Iraqi & US Forces Protect Najef From Cultists

I guess I should be surprised by the number of people calling this a massacre of civilians, as if the Iraqi and US military want to massacre civilians, but I'm not really surprised. I do not doubt that civilians died, but even Juan Cole has written about the strange behavior of this group, and points out that the Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed.

The claims of a massacre of innocents makes me wonder if some people were disappointed that this group could not carry out its mission, but I also know that many people do not trust the Iraqi or American governments. Notice that most of those who cried 'massacre' did not mention that dozens of other Iraqis were murdered during Ashura, except for the few who reported that Shia militias launched mortars into a Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad that killed five Sunni teenage school girls and Zeyad's neighbor (I don't know if Zeyad's neighbor was killed in the same mortar attack).

If this story is true, it should dispel the myth that Iraqi forces cannot confront Shia cultist criminals.

Cult had dug in for massive battle

The group, well armed and well organized, was decimated by Iraqi forces aided by U.S. air power, authorities say.

By Saad Fakhrildeen and Borzou Daragahi, Special to The Times
January 31, 2007

ZERGHA, IRAQ — The dead wore the same footwear, imitation leather dress shoes with Velcro flaps. Their mangled bodies filled the trenches. Bags of ammunition, with the names of fighters written on them, sat by their sides.

A pulpit made of bamboo stood next to a grassy field, a newspaper filled with rambling and enigmatic religious writing strewn nearby.

An unauthorized hourlong walk Tuesday through the bombed compound of a religious cult called Heaven's Army revealed provocative clues about the group, which was decimated Sunday in a 24-hour U.S. and Iraqi offensive that authorities say left 263 alleged members dead and 210 injured. Nearly 400 members were arrested, an Iraqi defense official said.

Iraqi officials said the obscure messianic group was poised to launch an attack on Shiite clergy and holy sites in Najaf in the belief that it would hasten the dawn of a new age. Iraqi officials said they got wind of the plan and attempted to investigate but were attacked by the group's gunmen in a battle that also killed five Iraqi troops and two U.S. soldiers, who died when their helicopter crashed.

The bulk of the damage to the group's base was inflicted by U.S. airstrikes, which turned the tide of a fierce ground battle that pitted the fighters against Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces.

Iraqi officials have released scant new details about the composition and aims of the group. Mohammed Askari, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said foreign Arabs were among those slain and captured. He declined to provide more than basic casualty figures.

But the camp itself, amid lush groves of eucalyptus and palm trees, offered a trove of details about the members of Heaven's Army.

They had plenty of food. Each fighter had his own supply of chocolate and biscuits. They were prepared: A 6-foot dirt berm and an equally deep trench surrounded the 50-acre compound.

They were well organized. Living in at least 30 concrete-block buildings, all the fighters had identification badges. The group published its own books and a newspaper. The members apparently were enamored with their leader, a charismatic man in his 30s named Dhyaa Abdul-Zahra, whose likeness adorned the newspaper.

And they were well armed and ready for battle. High-powered machine guns, antiaircraft rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and late-model pickup trucks with mounted guns were scattered around the eight farms that make up the compound, about 10 miles north of Najaf.

A wooden platform on a tree served as a sniper's perch. The would-be shooter lay dead on the ground by the tree trunk.

"Without the bombings of the Americans we would have remained for two weeks unable to penetrate," said an Iraqi soldier, who led a Times correspondent and other Iraqi journalists through the compound.

None of the fighters wore uniforms. They wrapped black-checkered scarves around their necks and wore running suits or flowing dishdasha robes. Their bodies were contorted and burned from the bombing campaign. A few were blown to pieces. The fighters included young boys as well as middle-aged men. Some apparently held ordinary day jobs — one slain fighter, Ahmad Mohsen Kadhem, 31, had an identification card in his wallet showing he was authorized to carry weapons as a guard for a nearby company, the government-owned State Organization for Cereals.

Arabic readers described the articles in the group's eight-page newspaper, the Statement, as little more than religiously inflected gibberish, with made-up words and references to "manifestations and sightings" of Imam Mahdi, the last in a line of Shiite Muslim saints.

A book found at the complex, called "Heaven's Judge," also bearing the picture of Abdul-Zahra, dismisses the teaching of Shiite Muslims as well as Sunnis. "The Shiites are misled," says the book, which rebuffs central tenets of Shiite theology.

"The house of the prophet Muhammad has adopted a path using signs to point to heavenly facts, a method for considering the order of secrets," it adds, in statements that perplexed both Shiites and Sunnis who read it.

The American Iraq

The American Iraq
Not the stuff of glory, but with a power and legitimacy all its own.

BY FOUAD AJAMI
Tuesday, January 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

So this government in Baghdad, fighting for its life, has not mastered even the grim science of the gallows, and has no knowledge of the "drop charts" used for hangings around the world. The Tikritis had been much better at this sort of thing. They had all the time in the world to perfect the skills and techniques of terror; they had done it against the background of relative indifference by outside powers. And they had the indulgence of the neighboring Arabs who gave their warrant to all that played out in Iraq under the Tikriti despotism.

Pity those men now hunkered down in Baghdad as they walk a fine, thin line between the yearning for justice and retribution in their land, and the scrutiny of the outside world. In the annals of Arab history, the Shia have been strangers to power, rebels and dissidents and men on the run hunted down by official power. Now the ground has shifted in Baghdad, and an Arab world steeped in tyranny reproaches a Shia-led government sitting atop a volcano. America's "regional diplomacy"--the name for our earnest but futile entreaties to the Arab rulers--will not reconcile the Arab regimes to the rise of the Shia outcasts.

In the fullness of time, the Arab order of power will have to come to a grudging acceptance of the order sure to take hold in Baghdad. This is a region that respects the prerogatives of power. It had once resisted the coming to power of the Alawites in Syria and then learned to accommodate that "heretical" minority sect and its conquest of Damascus; the Shia path in Iraq will follow that trajectory, and its justice is infinitely greater for it is the ascendancy of a demographic majority, through the weight of numbers and the ballot box. Of all Arab lands, Iraq is the most checkered, a frontier country at the crossroads of Arabia, Turkey and Persia. The Sunni Arabs in Iraq and beyond have never accepted the diversity of that land. The "Arabism" of the place was synonymous with their own primacy. Now a binational state in all but name (Arab and Kurdish) has come into being in Iraq, and the Shia underclass have stepped forth and staked a claim commensurate with the weight of their numbers. The Sunni Arabs have recoiled from this change in their fortunes. They have all but "Persianized" the Shia of Iraq, branded them as a fifth column of the state next door. Contemporary Islamism has sharpened this feud, for to the Sunni Islamists the Shia are heretics at odds with the forbidding strictures of the Islamists' fanatical variant of the faith.

Baghdad, a city founded by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansour in 762, was sacked by the Mongols in 1258: The invaders put it to the sword, and dumped its books and libraries in the Tigris. In the (Sunni) legend, a Shia minister by the name of Ibn Alqami had opened the gates of the city to the invaders. History never relents here. In a commentary that followed the execution of Saddam, a Palestinian commentator in the West Bank city of Jenin wrote in a pan-Arab daily in London that a descendant of Ibn Alqami (read Nouri al-Maliki) had put to death a descendant of al-Mansour.

These kinds of atavisms cannot be conciliated. The truth of Iraq will assert itself on the ground, but the age of Sunni monopoly on power has passed. One of Iraq's most respected scholar-diplomats, Hassan al-Alawi, has put the matter in stark terms. It is proper, he said, to speak of an "American Iraq" as one does of a Sumerian, a Babylonian, an Abbasid, an Ottoman, and then a British Iraq. Where Iraq in the age of the Pax Britannica rested on an "Anglo-Sunni" regime, this new Iraq, in the time of the Americans, is by the logic of things an American-Shia regime. The militant preachers railing against the fall of Baghdad to an alliance of the "American crusaders" and the "Shia heretics" are the bearers of a dark, but intensely felt conviction. We should not be apologetic, in Arab lands seething with bigotry and rage, about our expedition into Iraq. We shouldn't fall for Arab rulers who tell us that they would have had the ability to call off the furies had we had in place a "process" for resolving the claims of the Palestinians, and had we been able to "deliver" Israel. Those furies have a life of their own: In truth, they are aided and abetted by these same rulers in the hope of tranquilizing their own domains and buying off the embittered in their midst.

The Sunni Arab regimes, it has to be noted, are not of one mind on Iraq. Curiously, the Arab state most likely to make peace with the new reality of Iraq is Saudi Arabia; those most hostile are the Jordanians, the Egyptians and the Palestinians. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, has read the wind with accuracy; he has a Shia minority in his domain, in the oil-bearing lands of the Eastern Province, and he seems eager to cap the Wahhabi volcano in the Najdi heartland of his kingdom. There is pragmatism in that realm, and the place lives by its own coin. In contrast, Jordan and Egypt present the odd spectacle of countries heavily invested in an anti-Shia drive but with no Shia citizenry in their midst. The two regimes derive a good measure of their revenues from "strategic rent"-- the aid of foreign powers, the subsidies of Pax Americana to be exact. The threat of Shiism is a good, and lucrative, scarecrow for the rulers in Cairo and Amman. The promise of standing sentry in defense of the Sunni order is what these two regimes have to offer both America and the oil states.

The Palestinians, weaker in the scale of power and with troubles of their own, are in the end of little consequence to the strategic alignment in the region. But to the extent that their "street" and their pundits matter, they can be counted upon to view the rise of this new Iraq with reserve and outright hostility. For six decades, the Palestinians have had a virtual monopoly on pan-Arab sentiments, and the Arabic-speaking world indulged them. Iraq--its wounds, and the promise of its power and resources--has been a direct challenge to the Palestinians and to their conception of their place in the Arab scheme of things. A seam is stitched in Palestinian society between its Muslim majority and its minority Christian communities. Palestinians have little by way of exposure to the Shia. To the bitter end, the Palestinian street remained enamored of Saddam Hussein. Iraq's Shia majority has returned the favor, and has come to view the Palestinians and their cause with considerable suspicion.

For our part, the Pax Americana has not been at peace with the Shia genie it had called forth. We did not know the Shia to begin with; we saw them through the prism of our experience with Iran. Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad and Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut: This was the face of the new Shiism and we were spooked by it. And we were susceptible as well to the representations made to us by Arab rulers about the dangers of radical Shiism.

This was odd: We had been in the midst of a searing battle with al Qaeda and the Taliban, zealous Sunni movements, but we were still giving credence to the Arab warnings about the threat of Shiism. Nor were the Shia who would finally claim power in Iraq possessed of an appreciable understanding of American ways. Nouri al-Maliki speaks not a word of English; with years of exile in Syria behind him, he was at considerable disadvantage in dealing with the American presence in his country. He and the political class around him lacked the traffic with American diplomacy that had seasoned their counterparts in Cairo, Amman and the Arabian Peninsula. Without that intimacy, they had been given to premonitions that America could yet strike a bargain, at their expense, with the Sunni order of power.

We held aloft the banner of democracy, but in recent months our faith in democracy's possibilities in Iraq has appeared to erode, and this unnerves the Shia political class. President Bush's setback in the congressional elections gave the Iraqis legitimate cause for concern: Prime Minister Maliki himself wondered aloud whether this was the beginning of a general American retreat in Iraq. And there was that brief moment when it seemed as though the "realists" of the James Baker variety were in the midst of a restoration. The Shia (and the Kurds) needed no deep literacy in strategic matters to read the mind of Mr. Baker. His brand of realism was anathema to people who tell their history in metaphors of justice and betrayal. He was a known entity in Iraq; he had been the steward of American foreign policy when America walked away, in 1991, from the Kurdish and Shia rebellions it had called for. The political class in Baghdad couldn't have known that the Baker-Hamilton recommendations would die on the vine, and that President Bush would pay these recommendations scant attention. The American position was not transparent, and there were in the air rumors of retrenchment, and thus legitimate Iraqi fears that the American presence in Baghdad could be bartered away in some accommodation with the powers in Iraq's neighborhood.

These fears were to be allayed, but not put to rest, by the military "surge" that President Bush announced in recent days. More than a military endeavor, the surge can be seen as a declaration by the president that deliverance would be sought in Baghdad, and not in deals with the rogues (Syria and Iran) or with the Sunni Arab states. Prime Minister Maliki and the coalition that sustains his government could not know for certain if this was the proverbial "extra mile" before casting them adrift, or the sure promise that this president would stay with them for the remainder of his time in office.

But there can be no denying that with the surge the landscape has altered in Baghdad, and that Mr. Bush is invested in the Maliki government as never before. Mr. Maliki's predecessor--a man who belongs to the same political party and hails from the same traditional Shia political class--was forced out of office by an American veto and Mr. Maliki could be forgiven his suspicion that the Americans might try this again. It was known that he had never taken to the American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, and that he fully understood that American officials would rather have other Shia contenders in his post--our old standby Ayad Allawi, the current vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi, both more worldly men at ease with American ways. So if this is America's extra mile in Baghdad, it has to be traversed with a political leader whose abilities and intentions have been repeatedly called into question by American officials.

This marriage of convenience may be the best that can be hoped for. Mr. Maliki will not do America's bidding, and we should be grateful for his displays of independence. He straddles the fence between the things we want him to do--disarming the militias, walking away from Moqtada al-Sadr--and the requirements of political survival. We have been waiting for the Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own affairs and we should not be disconcerted when they take us at our word. The messages put out by American officials now and then, that Mr. Maliki is living on borrowed time, and the administered leaks of warnings he has been given by President Bush, serve only to undermine whatever goals we seek in Baghdad.

With Saddam's execution, this prime minister has made himself a power in the vast Shia mainstream. Having removed Ibrahim Jaafari from office last year, the American regency is doomed to live with Mr. Maliki, for a policy that attempts to unseat him is sure to strip Iraqis of any sense that they are sovereign in their own country. He cannot be granted a blank check, but no small measure of America's success in Iraq now depends on him. If he is to fall, the deed must be an affair of the Iraqis, and of the broad Shia coalition to be exact. He may now be able to strike at renegade elements of the Mahdi Army, for that movement that once answered to Moqtada al-Sadr and carried his banners has splintered into gangs led by bandit warlords. In our concern with Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army, we ought to understand the reluctance of Mr. Maliki's ruling coalition to take on the Shia militias. The terror inflicted on the Shia--an unrelenting affair of the last three years--makes it extremely difficult for a Shia-led government to disarm men who pose as defenders of a community still under brutal siege.

Boldness and despair may have come together to carry forward this new drive in Baghdad. Fear of failure often concentrates the mind, and President Bush's policy could yet find its target right as the skeptics have written off this whole project in Baghdad. Iraq has had its way of meting out disappointments at every turn, but the tide of events appears to be working in the president's favor.

There is a "balance of terror" today between the Sunni and Shia protagonists. More and more Sunni Arabs know that their old dominion is lost, and that they had better take the offer on the table--a share of the oil revenues, the promise that the constitution could be amended and reviewed, access to political power and spoils in return for reining in the violence and banishing the Arab jihadists. The Shia, too, may have to come to a time of reckoning. Their old tormentor was sent to the gallows, and a kinsman of theirs did the deed with the seal of the state. From the poor Shia slums of Baghdad, young avengers answered the Sunni campaign of terror with brutal terror of their own. The old notion--once dear to the Sunnis, and to the Shia a nagging source of fear and shame--that the Sunnis of Iraq were a martial race while the Shia were marked for lamentations and political quiescence has been broken for good.

The country has been fought over, and a verdict can already be discerned--rough balance between its erstwhile Sunni rulers and its Shia inheritors, and a special, autonomous life for the Kurds. Against all dire expectations, the all-important question of the distribution of oil wealth appears close to a resolution. The design for sharing the bounty is a "federal" one that strikes a balance between central government and regional claimants. The nightmare of the Sunni Arabs that they would be left stranded in regions of sand and gravel has been averted.

This is the country midwifed by American power. We were never meant to stay there long. Iraq will never approximate the expectations we projected onto it in more innocent times. But we should be able to grant it the gift of acceptance, and yet another dose of patience as it works its way out of its current torments. It is said that much of the war's nobility has drained out of it, and that we now fight not to lose, and to keep intact our larger position in the oil lands of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. This may not be the stuff of glory, but it has power and legitimacy all its own.

Mr. Ajami is a 2006 recipient of the Bradley Prize, teaches at Johns Hopkins and is author of "The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq" (Free Press, 2006).

