Basra: Massive Drug, Petroleum smuggling; Christians, Musicians Harassed

Because the southern Iraqi city of Basra (1.3 million) is under British military occupation rather than American, it is little covered in the US press (does anybody else think this is odd?) There have been several British and Arab reports about the situation there recently. They indicate that although security has improved, property values are up, and people are again holding weddings and smiling, many serious problems remain. The rise of radical Shiite vigilanteism is among the grave new challenges to the development of Iraqi democracy.

Reuters reports (via ash-Sharq al-Awsat 12/31) that 400 shops owned by Christians, whom Saddam had permitted to sell liquor, have been forced to close since April, as the Shiites have come to power politically (see below). [An informed observer in Basra reports that this number is hugely exaggerated, but that many shops have been closed.] Stores have been firebombed, and some Christian shopkeepers have been shot, it is said by radical Shiite groups with names like "The Revenge of God, Hizbullah, and the Organization of Islamic Rules." Their members appoint themselves vigilantes, patrolling the streets armed in search of criminals and drug dealers, and executing them on the spot. These Shiite militias have supporters on the local councils Christians complain that they have been forced out of the liquor market, but that in many cases Muslim merchants have stepped into the breach, making inroads into what had been a Christian monopoly.

Steven Farrell reports in the London Times (12/30) of Basra: "Many of the theatres and music halls where [musicians] used to play have been shut, or converted for use by the many new Islamic parties that claim to represent Iraq's Shia Muslims, the overwhelming majority in Basra. While ice-cream and electronics stores thrive, the fundamentalists have shut down all alcohol shops, aided by rocket-propelled grenades and the summary killing of liquorsellers. Video and CD stores have been closed or had their wares heavily censored. In one CD shop in central Basra, posters of Britney Spears have been taken down. In their place are speeches of ayatollahs, to appease the self-appointed moral guardians." He says that Shiite Islamist gangs have beaten up musicians returning from weddings, e.g.

The London daily ash-Sharq al-Awsat has run a three-part series on Basra the past few days, by journalist Ahmad Jawdah. In his piece of Dec. 29, he speaks of the problems of drug smuggling and high inflation (BBC trans.):

Mu'taz Salih of Basra's Police Directorate, told Jawdah that open borders with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran allowed drug smuggling. " Traffickers smuggle marijuana from Iran where one kilogram of hashish is worth 600 dollars and then they seek to smuggle and sell it for around 1,700 dollars." He said that in some cases Iraq was just a transit route for trans-border smuggling, a new phenomenon.

Catherine MacIntosh, an aide to the British commander in southern Iraq, told Jawdah that oil smuggling is a particular problem, with about 3,000 tons smuggled out each week to Kuwait and the UAE, causing a "structural imbalance" in the Iraqi economy. Reproached for leaving the borders so open as to allow this smuggling, she replied with some heat, "We have 10,000 soldiers in a 150,000-square-mile area that consists of five governorates - home to nearly five million people . . . in addition to 1,000-kilometre border with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran. We want to achieve security and help the Iraqis to rebuild the state and establish services and security for the people of the south. It is such a vast area of land and it is difficult to control this kind of crime . . . "

Jawdah says that Basra Deputy Governor Abdul Hafiz al-Ani introduced himself as a businessman, and a political independent. He said he was a representative of a local cleric Sayyid Ali al-Safi [Abd al-Hakim] al-Musawi, who in turn represented Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Basra. [The deputy governor of Basra is indirectly a representative of Sistani? Maybe the place is already a theocracy!]
Al-Ani hoped for a constitution and an elected government, but said, "We do not want any more foreign forces in our country. We hope the British forces keep their promises and withdraw next June." He said personal freedoms were "permissible" but not if they were abused and became an obstacle to consumption. He admitted that liquor stores had been firebombed, and said, "We would never allow the sale or consumption of alcohol in Basra."

On Baathists: He said they would not be allowed to participate in public life because they were not trusted. He said they were criminals who should be held accountable for their crimes, as the Koran said. He did allow that those forced to join the party would be treated differently.

on Dec. 27, Jawdah had reported a conversation with a policeman in Basra who was from the smaller town of Samawah, also in the Shiite south. He said, "Unemployment in Basra is not less than 60 per cent and 40 per cent of the people are living under the poverty line. I am from the city of Al-Samawah where conditions are worse and life more difficult. The unemployment rate in Al-Samawah is 70 per cent among men and 95 per cent among women and at least 35 per cent of its population are living under the poverty line."

" . . . the allocation of jobs in Al-Samawah is done on a partisan, tribal and sectarian basis. The council under the total control of Al-Da'wah Party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the "Tha'r Allah" (God's revenge) group of the Badr forces. The Sunnis who represent around 10 per cent of Al-Samawah's population are the ones treated most unfairly. They are subjected to discrimination and this discrimination has even reached the point where one of the Shi'i parties seized a Sunni mosque in Al-Samawah, the Imam Ali Bin-Abu-Talib Mosque, two months ago."

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Ashcroft Appoints Special Prosecutor in Plame Identity-Disclosure Scandal

Attorney-General John Ashcroft recused himself Wednesday in the investigation of the Valerie Plame case, saying he will appoint a special prosecutor. High Bush administration officials broke US law in July of 2003 by revealing to reporter Bob Novak that Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson, was an undercover CIA operative. These Bush appointees did untold damage to US intelligence efforts, since they unmasked and put in danger all the contacts and agents overseas who had been known associates of Ms. Plame, an expert in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The officials outed Plame in order to punish her husband, Wilson, for blowing the whistle on the Bush administration, revealing that he had reported to the US government as early as 2002 that the allegations of Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger were false.

Bush knows who did this dastardly deed, or could easily find it out. He has declined to demand that these persons resign and turn themselves in. This incident shows how vindictive and petty the Bush administration is, and how utterly unconcerned it is with real national security and weapons proliferation.

Ashcroft initially resisted the appointment of a special prosecutor. That he now has given in and recused himself raises a large question. Does he himself now have a strong inkling of who leaked Plame's identity? If the person was close enough to Ashcroft such that the attorney general felt he had to recuse, the person was probably high indeed. (Karl Rove, "Bush's [campaign] Brain", is one suspect.)

The Democratic candidates generally brushed off Ashcroft's gesture, promising that the Plame scandal would be an issue in the forthcoming presidential campaign.

By the way, although Bob Novak broke no law in revealing Plame's identity, it is a shame on CNN that they did not make him resign over the issue. Newscasters have had to resign over ambiguous comments taken as racial slurs. Surely outing an undercover CIA operative is just as serious an offense?

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More Iranians in Karbala than Iraqis?

One finds these little gems in things like theCoalition Provisional Authority Briefing on Dec. 30, already on the Web. (Participating was Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Operations and Daniel Senor, Senior Coalition Provisional Authority Adviser.)

The below passage is rich in what it says about how porous Iraq's borders are and how big the Iranian pilgrimage trade already is. I personally suspect that the Karbala attacks of last Saturday, which killed 19 and wounded dozens, were carried out by Sunni Arab nationalists rather than by Shiites. But it certainly is the case that if the Iraqi Shiites ever did turn against the coalition, they have an extensive source of support and patronage just across the border.

As for population, before the war Karbala was a city of about 300,000, and it is not plausible that has doubled to 600,000, with half being Iranians. But some tens of thousands of Iranian pilgrims (some stay for months) is plausible.

"MR. SENOR: Yes?

Q James Hider from The Times. I was down in Karbala after the bombings, and the place is full of Iranian pilgrims. And the police down there say the Iranians don't have visas, they're all illegal pilgrims. They were saying there's actually probably more Iranians there than Iraqis. I was wondering how you expect to stop attacks of this nature if anybody can just wander across the Iranian border -- in the thousands, in fact.

MR. SENOR: We are working -- I can't speak to the specific numbers of Iranians down in Karbala, but I can speak more broadly. We are committed to building up a modern, effective Iraqi security infrastructure that, when we are finished, will number in the range of about approximately 220,000 Iraqi security personnel, which will include a robust border police and customs personnel team.

In the supplemental funds that the U.S. Congress recently appropriated, for security alone, there is over $3 billion dedicated toward training and equipping and arming this very advanced and modern Iraqi security personnel. And we think this will be -- help a great deal in securing these areas of the country where you cite the sorts of problems that you have referenced.

Q But the borders do appear to be completely open at the moment.

MR. SENOR: Well, I think it's a topographical fact of life that these are very porous borders. Iraq has very porous borders. It's an issue we have to contend with. But like I said, by ramping the Iraqi security personnel, ramping up the numbers, giving them effective training, giving them the tools they need, and certainly, in the short term, working alongside coalition forces, we believe we can address the security problems that are here."

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Firefight with Ansar al-Islam in Mosul kills 3

US troops in Mosul fought with the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group in Mosul on Sunday, killing 3 and capturing several other members, according to US military spokesmen. Ansar al-Islam had operated in the American-policed no-fly zone of northern Iraq, and is alleged to have ties to al-Qaeda. The US destroyed the small base maintained by the group when it took northern Iraq.
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Corruption Concerns Delay Pentagon Reconstruction Projects in Iraq

The Boston Globe reports that the Pentagon has canceled the process of giving out bids to reconstruct Iraq until February 1, out of concern for pervasive corruption. It is being alleged that a small group of mercantile clans is manipulating the bidding process through dummy companies, hiding their continued domination of the economy. The Coalition Provisional Authory of Paul Bremer had been counting on the influx of reconstruction monies to win hearts and minds and begin establishing better security in Iraq. This postponement is another obstacle to the smooth transfer of power on June 30 (see the Laith Kubba interview below).
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Barzani: Kurdish Rights must be in Iraq Basic Law; Kubba: Washington rejects Loose Federalism

The two most prominent Kurdish leaders are making a full court press for an Iraqi Kurdistan to be enshrined in law before the American civil administration decamps on July 1. Jalal Talabani, head of the Kurdistan Patriotic Union claimed during a meeting with the British special representative in Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock "the right of the Kurdish people to have a region that encompasses all their areas in the framework of a democratic, parliamentary and federal Iraq." (al-Hayat). There have been recent moves toward a united government in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, has called for a revision of the November 15, 2003, accord between the Interim Governing Council and the United States, saying, "The November 15 accord must be revised and 'Kurdish rights' within an Iraqi federation must be mentioned."

Meanwhile, in the London daily ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Ma`d Fayyad interviews Laith Kubba, head of the Iraqi National Grouping in Washington DC. (Kubba, a Shiite, worked for much of the past decade with the Khoei Foundation in London). Kubba maintained that National Security Advisor Condi Rice is working hard to ensure a transition to a sovereign Iraqi government on June 30. Kubba said while on a trip to London that the first obstacle to this transition is that Washington is reluctant to grant the Kurds the kind of loose federal system they desire, with a large super-province of an ethnic sort. (This statement implies that Washington wants to retain the existing provincial boundaries and to have a strong central government over them.) Kubba said that Barzani's strategy is to insist that guarantees be given now for loose federalism with a consolidated Kurdish canton, so that the issue is settled before the constitution is written in 2005 and so as to ensure that it is not revisited or revoked. He also said that the members of the Interim Governing Council are still lobbying to have their body retained as a kind of senate even after the new transitional legislature is elected, and that Washington is studying the idea.

Barzani recently penned a call for what looks to me like a Switzerland-style loose federalism in Iraq, on virtually a canton basis, with a consolidated Kurdistan forming one of the "cantons." This step would involve abolishing three or four existing Iraqi provinces and merging them into a single Kurdistan. The article appeared in Ta'akhi on 21 December. I excerpt below what I think are the key paragraphs.

Barzani said, "The Kurdish issue is not an issue of citizenship to be settled in a democratic atmosphere by representatives of a side or on its behalf. The issue of the Kurds is a political and national issue. After the World War I, their homeland, Kurdistan, was divided against their will between some states. The part which is now called "Iraqi Kurdistan" was, consequently, attached to Iraq. Since then, the successive governments in Baghdad tried to annihilate the Kurds, using the most horrific and savage means . . .
after obtaining reassurances that they [US] would not abandon us in the middle of the road, as had happened in the past, the Kurdistan Democratic Party participated, confidently, in the liberation of Iraq. We offered victims and shed blood to achieve the objective. I would say proudly that the governorates of Mosul and Kirkuk were liberated mainly by the peshmargas [militias] of Kurdistan.

There was a clear and frank agreement on the major outlines regarding the future of Iraq. Therefore, any side, which aims at uniting Iraq, should abide by these outlines of principles, and should safeguard the particular nature of the Kurdistan Region, as territory, a nation, and a people . . . The existing [self-rule] situation of the Kurds is their legitimate rights and it is based on the right to self-determination, which is part of the international law. After 12 years of self-rule, without the control of the Baghdad government, the Kurds will not accept less than their existing situation . . .

Those who are interested in the issue of a united Iraq, should know very well that it would be difficult for them to convince the Kurdish people after all these tragedies, ordeals and displacement policies to remain deprived from their rights in Iraq. This makes it essential that the brother Arabs respect the Kurdish decision and would not be hesitant regarding [the fulfilment of] any right of the Kurdish rights in Iraq. By this I mean that there are now some Iraqi and foreign sides that, to some extent, point to the federalism of governorates [provinces], which is rejected by the Kurds, because the Kurdish people have not been struggling throughout history for separating the Kurdish governorates from each other . . .

The federalism which the Kurdish people demand, and which the Kurdistan parliament endorsed [in 1992], is a political federalism in its geographic and national meanings, where the Kurds would have the right to run their affairs, practise their authority and assume their responsibilities, and guarantee all the rights of the Turkoman and Chaldo-Assyrian brothers, as well as religious freedom . . . If the Kurds claim these areas, particularly Kirkuk, it is not because it is an oil-rich city as some sides claim, but because these towns and townships are an important part of Kurdish history . . . To sum up, we are extremely attached to preserving the Kurdish-Arab brotherhood and would be satisfied to keep the common values between them as a principle objective. The future situation of Iraq necessitates the participation of Kurds and Arabs in it in the form of a voluntary coexistence between them . . ."

I see big problems ahead. Washington, according to Kubba, will tell the Kurds "no." There have already been riots in Kirkuk by Arabs and Turkmen against the Barzani proposal, and more ethnic violence could follow. The Turkish government has likewise weighed in against the plan (probably one reason that Washington also opposes it). The Shiite al-Da`wa Party stands for a strong central government.

The question is whether the Kurds will take "no" for an answer. Barzani's reference to the role of the Peshmerga or Kurdish militias in liberating northern Iraq can also be read as a veiled threat to the IGC. The Kurdish areas have been relatively quiet militarily. If Washington quashes the hopes for a new sort of Iraqi Kurdistan, they may get more dangerous quickly.

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al-Rubaie: No Sunni-Shiite Conflict; need for National Reconciliation

In Nasiriyah, Interim Governing Council member Muwaffaq al-Rubaie affirmed that there are no disputes between Shiites and Sunnis. He said that these two branches of Islam had suffered intellectual and political persecution during the former regime, and they are both now standing in a single row, serving Islamic and humane principles and Iraq itself. He added, "We dwell under the tent of Islam, whereby is made concrete cooperation and solidarity among the children of the people and all its religions and political currents, so that we can make it through the current phase that Iraq is experiencing." He said that there must be rapid movement toward a formula for a basic law, which would safeguard the democratic principle guaranteeing to Iraqis the right to vote, clarifying that all Iraqi citizens have the opportunity to serve their country, and pointing out that the IGC is now studying how to draft a formula and instruments whereby for a special decree on national reconciliation that would establish tolerance for all those who had been led astray, whether civilians or military, and giving all the opportunity to return to the national ranks. (al-Hayat).

This passage suggests a kind of pan-Islamic unity against the ghost of Saddam, as well as an appeal to Sunni Arabs with a Baath background. He seems to say that many of them will be allowed to reenter civil society without suffering from the taint of past membership in the party. He thus was seeking to mollify two major groups of Sunni Arabs, the fundamentalists who felt persecuted by the Baath, and the lower ranks of the former Baathist, who were mainly secular Sunnis.

Al-Rubaie shows himself in this passage willing to draw the line in debaathification rather higher than someone like Ahmad Chalabi, who seems to want all former party members ostracized.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle recently published a smart article on the Iraqi Hizbullah and questions about the future of this formerly violent militia of the Marsh Arabs, which had allied with hard liners in Iran. Its current leader claims to side instead with the secularists in Iran!

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2 US troops killed, 8 Wounded; Interpreter Killed, 8 Iraqi troops wounded

Michelle Faul of AP reports that guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb at the Karada shopping district in Baghdad, killing one US soldier; wounding 5 other US troops; killing two Iraqi children; and wounding an Iraqi interpreter and 8 members of the Iraqi civil defense corps. US Army Sgt. Patrick Compton said, "It was a bad one. It's a real densely populated area of town."

In Fallujah, guerrillas set off another roadside bomb, killing one US soldier and wounding three others as their convoy passed by.

212 US troops have been killed in action since May 1.

Another Bulgarian soldier died Sunday of wounds received in the bombings on Saturday that killed 4 of his compatriots. (al-Hayat).
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Alawi: Saddam will be Tried in Secret; Withdrawal Timeline for US Troops to be Negotiated

Saddam's trial is unlikely to be public, according to Iyad Alawi, member of the Interim Governing Council and head of the Iraqi National Accord (mainly ex-Baathist officers who cooperated in 1990s CIA plots against Saddam). Alawi made the remarks in an interview with the London-based al-Hayat newspaper. He said there would probably be no public trial because "it is possible that he will mention names of states or persons to whom he gave money . . ." Asked if Saddam had admitted to smuggling money abroad, Alawi replied, "He has begun to admit it. He has confessed to important things." [Saddam is thought to have squirreled $30 bn. or more away in secret accounts overseas.]

Alawi said of the trial of Saddam, "Naturally, it will be an Iraqi trial, before Iraqi judges. You published in al-Hayat that even 3 weeks before his capture, I had completed gathering evidence and confessions from Iraqi intelligence officers, and had forwarded that information to the judge in charge of the official inquiry in Iraq . . ." [including cases against persons who tried to kill Alawi himself] . . . "Now there is a file for his trial in Iraq for the crimes that he committed against the Iraqi people, in an Iraqi court, with Iraqi judges. If other countries have cases against him, they can lodge charges after the Iraqi trial has finished. But I expect the judgment to be clear, in the framework of the Iraqi criminal statutes, that is, he will be executed."

On the possibility of a public trial for Saddam: "I don't think so. That subject has not been discussed so far. I don't believe so. It will be like any other trial for any other criminal, except that Saddam's crimes have been bewildering, horrifying, and extensive. There is another thing, the possibility that he will mention the names of states and the names of persons to whom he has given bribes and wealth. We don't want him to mention all that on television. There are lots of existing documents, and we don't want to worsen Iraq's relations with others. And we don't want such matters to be interpreted in irrational or subjective ways." He said that since other countries, such as Kuwait or Lebanon, might file charges against Saddam, the issues were complex. But the important thing, he said, was that Saddam would be tried in Iraqi courts with full legitimacy and legality.

Alawi, who also serves as coordinator of the Supreme Security Committee on the Interim Governing Council (which oversees Iraqi security and intelligence apparatuses), also spoke of the results of his visit to Washington, DC, three weeks ago. "I want to announce via al-Hayat that important negotiations will be conducted over the next three months to nail down the position of the American forces and the forces of the Coalition, and to specify a timeline for their withdrawal."

During his present visit to Lebanon, Alawi told Lebanese journalists that he opposes the call by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for general elections, saying "elections right now are impossible." On the role of civil administrator Paul Bremer after the return of sovereignty to Iraq on July 1: "He will go home." He said that the bombings in Iraq are "terrorism, not a resistance." He denied that he had to get permission from the Americans to meet with the Syrians. "We go to Syria by virtue of a historic relationship with it, and do not speak in the name of America." He said that the situation with regard to the Syrian border with Iraq has improved continuously [i.e. that there are fewer guerrillas sneaking into Iraq by that route].

I found Alawi's remarks chilling. The case against Saddam appears likely to proceed as a closed Star Chamber. Alawi, among those in charge of crafting the case, is a plaintiff himself and seemed to imply that he might be involved in a personal injury suit against the former regime! And, Alawi seems to be trying to hold the information that might come out in the trial over the heads of the Jordanian and other regional governments, as a kind of blackmail. Well, at least Rummy won't have to worry about Saddam going on and on about their close friendship back in the day, on Arab satellite television. Ooops. That's probably one reason the Bush administration announced with such alacrity that Saddam would be tried in Iraq.

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MI6 Manipulated British Media

Former National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski called on Sunday (CNN) for an investigation into how the US was manipulated into the Iraq war. Speaking of the forged Niger documents alleging Iraq uranium purchases, he said that the problem was not only that the US lacked good human intelligence, but that it had been actively manipulated by persons providing to it false intelligence.

The Iraqi political exiles like Ahmad Chalabi and Iyad Alawi are one source of faulty intelligence on Iraqi capabilities. The Likud in Israel is another.

But clearly, rogue elements in British intelligence played a key part, as well. Operation Rockingham within British military intelligence was revealed last summer. Similar to Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans, it cherry-picked intelligence on Iraq to exaggerate the weapons-of-mass destruction and terrorism threats that the Baath regime posed to the West. Now it transpires that not only were there analysts in MI6 who were skewing intelligence, but they waged a campaign of plants in the press to influence British public opinion in favor of going to war against Iraq, from the late 1990s.

It was always odd that public opinion polls on the war in the US and the UK looked so radically different from those in all other industrial democracies. If MI6 was planting stories in the British press, then it was planting stories in the American press as well, if only because the one has close connections to the other. If they actually planted stories in the US press (not something being alleged), they surely broke some sort of US law?

I have to say that I just don't know enough about the British military and intelligence establishment to form a context for Operation Rockingham and for the press manipulation. Are these left-over Thatcherites yearning to reverse the decline of the UK as an imperial power? What exactly do they want, and what do they have to gain?

What does seem clear is that because of the Special Relationship, we in the US have been the victims of this press manipulation, too.
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(More) Hurdles for Iraqi Democracy

The Neocon idea that a post-war, US-dominated Iraq would become a beacon of democracy faces more and more hurdles. The increasingly strident and increasingly controversial Kurdish demand for a consolidated Kurdish super-province with relative autonomy from Baghdad could well derail the new Iraq. The demand is not acceptable to Turkmen and Arabs in the north, who are numerous enough to make trouble about it. The Kurds themselves have armed paramilitaries.

Then, it seems likely that the Bush administration is now going to try to dump civil administration of the country in the laps of a few pro-American strongmen. Iyad Alawi, quoted above, appears to be one of them. It worries me that he is always talking about the need for a new Iraqi secret police (mukhabarat). Alawi is the leader of a group of ex-Baathists sponsored by the CIA.

