'm flying out to Kuwait tonight, with onward convoy to Hillah tomorrow morning. I'm trying to decide if I want the M-4 carbine or an MP-5 submachinegun in addition to the SIG 9mm pistol they are going to issue me; I think the longer the range, the better. M-4 outranges an RPG, but unfortunately the insurgents still get to shoot first. Apparently, we also take spare body armor to sit on, in case we hit a mine on the way...

Anyway, I'll be in Iraq (Hillah, Basra, possibly Baghdad) for 3-5 days, and should be back by 25 August at the latest. I'll e-mail when I return. I'm taking my computer and camera, but doubt I'll have a chance to access e-mail while I'm up there - there isn't even cell phone service yet, except for Iridium.

Hopefully, I'll have some good stories when I return, since the people I'm going to visit have been mortared and ambushed several times, luckily without injury. I'm officially going to provide briefings and analytic support to the Marines as they turn over occupation responsibilities to Polish and Spanish troops in the southern region. I'm going to concentrate mostly on the political issues surrounding the Interim Governing Council, as well as some of the dynamics and interplay of Shi'a clergy. Using the Shi'a revolt of 1920 to frame the problem seems to work well, so I'll probably do that. If I can keep someone else from trying to tear down a banner of the Imam Mahdi, or getting into a violent confrontation with a crowd out side the shrine of Imam Husayn, I'll feel like I've made a contribution ;)

Cheers,

Kylan


From Kuwait:


Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 12:18:10 0300 (GMT)
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
Subject: arrived in Kuwait

Well, the SAS Radisson is quite nice, if expensive. As you can see, it has a LAN connection, so I can access my e-mail. Flight was uneventful, though I found it interesting that my Kuwaiti visa is a number written on a sticker applied to the back of my military ID card...

Tomorrow we are off to Hillah, after we draw weapons, ammunition, and better body armor from one of the local American bases. The route is fairly well traveled, and comparatively safe (though there have been a few ambushes, mostly using improvised explosive devices, such as several artillery shells wired for command detonation, and hidden under rocks at the side of the road...)

Not sure how long we will be up in Iraq - 3-6 days, possibly. When we get back, I'll post another e-mail from the room here. Inshallah, we won't wander into any kill zones while we are there, but I think it's important to go nonetheless. I may get the chance to speak with or brief some people in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Hillah and Basra, as well as the Marines, and Polish and Spanish officers who are taking over occupation duties from the Marines.

More later!

Kylan



From Iraq:


Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 13:19:59 +0400 (GMT+04:00)
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
Subject: note from Babylon

Just a quick note to say that I'm safe and enjoying the heat in Hilla. Hottest it's been was 141 the week before we got here, and it's been a bit cooler so far. Been out in town a few times, and it feels pretty safe - my Arabic (poor though it is) has come in handy several times, including a trip to meet the new internal affairs officer in the police department. We did get the universal signs of the hand drawn across the throat and the pulled trigger finger from some tribesmen swathed in ghutras sitting in the back of a pickup we passed north of Diwaniya, but not much other than that. I showed them my M-16 and smiled, and we left it at that.

I've got a fair number of photos, and some other interesting stories for when I get back to reliable communications. Hope you all are doing well. I doubt I'll get up to Baghdad, but did hear about the bombing at the UN HQ there. Haven't seen much detail, and won't have a chance for a few days. My initial reaction is Hizballah, but it could be someone like Zarqawi. Mujahidin and Ba'thist types are less likely. Perhaps we'll find out eventually, but I doubt it...

Cheers,

Kylan




I only knew Kylan from email exchanges. His death sent me to my knees like a kidney punch. I will post some more of his messages, which he gave me permission to do when I asked, in future.





For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas in Iraq killed one 1st Armored Division soldier and wounded two others with an improvised explosive in Baghdad just before midnight Wednesday. In Afghanistan, Taliban forces killed a US Special Operations officer in Orgun in Paktia province.

*CENTCOM commander Gen. John Abizaid, a straight shooter, is admitting that 140,000 US troops may be in Iraq indefinitely, according to Peter Spiegel of the Financial Times. The US does expect foreign troops (but who?) and local Iraqi forces (good luck) to take over Iraqi domestic security chores. But Abizaid says that US troops may then be 'redeployed for a "more aggressive posture on external duties", such as securing borders.' He added, "It depends on the security situation. It doesn't necessarily mean that additional foreign troops would cause a corresponding drawdown of American forces." I don't like the sound of that one bit. The US cannot afford to maintain 140,000 troops (many of them reserves) in Iraq for the long haul. And, what borders need to be policed? Kuwait, Jordan,Saudia and Turkey are all US allies. The Iranian border is all that is left. And if the plan is to have US troops go mano a mano with the Revolutionary Guards along the Iraq-Iran border, that is a recipe for disaster. Abizaid's views here contradict what we have been told by his bosses, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Of course, Dr. Wolfowitz was maintaining not so long ago that after the war we could quickly draw down to about a division in Iraq (about 20,000 troops). In actual fact, the US National Security Council estimated last winter that 500,000 US troops would be required to restore security to a postwar Iraq. Of course, no such number will be sent; but then we may not get good security any time soon, either. See
http://news.ft.com/
servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/
StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479232025.

Abizaid is also saying that terrorism is now replacing hit and run attacks as the most pressing security threat in Iraq, fingering Ansar al-Islam. I have to say I am a little suspicious of this rhetoric. The hit and run attacks have killed more than 60 US soldiers and wounded over 1200 since May 1, whereas the two major terrorist attacks targeted the Jordanian Embassy and the UN HQ. And, for all we know, the UN bombing was carried out by the same sort of people who do the hit and runs when they have access to fewer bombs. Bringing up terrorism seems to me a way to get the US public behind the Iraq endeavor again, since it evokes the threat of more September 11 style attacks. All this is ironic, since the US was not in danger from Iraq to begin with.

*Former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler is raising the question of why the US is not sharing what Tariq Aziz and others have told them about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. (All the speculation that Chemical Ali, just apprehended, will finally spill the beans is silly; Tariq Aziz knows as much or more than he does). Butler said, ""What arrangement has been made with Tariq Aziz? He knew everything. Certainly [former presidential scientific adviser] Amir [Hamudi Hasan] al-Saadi did. Why aren't they putting us out of our misery by telling us the truth of these matters? Have they already told the United States but the United States for some reaon isn't telling ... others. I'm making no accusation, I'm puzzled." Uh, Mr. Butler, the answer seems pretty obvious. Scott Ritter was right, and the Iraqis destroyed all or almost all of their WMD stockpiles and mothballed all or almost all of their programs. There have been numerous statements to the press by high Iraqi officials to this effect. If it weren't true, the US would have gleefully demonstrated the contrary. The US silence is the sheepish toe-swinging of a little boy caught in a tale tale that produced major carnage.

*Japan's plan to send Self-Defense Forces to Iraq to help with humanitarian aid is now being rethought, in the aftermath of the bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad. My reading is that PM Junichiro Koizumi is a closet chauvinist, and that sending the SDF to Iraq was intended by him to be a first step toward the rehabilitation of the Japanese army. But, obviously, if the SDF forces are sent to Iraq and get blown up, the whole thing would backfire badly with the Japanese public, which still has a strong pacifist streak. There has been an uproar about sending the SDF abroad already, anyway. Koizumi has stirred controversy by insisting on visiting a Shinto shrine where many Japanese officers are buried, some of whom are considered major war criminals by the Chinese and the Koreans. For all the more militant sectors of the capitalist world (and Koizumi is the least of them), the Iraq war was seen as a cure for the Vietnam Syndrome and a way to rehabilitate 'small wars' for the purpose of regime change and expansion of business opportunities. It will be ironic if it just produces a new version of the Vietnam Syndrome, the Iraq Syndrome. The global Right has never understood or accepted the rise of nationalism and the end of the colonial era, which is why they misjudged Iraq so badly.

*For rivalries inside the Shiite Sadr movement, see Nir Rosen's excellent piece in the Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/
atimes/Middle_East/EH22Ak04.html


*My Daily Star Op-ed for Aug. 21, 2003:

Expand the UN role in Iraq

Juan Cole

The bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad Tuesday signaled a new and dangerous phase in the struggle between the United States and Iraqi guerrillas. By targeting the UN, the radicals were attempting to push out of the country the most popular foreign political institution, and to deprive the US administration in Baghdad of a key source of legitimacy.

The perpetrators may have thought of themselves as Iraqi nationalists, or they may have been Sunni radicals affiliated to Al-Qaeda. Each group would have its own grievances against the United Nations. Remnants of the Arab nationalist Baath Party may remember with bitterness the UN economic sanctions on Iraq and the weapons inspections that they considered so humiliating.

The Sunni radicals are the other suspects. Truck bombings against diplomatic offices such as embassies have been the stock in trade of Al-Qaeda, which has also frequently used suicide bombers, unlike the secular Baath Party. Al-Qaeda has a longstanding grudge against the UN, and members have plotted the destruction of UN headquarters in New York. Osama bin Laden has denounced Muslims who cooperated with the world body.

The guerrillas have added to their repertoire, branching out from small attacks on US military personnel with rocket-propelled grenades. Over the weekend, saboteurs blew up the oil pipeline to Turkey near Kirkuk, in two separate places. It may take weeks to repair. Each day the conduit is out of commission costs the Anglo-American civil administration in Iraq $7 million. Without income from such petroleum exports, the US will find it even more difficult to provide key services and to train a new Iraqi military.

Rebuilding Iraq depends crucially on the help of the United Nations and its member states, and of nongovernmental organizations such as charities. Reconstruction will cost $7 billion this year, and petroleum exports are unlikely to cover more than half that sum. The overall cost of rebuilding Iraq may be $100 billion or more, and just maintaining the US military in Iraq costs $48 billion a year. At a time when the Bush administration’s deep tax cuts have pushed the budget deficit to $450 billion a year, the US simply cannot afford to undertake reconstruction on its own.

Yet the bombing may help further isolate the US in Iraq. Civilian aid organizations may be unwilling to risk running offices if they fear their workers will become soft targets for terrorists. Many have already found it difficult to operate in Iraq because of a continuing crime wave that includes car thefts, robberies and burglaries. There is no danger of the UN pulling out altogether, but many of its efforts will be less successful if conducted from behind heavy barricades ­ something the organization has avoided. Indeed, it was notable that while the Shiite religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani has refused to meet with Paul Bremer or other US officials, he did consult with the late head of the UN mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Also, member states such as India, France and Egypt have refused to send troops to Iraq, in part out of fear that guerrillas would target them. The task of the US to acquire more military allies has just become much harder.

There is no doubt that the various guerrillas fighting the US administration in Iraq are, at the very least, succeeding in creating the impression that the Americans are not in control. The situation on the ground is not quite as bad as the guerrillas would like to make it seem. Still, the conflict has moved to a public relations phase ­ in Iraq, the US and in the wider world. The guerrillas are winning the public relations war, and it is fairly easy for them to do so. All they have to do is commit symbolic acts that humiliate the US administration in their country.

The bombing of UN headquarters may reveal that the guerrillas fear most of all the moral authority and legitimacy of the international body. Without this, the US and Britain look suspiciously like neoimperialists to angry young Iraqis, whom the radicals hope to enlist in their fight. Ironically, the wisest American response may be to involve the UN much more extensively in Iraqi security and reconstruction.

It is increasingly clear that the Americans cannot rebuild Iraq by themselves and need the world community to help. Such a change in course would be the best way to honor the sacrifice made by de Mello and his colleagues Tuesday.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
opinion/21_08_03_c.asp



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Three guerrillas fired AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades at a US military convoy near Tikrit, killing a US citizen working as a translator, and wounding two US soldiers on Wednesday.

*Still no firm clues in the truck bombing of the UN HQ. Now there is some question about whether it really was a suicide bombing, or whether the driver managed to escape before impact. The munitions were not the fancy plastic stuff, but the FBI says that "the bomb was made up of about 450kg of old ordnance, including mortar rounds, artillery shells, hand grenades and a 225kg bomb," according to the wire services. I'd have to say that this materiel is more likely to come from Baath storehouses than from al-Qaeda suppliers, who almost certainly could have afforded somethng less cumbersome. I heard some speculation that the Lebanese Hizbullah may be operating in Iraq, but I think that sort of thing is simple minded. A modus operandi is not the only element in identifying a criminal. You also have to look at motive and opportunity and other evidence. There is no evidence that Hizbullah would have wanted to hit the UN in Baghdad. Just because they also do truck bombing is no basis on which to bring them into the picture as suspects. They've mainly been fighting with the Israelis over Israeli occupation of Arab land in recent years, and although they have made fiery pronouncements against the US presence in Iraq, there is no evidence I know of that they have any systematic presence in the country. Certainly, their main Iraq contact in the past was the al-Da`wa Party, most members of which are cooperating with the US administration; indeed, al-Da`wa-linked figures have some 4 of the 25 seats on the Interim Governing Council. This bombing was almost certainly done by Sunni Arabs, whether nationalists or Islamist radicals. From what I'm seeing, the Baathists are looking more and more plausible.