Syria Not Helping Iraq

We have long suspected that suicide bombers have been entering Iraq from Syria. There must be some level of cooperation between Iraqis in Anbar and the suicide bombers who enter Iraq at the Syrian border. I have noticed that US officials rarely mention Jordan or Saudi Arabia when discussing suicide bombers in Iraq. In fact, this US official praises the government of Saudi Arabia for doing its 'utmost' to fight Al Qaeda. Hmmm.

Suicide bombers ‘entering Iraq from Syria’

By Daniel Dombey, Diplomatic Correspondent

Published: January 30 2007 22:08 | Last updated: January 30 2007 22:08

Dozens of al-Qaeda suicide bombers from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan are crossing into Iraq from Syria every month, a senior US official said on Tuesday.

Speaking to the Financial Times in London, the official said that, while sectarian conflict now represented the biggest threat to the country, the violence was being stoked up from abroad.

“This is the most difficult challenge,” he said. “How do you bring down sectarian violence in the face of this al-Qaeda campaign to prompt sectarian violence?”

But he added that the US’s new strategy for Iraq also depended on much greater co-operation from the Iraqi government.

The US says outside actors – chiefly Syria and Iran – are still one of the biggest factors determining the level of violence in Iraq. It also portrays its recent decision to pursue Iranian operatives in Iraq as an effort to “push back” against Tehran’s increased influence in the region.

The official alleged that the vast majority of suicide bombers came across the border from Syria, and that they received training for their task within Syria as well as inside Iraq itself.

“We do not believe that there was an inevitability to the Shia-Sunni conflict on this scale,” he said, arguing that the violence had been greatly increased by al-Qaeda acts such as the bombing of the Samarra mosque last February.

He said that 75-80 per cent of the estimated 75 suicide bombings a month were carried out by foreigners, and that Saudi Arabia and Sudan were the most common countries of origin. But he emphasised that the Saudi government was doing its utmost to take on al-Qaeda.

“We have been wholly unsuccessful in affecting Syrian behaviour with regard to the passage of these elements,” the official said, adding that the countries of the region wanted to isolate Syria further.

No Arab Coverage of Shia Pilgrims' Call for Peace?

I've been looking for Arab media coverage of the calls for peace by Shia pilgrims, but I can't find any. Al Jazeera did cover today's violence in Iraq, but no mention of the calls for peace. Please leave a comment if you find anything that mentions the peace banners or Hakim's speech.

Jan. 30, 2007, 2:56PM
On Shiites' holiest day, 58 dead in Iraq

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Bombers struck Shiite worshippers in two cities Tuesday and gunmen ambushed a busload of pilgrims in a series of attacks that killed at least 58 people as more than 2 million Shiites jammed major shrines for ceremonies marking Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite calendar.

The bloodshed took place despite heightened security following a battle with messianic Shiites who authorities said planned a large assault on Ashoura ceremonies. With security so intense at the main venues, extremists chose targets in smaller cities where safety measures were less stringent.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of worshippers entering a Shiite mosque in Mandali near the Iranian border, killing 26 people and wounding 47, according to police. At least 12 more died and 28 were wounded when a bomb exploded in a garbage can as Shiites were performing outdoor rituals in the largely Kurdish city of Khanaqin, police said.

In Baghdad, gunmen in two cars opened fire on a bus carrying pilgrims to the capital's most important Shiite shrine, killing seven and wounding seven, police said. Hours later, mortar shells rained down on two mostly Sunni neighborhoods, killing nine and wounding 30 in what police said appeared to be a reprisal attack.

One person was killed in a mortar attack on a Shiite neighborhood, police said. Two policemen were killed in a bombing in Mosul and a Shiite man was shot dead in Baghdad, police said.

But intense security prevented major violence in the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, venues for the biggest and most important Ashoura commemorations. Police found eight bodies Tuesday of people slain by sectarian death squads in Baghdad, the lowest single-day total in months.

Ashoura ceremonies mark the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in a battle near Karbala that cemented the Sunni-Shiite schism. Worshippers beat themselves with chains, slice their heads with knives and pound their chests in expressions of grief over the death of Imam Hussein.

More than 1.5 million pilgrims, mostly Iraqis but from as far away as India and Pakistan, jammed the southern city of Karbala for the Ashoura commemorations, according to provincial Gov. Akeel al-Khazaali. Hundreds of thousands more joined rituals in Najaf, Baghdad and other cities.

In Karbala, all private transport was banned — including bicycles — and pilgrims had to submit to body-searches at dozens of checkpoints before reaching the two golden-domed shrines of Imam Hussein and his half brother Imam Abbas. U.S. unmanned surveillance aircraft flew over the city to look for signs of trouble, al-Khazaali said.

"Even if the terrorists tear us to pieces, we will not stop coming to visit Imam Hussein," said Abbas Karim, 27, a laborer from Nasiriyah.

Security has been tight at Ashoura commemorations since a string of bombings and suicide attacks killed at least 181 people at Shiite shrines in Baghdad and Karbala in 2004. Last year's Ashoura commemorations were largely peaceful, but suicide bombers killed 55 Shiites in 2005.

This year, fears of sectarian attacks were running high because of ongoing Sunni-Shiite violence, which surged after last February's bombing of a major Shiite shrine in the mostly Sunni city of Samarra.

Security measures were further tightened after U.S.-backed Iraqi forces fought a fierce, all-day battle last weekend with hundreds of messianic Shiites who officials said were planning to slaughter pilgrims and clerics during Ashoura commemorations in Najaf.

In Najaf, deputy Gov. Abdul-Hussein Abtan said that more than 300 militants were killed and 650 captured in the battle, which ended Monday. He said 11 Iraqi troops were killed and 30 wounded. Two U.S. soldiers died when their helicopter crashed during the fighting.

Shia Call For End to Violence

Thank you valerie at ITM:)

Shi'ite pilgrims call for end to violence in Iraq

By Sami Jumaili

KERBALA, Iraq, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Shi'ite pilgrims called for an end to sectarian killing in Iraq as they swamped the holy city of Kerbala on Monday to commemorate the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson in battle there 1,300 years ago.

Some of the two million black-clad pilgrims attending the annual Ashura event sought to emphasise Muslim unity and dampen the communal tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites that have raised fears of an all-out civil war.

"Stop the bloodletting," read one banner held aloft by pilgrims; "Let us make Ashura a day for brotherhood among Iraqis," read another; "We are all Muslims," a third.

"Every Day Is Ashura"

Where Were You?

“Dear Dr. X,

I had the misfortune of reading the terrible letter that you sent to Ann Clwyd. Let me begin by saying that whilst I do not by any means condone the terrible present situation in Iraq, and whilst I criticise the governments of the USA and the UK for allowing the situation to get out of hand, and for not having an exit strategy, I still believe that it is possible to bring this chaotic situation under control after crushing the remnants of the defeated Saddam’s party and his henchmen, albeit at a greater cost to all parties concerned.

Like you, I am also a Christian doctor from Iraq who has been working in this country for the last 26 years.

Unlike you, however, I and my family, have not only watched but also sensed and experienced bitterly and in person, the physical and the psychological torture and the terror that we were subjected to, at the hands of Saddam’s thugs and secret service criminals.

I am not here trying to compare your family’s situation with mine, but if your family was perhaps fortunate enough for 35 years, to enjoy the privileges of Saddam’s tyrannical and brutal reign, my family and relatives, had to escape the intimidation and the imminent danger to their lives...They fled the country in 1991 leaving behind very good jobs and homes and their livelihoods.

In doing that, we lost a member of the family. We were the lucky ones; many lost more than one member and some could not make it at all and were killed under torture or disappeared completely.

You say that all this time, you have been active in human rights...But I and many other political prisoners and detainees...have not even heard of you...Other human rights personnel, in this country and abroad, were very active in condemning the brutality of the criminal Saddam and his regime, in various publications and in mass gatherings and meetings, but we never saw you in any of those meetings nor did we hear any condemnation like that from you. So where were you all that time?

Where were you...when Saddam and his regime were arresting, torturing and killing thousands of Communists and Shia in the late 70s, 80s and 90s? Or did not that matter to you?

Where were you when he, his sons and his thugs were inventing new methods of torture, like dangling the bodies of their victims in acid baths, starting from the perineum, and pulling them in and out, so that they would die a slow and painful death; or pumping the rectum with petrol and then shooting them, so that they would burst into a ball of fire?

As a doctor, working in a human rights organisation and claiming to be one of the founders of the medical group "within that organisation" wasn't that something that stirred at least some repulsion in you to prompt you to campaign for the human rights of those people?

And what about some of Uday’s crimes? Have you written or spoken about them? Have you ever denounced him publicly, when he and his thugs, used to behead young decent women from respectable families, who would refuse to surrender to his lust, after raping them, and then throw their severed heads in front of the doors of their parents’ homes, with a message ‘whore’ displayed on their heads?

Where were you, when Saddam first used chemical weapons in 1983, during the war with Iran, and then again in 1987 and in 1988, in Halabja, or haven’t you heard of it? And where was your human rights campaign when Ali Kimyawi supervised the throwing of whole families from helicopters in Kurdistan and the throwing of shackled Shia victims, from the roofs of tall buildings in the south of the country? Wasn’t the condemning of that savagery an essential part of your human rights job?

I have not heard, or seen you, condemning Saddam’s regime, when his torturers...rape the wives, mothers and sisters, of the detained members of the Communist party, the Shia political parties and Shia religious leaders, in front of their eyes, in order to obtain forced and false confessions from them!

Didn't that incite some anger in you similar to the one that you expressed in your letter to Ann Clwyd?!

The mass graves are yet another example of the recent additions to that reign of terror. Did you do, or write, anything about that?

You say that you are a Christian doctor, where were you when Dr Habib Almalih, a Christian doctor from Ainkawa and many others were virtually cut into pieces and put in black sacks and thrown at the doorstep of their parents’ houses, forbidding them even to hold any funeral service for them?

And again, being a Christian doctor, where were you, when Saddam gave the order to wipe out and flatten to the ground, 65 Christian villages of the Assyrian community in Kurdistan and hanged four young leaders of the Assyrian democratic movement and left them, hung and strapped on the electricity poles for days, for everybody to see?

It will take several books, to write about the crimes against humanity, the vicious torture and violations of human rights, the mass murders and extra-judicial killing and the genocide that have been committed by that fascist and repressive regime, which I haven’t seen you denouncing!

Finally, in stark contrast to your shameful silence in condemning these atrocities of the criminal Saddam and his regime, in the UK and internationally, Ann Clwyd, and for the last two decades, has been one of the torch-bearers”— I include in that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn)—

“in the fight against the violations of human rights by that repressive regime.
I have therefore inevitably arrived at a conclusion that it should be you that must reconsider your position in the human rights organisation and not Ann Clwyd.”

The letter is signed Leonard H. Jacob, physician from Sheffield.

Attack on Ashoura

They have attacked Shia during Ashoura before, and it appears that this year the Iraqi and US forces have prevented at least one huge attack:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Jan 28, 2007 (AP)— 'U.S.-backed Iraqi troops on Sunday attacked insurgents allegedly plotting to kill pilgrims at a major Shiite Muslim religious festival, and Iraqi officials estimated some 250 militants died in the daylong battle near Najaf. A U.S. helicopter crashed during the fight, killing two American soldiers.'

They want to kill Sistani on Ashoura. Big prize there if they do that.

Update: Zeyad says that this was probably a Shi'i splinter group that opposes Sistani, and that the US was duped by SCIRI into attacking this group of cultists.

Fouad Ajami on Iraq

He is described by many as an Arab American neocon, but I find nothing wrong with Fouad Ajami.

Katie: 10 Questions On Iraq

Questions by Katie Couric

1.
We’ve heard so much about Sunnis and Shia. What are the main religious differences between them? What do they have in common?

Big, complicated history. It begins with the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, leaving no male heir. The majority Sunni (literally orthodox, mainstream) community subscribed to the rule of the first three Caliphs who succeeded him. The minority movement, the Shia (literally the Partisans) of his son-in-law, Imam Ali, husband of his daughter Fatima, asserted that succession belongs to the Prophet’s family, to Ali in the first, and to the Prophet’s grandsons and their descendants. In the great civil war in the House of Islam that played out in the later years of the seventh century, the Sunni governments won, the Shia “martyrs” and oppositionists lost. In 680, The Prophet’s grandson, Imam Hussein, the hero-martyr of Shi’ism was killed in southern Iraq on the plains of Karbala. And with this, the great wound in Islam deepens forever. What Sunnis and Shia still have in common is belief in the unity of God, in the Prophet Muhammad, in the Quran. They are separated by temperament and by how they look at history.

2. Why are Sunnis and Shia politically divided? Could you tell us about the history of the two sects in Iraq?

The first question goes to the heart of this second one: They differ about legitimate power, and who should hold it. The Shia believe that power belongs to the pious, and to The Prophet’s family; the Sunnis believe that power and order have legitimacy of their own. In Iraq the Sunnis and the Shia are both Arab through and through. Iraq became a battleground between the (Sunni) Ottoman empire and the (Shia) Persian empire. The Sunnis, though a minority in Iraq, have ruled that country for centuries. The Shia were cut out of political power, and successive regimes in that country (the monarchy, the military regimes since the Revolution of 1958 that overthrew the monarchy) were based in the Sunni community. With the Shia holy cities and seminaries of Najaf and Karbala on Iraqi soil, the Shia clerics have had great say over the life of the Shia community.

3. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen what appears to be a resurgence of sectarian violence in Iraq. Why is this happening now?

The sectarian violence is precisely what the Arab Sunni jihadists have sought to trigger, in alliance with the Saddamists. Last February, they attacked the sacred Shia mosque in Samarra. The result was predictable: The Shia were drawn into the fight. And now the Shia have extremists of their own, and death squads and avengers – the boys of Moqtada al-Sadr in the slums of Baghdad.

4. Is there any hope for Sunnis and Shia to live together peacefully in a democratic Iraq? Or is the ultimate solution some way of separating them into different states—as Senator Joe Biden has proposed?

In the long run, the Sunnis and the Shia are doomed to live together. In the past Iraqis prided themselves on the high rate of inter-marriage between Sunnis and Shia – Sushi is the label so many of these people go by, for wit. Partition will not work. Baghdad can’t be divided, and the Sunnis would be stranded in regions without oil. I have great respect for Senator Biden and have talked with him at great length over the years about Iraq and other Middle Eastern subjects, but he is off target here.

5. Two Shiite mosques and five Shiite-owned businesses in Detroit were vandalized earlier this month. The head of the Michigan Council on American-Islamic Relations said that many in the community believe it was an attack by Sunnis, though this hasn’t been proven. Is there also a Sunni-Shia divide among Muslims in the United States?

There is a Sunni-Shia divide in Detroit, in Amsterdam, wherever Muslims live, alas. Detroit because of the automotive industry, and the history of labor migration by poor Lebanese Shia, may have a Shia majority, though of course in the Muslim world as a whole the Shia are a minority.

6. Qatar recently held a conference intended to bring Sunnis and Shia closer together. How do you think sectarian fighting can be curbed in Iraq and elsewhere? Does it require a military or a political solution?

The conference in Qatar is o.k. as far as it goes. The problem is that there is in Qatar a very hugely influential Sunni cleric, of Egyptian background, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is fairly strict and not given to kind thoughts about the Shia. The answer is both cultural and political: The Sunni Arabs will have to accept the claims of the Shia; for their part, the Shia must, with time, rid themselves of the attitude of opposition that has marked their history.

7. We know that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, honorable people. But what do you say to people who ask why almost every terrorist is a Muslim?

I say there is a painful truth here, and that one of the Arab world’s most influential and liberal journalists, the Saudi Abdulrahman al-Rashed, head of Al-Arrabiya television channel based in Dubai, bluntly observed that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all (most?) terrorists are Muslims. What is clear and indisputable is that violence and terror are on the loose in Islamic lands – and in Islamic communities in the West – and that it has religious support given it by free-lance preachers who have bent the faith to their own interpretation.

8. What motivates Islamic extremism? Is it repressive governments—the lack of democracy—as the president has said? Is it economic disadvantage?

Economic disadvantage is part of the story, but that interpretation misses a lot. The boys of 9/11 (the Egyptian Mohamed Atta, the Lebanese Ziyad Jarrah who piloted the plane forced down in Pennsylvania on that sad day) were not poor. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden come from aristocracy and a merchant dynasty, respectively. It is, in part, the will to power, and a belief that Islam – as interpreted by these men – ought to prevail.