Then, in the Informed Comment quote of the day, Interim Governing Council member Muwaffaq al-Rubaie criticized the "American" way of doing things.
In the Los Angeles Times: On the desirability of the Interim Governing Council members serving in the new transitional government to be elected May 31, Rubaie said: "They should play a pivotal role in the next leadership. They have expertise and experience. You need continuity. We can't have this idiotic American system of dumping everyone from their positions when a new president wins election."
Well, so much for the prospects for democracy in Iraq. Al-Rubaie doesn't even understand the principle of peaceful change of personnel from one administration to the next. And he is by no means the least democratically minded member of the IGC!

Someone should tell Muwaffaq that in the US, politicians often lose their jobs even within a single administration, as now seems likely to happen to the Neoconservatives in the Bush administration, according to Blogger Billmon.

And, the IGC already has substantial problems with graft. The wireless telecom contracts it gave out are under investigation for graft by the Pentagon. Agence France Presse reports that interim trade minister Ali Allawi says as much as $30 mn. may have been embezzled from payments on a contract for wooden doors.


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Shiite Issues in the News

Thousands of Shiites gathered in Najaf to mourn the 1999 assassination of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and other Shiite figures martyred by Saddam. The ayatollah's followers tend to be puritanical and anti-American, but this gathering appears to have been peaceful and relatively devoid of politics. The ayatollah's son, Muqtada al-Sadr, 30, preached on the event on Saturday but did not attend on Sunday because of security concerns. (Sadiq al-Sadr was actually killed in February, but the commemoration appears to be according to the Muslim lunar calendar, which slips back 11 days each year on the solar calendar).

Borzou Daragahi explores the possibility that the capture of Saddam Hussein laid the groundwork for better diplomatic relations betwen Iran and Iraq. (TIA: I'm quoted).

The op-ed by my wife Shahin Cole and myself that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday Dec. 28, entitled "Shiites are Emerging from Fear," is available with registration at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/?track=mainnav-sundayopinion

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Ken MacLeod's Blog and Iraq

As many of you know, I'm an old time science fiction fan, having grown up on Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Delaney, Moorcock and the other greats. (I don't care about divisions between the old Campbell stable and the New Wave of the late 1960s; I read it all). I subscribe to Locus and Science Fiction Chronicle and continue to read in the field, though I can't read as much for pleasure as I would like, and I do also try to read other sorts of novels. One of the great delights for me is when a new author comes along who does innovative things with the genre. It is rarer than one might hope. A lot of science fiction writers just use the scientific element as a McGuffin, to make the plot go forward. I call this the "Michael Crichton syndrome." I can no longer make it all the way through most such books. But then there are imaginative writers like William Gibson, who have brought so much new energy and ideas to the field.

Another writer whom I've been reading is Ken MacLeod of Scotland, who injects debates and ideas rooted in the European Left into his work. It is sort of like Eric Hobsbawm meets Arthur C. Clarke, with the best of both. It is not a completely novel phenomenon. After all, H.G. Wells was a socialist. But MacLeod's galaxy of social ideas plays out in fascinating ways as space opera. The Stone Canal, e.g., pits leftist ideas against Libertarian ones, with characters finding themselves imprisoned in robot bodies as a new sort of slave.

As one might expect, MacLeod is very interested in current affairs and the Iraq situation, and has started blogging on British politics in this regard. Imagine my surprise to find his site driving traffic to mine! He has kindly put a link in to Informed Comment. That was my second best Christmas present this year!

For US readers, MacLeod's books can be ordered from Amazon.com. I recommend them warmly.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

10 US soldiers Wounded, 6 other Coalition Troops Killed, 36 wounded;
Governor of Karbala Hospitalized with 80 other wounded Civilians

Guerillas launched four massive car bombings on Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. Although Western news reports said that Karbala has been relatively quiet, in fact Coalition troops had on numerous occasionas come under fire there, as reported in the Arabic press, but had suffered few casualties until now. The guerrillas killed 4 Bulgarians and two Thai troops. Another 19 Bulgarian troops were wounded, 4 seriously. Altogether, some 36 other Coalition troops were wounded in the attacks, including 5 Americans. Another 12 Iraqis were killed, many of them police, and over 80 (some reports gave over 120) wounded. The wounded included the US-appointed governor of Karbala province, Akram al-Yasiri, and five members of the provincial council. (-al-Hayat) The attacks were likely launched by Sunni Arab nationalists from outside the Shiite city. That they could coordinate such a powerful set of attacks in a southern city suggests that they are still stronger and more organized than the US realized.

In Baghdad on Saturday, 5 US troops were wounded in the Rasafa quarter when guerrillas blew up roadside bombs as their convoys passed. In Mosul, US troops came under fire and fought back, destroying a car and killing its 4 passengers. The US said the passengers had been among the attackers. Near Kirkuk two Iraqi guerrillas accidentally blew themselves up while preparing a roadside bomb for use at the oil town of Beiji.

On Friday, two US troops died in bombings, one in Baquba and the other in Balad just north of Baghdad.
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Bam Earthquake Kills 20,000

The enormity of 20,000 persons being suddenly wiped out by an earthquake is just hard for me to fathom. There is an old custom in the Middle East and South Asia of seeing such incidents as a sign of God's displeasure. That way of thinking strikes me as sick (even though Gandhi, Abdul Baha and other very moral men adopted it).

In fact, the earthquake was caused by the Indian subcontinent, which detached itself from Africa millions of years ago, careened into Asia and threw up the Himalayas (relatively young mountains), and is still pressing up against Eurasia. Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India are seismically active because of this major set of faults.

It had nothing to do with God's moral judgment on Bamians. Indeed, this sort of incident seems to me to prove that the universe has not been set up for human beings particularly. If they get in the way of the laws of nature, and they do nothing to protect themselves, they get crushed. The earthquake killed so many people because provincial Iranian towns are built of adobe and lack any sort of eathquake proofing. When earthquakes hit during the day, they aren't so bad. But this one hit at 5 am, collapsing buildings onto sleeping families.

The Iranian regime is already unpopular, and a disaster of this magnitude could become political. The government will be judged by how quickly and how well it does relief work for the survivors (the desert is cold at night). It may also be blamed for not having pushed earthquake-proofing of buildings.

Another disaster is that the quake destroyed the famous citadel of Bam, the more prominent features of which were built by Nadir Shah in the 18th century, and which was a big tourist attraction and potential future source of wealth. It probably can't be rebuilt, and any way UNESCO discourages that sort of phony restoration for touristic purposes.

The US and Iran have had bad political relations for decades now, and there is much demonizing of Iranians in America. This moment is auspicious for Americans to show generosity to the Iranian people. The survivors need our help, even if we can only give a little each. For things like this I personally give to the Red Cross/ Red Crescent.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bremer to Blair: No Weapons Labs

The cover story of the Bush administration about the reasons for the Iraq war has become so full of holes that it is even confusing major officials and allies now. The Bushies started out saying that the war was about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. When it turned out that Iraq had virtually no such weapons, and hardly any programs, they started muttering darkly about Saddam's mass graves and killing fields (even though past Republican administrations were in various ways complicit in all that).

In his Christmas message to the UK troops, PM Tony Blair said that the Iraq Survey Group had found "massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories."

On ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby program, Bremer was asked about the quote but not told the source. Bremer replied, "I don't know where those words come from but that is not what (ISG chief) David Kay has said. I have read his reports so I don't know who said that. It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me. It sounds like someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring then knocks it down."

Bremer later found out the statement he contradicted was Blair's, and he backtracked, saying "There is actually a lot of evidence that had been made public . . . clear evidence of biological and chemical programs." He added "Weapons of mass destruction or no weapons of mass destruction, it's important to step back a little bit here, to see what we have done historically."

It seems clear that Bremer knew no 'huge system of clandestine laboratories' had still been active in 2002, and he smelled a trap. If someone was saying such a thing, which was clearly false, then probably it was an enemy of the Bush administration trying to set up a trap that would be sprung later. He hadn't counted on Tony's earnest hyperbole (though the incident makes it clear that Tony is now doing Bush more harm than good by sticking with the cover story long after US officials had ceased trying to defend it.) When Bremer realized that he had been tricked by Fleet Street into calling Tony Blair a liar, he quickly backed down and tried to give the PM some cover. Well, there used to be laboratories back in the 1980s (we should know, we authorized US companies to supply them) . . .

What in the world Bremer meant by "Weapons of mass destruction or no weapons of mass destruction, it's important to step back a little bit here, to see what we have done historically." is obscure to me. But presumably it is yet another, somewhat maladroit attempt to liken intervention in Iraq to World War II.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Hakim Calls for UN Involvement

In a news conference in Baghdad, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, temporary president of the Interim Governing Council, said that when in Europe he had lobbied heads of state for more United Nations involvement in the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government this summer. He said he pressed this request on France, the UK and Russia, all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. He asked them "to move in order to ensure an important and fundamental role for the United Nations in Iraq." He said all the members of the IGC agree on the desirability of this step.

Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Sharaa advised the Iraqis "not to draft a constitution under occupation," because it would be "a time bomb." He warned of "the dangers of the partition of Iraq," saying that for the country to break up "would not be beneficial to the countries of the region, especially the neighbors."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight

Although Baghdad was shaken by a series of six rocket attacks on Thursday, the guerrillas managed to do very little damage. They targeted the HQ of the Coalition Provisional Authority, two major hotels favored by Western journalist, and the German, Iranian and Turkish embassies. Although the explosions appear to have caused no casualties, one can only imagine that a coordinated set of attacks like this must have produced a psychological effect in the capital. I can't imagine why they targeted the German embassy, either, though I suppose it was a warning that Germany should not help the new transitional government to be established this summer rebuild Iraq. The only group that would want to send such a message, it seems to me, is Baathists.

The guerrillas still can blow up passing vehicles. A US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Wednesday.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunni Religious Groups form Council

The NYT is reporting that Sunni Arab religious groupings met on Thursday and are seeking to establish a Sunni Arab leadership that could match that of the Kurds and the Shiites. The Sunni religious groups involved included Sufis, Salafis, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

I'm not sure such a grouping has much in the way of staying power. Salafis are fundamentalists (sometimes inaccurately refered to as "Wahhabis" by the Western press and by Iraqi Shiites) who despise mystical Sufism (which is about saints and shrines and visions). The Muslim Brotherhood has never been good about sharing power, and in Iraq is tiny. And, many Sunni Arabs are nationalists and not particularly religious. If they are religious, they are not necessarily Salafis, Sufis or Muslim Brotherhood. This group seems to me therefore to represent only a narrow sliver of the Sunni Arabs and to be unlikely to avoid squabbling among themselves very long.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sistani Stands Ground on Demand for General Elections

AFP reports that six members of the Interim Governing Council met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf on Thursday to discuss his demand that general elections be held this spring. The IGC agreed with US civil administrator Paul Bremer on November 15 that caucus-type elections, by hand- picked pro-American local councils, would be held by the end of May. Sistani objected that such an election would not adequately reflect the will of the Iraqi people, and insists on one-person, one-vote general elections. He also wanted an up-front guarantee that the Iraqi legislature would not pass laws at variance with Islam. The IGC has ever since been negotiating with him in an attempt to find a compromise. AFP said, ' "Despite obstacles that have been raised, he would only renounce elections if a UN technical team reaches the conclusion that it is impossible to hold them and proposes another solution that would guarantee a better representation of the Iraqi people," Sistani's spokesman said. ' Sistani therefore stood his ground about the need for general elections.

Sistani's refusal to budge poses a severe problem for the US, which wants now to move quickly to an "Afghanistan" model, hold an American-invented Iraqi "Loya Jirga" or council of hand-picked notables, "elect" a transitional government, and turn over sovereignty to it, as they did to Karzai in Afghanistan. This plan appears to derive from despair that the US will actually be able to administer Iraq for very much longer, given Iraqi sullenness about the occupation, and from a desire of the Bush administration to bring home the reporters, if not the troops, well before the November 2004 elections. Karl Rove probably figures that the US press simply won't cover Iraq as intensively if the US isn't running it, just as they don't cover Afghanistan any more now that Karzai is in charge (even though the US has 10,000 troops in harm's way in Afghanistan). US journalism is dedicated to the principle that the American public doesn't want to read about anything that is in the least bit distant, foreign, or hard to understand. The existence of the Coalition Provisional Authority creates the illusion that Iraq is part of the US beat for journalists; renaming it "the US embassy in Iraq," Bush hopes, will dissolve that illusion. Sistani is therefore standing in the way of a smooth political progression that has enormous import for the next US election.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Some Mujahidin-i Khalq Terrorists to be Tried in Iraq

The Mujahidin-i Khalq terrorist organization, which has committed mass murder in Iran, was given refuge in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, who used the group's guerrillas to harass Iran. Iraqis claim that at key points the MKO helped Saddam stay in power by military action. The Coalition Provisional Authority has decided to deport MKO members for Iraq to "three countries," but will not say to which. But AFP reports that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and December's president of the Interim Governing Council has said that some MKO members guilty of terrorism will be tried in Iraq. Al-Hakim was given refuge in Tehran from Saddam in the early 1980s and was close to the hard line ayatollahs in Tehran, who view the Mujahidin-i Khalq rather as the US views al-Qaeda. Al-Hakim also reiterated that the new Iraqi government would not deal with Israel (an Arab League stance). Although the State Department has long listed the MKO on its list of terrorist organizations, the guerrilla group has been very successful in lobbying the US congress and has been supported by powerful Neoconservatives in the Defense Department (raising questions as to whether the MKO has an Israeli connection).

One of the more prominent supporters of this terrorist organization allied to Saddam Hussein is Daniel Pipes, head of the so-called "Middle East Forum" (it isn't a forum, it is just a way for his sugar daddies to fund Pipes); and he is also a supporter of the extremist Israeli settler movement on the West Bank and in Gaza. In one of a long series of lapses of judgment, President Bush appointed this supporter of Middle East terrorist organizations to the US Institute for Peace! Pipes also heads the so-called "Campus Watch," which engages in sleazy McCarthyite tactics, apparently as a cover for Pipes's own warm embrace of terrorist organizations like the MKO and the Israeli settler extremists.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

The Future of the Iraqi Military

The International Crisis Group has issued a report on the situation of the Iraqi military, and made some important recommendations to the US.

"RECOMMENDATIONS
To the United States Government and the Coalition Authorities:

1. Take immediate steps to increase the attractiveness of service with the New Iraqi Army (NIA), such as by increasing pay and instituting social benefits, including pensions and health insurance, for soldiers and officers, and extending these benefits to their families.

2. Authorise the creation of a defence ministry in the interim Iraqi cabinet charged in particular with overseeing the demobilisation and reintegration of military personnel and the establishment of the new armed forces.

3. Limit reliance on intermediary institutions such as political parties, provincial governors or tribal notables for the recruitment of soldiers and turn instead to a transparent method of direct enlistment of individual volunteers.

4. Establish professional review boards to evaluate applications by officers of the former Iraqi Army for positions in the NIA, including those with senior rank, and to weed out and ban officers who committed crimes during their service in the old army.

5. Curtail the use of private security firms by limiting as much as possible the sub-contracting of security responsibilities, in particular by phasing out the use of contractors for training the NIA, turning instead to military forces of Coalition members and, if possible, NATO.

6. Reverse any decision to incorporate Iraqi militias in the security structure and work instead on a plan for the eventual demobilisation and reintegration of militia members as part of the return of full sovereignty to Iraq.

7. Do not reduce training cycles for members of the NIA."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim: Compensate Iran

' Jordanian Press Highlights 25, 26 Dec 03
Jordan -- FBIS Report in Arabic 26 Dec 03
FBIS REPORT
Friday, December 26, 2003

Amman Al-Ra'y in Arabic on 25 Dec carries a 400-word article on page 18 and 11 by Dr Bassam al-Umush criticizing Iraq's Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim's statements that Iraq should compensate Iran for its losses. Article says: "This statement by Al-Hakim is not acceptable, particularly that he spoke about Iran that gave him refuge in the past for sectarian considerations." '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Merry Christmas: Some Iraq Christianity Links

In honor of Christmas, I include some links about Iraq’s Christians.

For the history of Iraqi Christianity click here. Iraqis believe Christianity was brought to what is now Iraq, an Aramaic-speaking area, around 35 AD by Thomas the doubting apostle (some say Peter also preached in Mesopotamia). The religions of Iraqis at that time included Babylonian-style polytheism and star worship (including astrology), Zoroastrianism from Iran, Greek Gnosticism and Judaism. In the theological disputes that developed from the 400s, most Iraqi Christians are believed by historians to have favored the Nestorian branch of Christianity, founded by Nestorius (d. 451). By the time of the Muslim Arab conquest of Iraq in the 600s AD, what is now Iraq had a significant Christian population. Over time most Iraqis gradually converted to Islam and adopted Arabic, and contrary to popular Western belief, the conversion was for the most part peaceful. From the 1400s some Iraqi Nestorians accepted overtures from Rome and acknowledged the pope, becoming Catholics. They were allowed to keep their Aramaic liturgy. These Catholic “Uniate” Iraqis became known as Chaldeans, and had their own patriarch. Over time they became the majority (now 80%). Those who remained outside Catholicism may not be exactly identified as Nestorians any more by this period, but had historical roots in that branch of Christianity, and were called Assyrians. In recent decades there has been a push to unify the Chaldeans and the Assyrians. Iraqi Christians probably amount to between 500,000 and 800,000 individuals, about 2 or 3 percent of Iraqis.

Iraqi Bishop Praises Coalition

Iraqi Christians not in Festive Mood


New Chaldean Patriarch Calls Iraqis to Unity

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Sunnis Gunned Down at Mosque: Specter of Sectarian Warfare Raised

Al-Hayat: “Not even a week has passed since the Shiite and Sunni clerics issued a call for self-control and refraining from targeting mosques. But unknown assailants opened fire on Wednesday on worshippers issuing from a Sunni mosque, killing four of them. The ‘Board of (Sunni) Muslim Clerics’ [led by Shaikh Abd al-Salam al-Kubaisi] asked the highest Shiite clerics to condemn the incident, and considered it to be ‘in the context of instigating sectarian warfare.’”

Al-Kubaisi said, “Four persons, including a child, were killed by gunfire as they were leaving the mosque after they had performed the dawn prayers on Tuesday.” The gunfire issued from a passing car.

The mosque lies in the al-Washash quarter in the center of Baghdad, which has a Shiite majority. The Board of Muslim Clerics suggested that “a foreign power” was encouraging sectarian warfare, a reference to Iran. They added, “The Sunnis in Iraq know the dangers and will never be drawn into one.”

Sunnis mounted an enormous funeral procession Wednesday morning through the streets of Baghdad for the victims.

On Friday, Dec. 19, Sunni and Shiite mosque clerics had requested their congregations to show self-restraint, in the wake of attacks on Sunni and Shiite mosques that broke out in some quarters of Baghdad after the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein. [These mosque attacks in Baghdad last week were not reported by the Western press, with the possible exception of a clash at Azamiyah.] -

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Two Students Injured in Ethnic Protests in Kirkuk

al-Hayat, Tass: Student leaders in Kirkuk said that two Arab students were wounded Wednesday in confrontations with police, who were attempting to forbid a demonstration by Arabs and Turkmen. The confrontations broke out when hundreds of Arab and Turkmen students attempted to march from the courtyard of a mosque to demonstrate in front of the provincial state house. They encountered Kurdish students, who had mounted a counter-demonstration. Nevertheless, about 500 Arabs and Turkmen managed to get through and to demonstrate in front of the state house, waving Iraqi flags. The Arab and Turkmen students called upon the US forces to replace the Kurdish dean of the School of Technology, Hamid Majid, “since we consider that he encouraged a demonstration by Kurdish students on Tuesday.”

Kirkuk has been tense since Tuesday, when thousands of Kurds demonstrated in favor of joining oil-rich Kirkuk to a consolidated greater Kurdish province. The Kurds had put forward a plan for a loose Iraqi federalism such that Baghdad would be forced to deal with a single Kurdish super-province. They seek to join to this Kurdistan all regions with a Kurdish majority, such as Kirkuk.

Dmitri Zelin had reported for Tass on Dec. 23, via the Beirut daily an-Nahar, that Arab and Turkmen political parties in Kirkuk had complained about the Kurdish plan already on Tuesday.. Sami Dunmaz, leader of the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Turkmens and vice chairman of the Turkmen Front of Iraq, protested what he viewed as provocative demonstrations by Kurds in favor of Kirkuk joining the proposed greater Kurdistan province. He said the plan was an “attempt to disrupt the unity of the Iraqi motherland," and compared it to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, "when he turned the neighboring Kuwait into an Iraqi province." [!] The al-Tajammu` al-`Arabi or Arab Parties Coalition of Kirkuk, supported the Turkmen protest. Its head, Abdel Hussein al-Abudi, said the plan was “a bomb, which will destroy civil peace in Iraq.” In response to the tension, additional US troops were moved to Kirkuk, and local police and Kurdish paramilitary units were attempting to keep peace.

The Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, issued his own denunciation of the Kurdish consolidation plan. Turkish officials in the past have threatened war if an overly autonomous Kurdish state emerges in Iraq.

For an informed Shiite Iraqi scholar's view of the options before the Iraqi Kurds, see Abbas Kadhim, "An Opportunity they Cannot Afford to Miss".

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3 US Troops Killed, One Wounded; Judge, Police Killed in North

Reuters reports Guerrillas near Samarra detonated a powerful roadside bomb at a passing US military vehicle, destroying it and killing the three US troops within. In the city of Irbil, in the Kurdish north, a car bomb was detonated by its driver at the entrance to the Interior Ministry building, killing 2 policemen and a 13 year old girl and wounding 100; the driver was also killed. The bombings came in the wake of a major US military action in Baghdad itself, the explosions of which were heard throughout the city on Tuesday.

Luke Harding of the Guardian reports that guerrillas in Mosul fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of 4 Humvees that were guarding currency as it was being taken to a bank. They wounded one US soldier.

Also in Mosul, gunmen in a car shot Judge Yusuf Khurshid [thus az-Zaman; most reports gave the name as "Khosh"] six times in the back. He was investigating Baathist crimes. Another judge engaged in a similar investigation was shot about a month ago. Az-Zaman says he was a Kurd. (Some newswires said he was Turkmen, but both forms of his name as given are more likely to be Kurdish.) Kurds were among the main victims of Baath brutality. Another report, noted in az-Zaman, said that 611 Iraqi policemen have been assassinated since May 1.