*Colin Powell is reportedly trying to get Italy and the UK to commit more troops to Iraq, and to convince France and Germany to join the effort. He almost certainly will not succeed with the latter two, despite the sympathy generated by the bombing, without a new UN Security Council Resolution that devolves more decision-making power in Iraq on the United Nations. Why should other countries put their troops in harm's way to support a solely US administration of Iraq? (A lot of international leaders may be asking why they should put their troops in harm's way at all.) The Bush administration made a very major mistake in blowing off the United Nations last spring. It just wasn't necessary. If Bush had delayed the start of the war 45 days, he could have had a majority of votes on the Security Council in favor of a war. If he had delayed 2-4 months he probably could have gotten France and Russia aboard. It wouldn't have cost $4 billion a month to wait a bit, which is what it does cost the US every month its 140,000 plus troops are in Iraq. A Security Council Resolution in favor of the war would have brought billions of dollars and thousands of troops from the international community, and made it far easier to provide security to post-war Iraq. The downside? Bremer wouldn't be able to just award contracts to Halliburton and Worldcom with no oversight or bidding. How would that constraint have hurt the American public? What if, you ask, the US had waited, and France and Russia had still refused to go along, because the inspectors could not find weapons of mass destruction? Well, the WMD wasn't there, so maybe there was not a casus belli. The war could have been called off, or the US could have gone ahead on the basis of the UNSC majority. Either outcome would have been preferable to the chaos and expense we see now.

*International Monetary Fund and World Bank officials attached to the UN in Baghdad are going home. This development will substantially delay some rebuilding projects in Iraq. In other words, the guerrilla attack achieved one of its goals.

*Iraqi labor relations: Most of Baghdad's 130 printing presses went on strike in Baghdad Wednesday, preventing all but 6 newspapers from appearing. The employees of the city's presses are upset that the Ministry of Education has contracted with foreign presses to print new Iraqi textbooks. This is the first printer's strike in 30 years. The strike was universally agreed upon by a meeting of printers, but a few presses reneged. That allowed the 6 newspapers to be published. I have to say, that given the danger of deflation in Iraq and the need to get money and employment to the people, it does seem wrong to farm major projects like Iraqi textbook production out to foreigners. I suppose one question is whether the Baghdad printers actually could do the job. If so, the contract should have gone to them.

*Muhammad Bahr al-`Ulum, a member of the Interim Governing Council, says that there will be 23 ministries and that ministerial appointments will be announced within 3 days. He also said that a law has been drafted to allow the trial of 2,000 high ranking Baathists, and part of a program of de-Baathification. (-Al-Hayat). He said that a committee charged with making suggestions about the drafting of the Iraqi constitution began work last Monday, and would issue a report in about a month. He added that the recent United Nations according of some sort of semi-recognition to the IGC had allowed many Arab states to deal with it. The IGC has received invitations from several Gulf states, and now from Jordan [and Saudi Arabia], in the aftermath of the UN decision. (This anecdote should be read out loud to US administrators of Iraq: the UN equals legitimacy, whether you like it or not.)

*Ibrahim Jaafari, President of the IGC (for August), told Kuwaitis on Weds. that Saddam had occupied and harmed the Iraqi people even before he occupied and harmed the Kuwaitis. (-Al-Sharq al-Awsat). He hoped for the reestablishment of friendly relations between Baghdad and Kuwait City, such as had existed before the 1990 Iraqi invasion. I was favorably impressed by the forthrightness of Jaafari's comments. He came out with it, and did not beat around the bush. As a member of the al-Da`wa Party who opposed Saddam for decades, he has some standing to speak this way.

*Iraqis in the street are angry at the perpetrators of the UN bombing, but are also furious at the US for not providing better security. So says al-Sharq al-Awsat correspondent in Baghdad Nasir al-Nahr. He says Iraqis he talked to are convinced that the true target of the bombing was the Iraqi people, and that it was perpetrated by outsiders.

*Shiite leaders in Najaf condemned the bombing vigorously. Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim denounced it, along with sabotage against gas pipelines and water mains, as aimed at preventing Iraqi political life from returning to normal. The office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the son of Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi also issued denunciations. From a Shiite point of view, the current political process is carrying Iraq toward a Shiite majority in an elected parliament and toward a Shiite prime minister, and they don't want that process delayed or disrupted. (-AFP)

*Ahmad Chalabi, chairman of the Iraqi National Congress and member of the Interim Governing Council, says that the IGC had prior indications that a truck bombing was being planned against a soft target, and passed the information over to the Americans, according to UPI. I think Chalabi is just grandstanding and trying to make it look as though he has better internal intelligence than do the US and the UK in Iraq, in hopes of making himself indispensable to them and coming to power. The Coalition authorities have already denied that they had any indication that an attack of this sort was coming, so he is calling them liars. And, if all he knew was that there might be a bombing against a soft target, he didn't know much. Any of us could have predicted that. Chalabi has no internal support and almost certainly has no better intelligence about the guerrillas than anyone else, and I hope that Paul Bremer will not fall for this power play. See http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?Story
ID=20030820-111847-1945r

*I remember just after the bombing of the UN HQ, I saw US civil administrator Paul Bremer on television, saying that he thought the truck bomber may have been attempting to assassinate UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello in specific, since he struck so close to the latter's office. De Mello was trapped in rubble, and was able to make a cell call before he died. I didn't think about it at the time, but it had to have crossed Mr. Bremer's mind that "there but for the grace of God go I." The guerrillas may have hit Vieira de Mello only because they just could not get to Mr. Bremer, who is very well guarded if, from all accounts, rather isolated from the Iraqi people. The realization made Bremer's observation more poignant for me. I hate to think about all the thousands of Americans who are in danger in Iraq, because of key mistakes made by Pentagon planners before the war.





For "cont'd" postings, click here.

For my reaction to the tragic bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, see the breaking news item below.

*Bahraini officials met with Iraq Interim Governing Council President Ibrahim Jaafari on Tuesday (- Al-Sharq al-Awsat). They expressed their support for the IGC (not the same as recognizing it as a legitimate government) and for Iraq reconstruction. Bahrain has recently liberalized a bit, holding elections, and so may hope that Iraq can move in the same direction. Bahrain is a largely Shiite country with a Sunni ruling elite, but its new monarch is said to be relatively tolerant toward the Shiites. The two countries can benefit one another. There is an old connection between Bahrain and Iraqi Shiites, which is now likely to be revived.

*The Iraqi Ministry of Industry has announced that electricity for Iraqis will be free from April 9 of this year and until the formation of a new (elected?) Iraqi government. This step seems a wise one in trying to get Iraqis on the side of the Bremer adminsitration.

*Electricity has been restored to Basra on a fairly reliable basis (-al-Zaman). (There were riots recently against British forces in protest of the loss of electricity and the lack of fuel for automobiles). Some 20 new generators are also being used at an oil refinery in the South to ensure the availability of more fuel. But Basra water pipelines have been unreliable because of their age, and British officials are advising the populace to boil water before they drink it. (Last week during the blackout we were doing that in our house. But we had reliable access to a gas stove; I'm not sure the Basrans are in the same position).

*Iranian pilgrims sneaking into Iraq to visit sacred Shiite shrines ran into a landmine. Three were killed, 17 wounded. Eventually the Iranian pilgrim trade will reemerge as a feature of Iraqi culture and commerce, with implications for Iran-Iraq relations.

*The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, led by Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, is profiled by Mahan Abedian. I don't think, though, that SCIRI is sincere in speaking about a pluralistic Iraq. I think they secretly plan ultimately to try to take over the country and make it a clone of Khamenei's Iran. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has more or less admitted as much, saying that at first Iraq may have a pluralistic government, but over time its Muslim majority would institute an Islamic state. I also think the alliance between the US and SCIRI is purely tactical on both sides, and is unlikely to last.
See
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/
2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/August/19%20o/
Iraq's%20SCIRI,%20caught%20between%20Tehran%
20and%20Washington%20Mahan%20Abedin.htm

*The US administration of Iraq is setting up a media service on the model of the BBC, which would be government-funded but retain its editorial independence. Or so the Washington Post reports. I'll believe it when I see it. The Voice of America also had a charter of independence, but Jesse Helms and other officials have put pressure on it in the past. The relatively independent Arabic service was gutted altogether recently, apparently in part because it was felt to be insufficiently enthusiastic about Ariel Sharon's policies in Israel and Palestine. It was gotten rid of in favor of a "Radio Sawwa" that is run by radio mogul Norman Pattiz and purveys Brittany Spears and sanitized Fox Cable News-style news bits to the Arab public in the few countries that will let it broadcast (it uses FM rather than shortwave). Radio Sawwa from all accounts is little more than propaganda, and it remains to be seen whether the people who brought that to you can really create a "BBC". (The BBC is among the more professional news services in the world, and proved willing to take Blair on about Iraqi WMD despite enormous political pressure).



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Breaking News. A suicide bomber set off an enormous truck bomb at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, which was serving as the United Nations Headquarters, beneath the office of UN special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello. De Mello and 17 others are confirmed dead, with 100 or more injured, and much of the front of the hotel was reduced to rubble.

The big question on people's minds is, 'why target the UN?'

There are two main suspects in the bombing, it seems to me. One is Baathist remnants fighting a rear-guard guerrilla war against what they see as the US occupation. If it was Baathists or ex-Baathists, they may have gone after the UN in bitterness over those years of economic sanctions, which weakened the Baath military and government. Although the UN did not go along with the Anglo-American invasion, United Nations agencies and NGOs have been providing aid to Iraqis of a sort that helps the reconstruction effort and therefore implicitly helps the Bremer administration of the country. And, it could just be that Baath agents noticed that the Canal Hotel did not have much in the way of security and so was an ideal soft target. De Mello is an unlikely symbol of the US occupation, but he is a symbol from a Baath point of view of the way world institutions have asserted themselves in Iraq since 1991.

The other possibility is Sunni Muslim radicalism, whether al-Qaeda (i.e. people who have sworn fealty to Osama Bin Ladin) or other, shadowy organizations that have some affiliation to al-Qaeda. One is Ansar al-Islam, a radical Sunni organization in Iraq that has al-Qaeda links. This bombing has some similarities to that of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad recently. Suicide bombings are not unknown among secular groups, but it seems to me that a religious terrorist is more likely to choose that path. And, al-Qaeda has a long-standing beef against the United Nations going back to the tension between its aid organizations and the Taliban in the late 1990s. Bin Laden denounced Muslims who cooperate with the UN in fall of 2001. Since the Sunni radicals operate in failed states, they often butt heads with the UN, which is the main international agency charged with getting failed states back on their feet. They may fear that the US will eventually hand Iraq off to the UN, and wish to forestall such a move. Or they may want revenge for past slights, like the UNSC resolution authorizing the US war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Kurdish party, the PUK, has said that al-Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan who escaped from Iran are now infiltrating into Iraq, and that the Kurds have intercepted some of these. Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Saudi security officials are concerned about the disappearance of some 3000 young men in Saudi Arabia, suspecting that they went off to Iraq for jihad against the Americans. Since al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, who formed the 55th Brigade of the Taliban, are estimated to have been about 5,000 strong, it may well be that there are now as many Arab and al-Qaeda guerrillas in Iraq as there were in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001.

I don't think there is any doubt that the various guerrillas fighting the Bremer administration of Iraq are at the very least succeeding in creating the impression that the US does not control the situation. I personally think that the US is not in control, anyway, and that it would take 500,000 troops to get control. But it probably is the case that things on the ground are not quite as bad as the guerrillas try to make them seem. Still, the conflict has moved to a public relations phase, in Iraq, in the US, and in the wider world. There seems to me little doubt that the guerrillas are winning the public relations war, and that it is fairly easy for them to do so. All they have to do is commit symbolic acts, the import of which is that the US is not in control. And, their ability to sabotage oil pipelines, electricity generators, water mains, and so forth, makes it difficult for the US to look to the Iraqi public as though it is in control. I don't personally see an easy way for the US to get out of all this gracefully, and fear that things will end in fiasco. The only question is whether it will be a Haiti or Somalia-type fiasco, where things go bad again after the US leaves, but life limps along; or whether it will be an Iran-type fiasco (1978-79) where there is a revolution against the US fueled in part by nationalist resentment of US intervention. If the latter, I would concur that it is still some time off.

A profile of de Mello is at the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/
Story/0,2763,1021870,00.html.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas killed a US soldier in Baghdad on Monday with a bomb. In a separate incident, guerrillas attacked a US Army convoy with rocket propelled grenades east of Tikrit, wounding two American soldiers.

*Paul Bremer admitted that sabotage was costing American-administered Iraq billions, but told CNN: "I think these bitter-enders that we are faced with live in a fantasy world, where they think somehow the Baathists are going to come back. They are wrong. We'll leave when the job is done. They are not going to chase us out, they are not destined to succeed." I don't know whether he believes this or it is just political rhetoric, but I doubt very much that very many of the Iraqi guerrillas have any fantasy of the Baath coming back. They are mostly just nationalists, and their main goal is to end what they see as an American occupation. To the extent that they are Sunni Arabs in the main, they may also wish to forestall a Shiite- and Kurdish- dominated Iraq and ensure the continued predominance of their ethnicity. But, this is just not about Saddam's Baathism for most of them. I agree that the Baath Party is finished in Iraq. But whether the guerrillas can force the Americans out is still up in the air. I'd say they have an even chance of succeeding. And, it seems to me contradictory to admit that the guerrillas can deprive the Bremer administration of billions in desperately needed revenue, and then to say that the guerrillas are failing and are doomed. Hunh?

*As Abu Aardvark noted in his Blog (http://abuaardvark.blogspot.com/
2003_08_17_abuaardvark_archive.html#106123766227537514, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani gave an interview on Monday to al-Zaman newspaper on Monday. Asked his position on the forthcoming Iraqi constitution and issues in pluralism, he said that the constitution must be based on the religious principles of the Iraqi people. (This is a stealth way of saying that he thinks it must be based on shariah or Islamic canon law). He did not actually use the word "pluralism" in his reply, I now see--that was part of al-Zaman's question. Asked about the role of the Object of Emulation or highest religious leadership, he replied that the leading Shiite jurisprudent should write religious rulings (fatwas) for people, and encourage them to an ethical life by his own moral example, and forbid them from infringing against the rights of others. This is a more traditionalist role than that of the political Supreme Jurisprudent (Ali Khamenei) in Iran. But note that the upshot of Sistani's replies is that Iraq must be ruled by Islamic law and he will interpret it. That isn't pluralism or even really democracy. He doesn't come right out and say it, but he is against the separation of religion and state. That is one reason he insists that the constitutional convention be elected. If it is, there may be enough Islamists among the delegates to put in shariah. If the delegates are appointed by Paul Bremer, then the constitution might separate religion and state.