9. We seemed to have much of the Islamic world on our side in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Why are we now so unpopular there? Is it just Iraq, or is it more than that?

Good question, but a seductive one. We did not have the Muslim world on our side after 9/11. Huge numbers of Muslims believed we got our comeuppance on that day, while others were embarrassed. Iraq complicated our lives, but the American position in Islamic lands was never brilliant to begin with. We befriend the rulers in the Arab world, and we are caught in the crossfire between the rulers and populations that resent them but can’t overthrow them. We are the perfect scapegoat for every problem under the sun. Anti-Americanism is the weapon of mass distraction, a clever man once said.

10. What is the biggest misconception Americans have about Islam?

People think that Islam is on the boil, overly political. But for the vast majority not caught up in radicalism and sectarian violence, it is a faith that provides solace and comfort, people still go on pilgrimage, give alms to the poor, turn to Islam for meaning, for a bit of shade, if you will, in a turbulent Islamic world. From Indonesia in the east to Morocco in the Western-most land of Islam, there are 1.2 billion Muslims. There is fanaticism among a dangerous minority, and ordinary life for the vast, silent majority.

The Arab Jew

What emotions does this image evoke in you? When I first saw this as a thumbnail, I thought it was some kind of provocative cartoon designed to enrage Arabs or Jews - it reminded me of another photo of a Star of David drawn on the forehead of a fallen statue of Saddam Hussein, but then I looked at the full size image and remembered that Iraq had a sizable Jewish community for thousands of years.

The Dangers of Being Shi'i on Haifa St.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The body of a well-known Shiite boxer was found Friday in central Baghdad near the dangerous street where he was kidnapped earlier this week, police said.

Hassan Hadi, 42, had been hanged, police said.

The father of two was en route Monday to a spare parts store that he owns when the attackers intercepted his car and abducted him, police said.

Police said Hadi was seized while traveling on Haifa Street, a Sunni insurgent stronghold on the west bank of the Tigris River about a mile north of the Green Zone, site of the U.S. and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government headquarters.

The area was the scene of fierce clashes between insurgents and U.S.-Iraqi forces just two days later.

An official with the Youth and Sports Ministry said no ransom had been demanded and stressed that Hadi was not linked with any political party.

Hadi fought for al-Zawraa, Iraq's biggest sports club.

Athletes and sports officials have increasingly become targets of threats, kidnappings and assassination attempts, either as part of retaliatory violence between Shiites and Sunnis, or for ransom.

In December, gunmen abducted the Sunni head of one of Iraq's leading soccer clubs.

A blind Iraqi athlete and Paralympics coach also were kidnapped last year but were released unharmed after sports officials said their abductors determined neither was linked to the Sunni insurgency.

An Iraqi international soccer referee also was abducted in the fall as he left the soccer association's offices. The kidnappers reportedly demanded a $200,000 ransom.

Not Every Iraqi Who Worked For Saddam is Bad

I don't think that Saddam's Minister of Finance was responsible for violent crimes against the Iraqi people.  He does not deserve this. 

Former Saddam-Era Official Now Begs in Streets

Says He'd Rather be Dead After Losing Family, Friends, Home, Money

Posted 2 hr. 10 min. ago

© Photo by Afif Sarhan/IRIN

Street Beggar Mustafa Bakri

BAGHDAD, 25 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - "I'm a 57-year-old former Ba'athist official at the Ministry of Finance where I was earning a very good salary. I originally came from al-Qaim city in Anbar province. I graduated in economics.

"I had a wife and two lovely children – a son and a daughter. Our home was an extravagant villa and we used to eat the best food you could find in Baghdad.

"I used to buy new jewellery for my wife and daughter practically every month and I used to get my wife and all my children the best clothes and shoes.

"Whenever my son got good marks in college I would reward him with a holiday to neighbouring countries. And when he graduated from Medical College in 1999, I gave him plenty of money and arranged for him to tour Europe.

"That was my life before the US-led invasion, a life of luxury. But when the regime fell, I lost everything I had.

"My wife, Nawal, who was 46, my daughter Sundus, who was 24, and my mother were all killed in an air-strike on my father's house in Mansour, one of Baghdad's most respectable districts.

"My son Abbas, who was 26, was killed three weeks later with his wife and their two children when they drove into a closed street. The Americans killed everyone in the car because they thought they were terrorists.

"I do not even have a place to live having lost my house in Arassat, a wealthy part of Baghdad, during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Our house was totally looted by thieves and even the flowers and trees in our magnificent garden were pulled out or destroyed by vandals. Then the transitional government confiscated the house because of my Ba'athist past.

"Since then, I have been without a family, a home, money or work. When I was looking for a job in the government, they realised that I was a former Ba'athist and laughed at me. They told me to run before they called the Americans to arrest me.

"I started to live in the streets and to beg for food and water after it dawned on me that I had no one who could help me. Even my friends had turned their backs on me and other friends fled Iraq before and after the war.

"It is an embarrassing situation. I don't have a change of clothes and, sometimes, I have to go one or two weeks without a shower.

"It is hard for a man like me to have to beg in the streets and to scavenge in rubbish bins for discarded food, drinking dirty water and sleeping on street corners without a blanket or a jacket.

"I never imagined that one day I was going to be a street beggar after all that I had until four years ago.

"Maybe I'm paying for being one of Saddam's followers but during his time there was no option and if you didn't support him, you could end up dead.

"I miss my family and my old life. These days I'm alone and I live like an animal. Sometimes I pray to God to make someone blow himself up near me so that I may die, because it must be better in hell than my present life."

The 'Brutality' of Iraqi Soldiers

This is interesting. Channel 4 News of the UK has obtained a video that shows Iraqi soldiers (no doubt Shia) beating three Sunni Arab men who were caught with mortars in their cars. The beating took place in the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Amriya, the same neighborhood my uncles lived in for decades until they received letters from the 'mujahideen' in the summer of 2005 threatening to kill them if they did not leave. The video is being circulated on other blogs and through comments, and many people are pointing to this video as evidence of the brutality of Iraqi soldiers against Sunni Arabs. One commentator on another blog called it a 'genocide' of Sunni Arabs, with American complicity.

Later in the video they show the body of a 16 year old Shii in a formerly mixed neighborhood of west Baghdad. Apparently that's not as brutal as an Iraqi Army soldier beating up Sunni Arabs caught with mortars. After that a Sunni Arab man, married to a Shii woman, is shown talking to US soldiers in Amriya about a letter he received from Sunni insurgents saying that they must leave (final warning!) or the mujahideen will cut out their tongues, behead them, and eradicate their entire family. The letter was signed in the name of 'Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate' by four Sunni militia groups. It makes me wonder if people who are trying to use this as evidence of the brutality against Sunni Arabs by Iraqi soldiers have seen the entire video. Even the title of the YouTube video (Shia Iraqi soldier beat Sunnis as US trainers watch) suggests that the person who uploaded the video did not watch the whole thing. So if you watch this, watch ALL of it!



Having said this, I'm glad that people are hodling the Iraqi Army to high standards.

Insurgents: 'Death Sentence' for Iraqi Journalist

The Baathi and Wahabi scum do not tolerate dissenting views, never have. I am amazed that they carry out their criminal actions in the name of God! It should not be a surprise, as they've been doing this for many years, but I still have a hard time understanding these people when they sign their murderous threats with 'In the name of God the Compassionate the Merciful.' It is really bizarre.

Insurgents: "Death Sentence" for Iraqi Journalist
As Report Surfaces that Another Iraqi Journalist Kidnapped
Posted 1 hr. 37 min. ago

Armed group issues “death sentence” against an Iraqi journalist

Baghdad, Jan 26, (VOI) – An armed group in Diala issued a death sentence against a journalist in the Iraqi province while another journalist in Baghdad was kidnapped by gunmen 12 days ago, organizations defending press freedom said on Friday. “The so called religious court of an armed group in Baaquba, capital city of Diala province, issued a death sentence against journalist Ali Abdul-Sattar al-Hejjiya who is the deputy director of Diala branch of the Iraqi Society for Defending Journalists Rights,” the society said in a statement. The Iraqi Society for Defending Journalists Rights is a non-governmental body. “Leaflets and posters carrying the picture of colleague Hejjiya along with the death sentence were distributed in Baaquba and the (group) demanded its terrorist elements to carry out the death sentence once they find him,” the statement, received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), quoted eyewitnesses as saying. The statement said that Hejjiya has previously survived several assassination and kidnapping attempts and his house in Baaquba was recently robbed and burnt up by several elements of the armed group. The society demanded the Iraqi government to “turn its words into actions and work to protect the journalists and writers who have become a target of assassinations, forced evictions and harassment.” Meanwhile, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory on Friday revealed that unidentified gunmen kidnapped a journalist in Baghdad’s al-Daawa daily newspaper 12 days ago; raising the number of kidnapped Iraqi journalists whose fate is still unknown to six journalists. “Unidentified gunmen stormed the home of journalist Karim Sabri Sharar al-Rubaie and took him at gun point to an unknown destination. He has been kidnapped for 12 days,” the observatory said in a statement received by VOI. The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory is a non-governmental organization that monitors violations and aggressions against media workers in Iraq. Rapporteurs sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders), in a report published on its web site at the end of 2006, said that Iraq, for the fourth year in a row, is considered the most dangerous place for media professionals. The RSF report said 64 journalists and media assistants were killed in 2006 while the total number of journalists killed since the onset of Iraq war in 2003 reached 139 journalists, more than the number of journalists reportedly killed in the 20-year Vietnam War, 63.

Thomas Friedman

Many people don't like Thomas Friedman, but it's hard to ignore him when he's spot on.

Martin Luther Al-King?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The New York Times

By Thomas L. Friedman

It's hard to know what's more disturbing: the barbaric sectarian murders by Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, or the deafening silence with which these mass murders are received in the Muslim world. How could it be that Danish cartoons of Muhammad led to mass violent protests, while unspeakable violence by Muslims against Muslims in Iraq every day evokes about as much reaction in the Arab-Muslim world as the weather report? Where is the Muslim Martin Luther King? Where is the "Million Muslim March" under the banner: "No Shiites, No Sunnis: We are all children of the Prophet Muhammad."

I can logically understand the lack of protest when Muslims kill Americans in Iraq. We're seen as occupiers by many. But I can't understand how the mass slaughter of 70 Baghdad college students last week by Sunni suicide bombers or the blowing up of a Shiite mosque on the first day of Ramadan in 2005 evoke so little response. Every day it's 100 more.

I raise this question because the only hope left for Iraq - if there is any - is not in a U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. That may be necessary, but without a Muslim counternihilism strategy that delegitimizes the mass murder of Muslims by Muslims, there is no hope for decent politics there. It takes a village, and right now the Muslim village is mute. It has no moral voice
when it comes to its own.

"The Koran describes the Prophet Muhammad as a Prophet of Mercy," said Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani-born director of Boston University's Center for International Relations. "Muslims begin all their acts, including worship, with the words: `In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful.' The Koran also says, `To you, your faith, and to me, mine.' But unfortunately, these mercy-focused, peacemaking ideas are lost [today] in the overall discourse in the Muslim world about reviving lost glory and setting right the injustice of Western domination. .

"For a Muslim Martin Luther King to emerge, Muslim discourse would have to shift away from the focus on power and glory and include taking responsibility as a community for our own situation."

In fairness, for a Martin Luther King to emerge requires some free space, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the courageous Egyptian democracy campaigner, remarked to me. But right now many liberals in the Arab world are in one way or another under house arrest by their regimes. "While Islamists in Egypt have access to thousands of mosques and can meet with their followers five times a day," Mr. Ibrahim said, liberal members of his own institute "can barely move in Cairo, let alone organize a march."

The Arab regimes want America to believe that there are only two choices: Islamists and the regimes, so it will side with the regimes.

This is one reason Mr. Ibrahim hopes the Islamists will take up the democratic agenda. They could carry it to the masses. One of the most popular Islamist leaders in the Arab world today, he notes, is Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon. Up to now, though, the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas seem to prefer being of pawns of Syria and Iran than agents of democratic change and Muslim reconciliation.

There's a lot at stake. If Iraq is ultimately unraveled by Muslim suicide-nihilism, it certainly will be a blot on our history - we opened this Pandora's box. But it will be a plague on the future of the whole Arab world.

If Arab Muslims can summon the will to protest only against the insults of "the foreigner" but never the injuries inflicted by their own on their own, how can they ever generate a modern society or democracy - which is all about respecting and protecting minority voices and unorthodox views? And if Sunnis and Shiites can never form a social contract to rule themselves – and will always require an iron-fisted dictator - decent government will forever elude them.

The brutally honest Syrian-born poet Ali Ahmad Said, known as Adonis, gave an interview from Paris on March 11, 2006, with Dubai TV, and warned of what's at stake (translation by Memri):

"The Arab individual is no less smart, no less a genius, than anyone else in the world. He can excel - but only outside his society. . If I look at the Arabs, with all their resources and great capacities, and I compare what they have achieved over the past century with what others have achieved in that period, I would have to say that we Arabs are in a phase of extinction, in the sense that we have no creative presence in the world. .

"We have the quantity. We have the masses of people, but a people becomes extinct when it no longer has a creative capacity, and the capacity to change its world"

Surging Toward Iran

A very good interview with Ali Allawi (thanks Z!).  This man seems to be very sharp and is not afraid to tell the truth.  The first part of the interview (page 1) deals with the surge of troops and a US confrontation with Iran, which I agree with, especially this part:

'So it is not normal, let's say, that Iraq should adopt the US security agenda as it relates to Iran and make it its own. Iran is a neighbor - we can't really overlook the fact there are links of geography, of history, of common religion, and so on. The relationship that Iraq needs to have with Iran has to be an independent, neighborly relationship based on the mutual interests of both countries, not necessarily subject to the strategic imperatives of the US government.

But we have now, I think, been confronted with the Iraqi government having the support of the United States being withdrawn if it does not, as it were, toe the line when it comes to Iran, and especially if it does not toe the line with the administration's interpretation as to Iranian meddling in internal Iraqi affairs.'


Then I found page 2 and 3 to resonate with me even more:

Hanging Saddam Hussein
 
NIO: What is your view of the recent executions of top Ba'ath officials? Will they aid or detract from reconciliation in your view?

AA: There's no question about the degree of the criminality of these former leaders of Iraq and the way that they used the most oppressive and violent means to maintain themselves in power. There's no question that these people were culpable and were tried - albeit the environment of the Iraqi special tribunals was somewhat chaotic. But nevertheless, these people were convicted, tried mainly fairly, although chaotically, and found guilty.

The question is whether they should have been executed given the extent of the sectarian conflict and heightened sectarian tensions in Iraq, as well the broader Middle East. My own estimate is that Saddam should have been tried for the other crimes for which he was indicted - including the crimes against the population of the south, after the failure of the uprising [in 1991] - so that it becomes clear to all the nature of the crimes of this regime. And even if the trials took maybe another year or two or three, it doesn't matter.

But I think the way that the executions were handled basically subverted the purpose of putting Saddam on trial. So the manner of his death has overwhelmed the litany of crimes that he had committed and it became his legacy. People at the height of sectarian violence remember the way he comported himself in his last minutes, rather than the decades of oppression and violence and criminality with which he ruled the country.

I think, as it were, the cat is out of the bag now. Having executed Saddam in this way for the first set of the offenses for which he was convicted, it's very difficult, I think, to stop the execution bandwagon - which will increase tensions, I'm afraid.

NIO: And why do you think he was not tried for those other crimes?

AA: Well, there are a number of reasons, I think. One of them was the fear on the part of senior Iraqi ministers that the United States might spring him. I don't mean spring him and set him free, but maybe take him outside of the country. There was a fear about that.

The second reason, I think - I would call these negative reasons - is that the government wanted to appear to be strong and decisive. On the positive side, you can say that they had met what they thought were the legal requirements for the execution, therefore it was something pro forma - although I don't pay much credence to that because this is not a pro forma trial, neither is it your usual criminal.

But I think it has to do with the first two reasons, that fear that he may, one way or another, be taken out of the country as part of some deal that the United States may have struck with other countries in the area and the desire to appear decisive and strong.
Cornering the Mehdi Army
 
NIO: You have discussed in the past a strategy that involves accommodating the groups that have de facto power in Iraq, such as the Mehdi Army [of Muqtada al-Sadr], while also limiting their demands and claims. How can this be achieved, and do you believe that Washington would give and sustain support for such an outreach, given the expected criticisms that Baghdad, with US support, would be coddling the so-called "bad guys"?