The military campaign against the guerrillas continued apace on Monday, with a round-up of guerrillas in Baquba, including a number of Sunni Arab fundamentalists who appear to have made common cause with Baath remnants.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Riots between Kurds and Turkmen and Arabs in Kirkuk

The 5 Kurdish members of the Interim Governing Council have called for Mosul and Diyala province to be part of their greater Kurdistan region, which would have a loose Federal relationship to Baghdad. In Kirkuk, there was much flying of the Kurdish flag, on Monday, which provoked the ire of Sunni Arab and Turkmen students in the city and led to rioting with Kurds. In an unrelated Kirkuk story, US troops arrested some 36 Iraqis suspected of supporting the guerrilla actions against them, including 20 Sunni fundamentalists. (az-Zaman).

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bomb Found in Home of al-Hakim

On Monday, a bomb was found in the home of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite cleric who is December's president of the Interim Governing Council, according to AFP.. He is also the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. For many years he headed the paramilitary of SCIRI, the Badr Corps, which was targeted with a bomb late last week. A relative of his, Muhannad al-Hakim, was assassinated in Baghdad recently. His brother, previous leader of SCIRI, was killed in a huge car bomb explosion on August 29.

Az-Zaman/ AFP also reported that Najaf police discovered a small artillery piece aimed toward the HQ of SCIRI, which constitute al-Hakim's offices. They carted it away, but were unable to make any arrests in the incident.

Meanwhile, AFP reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani finally met on Monday with a delegation from the Arab League, after having appeared to snub them the day before. He is said to have welcomed the involvement of the Arab League in the move toward restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. (In fact, Sistani has been calling rather for a United Nations role in this process. For Iraqi Shiites, the Arab League is tainted by a tendency to collaborate with Saddam and to oppose his overthrow, and by its overwhelmingly Sunni character.)

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Nelson: We cannot Afford to Lose the Peace; Northern Ireland Analogy

Fraser Nelson has written a long post mortem in The Scotsman on all the things that have gone wrong in the aftermath of the Iraq war, which is a very long list indeed. He makes some telling points about the British side of things that I haven't seen summarized so clearly (and damningly) before. His big point is that the US mainly needs counter-insurgency forces and expertise, but instead has ordinary infantry etc. He writes:

' This is what has gone wrong. "We only have a third of the forces we need to fight the insurgents, and they are the wrong forces," explains one US former diplomat with impeccable inside information. "We are fighting them with infantry because we don’t have enough counter-insurgency troops." One US official confides that intelligence is threadbare: "We still don’t know who is behind the attacks. So we just go around kicking doors in - which is exactly what the enemy wants us to do." One Iraqi says women in his village now sleep fully clothed, in case "unbelievers" break into their houses at night. True or not, it is the kind of story that quickly spreads and poisons the image of liberation the allies want to cultivate. The analogy here is not Vietnam. This is a more like Belfast in 1969, when the heavy-handed raids by British troops fuelled support for the IRA.'
Fraser is very pessimistic. In contrast, John Burns reports in today's NYT (see google news) that a high British officer has become optimistic.

I just can't judge the progress of the Coalition military in Iraq. The number of daily attacks on them is down to an average of 20 from over twice that number in November, but it is hard to know what that means for the medium term. I fear in any case that I think Fraser is right, that success depends crucially on the political and not just the military skills of the military commanders in Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul and so forth. As Newsweek notes, Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, who is in charge of Mosul, has issued public statements which clearly show that he thinks he is succeeding in that political task, and this attitude seems widespread among high officers in Iraq. The problem for those of us distant from the action is in knowing whether someone like Petraeus is a really good judge of his own success (it is not as if they know Arabic or talk a lot to ordinary Iraqis). And, you see a lot of quotes from US officers suggesting that they think they can win by pounding the Iraqis into the ground, which is a great attitude in a war but a severe liability in a counter-insurgency operation.

One good question to be asked is why, after Vietnam, is the US military again immersed in a large-scale counter-insurgency operation in Asia?


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

2 US Troops Killed in Baghdad, 2 Wounded

A roadside bomb killed two US troops in Baghdad, along with a civilian translator, and wounded two others. According to Michelle Faul of AP, the US military is worried that guerrillas will mount a Christmas offensive against US troops in Iraq.

In other developments, interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said that once Iraqi sovereignty was restored on July 1, the Iraqi government would open bids for reconstruction projects to all countries. This statement seems to be a reproach to Paul Wolfowitz, who cut France, Germany and Russia out of $20 bn. in US reconstruction projects because of their opposition to the war.

In line with Zebari's plan, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim appears to have negotiated a deal with Vladimir Putin of Russia to have Moscow forgive some of the $8 bn. in debts Iraq owes it, in return for a shot at Iraqi government contracts.

Holiday Greetings

On a personal note, I just want to send my warm holiday greetings to all the brave men and women serving in the US armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. As my readers know, I grew up in a service family, and I have enormous admiration for the individuals who are risking their lives. I just hope they can all come home, safe and sound, ASAP.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sistani on Elections

In an interview with the Baghdad daily az-Zaman, a spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani said that he expects his negotiations with various parties concerning the transition to an Iraqi government this summer to bear fruit in a matter of days. (Sistani has exchanged letters with US civil administrator Paul Bremer, and has met with a number of members of the Interim Governing Council). The spokesman, who asked to remain unnamed, said that Sistani continues to insist that the United Nations send election observers, who could also inform Iraqis about the best way to hold elections. (Sistani had earlier requested that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan certify that general elections could not be held before July 1. Annan gave a speech a week ago in which he so certified). Sistani nevertheless wishes to find a way to involve the UN in the decision about how elections should proceed, and in the process of holding them. Initially, Sistani had insisted that direct elections be held, and had rejected Bremer's plan for more controlled caucus elections by hand-picked regional councils. Bremer and Sistani are still trying to negotiate a compromise.

Sistani snubbed a delegation from the Arab League that went to see Muqtada al-Sadr, 30, on its arrival in Najaf. Only then did the delegates head to Sistani's office, but they did not find him in; he had departed for home. (Given Sistani's seniority, it was a slap in the face for him that the delegation went to see Muqtada, a very young man, first. Muqtada's forthright opposition to the US occupation, however, tracks more closely with the attitude of most Arab League members than does Sistani's comparative quietism.)

The head of the Arab League delegation, Ahmad Bin Hilli, said after the meeting with Muqtada Monday in Najaf that the young cleric was full of ideas and a vision on ending the occupation, and the political process in Iraq.

For his part, Muqtada said, "We had awaited this meeting impatiently. This will be a new beginning between the Arab League and the Iraqi people.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

RPG attack in Mosul injures 1; Sabotage of Petroleum Facilities

Michelle Faul reports that on Sunday, guerrillas in Mosul launched a rocket-propelled grenade at a US military convoy. The grenade, fired near a police recruitment center, hit a civilian vehicle and seriously wounded the Iraqi driver. The nearby US troops were unharmed.
Guerrillas using rpg's also targeted petroleum storage tanks in southern Baghdad on Saturday, causing a conflagration that consumed 2.6 million gallons of gasoline. Saboteurs also exploded a pipeline 15 miles north of Baghdad. The capital is beset by fuel shortages, with people waiting in line 12 hours to buy gasoline/ petrol. Some Iraqis have taken to sleeping in their cars so as to make the buy.

Meanwhile, US troops continued their sweep in the Sunni heartland, arresting hundreds of Baathists from intelligence gained in the capture of papers in the possession of Saddam Hussein.

[NB: I will be traveling this week and there may be delays in posting. I hope to be posting, but maybe not on my usual schedule, and maybe not as much.]
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Wrangling over the Future of Kurdistan

Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, a member of the Interim Governing Council, announced Sunday that the Kurds would not be satisfied with provincial federalism in Iraq. It was not enough that each of the 18 provinces retained certain privileges not granted to Baghdad. He wants the Kurdish regions to be constituted as a super-province, and wants it then incorporated into Iraq only as part of a loose, perhaps Switzerland-like, canton-based federalism. (AFP, ash-Sharq al-Awsat).

In response, the leaders of the 500,000 Turkmen in Iraq announced that they would oppose the incorporation of the oil city of Kirkuk into any such Kurdish super-province. (ash-Sharq al-Awsat)

The potential for ethnic strife over this issue is enormous. The Shiite al-Da`wa Party has in the past rejected this Kurdish formula for very loose federalism in favor of strong central government. Turkish officials in the past have also said that they will intervene militarily in Iraq to prevent Kurdish autonomy
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Steps toward Trying Saddam in Iraq

According to al-Hayat, the court judge, Dara Nuruddin, a member of the Interim Governing Council, announced that 20 judges will be appointed to look into the crimes of Saddam's regime, in preparation for trying him. He predicted that the investigation, gathering information and evidence will "take months." He said that the IGC will appoint 5 judges "within a month" to a special tribunal that will preside over Saddam's trial. (See below for my comments on how trying Saddam in Iraq may not be such a great idea).

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Hakim in Damascus

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, president for December of the Interim Governing Council, visited Damascus and announced that he was seeking a security agreement with Syria that would guarantee "cooperation in preventing terrorist operations and prohibiting illegal infiltration," since "the problem of security is one that Syria may face, just as Iraq does." [Was that a threat? - JC].
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Vigilanteism in Karbala: Curfew Announced

Basil Abdul Majid reports in az-Zaman that a curfew has been announced in the city as a result of threats against the provincial authorities and police chief. The Phalange Militias of Revolutionary Karbala Youth have threatened to purge the officials, alleging a worsening of administrative corruption and bribe-taking in the province.

The group alleged in a leaflet distributed in the city and faxed to az-Zaman that it was unaffiliated with any party or movement, but simply consisted of Karbala residents who reject tyranny and corruption. Among their main complaints was corruption in the award of contracts to bidders for construction of provincial government buildings.

With so much reconstruction money now sloshing around Iraq, these sorts of conflicts are likely to proliferate.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Saddam Trial May Backfire

The following interview appeared in the Ann Arbor News on Sunday. In it I take a contrarian stand. I know that there are lots of good reasons to try Saddam in Iraq, but I have a very bad feeling about this. My wife, Shahin Cole, pointed out to me that Saddam still has supporters in Iraq as well as lots of people who fear him, and if the trial is televised he could project his presence into the country, with potentially bad results. Likewise, I fear that rehearsing his crimes against the Kurds and the Shiites, which are of near-genocidal proportions, may provoke ethnic violence in the country.



Ann Arbor News
Saddam trial may backfire, prof says


Sunday, December 21, 2003

BY ART AISNER
News Staff Reporter

There has been much national and international debate over what to do with deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since his capture by the U.S. military.

University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole has taught Middle East and South Asian history since 1984, has a Ph.D. in Islamic studies and has written extensively on Iraq and modern Islamic movements in the Persian Gulf.

We recently spoke with him about Saddam's capture, how he should be prosecuted for the treatment of his people and the dangers of putting Saddam on trial.

Q: What concerns do you have about the suggestions of putting Saddam Hussein on trial?

A: There are several. The Bush administration and Iraqi interim Governing Council both seem to think it's a good idea to try him in Iraq, and I understand why. But one wonders at what cost this will come. A lot of Sunni Muslims in Iraq fear the fall of the government because it will place them in the vast minority to Shiites who were persecuted by Saddam.

Any trial is going to cover his acts of genocide against the Kurds in the late 1980s and Shiites following the first Gulf War of the early '90s. Spending months on these kind of investigations has the potential for provoking ethnic violence.

Q: What are other potential consequences of putting Saddam on trial?

A: I believe giving Saddam Hussein a stage or platform in Iraq through a trial is a bad idea because he's going to be defiant and still has Fedayeen and a loyal base active in the country. There also is the potential that Saddam may find ways to underline U.S. complicity in the atrocities, which could make it difficult to maintain support for the occupation forces.

Q: The atrocities you mentioned that are attributed to Saddam are what we know about. Is there a danger that such trials would reveal more that we don't know about?

A: Diplomatic historians say there are no secrets if you know where to look. We already know a great deal about the U.S. government's [complicity] with Saddam Hussein and his actions. There could be more.

Q: Would he focus on that compliance to mount a defense?

A: I don't know that he would. It certainly would hurt his stature in the Middle East and Arab world to make himself look like an agent of the CIA, so he may not want to. But when he can bring that information to light in self defense, I believe he could.

Q: International human rights organizations have been collecting data on Saddam's brutal regime for decades. With so much documentation, what kind of defense could he mount?

A: What we have seen in the cases of those dictators who have been tried for war crimes in the past is that they are impertinent. They blame subordinates, say things got out of hand and blame the victims. He's already been quoted as saying the bodies of those found in mass graves throughout the country belonged to thieves and traitors.

Q: Is it possible for him to get a fair trial?

A: That's another issue. One of the persons who is calling for a war crimes tribunal in Iraq is Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, current president of the interim Governing Council. Sixty-three members of his family were killed by Saddam Hussein. I'm willing to concede that the man is an upright man, but I don't know if saints exist to that extent in the world where he has no sense of vindictiveness about this. That's a problem that a lot of the people involved in this have talked about, and for those reasons I really think it is important that any trial occurs in The Hague.

Q: Are there other reasons why any trial should be conducted by the existing format of international war crimes tribunals?

A: There has never been such a tribunal in Iraq before. It's being created from scratch, most of the judges with long experience in Iraq are Baathists and there's no constitution in Iraq. Under what statutes can he be tried?

Q: Does it matter if he gets a fair trial?

A: I think it does matter. First, Saddam still has supporters, and to satisfy those supporters, it's important that any trial is conducted through a fair process. Otherwise, it could be construed that he was treated unfairly.

I also think it's important for Iraq. If there is going to be a new Iraq, it must be founded on the principles of law and fairness. It would not [. . .] bode well that the country's first act would be to railroad someone even as despised as Saddam Hussein.





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2 US Soldiers Wounded; 3 Iraqi police Killed by US Troops

According to MSNBC, attacks on US forces and Iraqi police in the past few days have killed more than dozen persons in the Sunni Arab heartland. On Friday morning, guerrillas set off a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad, wounding two US soldiers, according to Capt. Tammy Galloway of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

On Friday night or early Saturday morning, US troops near to Kirkuk accidentally killed three Iraqi policemen whom they mistook for guerrillas. Second Lieutenant Salam Zankana said, according to wire services, “The police had a roadblock on the road linking Kirkuk and Baghdad. An America patrol arrived around 0200 (2300 GMT Friday) and opened fire, taking the police to be guerrillas."


The gasoline shortage in Baghdad has reached worrisome proportions. It is apparently common to wait 12 hours to get gasoline, sitting in lines of cars that seem to go on for miles. Part of the problem is that some gasoline is smuggled out of the country by the guerrillas to finance their insurgency, apparently. The US arrested 20 suspected smugglers and confiscated 28 gasoline tankers on Friday. The smuggling makes sense, since the local price of gasoline is only 5 US cents a gallon, far less than the world market value.

Basra exploded in violence in August because of citizens' frustration with lack of fuel and services.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Wave of Assassinations Against Baathists in Wake of Saddam's Capture

Even before Saddam was captured on Dec. 13, a wave of assassinations of former Baathist officials had begun in Baghdad (following on a similar campaign in summer and fall in Basra). The assassinations appear to have accelerated now that the former Baathist leader is in US custody and Baathist command and control is deeply compromised. It may be that some Shiites eager for revenge had been given pause by the possibility that Saddam or other high Baathists would retaliate, using the still-active Fedayee Saddam.

Saturday morning gunmen on a motorcycle in the crowded Hadiqat al-Malik Ghazi quarter of Najaf opened fire on Lamiya' Abbas al-Shil, a former official in the Baath party, who was taking her son to elementary school on foot. Her son was killed, and she was hospitalized with several gunshot wounds in the chest and head. Al-Shil had been an assistant to Ali al-Zalimi, a Najaf Baath official who helped crush the 1991 uprising against Saddam, and who was killed on Wednesday in Kufa. Friday night, Ali Qasim al-Tamimi, 40, was killed in Najaf while shopping in the downtown retail area. Al-Tamimi had been the Ward Boss of the Furat quarter of the city in the time of Saddam, and was seen as a collaborator by the Shiite Najafis. He was with a companion, Muhammad Ammar Khudair, who one witness said was also killed in the attack. (ash-Sharq al-Awsat).

Known former Baath officials throughout Iraq have been receiving death threats or notes saying 'you are under surveillance,' some of them signed "Lajnat al-Tha'r" or "Revenge Committee." Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reveals that the Baghdad coroners' office reports a significant rise in assassinations in the past two weeks in the capital. The police in the capital say about 50 former Baath officials and military men have been assassinated recently.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says some Iraqis think the spike in assassinations reflects a gradual loss of hope that the Coalition Provisional Authority or the new Iraqi government will quickly bring the Baathists to justice, and a fear that they may be regrouping to reestablish some political momentum in the new system.

In the slums of East Baghdad (Sadr City), police say that the wave of assassinations began 3 weeks ago and that every day one or two former Baathists are killed. Some families do not admit that the deceased had been a Baathist.

Alan Sipress reported in the Washington Post recently, ' "This is absolutely organized, but we don't know precisely who's behind it," said Capt. Awad Nima, who heads police administration in Sadr City. "These killings are a vendetta for the killings by the Baath Party. . . . Would you expect those people who lost their sons not to take any action?" Nima said the assassinations have centered on Hussein followers implicated in violence, not all former party members . . . With few leads, detectives have made little progress in figuring out who is killing the Baathists, but Nima said this does not trouble him. "There's only a limited number of them. Once they're all dead, this will have to end," he said. '

Well, the killings might end at that point. Or the killers might start in on the second tier Baathists with a bit less blood on their hands, and then the third tier, etc.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Lessons of Libya: War isn't always Necessary

Hawks in Washington will attempt to make the argument that Libya's sudden willingness to give up its weapons of mass destruction programs is a dividend of the Iraq war.

For those who know anything at all about Libya, however, an entirely different interpretation is obvious. Libya proves that economic sanctions can work. Because of its involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other acts of terrorism, Libya was subjected to an international embargo in 1992. The embargo from all accounts deeply hurt Libya's economy, and it produced a stark pull-back from support of terrorism on Qadhafi's part. The Libyan government estimated that the world boycott cost Libya $37 billion. The economy remains small at about GDP $40 bn. despite an oil income, but the potential for wealth is vast. A $6 bn investment could increase Libya's daily oil production from 1.2 million barrels a day to 2 million barrels a day. (The population at 5.5 million is so small that this increase would yield about $1600 per person per year, if the price of oil were about $28/b.) Western investors have been skittish (and US entrerpreneurs have severe legal limits on their Libyan activities), and that would have to change for oil and gas exploration to expand, e.g. There's black gold in them thar dunes.

(Again, the hawks have explained Qadhafi's abandonment of support for terrorism with reference to Ronald Reagan's 1986 bombing of Tripoli; not being good at math, they don't seem to realize that 1988 comes after 1986. One could more reasonably draw the conclusion that the US aerial strike encouraged Libya to commit more terrorism.)

The UN sanctions, but not the US ones, were eased in 1999. In the meantime, Qadhafi had become the target of the radical Islamist Anas al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda operative suspected of involvement in terrorism in East Africa, as well. After September 11, Qadhafi associated himself with the US war on terror, in hopes of seeing al-Libi killed and the Libyan branch of radical Islamism devastated.

Qadhafi brought Shukri Ghanem, a liberal economist, back from OPEC to be minister of finance, and then in summer of 2003 appointed him prime minister! Ghanem announced an extensive privatization program, in which some 300 state-owned industries will be sold off to entrepreneurs. The old mahdist socialist, Qadhafi, has begun inveighing against "unqualified employees who do not care about the interests of their country" (MEED, Aug. 29, 2003).

So, Qadhafi's regime had been brought to the brink of possible extinction by the sanctions and by Soviet style economic sclerosis. The stars had suddenly aligned him with the US in a desperate struggle against radical Islamism and his old foe Anas al-Libi. Qadhafi apologized for Lockerbie and reportedly offered the victims $1.7 billion in compensation.

The one thing standing between Qadhafi and a return to stability for his dictatorial regime (and efflorescence for his potentially rich economy) was Washington's new campaign against weapons of mass destruction. Libya didn't have much of that sort of thing, though it had dabbled, and it wasn't important to Qadhafi any more. The conflict in Chad (in which Libya is accused of using chemical weapons) had died down. Washington was making it a quid pro quo that Tripoli give these lackluster and small programs up in order for Libya to reenter the world economic system on a favorable footing. It was an easy decision.

So the real reason Qadhafi just folded is economic. And the lesson to be drawn here is that under certain circumstances, economic pressure can work, and remove the need for war.

The sanctions on Libya were very different from those on Iraq, and peace thinkers need to study why the former worked but the latter didn't. One thing is clear; the Iraq war has hindered, not helped, US-Arab relations, and it is not the reason for which Qadhafi has made up with the West, a process that began some time ago.

One caveat: Qadhafi hasn't offered to step down or become less dictatorial. This isn't an advance for democracy. The Bush administration, despite its rhetoric of democratization, still has to choose in the Middle East between having malleable, known strongmen in power, or having unpredictable democracies that might elect radical Islamists or others odious to Washington. I wouldn't bet a lot on the democratization policy. The US if anything has been urging countries like Tunisia and Yemen to be less democratic and less concerned about civil rights, in the cause of stamping out radical Islamism.




For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Coalition, Iraqi Police Extensively Infiltrated by Oppositionist Spies

Chris Marks of the Scotsman reviews the ways in which the Coalition military and the Iraqi police were extensively infiltrated by Baath agents. This was a story, the skeleton of which ABC news broke a couple nights ago. Some 162,000 Iraqis work in security-related positions, and many have not been seriously vetted. The US authorities found a list of names in Saddam's brief case of major Baath spies inside the US command center!

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports from Washington that on his recent trip to Iraq, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was told by the commander of the 4th ID that every two or three weeks, Iraqis were found who ought not to have achieved the position they did.

It has been apparent to me for some time that the US military and the CPA had been infiltrated. I found it extremely suspicious, for instance, that my cyber-friend, Navy Reserve Lt. Kylan Huffman-Jones, was assassinated last August in Hilla when he went there as an intelligence officer to brief the incoming Spanish and other commanders who were taking over from the Marines in Najaf. There have been no other killings of Americans in Hilla to my knowledge, and someone just came up to him when he was stuck in traffic and shot him with a rifle. It was as though they knew, 'this is the visiting intelligence officer.' Then, it was clear that someone knew exactly where Paul Wolfowitz was when he visited Baghdad and his hotel was targetted for a rocket attack. And, the military intelligence HQ of the US in Mosul was car-bombed. How did they know that is what it was? There are lots of such incidents, and they are one reason I have advised my civilian friends against traveling to Iraq if anyone in the US military or the CPA was going to know their itinerary--the whole system seems to me to have been extremely leaky. And now we know for sure that it was/ is.