Shariah can be interpreted and implemented in all kinds of ways, including progressive ones. But I fear that Sistani's interpretation of it would make women second-class citizens, and it is not clear that the rights of Christians and other minorities as equal citizens can really be preserved in such a system. I personally think that only a separation of religion and state can hope to provide tranquillity to a diverse country like Iraq (even the Sunnis will not want the Shiite version of Islamic law imposed on them). But I am pessimistic about Iraq getting a First Amendment, since Islamism is so obviously strong and the American position has turned out to be relatively weak.

*Ayatollah Muhammad al-Khaqani, a senior cleric of Najaf close to Sistani, is being guarded by townspeople and tribesmen after he received a death threat. Someone sent him a package containing a bloody rag. Najaf clerics have been threatened, and their aids beaten, by ruffians aligned with the radical Muqtada al-Sadr. The bloody rag is not quite a dead horse in a bed, but these tactics remind one of mafiosi more than they do of religious pastors.

*How did Saddam used to curb sabotage of the oil pipelines? According to AFP, he paid tribal leaders and hundreds of tribesmen very well to guard the oil. The US has adopted the same tactic, but pays much less and has left 600 tribesmen off the payroll (some of them may even have turned to sabotage). The Sunni Arab tribes are trying to use their ability to guard the pipeline to extract more resources from the Americans, and to recover their old position under the Baath, of a minority so privileged it might as well be a majority. See http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/
breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=2453

*For who the guerrillas really are, see Ahmed Hashim's excellent analysis, "The Sunni Insurgency In Iraq," a Middle East Institute policy brief. It is at:
http://www.mideasti.org/html/perspective20030814-hashem.html.
(Further refutation of the silly idea that US academics specializing in the Middle East make no contribution to US security).

*And, a good summing up of where things stand in Iraq and how we got here is given by Roland Flamini of UPI in his article, "Infighting over Iraq persists," at:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030817-103508-4100r. The lack
of Arabic-speakers among the 1,000 US administrators in Iraq is constantly remarked on. I reiterate that Daniel Pipes, Martin Kramer, and other neocons
who pushed this war are Arabists and they ought to be over there helping Mr. Bremer; they helped get him and us into this, after all.







For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*A second pipeline blast in the north of Iraq further damages the country's ability to export petroleum, costing Iraqis $7 million a day. Guerrillas showered mortar fire on Abu Ghurayb Prison near Baghdad, killing six Iraqi prisoners and wounding 59. Skittish US troops then accidentally killed a Reuters cameraman at the site. It is not clear whether the guerrilla attack was meant to free the prisoners or meant to hit American guarding the facility. Saboteurs also hit a water main and left Baghdad without water much of Monday. Monday was marked by battles in the "Infrastructure War," wherein anti-American forces are attempting to ensure that the US fails in its rebuilding efforts and that Iraqis increasingly resent the US presence and inability to improve their lives. It appears that the US administration is particularly vulnerable to this tactic. It was also announced that a Danish soldier was killed near Basra by friendly fire. Some of these acts of sabotage, according to Al-Hayat, may have originated with a well-armed and well-funded new group, "The Islamic and Nationalist Iraqi Resistance Movement." The operations suggest technical sophistication.

*The spokesman of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Akram Zubeidi, said Saturday, "America does not want to acknowledge it is incapable of controlling the situation and rebuilding Iraq. Every day, we receive dozens of complaints from Iraqis asking us to declare a fatwa against the Americans and we say no. But this 'no' will not last forever." He was speaking on behalf of Sistani, according to Selim Saheb Ettaba of Agence France Press, who broke the story. Apparently the Najaf establishment was very upset about the incident on Weds. Aug. 13 in East Baghdad when US troops fired on Shiite protesters unhappy that their banner had been removed from a telecom tower. (Or, the 4 more staid, elderly clerics, are being forced to compete with firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr in moral outrage). Sistani's apparent conviction that the US cannot run Iraq, and the very mention that his patience with the Americans isn't infinite, is extremely significant. Sistani does not believe in the clergy getting involved in politics, so if he is saying this sort of thing he is really upset.

*Iraqi Interim President Ibrahim Jaafari said Monday that his country's relationship with Israel would have to be put to a national referendum, and that the Interim Governing Council does not have the authority to make that decision. He also promised once again that the Iraqi ministers would be appointed this week. (al-Zaman)

*Kurdish leaders maintain that over 1,000 radical Sunni fighters, mainly Arabs, have infliltrated into Iraq via Iran in recent weeks. The PUK says some may actually have come from Afghanistan, i.e., they are al-Qaeda remnants. See http://www.bakutoday.net/view.php?d=5846.

*A poll taken by the Scripps Howard News Agency and by Ohio University (ending Aug. 12) found that 42% of Americans now say they are "not certain" that commiting troops to Iraq was the correct course of action. This number is up from less than a third in May.

*The US is having to pay to have a small contingent of Polish troops supporting the effort in Iraq. But it turns out, according to AFP, that this is not the first time Polish soldiers have been deployed to Iraq. There were 75,000 of them there in WW II, supplied by the Soviet Union, then an ally of Britain and the US. Apparently they did not actually do much in Iraq. But it is another piece of evidence that "globalization" did not start in the 21st century. See
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/
breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=2435.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas lightly wounded two US soldiers with near Baquba on Saturday when they set off a roadside bomb made of four 155 mm artillery shells, ambushing a patrol of Abrams tanks, armored personnel carriers and Humvees, according to D'Arcy Doran of AP. The shrapnel wounded two of our guys (according to al-Sharq al-Awsat; early wire service reports just said one). They then opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The police chief of Mosul was wounded in an ambush on Saturday, as well (al-Hayat says 4 others around him were killed, though other reports say just that two were wounded). I'd say that is pretty bad news, when the pro-American police chief of a major city like Mosul is not safe.

*And, to top it all off, saboteurs blew up the oil pipeline to Turkey, which had just started working a few days ago. The US and US-appointed administration of Iraq desperately needs the income from such petroleum exports to rebuild the country. It will takes days or even weeks to repair the pipeline, and pipelines are so vulnerable that I can't see how you could stop saboteurs from just blowing it up again later.

*US troops have suspended patrols in East Baghdad, according to a US military source reported by al-Sharq al-Awsat, who asked not to be identified. The decision comes after troops fired into a Sadrist crowd on Weds., who were protesting US defilement of the banner of the Muslim Messiah, the Mahdi. Sadrist clerics warned the US troops not to come into "Sadr City" after that. I think this is the right decision, but it underscores how weak the US position is. Some ten percent of Iraqis live in Sadr City, and if the US has been effectively excluded from it by some angry demonstrations, it makes one wonder whether with a concerted effort they couldn't be effectively excluded from all large urban areas.

*A US military spokesman confirmed the arrest last Monday of Baathist Shiite cleric Said Ali al-Karim al-Madani, of Baquba, known as "the prophet," by US Marines. He could be charged with inciting violence and funding attacks on coalition troops, as well as weapons possession. A member of the Baath party who received pay-offs from Saddam, he had issued a fatwa last April calling for jihad or holy war against US troops. He is also said to have offerec about $30,000 as a bounty to anyone who killed a US officer in Iraq. (Most Shiites in Iraq hated Saddam because he brutalized them, but there were Shiite collaborators with the regime).

*The People's Gulf Congress, a Shiite activist group based in Kuwait, has warned against Israeli businesses playing any role in Iraqi reconstruction. It said that Iraq dealings with Israel could cause it to be boycotted by the Arab League. - al-Sharq al-Awsat

*As usual, Anthony Shadid's reporting on the situation in Iraq is among the very best. His WP article today discusses the possibility that Sunni fundamentalist Ahmad Kubeisi has funneled millions of dollars to Muqtada al-Sadr. It has been evident for some time that Kubeisi and Muqtada have some sort of tactical alliance, with Kubeisi busing in Sunni fundamentalists from Falluja and Ramadi to Kufa for Muqtada's Friday sermons. Sunni-Shiite cooperation for anti-imperial purposes has a long history in Iraq. It should also be remembered that the Shiite al-Da`wa party was allegedly 10% Sunni in its membership back in the 1960s and 1970s. Shadid also reveals that a third of the seats on the Basra city council are held by Sadrists, something I hadn't seen elsewhere. Sadrists supported the recent anti-British riots there. He says that the US and the senior ayatollahs are both convinced something needs to be done about Muqtada, but neither wants to move on him openly. I think the US in particular should be very cautious about Muqtada; arresting him would potentially cause the East Baghdad slums to explode with demonstrations, and possibly Basra as well. See http://msnbc.com/news/953433.asp?cp1=1.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas near Balad , northeast of Iraq, injured two US soldiers and woundeded three Iraqis when they fired two rocket propelled grenades at a military convoy on Friday. Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported eyewitness accounts of another 4 US soldiers wounded in separate incidents, one on the fast road from Falluja to Ramadi, and one 16 km. west of Falluja (road mines). This means 6 were wounded altogether on Friday if the eyewitness reports are accurate.

*Followers of Muqtada al-Sadr in East Baghdad have decided to form 8 brigades (Faylaq al-Sadr) of the Imam Mahdi Army. (- al-Hayat) They will be used for "civil defense" of Sadr City and elsewhere. Four of the brigades will be sited in East Baghad, and four elsewhere in the country. Muqtada al-Sadr himself, in his Friday sermon at the mosque in Kufa, condemned the Coalition for shooting into the crowd in Sadr City on Weds., and for the problems in Basra, Amara, and Diwaniya. He said the Coalition had proven itself unable to govern Iraq. (His reference to Basra is to the riots there last weekend; the reference to Diwaniya is to the civil unrest there produced by a campaign to unseat the American-appointed mayor. There were similar problems in Nasiriya, which he did not mention. I frankly do not know to which incident he was referring in Amara). Sadrist clerics in the Friday Prayers sermons in East Baghdad again called for the US to withdraw from the city. One, at the Al al-Bayt Mosque, preached to a crowd of 20,000 (congregants spill out into the streets and listen by loudspeaker).

In fact, more radical members of both the Sunni and the Shiite clergy on Friday preached the need for the US to get out of Iraq.

Meanwhile, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, criticized the US for trying to push the Interim Governing Council away from Islamic principles, and trying to isolate it from friendly Muslim states (read: Iran). Al-Hakim has been among the major allies of the US in the past year!

*A delegation of Chaldean Christians and Sabeans (Gnostics) met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf on Friday, to discuss with him the rights of minorities in the new Iraqi constitution. (-al-Zaman) He stressed to them the need for Iraqis to be united, and to put Iraqi nationalism (al-wataniyyah) over sectional interests. Sistani's spokesman further denounced the letter allegedly from Saddam Hussein that called upon the Shiite clerics to declare jihad or holy war on the Americans. Murtada al-Kashmiri insisted that the letter was a fake, and was intended to embarrass the Shiite religious establishment, which has declined to call for violence. Kashmiri said that the grand ayatollahs in Najaf had as their purpose to end the American occupation by unifying the Iraqis.

*A chilling profile of an Iraqi guerrilla is painted by Ferry Biedermann of IPS. She argues that he is not a Baathist nor a Muslim fundamentalist, just an Iraqi nationalist embittered by some of the actions and attitudes of US troops in Iraq. See http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19690.

*21 truckloads of relief aid were sent to Iraq from Qom on Friday by the Qom office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, according to IRNA. The aid included food, clothing, blankets, Shiite books, and even air conditioners! The shipment is worth one billion Iranian rials ($120,000). But as I read the IRNA report, half of that billion was accounted for by a single magnificent chandelier that will grace the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. His Qom spokesman, Sadeq Dehsorkhi, said that Sistani's office has sent over 9 billion tumans ($10 million) worth of aid to Iraq from Iran since April 9. Of course, all this raises the question of where the aid is really coming from, since Sistani has been based in Najaf since 1952. Some of it may come from Shiites in Iraq who follow his religious rulings. But it seems likely that some of it, at least, is from the Iranian government and is aimed at having an influence on Sistani and the Shiites of Iraq. It is not a lot of money in US dollars, but there are a lot of poverty-stricken Shiites in Iraq for whom this aid would be munificent. It is an example of how unrealistic it is for the US to think that it can limit Iranian influence in Iraq.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas in Basra bombed a British military ambulance and killed on British soldier, wounding two others. This incident is the first guerrilla attack of this sort on the British, and it is unusual in having occurred in the Shiite south. It comes after last weekend's angry demonstrations against British failures to provide electricity and gasoline, some of which were provoked by Sadrists (radical Shiites). The arrival of guerrilla tactics in the south could signal a turning point, changing the political game significantly in the South.

*Radical Shiite clerics of the Sadr Movement called Thursday for US troops to withdraw altogether from largely Shiite East Baghdad. On Wednesday, a US helicopter crew appears to have attempted to remove a Shiite banner from a telecom tower, provoking a demonstration of 3,000. US troops maintain they took fired, including a rocket propelled grenade, from the crowd, and in reply fired into the crowd. They wounded civilians and further enraged the Sadrists.