AA: Well, the Mehdi Army is part of a movement. It's true, parts of it are undisciplined, parts of it have turned to criminality, but they form part of a political movement that has very strong street support. Under normal conditions I would say these people account for up to 70% of the Shi'ite street, as it were. We're talking about 6 [million], 7 million people whose political representation takes on various forms. Politically, they're part of the Sadrist movement, in terms of militias, various elements of the Mehdi Army.

Now you can't really confront the Mehdi Army without taking on the entire panoply of the Shi'ite groups, or the large lower-class elements of the Shi'ites that support this movement. It's a mass movement. So you can't just excise parts of it and assume that the others will just fall in line. They may not do so. I think it's a very shortsighted strategy just to take on the external manifestations of the Sadrist movement without trying to accommodate it one way or another in a political process.

NIO: And you think it is possible to accommodate but also limit their demands at the same time?

AA: I can't say they have a coherent political program. They don't. They are a large group of people who have borne the brunt of the deprivations of the Saddam regime in the 1990s. Very little attention was paid to them politically prior to the overthrow of the regime, and even the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] I know had nothing but contempt for them.

Still, these people are trying to create a presence for themselves politically. In regards to whether they are by and large supportive of the invasion - well, they're not. But they have to be represented

politically and over time you can begin to deal with their more responsible leaders and wean them into the political process. But if you force them into a corner, you're basically declaring war on a very large percentage of the Shi'ite population of Iraq.

The end of the state
 
NIO: To what degree would a highly decentralized federal government in Iraq feed Iraqi concerns - rooted in the colonial era - about outsiders dividing and weakening the state? And if security were also decentralized, as you have recommended in the past, wouldn't minorities remain quite vulnerable?

AA: I believe that the Iraqi state that was constructed so laboriously after World War I has come to an end, simply because it has ended up being occupied and has been responsible for great instability in the area and a great deal of domestic violence and oppression. So the state came to an end when the United States invaded the country and broke open, as it were, all the possibilities that Iraq could evolve into the future.

From that premise, the geopolitical unit that was created in the early 1920s had now ended. We now have to come up with a different formulation and we have to deal with the requirements of the major constituent groups as to how they see their role in this state, in this new country, assuming it maintains its geographic and geopolitical boundaries.

From that point of view, it's very difficult to re-establish a centralized state, given the great deal of fear and hostility that exists between various communities and also given the fact that something like 25% of your population and territory is already effectively outside the control of the central state.

So we have to really reconsider this. I suppose it's like the United States when it started - there was a great deal of devolution of power to the states and only after a period of time some federal institutions emerged. I think you have to start with that premise.

The various component groups of Iraq now feel far more vulnerable than they had, say, 20 or 30 years ago. They have gone through a very traumatic post-Ba'athist period in the last four years and we have to rebuild and reknit the sinews, as it were, of a unitary society and state. Now, you can't do that under conditions of great turmoil. So when you refer to the minorities, there are minorities in Iraq outside of the three main blocs, but none of them, I think, are sufficiently large to warrant their own territorial unit. I mean I can't imagine a unit for, let's say, the Iraqi Christians or the Turkomans.

So you have to work within decentralized areas. When you devolve power this way, you basically assume, or expect, that security will be provided at the local level. As you try to build up towards a central and federal arrangement, then you have to be prepared to cede part of power to the center. But until all groups are prepared to cede that, the center can't reimpose its will on the parts.

NIO: And in areas that are multi-ethnic, say Baghdad, Kirkuk, is there anything specific you would propose there?

AA: Well, it's not a cut-and-dried process. I think you have to start - I mean, Baghdad can be turned into a territory with its own government and its own regional powers over and above that of the federal region. Or maybe Baghdad may be divided into three cities. I mean, it is already. Sadr City itself is probably as big as the rest of Baghdad, just by itself. It may very well warrant that it should be incorporated as a city, in which case the capital, excluding Sadr City, might become part of a workable administrative unit.

So you have to think a little outside the box, but the plan should be towards creating not necessarily homogeneous units, but units that are large enough to be self-sustaining, to have the appropriate administrative and security machinery, and, at the same time, not have so many fault lines that create or exacerbate tensions.

And I think this should be monitored by some kind of international force after - with the United States' agreement, obviously - after this thing is headed to a transition, to a new situation.

The Disintegration of Iraq

This is a good article, although I disagree that 'there were no instances of "refusal to fight Shi'ite brothers." [in Iran]' Many Iraqis did not want to fight in the war, and many Iraqi soldiers defected or simply hid with relatives inside Iraq.

'While the vision of turning Kurds into Iraqis, following every nation-state's inherent logic that all inhabitants should be members of the nation, may always have been a pipedream - the question "Why, after World War I, did everyone else get a state except us Kurds?" would never have gone away and a harking back to a glorious Arab past held little appeal for Kurds -, among the Arab population the feeling of being Arab/Iraqi first and member of some ethno-sectarian group second developed so far that in greater towns and cities mixed marriages became common and children didn't even know what denomination their parents had. Baghdad, and with it also Iraq, became one of the centers of a secular Arab culture that found its expressions in literature, music, and visual arts.

The Kurds, while not giving up on the goal of attaining an independent Kurdistan at some point in the future, were willing to accept a form of autonomy within Iraq, which eventually may well have developed into a kind of Iraqi-Kurdish civic identity. However, the beginnings of the Arabization project in the early 1970s - answering the Kurdish revolts of the 1960s and trying to counterbalance the 1970 Autonomy Agreement - and the repression after the 1975 Algiers Agreement showed that the central government saw itself as Arab and treated the Iraqi citizens of Kurdish ethnicity primarily as a disloyal (Kurdish) ethnic group within the boundaries of the (Arab) Iraqi nation. Subsequent actions on both sides only hardened the rift and resulted in a complete separation of Kurdish and Arab inhabitants of Iraq - in large part physically, but even in mixed areas (like Baghdad) at least on the level of identification and perception of oneself and others.

Also in 1975, the Iraqi government banned the annual (Shi'ite) procession from Najaf to Karbala as part of the policy against the (Shi'ite Islamist) Da'wa Party, leading to the Safar Intifada in 1977 and the arrest and, in 1980, execution of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, the leading Shi'ite religious figure in Iraq. However, while these events certainly protracted Shi'ite religious opposition to the Ba'th regime, they did not result in a widespread, popular alienation of Iraqi Shi'ites. This is best evidenced by the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War: The Iraqi regime's stylization of the conflict as "Arab vs. Persian", through the usage of such symbols as "The Battle of Qadisiya", seems to have worked as rank and file of the Iraqi army, most of them Shi'ites, fought well and there were no instances of "refusal to fight Shi'ite brothers." The Iranian attempts to induce Shi'ite Iraqis to put sectarian before national identity, such the usage of Shi'ite religious symbols like "Karbala", did not produce any tangible results.

By 1991 this situation had clearly changed. General exhaustion from the Iraq-Iran War and the - for Iraqi citizens - surprising collapse of the Iraqi military during the liberation of Kuwait by allied forces paved the ground for the popular support of revolts in the (Kurdish) north and (Shi'ite) south of the country. While the uprisings in the South were not couched in religious terms, it was Shi'ite Islamist groups (Da'wa and SCIRI) who provided organizational structures and leadership. The Iraqi central government, having started to adopt Islamic symbolism (for ex. the phrase "Allahu Akbar" in the flag), treated the 1991 uprisings in the South and Center as Shi'ite revolts. Just as Iraqi citizens of Kurdish descent were perceived as "Kurds", now the citizens who happened to fall under the category "Shi'ites" were primarily treated as members of that community and Shi'ite religious personae were seen and treated as community leaders. This official policy emphasized communal over national or civic identity, enhanced any already existing perceptional differences between the members of various religious communities, and made Iraqis of Shi'ite background more susceptible to Shi'ite communalist ideas. Saddam's policy of elevating his relatives and others who hailed from the area of his hometown Tikrit to high offices enhanced the Sunni Arab slant of the regime.'

Securing Baghdad

Alaa the Mesopotamian has made a few suggestions on how to improve the security situation in Baghdad. Alaa has long argued that the US military should focus its efforts on securing Baghdad, and the goal should have been from the beginning to make Baghdad one big Green Zone. It's too bad that US military strategists were not reading Alaa the Mesopotamian two years ago and taking him seriously. Here are a few of Alaa's key recommendations:

'4- Lock down of the city of Baghdad at carefully studied points. The question as to where Baghdad boundaries actually are, is a crucial matter and requires very careful strategic consideration. For instance, should Abu Graib, be within or outside the protected periphery? This hotbed area is one of the havens of terrorism and the source of much of the action that afflicts central Baghdad. Likewise are the areas nearer to the center in West Baghdad. The objective is to work towards the goal of “Green Zone Baghdad” that I have proposed long time ago.

5- Recognition of the main threat and avoidance of engaging in secondary efforts that can only distract from the main objectives and open up unnecessary fronts that only serve to increase the risk to the troops and divert their attention. This point, I mention specifically concerning Shiite areas and the so-called Sadrists. These are not the main threat, and could be dealt with politically. Of course they must be controlled, but I believe the task is more political and social than military there.

6- Respect of the lives [Alaa's cousin was recently killed by US troops - apparently they thought he was a suicide bomber] and property of ordinary citizen, and adoption of the principle of courteous and respectful approach to searches and information gathering. Avoid breaking of furniture and the various acts of vandalism, not to mention downright theft, that have been so common.

7- To distinguish community and tribal leaders in each area and convoke them before embarking on action in any neighborhood. Saddam was very effective using this method, holding these leaders responsible for what happens in their communities, recompensing them generously when cooperative otherwise punishing them severely when things go wrong.

8- Recognition that there are virtually closed neighborhoods completely under “insurgent” control (the Sods) where they can rig their car bombs, suicide men, I.E.D’s etc. etc. with complete impunity, especially after the thorough ethnic and sectarian cleansing that is almost completed by now. These areas comprise many parts of West Baghdad, Adhamiya, and in the entirety of the farmland belt around Baghdad etc. Unless there is preparedness and determination to go into these areas clean them and hold them, there is little chance of success.

These are just a few points purely on the military technical side, which does not mean that we underestimate the other more important political, sociological and economic factors, but these require volumes of research which is not within my capability at the present. But still the points above are of urgency in the immediate short term.' --Alaa

Iraqi Stamps

This is an interesting presentation of Iraqi stamps. One of them (dated 1988) shows Saddam Hussein over a map of the Arab nation and the words "Victorious Iraq". He thought he was victorious in 1991 too.

The deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq

CHRONOLOGY-The deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq
Mon 22 Jan 2007 17:13:45 GMT

Jan 22 (Reuters) - Two simultaneous car bombs tore through a busy market in central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 88 people, Iraqi police said.

Here is a list of some of the deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003:

Aug. 19, 2003 - A truck bomb wrecks U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Aug. 29, 2003 - A car bomb kills at least 83 people, including top Shi'ite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.

Feb. 1, 2004 - 117 people are killed when two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Arbil at the offices of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.

Feb. 10, 2004 - Suicide car bomb rips through a police station in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, killing 53.

Feb. 11, 2004 - Suicide car bomb explodes at an Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad, killing 47.

March 2, 2004 - 171 people are killed in twin attacks in Baghdad and Kerbala.

Dec. 19, 2004 - A suicide car bomb blast in Najaf, 300 metres from the Imam Ali shrine, kills 52 and wounds 140.

Feb. 28, 2005 - A suicide car bomb attack in Hilla, south of Baghdad, kills 125 people and wounds 130. It was postwar Iraq's worst single blast.

July 16, 2005 - A suicide bomber in a fuel truck near a Shi'ite mosque in the town of Mussayib, near Kerbala, kills 98.

Sept. 14, 2005 - A suicide bomber kills 114 people and wounds 156 in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad.

Sept. 29, 2005 - 98 people are killed in three coordinated car bomb attacks in the mixed Shi'ite and Sunni town of Balad.

Nov. 18, 2005 - At least 74 people are killed and 150 wounded when suicide bombers blow themselves up inside two Shi'ite mosques in Khanaqin.

Jan. 5, 2006 - Two suicide bombers kill over 120 people and wound more than 200 in the cities of Kerbala and Ramadi. Fifty-three were killed and 148 wounded in Kerbala and 70 killed and 65 wounded in Ramadi.

July 1, 2006 - A car bomb attack at a crowded market in Sadr city, a Shi'ite district of eastern Baghdad, kills 62 and wounds 114. The Supporters of the Sunni People, a previously unknown Iraqi Sunni Muslim group claim responsibility.

July 18, 2006 - Fifty-nine people are killed by a suicide bomb in Kufa, near Najaf, in an attack claimed by al Qaeda.

Aug. 10, 2006 - Thirty-five people are killed and 90 injured by bomb blasts near the Imam Ali shrine in southern city of Najaf. The Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions) group claims responsibility.

Nov. 23, 2006 - Six car bombs in different parts of the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad kill 202 people and wound 250.

Dec. 12, 2006 - A suicide bomber kills 70 people and wounds at least 236 in Tayran Square, in central Baghdad after luring a crowd of labourers to his vehicle with promises of work.

Jan. 16, 2007 - A car bomb and suicide bomber strikes the Mustansiriya University in central Baghdad killing at least 70 people and wounding 180.

Jan. 22, 2007 - A double car bombing at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, a busy commercial area in central Baghdad, kills 88 people and wounds 160.

Who Killed Americans in Kerbela?

Who Done It?

Did Shia or Sunni Militias Kill Americans in Karbala?

By NIR ROSEN 01/21/2007 6:47 PM ET
On the afternoon of Saturday the 20th of January, Karbala was shaken by the sounds of fourteen explosions. Although the Mahdi Army, the Shia militia controlled by Muqtada al Sadr was blamed for the attack on Americans as they were meeting with local officials in the city, Mahdi Army officials have insisted to IraqSlogger sources that this is not true. They have strict orders not to attack Americans even in self defense. Rumors circulating in Karbala are that three to seven sports utility vehicles full of Sunni militiamen attacked the American vehicles. It is believed that the Sunni militiamen had fake identification papers issued by the Multi-National Forces and no checkpoint could stop them because they thought they were Americans. It is even claimed that they had some English speakers with them. They were said to have fled to Hilla following the attack.

Al Qaeda On Iraq

"It's a success story for al-Qaeda, a success story for autocratic Arab regimes that made democracy look ugly in their people's eyes. They can say to their people: 'Look at the democracy that the Americans want to bring to you. Democracy is trouble. You may as well forget about what the Americans promise you. They promise you death,' " said Salameh Nematt, a Jordanian analyst and the former Washington bureau chief for the Arabic-language daily newspaper al-Hayat.

Seyid Hassan Nasrallah on Iraq

Many Arabs have called for Seyid Hassan Nasrallah to speak out against the violence in Iraq.  The famous Seyid Hassan has spoken (thanks CSS). I do not agree with him saying ' We believe that the salvation of Iraq begins with the adoption of the armed resistance and struggle against the forces of the occupation."  However, he has these wise words:

"I ask all the Sunni brothers in the Arab and Islamic Worlds, no matter what their reaction was to the circumstances of the execution of the ex-Iraqi President; whether they have a position against the ruling on principle, or whether they have a different assessment of the personality of the man (Saddam). Or those who had a problem with the timing or the circumstances of the execution, whatever their assessment is, I ask them to place the responsibility on the side that did the execution, and not place the responsibility on all the Shias in Iraq and the rest of the world. Let us agree on a principle, and let us say that if I made a mistake "I made a mistake", and not all the Shias in the world. And if Doctor X or Sheikh Y committed an error, it is their fault, and not that of all Sunnis. That is how we should proceed if we have a regard for the Arab and Islamic and national interests."  

Hizbullah's Leader on Iraq

By NIR ROSEN, AMER  MOHSEN
Posted 0 hr. 39 min. ago

Seyid Hassan Nasrallah

'On Friday the 19th of January, Lebanese Hizbullah's Secretary General Seyid Hassan Nasrallah was interviewed by Seyid Hassan Nasrallah Arab Satellite channel al Manar that is supported by his movement.

Although the bulk of his interview focused on internal Lebanese politics, Hizbullah perceives the conflict in Lebanon as part of a wider American project for the "New Middle East" that also includes the occupation of Palestine and Iraq. Just as American policy in Lebanon cannot be divorced from its wider policy in the Middle East or the Muslim world, so too is the increasing sectarianism in Lebanon linked to the civil war in Iraq and its effects on relations between Sunnis and Shias in the region.