Dan Senor of the CPA attempted to quash speculation that the attack on Paul Bremer's convoy near the Baghdad airport on Dec. 6 might be another such example of infiltrator-supplied intelligence used by guerrillas. But then, the leadership of the CPA surely wants to head off a stampede of US civilians out of Iraq now that it is known how leaky the enterprise is, and would want to make the event look random. Maybe it was, but we cannot know for sure.

It reminds me of Vietnam, where it became obvious after the war was over that a lot of South Vietnamese officers were secretly sympathetic to the VC and had passed them sensitive military intelligence to use against the US. Washington always underestimates the force of other people's nationalism. I am sorry to say that I very much doubt that the list with Saddam is at all exhaustive. The only good news here is that people so stupid as to make such a list and share it with the most-wanted man in Iraq, for whom 160,000 Coalition troops, were intensively looking, might not have the smarts that the Vietnamese nationalists did.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Rumsfeld, Bechtel and Iraq

Well, the Democratic Party seems too nice or inept to do anything with it, but as the Washington Post points out, the good folks at the National Security Archive are continuing to document the long history of Republican Party coddling of Saddam Hussein, and their hypocritical winking at his use of weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s.

The Archive incidentally shows that the Bechtel Corporation actively connived to subvert 1988 Congressional sanctions on Iraq for using weapons of mass destruction by seeking non-US subcontractors. Bechtel was awarded an Iraq reconstruction contract by US AID last spring worth at least $640 million. Yup, some American corporations have long been deeply concerned about the dangers of weapons of mass destruction and the moral evil of genocide.

It turns out that Don Rumsfeld actually went to Iraq twice, once in 1983, and again in 1984. The work Rumsfeld did in 1983 of beginning a rapprochement between Reagan and Saddam was detracted from by a strong State Department condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. Schultz told Rumsfeld to explain to Saddam [warning: PDF] that the Reagan administration did not actually, really have any serious objections to, like, exterminating Iranian troops like cockroaches with poison gas. It was just a general, unspecific blanket condemnation of that sort of thing, you know, to keep up appearances. Sort of like when the US was against genocide in general but didn't really mind so much the one conducted in Indonesia against hundreds of thousands of leftists in 1965. So, Saddam should feel comfortable about Reagan's desire to continually improve bilateral Reagan-Saddam relations at a pace of Saddam's choosing, and not be put off by the unfortunate but necessary pro forma condemnations of him as a war criminal issued at silly old Foggy Bottom.

The document also reveals two other things on which the press hasn't widely remarked. George H. W. Bush was deeply involved in this Saddamist démarche, he was the one who extended an invitation to high Baathist official Tariq Aziz to come to Washington.

And, Schultz told both Rumsfeld and Saddam that the US was trying to curb weapons flows to Iran. Yet it is well known that Israel was supplying Iran with weaponry in return for Iranian oil. Only a little over a year later, Schultz double-crossed Saddam by getting on board with the Iran-Contra weapons exchange, which was suggested by the Israelis in the first place. The White House illegally sold Iran hundreds of powerful TOW anti-tank and HAWK anti-aircraft weapons [which Reagan came on television and told us were shoulder-launched weapons!], for use against Washington's newfound ally, the Iraqis, who were being assured that the US was trying hard to "prevent an Iranian victory . . ."

These weapons sales contravened US law, under which Iran was tagged as a terrorist nation. (Even today I can get into trouble for so much as editing a paper by an Iranian scholar for publication in a US scholarly journal, but it was all right for the Republicans and Neocons to send Khomeini 1000 TOWs!) Not only that, but Reagan's team then turned around and used the money garnered from these off-the-books sales to support the contra death squads in Nicaragua. In the US Constitution, how to spend government money is the purview of Congress, and Congress had told Reagan "no" on funding the death squads. So Reagan's people essentially stole weapons from the Pentagon storehouses, shipped them to Israel for transfer to Ayatollah Khomeini, and then took the ill gotten gains from fencing the stolen goods and gave them to nun-murderers in Latin America.

Here's the timeline:

"1985
July -- An Israeli official suggests a deal with Iran to then-national security adviser Robert McFarlane, saying the transfer of arms could lead to release of Americans being held hostage in Lebanon. McFarlane brings the message to President Reagan.
Aug. 30 -- The first planeload of U.S.-made weapons is sent from Israel to Tehran. Two weeks later the first American Hostage is released.
Dec. 5 -- Reagan secretly signs a presidential 'finding,' or authorization, describing the operation with Iran as an arms-for-hostages deal.

1986
Jan. 17 -- Reagan signs a finding authorizing CIA participation in the sales and ordering the process kept secret from Congress.
April -- Then-White House aide Oliver North writes a memo outlining plans to use $12 million in profits from Iran arms sales for Contra aid. "

Where are they now?

George P. Shultz is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was sworn in on July 16, 1982, as the sixtieth U.S. secretary of state and served until January 20, 1989. In January 1989, he rejoined Stanford University as the Jack Steele Parker Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business and a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a member of the board of directors of Bechtel Group, Fremont Group, Gilead Sciences, and Charles Schwab & Co. He is chairman of the International Council of J. P. Morgan Chase and chairman of the Accenture Energy Advisory Board. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on January 19, 1989. He also received the Seoul Peace Prize (1992), the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service (2001), and the Reagan Distinguished American Award (2002).

Schultz strongly supported the war against Iraq, on the grounds that Saddam had used chemical weapons in the 1980s.

Elliot Abrams, a convicted criminal who lied to Congress about the shady goings-on in Central America and a long-time supporter of the far rightwing Likud Party, was appointed by W. as the National Security Council advisor for Arab-Israeli affairs. Perhaps it was Abrams who told W. that Ariel Sharon, the Butcher of Beirut, is "a man of peace."

Donald Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense of the United States, and supported the war against Iraq, partially on the grounds that Saddam had used chemical weapons in the 1980s.

George H. W. Bush is the former president of the United States. His invitee, Tariq Aziz, is in a US prison at the Baghdad Airport.

Oliver North, a convicted criminal, has been given a cushy job on Fox television by its owner, eccentric far rightwing Australian billionnaire Rupert Murdoch.

Saddam Hussein is in a US prison at the Baghdad airport.

Ronald Reagan is being considered above criticism by the US Right, which pressured CBS to cancel a mini-series on his life that was anything less than absolutely adoring, and is now being proposed as a replacement on the US dime or 10 cent piece for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the defeater of the Axis.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Breaking News: Shiite Badr Brigade HQ in Baghdad Bombed

According to CNN, a huge bomb demolished the headquarters of the paramilitary Badr Brigade in Baghdad, the militia of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It killed one woman and injured 8 others. The building also housed some displaced families, but Western news services that reported this an an attack on a homeless shelter are misreading it.

This attack was a guerrilla strike at the Badr Corps, which Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is maneuvering into a permanent position in Iraqi state security. The American-appointed Interim Governing Council recently announced that a special "counter-terrorism" unit will be created that will draw for personnel on private militias like the Badr Corps.

Since the militias are overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurd, and the resistance is largely Sunni Arab, this was an announcement that the former were going to be used to hunt down the resisters among the latter. Presumably today's bombing is the Sunni Arab nationalist response to that threat.

The Badr Corps HQ in Baqubah was attacked by a mob of Sunni protesters on December 17 in the wake of Saddam's capture (see the Informed Comment entry for that day).
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1 US Soldier Killed, Another Wounded along with Translator

Guerrillas in northwest Baghdad mounted an ambush late Wednesday on a 1st Armored Division convoy, killing one US soldier, and wounding another. An Iraqi interpreter was also wounded.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Hakim to ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Saddam must be Tried in Iraq

In an interview with the London daily ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, current president of the Interim Governing Council, insisted that Saddam must be tried in Iraq by a war crimes tribunal. Apparently there has been some sort of controversy in the Shiite community about the idea of having an essentially secular tribunal judge Saddam, rather than throwing the task to the Shiite jurists in Najaf. That is the only explanation I can come up with for al-Hakim's defensiveness on the issue. He said, that 'this tribunal does not need support from the [Shiite] religious leadership [Sistani], "and we have not heard of any special opinion [on his part] in regard to this subject. The Tribunal has the same character as the rest of the Iraqi institutions, and the religious leadership tries to stand with the rebuilding of Iraq and its just and outstanding institutions throughout Iraq. The religious leadership has no negative view of the tribunal."

Commenting on Sistani's call for direct elections, al-Hakim said that the IGC would attempt to honor the principle involved, which was that the voice of the people should be heard. He implied that there were other possible ways for Sistani's objectives to be attained than direct elections, and that the IGC would explore these options.

Sistani has in recent days exchanged letters with Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, about the issue of how elections will be conducted this spring.

Bremer is reportedly worried that the IGC is not moving toward those elections fast enough to meet the July 1 deadline for turn-over of sovereignty to a transitional government, and is requesting a doubling of CPA employees to 2,000. The State Department, however, does not have another 1,000 Middle East experts, and many of the ones it has are being vetoed by Undersecretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith, on grounds of their lack of sympathy for Neoconservative philosophy.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Kofi Annan May visit Iraq; Tells Sistani Direct Elections Impractical

Kofi Annan is seeking a Jan. 15 meeting with the countries involved in Iraq and with the Interim Governing Council, so as to determine what the UN role will be in that country. The UN was not mentioned in the November 15 agreement setting a timetable for the return of Iraqi sovereignty and eventual elections, and Annan is said to suspect that US civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, deliberately excluded the UN.

The London-based, Saudi-funded daily, al-Hayat, says he is thinking of visiting Iraq, and got some specific answers from Annan for Friday's edition, which I translate below:

'Al-Hayat asked him about his concerns over the ways in which the Occupation Authorities have exceeded or contravened international law, to which Annan had alluded in his report to the Security Council. He said that it is necessary for there to be discipline in "respecting fundamental international law. And on the practical side, there is a need to treat the citizens in a way that does not produce disgust or lead them to join the opposition. It is important that the interaction with them accord with international principles."

With regard to his request for a clarification of the UN's view of the occupation authority and the Interim Governing Council, he wants to know "What is desired of us from now until June 30th," the deadline for the announcment of a temporary government, and clarity about the expectations in the stage that comes after the formation of that government.

He said that the role of the United Nations was ignored in the first phase of the "Coalition," as well as by the Governing council, which led him to wonder "Was this an oversight or was there a purpose behind it?"

Replying to a question about the treatment of Saddam Hussein, Annan refered to the position of the Vatican, affirming that the scenes were "extremely disturbing to many," and said, "I can understand the reaction in the Arab world.""

This last passage referred to the feeling of many that the US release of the videotape of Saddam being medically examined was a violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of p.o.w.'s, who ideally should not be exposed to public view or ridicule. The Vatican called for mercy for Saddam, in part on those grounds.

The LA Times (registration required) reported that Annan has also indirectly replied to the request by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for a UN assessment of whether direct elections were feasible, made last Saturday. The LA Times writes, 'Annan delivered his answer to Sistani on Tuesday, telling the Security Council that holding open elections by June 30 was not realistic. But he reassured the ayatollah that his interests would be addressed in elections later. "While there may not be time to organize free, fair and credible elections" for a provisional government, he said, "every segment of Iraqi society should feel represented in the nascent institutions of their country. None should feel excluded, pending the subsequent holding of free elections for a constituent assembly and parliament." '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Should Saddam be Executed or Exhibited in Stocks and Spit on? Shiites Debate

The Associated Press reports on the debate in the Shiite holy city of Karbala on what should be done with Saddam. Many residents of the city, which was brutally repressed during the 1990s, with thousands killed, want Saddam executed. AP says that Muqtada al-Sadr called for Dec. 13, the day of the capture of Saddam, to be “a day for national reconciliation and to rise up with a free, democratic, independent and unified Iraq. It is a shining dawn without Saddam.” But there are other opinions. One Karbala'i suggested Saddam be tortured for a year before being killed. AP reports that Cleric Jalal al-Hasnawi, who spent four years in prison and was tortured during Saddam’s rule, said: “What will make the Iraqi people happy is to see Saddam in a cage taken for tours in every province so that people can look at him and ask what they want to do with him.”

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that many Kurds want Saddam tried in Halabja, the scene of his horrific 1988 gas attack on civilian townspeople, which killed 5000.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

So this is Liberation?

One of the prime messages the Bush Public Relations team has attempted to project to the US public is that the War on Terror, and the War on Iraq, were good for women's rights in the Muslim world. Desperate for the votes of the "security moms" (soccer moms worried about al-Qaeda in the neighborhood), the Bush team constantly underlines its connections with Afghan and Iraqi female politicians.

The sad reality is farther from this extended political commercial than even the most hardened cynic could easily imagine. Women have been frozen out of significant political office in Afghanistan and have been silenced with death threats from hardline warlords when they have dared speak out. One of the women Bush brough to Washington from Kabul to showcase at his 2002 State of the Union address, Sima Samar, was later dropped from Karzai's cabinet at the insistence of the Islamists. Bush to my knowledge never publicly defended her. Adding insult to injury, the hyper-patriarchal hardliners then formally charged her with blasphemy because she did not want a conservative interpreatation of Islamic law as the law of the land in Afghanistan. (After she and her like had been intimidated in this way, the charges were dropped).

In Herat, warlord Ismail Khan's policies toward women differ only somewhat from those of the Taliban! By allying with the "Northern Alliance", the Bush administration put Islamists in charge of Kabul, only different Islamists from the Taliban. Most Tajik members of the alliance are Jami`at-i Islami, which is the Afghan Muslim Brotherhood, and the Hazaras are grouped in the pro-Iran Hizb-i Vahdat. As for the Pushtun areas, everyone knows that politicians with a Taliban mindset are still extremely powerful there and will come to power in any elections held next summer. It would be hard to prove that the de facto position of women in Afghanistan is all that much better now, though it is true that de jure the state does not ban schooling girls, and women can in theory work outside the home now. When Malalai Joya, a delegate to the constitutional convention now in session, became outspoken for women's rights and critical of the warlords this week, she was silenced and received death threats.

Likewise, in Iraq, the US invasion and occupation has certainly been a disaster for Iraqi women. Bush highlighted Aqila al-Hashimi, a former Iraqi Foreign Ministry official whom the Americans appointed to the Interim Governing Council. But she was assassinated in September in part because the Americans refused to supply her security. The remaining 3 women on the IGC all now attend with their heads covered; all are independents with no political base; and they get no hearing from the men. Religious Shiite and Sunni men on the IGC have blocked the appointment of a progressive female replacement for al-Hashimi.

Lauren Sandler's "So this is Liberation?" , which appeared recently in The Nation, is now available at alternet, and is very much worth reading as reportage on the actual challenges facing Iraqi women under US rule.

As with many issues I have brought up here, this one seems to me important to the forthcoming presidential campaign. The Democrats had about a 10% edge in women's votes, and if they are smart they will make Ismail Khan Bush's running mate when stumping in the suburbs, so as to keep and extend it.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Several US Troops Wounded in Mosul and near Kirkuk; Assassination and a Bomb in Baghdad

AFP reports that 3 US soldiers were wounded in separate rocket and mortar attacks in Mosul on Wednesday. Iraqi police reported that guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades at US troops and wounded 2. An eyewitness said the assailants got away on a motorcycle. Later in the day, guerrillas fired 8 mortar shells at an American outpost near the University of Mosul, wounding one US soldier and damaging a Humvee.

Demonstrations by hundreds of Mosul University Students continued on Wednesday, as they chanted in favor of Saddam in several parts of the city and then about a thousand converged on the provincial state house. In the end, Iraqi police shot four students. After that, protesters overran and set fire to the offices of the Turkmen party in the city, and set afire and threw rocks at the car of one of its members. (Note, the ethnic tinge to this violence). US tanks then surrounded the University of Mosul. Az-Zaman reported one professor as saying that it was a mistake to disregard all the demands of the students, some of which had to do with administration and government employment, and that marginalizing the educated middle class was a policy fraught with potentially disastrous results down the road.

Az-Zaman reported that guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb at a US convoy in Humairah south of Kirkuk, wounding a number of US soldiers, according to Iraqi police. (Neither incident was confirmed by the Pentagon, which typically does not report US soldiers being wounded unless one is also killed that day.)

Guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb in Baghdad, attempting to hit a US convoy but missing it, and killing an Iraqi and wounding two others, instead. (az-Zaman).

Az-Zaman also reported that a senior member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq from the al-Hakim family has been assassinated in Amiriya in Baghdad, presumably by Sunni supporters of Saddam. 63 members of the al-Hakim family were killed by Saddam and his supporters, including 8 brothers of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the current SCIRI leader.

In Najaf, the Baghdad daily said, a Baath official was torn limb from limb by a mob when he was recognized while walking in the street in the Shiite holy city.

The administration of the University of Tikrit has decided to close it down for three days in the face of constant student protest in favor of Saddam. (az-Zaman).

Just a personal note. I lived in Beirut during the early years of the civil war there in the mid to late 1970s. When I see correspondents reporting from downtown Baghdad, and hear the repeated gunfire and bombings in the background, I cannot help flash on Beirut then. Apparently Baghdad closes up at 9 pm every night, and people are desperately afraid for their security. It isn't even clear whom the gunmen are fighting. These obvious signs of near-anarchy are visible whenever Wolf Blitzer or some other anchor talks to an American in Baghdad nowadays. It is incredible to me that anyone is optimistic, given this obvious lack of security in the country's capital, which is occupied by thousands of American troops! I mean, this really is an 'emperor has no clothes' scenario, but Wolf and others seem too polite to just say so.

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Convalescence for the Iraqi Psyche Needed: Sunni-Shiite Clashes in Wake of Saddam Capture

Maureen Fan of Knight-Ridder observes that the capture of Saddam by the Americans has exacerbated tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq:

"The day after Saddam's capture was announced, Shiites from Kadhimiya crossed the bridge and started dancing in the street in Adhimiya. Sunni residents in Adhimiya went out in the street to reply, and before the night was over, more than a dozen people were dead. Six of the Saddam sympathizers who attacked a police station in Adhimiya that night were killed by coalition forces attempting to restore order. Their bodies lie in refrigeration at the Kadhimiya Teaching Hospital, the second-largest hospital in Baghdad. It is a privileged medical center that before the war was connected not to the Health Ministry but to the Republican Palace. Doctors and nurses there spoke of the need for a recovery period or a convalescence for the Iraqi psyche.
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Abdul Aziz al-Hakim Recognizes Justice of Reparations to Iran

Reuters reports that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the current president of the Interim Governing Council, has admitted that Iran has a just claim on Iraq for reparations for the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-1988, in which Saddam had ordered Iraqi armies to seize Iran's oil-rich Khuzistan province but was eventually pushed out.

Reuters reports that al-Hakim said, ' "According to the U.N., Iran deserves reparations. She must be satisfied," Abdelaziz al-Hakim told a news conference after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "Whether we will pay or not is something which we need to discuss further," he added. '

Al-Hakim was given refuge in Iran when Saddam attempted to wipe out his clerical family, and so tends to tilt to Tehran. In my view his statement was unfortunate. Iraq cannot survive as a country if it is saddled with yet more debt and reparations. And, while it is true that Iraq was the aggressor in 1980, it is also true that Saddam began suing for peace in 1982 when his forces were pushed out of Iran, and that the damage done to both countries in 1982-1988 can in large part be laid to the door of Imam Ruhullah Khomeini, who had conceived a stubborn and sanguinary desire to take Baghdad.
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Economic Revival in Basra accompanied by Crime Wave

Alisha Ryu argues in a report for the Voice of America that the southern city of Basra's economic efflorescence, and the more laid-back style of community policing used by British troops, make it a better model for Iraq's future than US-dominated Baghdad. She is forced to admit, however, that lawlessness is a big problem in Basra just as it is in Baghdad.
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The Trials of Trying Saddam

Veteran Middle East journalist Helena Cobban reflects on a host of issues presented by the task of trying Saddam Hussein.
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Is the Capture of Saddam Bad News for Bush?

William Pfaff argues in the International Herald Tribune that there are lots of reasons that Saddam's capture could be bad news for Bush. It has already enraged and humiliated a lot of Sunni Arabs. It may embolden the Shiite leaders, who no longer fear that Saddam could come back if they do not cooperate with a new US-installed regime. It raises questions about why the US attacked Iraq, since Saddam was clearly so weak and lacking in weapons of mass destruction. And, it happened so far from Nov. '04 that the capture will have long since been forgotten by then. I entirely agree with Pfaff on all these points, and think I've said similar things since Sunday. It is not the prevailing wisdom in Washington, though.
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Student Chants in Mosul

For those interested in crowd behavior, I note from al-Hayat the chants of student protesters in Mosul below. They are really quite ugly, like something out of the Chinese cultural revolution, but what is clear is the nationalistic undertone to the protests. By now Saddam is just a symbol of defiance to occupation. He doesn't deserve to be such a symbol.

Ba`thiyyah, Ba`thiyyah
Wa la naqbal al-`ar

Baathists, Baathists,
and we do not accept humiliation!

Na`m, na`m
li'l-Qa'id Saddam

Yes, yes, to the Leader Saddam!

Ma natanazzal `an ithnayn:
al-`Iraq wa Saddam Husayn

We will not back down from two things:
Iraq and Saddam Hussein!

Bush, Bush, isma` zayn
kullna n'hibb Saddam Husayn

Bush, Bush, listen well:
We all love Saddam Hussein!

Namut, numut
wa yahya al-watan
Fa'l-tasqut Amirika


We'll die, we'll die,
but the Nation will live!
And America will fall!

Majlis al-Hukm, Ya Jaban
Ya `Amil al-Amrikan!

Governing Council, you cowards!
Agents of the Americans!
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3 US Soldiers Wounded, 1 Iraqi Policeman Killed and 1 Wounded; 7 Protesters Killed;
Demonstrations and Counter-Demonstrations Throughout Iraq

Guerrillas set off a roadside bomb in Tikrit, wounding three US soldiers on Tuesday. Some 250 students demonstrated in Tikrit in front of their school. Hundreds of US troops were sent into Tikrit, supported by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.

Guerrillas set fire to a train carrying provisions to US troops in western Iraq (al-Zaman).

Guerrillas attempted an ambush against US forces in Samarra'. US soldiers claim to have killed 11 of the attackers. The Toronto Globe and Mail cautioned: "Police and residents were contesting that version last night, however, saying just one Iraqi had been killed, and that the Americans were the only ones shooting, opening fire on a residential area in retaliation for the bombing. Neither side reported U.S. casualties." The US soldiers later launched a sweep, and arrested 73 suspected guerrillas, including important leader Qais Hattam, said to have been bankrolling attacks there.

In Mosul, about 1000 students marched through the street waving Iraqi paper money with Saddam's picture on it. The demonstration ended violently in front of the university, when unidentified gunmen opened fire (from the crowd?), killing one Iraqi policeman and wounding another.