Drew Brown of Knight Rider confirms that the banner was that of the messianic figure, the Imam Mahdi, and symbolized the "Imam Mahdi Army" that Muqtada al-Sadr has formed. Brown says that Sadrist Sheikh Qais al-Khazali said, "They (U.S. soldiers) are losing their popularity here, and they are losing the support of the Shiite people." He also reports the words of Sheikh Abbas al-Zubaidi, 30, another Sadrist clergyman: "Are the Americans so stupid that they didn't know the importance of this flag to us? This is a huge insult for every Shiite." The US military authorities apologized abjectly for the incident and did promise to reduce patrols in East Baghdad, and to avoid such incidents in the future. It is too soon to tell if this will be enough. The potential for riots in East Baghdad of the sort that have occurred in Basra is clearly present. See http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6532935.htm

*The leading Shiite clerics of Najaf, including Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have firmly rejected the call for them to wage jihad against the Americans that was allegedly issued by deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. The general feeling seems to have been that if Saddam did issue the call, he has a lot of goddamn nerve after the brutal persecution to which he subjected the Shiite community. He killed them in their thousands.

*A must-read article is that of Faleh A. Jabar, an Iraqi sociologist based in the UK, on who is behind the guerrilla attacks on US troops. He sees four distinct groups, all of them operating mainly in Anbar and Diyala provinces. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3148223.stm.

*Michael Jansen makes many sharp observations on the "occupation" being "in shambles" in his article today in the Jordan times. See:
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/August/14%20o/The%20occupation%20is%20a%20shambles%20By%20Michael%20Jansen.htm.

*I'm writing this blog by candle light on my laptop. We in Ann Arbor got hit along with 50 million others with the electricity black out. The telephone land lines are working, though, and the laptop battery was charged, so I was able to get online. I also have a little Sony transistor radio with FM, MW and shortwave capability, and have kept up with news that way. It is amazing how plugged in I managed to remain even with no electricity. It strikes me as undesirable that Ann Arbor's electricity should be hostage to freak accidents in Niagra Falls, New York; this unfortunately may give terrorists ideas. Apparently deregulation is part of the problem here, too.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*On Weds., Iraqi guerrillas killed one US soldier and wounded another near Tikrit with an improvised road bomb, over which their armored personnel carrier drove. Snipers fired on US troops at Rashidiya and Balad, both north of Baghdad. The Rashidiya shooter was killed by return fire. A running gun battle was fought in Baghdad itself between US troops and guerrillas claiming to be al-Qaeda. Reuters reports: "The attackers left large calling cards at the scene before driving off, witnesses said. The cards read: "Death to the collaborators of America - Al Qaida." The tracts were thrown out of a car by the fleeing attackers, said one witness, Majid Ahmed Shehab." On Tuesday in Taji north of Baghdad, a road bomb killed one 4th Infantry Division soldier and wounded two. This was on top of the road bomb at Ramadi that I mentioned yesterday, so three US soldiers died in 24 hours. Also near Taji, and oil pipeline fire broke out, probably as a result of sabotage (less fuel means less money for the IGC or less fuel for people, and more anti-US riots).

*A big riot broke out in the slums of East Baghdad (al-Thawra or Sadr City) on Weds. Apparently some US troops in a blackhawk helicopter were trying to tear down a Shiite banner that had been flown from on top of a telecommunications tower. Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered to protest, and when an army humvee came by they pelted it with stones. The US Army says someone also fired a rocket propelled grenade. The US troops shot into the crowd, killing one civilian and wounding four. The Army at first tried to maintain that the banner was blown down by the rotors of the helicopter, accidentally. But an Iraqi with a video camera caught the soldier's hand coming out of the helicopter to tear off the banner.

I saw the demonstrators' banners on CNN, and they may be highly significant. One said, "Ya Qa'im Al Muhammad." (O Messiah of the House of Muhammad). The crowd was waving another one that said "Unsurna Ya Qa'im Al Muhammad." (Help us, O Messiah of the House of Muhammad.) The Shiites are especially given to millenarian ideas, rather like US evangelicals who think Christ is coming back any minute. Shiites believe that the 12th Imam, a lineal descendant of Muhammad, supernaturally disappeared in the ninth century and will one day come back to restore justice in the world. The Safavid state in Iran was founded in 1501 by Shiite tribes who believed that Shah Ismail was divine, and perhaps that he was the herald of the Shiite Mahdi or messiah. In the 19th century, Iran and Iraq were roiled by the Babi movement, which asserted that Ali Muhammad Shirazi was the Mahdi or Qa'im. Some followers of Ayatollah Khomeini believed he was the Mahdi. And, it has been alleged that some Sadrists believe that Muqtada al-Sadr is the Shiite Promised One.

It was certainly Sadrists who put that banner on the tower and who rioted against its removal. And, whether they believe that Muqtada is the Mahdi or only a harbinger of the Mahdi, they seem to have strong millenarian beliefs. The coming of the Mahdi will turn the world upside down, and the oppressed Shiites will finally see justice. Mahdism can be highly militant. (In mainstream Shiism, you can't have offensive jihad because only the Mahdi can declare it. But if he comes back . . .) If the Sadrists are millenarians, they might be even more dangerous than they first appeared.

*The al-Da`wa web site transmits an al-Quds al-`Arabi report of riots in the southern Shiite city of al-Diwaniyya against the US-appointed mayor. Some 12 automobiles have been burned, and part of city hall. One man has been killed and several wounded. The news is so similar to that reported about Nasiriya two days ago that I wondered if the al-Quds al-`Arabi reporter just got the name of the town wrong. But it is also entirely possible that people in al-Diwaniya took heart from the Nasiriya protests, to launch their own. If so, you've had almost a solid week of major demonstrations in southern cities, beginning in Basra and moving to Nasiriya and Diwaniya. The Shiite south isn't as quiet as some US spokesmen have suggested. The US media (and pro-US Iraqi media) have been studiously ignoring these urban protests against US-appointed municipal officials. The Sadr City event got covered because US troops are directly involved.

*More demonstrations by Shiites in Baquba against the US arrest of the city's major Shiite clergyman. - al-Sharq al-Awsat.

*US civil administrator Paul Bremer said rather defensively on Weds. that the US troops "are not sitting ducks" but added that they might be in Iraq even after a new Iraqi government is elected (presumably in summer or fall of 2004). I don't think the American public will put up with the casualty rate the US is currently sustaining for that long. Although at this rate one is probably looking at 230 combat deaths per year, the deaths from heat exhaustion, crashes and so forth will not be discounted by the public as unrelated to the troops' presence in Iraq. And, the media is beginning to discover the wounded, whose numbers are much greater. There was a flurry of articles on Weds. about the families of the US military personnel stationed in Iraq beginning a political campaign to get them out. See e.g. http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030814/APA/308140552&cachetime=5 ; also today's Washington Post. The Bush administration hopes it can find enough troops among allies of convenience to offset its embarrassing failure to convince India, Egypt, Jordan and (so far) Pakistan, much less France, to send troops. So far the results are not promising. Spain, a major backer of the war, only sent 1300, and the US is having to pay for the Poles to be there; so much for the devotion of the New Europe to US policy goals. The likelihood is that US troops will form the backbone of the security force in the country for a long time to come.

*Likewise, a very interesting CBS poll found that 43% of Americans thought that the US is not in control of the situation in Iraq, while 45% think it is. That is, the public is evenly split in its perception of the issue. And, if you ask Americans if the war was worth it to produce the current results, 45% say "no," while 46% say yes. The poll gives strong evidence of attitudes being very different among Republicans and Democrats. See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/13/opinion/polls/main568108.shtml
I'd say from observing the situation as intensely as I can through the press in several languages for 4 months, that the US is definitely not "in control" of the situation in Iraq. At best, people are giving it a honeymoon while they decide what to do. At worst they are waging guerrilla war. No one likes the humiliation of being occupied, and the high-handedness of Bremer's style (not to mention Bush's) infuriates almost everyone. That last part just isn't necessary.

*

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas set off three home made bombs at Ramadi as a convoy of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldier was passing, killing one US soldier. Two other US soldiers in the convoy were injured. The BBC correspondent reports that "there are about 12 attacks a day against American soldiers in Iraq according to coalition sources." The BBC also reported that on Tuesday in Mosul guerrillas ambushed US military vehicles with rocket propelled grenades around 4 pm. Eyewitnesses saw wounded soldiers being taken away, but no confirmation from the US Army. Al-Zaman says 4 US soldiers were wounded. The same source says that in a separate incident in Falluja a US vehicle was hit by RPG fire, wounding one US soldier. It is rumored that the Iraqi guerrillas have upped the bounty on American troops from $250 to $1000. But I don't think very many of these attacks are being carried out for the money. Those guerrillas are angry about foreigners over-running their country.

*Ali Nourizadeh of al-Sharq al-Awsat alleges that there is a struggle going on between the office of President Mohammad Khatami and the hardline elements like the al-Quds Guards in Iran over the disposition of al-Qaeda refugees. He says that when Sayf al-`Adil, al-Qaeda's chief military planner, was implicated in the May Riyadh bombings, he and other al-Qaeda figures were put under house arrest, inspiring alarm among other such fugitives in Iran. Nourizadeh says that Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's no. 2, had been in Iran but that he escaped when Khatami attempted to have him arrested in Zabul and brought to Tehran. He says that Imad Mughniyah, the Lebanese Shiite terrorist, is also no longer in Iran. His source indicates that Khatami, fearing a major conflict with the US, is attempting to clean house on the al-Qaeda front, but often is thwarted by the al-Quds Guards, who established friendships with some al-Qaeda figures back in the Sudan days when Iran was supporting the Sudanese Islamists that were hosting Bin Laden.

*Ahmad Jawdah reports in al-Sharq al-Awsat on his visit to Basra recently. He finds the Czech military hospital treating a lot of wounded who accidently set off mines, or who were hurt in clan feuds, along with a few persons with severe illnesses (there are about 150 cholera cases in Basra presently, along with some typhoid). But one of the doctors at a major civilian hospital (the city has 8) complained that his facility still lacks enough medicine. He maintained that the physicians are well trained, so the personnel are there to provide care, but years of sanctions have left medicine stocks still too low. Jawdah seems to say that things are nevertheless better than they were in April on the hospital front. He also reports shortage of fuel, even firewood, for cooking, and shortage of kerosene and gasoline. One woman complained that she could not cook for her family under these circumstances. Obviously, the city, which exploded in rioting on Sunday and Monday, is irritable and tired of not having enough electricity, power, and water filtration. If it is true that there is not enough medicine in the hospitals, that is terrible, and the Coalition or aid agencies have a duty to do something about it.

*A source in Iraqi security tells al-Sharq al-Awsat that Iraqi women will be allowed to join the police force. Apparently they have to have university degrees, and will be trained in accordance with British policing practice. The decision came after counsel and "some pressure" from the Coalition. This sort of opening to Iraqi women is not new or unusual in Iraqi political history. The Baath ideology, at least, favored women's liberation. But it is potentially a controversial step given the growth of hard line Shiite tendencies among some in Basra, who follow the radical Muqtada al-Sadr.

*Fred Kaplan at Slate goes over all the evidence Colin Powell presented to the UN about the alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program, and concludes that perhaps none of it amounts to anything. The aluminum tubing was for rockets, not for centrifuges. Al-Baradei of the IAEA already blew that one out of the water last March. More was ordered than necesssary as part of some Iraqi officer's get rich quick scheme. The mobile "germ labs" were for making helium for weather blimpls. There just wasn't much of a program there and apparently all the stockpiles were destroyed or had gone bad by 1998. No one is suggesting that Powell didn't believe what he presented. He just presented circumstantial evidence that in retrospect can all be explained away. It is a salutary lesson about the doctrine of preemptive war. In the real world, you cannot actually easily know which country poses a real threat. Better to fight wars when the threat level can be proved by more than circumstantial evidence. See http://slate.msn.com/id/2086924/.

*The Neocons' preemptive war against their critics in the State Department and among the brass in the armed forces is detailed by Justin Raimondo. "Make it good for Ariel Sharon" appears to have been the real marching orders with regard to the Iraq war. See http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j081303.html. For the key writings of whistle blower Karen Kwiatkowski, who exposed the shenanigans in the office of Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, see http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski-arch.html.


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*Huge explosions at the US base at Ramadi west of Baghdad, but no word on casualties as I write. Guerrillas killed one soldier, wounded two others outside the police station at Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.

*A large demonstration of 1000 in Nasiriya demanding that the US-appointed city council resign. The leading local Shiite clergyman, Sheikh Asad al-Nasiri, threatens a fatwa permitting the assassination of any council members who do not leave. Two resigned, 18 stood firm. the demonstrators promise to return the next day. They accuse the council members of looting the town more thoroughly than post-war looters stripped Iraq. There have in fact been problems of graft with US appointees to such positions, as in Najaf. Al-Nasiri's threat of violence is disturbing. Nasiriyyah has a lot of members in the al-Da`wa al-Islamiyyah and possibly Asad al-Nasiri belongs to that party. If so, Ibrahim Jaafari, the head of the national Interim Governing Council, should intervene with him to stop such incitements to violence, which would be illegal even in the US under the "clear and present danger" rule. See http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6510257.htm. Things have calmed a bit in Basra, only to flare up in nearby Nasiriya.

*US soldiers killed two Iraqi policemen in Baghdad in a friendly fire incident. The policemen were engaged in a firefight with looters or guerrillas, and the US soldiers took the wrong side. Uh, surely uniforms or walkie-talkies or something can be used to prevent such incidents . . . President of the Interim Governing Council, Ibrahim Jaafari, was deeply angered by this and other incidents: "We have insisted on several occasions to the coalition forces on the necessity of treating Iraqis properly," otherwise "hatred [will] grow against them. Iraq has traditions and we must respect them and the blood of our compatriots has huge value in our eyes especially when soldiers kill innocent people." He referred to Iraq openly as "occupied." And this is the leading Iraqi ally of the US in the country. See http://www.riyadhdaily.com.sa/display_assay.php?id=35237.