The American government has accused Hizbullah of supporting the Mahdi Army militia in Iraq, arming and training the Shia footsoldiers of Muqtada al Sadr. They have offered no proof however, and given the pattern of American statements on Iraq, it must be treated with extreme skepticism. American and British officials accused Hizbullah of sending members to Iraq during the 2003 American war that overthrew Saddam Hussein. They later accused Hizbullah of doing so again in 2004 and most recently in late 2006, when Hizbullah's victory in the July war in Lebanon put it under the American crosshairs once more.

When the American military besieged and attacked the holy Shia city of Najaf in May 2004, Seyid Hassan offered assistance to Muqtada's Shia resistance fighters. Muqtada al Sadr recently proclaimed his allegiance to Hizbullah during the Israeli war on Lebanon in July of 2006. Muqtada has been seeking to emulate Seyid Hassan's movement and leadership style since his rise to power in April 2003. His supporters sold posters showing Muqtada together with Seyid Hassan and modeled their militia on Hizbullah, though unsuccessfully, since unlike Hizbullah, the Mahdi Army is sectarian and engages in attacks against civilians.'

Evil agenda of Shia 'protector'

• Brutal killers such as Abu Deraa are using indiscriminate and ruthless murders to propel Iraq towards civil war. Jon Swain reports from Baghdad

  ---

• January 22, 2007

AS convoys of American military equipment were crossing the desert into Iraq last week and more US soldiers headed towards Baghdad to crack down on sectarian violence, a video on the internet showed one of their prime targets, the leader of a Shia death squad, bottle-feeding a baby camel with Pepsi-Cola.

It is one of the few images of Abu Deraa, an elusive Shi'ite whose orgy of sectarian killings in the past two years has helped to propel Iraq towards civil war.

The benign video belies Deraa's savagery.

His squad is thought to be responsible for the murder of thousands of civilians, mostly Sunnis, and he is said to take personal delight in killing -- sometimes with a bullet to the head, sometimes by driving a drill into the skulls of his victims.

On other occasions, Iraqis say, he gives them a choice of being shot or battered to death with concrete building blocks.

Each day the police find more bodies dumped in shallow graves on wasteland known by Iraqis as the "Happiness Hotel".

They have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered after being accused of attacking Shia shrines or of involvement in the daily bombings tearing Baghdad apart.

The video shows Deraa, a short, well built and bearded man in his 40s, pouring the cola down the camel's throat.

"All of it. Drink to the bottom," he tells the gulping animal, asking his guards whether they paid for the bottle or took it.

Behind the video is a sinister story. Deraa has vowed to sacrifice the camel in celebration if he succeeds in killing Tariq al-Hashimi, the Iraqi vice-president.

Hashimi is Iraq's most important Sunni politician and Shia extremists such as Deraa regard him as a bitter enemy who must be eliminated. Hashimi was in London last week for talks with Tony Blair and for the time being is safe from assassination. But Deraa or another Shia death squad killed his sister and two brothers last year.

The hitmen will keep trying to fix him in their sights.

Another of Deraa's high-profile victims is Khamis al-Obeidi, Saddam Hussein's lawyer.

A grim video recorded on a mobile phone shows his hands being tied behind his back by a man believed to be Deraa.

He pleads for his life but is put into the back of a truck and paraded through Baghdad's Sadr city, where the crowds taunt him with Shia slogans and stone him. The vehicle stops. Obeidi is forced out and Deraa puts three bullets in his head.

In another operation, Deraa reportedly acquired a fleet of ambulances and drove them into a Sunni neighbourhood of Baghdad.

He tricked groups of young men to come forward and give blood to help Sunni brothers who, he said, were being "slaughtered by the Shi'ites".

Once the young men approached, he trapped and killed them.

By such deeds Deraa has won a reputation as perhaps the most brutal mass murderer in Iraq. He is seen as a Shia version of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the brutal Jordanian leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq who was killed by the Americans last year.

Sadrists order Palestinians to leave Iraq or 'prepare to die'

What the Sadrists have done to the Palestinians in Iraq is bad enough. Now, after half of the Palestinian Iraqis have fled Iraq and become refugees again, the Sadrists have told the remainder of the Palestinians that they must leave or they will be killed. I expected that even the Sadrists would sympathize with the Palestinians, despite the unproven claims that Palestinians worked for Saddam's regime. I don't know of a single Palestinian who worked for Saddam. Just because the Palestinians were favored by Saddam Hussein does not mean that they can be persecuted now. The Sadrists have proven themselves to be quite the barbaric animals.


Shias order Palestinians to leave Iraq or 'prepare to die'

By Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 21/01/2007

'Palestinians living in Iraq have been warned that they will be killed by Shia militias unless they leave the country immediately.

Iraqi police say the immigrants, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, are the target of a backlash by hardline Shias, including members of the Mehdi Army led by the Shia preacher Moqtada al-Sadr.

More than 600 Palestinians are believed to have died at the hands of Shia militias since the war began in 2003, including at least 300 from the Baladiat area of Baghdad. Many were tortured with electric drills before they died.

Now the Shia militias are stepping up their campaign to drive out Iraq's 20,000 remaining Palestinians – half the estimated 40,000 living in the country at the start of the war, all of whom were welcomed by Saddam Hussein and provided with housing, money and free education.

Hundreds of Iraqis were forced to leave their homes to make way for the migrants, many of whom joined the ruling Ba'ath party.

Sheik Mahmoud El Hassani, a spokesman for the Mehdi Army, said the Palestinians had brought their suffering on themselves. He said Shias believed they were in league with Sunni extremists and al-Qaeda.

"We are sure that all the Palestinians in Iraq are involved in killing the Shia people and they have to pay the price now," he said. "They lived off our blood under Saddam. We were hungry with no food and they were comfortable with full bellies. They should leave now, or they will have to pay."

Kareem Zakia, 61, said his son, Yeha Ahmed, was kidnapped and killed in the Karada area of Baghdad two weeks ago. "The kidnappers called me and told me that they had taken my son because he came from Palestine and all the Palestinians support the Sunni terrorists. I found my son's body the next day with many holes in his belly made by a drill."

He ordered his two other sons to leave with his wife and two daughters, but neighbouring Jordan refused to allow them to cross the border – as it has with many Palestinians trying to flee Iraq.

Ahmed Mahmood, 26, a Palestinian in Baladiat, said he had paid a ransom of nearly £3,000 to free his brother, Murad Mahmood, 38.

The kidnappers in Sadr City, a Shia area of Baghdad, told him where to collect his brother, but he arrived to find he had been killed.

"We found him dead with signs of torture on his body," Ahmed said. "They called us the next day and said, 'We killed your brother because all the Palestinians in Iraq love Saddam Hussein and this is what will happen to you and all your families'."

Captain Sary Farhan, a police spokesman, said people had been arrested for the killings but later released.

"All these criminals belong to Shia militias and were released a few days after. They have strong backing in the government," he said. Police report Iranian weapons have been taken from arrested militia members.

The Iraqi interior ministry says 7,700 police officers have been sacked for suspected membership of death squads. Of those, 665 are in jail awaiting trial.'

US and Iraqi Forces Move Against Mehdi Army

US and Iraqi forces have arrested about 400 Mehdi militiamen.  Top Sadrist Abdul Hadi al Darraji, suspected of having links to death squads, has been arrested by US troops. Sadr City is under siege by US forces.  This type of operation would have been impossible without the US.

Baghdad Map: Hot Spots

Tracking What's Happening in the Iraqi Capital

By ZEYAD Posted 3 hr. 47 min. ago

By Zeyad

Iraqi Journalists Murdered by Insurgents

Not covered by Al Jazeera:

 

18 January 2007

Call for determined action by authorities after five more media employees killed
 

Just weeks after the UN security council's adoption of Resolution 1738 on the protection of journalists in armed conflicts, a new string of killings of journalists in Iraq has underlined the urgent need for the Iraqi government to take determined measures to protect its country's media personnel, Reporters Without Borders said today

A total of 146 journalists and media assistants have been killed since a US-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003.

"How many more deaths will we have to count before the Iraqi authorities decide to put an end to impunity?" Reporters Without Borders asked. "Although many others fall victim to the daily violence ravaging Iraq, journalists are for the most part deliberately targeted because of what they do. Those responsible must be found and punished, or else these killings will continue."

Six media employees killed in less than a week

Four employees of the governmental daily Al Sabah were killed in an especially horrifying manner from 12 to 16 January. Two, whose names have not been revealed, were kidnapped from the newspaper's offices in Baghdad on 12 January and were found with their throats cut the next day near Al Nouman hospital.

Yassin Aid Assef, the newspaper's Al Anbar correspondent, was killed by a bomb while out covering a story in Baghdad two days later. A security guard's body was found on the newspaper's roof on 16 January. The newspaper, which did not want to give out his name, said he was probably shot from a distance with a hunting rifle while patrolling the building's roof.

In a separate case, gunmen opened fire on freelance journalist Khoudr Younes al-Obaidi on 12 January, killing him instantly.

Finally, Reporters Without Borders has learned that journalist Falah Khalaf Al Diyali of the daily Al Saha was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on 15 January in the city of Ramadi (110 km west of Baghdad).

Another kidnapping

Meanwhile, another name has been added to the list of journalists who have been kidnapped and about whom there has been no news since their abduction. Akil Adnan Majid, the accountant of the daily Al Sabah, was kidnapped outside the newspaper's premises in Baghdad on 9 January. No contact has yet been established with his abductors. A total of six journalists and media assistants are currently being held hostage in Iraq.

There Was No Al Qaeda In Iraq Before 2003

I don't know how many times I have heard people say that there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003.  It is a true statement, but do people who make this statement ask why?  Why did Al Qaeda, the Base of God's Support, not attack Saddam Hussein's secular regime, who murdered countless Iraqi Muslims for wanting an Islamic government in Iraq?  Did Saddam possess some kind of mojo (doubtful) that kept Al Qaeda suicide bombers out of Iraq?  It seems that when people say that there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003, they are giving kudos to Saddam and his henchmen, as if to say they were doing something right.  Did the regime build a wall along the Iraqi-Saudi border that we don't know about?  How did Saddam keep Al Qaeda out of Iraq?  Did Al Qaeda even think of destabilizing Iraq before 2003 by suicide bombers, car bombs, and attacking government officials? 

 

If Al Qaeda is concerned only with attacking Arab governments that cooperate with foreign occupiers, why hasn't Al Qaeda ever attacked government officials in Qatar, the Arab Muslim country that hosts the United States Central Command ( CENTCOM)?  Has a suicide bomber ever blown himself up among people in Doha?  We don't we see Al Qaeda attacking the forces of Mahmud Abbas, who has cooperated with Israeli occupiers for many years now? 

 

Coming: Huge Baghdad Checkpoints

It's about time.

Coming: Huge Baghdad Checkpoints

VOI Exclusive: Four Monstrous Baghdad "Security Gates"

Posted 7 hr. 34 min. ago

From the Voices of Iraq news agency

Baghdad entrances to get security gates with surveillance cameras By Hosam al-Shahmani Baghdad, Jan 18, (VOI) – The entrances of Baghdad will get during 2007 four security gates complete with surveillance cameras to monitor all vehicles coming into and leaving the Iraqi capital, an official source in Baghdad governorate said on Thursday. The four gates will cost a total of 24 billion dinars ($18.5 million), the source, who declined to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). The cameras will be "connected to the offices of the Iraqi president, the prime minister, the parliament speaker and the governor of Baghdad so that monitor directly all vehicles coming in through the four gates," "The gates will also have ultraviolet equipments to see through the vehicles in order to intercept car bombs and vehicles smuggling weapons," he added. Each gate will have an emergency aid center, a fire fighting unit, a mosque, four towers and a parking car lot, the source said.

I

		In pictures: Day of carnage (July 10, 2005) 1 of 6 US and Iraqi military and police vehicles raced to the scene of an explosion in Baghdad.

Some people think I am 'sectarian'

I hear a lot of Arabs accusing each other of being 'sectarian' these days. What is sectarian? When did sectarian become a dirty word? Arabs insist that Saddam's regime was not sectarian, but the top members of Saddam's government were Tikriti, and I venture to guess that the vast majority of his victims were Kurds and Shia, especially if the three quarter million Iranians who were killed in Saddam's war are also counted as his victims.

A Google search of 'sectarian conflict Iraq' gives over a million results - the first page lists mostly articles from the American mainstream press, all but two published in 2006, and none from the Arab media. One article in the Turkish Weekly caught my eye - it was written by Cengiz Candar, who acknowledged in February 2006 that the conflict was sectarian in nature, and that it had already been a 'low-intensity civil war' until the bombing of the Askari shrine:

"But, not an Arab-Kurdish type of civil war, but a civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites, and that is exactly the immense threat we all might be facing now in the wake of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on Wednesday. It is, indeed, a most ominous development for Iraq, the entire Middle East, the U.S. and including Turkey. For all of us.

Being a very close and keen follower of the developments in Iraq and having been very recently there with the privilege of talking and listening to the main political actors in the field, ranging from President Jalal Talabani to the U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Shiite leader Adil Abdelmehdi, I cannot but be prudent to say I am optimistic for the imminent future. But as an inborn optimist, I refrain from being optimistic this time.

The Shiite-Sunni conflict was already there and already a "low-intensity civil war" was underway between the two communities of Iraq with underpinnings reaching to the entire and wider Middle East region. The situation was a looming civil war. Presently, we are at the threshold of a "high-intensity civil war."

Preventive measures could place the Sunnis who participated in the last elections (Dec. 15, 2005) into a competent national unity government. And, Zalmay Khalilzad was engaged in doing so. However, if the dose of medication is not arranged deftly, it could poison the body and may create fatal consequences. I am afraid that is what we have been witnessing in Iraq over last few days, and worse might be coming soon.

Zalmay Khalilzad, on Tuesday, publicly threatened the Shiite Alliance that won the elections by saying that unless it formed a national unity government that significantly includes Sunnis, it risked losing American financial assistance and he also insisted -- not unjustly -- that politicians with links to Shiite militias be banned from two ministries, interior and defense."


None of the Arab media has acknowledged the sectarian nature of Saddam's regime, and many Arabs vehemently deny it, but we can all agree now that Iraq is experiencing a sectarian civil war. I wonder why the press was not discussing the sectarian nature of this conflict before 2006. Was the bombing that killed Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim and 124 others in Nejef in August 2003 not sectarian? Were the 279 suicide bombings that occurred in Iraq before 2006 not sectarian in nature?

PS - I did find this at the bottom of the first page of that Google search:

"The Hussein regime over the years has exploited tensions between the diverse religious and ethnic communities within Iraq for its own political gain. How have Saddam Hussein's policies affected relations between Kurds, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, and other religious and ethnic groups within Iraq? How can the United States and the international community prevent sectarian violence in the wake of a conflict there?

On February 11, 2003, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a briefing to examine the challenges of ethnic reconciliation in a post-Hussein Iraq. Moderated by Institute Middle East specialist and Research and Studies program officer Tamara Wittes, the briefing featured former Institute senior fellow Amatzia Baram of the University of Haifa; Rend Rahim Francke, executive director of the Iraq Foundation; Hatem Mukhlis, chief of political section, Iraqi National Movement; and Jihan Hajibadri with American University's Program on International Peace and Conflict Resolution."

Bombs Rock Baghdad: Mustansiriyah Attacked

Bombs Rock Baghdad

Mustansiriyah University attacked, other bombs detonated in
Posted 8 hr. 31 min. ago

'Initial reports of 62 people were killed and 138 wounded outside of a major Sunni university in Eastern Baghdad near Sadr City today. Witnesses report a suicide bomber detonating an explosive vest followed by a car bomb parked outside the main gate. The explosions occurred as students were heading home and catching buses and rides. A spokesman for the university said that most of the victims were women students.

The Iraq Students and Youth League says that there have been at least 10 violent incidents in Baghdad's two largest universities from January 1st to the 7th. They also report that attendance dropped to as low as 6% at Baghdad University. The highest attendance level was 59 percent at private universities.

Universities were targeted for attack by Sunni militias who posted threatening leaflets. The response of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki was to order students and professors to attend classes. Those who did not obey were threatened with dismissal or expulsion. The al-Mustansiriya University was founded in the 13th century, built in the Iranian Isfahan style along the Tigris river and was restored in the 1980's. Today it is plastered with photos of Moqtada al Sadr's father and photos along with photos of murdered students.