In Ramadi, demonstrations continued in favor of Saddam, with US forces killing at least two of the protesters. Az-Zaman and the LA Times mentioned unconfirmed reports that pro-Saddam demonstrators were also killed in Falluja, saying that altogether the US killed 7 demonstrators in the two cities.. Reports also spoke of demonstrators in Falluja setting fire to or blowing up government buildings. The Iraqi newspaper reported unconfirmed information that US troops had killed one Iraqi and wounded another in unrelated incidents in the Kirkuk area.

In Baquba, 200 supporters of Saddam demonstrated, and then they attacked the headquarters of the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, breaking windows and damaging a wall. No US troops or Iraqi police intervened (az-Zaman, al-Hayat). There has been a Baath political resurgence in the eastern city of Baquba (pop. 280,000) and Diyala province more generally because of the rehabilitation of most Baathists there by the US-appointed governor.

In a village near Baquba on Tuesday evening, a crowd of Saddam supporters demonstrated and clashed with police, forcing the police out of their headquarters.(al-Hayat).

In the Amiriya, Ghazaliya, al-Jihad and al-Khadra' quarters of Baghdad, near the airport, demonstrators unfurled posters of Saddam and fired their weapons into the air.(az-Zaman).

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq organized Shiite demonstrations celebrating Saddam's capture, in Baghdad and Basra, which also demanded that he be tried and punished for his crimes. Hundreds came out in Baghdad, and about a thousand in the southern city of Basra. (az-Zaman). SCIRI has been among the main political voices in Iraq calling for Saddam to be tried by a tribunal in that country.


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On Point

I was on NPR's On Point Tuesday evening. I was surprised to find the other guests reporting an attitude in the CPA and Washington that Saddam's capture was the beginning of the end of the low-grade insurgency. There was a sense that now Iraqis would be more willing to turn in Baathists and guerrillas, that a corner had been decisively turned on security. It was also alleged (as I understood it) that Iraqis are not nationalist but rather oriented to tribal identities and if the CPA keeps the tribes happy everything will be all right.

Now, I don't contest the point made, that all the Shiites and Kurds are happy about Saddam's arrest, and perhaps 50% of Sunni Arabs are, as well. So it is really only about 8% of the population that is unhappy with Saddam being captured, if that.

But as I have argued in the past few days (scroll down), the guerrilla movement just is not exhausted by the Baath remnants. There are lots of others in it, including Sunni fundamentalists, Iraqi nationalists, feuding clansmen, etc. Only 60% of attacks on Coalition forces even take place in the Sunni Arab heartland. The other 40% are in the Shiite south or the largely Kurdish north. Moreover, the occupation is deeply unpopular with everyone, including the Shiites, who are suffering along with it in hopes of gaining something, rather than actively supporting it. So, the set of Iraqis opposed to the occupation and the set of Iraqis who are pro-Saddam do not exactly overlap, with the latter circle much smaller than the former.

As for the allegation that Iraqis are not nationalistic, it blew my mind. Maybe the word means something different here from my idea of it. But Iraqis seem to me to have a very developed imaginary of the nation, to which they are emotionally deeply attached. I also think the day when tribes were the key to anything has largely passed, with the growth of large urban centers.

I predict that the euphoria in the US about Saddam's capture will fade fairly quickly. I don't know if the insurgency will die down this spring, but if it does it will be because of good intelligence and military work, not because Saddam was captured. I personally think it is a little unlikely that the violence will cease soon, though, unless the US can find a way to convince the Sunni Arabs that they are not about to be reduced to a dispossessed minority ruled by Shiites and Kurds.

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College Professors in Mosul Strike

The professors at Mosul University announced a general strike on Tuesday, demanding an increase in pay. They were protesting that professors in Kurdish institutions of higher learning had been awarded higher pay and more benefits than was the case in the Arabic-speaking areas of Iraq.

About 1,000 Mosul students who came out for the demonstration took advantage of the occasion to protest the arrest of Saddam. They gathered in the university courtyard and then set out through the city. They were shouting slogans condemning the Interim Governing Council. (-az-Zaman).
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Saddam May attempt to Implicate US

Mark Matthews of the Baltimore Sun points out that Saddam may attempt to implicate Western powers and US political figures during the course of his war crimes trial. (Matthews tells the story of Colin Powell apologizing to the Kurds that no one spoke out about the Baath gas attacks against them in the late 1980s; Colin Powell was of course conspicuously one of those who could have but did not speak out then, because of his alliance with Saddam against Iran.)

Saddam may confirm what former CIA analysts have been telling reporters for years: that Saddam was an agent of the CIA in the 1960s; that the CIA helped him target Iraqi communists in 1963 during a brief period of Baath rule; and that when the Baath came back to power in 1968, the CIA favored Saddam's clan over a rival Baath leader, ensuring that he was in a position to come to power. Adel Darwish has reported these allegations in his
Unholy Babylon and they have been confirmed to me by other reporters independently of Darwish.

The sort of charges Saddam could make against US officials about the 1980s and 1990s are presaged in Michael Moore's column today.
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New Political Map of the US: Implication for Elections and Iraq

Robert David Sullivan, writing in The Commonwealth, has proposed a new political map of the US based on long-term county-specific voting patterns (there are about 3000 counties in the US), and divides the country into 10 regions on that basis. (Note that the map at his site is clickable and that version offers more details about the regions).



Sullivan argues that of the ten demographic regions he identifies, 5 voted Republican and 5 Democrat in the last election, although only three have always voted Republican for 35 years. Clinton won 6 in each election, but Bush only won 5 (the right configuration of the right 5). Bush's challenger is unlikely to be able to win with 5, and needs six.

Any Democratic ticket will need to make inroads into at least one Republican-leaning area, as well as keeping what Gore got in 2000. Believe it or not, I think such a ticket has a shot in Appalachia. Not in the Southern Lowlands or Southern Comfort, of course, which would be laughable. But Appalachia is a different kettle of fish. My family is from there on my mother's side, and I can tell you that foreign adventurism and spending $166 billion on Iraq when there was no real threat (from a man in a spider hole) could be very unpopular there if the pitch is made right. Appalachians are patriotic and do not like Northeasterners putting on airs, so some Democratic candidates would fare better than others. But if one of them could connect with people about how they are being screwed over by Bush's giveaways to the New York financiers and by his expensive foreign adventures (there are lots of schools in Appalachia that need paint), then the Dems might just be able to get this region. Hint: Bringing someone on board the Democratic campaign team who has won elections in Appalachia would help.



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Sandwich Analysis of "Got'im" News Conference: Tom Engelhardt

Journalist Tom Engelhardt's Tomdispatch.com caught something important about the news conference that announced Saddam's capture in his recent column (scroll down to "The Hangover"):

"Here was the striking thing -- for me -- about the "got him!" news conference: It started with L. Paul Bremer, CPA head, striding through a portal, up to the podium, and leading off with that exuberant, quite euphoric exclamation about Saddam . . . Only then did he turn to the aging exile Adnan Pachachi. "Dr. Pachachi?" Pachachi offered a bare paragraph of comment. ("I am pleased to announce to you on behalf of the Governing Council that we are moving on the way with our efforts to achieve sovereignty and authority in the proper allotted time…") and then Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, allied military commander, took over the podium and gave a long statement punctuated by those dramatic film clips of Saddam. Questions followed with all three answering, but with General Sanchez controlling the process, and the event ended with the general pronouncing the last words, "And God bless America." Pachachi in other words was sandwiched between the two exuberant Americans, between, that is, "Got him!" and "God bless America." An exceedingly thin slice of meat between meaty hunks of bread. And that pretty much reveals the face behind the mask (both of which turn out to be ours). Imagine if they had really wanted to put an "Iraqi face" on the event. Dr. Pachachi could, of course, have strode through that same portal, stepped to the same podium, and announced the capture of Saddam, showed the videos, called on the Americans for details and clarifications, and then taken the questions and doled them out. He could, in short, have run the news conference. But it would have cost in impact in the United States and in any case it was, I have no doubt, beyond what Gary Thatcher, L. Paul Bremer or the President could imagine. It's just not in their mental repertoire . . . The essential nature of this administration is set. They can't kick it. And that's why they're going to be left with the Iraq of their dreams. It just so happens that those dreams are nightmares. They always were. This is a passing moment. When the dust clears we'll still be an unpopular occupying power with 110,000 embattled troops in a country with over 60% unemployment, a significant insurgency, and few reassuring Iraqi faces."


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Anti-Union Laws and Privatization in Iraq

Many thanks to Greg Lipman for alerting me to the David Bacon article on labor issues and privatization in Iraq. Bacon alleges that a 1987 anti-union law of the Baath is being enforced by the Coalition Provisional Authority even as it sells off state-owned Iraqi businesses to the highest bidder. Based on his interviews with them, he finds Iraqi workers fearful of the effects of privatization.

The issue of labor relations has been almost completely ignored by the mainstream US press, except where informal trade unions have intervened in politics forcefully, as in Hilla recently. Although initially some of the Arabic press reported on these issues, such articles have become scarce in that language as well, at least with regard to what is available on the Web. It is a big story, and may be the story that finally decides whether the US wins or fails in Iraq.
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1 US Soldier Killed; 8 Iraqis killed, 25 Wounded in Car Bombings at Iraqi Police Stations

Pro-Saddam Demonstrations in Falluja and Tikrit

A roadside bomb killed one US soldier in Baghdad on Monday.

Guerrillas killed 8 or 9 (the number seems to be under dispute) and injured 15 at a police station at Husainiya, 18 miles north of Baghdad, when they drove a Land Cruiser car bomb through barbed wire to approach the station before detonating it.

Guerrillas drove a Peugot car bomb at the Higher Crime Investigation Station at Amiriyah (near the Baghdad airport) and detonated it at 8:30 am, wounding 10.

There were mixed reports about what happened in the western Sunni suburb of al-Adhamiya. Some reports say there was a simple demonstration in favor of Saddam. Others allege that Sunni Arab nationalists attacked the Adhamiya police station in Baghdad with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire. The US authorities had not as of this writing clarified exactly what happened there.

Maureen Fan of Knight-Ridder also reports that there were pro-Saddam demonstrations in Falluja and Tikrit. Demonstrators occupied the central administration building in Falluja. Az-Zaman reports that the rallies were dispersed by US troops.
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Reaction to Saddam's Capture in Iran

In 1980, Saddam Hussein launched a war on Iran, attempting to grab its oil-rich Khuzistan province, and beginning a bloody conflict that lasted until 1988. The war devoured the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iranians, but eventually Saddam was forced to withdraw. Iranians are therefore among those rejoicing in the capture of Saddam, though the hardliners among them see it as God's judgment on a man who defied Imam Khomeini rather than as an American victory.

Iran has decided to lodge a legal complaint against Saddam in the World Court. Its spokesmen say they not only want Saddam tried for crimes against humanity, but also want to bring out the role of the Western nations that supported and built up Saddam (including the US, France, Russia and Germany).

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Successful Caucus Elections in Samawa

Veteran Middle East reporter Nicholas Blanford writes in the Christian Science Monitor about the successes of the Coalition Provisional Authority in sponsoring caucus-type elections in Muthanna Province in the hardscrabble Shiite south. He describes how the populace is given the opportunity to put 100 names of delegates forward, who in turn elect a mayor and a city council. The CPA mandates that 10 percent of electees be women. Most electees among the men seem to be technocrats, tribal leaders, and clerics.

Of course, these aren't really caucuses, which are far more democratic and unpredictable. It still is not entirely clear to me how the 100 are selected by the townspeople, and one could imagine processes that were intrinsically unfair.

Nor are they good practice for genuine, democratic one-person, one-vote elections, which are envisaged for late 2005. Blanford says that Paul "Jerry" Bremer has ordered that the Muthanna model be implemented throughout the country. These are the sorts of elections that will produce a transitional government in Iraq this spring according to US plans.
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Impact of Saddam Arrest on US Politics

The capture of Saddam is probably more important for US politics than for the Iraqis. The Baath Party and the Saddam cult of personality were spent forces by the end of the Gulf War, which was why Saddam was forced to rule by sheer terror. You don't have to put thousands of people in mass graves if you have a large popular mandate. So when Saddam fell, and when the Republican Guard tanks corps disintegrated last April, it was over with. Saddam could never have come back. His actual capture is just a footnote in Iraq. Of course, there are still Baathists, and some of the violence has come from them (as I have repeatedly suggested), but they are a small minority that knows how to rig bombs, not a mass movement.

Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post have more on the complex tasks that remain in Iraq. I am quoted there saying, '"Today represents the beginning of the final struggle for the shape of post-American Iraq. The Baathists were a spent force. But what does inspire Iraqis is the vision of Iraq as part of Arab nationalism or as part of the trend toward Islamic governance," said Juan R. Cole, a Middle East expert and professor of history at the University of Michigan. "With the removal of Saddam, the issue is the shape of Iraq's future, and these are the issues that will come to the fore." '

The commentators on cable news shows on Sunday seemed to think that Saddam's capture guarantees Bush's reelection in November of 2004. Well, incumbents have great advantages, and most often do get reelected. But Saddam won't do it for Bush. In a way, the capture came too early for those purposes. It will be a very dim memory in October, 2004.

The Sunni Arab insurgency will continue at least for a while (see below), and the possibility that the Shiites will make more and more trouble cannot be ruled out. The US military is stuck in the country for the foreseeable future at something approaching current troop levels. The move to give civil authority to a transitional Iraqi government may not go smoothly. The administration will have to ask Congress for another big appropriation for Iraq sometime before the '04 election, and that won't help Bush's popularity. The Iraqi economy is still a basket case, the oil pipelines are still being sabotaged or looted, and a whole host of everyday problems remain that having Saddam in custody will not resolve. If Iraq is still going this badly in October of 2004, it would be a real drag on the Bush campaign. Yes, I said "this badly." One arrest doesn't turn it around, except in the fantasy world of political theater in which pundits seem to live.

Howard Dean and Wesley Clark were far more gentlemanly about the news than one might have expected. I suppose their handlers told them that capturing Saddam is very popular with the US public, and they had to find a way to applaud it and to avoid seeming petty toward Bush on his day of victory.

But in the coming year the Democratic candidates just have to take off these kid gloves. I'd begin by asking some hard questions about Republican administrations' past relationship with Saddam. Put that photo of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand in 1983 in the commercials; ask hard questions about former Reaganites now serving in the Bush administration who supported Saddam to the hilt while he was gassing Iranian troops and Kurds; find out who authorized the US sale of chemical and biological precursors to Saddam; and be so rude as to bring up the horrible betrayal committed by Bush senior when he stood aside and let Saddam massacre all those Shiites in 1991, after they rose up in response to a Bush call for the popular overthrow of Saddam. The US military could have shot down those helicopter gunships that massacred Shiites in Najaf and Basra. Bush senior clearly told them to let Saddam enjoy his killing fields. And imagine, the Bush administration officials are actually getting photo ops at the mass graves their predecessors allowed to be filled with bodies!

What happened Sunday was that the Republicans captured a former ally, with whom they had later fallen out.
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4 US troops Wounded in Kuwait

According to Reuters, guerrillas in Kuwait attacked two US convoys moving through that country on Sunday in separate incidents, lightly wounding four US soldiers when their small arms attack shattered glass and set it flying.. Unsuccessful attacks on US personnel in Kuwait, presumably by Kuwaitis sympathetic to al-Qaeda, have apparently been more frequent than is commonly known.

Al-Qaeda-linked gunmen shot and wounded two US soldiers in Kuwait in November of 2002.
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Celebrations in Dearborn

Arab-Americans in southwest Detroit came out into the frosty streets to celebrate Saddam's capture, reports Nancy Youssef of the Detroit Free Press. She writes, '"This is a golden opportunity for the coalition to rebuild trust with the Iraqi people," said Imam Husham Al-Husainy, head of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn. "The aim should be to allow Iraqis the opportunity to share in the rebuilding of their country."' .

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Rumors of Iran Connection to Arrest of Saddam Questioned

Ali Nourizadeh, writing in the London-based Saudi daily, ash-Sharq al-Awsat, reports that rumors have swirled in Iraq that Iranian intelligence played a role in ferreting out the location of Saddam Hussein. Nourizadeh discounts these reports, because, he says, Iranian security is in the hands of the hardliners, and he thinks it is highly unlikely that the hardliners would want to do anything to hurt the Iraqi insurgency against the US. The instability of Iraq is one of the few things they have going for them, as they head into next year's elections. (I think Nourizadeh is right about this.) Nourizadeh was told by an Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs official that their main source of information about such things inside Iraq was Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader, and it was his office that informed them of Saddam's capture.

What Nourizadeh does not say is that the rumors of a positive Iranian role in capturing Saddam must be disinformation, intended to detract from the gratitude owed to the US by the Iraqi Shiites, and the prestige garned by the Americans for this coup. The source of the disinformation is likely the Sadr Movement, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or the al-Da`wa Party, though Iranian SAVAMA agents in Iraq may be acting on their own.

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Iraqi Joke about the Capture of Saddam

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says the following is making the rounds in Baghdad:

'Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the former Information Ministry spokesman [known in the West as Baghdad Bob], was reached for comment about the arrest of Saddam. Al-Sahhaf denied that the US had captured the former Iraqi leader. "The man they arrested is Santa Claus," he said.'

I guess you had to be there.
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Musharraf Nearly Blown Up

On any other day it would be front-page news. As Dawn notes, General Pervez Musharraf, who styles himself president of Pakistan, was very nearly killed by a powerful bomb on a bridge to Rawalpindi that went off just after his convoy had passed over it. Musharraf has in recent days cracked down much harder than ever before on the jihadi groups in Pakistan, and they have vowed to kill him. Indeed, the no. 2 in al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, openly called for Musharraf's assassination in a tape broadcast on al-Jazeerah. Likewise, Musharraf has made major peace overtures to India, which are deeply unpopular with the jihadis.

Musharraf is a secularist by instinct (he grew up partially in Turkey when his father was a diplomat at the Pakistani embassy in Ankara), and has proven a valuable US ally since September 11. The Pakistani military has arrested some 500 al-Qaeda members who fled to the country from Afghanistan, and has turned most of these, including Khalid Shaikh Muhammad and Abu Zubayda, over to the United States.

Pakistan is a nuclear power, and were Musharraf to be killed and replaced by an Islamist general, that development could throw South Asia and Afghanistan into turmoil and threaten the security of the US. The incident is a reminder that despite the arrest near Tikrit, the world remains a dangerous place for the US and its allies.
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Reflections on the Capture of Saddam Hussein

Seeing a captive, disheveled Saddam on television this morning released a cascade of memories for me. I remembered the innocent Jews brutally hanged in downtown Baghdad when the Baath came to power in 1968; the fencing with the Shah and the Kurds in the early 1970s; the vicious repression of the Shiites of East Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala in 1977-1980; the internal Baath putsch of 1979, when perhaps a third of the party's high officials were taken out and shot, so that Saddam could become president; the bloody invasion of Iran in 1980 and the destruction of a whole generation of Iraqi and Iranian young men in the 1980s (at least 500,000 dead, perhaps even more); the Anfal poison gas campaign against the Kurds in 1987-88; Halabja, a city of 70,000 where 5,000 died where they stood, their blood boiling with toxic gases, little children lying in heaps in the street; the rape of Kuwait in 1990-91; the genocide against the Shiites that began in spring of 1991 and continued intermittently thereafter; the destruction of the Marsh Arabs; the assassinations, the black marias, the Fedayee Saddam. Yes, the United States was not innocent in some of this. Perhaps they cooperated in bringing the Baath to power in the first place, as an anti-Communist force. They certainly allied with Saddam against Iran in the 1980s, and authorized the purchase of chemical and biological precursors. But the Baath was an indigenous Iraqi phenomenon, and local forces kept Saddam in place, despite dozens of attempts to overthrow him.

A nightmare has ended. He will be tried, and two nations' dirty laundry will be exposed, the only basis on which all can go forward towards a new Persian Gulf and a new relationship with the West.

What is the significance of the capture of Saddam for contemporary Iraqi politics? He was probably already irrelevant.

The Sunni Arab resisters to US occupation in the country's heartland had long since jettisoned Saddam and the Baath as symbols. (See "Sunnis gear up" below.) They are fighting for local reasons. Some are Sunni fundamentalists, who despised the Baath. Others are Arab nationalists who weep at the idea of their country being occupied. Some had relatives killed or humiliated by US troops and are pursuing a clan vendetta. Some fear a Shiite and Kurdish-dominated Iraq will reduce them to second class citizens. They will fight on, as Mr. Bush admitted today.

My wife, Shahin Cole, suggested to me an ironic possibility with regard to the Shiites. She said that many Shiites in East Baghdad, Basra, and elsewhere may have been timid about opposing the US presence, because they feared the return of Saddam. Saddam was in their nightmares, and the reprisals of the Fedayee Saddam are still a factor in Iraqi politics. Now that it is perfectly clear that he is finished, she suggested, the Shiites may be emboldened. Those who dislike US policies or who are opposed to the idea of occupation no longer need be apprehensive that the US will suddenly leave and allow Saddam to come back to power. They may therefore now gradually throw off their political timidity, and come out more forcefully into the streets when they disagree with the US. As with many of her insights, this one seems to me likely correct.



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20 Die in Car Bomb at Khaldiya Police Station

Guerrillas exploded a car bomb at an Iraqi police station in Khaldiya, west of Baghdad, on Sunday morning. Early reports gave the number of Iraqis killed as 20.

On Saturday the US military confirmed that one US soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb attack at Ramadi on Friday. Two Polish soldiers had also been wounded Friday in a similar attack.
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Continued Opposition to the US Fiat in Iraq

The possibility of a United Nations Commission that would decide whether early elections should be held in Iraq continued to be discussed in Shiite circles on Saturday. In Najaf, Ammar al-Hakim, son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said after a meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani that "The occupation forces say that elections are not possible, but concerned Iraqis believe that they are possible. Who will make the determination?" He added, "The demand of Ayatollah Sistani is a humane, legal opinion, for it is impossible to build democracy on an undemocratic basis. If general elections are impossible, then it is necessary to explore other alternatives. His Excellency does not desire the failure of the political process." (- al-Hayat).

Veteran reporter on Iranian and Shiite affairs Robin Wright of the Washington Post argues that the US is unwise to oppose Sistani on the issue of going to early general elections.

Meanwhile, both Shiite and Sunni Friday prayers leaders resumed harsh criticism of the US on Friday, according to Hamza Hendawi of AP. Clerics loyal to Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr like Sayyid Amr al-Husni of the al-Muhsin Mosque told congregants in the slums of East Baghdad, ""American occupation forces are distributing pornographic laser discs and free newspapers that contain lewd pictures. Muslims, beware of what the infidel and corrupt West is trying to do to believers."
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3000 Iranian Pilgrims a Day foreseen for Iraq

According to AFP, another son of SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Muhsin al-Hakim, announced that he had negotiated a deal with the Interim Governing Council and the Iranian government to allow 3,000 Iranian pilgrims to enter Iraq every day.