*Some of the recent trouble in Basra may have been stirred up by Shiite cleric Sheikh Abu Salim, a follower of Muqtada al-Sadr, who claims that the Coalition is deliberately depriving Iraqis of electricity and gasoline so as to better control them. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1016770,00.html.
Iraqis in Basra complain that with little power, fresh water, or other facilities, "It's a filthy life." British officials are chafing that they are unable to influence the US rebuilding program, which has bureaucratic priorities. The British want to concentrate on electricity and fuel and water, but the Americans are busy refurbishing 200 schools--not the first priority of the local British adminsitration. See http://msnbc.com/news/951243.asp.

*Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, William Burns, has been trying to convince Arab League states to send troops to Iraq, in return for lucrative rebuilding contracts being awarded to businessmen from those states. So far the Arab League is saying "no." I can't understand why the US fights a unilateral war and then wants the kind of post-war cooperation that could only have come from multilateral coalition-builging *before* the war. And, shouldn't those contracts be based on open bids, i.e., which firms can do the best job for the least money from the Iraqi treasury, for the benefit of the Iraqi people?

*French President Jacques Chirac is now referring to Iraq as "Halliburton" (the US corporation that has been awarded a lot of Iraq contracts with no open bidding process. New contracts tend to go to Halliburton on the grounds that it now has more experience and assets on the ground than others!)


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*Iraqi guerrillas wounded four US soldiers on Sunday, though details are not forthcoming. Another soldier died of heat stroke in the 123 degree F. sun (50 C.) near al-Diwaniya. A journalist was also wounded. British forces came under fire at Amara in the South, and killed three and wounded six of their assailants.

*The riots in Basra flared up again on Sunday, and British troops wounded ten Iraqis attempting to control them (AP, al-Zaman). People threw rocks and bricks at the British troops, and set fire to tires in the streets. One protester was killed by gunfire, though it is not clear by whom. A Nepalese Gurkha working as a mail deliverer for a private firm was killed by protesters. (The Gurkhas used to form a key element in the British Indian army, and those wishing to continue in that tradition have now become mercenaries). One furious crowd tried to stop vehicles from crossing the main bridge that leads to the airport. British spokesman Maj. Charlie Mayo reported, "There are four protests in northern Basra. They have turned into some small riots. There has been an instance where some British soldiers came under fire, and they returned aimed shots." The protests have centered on the lack of electricity, air conditioning and water filtration in many Basra neighborhoods, as well as on gasoline shortages that have resulted in long lines at the filling station. The rioting spread from Basra to other southern cities, such as Safwan near Kuwait. The Kuwaitis, alarmed, closed the border until order is restored in Safwan.

Basra had been doing well with electricity, and the British military devoted a lot of time and resources to make it so. The outages of the past week are the result of deliberate sabotage of working facilities, possibly by pro-Saddam Baath agents. The incident underlines how vulnerable the Anglo-American occupation forces are to sabotage in the public relations war for hearts and minds. In Basra, they have been dealt a severe setback. This setback is significant because Basra is largely Shiite and had been relatively favorable to the Coalition. Most resistance has come from Sunni Baathists or Islamists in the north-central part of the country.The US and Britain cannot afford to lose the good will of the majority Shiite population.

*US troops arrested Ali Abd al-Karim al-Madani, a leading Shiite clergyman in the eastern city of Baquba near Iran, provoking a demonstration by 50 of his followers. He is the highest ranking clergyman in the key Diyala province. Al-Madani had been interred for two days in early July, provoking demonstrations in the city. Marines said then that they had discovered arms caches in his mosque. This time they confiscated money from him. Unfortunately, the information available on this issue has been extremely vague and sketchy. It would be nice if we were told to what faction of Shiites al-Madani belongs. His nephew said he agrees with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's wait and see approach to the US presence. But the Marines say he has been preaching against the Coalition's presence in the country. Is he a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is influential in Baquba? Is he suspected of aiding the Badr Corps, the SCIRI paramilitary on which the US has been attempting to crack down? Maybe of being a conduit for Iranian arms and money to the Badr Corps? Or is he a Sadrist? Apparently both his family and the US military are refusing to share this kind of information with the poor journalists (Agence France Presse has been doing among the best work out in the provinces of Iraq).

*Some 42,000 Iranians have attempted during the past 3 months to cross into Iraq in order to perform visitation to the shrines of Imams Ali and Husayn at Najaf and Karbala, respectively, but have been turned away at the border by Iranian security forces. Many snuck over illegally, and of these 100 died (it is unclear of what, but land mines are one hazard). As Iraq opens up, the pilgrim trade from Iran to the holy cities will swell to enormous proportions. It is for this kind of reason that the Americans are foolish if they think they can shield Iraq from Iranian influences in the medium and long terms.

*"Oil may not be save-all for Iraq" is a smart article by Mark Fritz of AP that critiques the notion that oil wealth necessarily makes a country opulent. It does when the population is tiny, as with the UAE or Kuwait (even in Kuwait, the Bidoun or low-cast Bedouin are poverty-stricken). Likewise, Iraq's petroleum is highly unlikely to translate into a wealthy populace (as opposed to a few high-rolling individuals) any time soon. If the hawks in Washington planned this war thinking Iraqi petroleum would pay for it, or for reconstruction, or would guarantee the development of wealth and democracy in the aftermath, they were wrong.




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*Iraqi guerrillas wounded at least four American troops on Friday night and Saturday, according to AP. They fired rocket propelled grenades and directed small arms fire at a patrol of the 173rd Airbone Brigade in Kirkuk (the Kurdish north). That attack wounded two soldiers, who are in stable condition. In south-central Baghdad, guerrillas exploded a roadside bomb as a humvee went by, wounding another two US soldiers.

*Remember I said on Thursday that sabotage of electrical facilities had left Basra (a city of 1.2 million or more) without airconditioning, water filtration, etc.? Well, tempers boiled over on Saturday, as the city erupted in riots. The immediate cause of the riots appears to have been the return of long lines at gasoline (petrol) stations. At one of the stations, frustrated patrons attacked nearby British troops. One rumor has it that someone tossed a grenade at a British vehicle and blew it up, though this story is not confirmed by the British spokesman. (If someone tossed a grenade, then this wasn't just a riot growing out of frustration; there was a more organized group behind provoking it). The British fired back with rubber bullets, wounding four civilians. Word spread, and riots broke out at three other gas stations. People burned tires in the street, a Middle Eastern way of showing urban discontent, and threw rocks at British troops. Some sustained minor injuries. The price of gasoline has gone from 2 cents a gallon to $1.60 a gallon in the past four months, in a country with among the largest petroleum reserves in the world, and people in Basra are having to wait in lines for the privilege. Things seem to be returning to normal on Sunday. The British troops practice what they call "soft policing," based on their experience in Northern Ireland (where not everyone would agree about the soft part). The Anglo-American Coalition does not have very much time to get basic services going, before they begin alienating large numbers of urban Iraqis and providing an opening to anti-American political and religious forces.

*Hussein Khomeini is giving more interviews, on the same subjects--the need for a separation of religion and state, the freedom America has bestowed on Iraqis, and his hopes for an American intervention in Iran, as well. In an interview with al-Hayat today, he replied to the charge that for the hardliners in Tehran to be overthrown would strengthen Israel's hand in the region. He said that most people on the Iranian street couldn't get excited about the Arab-Israeli issue. Iranians have their own problems, which he said have to come first. He added that he is all for the Palestinians, but Iranians at the moment are worse off than they are. Tom Friedman also gives Hussein a big play in his column for Sunday.

Hussein Khomeini is just saying the same things as much better known figures like Abd al-Karim Soroush and Mohsen Kadivar in Iran, who actually have risked something to say it (in Baghdad he is beyond Tehran's reach). I very much doubt that most Iraqi Shiites have ever heard of him, or care what he believes in. He is certainly a nobody in Iran, where his recent call for an American intervention will make him despised as a quisling even by most reformers. (Iranian reformers are mostly nationalists; they want to do this themselves.) In short, Hussein Khomeini is a man bites dog story for the Western press, because his views are the opposite of those of his grandfather. But I sincerely hope the US government is not putting any eggs in his basket. At the moment, he doesn't amount to anything in Iraqi religious politics. Whether he ever will depends on his ability to do grassroots political organizing and attract a large constituency. This may be difficult. Non-religious Iraqi Shiites of the sort who would support a separation of religion and state are generally unenthusiastic about clergymen (a lot of them are leftists). Religious Shiites appear mainly to follow Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (who wants a state based on Islamic law) or Muqtada al-Sadr (who is a real Khomeinist and wants clerical rule of Iraq). Sistani has the prestige of being a grand ayatollah, which to say the least Hussein Khomeini does not (and won't for decades, probably). Muqtada has hundreds of thousands, some say 2 million, fanatical followers who started out following his martyred father, Sadiq al-Sadr, and who are poor and angry and impatient, for whom a Hussein Khomeini means nothing.

*The "mobile germ weapons labs" found in Iraq appear actually to have been producing hydrogen to float blimps for Iraqi army target practice. Meantime, more "mobile labs" have just been found. The problem, folks, is that it is obvious that whatever Iraq had in the way of a) WMD weapons programs and b) WMD weapons stockpiles simply did not represent a threat to the United States. Ipso facto this was not a preventive war (it was never a preemptive one, since Iraq wasn't on the verge of going to war against the US.) It was a unilateral war waged on the basis of hyped up "intelligence." Yes, yes, it may turn out to be a good thing for the poor Iraqis, though those in Basra are developing significant doubts. But Americans will be going down a slippery slope indeed if they let it stand as a precedent for anything.

*The Carnegie Endowment for Peace has assembled a great list of quotes from Bush administration folks about Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda (both crocks). See http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/iraqintell/adminquoteshtml.htm. Maybe this fiasco will finally get Congress to stop subverting the Constitution by virtually ceding to the President the right to make war at will. The lack of interest in Congress in the war and in Iraq-related diplomacy is truly frightening. If some senators weren't running for 2004, one has a sense that they would just cede it to the Pentagon altogether.







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Here's my Friday op-ed for The Daily Star at http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/09_08_03_e.asp

Shiite divisions give the US breathing room

Juan Cole

The Daily Star, 8/9/03


Most Shiite leaders in Iraq have made a tactical decision not to resist the Anglo-American occupation during the coming year. They hope the US, in recreating Iraq as a parliamentary democracy, will give them the political power they deserve by virtue of their numbers. If not, or if the Americans overstay their welcome, the Shiites might well turn against them. It is not, however, clear that the community is united enough yet to effectively close ranks against coalition forces.

As a result of their differences over the shape of a future Iraq, Shiite clerics have fallen to fighting an underground guerrilla war against one another. The chief prizes are the populous neighborhoods of eastern Baghdad and the revered shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala. Najaf contains the tomb of Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, who was assassinated in 661. Karbala is the site of the shrine of Imam Hussein, Ali’s martyred son, who was cut down when he sparked a rebellion in 681. Shiite Islam revolves around the commemoration of these two martyrdoms, with annual readings, processions and rituals of self-flagellation.

The forces of young firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appear to have succeeded in dominating the east Baghdad neighborhoods. In Najaf, Sadrists have clashed with followers of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) over control of the shrine of Imam Ali. They are also attempting to force the quietist Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and his clerical allies out of the city. Last week, Sadrists in Najaf threatened the life of the son of a senior ayatollah close to Sistani, put a junior clergyman in the hospital and beat up a Sistani aide.

These acts of hooliganism are likely to convince most of Najaf’s Shiites they need the US to protect them from Sadrist gangs. Tribal chieftains from the area loyal to Sistani have demanded weapons be forbidden in Ali’s shrine. They have also recently threatened to send in tribesmen to curb Sadrist excesses. A senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Said al-Tabatabaii al-Hakim, declared that the religious establishment sought a peaceful dialogue to end the coalition’s “occupation,” which, he said, “we never asked for.” His followers held a demonstration in Najaf late last week against the tactics of the Sadrists.

In Karbala, Sadrists and followers of Sistani have also struggled for control of the mosque of Imam Hussein, one of the premier pulpits in the Shiite world. Last June they had reached an agreement to alternate preachers, but Sadr abrogated it in July. On July 26, Sadrists held a rally in Karbala against US Marines patrolling too close to the Imam Hussein shrine. Someone in the crowd fired at the US troops, who returned fire, reportedly killing a man. They also struck the shrine with tear gas canisters. This provoked another demonstration the following Sunday, which turned ugly when Marines wounded nine demonstrators. It seems likely that hard-line Sadrists deliberately drew the Marines into firing on a civilian crowd in front of the emotionally charged shrine.

Last Friday, Sadr called for the Marines to be tried by Islamic law courts for their “attack on the shrine of Imam Hussein.” He called on all Shiites who were cooperating with the American civil administration, including Kurds and SCIRI members, to repent and instead join his proposed militia, the Army of the Mahdi. His congregation repeatedly shouted: “No, no to America … No, no to the occupier … No, no to tyranny.”

The divisions among the major religious currents in Iraqi Shiism and the differences between Iraq’s religious, secular and tribal groups have proved a boon to US administrators in Iraq, giving them breathing room. A united Shiite community could likely force the Americans out of the country by holding huge, urban demonstrations, as happened in Iran in 1978 as a prelude to the Iranian revolution.