Other violent incidents in Baghdad involving double IEDs, mortars, drive by shootings and discovery of dead bodies brought the total death toll to 109 on the same day that the UN calculated the annual death toll of 34,000 in 2006 an average of 93 Iraqis killed every day. At least 155 educators have been killed since the war began.'


I'm surprised the university allowed photos of Sadr on the walls. They should take those photos down, if they can. Maybe that is the problem - perhaps the university feels the pressure from the Mahdi army, which should not be the case. They should display photos like this, taken by my father in the 70s:


Bombs Rock Baghdad

What Arab Intellectuals See

Sometimes I wonder what Arab intellectuals are thinking. Are they reading the news? Which news are they reading? IraqSlogger reports that four Al Sabah Newspaper employees have been murdered in as many days. Meanwhile the Arab media cannot stop talking about the 'martyr' Saddam Hussein.

Four Al Sabah Newspaper Staffers Murdered In As Many Days
Posted 10 hr. 27 min. ago

'Government funded al-Sabah newspaper guard killed in Baghdad

By Adel Fakher Baghdad, Jan 16, (VOI) – An Iraqi guard working for the government funded al-Sabah newspaper was found dead over the top roof of its building in north of Baghdad, a source at the Iraqi media network said on Tuesday. “A guard was found dead after a night duty over the newspaper building roof in al-Waziriyah neighborhood, north of Baghdad,” the source, asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). The source added “the cause of the killing was not clear but he might be killed with a sniper’s bullet.” “The investigations are under way to discover the cause of the death,” the source added. On Sunday, a worker in Al-Sabah newspaper and a driver who were kidnapped on Saturday were found dead with their heads cut off in northwestern Baghdad. The two were kidnapped in al-Sulaigh district after leaving the paper on Saturday evening. They were stopped at a fake checkpoint and taken to an unknown destination. The bodies of kidnapped workers were found on Sunday morning dumped near al-Numan hospital in Baghdad’s northwestern district of al-Aazamiya. Meanwhile, the source said Al-Sabah correspondent in the western Anbar province was killed on Saturday in an explosion. Al-Sabah is an official newspaper that was established two months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.'

What Arab intellectuals see:

"The New Iraq" from the Lebanese daily An Nahar

American People are Stupid

This is funny. Australian satirist Julian Morrow asks Americans worldly questions, and many answers are laughable. I wonder how many Americans he had to interview before getting a wrong answer on 'what is the religion of Buddhist monks?' It is nice that we (and even foreigners) can make fun of the American people and the American government without being harassed or murdered, as has happened to many Iraqis, and at least two professional comedians in Baghdad in the last few months.

Baathi Insurgent TV

Iraqis are free to watch all media broadcast by satellite (unlike before 2003) and young impressionable Sunni Arab men are unfortunately moved by some of the garbage, no doubt designed to recruit young men and portray Americans and the Iraqi government as evil.

'This is al-Zawraa TV, a 24-hour satellite station that lionises Iraq's insurgency to the drumbeat of Saddam-era martial music. It is a crude and dizzying mix of images and videos harvested from jihadi websites - and a cult hit. There are grainy loops of car bombs and mortar attacks interspersed with images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and bloodied children. "Mujahideen" are seen training. Clips of Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11 are thrown in for good measure.'

Its chief targets are the US-led forces and "collaborators". But it reserves some of its strongest venom for the Safawis, a derogatory term used by Sunni Arabs to describe Iraq's resurgent Shia political and religious establishment. The name harks back to the Persian Safavid empire which ran amok in Baghdad in the 16th century.

The radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia, thought to be behind many of today's anti-Sunni attacks, are excoriated as "murderous gangsters", while the Shia-led government is labelled as Iranian stooges. "We are not against the Shia, we are against the Safawis," the station proclaims.

Al-Zawraa started life as a mostly song-and-dance channel, but following the closure of its Baghdad offices by the Iraqi government in November for "inciting violence" it made an abrupt change of tone.

Iraqi officials say al-Zawraa is a mouthpiece for the Islamic Army in Iraq, a Baathist-dominated insurgent group. It is transmitted from an unknown location into the Middle East and north Africa by the Egyptian-owned Nilesat network.

The station is owned by Mishan al-Jibouri, a member of Iraq's national assembly who had his parliamentary immunity stripped earlier this year following allegations of embezzlement. US officials in Iraq say he is in hiding in Syria.

Al-Zawraa has proved a hit with disaffected youth in Baghdad. "I watch this channel every night," said Samir Aziz, 22. "I don't like encouraging violence, but it is something unusual in the argument against the Americans. I am hooked."

Barzan al Tikriti Hangs

Saddam Hussein's former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was hanged today.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein’s half brother and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday, Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

Economist Endorses 'Surge'

The "Economist" magazine surprises with an endorsement of the Bush Iraq "surge" plan. A key excerpt: "Some will call this reckless. Some will say the president is in denial. We don't admire Bush, but on this one we think he is right."

MUST SEE TV

Big Kudos to Al Jazeera TV for bringing on Iraqi journalist Sadeq al Musawi (Shii) and Mish'an al Jabouri (Saddamist extraordinaire) on to discuss a bit of Iraqi politics. The host talks about a recent poll of the Arab Street ('do you support the execution of Saddam Hussein?'). Before they even started, Jabouri insisted on reading the Fatiha (Muslim prayer for the dead) for Saddam Hussein the martyr! Immediately Musawi objects, and tries to stop him, and they duke it out, shouting at each other. Jabouri yells "Saddam is your master [MEMRI translates 'Sayyid' as 'master'] and the master of your parents and people like you!" He calls Musawi a Persian and an Iranian throughout, and at one point Musawi responds that his grandfather is buried in Baghdad. After Musawi leaves the stage, Jabouri says that Saddam is Musawi's Sayyid and the Sayyid of those who created Musawi. Jabouri threatened to 'do things' to Musawi more than once. This is the same Jabouri who worked for the new government as an MP (for the sake of national reconciliation! and Saddam killed his relatives too!) and embezzled untold amounts of money from the new Iraqi government. Jabouri is also the owner of Al Zawra TV. These are the kind of people Iraqis are expected to reconcile with. Wallahi I feel sorry for the Iraqi people.

Dems don't want to 'baby sit' a civil war

From IraqPundit: ' "We're not going to baby sit a civil war," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), told NBC's "Today" Show Thursday. Thank you, senator, for your appalling condescension. Surely the nadir of the Hill's reaction was the performance of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who noted during Thursday's Senate hearings that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has no offspring to serve in the military. Thank you, senator, for confirming the capital's long-time speculation that you are the Hill's dimmest bulb.'

"No, no, you can't leave"

I know it's not something most people want to hear, but Iraq needs the US right now.

Slum dwellers have pirated satellite dishes, illegally siphoned electricity, and illegally diverted water. The Maliki government does not recognize the existence of the camps.

The man in the above photo is 30-year-old Shiite Rasul Karim, carrying his one-year-old daughter. Rasul told me he and his family left the al-Thawra district of Sadr City for Baghdad in search of work and have lived in the slums with hundreds of other displaced refugees for two months. "I am against all terrorists," he said, and criticized the Iraqi government for not doing enough to make the city secure from militia members and street thugs. Asked whether American troops should withdraw, Rasul shook his head: "No, no, you can't leave."

The Good People of Falluja

Christian Sunni Shia has posted an excerpt of an interview between an American blogger (INDC) embedded with a Marine unit and a resident of Falluja ('Yesef'). The interview reminds us that there are many good Sunni Arabs in Anbar, and they are tired of the insurgents who recruit young impressionable Iraqis to join the 'resistance' in killing people. It also highlights the importance of separating 'low level' Iraqi criminals from hardcore insurgents in Iraqi jails. Below is an excerpt of the excerpt.

Blogwatch: A Civil Servant in Fallujah

INDC: So aren't most of the tribes already on the side of law and order in al-Anbar and Fallujah particularly? It's been reported that the majority of Anbar tribes have declared war on the umbrella group of radicals in the province ...

Yusef: "That's true in al-Anbar yes, but here in Fallujah (the local tribes) are not here yet. In al-Anbar yes, I'm not sure of the number."

INDC: So the tribes in Fallujah are not on board yet.

Yusef: "we will meet with the tribes. We will meet them and we will tell them the same thing I told you, 'you know what, if you want the Americans and the IA's to leave, the citizens of Fallujah are going to have to take over the city and protect it from insurgency activities.' If they say yes were going to say we need to work together, you need to get your tribesmen to join the police . And fight side by side with us."

INDC: Who is the insurgency? Who are the people who plant bombs everyday and shoot at Americans, IA and police?

Yusef: "They have some ideology from some of the American prisons, the one in Buca and south, in those two prisons there were extremist religious insurgents. The Americans took those people and put them in the prison too and they (the radicals) worked on the other prisoners, teaching them and feeding them that ideology of fighting and to think that everyone else is a sinner and that they should be killed."

Note: I spoke to a Marine Detention Facility Officer intimately familiar with the mentioned corrections facilities, and he verified this characterization; young Iraqis on the fence are often radicalized there, initially associating with fundamentalists as a survival mechanism.

INDC: So the majority of the insurgency here is religious radicals?

Yusef: "People in Iraq fighting, they are kids. They have no knowledge, they are ignorant from both sides, about their religion and education-wise. They (the radicals) buy them with money, so why not? Some guys who work with insurgents and start killing people, when they begin and kill one, they cannot leave."

Shia Hanged From Lamp Posts in Baghdad

Arab criminals and terrorists have no shame. Their Arab hero was hanged, and they take 'justice' into their own hands by murdering innocent Shia.

Leave it to the Arabs to push the Iraqi Shia into the arms of the Americans and the Iranians.

Shia hostages hanged in streets in revenge for Saddam's execution

By Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Damien McElroy
Last Updated: 1:47am GMT 10/01/2007

Saddam Hussein's execution has inspired a gruesome cycle of revenge, with scores of Shia Muslims found hanged from lampposts in Baghdad.

The residents of the city's Haifa Street will long remember the events of Sunday morning. As shop owners raised their shutters and stall holders set out their stock, three minibuses roared to a halt.

Gunmen jumped out and pulled blindfolded prisoners on to the street. Ropes were tied to lampposts and electricity poles. Those hostages who resisted were shot. Others who were still alive had nooses tied around their necks and were then suspended in mid air to choke to death.

The 'Comic' Book

I don't understand the concern. Iraq Slogger is calling it a 'greusome' comic book. I'm sure that Iraqi kids see gruesome things on a daily basis, and the images in this book are mild compared to the images Iraqi kids are used to seeing. It's not a comic book, and its portrayal of the Iraqi police as all good guys may not be accurate, but in the page I saw on Iraq Slogger today it shows how the Iraqi army and police protect ordinary citizens against a terrorist. One commentator claimed yesterday on this blog that he has seen the bad guys in the book wearing kaffiyas (chiffiyas in Iraq), and "in some cases, they made the Kffiya worn by the terrorists a palestinian headscarf (with the distinctive pattern)..." He also mentioned that the good guys wear 'American Marines' uniforms. There are some similarities between Iraqi Army gear and US Marine gear, but they are clearly different. Do the Arabs expect the Iraqi Army to wear dishdashas?

Iraq Slogger has published only the page below, and the bad guy in this case is not wearing a traditional chiffiya with any distinctive pattern.

Anfal was a 'legitimate military operation'

Defendants have said Anfal was a legitimate military operation targeting Kurdish guerrillas who had sided with Shiite Iran during the last stages of the Iraq-Iran war.


Some photos of the Kurdish guerillas:

Iraq Needs Heroes

Even if they don't dress like Arabs. From Iraq Slogger:

'US-Made Comics Hail Iraqi Army "Heroes"
Funded by U.S. Taxpayers; Details Tomorrow on IraqSlogger'



'U.S.-funded and -designed comic books showcasing Iraqi Army "heroes" are part of the U.S. military's campaign to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

Details tomorrow on IraqSlogger.'

Except I don't see anything wrong with it.

CSS: Excellent report, but terribly disturbing.

Killer Errors: Iraqi Healthcare Fiasco

CorpWatch Report Details Botched Planning, Mismanagement

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib

High-Tech Healthcare in Iraq, Minus the Healthcare
By Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
January 8th, 2007

The convoy of flat-bed trucks picked up its cargo at Baghdad International Airport last spring and sped north-west, stacked-high with crates of expensive medical equipment. From bilirubinmeters and hematology analyzers to infant incubators and dental appliances, the equipment had been ordered to help Iraq shore up a disintegrating health care system. But instead of being delivered to 150 brand-new Primary Health Care centers (PHCs) as originally planned, the Eagle Global Logistics vehicles were directed to drop them off at a storage warehouse in Abu Ghraib.

Not only did some of the equipment arrive damaged at the warehouse owned by PWC of Kuwait, one in 14 crates was missing, according to the delivery documents. The shipment was fairly typical: Military auditors would later calculate that roughly 46 percent of some $70 million in medical equipment deliveries made to the Abu Ghraib warehouse last spring had missing or damaged crates or contained boxes that were mislabeled or not labeled at all.

Not that it really mattered. Just over three weeks before the April 27th delivery, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had canceled the construction of 130 of the 150 PHCs for which the materiel was intended. As a result, the equipment that could help diagnose and treat Iraqi illness (and escalating bomb or gun injuries) now sits idle waiting for someone to figure out what to do with it.

Even if the equipment finally makes it through the bureaucratic logjam, lack of trained personnel to operate it, especially outside major cities, will severely limit its utility. The Army Corps had written a 15-day training plan into the contract, but over time, this had been whittled it down to ten and then to just three days. Iraqi Ministry of Health officials have given up hope that any training at all will accompany the sophisticated equipment.

But if Iraqis have failed to benefit from the idle PHCs, the $70 million contract to supply them has been a shot in the arm for Parsons Global. The Pasadena, California-based engineering company reaped a $3.3 million profit according to an audit report issued by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), an independent U.S. government agency. And that is in addition to the $186 million that U.S. taxpayers shelled out to Parsons to build dozens of clinics that have yet to dispense a single aspirin.

Continued here.

Duleimi Iraq's Most Sectarian Politician

In-Depth Report

Adnan Duleimi Condemns Shias, Wants Help for Sunnis

By NIR ROSEN Posted 13 hr. 53 min. ago

 

The Conference in Support of the Iraqi People

In a December 22nd interview with the American sponsored Radio Sawa, Iraqi Sunni politician Adnan al Duleimi continued to show his true sectarian colors. Duleimi, who heads the Islamist Iraqi Accord Front, angered Shia politicians when he spoke at the Istanbul conference of Sunni Iraqi politicians held on the 13th and 14th of December. Duleimi angrily condemned the "Safavid threat" to Iraq, referring to the Persians and implying that the Shias of Iraq were in league with them. His tearful outburst not only incensed Shias but even the Islamic Party of Iraq was upset. Duleimi taught at the University of Zarqa in Jordan while he was in exile prior to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. Zarqa's most famous son is Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Although there is no evidence that Duleimi was ever linked to Jihadist Salafis such as Zarqawi who were engaged in acts of terrorism against civilians, Duleimi and his movement are close to other groups in the resistance. The Istanbul conference may have been intended merely to raise funds for the resistance but during Duleimi's speech several audience members interrupted him and stormed out.

The Radio Sawa interviewer pressed Duleimi on why he avoided criticizing al Qaeda in Iraq but regularly criticized the Shia Mahdi Army militia. "Is al Qaeda a terrorist organization or not?" demanded the interviewer. "I will not and will never answer this question," said Duleimi, "and if you ask me again I will hang up the phone." The interviewer persisted and asked the question once more. "Al salamu aleikum," Duleimi said, or 'peace be upon you,' and he hung up the phone.

In his December 13th speech in Istanbul , Duleimi thanked the hosts for inviting them and asked God to help them make decisions that would lead Iraq's Sunnis to believe that they have brothers supporting them. He told the audience they should have named the conference "the conference for supporting Sunnis in Iraq." Iraq is worth nothing without Sunnis, he said, because Sunnis are the owners of Iraq and are the people behind Iraqi unity. Iraq's Sunnis built Iraq. Again he demanded that the conference's title should have been "supporting Sunnis" and mocked their fear of being called sectarian. "Yes we are sectarian," he said, "if you do not take care and awaken then Iraq will be gone and Baghdad will be gone too. It is a sectarian war. It is a sectarian struggle aiming to exterminate all Sunnis. And if anyone does not believe that then he is wrong and must rethink it and must study all the daily events in Iraq. We are suffering in Iraq. Be careful Arabs be careful Muslims. Your brothers in Iraq and especially in Baghdad will be destroyed and will be trampled by the Shias. And Baghdad is emptied of Sunnis. This is the exclusion of Sunnis, be careful."