If the negotiated number of pilgrims actually came, they would amount to just over a million a year. This massive movement of so many pilgrims from Iran through Iraq (and some of the pilgrims will actually come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan to Iran's east) will pose severe security headaches for the US and its partners in Iraq. Some of the pilgrims will be Iranian Revolutionary Guards or SAVAMA spies, and some of them may be saboteurs in the service of Iranian hardliners seeking to make mischief. Still, the vast majority of Iraqi pilgrims will just be pilgrims. One also wonders whether Iraqi Shiites might not get exposed to Iranian religious reformism in this way.

The upside is that if each pilgrim spends as little as $300 in Iraq, that will be an income to the shrine cities and their merchants and people of $300 mn. a year, which is not peanuts. Obviously, Iran's over 60 million Shiites could end up spending literally billions in Iraq every year, a prospect over which the retailers in the shrine cities are salivating.

There are several major pilgrimage sites in Iraq, including the shrines at Najaf (Imam `Ali), Karbala (Imam Husayn), Kazimiya (Imams Musa al-Kazim [# 7] and Muhammad al-Jawad [#9]), and Samarra (Imam Ali al-Hadi [#10] and Imam Hasan al-`Askari [#11] [Samarra' is also holy as a place associated with the disappearance of the 12th Imam, the return of whom Shiites await as their supernatural savior]).

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Sunnis Gear up to Resist Shiite Rule

Meanwhile, Rich Potter of the Toronto Star reports that the resistance to the US occupation in Falluja is Sunni Arab nationalist in character, and is rejecting both Saddam and the prospect of majority-Shiite rule.

One has the impression that some people in Falluja may be blowing up things for years to come, since the Shiites are in fact likely to form a majority in the new government.
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Sistani Calls for UN Decision

According to the Gulf Daily News, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani stands by his ruling that Iraq should go to early general elections on a one-person, one-vote basis. According to IGC member Muwaffak al-Rubaie, however, Sistani has indicated that he would back down on one condition. If Kofi Annan appoints a UN commission that concludes that early general elections are impractical because of security concerns, then he would accept some other mechanism for achieving a transitional government.

The hawks in the Bush administration have consistently attempted to sideline the United Nations from any significant decision-making role in Iraq, but Sistani is attempting to push the US to seek legitimacy for its Iraq administration from the UN. He must believe that he can get a better deal for Iraqis and for Shiites by involving Kofi Annan than he can expect from Mssrs. Bremer and Blackwill on their own.

The Coalition Provisional Authority may defy Sistani on this issue, but it will do so at some peril. As Rajiv Chandrasekharan reports, already in the past few days there have been a number of demonstrations in the central Shiite city of Hilla against the US-appointed mayor, Jawad Witwit, which caused him to resign. The US military then appointed an Iraqi former air force officer as mayor, instead. He, too, has proved unacceptable, and the demonstrators vow to continue to press for free elections for the mayor and city council. Hilla's labor unions have also come out on the side of the demonstrators. The Shiites of Hilla say that they have taken heart from Sistani's enunciation of the principle that general elections should be held immediately. Does the US really want lots of such urban demonstrations all over the country this spring?

When I earlier said that I thought it unlikely that Sistani would call for mass demonstrations, I hadn't considered the possibility that Sistani's followers and even those more radical than he might take up his fatwa in favor of grassroots democracy and demonstrate on that basis, anyway.

I should have remembered history. In 1891-92 Iran was roiled by protests against a tobacco monopoly granted to a British freebooter, a Major Talbot. The monopoly set the prices at which it bought Iranian tobacco from the farmers, and it cut Iranian merchants and money lenders out of the system. Only the monopoly and the corrupt shah benefited from the deal (the shah got "royalties" from the foreign monopoly). The Iranian public was outraged and began demonstrating in cities throughout the country. Someone began circulating a fatwa or ruling attributed to Mirza Hasan Shirazi, then the leading Object of Emulation or Shiite leader, which said that no Shiite should smoke tobacco until the monopoly was cancelled. Shirazi didn't write the ruling, but he did not openly deny it, and people demonstrated on that basis even though he himself did not come out publicly and call for rallies.

So, in modern Shiite history there is precedent for people using the Object of Emulation for political purposes even when he doesn't get out in front. That could happen here.

By the way, Nasir al-Din Shah (d. 1896) was forced by the popular demonstrations to cancel the tobacco monopoly.



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1 US Soldier Killed, 14 wounded

Three guerrillas drove a car filled with explosives near the Champion US Army Base at Ramadi on Thursday and blew themselves up, killing one soldier, wounding 3 badly enough to be taken to a combat field hospital, and lightly wounding 11 others (they got hit by flying glass and debris and were sent back to active duty).

Guerrillas launched a grenade attack at a US military patrol in Baghdad, missing the soldiers but wounding two Time Magazine journalists, including war photographer James Nachtwey, who were accompanying the convoy.

Guerrillas near Baqubah wounded two members of the Iraqi civil defence force in separate attacks.

Mortar shells landed in the compound of the Green Zone or US HQ in Baghdad, causing explosions but only two light casualties. The HQ is well protected by walls, but a mortar with the right trajectory can get over the walls.
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IGC Negotiates with Sistani

The Interim Governing Council sent a delegate Thursday to conduct talks with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, which were described as "tough but sincere." (-AFP via ash-Sharq al-Awsat). They discussed the instruments whereby sovereignty would be transferred to the Iraqi people from the Coalition Provisional Authority on July 1, 2004. The delegation included Mouwafak al-Rubaie (former member of al-Da`wa Party from Basra) and Ahmad Chalabi, and it met with the grand ayatollah for 3 hours. Al-Rubaie said afterwards, "Sistani's point of view is the same as that of all Iraqis, in favor of participation in elections and the issue of the constitution." He added, "Every politician must consider this place (Sistani's office) to be a source of guidance and blessings, since Sistani is concerned for all Iraqis, whether Sunni or Shiite, whether Arab or Kurd."
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Fadlallah Discourages formation of Militias

Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, who resides in Beirut, Lebanon, has long had a following inside Iraq. He was born and educated in Najaf and is an Iraqi. The Shiite al-Da`wa Party is said to favor him. According to al-Sharq al-Awsat, he was asked recently by Iraqi Shiites if the parties in Iraq should attempt to form paramilitary militias. Fadlallah replied that such a step should be avoided, because it might lead to sectarian violence and instability. He said instead that existing paramilitaries should be absorbed into the national Iraqi army. Fadlallah lived throught he Lebanese civil war and so has a low opinion of party militias. He at one time was linked to the Lebanese Hizbullah but is said to have cut ties to them years ago.
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Wolfowitz throws Tantrum at France, Germany, Russia and Canada:
The Failure of Emotional Intelligence

It transpires that the Pentagon order denying Iraq reconstruction contracts to France, Germany, Russia and Canada was issued by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. It created enormous anger in the US allies of NATO. They feel that they have been putting themselves out there for the US, and are now being screwed over. Germany has been spending extra money and military resources on guarding the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa from al-Qaeda incursions. Germany, France and Canada all have troops in Afghanistan risking their lives for the US (al-Qaeda has not blown up any tall buildings in Toronto). Even outside NATO, Russia acquiesced in letting the US move into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, traditional Russian/Soviet spheres of influence, for its war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Wolfowitz's timing could not be worse. He issued the order just as Bush envoy James Baker was about to make the rounds of Iraq's creditors, asking for extensive debt forgiveness. Iraq owes $9 bn. to Russia, for instance, and in international law the debt must be repaid by Iraq regardless of regime changes. And, Russia's foreign minister promptly announced that the US could kiss the prospect of any debt forgiveness goodbye.

Since Iraq owes on the order of $40 bn. to Russia, France and other European countries, and since the reconstruction budget so far is under $20 bn., it is obvious that vastly more was to be gained by letting the NATO countries and Europe have a few contracts and then getting them to forgive or refinance the loans.

Instead, Wolfowitz was intent on scoring petty points. He had promised to "punish" France for defying him. The move was so gratuitous and immature that one can only guess something else lay behind it. There are lots of reasons for which the Likudniks would like to make bad blood between the US and France and Russia in particular. France is no longer a knee-jerk supporter of Israeli militarism and expansionism. In part this is because of the growth of the Muslim electorate in France. About 7% of French residents are Muslim, nearly 5 million persons, whereas French Jews amount to only 600,000 or perhaps a bit more. France has been alarmed at Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's combination Iron Fist and Land Rustling, since it makes French Muslims upset. Likewise, Russia has a more balanced view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. So, it may be that the powerful Likudniks inside the US government are deliberately engineering a diplomatic rift in NATO, so as to ensure that Paris and Moscow cannot position themselves to influence Washington's position (usually supine) toward Sharon's excesses.

I have concluded that the Bush team lacks Emotional Intelligence as defined by psychologists such as Daniel Goleman. Emotional Intelligence consists of the following:

"Self-awareness: Observing yourself and recognizing a feeling as it happens.

Managing emotions: Handling feelings so that they are appropriate; realizing what is behind a feeling; finding ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger, and sadness.

Motivating oneself: Channeling emotions in the service of a goal; emotional self control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses.

Empathy: Sensitivity to others' feelings and concerns and taking their perspective; appreciating the differences in how people feel about things.

Handling relationships: Managing emotions in others; social competence and social skills."

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are completely blind to those things that give rise to their anxieties, and are not good at handling their anger. They want to lash out and bomb people as the response to every challenge. After September 11 Wolfowitz first wanted to attack Iraq, and then when he was informed he couldn't do that (yet) he wanted to bomb Kabul. But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the cosmopolitan city of Kabul is mainly populated by Persian-speaking Tajiks who hated the guts of the Taliban.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are not good at emotional self control or stifling impulses. They shout and pound desks and poke people in the chest, and then they invade countries. They have already invaded two, and have a list of at least 5 more they would like to go after. They have no patience with the diplomacy that can often yield better results, but which requires a willingness to wait.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have no sensitivity to others' feelings or ability to see things from the perspective of their rivals, even within the Bush administration. Is it really so hard to understand why the French were skeptical of the need for an Iraq War? First the US persuaded them to vote to send the Weapons Inspectors back in. They did that, and Iraq let them back in, and then only a month later, before the inspectors could possibly have accomplished anything, the US invaded. Why bother with the inspection rigamarole at all? The French saw themselves as having been suckered. They said they didn't see good evidence of WMD in Iraq (it didn't exist). They felt the US was rushing to war. So, instead of saying, well, allies sometimes disagree on policy and we understand that you choose to sit this one out, Wolfowitz tried to demonize France. And he is still slapping Paris in the face 8 months later.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are not good at managing emotions in others, social competence, and social skills. The basic goal of a manager (and a superpower has to manage diplomacy) is to create a win-win situation for everyone on a team as far as possible. The last thing you want is for some colleagues to be sulking and feeling unfairly treated. Yet Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have attempted to divide NATO into the countries willing to acquiesce in US adventurism and those who decline to go along with just any old war that Washington decides to fight. And they want to punish the independent-minded, which is bound to create further bad blood down the road (and further expense as the US taxpayers have to take up the tasks the French and Germans disdain as a result of Washington's pique).

If these guys were managing a company and I were deciding whether to hire them, I'd take one look at the track record of deficiencies in emotional intelligence and dump them immediately in favor of adults.

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2 US Troops Killed, 4 Wounded in Mosul

Guerrillas killed 2 US troops in a roadside bombing and a shoot-out in two separate incidents in Mosul on Wednesday. Four others were wounded in the engagements. US troops returning fire shot and killed a civilian Iraqi driver, later identified as a a member of a Kurdish group allied with the US.

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Shiite Mosque attacked

Unknown assailants razed a Shiite mosque in Baghdad on Wednesday.
According to local eyewitnesses, the act was revenge for the bombing of a
Sunni mosque on Tuesday, which killed 4 persons. The caretaker of the
Shiite mosque maintained that the attackers had come from the funeral
procession for those killed at the Sunni mosque. (al-Hayat).

For background see Nicholas Blanford in the CSM.

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Human Rights, Anti-Terror (and somewhat Anti-American) Demonstrations

The demonstrations for human rights and against terrorism in several Iraqi
cities on Wednesday were organized by parties represented on the Interim
Governing Council. Althought the US press has tended to portray these
rallies as pro-American, they were far more ambiguous than that. The
organizers were able to get out about 5,000 demonstrators in
Baghdad, and smaller crowds gathered in other cities. One group that
mobilized its cadres for this demonstration was the Iraqi Communist
Party. Its supporters waved red flags emblazoned with the hammer and
sickle, according to ash-Sharq al-Awsat. It seems obvious that the
CPI was more likely demonstrating for human rights and against the
Baathists than in favor of the US per se. Other participants included the
Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi, feminist groups, and some
clerics and their followers. AFP said some demonstrators spoke of their
gratitude to the US for overthrowing Saddam, while others called the
Baathists "fascists" and vowed they would not be allowed to come back.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat said that 2500 demonstrators came out in the holy
cities of Najaf and Karbala. But they carried placards calling for the
immediate turn-over of authority in Iraq by the Americans to the Iraqis.
As usual with demonstrations, various groups used them for their own
purposes. It is hard to see how a demand that the US give sovereignty
back to the Iraqis right now can be seen as pro-American.

The occasion of the demonstrations was actually the international day of
human rights.

The numbers reported on such occasions are usually inflated. What is
remarkable to me is that the parties who called for the demonstrations
were only able to get out a small number of supporters. All these
factions together could not produce a crowd the size of the ones Muqtada
al-Sadr seems able to assemble at will.

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CPA Halts Effort to Tally Iraqi War Dead

AP is alleging that an ongoing program by the Iraqi ministry of health aimed at totalling up the civilian casualties in the Iraq War of last spring has been shut down. The report claims that the Iraqi minster of health stopped it, on orders from the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority. Estimates for civilians killed in the war range between 3500 and 7000. About 20,000 are widely estimated to have been wounded.

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Iraqi Battalion Collapses

CNN reports that the first new battalion of the Iraqi army being trained by the US has collapsed, with nearly half of recruits having resigned. Apparently poor pay ($60 a month) is one of the big complaints. But surely a further motive is their increasing suspicion that the same guerrillas who have wounded 10,000 US troops and
killed hundreds will put them through the meat grinder as soon as they are deployed.

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Clark Lashes out at Bush on Mishandling of Iraq

US presidential candidate Wesley Clark called the Iraq war a “$150 billion mess” on Tuesday, in his harshest condemnation of the Bush administration’s handling of the war so far. Clark’s more focused attack on the Republicans on the issue of the war may be his response to Gore’s endorsement of Howard Dean on Tuesday. Gore must think that the Iraq situation is Bush’s Achilles Heel, and that Dean has the best credentials (having opposed the war all along) to make good use of that vulnerability. Clark’s position (like my own) is more complicated and therefore harder to communicate to voters Clark is therefore doing what I suggested in November, which is attacking the Bush team on their handling of the aftermath of the war, which sidesteps the issue of the war itself. My estimation is that Clark would be more likely to beat Bush than Dean, but that Clark entered the race too late, and lacks the money and grassroots organization that Dean has.

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Hundreds of Shiites Demonstrate in Baghdad

Hundreds of angry Shiites demonstrated in Baghdad on Tuesday, over the killing of a mosque prayer leader by US troops. They gathered in front of the Palestine Hotel, carrying placards and carrying pictures of the slain cleric, Shaikh Abd al-Razzak al-Lami, 64, of East Baghdad (Sadr City), and of his smashed auto, over which they claimed US tanks had run last Friday. They complained that after the incident, US troops had fled the scene and left the shaikh’s body there. They called for the tank drivers to be punished.

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US arrests 29 in Kirkuk, including 5 Policemen

US forces arrested 29 Iraqis on Tuesday afternoon, including 5 police officers, after a search operation in a quarter of the northern, largely Kurdish city of Kirkuk. This according to a Kirkuk police official, Major Adnan Muhammad Sadir, head of the police station in Miqdad, in an interview with Agence France Press. The operation in that quarter lasted two hours and a half, ending in the arrests mentioned. This is the first time the US has arrested Kirkuk policemen.

This item, reprinted in az-Zaman, could be a sign of trouble for the future. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is putting a lot of emphasis on "Iraqization" or turning to Iraqi police and soldiers to provide security to the country as the US withdraws. But what if the police and army come to be full of anti-American Arab nationalists who use their new position to hit out at the US and its Iraqi allies?

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Interim Governing Council expels Mujahidin

According to AP, the Iraqi Interim Governing Council has decided to expel from the country the terrorist group, the Mujahidin-i Khalq. The Mujahidin-i Khalq Organization or Holy Warriors of the People (MKO) had about 4,000 men at the Ashraf Base near the Iranian border in the Saddam period, from which it launched terrorist operations inside Iran. Saddam, who fought the Islamic Republic 1980-1988 and who remained on bad terms with the ayatollahs thereafter, used the MKO as a way to harass the Iranians.

The US had occupied the MKO base in June, but had not closed down the organization or expelled it, hoping to use it as a quid pro quo with the Iranians, in an effort to get them to turn over to the US the al-Qaeda operatives Iran had captured. This move of the IGC either indicates that a deal has been struck, and the US will get the al-Qaeda personnel from Iran; or it indicates the independence of the IGC from the US and perhaps even a certain amount of Iranian influence on that body. (Several IGC members, including Ahmad Chalabi and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, are rumored to get money from Iran). Although State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has denied that the US ever planned to trade the Mujahidin-i Khalq in Iraq for the al-Qaeda members in Iranian custody, he may have been being coy. I don’t think the deal sought was an exchange. It was more like a threat: If Iran did not turn over al-Qaeda members in its possession, the MKO might be given renewed freedom of movement in Iraq, which would allow it to go on hitting across the border into Iran.

The MKO originated in a group of radical Iranian students in the early 1970s, and carried out somewhat futile guerrilla strikes at the Shah’s government. It joined in the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution. After Khomeini’s return on February 1, 1979, Iran quickly became a clerically-dominated state in which there was no room for a leftist/populist Muslim militia. The Khomeinists and the MKO fell apart, and began attacking one another. The MKO conducted spectacular bombings, one of which killed over 80 high Iranian clerical politicians. But it was unable to spark a general uprising against the ayatollahs. In their turn, the Khomeinists launched a massive persecution of MKO members, killing an estimated 10,000 in the early to mid-1980s.

Writers in New York and Washington associated with the far rightwing Likud Party of Israel, such as Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson, have come out in support of the Mujahidin-i Khalq. This support from this quarter seems to me suspicious in the extreme, and suggests a desire among some neocons to use the MKO against the Iranian regime. Pipes, who supports this terrorist organization, was appointed by President Bush to the US Institute for Peace, over the objections of one of USIP's founders, Senator Tom Harkin.

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Sistani Followers: Call for Resistance if Islam is Threatened

Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post has written a fine and detailed description of the holy seminary city of Najaf, which is now reemerging as a Shiite center of learning, pilgrimage and politics. He reports that 40 seminaries have been established and that scores of clerics have come to teach in them from Iran.

Maureen Fan reports in the Philadelphia Inquirer that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf is unlikely to call for general resistance to the Americans for another year or so, except if he feels that "Islam is threatened." The article is in general a good profile of Sistani and of his following in Iraq, and the significance of his call for direct elections.

One correction: `Ilm ar-Rijal is the study of the persons who narrated oral sayings from the Prophet Muhammad (you have to know who they were to judge how valid their reports are, according to Muslim traditions of learning.)

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Eyewitness Account of US Administration of Iraq

Amal Winter posts at H-Net a fascinating account of her recent 3-week trip to Iraq as part of a delegation of International Federation for Election Systems. She is an Arab-American intellectual, and her perspective is unique. She confirms our worst fears about how isolated the Coalition Provisional Authority is from the Iraqis it is supposed to be administering. She also has interesting comments on the US civilian contractors working in Iraq (she charges that they are running a racket with guaranteed profits, indemnified from risk).

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Breaking News: 58 US Soldiers Wounded in Bomb Blast

According to the WP, a suicide bomber got just barely within striking distance of a US Army base near Mosul, but detonated his bombs before he was ready because he took US fire as he drove madly toward the gate. He still managed to wound 58 US soldiers, apparently lightly, but took no lives. Three Iraqis were also wounded. Most just were cut with flying glass from shattered windows, but 8 were evacuated for medical treatment.

What is scary to me is that if they keep trying, the Baathists will eventually find a way to kill lots of American troops. A car bomb was foredoomed to failure, since winding security roads had been set up outside the gate of the base, and the US military is ready for that sort of attack. But it is their country; they have lots of munitions; and the US military is a big target. What would have been the impact of 58 deaths today? Either escalation, Westmoreland style, or withdrawal, Lebanon style. Both carry their own risks . . .

A few hours later, a US reconnaissance helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in central Iraq, but managed to land safely and with no one killed (reports don't say if anyone was injured).

A bomb also went off outside a Sunni mosque in Baghdad, killing three Iraqis. Local Sunnis blamed Shiites, who denied the charges. (The likely culprit is Baathists, who want to set the Sunnis and Shiites to fighting with one another so as to make the country ungovernable for the US.)

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US Soldier Assassinated in Mosul Drive-By; Iraqi Policeman Killed

Four Iraqis in a vehicle conducted a drive-by shooting directed at US troops in Mosul Monday, killing a US soldier from the 101st Airborne Division. In Baqubah, guerrillas detonated strategically a tank round, killing an Iraqi policeman who was a bomb disposal expert.
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Iraqi Resistance sees itself as Fighting Occupation

Mitchell Prothero of UPI has found a source among the guerrillas willing to explain the nature of the Iraqi resistance. It is decentralized; much or most of it is not religious; and it has people in it who initially thought well of the US but came to believe they are being occupied (and that the occupiers are inept or full of ill will).
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US Using Israeli Military to Train Special Ops to fight Iraqis

Julian Borger of the Guardian reports that the Israeli army has sent "urban warfare specialists" to Ft. Bragg in North Carolina, to help train US Special Forces personnel for operations in Iraq. He says that according to two sources, Israeli military "consultants" have also visited Iraq.

Borger appears to have picked up on the story in the wake of a ground-breaking report by Seymour M. Hersh in the New Yorker, which goes into much more detail, but wasn't on the Web yet when I initially posted.

The disgusting and illegal razing of dwellings and the puerile philosophy that if you hit them hard enough they will lie down and let you walk all over them, which have been apparent in US military tactics in the Sunni Arab heartland in Iraq thus probably have origins in Israeli military thinking.

The Bush senior administration had a big fight with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in winter of 1991 because it would not share the "Identify Friend or Foe" codes in use over Iraq with the Israelis. Without broadcasting the right IFF codes, Israeli fighter planes that had tried to strike Iraq would have risked being misidentified as Iraqi hostiles and shot down by the US or other United Nations forces. Shamir was livid, but Bush senior refused to relent.

