Informed Comment

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

*Angry crowds about 2,000 strong filled the streets of Najaf Monday for a funeral procession for the bodyguards killed on Sunday by a bomb meant for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim. They vowed revenge, and some were overheard blaming young Shiite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr and his Sadr Movement for the bombing. Sadr spokesmen have denied responsibility for the attack. As usual, Neil MacFarquhar of the NYT does an excellent job in profiling the factions

at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/

257c754560ee043e&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE .

The Najaf bombing was condemned by Lebanon’s Hizbullah Shiite militia, which urged Iraqi Shiites to unify. (Hizbullah and Amal, the two main religious Shiite groups in Lebanon, fought one another bitterly in the mid to late 1980s, much weakening the political clout of the Shiites, so Hizbullah knows whereof it speaks).

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

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

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

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

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

For a quick overview of these ethnic and religious issues, see

http://www.theestimate.com/public

/041803.html and

http://www.theestimate.com/

public/050203.html.

The author, presumably Michael Dunn (who also edits The Middle East Journal notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*In Karbala, the atmosphere was tense after the Marines there closed the offices of Hizb al-Wahdah (the Unity Party) the day before yesterday (al-Hayat). Large crowds have gathered to protest the decision. There is a lot of bad feeling toward the Marines going back to recent incidents where they shot into civilian crowds on receiving gunfire from among the demonstrators. One was killed and nine wounded a few weeks ago. The Islamic Unity Party is headed by Muhammad Qasim (Kassim or Qassim), and it initially welcomed the Americans (see

issues/iraq/after/2003/0429timetable.htm). Unfortunately al-Hayat did not say why the US troops closed the office or what the issues are here.

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

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

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

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

*A fuel tanker blast in Basra on Saturday killed or wounded dozens of people. There appears to have been a fight over the fuel, leading to an act of arson and thus the explosion. See

arabtimes/breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=2489

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

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

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

national/136024_yahya21.html.

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

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

/archive/varney082203.html

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

Like many real military people, Kylan thought the Iraq war was a big mistake. But he also felt he had a duty to keep the US military as informed as it could be. [Email exchanges removed at request of Kylan's family.]…

I only knew Kylan from email exchanges. His death sent me to my knees like a kidney punch …

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

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

StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479232025.

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

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

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

*For rivalries inside the Shiite Sadr movement, see Nir Rosen’s excellent piece in the Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/

atimes/Middle_East/EH22Ak04.html

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

Expand the UN role in Iraq

Juan Cole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/

opinion/21_08_03_c.asp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, led by Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, is profiled by Mahan Abedian. I don’t think, though, that SCIRI is sincere in speaking about a pluralistic Iraq. I think they secretly plan ultimately to try to take over the country and make it a clone of Khamenei’s Iran. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has more or less admitted as much, saying that at first Iraq may have a pluralistic government, but over time its Muslim majority would institute an Islamic state. I also think the alliance between the US and SCIRI is purely tactical on both sides, and is unlikely to last.

See

20and%20Washington%20Mahan%20Abedin.htm

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

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