In the background a voice chanted: "Iran, Iran, you Jews. Iraq's army will return".

Duleimi continued: "These slogans are worth nothing. We want your support. Where is your support? Where are you, sons of Islam? Baghdad is going to be lost if you do not get up in the right time and stop the threat, exclusion and destroying of Sunnis. We live a tragedy everyday. Our last tragedy was Hurriya, before that was Shuula, before that was Thawra (1), before that was Shaab and Hai Ur. Sunnis have been swept out of all these cities and you are here saying the struggle is not sectarian. I swear it is a sectarian struggle and a very sectarian struggle. It is not a basic political struggle but it is a sectarian struggle veiled as a political struggle. Get ready to defend Iraq, to defend Sunnis and if you do not do so, they will be crushed by the Mahdi Army and the likes of the Mahdi Army. Our mosques have been burned, destroyed and they call it the mosques of the Nawasib (2) which must be burned and destroyed. You are inattentive saying this is not a sectarian struggle. I swear it is the ultimate sectarian struggle. Awake and arise oh Arabs, the danger has flooded you up to your knees (3). We are suffering, our cities have been hit by mortars. Do you know what is happening to Adhamiya? Sliekh, Fadhil, Hai Al-Adil and Hai Al-Jamia are hit daily by artillery. And we are here saying it is not a sectarian struggle! It is a sectarian struggle and it is the peak of sectarian struggle and you are calling this conference to support Iraqis! Which Iraq? The Shia's Iraq? Iraq is going to be Shia and this will expand to the lands surrounding Iraq. Then you will all regret it but your regret will be worth nothing because it will be too late. Where is Saudi Arabia? Where is Kuwait? Where is Jordan? Where is Pakistan? And where are the Muslims? Sleep and keep sleeping while Iraq is destroying. You sleep while Sunnis mosques in Iraq are being destroyed. Sleep while Sunnis mosques in Iraq are burning. Is not this sectarianism? It is the maximum sectarianism."

"My brothers ... who do you depend on? The Sunnis in Iraq will be destroyed, will be killed. What you have just saw in the film (Duleimi points to a screen inside the hall) is a small part of what is happening in Iraq. What have you offered to Iraq? What have you offered to your brothers in Iraq? Sleep and keep sleeping but the fire of Iraq will expand to you. What is happening in Iraq has been planned for over fifty years in order to convert the region into Shiism and create the Persian Empire under a Shia cover or under the cover of Islam while Islam is free of them (4)."

"There is an agony in my heart. We in Iraq live a scathing life. We are suffering to keep our composure, and you are here. What have you offered us? Conferences, decisions and advice. What are we going to do with these things you have offered? My dearest brothers, I do not want to speak more to increase your anxieties but I cannot turn off the fire in my heart. There is an agony in my heart about Iraq and about Baghdad which is going to be lost. Baghdad of Abu Hanifa (5), Baghdad of Al Mansur (6) and Baghdad of Harun al Rashid (7). Baghdad of Ahmed bin Hanbal (8) is going to be Baghdad of the Safavids (9), Baghdad of the Buwayhids (10), and Baghdad of the new Qarmatians (11). Why are you saying it is not a sectarian war? It is a sectarian war. Everyone who says it is not a sectarian war is wrong and must change his opinion."

Notes:

(1) Thawra was the old name for the Shia slums known as Sadr City in Baghdad. Saddam then changed the name to Saddam City. Following the Samara Shrine attack of February 2006 and the intensification of the civil war, Sunnis began calling it by its old name, Thawra, or Revolution, City.

(2) Nawasib is a pejorative term for Sunnis

(3) This is a reference to the 19th century poet Ibrahim al Yaziji, who issued the first call to Arab nationalism. Al Yaziji's poem was one of the first expressions of proto-nationalism as a political identity in an Arab world then dominated by the Ottoman empire.

(4) Meaning that Shias are not Muslims

(5) Abu Hanifa is the Islamic scholar who founded the Hanafi school, one of the main schools of Sunni Islam. His tomb lies in Baghdad's Adhamiya district, in the Abu Hanifa mosque.

(6) Abu Jaafar al Mansur is the Abbasid caliph who built Baghdad

(7) Al Rashid is an Abbasid caliph associated with the idea of the "golden age" of the Arab-Islamic civilization

(8) Ahmad bin Hanbal is the founder of the most austere of Sunni schools, Hanbalism, Wahhabism is an offshoot of Hanbalism

(9) The Safavids are a 16th-17th century Azeri Dynasty that ruled Iran and converted its population to Shiism

(10) The Buwayhids are a Shia dynasty that submitted the Abbasid caliphate into a state of de facto protectorate and ruled large parts of modern-day Iran

(11) The Qarmatians (Qaramita in Arabic) are an Ismaili sect that built what is sometimes called the first communist society in history, extremely radical, rejected contemporary notions and institutions of Islam, attacked the Abbasid state and raided Basra several times. They were based in the Eastern Arabian peninsula (today's Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) and raided Mecca and destroyed the Kaaba.

Lost Laughter and Broken Lives

Arab suicide bombers mass murder Iraqi children and then Arabs and 'leftists' ask Iraqis if THIS is the democracy they were asking for.

Bomb’s Lasting Toll: Lost Laughter and Broken Lives

By SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times
Published: January 7, 2007

BAGHDAD, Jan. 6 — If the cost of this war is measured in human lives, one block in southeast Baghdad has paid more than its share.

On a hot morning two summers ago, 34 children were killed here in a flash of smoke and metal. They were scooping up candy thrown from an American Humvee. The suicide bomber’s truck never slowed down.

More than 3,000 Iraqis are dying every month in this war — roughly the total deaths in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or all the American troops killed since the war began. But behind the headlines and statistics, most of the war is experienced in Iraqi living rooms and on blocks like the one here, where families struggle with the intense pain of loss.

And while American war planners discuss the way ahead, Iraqis on this scarred block are stuck in the past on the morning of July 13, 2005, when time stopped and the war truly began for them.

“Our life now, it’s not a life, it’s a kind of dream,” said Qais Ataiwee Yaseen, whose two boys, ages 8 and 11, were killed that day. “Life has no taste. I even feel sick of myself.”

Qais Ataiwee Yaseen lost two sons, Abbas, 11, and Ali, 8, in the blast. “I’m like a dead man,” said Mr. Yaseen, who now lives alone in a small room. “I have no ambitions. I have no goals in life. I have lost everything.”

In the early years of the war, the street — a dusty, trash-strewn strip of concrete that runs between Baghdad’s southeast highway and the neighborhood of Naariya — was mostly quiet, home to a mix of Shiite and Sunni families who had known each other for years.

But the cruelty of the war intervened when the bomber struck, apparently aiming at a convoy of American Humvees parked at the end of the street. One American soldier and 34 Iraqis were killed. All were boys, and all but four were younger than 15. The youngest was 6. In all, 29 families lost children; one lost three sons.

In the seconds after the explosion, the world narrowed to one child for Sattar Hashim, a 39-year-old security guard whose son had gone out to see the American patrol. Mr. Hashim moved frantically through the wreckage, just outside his front gate, a scene now burned into his memory. He found his son unconscious, his body torn by shrapnel.

“I pray to God that no one in this world will ever have to face such a scene,” he said, remembering the scene as he sat in his sparely furnished living room with the curtains drawn. “As if they had been scattered on the ground. Legs. Arms. Heads. Bodies still burning.”

His son died in a hospital operating room several hours after the explosion.

Suicide bombings often stop clocks nearby, throwing the delicate mechanisms out of balance. The minute hand freezes the moment that the bomber detonates, and cleanup crews find clocks hanging crookedly on walls hours later, with the moment of loss fixed forever on the clocks’ faces.

For the parents in Naariya, the clocks are frozen at a quarter after 10. The deaths that morning tore a hole in the life of the block, and more than a year later, many people have been unable to put their lives back together. Some have drifted away from their spouses. Others changed jobs or stopped going to work altogether. Reminders of the loss were everywhere: Class sizes were smaller. Soccer tournaments for 12-year-olds stopped. Bug collecting was no longer a hobby.

The pain caused strange things to happen. Mr. Yaseen lost his knack for numbers and found himself fumbling in front of customers at the hardware store where he had worked for years. Eventually, he quit. Reading and writing became difficult for Zahra Hussein, the mother of 11-year-old Hamza. She had lost her ability to concentrate and some of her eyesight.

Hadi Faris, Hamza’s father, stopped his work as a driver. He could not control his thoughts, and concentrating on the road and split- second decisions was too onerous.

“I kept thinking how life is cheap, how so many innocent people are killed,” he said, sitting in front of a kerosene heater in a small guest room.

After some months, he applied for, and was given, a job as a guard in his son’s school. It felt somehow reassuring to do after his son’s death what could not be done during his life: protect.

“I felt that all the kids were Hamza,” he said. “My main job was to protect them all.”

Life became empty and quiet for the children who were left. Adel Ali, 12, lost four of his best friends, most of his small soccer team and his entire bicycle-racing brigade. They had all shared a surge of happiness in the form of a birthday cake with candles, a first for most of the children, just days before the explosion. The experience was recorded in a grainy photograph of nine little boys making monkey faces. All but two are dead.

Adel Ali, 12, survived the July 13, 2005, blast but lost four of his best friends. After two killings at his school, his father began keeping him home.

Adel spends his afternoons alone at home. In the early evening, he plays soccer with the older boys. They do not know the names of famous players that he and his friends gave each other when they made good plays. They do not know the sheer joy of riding bicycles while holding a rope together. They do not understand his loneliness.

“We used to play together, and the adults would play in another place,” said Adel, his small fingers zipping and unzipping a fleece pullover at his neck.

The attack seemed calculated to make Iraqis despise Americans, in a pattern that would eventually succeed and change the direction of the war. But while some of the parents interviewed seem to have developed that hatred, many had not and even expressed respect. Mr. Faris said that immediately after the bombing he saw a soldier with a mangled arm trying to pick up a wounded child.

More Americans came to the area several weeks later and brought small trinkets to houses, in what Iraqis assumed was something of a peace offering.

“We never hurt the Americans, and the Americans never hurt us,” Mr. Faris said.

A constant theme of the war for Iraqis has been their complete lack of control over chaotic, life-changing events. Like victims of a car wreck on an empty highway, they sit in pain and hope that help will come along.

Mr. Yaseen is haunted by the helplessness he felt that morning when he found his younger son, Ali, still alive. He was badly burned and missing his feet.

“I said to myself — two feet, it is nothing,” he said. But within several hours the child was dead.

“I did not have the ability to do anything for him,” Mr. Yaseen said. “To save him.”

Memories rush back at inconvenient moments. Mr. Yaseen has one in which his older son, Abbas, who loved bugs, begged him not to put poison down for the ants, saying, “They also have families and houses.”

Even trifles sting. Ali, called English Ali for his tidiness and admiration for Americans, had only bread to eat for breakfast that morning.

“I’m like a dead man,” said Mr. Yaseen, crying into his hands. “I have no ambitions. I have no goals in life. I have lost everything.”

His wife and daughter have moved out, and he has retreated into his apartment, a 12-foot by 14-foot room. He stopped shaving. The room is now piled with baskets of laundry, old children’s toys and a metal bassinet.

“I live in this room,” he said. “I sleep in this room. I eat in this room. This is my whole life. As if I’m in prison.”

Meanwhile, the war ground on, and the block was not immune to changes.

In February, poor Shiites rampaged in neighborhoods throughout eastern Baghdad. Naariya started to lose Sunnis. New graffiti in black paint across from Mr. Yaseen’s house spelled praise for a Shiite cleric.

Three Shiite families from Diyala, a violent province north of Baghdad, arrived with the stunned look of refugees who just lost everything but their lives.

“There are no smiles on their faces,” Ms. Hussein said. “You can tell they lost somebody.”

Attacks on Shiites by Sunni militants started to wear, and families on the block began asking about the backgrounds of newcomers.

A small statue erected in the children’s memory was blown up, and a bomb was planted under a date palm tree nearby, but it did not explode. During the Ramadan holiday in October, around 20 Sunni men disappeared from the neighborhood. Their bodies turned up in different neighborhoods several days later.

Mr. Hashim heard of the kidnappings but was afraid to ask about them.

“We woke up one day,” he said, “and a family had left.” The 2005 explosion gouged the pavement in front of his house, and afterward he had a large blast wall built. The wall had the added benefit of shielding him from seeing the crater in the street day after day.

For Adel, the 12-year-old whose friends were killed, memories returned in spurts. Some time after the July attack, he took his bicycle to the balcony of his house and threw it off. He was angry about what happened, Ms. Hussein said. A month ago, his life became even more isolated: a guard and a teacher from his school were killed, and Adel’s father began keeping him home.

The boys come back in unexpected ways. Hamza’s sister sees her brother’s face in a boy who lives in a house on her way to school. She gives him candy sometimes. Mr. Yaseen often sees his boys in dreams.

In one, Abbas asks him why he is crying. He spoke of his own burial in a reassuring way. “He tried to make it easy for me,” Mr. Yaseen said.

Speaking of the deaths, Mr. Hashim said: “It formed a hole, a big hole. Before the street was crowded. Cars had to go slowly. Now it’s empty.”

Izzat al Duri Compares Saddam to Muhammad?

By Angry Arab: "Saddam's deputy, `Izzat Ibrahim Ad-Duri, issued an obituary of Saddam. He compared Saddam to...Muhammad."

Blueprint for Peace in Iraq

For the first time, a real blueprint for peace in Iraq (Thanks CSS)

By Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Defence Minister
Published: 05 January 2007

The Iraqi state that was formed in the aftermath of the First World War has come to an end. Its successor state is struggling to be born in an environment of crises and chaos. The collapse of the entire order in the Middle East now threatens as the Iraq imbroglio unleashes forces in the area that have been gathering in virulence over the past decades.

It took the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the mismanagement of the country by both the Coalition Provisional Administration and subsequent Iraqi governments, to bring matters to this dire situation.

What was supposed to be a straightforward process of overthrowing a dictatorship and replacing it with a liberal-leaning and secular democracy under the benign tutelage of the United States, has instead turned into an existential battle for identity, power and legitimacy that is affecting not only Iraq, but the entire tottering state system in the Middle East.

The Iraq war is a global predicament of the first order and its resolution will influence the course of events in the Middle East and beyond for a considerable time. What we are witnessing in Iraq is the beginning of the unravelling of the unjust and unstable system that was carved out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire. It had held for nearly 100 years by a mixture of foreign occupation,outside meddling, brutal dictatorships and minority rule.

At the same time, it signally failed in providing a permanent sense of legitimacy to its power, engaged its citizens in their governance, or provided a modicum of well-being and a decent standard of existence for its people.

The Key Challenges

The nature and scope of the Iraq crisis can be encapsulated in the emergence of four vital issues that have challenged the entire project for remaking the Iraq state. In one form or another, these forces also affect the countries of the Arab Middle East, as well as Turkey and Iran, and the relationships between all of them.

Firstly, the invasion of Iraq tipped the scales in favour of the Shia, who are now determined to emerge as the governing majority after decades, if not centuries, of perceived disempowerment and oppression. The consequences of this historic shift inside Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East are incalculable.

Secondly, the invasion of Iraq legitimised the semi-independent region that Iraq's Kurds had forged over the past decade. The Kurds whose rights to self-determination were acknowledged in the 1920 Sevres Treaty, and then subsequently ignored by the states of the post-Ottoman Middle East, have received an enormous fillip in their march towards recognition of their unique status.

What is still left to be decided is the geographic extent of the Kurdish region in Iraq, and whether it would have proprietary access to the resources of that area. This may prove a way station to the beginnings of the formation of a Kurdish state. The challenges that will pose to the integrity and self-definition of Turkey, Iran and Syria now or in the future is another formidable side effect of the overthrow of the old Baathist state.

Thirdly, the uneven, poorly prepared and messy introduction in Iraq of democratic norms for elections, constitution-writing and governance structures is a stark break with the authoritarian and dictatorial systems that have prevailed in the Middle East. While the Iraqi experiment has so far been marred by violence, irregularities and manipulation, it is quite likely to survive as the mechanism through which governments will be chosen in the future.