There is clearly a widespread sentiment that the Americans should depart within a year. If they commit any further mistakes like shooting civilians in front of the Imam Hussein shrine, they could easily incite more hatred against themselves and shorten their timetable. At that point many Shiites might turn away from the staid Sistani and follow Sadr, not only in the slums where he is already popular, but also in Basra and other Shiite cities in the south.


Juan Cole is professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His web address is www.juancole.com. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR




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*A US soldier was shot to death in the ritzy Mansur district of Baghdad on Friday, but whether it was the work of a guerrilla is unknown. Some 12 US troops were wounded. Six were wounded when guerrillas in Mosul hit their vehicle with a rocke propelled grenade. A bomb blew up two humvees near al-Amariya west of Baghdad, wounding 3. Another 3 were wounded around Tikrit in the course of operations designed to capture Saddam Hussein and dismantle his network of support.

*Husayn Khomeini, grandson of the Ayatollah, told al-Zaman that he wants to establish a modernist seminary in Karbala that would work for the separation of religion and state and would compete for influence with Najaf and Qom, the other two great seminary cities. He asked for Iraqis' help in secularizing government in Iran and said that only liberty and democracy could form a solid basis for good relations between the two countries. He said that seminary education in Shiism was out of step with the times. He also condemned religious tyranny as the worst sort of tyranny, worse than communism, fascism or Baathism, because it affected humankind's humanity and their relationship with their creator. He said that there was no permission in the Islamic scriptures to establish a religious state during the Occulation of the Imam. This is a reference to the Shiite belief that the Prophet was succeeded by 12 vicars or imams, 11 of them his descendants, and that the 12th disappeared as a child into a mystical realm. The era of the disappeared Imam, or the Occultation, is according to conservative Shiism a time when aggressive holy war cannot be declared, and some question the right of believers to collect religious taxes or hold Friday prayers. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini argued that the clerics could stand in for the Imam in ruling the Islamic state during the Occultation, but his grandson rejects that theory. He complained that Iran is stalled and its leadership requires creative thinking to exit from the dead end. I find Hussein Khomeini's ideas exciting, but it must be underlined that he is a nobody in Iran and Iraq and lacks any kind of popular following. It is unclear if he can actually accomplish anything.

*The Saudi government attacked Libyan strongman Moammar Qadhafi on Friday for his statements to an American television station that Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi sect of Islam was responsible for the creation of al-Qaeda. The Saudis characterized Qadhafi's comments as a break with Arab and Islamic solidarity.

*Iran-contra is back. Douglas Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for Policy) had two of his men meet in Paris with a corrupt Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, who had been involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. The contact was apparently unauthorized. Feith has rogue tendencies. He also is accused of letting Israeli military and intelligence personnel into the Pentagon without having them properly checked in. Apparently, the CIA and the State Department only learned about the Ghorbanifar-Feith consultations by accident. In other words, Douglas Feith has his own foreign policy, which we never elected him to implement, and which the rest of the government doesn't even know about. Isn't it time he was asked for his resignation, quick, before the Constitution gets subverted yet again? See:
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=94701.

*Hazim al-A`raji, a mosque preacher who addressed the congregation of the Mosque of Imam Musa Kazim, criticized the Interim Governing Council in his Friday prayers sermon as "agents of America" and rejected them as "more governed than governing." Al-A`raj is a follower of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He said the only difference between the unelected government of Saddam Hussein and the unelected government of Paul Bremer was a change of titles. He urged Iraqis to follow the "line of the Exemplar," i.e. to obey the leading cleric, who he identified as Muqtada.





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*Guerrillas in Karada, Baghdad directed small arms fire from their vehicle at two US soldiers from the 1st Armored Division on Wednesday night, killing one soldier on the spot. The other died later on from his wounds. One of them was identified as: - Army Staff Sgt. Brian R. Hellerman, 35, Freeport, Minn. The previous day there had been an exchange of fire in Rashid.


*Who blew up the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad? A huge blast from a car bomb killed 11 and wounded 50, mostly Iraqis, including Iraqi police guards of the embassy, on Thursday. Unlike most of the violence in Iraq, which is clearly launched by Baath remnants and Iraqi Sunni Islamists against the US presence in the country, the Jordan embassy bombing is a whodunit of the first water. Why Jordan? Who was behind it? Some possibilities:

1) Baath remnants. They are good suspects since they are already organized for such acts of violence. But why would they hit Jordan? Jordan had a history of quietly cooperating with Saddam’s government even while trying to remain on the good side of the Americans. Still, there are reasons for the Baathists to hate Amman. Jordan’s King Abdullah II says that he asked George W. Bush in August ’02 if there was any way to dissuade him from an Iraq war. Bush said, “No.” (Abdullah’s anecdote shows that Bush wasn’t exactly weighing the WMD evidence in January ’03, anyway.) Abdullah II then pledged himself to tacit support for the American war effort. The US used Western Jordan for unspecified military purposes in winter-spring ’03, and everyone knew it. So, for Baathists bitter about Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, there is every reason to hate Jordan and to see it as a traitor to the Arab cause. Not only that, but embassy bombings are inherently politically destabilizing and humiliating to the status quo; it may not even have mattered much to the perpetrators which embassy they hit.

2) Partisans of Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi ran a bank in Jordan in the 1980s, but had to flee Amman in 1989 when he allegedly was caught with his hand in the till. Jordanian authorities charged him with embezzling millions. This charge did not dissuade the CIA (via the Rendon group) and the Pentagon from supporting the INC and Chalabi through much of the 1990s. But by fall of 2002 even the CIA and the State Department had broken with Chalabi, over his inability to account for $2 mn. of $4 mn. they gave him for specific purposes. The Jordan charges added to the air of scandal around him. He remained a favorite of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz at the Defense Department, though, and they had him flown in with hundreds of fighters soon after the war. They also had their man, Jay Garner, appoint him to a 7-member council that would prepare the way for elections. When Paul Bremer succeeded Garner, he attempted to sideline Chalabi and the “Group of 7,” but ultimately was unable to do so. The guerrilla war made it imperative for him to find Iraqis who could constitute an interim governing council (IGC), and few non-Baathists inside the country had any real political experience. Chalabi has thus reemerged as a contender, and serves on the 9-person executive of the IGC. At the same time, Chalabi somehow got hold of or was given reams of Iraqi intelligence documents, which he says implicate Jordanian officials in deals with Saddam (also al-Jazeerah). It is clear that Chalabi was trying to intimidate the Jordanian government into ceasing its opposition to him based on their embezzlement charges, by his privileged access to Iraqi intelligence. It is not a good sign that virtually his first act on returning to Iraq was to attempt to blackmail a neighboring country into dropping criminal charges against him. It is possible that his partisans feel that Jordan has not gotten the hint. Note: All this is mere speculation on my part, and there is no proof of a Chalabist tie to the bombing. I’m simply laying out who has means, motive, and opportunity. Jordanian officials told al-Hayat that they could not consider Chalabi guilty, even though everyone knows that they view him as merely a wanted man on the embezzlement charges.

3) Al-Qaeda. The truck bomb is after all a favorite of al-Qaeda. Jordan has been at the forefront of efforts to destroy the terrorist organization, having foiled several al-Qaeda plots going back to the failed plan to bomb Jordanian tourist hotels at the Millennium. The problem with this theory is that it requires a far more organized and equipped al-Qaeda presence in Iraq than has been documented to exist. This operation is different from a few jihadis with AK 47s sniping at Gis.

4) Anti-Baath Iraqis angry at Jordan for its years of tacit collaboration with Saddam and for giving asylum to two of his daughters last week. The embassy was quickly looted, and pictures of King Abdullah II were torn off the walls. The problem is that we have not before seen any anti-Baath paramilitary in Iraq that has this sort of weapons capability, and so if the attack came from this quarter, it is something new and unexpected.

*An Iraqi census has been found in Baghdad done in 1997, which was previously kept secret by Saddam. It showed a population of 22 million. The big surprise is that it found only 99 men for every 100 women. That was down from 106 men for every 100 women in 1987. Amartya Sen famously argued that India was missing 30 million women, probably killed as children by subtle neglect or infanticide by poor families for whom they were a burden, unlike the boys. Iraq seems to be missing large numbers of men. Of course, it may just be that the men hid when the census takers came in 1997. But we know that Saddam killed literally hundreds of thousands, mainly men, in 1987-1997, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, in the crushing of the 1991 uprising, and in the destruction of the marsh Arabs and other dissidents in the South through the 1990s. So, I find it plausible that he just killed off a lot of men. A preliminary look at the census also suggests that infant mortality was probably not quite as bad in the mid-1990s as outside observers had assumed (typically it is alleged that the sanctions regime killed 500,000 children, though it should be noted that it was actually how Saddam manipulated the sanctions regime that did it). The fairly recent, if sketchy, census, could aid in the holding of early elections, since one could use it to figure proportional representation in parliament by the 19 provinces. See http://www.iht.com/articles/105621.html

*Muhammad Bahr al-`Ulum, a leading member of the IGC, called on other nations to recognize the Interim Governing Council as the legitimate government of Iraq. Criticizing the Arab League decision not to do so, he said the IGC expected the League to deal with existing reality, and “We are that reality.” Generally, the nations of the world are unwilling to recognize an unelected Iraq government. So if Bahr al-`Ulum wants recognition, he is going to have to stand for office. Interestingly, though, Russia is calling for a new UN resolution that would allow Moscow to recognize the IGC. It may be that Russia is trying to get in on the ground floor with the new government, in hopes it will gain enough power to begin awarding petroleum contracts itself.

*Taliban fighters killed six Afghan soldiers in the Southwest on Thursday, along with a helper of a Western aid agency. The Afghans alleged that the Taliban came over the border from their refuge in Pakistan. Tension at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border has been tense in recent weeks, and there have been clashes. There has recently been talk of the US investing $1 bn. in Afghanistan, both to kick-start reconstruction and to convince other wealthy nations to make similar investments. The country is in chaos from a security point of view, and there is danger of a Taliban/ al-Qaeda resurgence there if something isn’t done.

*The Indonesian military has already made three arrests in the Marriott truck bombing case, having traced the owner of the truck used. After a long period in which they were seen as ineffective against terrorism, the Indonesian security forces have done good work in arresting Jemaah Islamiya members responsible for the Bali bombing, one of which a court just sentenced to death. The Marriott bombing may even have been in part a warning against putting him to death. Growth of gross domestic product was already expected to slow to 3.4% in 2003, in part because of the SARS effect, and further damage to tourism will hurt government tax revenues. A lot of Indonesia's tourists are regional, with nearly a third from Singapore, so al-Qaeda is a double whammy along with SARS. In a sense, both are a sort of globalized virus endangering the world's economic health.




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*The bombing of the Marriott in Jakarta by the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyya is very bad news. It will hurt Indonesia's tourism and foreign investment, which is the goal. They want to destabilize the government of Mrs. Megawati, which is the freest Indionesians have known. If Indonesians can be reduced to poverty and induced ro rage against the West, that would be a plus for al-Qaeda. They may also succeed in slowing the economic recovery in Asia, which in turn will harm the US. That bomb in distant Jakarta had your name on it.

*Thousands of Turkmen, mainly from Kirkuk, protested Weds. in downtown Baghdad that they were given only one of 25 seats in the Interim Governing Council. Actually, that's probably all they deserve if you go by the numbers. But all Iraqi minorities are worried about a tyranny of the majority developing.

*Raja' al-Khuzai, a woman physician who serves on the Interim Governing Council, says women have difficulty getting a word in edge wise, and difficulty in getting a respectful hearing. She said that the male members avert their eyes from the women and seem uncomfortable acknowledging them. The Turkmen delegate, Songol Chapouk, has begun veiling at meetings.

*Sabotage of the electricity facilities of Basra have left the city without air conditioning or water filtration for the last three days, which have been literally hot as hell. Basra gets up to 114 F. every day (45 C.), and it is sometimes even hotter. There are also long gas lines. The residents are fuming against the Coalition occupation, whom they hold responsible. See http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=852882003. On Weds., two women apparently exploded a bomb about 2 miles south of Basra at a gas station, killing 4 Iraqis.

*Ibrahim Jaafari, president of the Interim Governing Council, met Wednesday with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf, briefing him on the achievements of the IGC so far. Sistani has been critical of the plan to have appointed rather than elected delegates to a constitutional convention to draft a new constitution. The IGC will appoint the delegates, as things now stand, but the resulting constitution will be put to a public referendum. Jaafar may in part have been seeking Sistani's imprimatur for this way of proceeding. Jaafari as a leader of the Shiite al-Da`wa Party has correct relations with Sistani, but al-Da`wa has generally declined to subordinate itself to a particular ayatollah.

*The IGC is forming a 7-man security subcommittee, headed by ex-Baathist officer Iyad Allawi. Well, if you are looking for someone who can make ther trains run on time . . .

*Quote of the day from Hussein Khomeini, grandson of the famous ayatollah: "As an Iranian, I see (the war in Iraq) as a liberation from oppression and dictatorship and tyranny which was never known before in history. This was their salvation from their suffering." - AP

*The 6-woman Umm Ali band of Basra is profiled by Reuters today. Its leader maintains that they are descended from East African slaves brought in Abbasid times (8th-9th centuries), and she says that they maintain connections to Africa. She points to the rhythms and drums used by the band. Actually, there is not good evidence that the slaves or zinj of the Abbasid period were from East Africa. Recent scholarship suggests that they may mostly have been Berbers from what is now Morocco. There was an East African slave trade in the 18th & 19th centuries, and if Umm Ali's members have those connections then they are likely to be descended from more recent populations. (By the rules of population genetics, all of us now living in the world probably have a teeny bit of genetic material from every child-bearing person who lived in the 8th century, including the Zinj of Iraq!) Since the children of slaves and masters are free in Islamic law, and since conversion to Islam tends to lead to manumission of children, slaves from Africa just intermarried with other groups and melted into the population rather than remaining a sort of caste, as happened in the US. See http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=3230229
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*Three US soldiers were slightly injured in Falluja on Tuesday along with 3 Iraqi policemen, according to AP. The Americans had joined Iraqi police in fending off an angry crowd that attacked on the police station there that used rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons. CNN covered this very cursorily according to the transcript. AFP reports that the protesters, from the al-Muhammadi tribe, want the release of 12 prisoners from their tribe, including a tribal sheikh, who they say are being unfairly held. Americans are used to dealing with atomistic individuals. They don't realize that often if you mess with an Iraq, you are messing with all his cousins, too.