Why did the senior Bush behave this way? Because he wanted Egypt, Syria and other Arab states to continue to support the Gulf War. They were upset with Saddam because he had invaded Kuwait, a fellow Arab League member, and they were willing to join the US in a war to get the Iraqis back out of Kuwait. But they would not have been willing to fight another Arab country as direct allies of Israel, and if they had done so, they would have been so delegitimized at home that they might well have face revolutions. Bush senior knew this.

W. doesn't have his father's experience with the world, and is, frankly, an ignoramus. If he is letting the US effort in Iraq be tarred with the brush of Israeli occupation, he is actually acting as the world's most prominent recruiting agent for al-Qaeda in the Muslim world. Because that is al-Qaeda's message to angry young Muslim men who feel humiliated by US power and by Israeli brutality in the West Bank and Gaza. Al-Qaeda says, the Americans are not in Iraq to bring democracy. They are bringing Israeli hegemony to the Middle East.

It was ridiculous. Until the story broke and gave it legitimacy.

This is about the most stupid move I have ever seen the US military make. I have enormous respect for the US officer corps and for military thinkers. These professionals are most often really bright and well informed. They very frequently get over-ruled by civilian political appointees who are either not bright or not well informed.

But this time the impetus seems to be coming from within, from Lieutenant General William "Jerry" Boykin. Boykin is the one who spends his spare time chatting up big Christian fundamentalist audiences about his life a death struggle with what he calls the satanic Muslim religion. And now he's bringing in Israelis to train the special ops guys, according to Borger's sources.

Mind you, I support US friendship for Israel, though I regret the Bush administration's obsequiousness toward the bully Ariel Sharon (who should be in jail for war crimes). But like Bush senior in the Gulf War, I think the US cannot allow its alliance with Israel to interfere with policy toward the Arab world, where the US also has key allies and friends. The tragic thing is that the Sharon government's Iron Fist policies do not work (if by "work" you mean "lead to resolution of conflict and make people safer"). Palestinian opponents of the Great Israeli Land Theft continue to grow like kudzu, and terrorism has not been stopped. Even the former heads of Shin Bet, Israeli internal security, have publicly come out to critique Sharon and say it does not work. So now is the time for the US military to suddenly adopt these tactics? Ed Blanche of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London makes this point in a recent Daily Star op-ed.

The US is doomed not just to a small run of the mill disappointment in Iraq if it goes on riding roughshod over ordinary Arabs' feelings like this. It is doomed to a major blow-up that will do incalculable damage to the security and well-being of you and me. Any of you who write your congressmen should please take up the issue of Boykin and his crazy schemes to Sharon-ize the US military.

It is no wonder that the US effort in Iraq is being slammed even by friends such as the Indonesian Foreign Minister.

I have a sinking feeling that Bush just lost the war on terror.




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Carnegie's Arab Reform Bulletin

I did not get time to do it when it came out, but I wanted to direct readers to the recent
Arab Reform Bulletin put out by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which considers issues in the political development of contemporary Iraq. I've got a piece there, as do Peter Galbraith, Judith Yaphe, Adeed Dawisha and others.
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1 US Soldier Killed, 2 Wounded in Mosul

Guerrillas used a roadside bomb to kill one US soldier and wound 2 others from the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul on Sunday.

Also, guerrillas bombed a train near Samarra, detaching 12 cars and putting the rail link out of commission for a week or so, according to the Associated Press.
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al-Da`wa Party will act as Intermediary for Muqtada

The Shiite al-Da`wa Party announced that it would attempt to negotiate a truce between radical young Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr and the Americans. (al-Zaman). Muqtada recently announced that he would call fo a general strike in February to protest the jailing of a number of his followers. He has also, however, reaffirmed that he does not wish to take on the US with violence. One al-Da`wa leader, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, serves on the Intering Governing Council.
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Hilla Demonstrations Point to problems of Legitimacy

Mariam Fam of AP notes that there has been a popular movement of protest against the American-appointed mayor of the Shiite city of Hillah. His opponents accuse him of having been a Baath party member, of having collaborated, and of being corrupt and nepotistic.

There have been similar popular protests against the governing councils in Amara and Nasiriyah.

Questions about the legitimacy of the municipal councils are crucial because they will help elect the new body that will in turn elect the transitional parliament. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani considers the present councils and mayors undemocratic.
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Gas and Electricity Shortages Return

Glen Carey of USA Today reports that gasoline/ petrol and electricity shortages have returned to Baghdad, raising anxieties among Iraqis about how they will make it through the winter. The fall-off in megawattage and gasoline has to do in part with sabotage, since guerrillas have launched numerous attacks against pipelines, which are hard to protect. For most people, the electricity is on for two hours and then off for four. And people can wait in gas lines for four hours nowadays, too.

This situation in Baghdad is alarming because such shortages and lack of services contributed to the riots that broke out in Basra last August.

In a related story, a Korean company had 62 employees working on restoring the electicity infrastructure in the Sunni Arab region. Two of them were assassinated (as were two Japanese diplomats), provoking a workers' rebellion, according to the Washington Post. The Korean ambassador intervened to ask for negotiations, and it was decided that the 60 civilian contractors would go back to Korea. They complained that they were given no security and had not been told back in Korea that the mission would be so dangerous.

So, some of the people who were helping with the electricity problems no longer are. One wonders if the Iraq experience will roll back the Pentagon's craze for having civilian contractors do jobs that are really part of a military mission. You can order military electrical engineers in to do work in Ramadi. You can't order civilians into a war zone against their wishes, as the Korean example demonstrates. In the meantime, score 1 for the guerrillas, who were aiming at precisely this outcome, as Kos notes at the fine site Daily Kos

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Controversies about New Security Agency in Iraq

In the 1980s, Saddam employed tens of thousands of persons in the Ministry of the Interior (analogous to the US FBI) and related organs, for the purpose of domestic spying on Iraqis. Some have asserted that the number of snitches was greater than the number of all the blue collar workers in all the modern industries in Iraq. Spying was Iraq's number one industry.

The Iraqi public is therefore understandably anxious about all this talk of the creation of a new domestic spying agency, analogous to the UK's MI-5. There is also much skittishness about the creation of a a new security organ, the personnel of which will be drawn from existing party militias. Iyad al-Samarra'i, the secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, calls this plan a "recipe for Lebanonizing Iraq." Although the new force of about 850 men, which will concentrate on anti-terrorist activities, will have mixed squads, it will draw for personnel on the Kurdish militias, that of the Iraqi National Accord and the Iraqi National Congress, and on the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Why do it this way? If you needed about 1000 men to fight terrorism, why not just train some to do it? This move is clearly intended to give permanent military power to the expatriate parties, many of which (except for the Kurds and SCIRI) have limited local support and will have difficulty winning elections. But Iyad Alawi (an ex-Baathist who leads a party of ex-Baathist officers) and Ahmad Chalabi will have key men in the new unit, who could easily engage in sabotage if their political ambitions are thwarted. That is, this new anti-terrorism unit may well end up holding Iraq hostage to the interests of a few expatriate allies of the US Pentagon.

Shiite cleric Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi al-Khalisi, leader of the Islamic Movement in Iraq, told az-Zaman that bringing such militias together in a new unit was dangerous because militiamen inevitably have a sectarian point of view and sectional allegiances, whereas an Iraqi military must have the interests of the whole of Iraq at heart.

A move is afoot to create a new unit to engage in domestic spying and surveillance, as well. It is no doubt being backed by Iyad Alawi, the old Baathist operator, who got his man appointed to the Ministry of the Interior and who is intent on bringing back the secret police.
(-az-Zaman).




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Stages of American Iraq, and Parallels

I was on an Iraq panel at MIT on Friday with Ivo Daalder,, co-author of the just-published America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. I found his views of how the policy in Iraq has developed very interesting, and they provoked me to some thoughts of my own.

He distinguishes between the "Democratic Imperialists" (Wolfowitz and many of the Neocons) and the assertive American nationalists (Cheney and Rumsfeld), and sees them as opposing one another.

So we have three phases of American policy in Iraq and different analogies to other US imperial ventures, based on who was on top:

1. Jay Garner: Was planning to put Iraq on an even keel within 6 months and go home. This plan would have entailed putting Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress in charge of the Iraqi Army and bureaucracy (both would have been retained). It resembled the policy toward France after the US victory in 1945, where the government was handed over to the Free French. This policy was favored by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

2. Paul Bremer, First Phase: Bremer displaces Garner by mid-May. Intends to rule Iraq himself by fiat for two or three years. He disbands the Iraqi army altogether and puts off re-instituting the ministries. This is a Japan sort of plan, with Bremer playing MacArthur. He initially does not plan to have an Interim Governing Council or early elections. This plan was probably favored by Wolfowitz and some other neocons.

(Bremer first phase was modified July 13 when Bremer is forced to appoint an Interim Governing Council, because he simply did not have the legitimacy to rule Iraq by himself).


3. Paul Bremer, Second Phase: The Nov. 15 agreement is hastily hammered out calling for quick elections on a caucus basis, so that Bremer can hand over power to it by July 1, 2004. So, he would depart a year or two before scheduled. This is an Afghanistan model, complete with a US-invented Iraqi analogue to the manipulated Loya Jirga. Again, this model would be supported by Rumsfeld and Cheney and would raise anxieties among the neocons, who are dedicated to a Japan model of completely reshaping Iraq via direct US rule.

So, we've had three different models in less than 8 months, with the Washington infighting reinforced by the problem the US has had in getting control of the security situation.

I think the above analysis, which synthesizes some things that Daalder said with some things I said, leaves out the State Department too much. I think State has tended to support the Japan model and therefore to be allied with the neocons, if only as a matter of practical outcomes. It seems that the security problems are playing into the hands of the assertive American nationalists, who want to turn Iraqi civil administration over to someone local and then just leave. A US military division would be left behind for Gulf security.

The above is also probably too schematic. Daalder says that Wolfowitz is not that enamored of Chalabi, and implies that he supported Bremer against Garner (who is then coded as Rumsfeld's man). But the neocons, and not just Perle, seem to have had some sort of deal with Chalabi that made the "French" model acceptable to them. Did they really over-rule Rumsfeld to replace Garner with Bremer? How could Rumsfeld's deputies have that power to over-rule their own boss? I am pretty sure the Neocons were on board with the Pentagon flying Chalabi into Iraq in April with his militia. Moreover, there is the anecdote that Cheney poked his finger in Colin Powell's chest recently and said, 'If you had just let us turn Iraq over to Chalabi, we wouldn't be in this quagmire." This story implies that Bremer and the Japan model were State Department innovations, not neocon ones. Maybe Wolfowitz could live with it better than Cheney, but it seems to have come from Foggy Bottom. There is another wrinkle, which is that Bremer excluded most State Department Arabists in his Phase I. Why, if his Japan model was a State Department victory?

So, these whipsaw movements in Iraq no doubt do reflect Washington power struggles to some extent, but I'm not sure we have a really clear idea of who played what role. That developments on the ground in Iraq were more influential could be argued. Maybe Daalder explains all this in his book, which I have not yet read.

Josh Marshall has already written an important review of it for Foreign Affairs that is available online. He thinks Daalder and Lindsay understate the influence of the neoconservatives, who have advantages of cohesiveness that outweigh their relegation to 2nd-tier appointments.



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IGC Considers New Elections and Democratic Trade Unions

According to ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has revealed that the Interim Governing Council has still not finally come to a compromise on how to hold elections this spring for a transitional government. Al-Hakim wants general, one-person-one-vote elections, whereas the majority agrees with the Americans in wanting more easily controlled caucus elections based on US-appointed local councils.

Meanwhile, members of the IGC continue to lobby Paul Bremer to let them stay on after the elections, to function as a sort of upper house or Senate. Bremer is said to fear that the IGC and the transitional government will clash and produce deadlock, but the Americans may be weakening just because they are so eager to find someone to turn the civil administration of the country over to.

The Interim Governing Council has also taken up the issue of how to set up democratic trade unions in Iraq. IGC member Raja' al-Khuza'i said that the pressing issue was how to enable the trade unions to function so as to empower their members, in the crucial period leading up to the election of a transitional government. She said it was crucial that the unions develop a new role, given that under Saddam they had been instruments of state control rather than grass roots organizations.

US audiences will find this latter subject dry as dust and uninteresting. Only about %13 of American workers are unionized, and most newspapers do not any longer have a labor reporter. (The low rates of unionization partially result from the decline of smokestack industries where workers were easy to organize on the shop floor, and partially from rightwing US judges winking at corporations' systematic union-busting activities.)

But for a largely working class society like Iraq, the unions are extremely important potentially, and it is hard to see how you get democracy there without democratic unions. This is a point made by historian John Dower in his work on the post-war reconstruction of Japan. Grass roots constituencies were found for democracy there, including free farmers, e.g. The New Dealers who crafted a new Germany and Japan recognized the importance of strong trade unions. The laissez faire American administration of Iraq appointed by Bush is deeply hostile to the Iraqi working classes, and favors shock therapy in hopes of jerry-rigging a new Iraqi bourgeoisie (which is likely to consist of robber barons, as in Russia).

So, Raja' al-Khuza'i, who works hard on women's issues, is now pushing another key set of issues, around organized labor, that will have an enormous impact on how Iraqi society develops long after Halliburton has made its money and disappeared. One fears she will not get much meaningful support from Washington on either issue.




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Bomb blast in Baghdad kills 1 US soldier, 4 Iraqis, wounds 16

Guerrillas set off a bomb in Baghdad as a US military convoy was passing from one direction and an Iraqi civilian minibus from the other. At least 1 US soldier was killed, and eyewitnesses spoke of seeing others wounded. At least 4 Iraqis were killed, and some 16 wounded.

Meanwhile, about 1000 mainly Shiite demonstrators held a rally in downtown Baghdad in favor of US troops, protesting against the guerrillas who kill them and also kill Iraqi by-standers. The political affiliation of the protestors was not mentioned in the press. It is possible that they were reacting to Friday's bombing and the deaths of civilian Iraqis.
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Muqtada threatens General Strike

In his Friday sermon, young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to announce general strike if the US military did not release his followers from imprisonment. He said that the strike would be held on the anniversary of the assassination of his father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (mid-February 1999). Al-Sadr did not specify which prisoners he wanted released. Some 38 Sadrists were arrested by US forces in Karbala after a mid-October shoot-out between them and the US army, in which a lieutenant colonel was killed. Just a few days ago the US announced the arrest of Amar al-Yasiri, a Shiite clearic in East Baghdad whom the US military suspects of having planned an ambush of US troops that resulted in casualties. (az-Zaman)

Muqtada's call for a general strike is unlikely to be heeded by many Shiites, even his hundreds of thousands of sympathizers. That is presumably why he scheduled it for such a highly charged and emotional anniversary. It would be difficult to distinguish between those who do not go to work on the anniversary of Sadiq al-Sadr's martyrdom just to honor him, and those who genuinely support Muqtada's demand.



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Guerrillas fire Artillery Shells at Spanish in Diwaniyah

The Spanish Plus Ultra squad has come under fire numerous times during the past week from guerrillas in the southern Shiite city of Diwaniyah, but took no casualties. Az-Zaman reported that the most recent attack was the day before yesterday. The Spanish contingent includes 1300 troops from Spain along with small contingents from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Salvador. They are responsible for security in Najaf and Diwaniyah, Shiite areas. A Spanish officer told az-Zaman that the guerrillas have changed tactics insofar as they are diversifying their targets.

The South remains dangerous, despite Bush administration allegations that most attacks occur only in the Sunni Arab north-central part of the country (a very large area in itself). In fact, 40% or nearly half of attacks occur outside the Sunni Arab regions.
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Iraqi Women Broadcasters versus the Ayatollahs

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Dec. 3 that officials of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq were launching a campaign of criticism against the television broadcasting ("the Iraqi Media Network") sponsored by the US Coalition Provisional Authority. The Shiite clerics, who are close to the hardliners in Iran, object to programming that they consider indecent:

"The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has reportedly threatened to mobilize Iraqis against the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi Media Network television (IMN) on the grounds that the station is airing programs the Shi'ite group views as indecent and immoral, Al-Jazeera Television reported on 26 November. "If you do not change your programs and submit to our will, we will mobilize the Iraqi street against you. We will resort to another method. We will mobilize the Iraqi street to defend Islam," the satellite news channel quoted SCIRI representative Sadr al-Din al-Qabanji as saying. Al-Jazeera also reported that SCIRI representatives have said they will issue fatwas against IMN if the station's programming is not changed. The report did not provide details about the purportedly offensive programs. KR "

Now Sophie Claudet in The Middle East Online reports that the clerics are upset about soap operas from other Arab countries (presumably Egyptian ones, which can be racy compared to the fare on Iran where most SCIRI clerics spent the last 23 years). They also appear upset that unveiled Iraqi women newscasters appear on screen (they did wear a scarf for the month of Ramadan, but it is over now).

Shereen al-Ramahi, 20, the anchor of IMN, told Claudet, "Muftis can say whatever they want in their sermons, they can issue fatwas (religious edicts) in Najaf or elsewhere against the station, but I don't care. I am a free journalist and a free woman. I chose not to wear the veil and nobody can force me to change my mind."

Since the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is supposedly an ally of the US and has a seat in the Interim Governing Council, it is a little disturbing that al-Qabanji (earlier a proponent of rooting out Baathists in Najaf) is ready to call for anti-American street demonstrations over this issue.

The contradictions in Bush administration policy are illustrated by such reports. On the one hand, the Bush administration maintains that it is spreading democracy and women's rights in the Middle East. On the other, it keeps allying with hardline Islamist groups like the Jami`at-i Islam (a.k.a. Northern Alliance) in Afghanistan and SCIRI in Iraq. The chief justice of Afghanistan has also banned several cable channels from the country. The position of women in Iraq has already deteriorated from what it was last year this time, and if SCIRI has its way, it will deteriorate further.




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Census Plan bypasses IGC

The Iraqi Census Bureau
made up a plan that would have allowed a census to be completed by September 1, but the plan was immediately rejected by the US and did not reach the Interim Governing Council before their Nov. 15 vote on creating a transitional government through caucus elections. According to AFP, angry council members said they might have voted differently. They plan did not arrive from the Census Bureau because of a bureaucratic SNAFU. Still, the US officials had seen the plan and rejected it and did not bother to bring it up with the IGC. The outcome looks manipulated even if it was not. Of course, the real reason for trying to get a new transitional government by July 1 is to get Iraq out of the news before the fall presidential campaign.
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Police Station attack in Ramadi wounds 6; US vehicle blown up in Baghdad

Guerrillas attacked a police station in the western (Sunni Arab) town of Ramadi on Thursday. They wounded two police officers and four civilians with small arms and rocket-propelled grenad fire from a black BMW.

In Baghdad, witnesses saw a field artillery ammunition-support truck give off billowing smoke after it hit a mine at a major intersection. The US military said there were no casualties.



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Revived al-Jihad al-Islami in Egypt

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Egypt has arrested 27 members of a new splinter group from al-Jihad al-Islami, the militant Islamist organization that joined al-Qaeda in 1998. They are charged with plotting the overthrow of the Egyptian government and of attempting to damage Egyptian security. The Egyptian government believes that they were planning to go off to Iraq to fight the Americans, through Jordan and Syria.

The Egyptian government reportedly jailed some 30,000 radical Islamists in the 1990s, but all but a few thousand have now been released. It killed 1500 of them in running street battles in that decade. Many radicals have now foresworn violence, at least in their public statements, and some are reinterpreting the Koran along pacifist lines. Because Egypt is a semi-police state technically still under military rule, it is always hard to interpret its statements about dissidents, and it is capable of greatly exaggerating charges against those it views as enemies. If true, however, this report is extremely troubling. Egypt has a population of about 70 million and is the major Arab state. If any significant number of Egyptians went off to fight in Iraq against the US, they could have an impact on the security of US troops there.
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Israeli Intelligence Failures Contributed to Iraq War Fever

Respected Israeli security thinker Shlomo Brom argues in the current Strategic Assessment that Mossad fell down on the job in realistically assessing the threat to Israel of Iraqi weapons programs and stockpiles. (I.e. there were no significant WMD programs and very, very few if any stockpiles, but Mossad kept saying that both existed and were serious threats.) Brom points out that a major intelligence failure like this is inevitably bad for Israel's foreign relations posture, since enemies may conclude that if it so scared by paper tigers, then it is a pushover. Crying wolf is also always a bad idea, since when a real threat comes along the crier will be discounted. He admits that Israel has no real reason to regret the Iraq war, given that Saddam gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Brom is insufficiently cautious here. The Israeli military has already concluded that while the overthrow of Saddam is a security plus for Israel, if Iraq falls into chaos then the war may actually have worsened the security environment. I blogged on the Israeli intelligence failures and their possible effect on the war at the beginning of October.

Critics of Brom on the Israeli far Right defend the assessment and say that Israel's failures cannot have been that important to the war anyway, given the similar failures by US and British intelligence. They also hold out hope that WMD weapons programs or stockpiles will yet be found in Iraq. Yeah, and OJ is going to find the real killers eventually, too.

The first argument, that Mossad's failures were unimportant, is flawed because the US has long relied heavily on Israeli intelligence in the Middle East. In fact, Israeli intelligence and military support is the main justification for the US grant of billions of dollars a year to a first-world country with an average annual per capita income of $17,000 a year. (The US gives almost nothing to the 4th-world countries that really need aid, in contrast). Moreover, there is evidence that Israeli generals and intelligence officials had special access to Undersecretary of Defense for Planning Douglas Feith, and that they made many unlogged visits to his office. And, as former State Department counter-terrorism analyst Greg Thielmann pointed out in the Oct. 9 Frontline, Feith's Office of Special Plans cherry-picked "intelligence" (damning anecdotes from unreliable sources) and by-passed the usual intelligence channels by piping this skewed information directly to Dick Cheney.

Given this ability to put reports on an expressway right into Cheney's brain, Feith's office had extraodinary influence on Iraq policy-making. If the OSP's cherry-picking was reinforced by assurances from Israeli intelligence and military offices that Iraqi WMD posed a significant threat, then that may have capped the argument and made it seem airtight in the oval office.

Brom's report is in the best tradition of tough-minded Israeli realism, which does not shy away from coming to damning conclusions about Israeli policy. This tradition is under siege from far rightwing ideologues grouped in the Likud Party and its allies, who shout "traitor!" at any Israeli who dares suggest that there might be something wrong with Ariel Sharon's Iron Fist approach. I have several Israeli academic friends who have essentially fled abroad because they cannot take the harassment from the latter-day Jabotinskyites any more.