Lastly, the overthrow of Saddam coincided with the attempts by Iran to assert its influence and to gain entry into regional counsels. That has exercised a number of countries in the area no end, giving rise to alarmist warnings of Iranian hegemonistic designs and "Shia crescents". The responses that are being planned for the perceived threat are terrifying in their implications, with scant attention paid to their consequences to the peace and stability of the area.

Iraq was used as a foil to revolutionary Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, with devastating consequences for both. We are witnessing a possible reprise, the consequence of which, if the new warmongers get their way, will be catastrophic for it will go to the heart of the fragile societies of the Middle East. Shia will be pitted against Sunni not only in Iraq but in Lebanon, and the Gulf countries.

Dangers of Sunni Insurgency

In the sterile world of zero-sum politics, the loss of power of the Sunni Arab community in Iraq was soon translated into a raging insurgency that challenged not only the US occupation but also the new political dispensation.

The insurgency fed on the deep resentment Sunni Arabs felt to their loss of power and prestige. It has been aggravated by the fact it was a totally unexpected force that achieved the impossible- the dethronement of the community from centuries of power in favour of, as they saw it, a rabble led by Persianate clerics. The Sunni Arabs' refusal to countenance any serious engagement with the new political order had effectively pushed them into a cul-de-sac and has played into the hands of their most determined enemies.

The state is now moving inexorably under the control of the Shia Islamists, albeit with a supporting role for the Kurds. The boundaries of Shia-controlled Baghdad are moving ever westwards so that the capital itself may fall entirely under the sway of the Shia militias.

The only thing stopping that is the deployment of American troops to block the entry of the Shia militias in force into these mixed or Sunni neighbourhoods. The geographic space outside Baghdad in which the insurgency can flourish will persist but the country will be inevitably divided. Under such circumstances, the power of the Shia's demographic advantage can only be counter-balanced by the Sunni Arabs' recourse to support from the neighbouring Arab states. It is inconceivable that such an outcome can possibly lead to a stable Iraqi state unless one side or another vanquishes its opponent or if the country is divided into separate states.

Impact of Shia Ascendancy

The response to these existential challenges emanating from the invasion of Iraq, both inside Iraq and in the Arab world has been panic-stricken or fearful, and potentially disastrous to the stability in the area and the prospects for its inhabitants.

The Arab countries of the Middle East have been unable to adjust to events in Iraq, not so much because of the contagion effect of the changes that have taken place there. This had virtually disappeared as Iraq cannot be seen as model for anything worth emulating. It has less to do with the instability that might spill over from the violence in the country. It is more to do with accommodating an unknown quantity into a system that can barely acknowledge pluralism and democracy, let alone a Shia ascendancy in Iraq.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, linchpins of the American security order in the Arab world, cannot accept the principle of a Shia-dominated Iraq, each for its own reasons. They will do their utmost to thwart such a possibility, and failing that, will probably try to isolate such an entity from regional counsels

Implications for Middle East

It is this with this backdrop that solutions are being proffered to resolve the Iraqi crisis. However, rather than treat the problem in a much wider context, each party is determined to stake out its narrow position irrespective of its effects on other communities, groups and countries.

The seeds of another 100 years of crisis are being sown, with the Middle East consigned to decades of turbulence and the persistence of unmitigated hatreds and grudges. The most serious issue that is emerging is the exacerbation of sectarian differences between Shia and Sunni. That is a profoundly dangerous issue for it affects not only Iraq but also Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf countries.

It is plausible that the cost of a Shia ascendancy in Iraq, if it is marked as such, will be further pressure on the vulnerable Shia communities in the Gulf countries. There is already the rekindling of anti-Shia rhetoric in a remarkably similar rerun to the pattern that accompanied the Saudi-led campaign to contain the Iranian revolution in the 1980s. The effect of that was the rise of the jihadi culture that was the harbinger of mass terrorism and suicide bombings.

This may drag the entire area into war or even the forced movement of people as fearful countries seek to "quarantine" or expel their Shia population.

The Solution

It requires genuine vision and statesmanship to pull the Middle East from its death spiral. The elements of a possible solution are there if the will exists to postulate an alternative to the politics of fear, bigotry and hatred.

The first step must be the recognition that the solution to the Iraq crisis must be generated first internally, and then, importantly, at the regional level. The two are linked and the successful resolution of one would lead to the other.

No foreign power, no matter how benevolent, should be allowed to dictate the terms of a possible historic and stable settlement in the Middle East. No other region of the world would tolerate such a wanton interference in its affairs.

That is not to say that due consideration should not be given to the legitimate interests of the great powers in the area, but the future of the area should not be held hostage to their designs and exclusive interests.

Secondly, the basis of a settlement must take into account the fact that the forces that have been unleashed by the invasion of Iraq must be acknowledged and accommodated. These forces, in turn, must accept limits to their demands and claims. That would apply, in particular, to the Shias and the Kurds, the two communities who have been seen to have gained from the invasion of Iraq.

Thirdly, the Sunni Arab community must become convinced that its loss of undivided power will not lead to marginalisation and discrimination. A mechanism must be found to allow the Sunni Arabs to monitor and regulate and, if need be, correct, any signs of discrimination that may emerge in the new Iraqi state.

Fourthly, the existing states surrounding Iraq feel deeply threatened by the changes there. That needs to be recognised and treated in any lasting deal for Iraq and the area.

A way has to be found for introducing Iran and Turkey into a new security structure for the Middle East that would take into account their legitimate concerns, fears and interests. It is far better that these countries are seen to be part of a stable order for the area rather than as outsiders who need to be confronted and challenged.

The Iraqi government that has arisen as a result of the admittedly flawed political process must be accepted as a sovereign and responsible government. No settlement can possibly succeed if its starting point is the illegitimacy of the Iraqi government or one that considers it expendable.

A Brighter Future

The end state of this process would be three interlinked outcomes. The first would be a decentralised Iraqi state with new regional governing authorities with wide powers and resources.

Devolution of power must be fair, well planned, and executed with equitable revenue-distribution. Federal institutions would have to act as adjudicators between regions. Security must be decentralised until such time as confidence between the communities is re-established.

The second essential outcome would be a treaty that would establish a confederation or constellation of states of the Middle East, initially including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The main aim of the confederation would be to establish a number of conventions and supra-regional bodies that would have the effect of acting as guarantors of civil, minority and community rights.

The existence of such institutions can go a long way towards removing the anxiety disadvantaged groups feel when confronted with the radical changes sweeping the area. The gradual build up of such supra-national institutions in the proposed confederation may also expand to cover an increased degree of economic integration and harmonisation.

That may include a regional development body which would help establish and fund common energy and infrastructure policies. Lastly, an indispensable end outcome is a regional security pact that would group the countries of the Arab Middle East with Iran and Turkey, at first in some form of anti-terrorism pact, but later a broader framework for discussing and resolving major security issues that impinge on the area as a whole.

That would also provide the forum for combating the spread of virulent ideologies and sectarian hatreds and provide the basis for peacefully containing and resolving the alarm that some countries feel from the apparent expansion of Iranian influence in the area.

The Importance of the US

It was the US that launched this phase of the interminable Middle East crisis, by invading Iraq and assuming direct authority over it. Whatever project it had for Iraq has vanished, a victim of inappropriate or incoherent policies, and the violent upending of Iraq's power structures.

Nevertheless, the US is still the most powerful actor in the Iraq crisis, and its decisions can sway the direction and the manner in which events could unfold.

In other areas of the world, the US has used its immense influence and power to cement regional security and economic associations. There is no reason why the regional associations being mooted in conjunction with a decentralised Iraqi state, could not play an equally important part in resolving the Iraqi crisis and dispersing the dangerous clouds threatening the region.

The Iraqi proposals

1 Iraq government calls for regional security conference including Iraq's neighbours to produce an agreement/treaty on non-intervention and combating terrorism. Signatory states will be responsible to set of markers for commitments.

Purpose: To reduce/eliminate neighbouring countries' support for insurgents, terrorists and militias.

2 Iraq government calls for preparatory conference on a Middle-Eastern Confederation of States that will examine proposals on economic, trade and investment union. Proposals will be presented for a convention on civil, human and minority rights in the Near East, with a supreme court/tribunal with enforcement powers.

Purpose: To increase regional economic integration and provide minorities in signatory countries with supra-national protection.

3 Iraq government calls for an international conference on Iraq that would include Iraq, its regional neighbours, Egypt, the UAE, the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China that would aim to produce a treaty guaranteeing:

a. Iraq's frontiers.
b. The broad principles of Iraq's constitutional arrangements.
c. Establishing international force to replace the multi-national force over 12 to 18 months. Appointing international co-ordinator to oversee treaty implementation.

Purpose: To arrange for the gradual and orderly withdrawal of American troops, ensure that Iraq develops along constitutional lines, confirm Iraq and its neighbours' common frontiers.

4 Iraq government will introduce changes to government by creating two statuary bodies with autonomous financing and independent boards:

a. A reconstruction and development council run by Iraqi professionals and technocrats with World Bank/UN support.
b. A security council which will oversee professional ministries of defence, interior, intelligence and national security.

Purpose: To remove the reconstruction and development programme from incompetent hands and transfer them to an apolitical, professional and independent body. Also to remove the oversight, command and control over the security ministries from politicised party control to an independent, professional and accountable body.

5 The entire peace plan, its preamble and its details must be put before the Iraqi parliament for its approval.

Ali A Allawi was Minister of Trade and Minister of Defence in the Iraqi Governing Council Cabinet (2003-2004). He was in the Transitional National Assembly, and Minister of Finance, Transitional National Government of Iraq (2005-2006). His book, 'The Occupation of Iraq Winning the War, Losing the Peace' will be published in March

The Perfect Phone for All Your Needs

Moroccan Islamic cell recruited fighters for Iraq

RABAT, Morocco (Reuters) -- Moroccan security forces have dismantled a radical Islamist cell specializing in recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq and arrested 62 people, the government said on Thursday.

"The security services dismantled a terrorist structure with international ramifications specialized in the recruitment and movement of volunteers to Iraq and operating in certain Moroccan towns and localities," a government statement said.

It said the group had "ideological and financial links" with al Qaeda, the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and other international terrorist groups.

Moroccan security officials say police have broken up more than 50 militant Islamist cells, some linked to al Qaeda, and arrested more than 3,000 people since suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003.

Last August the government said it had busted a cell that was planning to declare a holy war in the northeast of the North African country, attack tourist sites and assassinate people who symbolize the state.

Rights groups say hundreds of the people arrested since 2003 have faced ill-treatment or unfair trials, something the government denies.

Its statement said those arrested in the latest round-up will be brought before judicial authorities, in line Morocco's anti-terrorist laws.

The arrests were "transparent and in respect of the law," said government spokesman Nabil Benabdallah.

Man on the Moon

Breaking News!

The Man in the Moon

Website Warns Sunnis not to Believe Saddam Spotting Rumors
By NIR ROSEN 01/02/2007 7:09 PM ET

The Sunni pro-Baathist website Iraqi Rabita today warned Sunnis not to believe rumors that it claims are widespread throughout the Arab world and are being distributed via mobile phone text messages that Saddam’s face appeared on the moon. The website declared that these rumors are false and religiously prohibited. The website also claimed an unnamed satellite television station was spreading these rumors as well. The website asked Sunnis not to believe the rumors about Saddam on the moon because those who would be happy at the Sunni loss, meaning Shias, like Abdel Aziz al Hakim and Nuri al Maliki would laugh at them. Indeed soon after the Shia Buratha website mocked Sunnis. "They could not find him on the earth so they started looking for him in the moon," the site said. It explained that the rumor started in the evening and "some naifs in Abu Ghureib, Amriya, Khadra and Yarmuk (Sunni neighborhoods) stood outside in the cold weather searching for Saddam in the moon."

Mojo, I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of posting this on your blog, people need to see this stuff. --CS

Arab Media: Shia-Sunni Tensions Rise
Saddam's Execution and the Video of It Prompt War of Words
By AMER MOHSEN Posted 5 hr. 30 min. ago

Editor's note: While virtually all Iraqi newspapers have ceased publication during the two-week-long Eid holiday, we're examining the Arab world media's coverage of Iraq. Our daily summary and critique of Iraqi newspapers will resume after the Eid holiday.

Saddam’s execution is increasing Sunni-Shi`a tensions to a breaking point, not only in Iraq, but across the entire Arab World. Most observers agree that the timing and format of Saddam’s execution could not have been any worse, and editorials in Arab newspapers are trying to answer the puzzle: how could the Iraqi Government and the occupational authority manage to make a controversy out of the execution of one of the most brutal dictators the Arab World has ever known?

A telling face-off occurred today in al-Ittijah al-Mu`akis, one of the most widely watched and controversial talk shows in the Arab region, hosted by al-Jazeera’s Faysal al-Qasim. This week’s show (aired on Tuesday) was devoted to a discussion of Saddam’s execution and pitted Mish`an al-Juburi (ex-politician, currently living in exile and facing terrorism and corruption charges in Iraq) against Sadiq al-Mousawi (introduced as the head of the ‘Iraq Media Center’ –the ‘center’s’ website is currently offline). The heated episode exhibited some of the boldest sectarian language to be heard on a mainstream news channel so far. Two minutes into the episode, al-Mousawi left the studio in anger (only to return later) after al-Juburi accused him of being an ‘Iranian Safavid’ posing as an Iraqi, and showed documents that proved (according to Juburi) that Mousawi -whom Juburi charged of having changed his name- applied for Iraqi citizenship only in 2004. While al-Mousawi argued that Saddam’s execution represented the end of a hated tyrant and a rupture with a black phase in Iraq’s history; al-Juburi said that Saddam –through his execution- has become a symbol of resistance who was assassinated by the ‘Iranian enemy’. Al-Juburi added that the Iranian infiltration in Iraq through its ‘Safavid’ allies is massacring Sunnis and patriots; the episode ended with both guests exchanging insults and threats, with Mousawi accusing Juburi of inciting terrorism and Juburi calling Mousawi ‘a grandson of al-`alqami’. (A linguistic decoding is in order: ‘safavid’ (a reference to a 16th century Azeri-Turkic dynasty that ruled Iran and converted most of its population to Shi`ism) is a pejorative term used to refer to the Shi`a and accentuate their assumed ‘non-Arab’ character. The term first appeared in Alqa`ida’s literature and seems to be gaining wider usage. Likewise, ‘the grandsons of al-`Alqami’ is a pejorative term used by Sunni extremists to refer to shi`as; Mu’ayyid al-deen Ibn al-`alqami was a Shi`a Vizir of the last `Abbasid Caliph, and according to historical accounts, exaggerated by anti-Shi`a narratives, he had struck secret deals with the invading Mongol army and eased Hulagu’s sacking of Baghdad and the destruction of the `Abbasid dynasty). Read the rest here.

--And here is a link to the Angry Arab's take on the sectarian fighting that occurred on al-Ittijah al-Mu`akis: "al-Ittijah al-Mu`akis.

Bravery in Saddam's Iraq

When an attendee of the execution foolishly shouted "Muqtada", Saddam responded by asking "is this your manhood?" or "is this what you consider bravery?" I didn't like hearing Muqtada's name during the execution, as if this was being done to avenge Muqtada. Sadr's was only one of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families who lost innocent loved ones to Saddam's regime. This is justice for Iraq, for all Iraqis. I would have done a few things differently if I were in charge of the execution, starting with postponing it until after the Anfal trial. But I am dismayed by Arabs and Muslims who are calling it a 'barbaric lynching'. I wonder if they have ever considered the barbarity of the insurgency in Iraq, or the barbarity of Saddam's regime.

The remark about bravery - one of Saddam's last - reminded me of what fedayeen Saddam did to a 25 year old Iraqi woman in 2000. Apparently this is an example what Saddam considered to be the mark of bravery in his Iraq:

'A woman known as Um Haydar was beheaded reportedly without charge or trial at the end of December 2000. She was 25 years' old and married with three children. Her husband was sought by the security authorities reportedly because of his involvement in Islamist armed activities against the state. He managed to flee the country. Men belonging to Feda'iyye Saddam came to the house in al-Karrada district and found his wife, children and his mother. Um Haydar was taken to the street and two men held her by the arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of the residents. The beheading was also witnessed by members of the Ba'ath Party in the area. The security men took the body and the head in a plastic bag, and took away the children and the mother-in-law. The body of Um Haydar was later buried in al-Najaf. The fate of the children and the mother-in-law remains unknown.'