Guerrillas also used a remote control bomb to blow up the truck of a civilian working for a Halliburton subsidiary, who was delivering mail to the US military on Tuesday.

*The Arab League refused to recognized the appointed Interim Governing Council appointed by Bremer, and refused to send troops to Iraq. The moderate fundamentalist journalist Fahmy Howeidi wrote an editorial for al-Ahram saying that the Arabs were not going to come in on behalf of Washington and put down Iraqis fighting against US occupation. Tom Friedman of the New York Times criticized Amr Moussa of the Arab League for insisting that only an election could provide legitimacy, claiming that none of the Arab League's members has an elected head of state. Friedman like many others is confusing the legitimacy bestowed by national sovereignty with that bestowed by election. Ideally one would have both. But Iraq lacks the former while most Arab states lack the latter. Moreover, for all the coercion and corruption in elections in the Arab world, some elected leaders there probably do represent their constituents' views. It would be silly to say that Ibrahim Jaafari has as much legitimacy as the prime ministers of Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and Morocco. Most Iraqis don't even know who Jaafari is.

*One of Khomeini's grandsons, Hussein Khomeini, has been in Iraq for weeks. He called up Agence France Presse and called for a referendum in Iran over whether to retain the clerically dominated form of government. Khomeini has been calling for a separation of religion and state in Iran. Before 20th century nationalism, it was common for Iranian clerics to take refuge in Iraq (under Ottoman rule) from the Iranian state, and to say from there things that could not be said in Iran itself. Hussein Khomeini may be only the beginning of a revival of this tactic. Meanwhile, President Mohammad Khatami warned of a take-over of Iran by fascism and the misuse of clerical office to impose tyranny. Uh, President Khatami, that cow got out of the barn some time ago. He objected to the Iranian Right implying that his reformist policies were written for him in Washington. He also attacked Iran's secular left. - AFP/ al-Zaman

*Global security analyst and virtual isolationist Edward N. Luttwak argues that democracy in Iraq is a fool's errand. He says the Kurds are divided into two tribal enclaves, the Sunnis in the middle of the country are resentful of being deprived of their former perquisites, and that the Shiites are "largely illiterate," under the sway of their ayatollahs, and want an Islamic state that is incompatible with human rights and democracy. He also notes that only a long-term US colonization of Iraq could hope to change this situation and produce a real democratic outcome, but that because the Iraqis resent the US occupation, the Americans are likely to get out quickly and leave the country in a mess.

The argument, which is admittedly an op-ed. is overdrawn to say the least, though healthy skepticism about the Neocon approach to democratization of the region is in order. First of all, despite Kurdish tribalism, the Kurds have had fair elections, and there is no reason to think they cannot do so again. Indeed, parliamentary politics is the perfect forum for transforming violent clan feuds into peaceful politics. If the PUK doesn't like the KDP, they can just work harder to attract voters. Tribes and castes in India do this all the time (well, with a bit of chaos, violence and corruption, but it is still far better than Saddam's Baath Party).

It is hard to know how many Sunni Arabs in the triangle are violently anti-democratic. It may not be all that many. The 3 million West Baghdad Sunnis seem to be all for democracy. And, if Iraq has a Federal system such that people in Falluja control their local destiny according to community standards, they may not mind having a Shiite Prime Minister. After all, there have been Shiite Prime Ministers in the past in Iraq, and it never caused riots or anything.

Shiite illiteracy should not be exaggerated. Indeed, scholastic Shiism of the urban sort is if anything overly bookish. (55% of Iraqi men are literate, and there is no reason to think that the majority of these men is not Shiite). And, it is an urban prejudice to equate literacy with support for democracy. The tribal Shiite leaders of the Middle Euphrates have adopted moderate political stances, whereas the Sadrists in the big city of Baghdad are essentially 1980s style Khomeinists. And, Shiite militias and theocratic parties are not static. AMAL in Lebanon had a paramilitary in the 1980s and yet the party gradually evolved into a parliamentary political party that trades horses with Maronite Catholics and is far more moderate than the Lebanese Hizbullah. So even the Sadrists may change some of their tune if they have to run for office and have to get things done for constituents by trading horse with other political groups.

Finally, it is not at all clear that only a 30-year tutelage by the Americans could make Iraq democratic. It isn't that hard to hold elections. That there will be a weak army may be a good thing; strong armies make coups and dominate the society.

I think parliamentary elections and "democracy" tend to be mystified in Western political thought. Elections aren't that hard to hold. What you need is the right rules for governing outcomes and subsequent compromises. And, you need powerful elites like the military or the clergy not to come in and derail the process. I think the Iraqis can pull this off, as long as our expectations are not unrealistic. That is, you could at most get India. You're not going to get Sweden anytime soon (but then we poor Americans don't even get Sweden because of our plutocrats).

The other thing to keep in mind is that American air power hasn't disappeared from the skies of Iraq, and warlords or separatists know it. Further, the Iraqi government will have billions in oil income and strategic rent, which is another centripetal force. Skepticism is a good thing, but sometimes it veers toward cynicism, which isn't.

See http://publicbroadcasting.net/wusf/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=530189





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*Five US soldiers were wounded in Iraq Monday, along with an Iraqi translator, according to AFP. In one attack, guerrillas gutsily fired an anti-tank rocket near Baghdad police headquarters, wounding 3. The other attack took place on the dangerous road to the airport. On Sunday, a US soldier and two Iraqis were killed by a grenade attack on a US convoy near Baquba, a US military spokesman announced Monday.

*In Khalidiya, a riot broke out. First, guerrillas launched a rocket-propelled grendade at a US military vehicle that was accompanied by newly trained Iraqi police. The police fired back. This action appears to have enraged the Khalidiya townspeople, who mobbed the town hall and police station, setting fire to them. The US military then called for helicopters to disperse the crowds and restore order. Khalidiya is in the Baathist/ Sunni Islamist triangle. ( - AFP) The Iraqi people just seem still unwilling to dance in the streets for joy at the American presence, the way the Wall Street Journal promised us they would. At least CNN covered the Khalidiya uprising. A lot of this sort of thing doesn't even get mentioned on US television news.

*There have been seven attempts on the lives of former Baathist officers in Baghdad in the past week, with 3 killed and 7 wounded. It is not known who is behind a wave of reprisal killings against the technocrats and high officers of the former regime. -al-Zaman.

*Iran's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Husayn Sadiqi, came to Baghdad on the first formal visit of his ministry after the fall of Saddam, meeting with Interim Governing Council president Ibrahim Jaafari. Ali Reza Haqiqiyan, Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, was also present. Jaafari said that Saddam had not only harmed Iran (in the Iran-Iraq war) but had also inflicted great harm on Iraq itself. He said, "We thank God, who has saved us from that regime." (-AFP) (This is a clever way for an Iraqi Shiite to deflect criticism for cooperating with the US; he simply blamed the war and its aftermath on God, and who can argue with cooperating with God's will?) The delegation had met Saturday with IGC members Massoud Barzani and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (deputy head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq). Al-Hakim discussed with the Iranian officials the future of bilateral relations between Iran and Iraq. Tehran had hosted SCIRI since its founding in 1982 and has close relations to it. But SCIRI and other theocratic Shiite groups are not willing simply to subordinate themselves to Iranian Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. The ideas of Iraqi nationalism and popular sovereignty have permeated even the religious Shiites of Iraq. The US is worried half to death that the Iranians will gain influence in post-Saddam Iraq. Of course they will. They are nearby, and have lots of historical ties with Iraqi Shiites. But that isn't the same as Iranian dominance, which Iraqis won't accept.

*Hannah Allam of Knight-Ridder has an interesting article on the Shiites and the US. But she just gets some things wrong. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has not called for a "strict separation of religion and state." On the contrary, he has called for an Islamic state with shariah or Islamic law as its basis. What he has opposed is clerics getting involved in day-to-day politics. That is different from wanting a separation of religion and state. Then, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has not called for a secular government. He also wants an Islamic republic. It is just that he recognizes that initially the Iraqi government will be a pluralistic parliamentary system. In the long term, he is sure Iraqis will opt for Iranian-style theocracy, with him as the Supreme Jurisprudent. These are subtle distinctions, but they have to be maintained if we are to understand Shiite politics in contemporary Iraq. See http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6456779.htm

*Firms that are more than 10% government owned have been excluded by Paul Bremer for competing for telecom licensing in Iraq. This rule is being vigorously protested by Bahrain's Batelco (40% government owned). It also excludes most companies in Western Europe. Batelco moved into the Iraq market, where the Americans have still not restored the telephone system, a couple of weeks ago, but was shut down by the Americans for not having a license. Meanwhile, the Bremer administration had awarded Worldcom rights in Iraq, even though a) it had no expertise or experience in wireless telephony and b) it should have been excluded from government contracts insofar as it has been guilty of massive fraud and cheating. Most of the world has not privatized things like telephone companies, and to make a rule like this is a sneaky way of preserving the Iraq market for American firms, including ones with shady business practices. Mr. Bremer comes to this job with a good reputation. My advice to him is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, because the American experiment in Iraq can easily be discredited by invidious rules that look like favoritism. See: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=58007&Sn=BNEW. One solution: Give the Iraqi Interim Government Council a say in this matter. Do they want to exclude Batelco? If not, then the US shouldn't, either.
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*People in Baghdad are still suffering with a crime wave that includes kidnappings, burglaries, car jackings and assassinations. Kidnappers demanded $100,000 for the return of his son to a physician recently, according to In`am Kajahji of al-Sharq al-Awsat. He bargained them down to his new Mercedes Benz. Others have had to sell their really new cars and drive around Baghdad in old pieces of junk to avoid being car jacked. Baghdadis complain that these crimes often occur not far from US patrols. I'm transmitting Kajahji's piece here because I have heard the same things from civilians in Baghdad in recent weeks and I fear the severity of the security problems is played down by US officials and the US press. The lack of Arabic speakers among both groups is appalling given that the US is trying to run that country, and it accounts for Iraqis' own experiences not being publicized.

*The story of the thug-like Sadrist attacks on Shiites associated with Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf has been picked up by al-Zaman, which says that in response some of the tribes of the Middle Euphrates are threatening to come into the city to protect the moderate religious scholars from the radicals. Muqtada's office in Najaf denied any responsibility for encouraging such physical attacks. Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Tabataba'i al-Hakim said that the religious establishment seeks to employ peaceful dialogue as a means to end the Coalition "occupation" which, he says, "we never asked for." There were demonstrations in Najaf on Thursday and Friday against the attacks on persons close to Sistani, one of whom was put in the hospital.

*The US has brought in Yaqub Shonia, a director general of the ministry of industry and mining resources, who had overseen a limited privatization in the late 1980s for Saddam, to oversee the sale of 52 companies and 186 factories that had been state-owned. According to Bertrand Rosenthal of AFP, Shonia thinks it will be a daunting task. (The Iraqi stock market was burned in the looting after the war and will need to be reestablished; and there are no commerical regulations.) Other Middle Eastern countries like Egypt that have announced they would privatize have not had a big success in doing so. State owned industries mostly had artificial advantages granted by government tariffs or contracts or other favoritism. Abolish those, and the industries aren't usually actually very attractive to investors. Plus, in the Middle East it is very hard to fire anyone, so the new owners often have to take on bloated payrolls.

In some global South settings, moreover, some industries are better off in government hands and if they are set up right, with the right rules, they can do fairly well economically. American economic thinkers generally forget the huge role the state sector played in post-War France's efflorescence, 1945-1970 or so, or in Egypt 1955-1970. Yes. The government has sometimes actually made people better off, amazing as it is for those words to be spoken in the US. As for private industry, it has not significantly improved the average real per capita income of the average American worker since 1972. But it has been very good at increasing the wealth of the wealthy. So, Iraqis should retain a bit of suspicion about the Washington consensus.

What I don't personally understand is how the privatization can begin under the Anglo-American occupation. I read it as a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention for an occupation authority to alter the character of the occupied society. It is true that there was a Privatization Law under the Baath (which was used to throw private ownership to Saddam's cronies). It would probably be cleaner to put off a major privatization push until a proper Iraqi government is elected, which can make the decisions in light of what is best for the Iraqi citizens that are its constituents. Two of Bremer's people told al-Zaman yesterday that oil nationalization would not be pursued at this time, and that the Iraqi government will retain control of petroleum resources. You betcha. The US has Iraqi production up to 1.7 mn. barrels a day, and is counting on over $3 bn. in revenues from it this year, half of what will be needed to run the Iraqi government and start reconstruction (are US taxpayers paying for the other $3 bn?) All of a sudden, laissez faire folks like Bremer see the wisdom of government ownership of the petroleum industry . . . when they are running a third world government that needs the money!