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Larry Kaplow of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that clerical followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani are beginning to threaten direct political action if his fatwa calling for direct elections (one person one vote) of the transitional government is rejected:

' "The time has come for us to get our rights," said Sheik Abdel Mehdi al-Karbalayi, al-Sistani's representative in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. "I'm not saying there will be military action. Maybe it will be civilian. But there will be instability." '

Sistani has stood for not rocking the boat too hard ever since he became the leading Iraqi Shiite jurisprudent in 1992. He declined to take on Saddam directly. That even Sistani's followers are talking in this passionate and threatening way points to a level of frustration among moderate Shiites that took me aback. I said on Lehrer Monday that I did not think Sistani would call for street demonstrations if he did not get his way. Was I wrong?

Sistani's opposition to the American plan has given an opening to the more radical Sadr movement, which according to Paul Martin of the Washington Times mounted a demonstration in favor of direct elections in Hilla on Wednesday. (The US military arrested a major lieutenant of Muqtada al-Sadr in East Baghdad, Amar al-Yasiri, in connection with an October firefight between Sadrists and the US army, which produced US casualties).

The plan for a new anti-terrorist force of 750-850 fighters, drawn from the militias of 5 Iraqi parties, appears to be going forward. It is scary that the force will include members of the Badr Corps (trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards). Western news agencies are not reporting, as al-Zaman does, that one of the five paramilitaries providing fighters is the Communist Party of Iraq! So, the last best hope of the US for an effective anti-terror campaign in Iraq rests with hardline Shiites and Communists?

Meanwhile, Hujjatu'l-Islam Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, now the president for December of the Interim Governing Council, is still insisting on direct elections. Along with Ibrahim Jaafar and Mouwafak al-Rubaie, he forms part of a rump opposition to the majority of the IGC, who agree with the American plan for caucus type elections.

Raja' al-Khuzai's op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times, arguing for the need for special political protections for women, suggests to me that she may not be standing with Sistani despite being a Shiite herself (she co-authored with Turkmen feminist Songul Chapouk). One-person-one-vote sorts of elections have typically returned few women candidates anywhere in the world. If I am right, then gender as well as ideology is entering into the creation of an IGC majority in favor of defying Sistani.

Abu Aardvark
questioned my description of Sistani as a pure democrat. What I meant by that was only that in his fatwas since June, he has consistently said that legitimate government must derive from the will of the people ("al-hukumah ash-shar`iyyah munbathiqah min iradat ash-sha`b" or words to that effect). He specifically says that sovereignty derives from the people. That seems to me as democratic as anything said by Enlightenment thinkers in Europe. Of course, Sistani does demarcate a limit to democracy, which is that the people must not legislate or adopt policy that directly contradicts Islamic law. But then all democracies are limited by constitutional provisions. A majority of Americans now might not vote for all the 10 amendments to the constitution that make up the Bill of Rights. But they are stuck with them anyway. Likewise, Sistani thinks an Iraqi democracy would be stuck with the "constitutional" principles of shari`ah or Islamic law. But he nevertheless insists on one person one vote as the guarantor of governmental legitimacy. That seems to me a commitment to pure democracy.
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US Soldier Killed in Samarra

Guerrillas used a roadside bomb to attack a 4th Infantry Division convoy in Samarra', killing one US soldier on Monday.

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Warlords annointed by Bremer

The WP reports that the US will create a new paramilitary force to fight terrorism in Iraq, and that it will draw for its personnel on the militias of five important political groupings in Iraq:

"The five parties that will contribute militiamen are Alawi's Iraqi National Accord, Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, the Shiite Muslim Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and two large Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Kurdish members will be drawn from the ranks of pesh merga fighters who defended autonomous Kurdish areas from former president Saddam Hussein's army, officials said."

Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni member of the IGC, told the LA Times that this was a very bad idea, and that the militias should be disbanded rather than being legitimized.

Al-Yawar is right, of course. This step is ominous, moreover, because this genderamerie will report to the Interior Ministry, which is dominated by the appointees of ex-Baathist Iyad al-Alawi.
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Blanford: A Shiite Challenge

See the fine analysis by Nicholas Blanford in the Christian Science Monitor of the showdown between Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on the one had, and Bremer and the Interim Governing Council on the other. Blanford quotes Ibrahim al-Jaafari (al-Da`wa Party) and Mouwafak al-Rubaie (ex-al-Da'wa Party) as supporting Sistani's call for popular elections this spring instead of caucus type elections. But it seems that some Shiites voted against Sistani, to give Bremer a majority on the IGC in support of caucus-appointed candidates.
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Brookings Institute Conference on Iraq

Last April the American Enterprise Institute hosted a triumphal conference to toast victory in the Iraq War, which had been a key project of AEI and other conservatives in the US. On Tuesday, the more liberal Brookings Institute did a different sort of postmortem. Policy wonks who had been to Iraq told their horror stories. The upshot is that

1. The US army's search and destroy mission in the Sunni Arab heartland is alienating the population needlessly.

2. There is a severe disconnect between the military goals (continued warfare at selected locales) and the goals of the civilian Coalition Provisional Authority (stability and legitimacy throughout the country).

3. The CPA is almost completely out of touch with the Iraqi people.

4. Crime and insecurity are still rampant in Baghdad for Iraqis.

5. Only 60% of attacks on Coalition military forces occur in the Sunni Arab triangle; i.e. nearly half are elsewhere in the country. The military clearly considers the South a dangerous place, as well.
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Oxford Research Center Iraq Opinion Poll

Helena Cobban summarizes briefly the Oxford Research Center's recent opinion poll in Iraq. She highlights the finding that what people say is most important in their lives is Family (98%), religion (94) and work (83) Only 29 percent of men and 43 percent of women think politics is important at this stage (suggesting that the women fear they are the ones who might lose if they do not get involved). There is almost no social trust. She summarizes:

"Social trust in the country is eroded: nearly 90% of respondents say 'you have to be very careful in dealing with [other] people'. Other than their immediate families, on aggregate scores people feel close to religious groups (62% ), their friends (27), and their relatives (28)."

As for institutions, 70% trust Iraq's religious leaders, 21% trust the US and British military forces, and 27% trust the Coalition Provisional Authority. Iraqi political parties are mistrusted by 78% of the people, which is bad news for al-Da'wa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Read the whole thing--it is a healthy corrective to the caricatures one often hears on US television.
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Accounts differ over Samarra'

The US military account of the events in Samarra' to VOA is fuller than what we had before. Clearly this was a double bank robbery. The guerrillas are having to rob banks because their old cash hoards of Saddam dinars will become worthless on Jan. 15, after which only the new dinars will be legal tender.

Besides, common criminals appear to make up a significant number of the guerrillas, according to the US military database on the insurgents. What would come more naturally to criminals than to rob banks?

By the way, my reference to "fascists" in yesterday's post regarded the Saddam Fedayeen, who battened onto the Iraqi people like vampires in the old days.

On the other hand, civilian Iraqis contest the US military account of what happened. It is not plausible to me that in such a shoot-out no guerrillas were killed, and the lack of their bodies in the morgue probably says more about the duty of a fighter to retrieve the bodies of fallen comrades from the scene rather than letting them be buried by the enemy with disrespect.

Military historian Tom Collier, a former Green Beret, sent me the following and permitted me to share it here with the proviso that I noted that it is pure speculation.

"I think there's something fishy about the several firefights reported at Samarra in yesterday's and today's news. Do you see anything unusual about it? All that follows is just speculation based on suspicions.

-- No US/Euro press were on the scene until after the fight ended, and so there are only the Army official and the local civilian accounts of what happened. How long after the firing ended did the reporters arrive? The reporters don't [are embarrassed to?] tell us.

-- The official account includes an enemy body count for the first time since when? Vietnam? Some oddities: -- the body count shifted from 46 to 54 dead, w/o explanation. Are we back to kiting body counts? Are we back to "If it's dead and it's gook, it's VC"? -- "some" bodies are described as wearing the "black uniform" of the Saddam Fedayeen. What black uniform, with what insignia? How many of the dead were actually civilians, and how do we tell the difference? -- "at least 18 of the attackers were wounded and 8 captured." How do we know that? Were the 8 PWs among the 18 wounded? Where are the 10 wounded who were not captured, and who counted them? How come no civilians were reported killed or wounded in firefights outside downtown banks? -- only 6 friendlies were wounded, which is not surprising for an armored forces, and the official account makes clear that their wounds were "not life threatening." Meaning what? Maybe just the loss of an arm or a leg? Anyway, it's good PR wording. -- The forces attacked were convoys carrying new bank notes to Iraqi banks and were escorted by tanks and APCs. The enemy evidently knew of the their arrival time and place, erected some kind of barricades, and were in position to ambush the convoys. Could they have NOT known of the armor escorts? Would they have deliberately stood and fought with hand-held weapons against such a force?

-- The accounts of local civilians, including hospital staffs, say that the numbers killed and wounded were not large and included civilians. All agree that there was extensive damage to [three?] nearby buildings from which the Americans says they were being fired at. Rubble and bodies were strewn around the scene according to the official account, but no reporters actually saw the bodies.

--While I hate to question M.Sgt Robert Cargie, it looks to me like the convoys drove into an ambush and immediately fired back massively and blindly, which is what they have been trained to do. Did they hold their position, move against the enemy, or try to break out and retreat? What did the hostiles do? It's not clear; if they were smart, they fired and fled, and the locals then suffered the brunt of the US fire. If less smart, they may have stood and fought and never lived to fight another day.The new bank notes are presumably safe and sound and the ambushes have now been converted into victories for American firepower. One of the cable channels called it "a massive American offensive," which brings to mind the Meuse-Argonne or maybe the Normandy breakout & pursuit. One of these days we may find out what really happened. Don't count on it."

Tom Collier

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Bremer and IGC to Defy Sistani

Paul Bremer has worked out a deal with the Interim Governing Council to stick with caucus-type elections rather than one-person-one-vote popular elections this coming May, in defiance of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who wants general elections. Sistani will be thrown a bone. The Basic Law crafted by the IGC, under which elections will be held, will specify that Iraq is an Islamic country. This recognition of Islam in any constitutional document is something Sistani has insisted on, and he will get it (though the Basic Law will also guarantee minorities freedom to practice their religions). In addition, it will be argued to the grand ayatollah that all this is in preparation for just the sort of elections he wants to see, in 2005. So he will ultimately get his way.

Az-Zaman reports that at a news conference for the Iraqi press, "Ambassador Paul Bremer, the civil administrator in Iraq, announced that the State Administrative Law for Iraq, which it is hoped will be completed by the end of the coming February, will affirm the Islamic identity that represents the majority of Iraqis, and will contain guarantees for the protection of individual liberties."

He said that the IGC has created two committees. One is charged with drafting the Basic Law. The other is charged with making the arrangements for elections. He said that the accord (of Nov. 15) had been delivered to the UN. In answer to a question posed by reporter from az-Zaman, Bremer said that he did not foresee any change in the original agreement signed with the IGC. But he added that the administrative law will affirm the Islamic identity of Iraqis.

He declined to answer a question about the relationship of the IGC to Sistani, saying one would have to pose that question to the IGC.

He raised a number of objections to popular elections at this time, saying that there is no election law, no law governing the role of the media in elections, no recent and reliable census, no demarcations between voting districts.

With regard to selecting the members of the nationaltransition assembly, Bremer said that it will be accomplished through elections in caucuses, and that the members of the present governing council will surrender the administration to the transitional governing, and their role would end right there.

On the issue of security, Bremer said he had earmarked $3 bn. for strengthing the police and other security apparatuses.

What accounts for Bremer's success in getting the IGC to buck Sistani? First, it should be remembered that Aqila al-Hashimi was assassinated. A Shiite woman diplomat, she was the tie-breaker between the Shiites and the others on the 25-member IGC. With her gone, and with no formal replacement yet announced (though a Shiite woman dentist has been spoken of), the IGC does not have a Shiite majority. It is evenly split between Shiite members and others. In addition, one of the supposedly "Shiite" members is actually a Communist Party official, who may or may not care what a cleric like Sistani wants.

All of the Sunnis, and probably the one Christian, wanted a caucus-type election, to forestall a tyranny of the Shiite majority. So these twelve (out of 24) were presumably with Bremer from the get-go:

Bahaaedin, Salaheddine - Kurdistan Islamic Union Sunni Kurd
Barzani, Massoud - Kurdistan Democratic Party Sunni Kurd
Chaderchi, Naseer Kamel al- - National Democratic Party Sunni Arab
Chapouk, Songul - Iraqi Women's Organisation Turkoman
Hamid, Mohsin Abd al- - Iraqi Islamic Party Sunni Arab
Kana, Younadem - Democratic Assyrian Movement Assyrian Christian
Mahmoud, Samir Shakir - Writer, member of al-Sumaidy clan Sunni Arab
Nuruddin, Dara - Judge and Islamist Sunni Kurd
Othman, Mahmoud - Physician; independent Sunni Kurd
Pachachi, Adnan ¶ Former foreign minister Sunni Arab
Talabani, Jalal - Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Sunni Kurd
Yawer, Ghazi Mashal Ajil al- - Tribal chief (Shimr Tribe) Sunni Arab

Of the twelve Shiites, Bremer only needed one to defect to his point of view, but probably more than that did. Moussa is a likely suspect, as a Communist. My guess would be that the al-Da`wa members would stand by Sistani on this issue. But some of the independents are secular-minded and might be willing to demur from the grand ayatollah's ruling.

Alawi, Iyad ¶ Iraqi National Accord Shia
Bahr al-Ulum, Mohammad - ¶ Cleric from Najaf Shia
Barak, Ahmad al- Human rights activist Shia
Chalabi, Ahmad ¶ Iraqi National Congress Shia
Hakim, Abd al-Aziz al- Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Shia
Ja'afari, Ibrahim al- Islamic Dawa Party Shia
Khuzaai, Raja Habib al-* Head of maternity hospital Shia
Latif, Wael Abd al- Lawyer, judge; governor of Basra Shia
Mohammed, Abd al-Zahraa Othman - Islamic Dawa Movement, Basra Shia
Mohammedawi, Abdel-Karim Mahoud al- - Hizbullah Shia
Moussa, Hamid Majid - Iraqi Communist Party Shia origin
Rabii [Rubaie], Mouwafak al- - Neurologist; human rights activist Shia

The Washington Post suggests a further dynamic, which is that the independents on the IGC are afraid they won't be returned in a general election. They are trying to get Bremer to allow them to find some way to perpetuate their political careers, perhaps through an appointment process. He is resisting their demand to just stay around, as a sort of appointed Senate, after the new elections (as well he should!) He fears that the two bodies would just cancel one another out and nothing would get done. It isn't as if the IGC has gotten much done as it is.

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Al-Hakim becomes President

As AFP notes, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has just become the president of the Interim Governing Council. Nine members are taking turns rotating into the role for a one-month term, based on alphabetical order. Al-Hakim is the first Shiite ayatollah to rise to such a high office in modern Iraq. He serves at a difficult time when the IGC must find a compromise between Sunni and Shiite interests in the way elections are conducted. His Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is a leading Shiite party, but I don't personally think it is all that big in Iraq. I suspect al-Da`wa and even the Sadr Movement are larger numerically.
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2 US Soldiers Killed Near Syria; Major Battle at Samarra' leaves 46 Guerrillas Dead

Guerrillas in the far west of Iraq, near the Syrian border, killed two US soldiers Sunday. That made 109 Coalition combat deaths for November.

Guerrillas also killed two Korean electricians and wounded two others in an ambush near Tikrit. They were helping restore Tikrit's electrical grid. Near Balad, guerrillas killed a Colombian contractor.

US troops fought a big running battle against perpetrators of a large-scale ambush in the northern, largely Sunni city of Samarra. The guerillas wore the uniform of Saddam Fedayeen, attacking with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The US forces replied with tanks, cannons and small arms, fighting throughout Samarra. They destroyed the three buildings used to launch the ambush, and killed 46 guerrillas and wounded 16. Soon after the battle, four guerrillas in a BMW fired at another US convoy near Samarra. US soldiers wounded all four, and more munitions were found in the car. This sophisticated operation was apparently intended to test the waters and see if the US had been softened up by previous attacks to the point where a large coordinated ambush, using dozens of men, could succeed. As they have found before when they tried this, the fascist Saddam Fedayeen were wiped out by the US troops when they fought in a concentrated fashion. They cannot mount more than a low-grade guerrilla operation against the US. Whenever they attempt anything big, they are devastated.

By the way, Christopher Hitchens has come out strongly against calling fascists like the Saddam Fedayeen "guerrillas." I don't understand his objection. In American English, the term simply refers to any group that fights irregular as opposed to regular war, and is morally neutral. Here is what Merriam-Webster says:

"Main Entry: 1guer·ril·la
Etymology: Spanish guerrilla, from diminutive of guerra war, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German werra strife -- more at WAR
Date: 1809
: a person who engages in irregular warfare especially as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage "

For more on Samarra' see USA Today
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IGC Fails to Agree on Election Formula

Al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat reported completely differently on the 4-hour-long Interim Governing Council meeting on Sunday. Al-Sharq al-Awsat said that the 25 members had reached an agreement on the need to go to the Iraqi people in selecting a new government. But then it quoted some members as saying that popular elections, while the best way to do that, might not be possible. Then it said that IGC member Raja'i al-Khuza`i said that the discussions would continue on Monday. So, in essence, all that was announced was that either a caucus type election will be held, or a genuine popular election will be held. This is not a compromise or agreement, it is just being mealy-mouthed.

In contrast, al-Hayat insisted rather more honestly that the Interim Governing Council continued to wrangle Sunday about ways to transition to some form of elected government by June, as they agreed in the Nov. 15 accord with the US. It said that many members were convinced that it would be difficult to hold a national referendum on any new Basic Law formulated by the IGC, or to hold popular elections for a parliament, before June.

IGC member Hasan Abdul Hamid told al-Hayat that "the dispute is not heated within the IGC, contrary to rumor." He also denied that he had offered his resignation because of differences over how to proceed. (Abdul Hamid, a Sunni, is secretary-general of the Islamic Party, i.e. the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier press reports gave his first name as Muhsin.). He added, "It is impossible, before the coming July, to establish a Basic Law by the will of the entire Iraqi people, because organizing elections requires a census of the population, as well as a guarantee of security and stability, and these factors are neither available nor possible right now. For this reason, we advise that it is enough to hold elections in the arena of the provinces, which will in turn appoint a convention responsible for electing members suitable to serve on the new transitional council that will succeed the IGC." He noted "We Sunnis have our views, and our Shiite brethren, who follow their Object of Emulation, might have a different view. We are in a brotherly dialogue, discussing all the issues capable of being discussed, especially the issues around general elections."

Nasir al-Chadurchi, another Sunni member of the IGC, told al-Hayat, "There has been no unanimous decision" yet. He pointed out that a delegation will go from the IGC to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in hopes of arriving at a unanimously agreed-upon formula.

These remarks are the most extended statement of the Sunni position on the IGC of which I know, and they reveal real opposition to Sistani's demand for general elections and a general referendum on the Basic Law that will govern them. The Sunnis are afraid of a tyranny of the Shiite majority.

The Coalition Provisional Authority and the IGC would benefit from thinking bigger about how to avoid a tyranny of the majority. Effective such mechanisms would help remove the current logjam. The Working Paper of Fernand de Varennes for the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities is worth looking at in this regard, for the range of solutions he surveys. The "Neocon Kindergarten" of the CPA is extremely hostile to the UN, but that is the body that has been thinking about these issues, and it is silly not to avail oneself of that body of work.

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Helen Thomas Blasts Rumsfeld for Closure of al-Arabiya

Helen Thomas condemned the closure of al-Arabiya offices in Iraq:

'The raid by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials on an Arab television network bureau in Baghdad and the ban on its broadcasts hardly fits my idea of how to spread democracy in the Middle East. Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in Iraq, we are proving it is intolerable . . . The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the move against Al-Arabiya, noting that "statements from Saddam Hussein and the former Iraqi regime are inherently newsworthy and news organizations have a right to cover them."'

Thomas, who had been UPI's White House correspondent for 40 years, resigned from the news service in 2000 when it was acquired by Korean rightwing nut case Reverend Moon, who also owns the rightwing Washington Times. It is really, really scarey to me that Moon and his Unification Church has become so influential in US news reporting. In 2002, Moon said, "I hope that the Washington Times, UPI and other major media will accept this lofty command from Heaven and take up the task of educating humankind, taking a stance beyond religion and ideology." His audience for this alarming prayer included talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, former Times editor Arnaud de Borchgrave and singer Randy Travis. The Washington Times and the Unification Church's Insight were among the more virulent attackers of Bill Clinton.

So if you want to know why US news is so screwed up and uncritical, just look to foreign wacky billionnaires who own major outlets like Fox and the WT. I wonder if the Chinese Communist government will be allowed to buy CBS next. Or maybe there are no objections only as long as the wacky billionnaire foreigners support the far right.

And Michael Powell wanted to let the Rupert Murdochs and Reverend Moons consolidate their hold over US media even more! Maybe Rumsfeld could have avoided some bad publicity by having Reverend Moon just buy al-Arabiya and have it take direction from "this lofty command from Heaven."



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Japan Roiled by Attack on Diplomats

Despite the tough rhetoric about standing his ground by Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi, opposition parties and other observers are bringing sharply into question the deployment of Japanese Self-Defense Forces in Iraq in the wake of the ambush of two Japanese diplomats on Saturday. According to Asahi Shimbun Katsuya Okada, secretary-general of Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), said, "We would like to question the responsibility of the government for its lack of safety measures and call for the summoning of related committees to deliberate the matter and clarify the facts before the public." (In Japanese terms, I take it this is a real slam at Koizumi).

A Ground Self-Defense Force official added, ``Until the details of the attack are made clear, maybe we should not rush on the dispatch." There are fears that Japanese embassy communications were somehow monitored by the Iraqi guerrillas.
The attack knocked Koizumi's special diplomatic adviser, Yukio Okamoto, out of a trip to Baghdad. He had to scale back his journey to only Iran and Syria. He said of the slain diplomats, ``The two were irreplaceable partners for me.''
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Shadid on Shiite Politics in Iraq

As usual, Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post (an Arabist) does some of the best in-depth reporting on Shiite religious politics in Iraq. He managed to get an interview with Grand Ayatollah Hussain Bashir al-Najafi, the first I know of in English. His nuanced and informed report raises serious questions about the role the leading Iraqi clerics see for themselves in an independent Iraq. They clearly want to intervene at key junctures to make the country more puritanical than it has traditionally been.
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Baathists Poisoning Water in Mosul

Al-Sharq al-Awsat claims today that pro-Saddam forces are attempting to spread panic and dissension in Mosul by dumping poison and petroleum products into the water supply of several Mosul neighborhoods. Health workers verified the pollution of the water in three neighborhoods and alerted the residents.
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