*Everyone with any interest in US policy toward Iraq should read Martin Sieff's series for UPI. The first is Soaring costs of 'rescuing' Iraq at http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030730-100003-2217r. This report is gold, if for no other reason than the para. that says: "The administration, indeed, has been unable to even recruit any significant number of volunteers from conservative think tanks or the federal government to volunteer to work in Iraq for the next year or two, so the occupation administration there remains seriously undermanned." It is even worse. I saw an announcement posted to one list seeking an American to go to Baghdad to help the Bremer administration that mentioned it could only offer an unpaid internship! It was about the most pitiful thing I have ever seen.

What I don't understand is why Patrick Clawson, Daniel Pipes, Martin Kramer, David Satloff, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol and all those other Neocons who kept pushing this war aren't in Baghdad helping with the reconstruction. They have wealthy Likudnik backers who would pay their salaries to be over there. Some know Arabic. It is not as if they can't travel abroad. A lot of these guys have dual Israeli citizenship and/or have lived in Israel for extended periods of time, so why not Iraq? They keep mouthing off about how much more wonderful their supposed services (i.e. purveying Likud propaganda) are to the US than the academic Middle East experts. But in fact, Bremer, Abizaid and others actually accomplishing something in Iraq are products of American Middle East Studies (Bremer is a State Department Persianist, Abizaid has a Middle East Center MA from Harvard). In fact, the relative failures of the US administration of Iraq under Garner and Bremer, with continued lack of good security, and slowness in establishing new administrative procedures, should be blamed on the failure of the Conservative intellectuals to put their money where their (very big) mouths are and get over there to help ORHA instead of schmoozing with Bill O'Reilly on t.v. (Maybe Iraqi journalism needs some help, too, and big Bill could do an internship in Baghdad. This would have the double benefit that he wouldn't be polluting the US airwaves with his toxic bullyism while he was doing clerical work for Bremer). Anticipating that they will ask why I don't go myself, I would reply that I didn't push for this war in the first place; they did.

*The inability of the government to induce civilians to go into a war zone has also had a very big and very bad impact on the welfare of US troops in Iraq. See http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1059891056248420.xml. The Pentagon had contracted out to civilian firms all sorts of key logistical tasks (like building quonset huts with airconditioning). But when they were called on to do their tasks in Iraq, these civilian firms just didn't show up. Thus, the troops are sweltering in heat that sometimes approaches 140 degrees F. (their shaving cream cans are exploding). They also don't have proper sanitation. Part of the problem is that the civilian companies don't want to pay the insurance costs. The mania the US Right (and actually just the US in general) has with Libertarian philosophy and just privatizing everything is among the best explanations for the things that are wrong with this country. After Enron, Worldcom, Adelphi, etc., etc., they are still telling us that the government can't get anything right and that private industry is always efficient. The California energy crisis that the Republicans are blaming on poor Gray Davis had its origins in a laissez-faire scheme to privatize energy in that state, which allowed big energy companies to bilk consumers of billions. This scheme was pushed by . . . the Republicans. Anyway, I hope there is a rethinking in the army about farming all this stuff out to civilians. It is a font of corruption, cronyism and even nepotism, anyway. You should see who the contractors and contractees really are most of the time. At the least, old buddies.



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*Iraqi guerrillas killed one US soldier and wounded three others over Friday night/ Saturday morning. They fired a rocket propelled grenade at their convoy as it was moving north of Baghdad. Remote control bombs in Tikrit injured two US soldiers after the burial of Uday and Qusay.

*AP is reporting that a close aid to Saddam Hussein is saying that he really did destroy his weapons of mass destruction, but that he refused to admit it because he felt doubt on the issue would deter an American invasion. If this is true, he hoisted himself by his own petard, since he could have probably made the invasion politically impossible by simply opening up completely to the UN inspectors.

*In the dispute over the appointment of a female court judge in Najaf (which American authorities have put on hold), the views of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani have been a little murky. Asked for a fatwa on the issue, he confined himself to saying that the judge should have legal qualifications. He did not insist that only a man could have these. But neither does he explicitly say a woman can serve. His spokesman in London, Ali Kashmiri, cleared things up Saturday, however, saying that Sistani holds that a woman cannot serve as judge, since a judge must be qualified to carry out independent legal reasoning (ijtihad), in the technique of which women are not trained. Another source in Najaf close to Sistani said his reluctance on this issue is not new but is solidly grounded in Islamic law. ( -AFP & al-Zaman)

*Police in Karbala rode around this weekend taking orders from clerics in closing down or chasing off street vendors near the shrine of Imam Husayn. The peddlers were offering pornographic videos, drugs, alcohol and weapons and ammunition to passers-by in front of one of Shiism's holiest shrines. AFP quoted one Karbala resident as saying, "Finally, we have a police force that takes orders from clerics and not the Americans." This sort of issue has political consequences in Iraq. The demonstrations against the Baath of the late 1970s in Najaf and Karbala were provoked in part by the secular Baath's decision to license liquor sales in those cities. If they had meant to try to weaken religion by such actions, they failed miserably, and only caused a lot of trouble. I think the US should let municipalities make these decisions on the basis of community standards, which is largely how it is done in America.
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*Seven US troops were wounded in various attacks on Friday, some only lightly. There were 8 attacks in 24 hours west of Baghdad, suggesting new levels of organization. (So much for the dampening effect of executing Uday and Qusay). Also, as soon as the new Polish unit got to Hilla in the south, they came under mortar fire.

(Hilla is a largely Shiite, tribal area, which makes you wounder who was firing mortar rounds at the Poles). Saboteurs also blew up an oil pipeline. All of this is very bad news for hopes of stability. Apparently electricity is still rare in Baghdad (2 hours on, four hours off), and security is not that great. People are still afraid to let their girls walk to the campus of Baghdad University for fear of kidnappers. Although the gas lines are not as long as they used to be, at some times and places they are still a pain in the neck. From all accounts, Basra under the British is better than Baghdad. A prayer leader in Falluja has alleged that a lot of the anti-US attacks are being waged by Salafis or Muslim fundamentalists. (These are largely lay groups who do not have a great deal of respect for the clergy. Indeed, the Sunni clergy have not called for jihad, urging that the Coalition be given time. One serves on the governing council. But Salafis, who take only scripture as their guide, are not waiting for the clerics. Although Salafism is not intrinsically violent, the movement can sometimes take that direction, which is what is alleged to be happening in the Baathist/ Islamist triangle.

*Muqtada al-Sadr called in his Friday sermon at Kufa for American troops who abased Iraqis to be tried in accordance with Islamic law. He referred specifically to what he called the US "attack" on the shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala last weekend. (For Shiites, the shrine of Imam Husayn is among the holiest sites in the world, and they have a lot of emotional investment in it; maybe like Arlington cemetary for patriotic Americans). He also urged all those Iraqis who were cooperating with the Coalition to repent and to join his proposed Mahdi Army, a militia that would serve as an alternative to the new Iraqi army being created by the US. He issued the call to all Iraqis, including Kurds, and he especially addressed the Badr Corps, a Shiite militia associated with his rivals, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The head of the Badr Corps, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, is serving on the Interim Governing Council, and Muqtada is trying to use that cooperation to turn his own troops against him. He also appealed to the Kurdish Peshmerga to join him. He thanked all those nations who refused to recognize the governing council, and who refused to send troops to Iraq.

His audience kept shouting, "No, no to America!" "No, no to the Occupier!" "No, no to tyranny." It is estimated that Muqtada has about 2 million followers, about ten percent of Iraqis.

*US troops have arrested Shaykh `Abd al-Ghani, a Sufi leader in Diyala. No word on why, exactly. Sufis are mystical Muslims, mostly Sunni. They can be quietist, but some have been infected with jihadi ideas. There is a Sufi group in Pakistan which had followers in the US, which joined up with the Taliban. This is rare because the fundamentalists usually despise Sufism and won't cooperate with Sufis. Sort of like Evangelicals refusing to work with Franciscans.


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As usual, I have to republish yesterday's post here if I want it archived.

[ Fri Aug 01, 08:25:52 AM | Juan Cole | edit ]
*Guerillas killed a US soldier with small arms fire and wounded two others at a base northeast of Baghdad near Baquba. A truck carrying ammunition to the airport to be destroyed hit a landmine. Eyewitnesses saw four wounded soldiers being taken away. One later died. A guerrilla fired a rocket propelled grenade at US troops in Baghdad, but missed.

*Paul Bremer says that elections in Iraq next summer are not out of the question if a constitution can be written over the next few months and approved in a referendum. This is a major shift of course, since initially Bremer seemed to envision a long period of US direct rule over Iraq. The continued guerrilla war of Baathist and Islamist Sunni Arabs, and the unrest and infighting among Shiites in the South, seem to have convinced the US of the need for a quick exit. Grand Ayatollah Fadlullah in Lebanon speculated that US actions in Iraq would henceforth be taken for the sake of the 2004 election. This sort of timetable—an elected Iraqi government within a year-- is one for which I’ve been calling for some time.

The only question is whether an Iraqi constitutional convention can draft a constitution in only six months or so. Of course, they have some models, not only past Iraqi constitutions but also those of other countries. I personally think they should avoid as models other Arab constitutions, which seem to me deeply flawed. And, they should think seriously about taking some leaves from the US constitution. It is important that each of the 19 provinces has its own elected legislature and governor, and that two-thirds of the provinces approve any subsequent change in the constitution. A bicameral Federal legislature with a senate would allow Sunni Arabs and Kurds to be slightly over-represented, guarding them from a tyranny of the Shiite majority, whereas a lower house could be based on population. And, they should think seriously about adopting some form of the US first amendment. I know they will probably want to make Islam the religion of the state, so the Establishment clause is unlikely to be in there, but they can still require tolerance for non-Muslims. (The UK has a state religion, Anglicanism, but Catholics, Baptists and Muslims are not necessarily ipso facto mistreated there).

*Sadrists in Najaf are targetting senior clerics again, Shiite clerics in Kuwait alleged to al-Hayat. They said that over the past two days, ruffians associated with Muqtada al-Sadr have threatened the life of Muhammad Husayn al-Hakim. Al-Hakim, the son of Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, has sought security from the US Marines. Sadrists were said to want to scare the ayatollah that his son might well be killed.

Likewise, rough elements from the Sadrists beat up Hujjat al-Islam Safa' al-Muzaffar, an aid to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and forbade him to try to go to Sistani's home. The day before, on Tuesday, they had put Hujjat al-Islam Sayyid Amjad al-`Adhari in the hospital, where he is still recovering from the attack. He is an aid to Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, an associate of Sistani. On Thursday, another Sistani aid, named Falah, was beaten up by armed Sadrists. They are said to have taken over most of the seminaries in Najaf. Armed Sadrist gangs have been bused into the city, some of them former Baathist thugs, alleged Kuwaiti cleric Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Mihri. The Kuwaiti Council of Shiite Clergy demanded that the Coalition provide security to the city of Najaf and its leading clerics.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerillas killed a US soldier with small arms fire and wounded two others at a base northeast of Baghdad near Baquba. A truck carrying ammunition to the airport to be destroyed hit a landmine. Eyewitnesses saw four wounded soldiers being taken away. One later died. A guerrilla fired a rocket propelled grenade at US troops in Baghdad, but missed.

*Paul Bremer says that elections in Iraq next summer are not out of the question if a constitution can be written over the next few months and approved in a referendum. This is a major shift of course, since initially Bremer seemed to envision a long period of US direct rule over Iraq. The continued guerrilla war of Baathist and Islamist Sunni Arabs, and the unrest and infighting among Shiites in the South, seem to have convinced the US of the need for a quick exit. Grand Ayatollah Fadlullah in Lebanon speculated that US actions in Iraq would henceforth be taken for the sake of the 2004 election. This sort of timetable—an elected Iraqi government within a year-- is one for which I’ve been calling for some time.

The only question is whether an Iraqi constitutional convention can draft a constitution in only six months or so. Of course, they have some models, not only past Iraqi constitutions but also those of other countries. I personally think they should avoid as models other Arab constitutions, which seem to me deeply flawed. And, they should think seriously about taking some leaves from the US constitution. It is important that each of the 19 provinces has its own elected legislature and governor, and that two-thirds of the provinces approve any subsequent change in the constitution. A bicameral Federal legislature with a senate would allow Sunni Arabs and Kurds to be slightly over-represented, guarding them from a tyranny of the Shiite majority, whereas a lower house could be based on population. And, they should think seriously about adopting some form of the US first amendment. I know they will probably want to make Islam the religion of the state, so the Establishment clause is unlikely to be in there, but they can still require tolerance for non-Muslims. (The UK has a state religion, Anglicanism, but Catholics, Baptists and Muslims are not necessarily ipso facto mistreated there).

*Sadrists in Najaf are targetting senior clerics again, Shiite clerics in Kuwait alleged to al-Hayat. They said that over the past two days, ruffians associated with Muqtada al-Sadr have threatened the life of Muhammad Husayn al-Hakim. Al-Hakim, the son of Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, has sought security from the US Marines. Sadrists were said to want to scare the ayatollah that his son might well be killed.

Likewise, rough elements from the Sadrists beat up Hujjat al-Islam Safa' al-Muzaffar, an aid to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and forbade him to try to go to Sistani's home. The day before, on Tuesday, they had put Hujjat al-Islam Sayyid Amjad al-`Adhari in the hospital, where he is still recovering from the attack. He is an aid to Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, an associate of Sistani. On Thursday, another Sistani aid, named Falah, was beaten up by armed Sadrists. They are said to have taken over most of the seminaries in Najaf. Armed Sadrist gangs have been bused into the city, some of them former Baathist thugs, alleged Kuwaiti cleric Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Mihri. The Kuwaiti Council of Shiite Clergy demanded that the Coalition provide security to the city of Najaf and its leading clerics.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.