Informed Comment

Massacre of Spanish Secret Agents

Guerrillas ambushed two vehicles carrying Spanish intelligence operatives in Latifiya, a Sunni town just south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 7 and wounding another. They used rocket propelled grenades and machine guns. Crowds of young men gathered to celebrate, kicking the bodies and chanting slogans in favor of Saddam Hussein. Four of the agents were due to go home, and were riding with their replacements. The incident is sure to kick off another round of debate in Spain about the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq. A majority of the Spanish public opposes involvement in Iraq, and the opposition Socialists are sure to campaign on a withdrawal of the 1200 or so troops, which are mainly in the Najaf region. Another Spanish intelligence officer was assassinated earlier this year, and one wonders whether the ex-Baath still have sources inside the National Intelligence Center operations in Iraq.

Also, in Tikrit guerrillas ambushed and killed two Japanese diplomats whose car was approaching the city. Likewise, the Japanese public is deeply opposed to the sending of Japanese troops to Iraq, a plan championed by PM Junichiro Koizumi, a rightwinger who wants to begin erasing the taboo around Japanese militarism.

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Sistani Position on New Elections

The office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani affirmed Saturday in Najaf that he had reservations about the Nov. 15 plan for caucus type elections. Replying to questions from a newspaper, he said (trans. J. Cole):

“First of all, the preparation of the Iraqi State (Basic) Law for the transitional period is being accomplished by the Interim Governing Council with the Occupation Authority. This process lacks legitimacy. Rather the [Basic Law] must be presented to the [elected] representatives of the Iraqi people for their approval.

Second, the instrumentality envisaged in this plan for the election of the members of the transitional legislature does not guarantee the formation of an assembly that truly represents the Iraqi people. It must be changed to another process that would so guarantee, that is, to elections. In this way, the parliament would spring from the will of the Iraqis and would represent them in a just manner and would prevent any diminution of Islamic law.” He added, “Perhaps it would be possible to hold the elections on the basis of the ration cards and some other supplementary information.”

Ayatollah Muhammad Ali Taskhiri, the representative in Najaf of Iran’s Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, called for an Islamic constitution for Iraq, and said he was sure that Iraq’s Shiite leadership was aware of the sensitivity of this historic phase.

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72 US troops killed in Hostilities in November

72 US soldiers were killed by hostile fire in Iraq during November, the highest of any month since the major fighting started last March. And for the Coalition troops as a whole, the number is 107! I was taken aback by the size of the number. I can remember when the death toll seemed to be one of our guys every other day, which was terrible, but that was 15 a month. This is more than two a day. The Coalition deaths per year at this rate would be 1284! This is not to mention the literally thousands of wounded. Although Gen. Sanchez says that daily attacks are down to 22 a day from a high of 50 a day, the attacks that do occur must be more deadly, to explain these numbers. The 22 a day number appears to be attacks only on Americans, so that the massacre of the Spanish secret agents would not even count. From the point of view of US officers commanding 130,000 troops in Iraq, even 700 Americans down a year would not appear to pose a big military challenge. But I just don’t think the folks back home are going to be willing to put up with a number like 72 a month. My heart just goes out to those 72 American families. The failure of the Bush administration to level with us all on why exactly we are there and what exactly we are supposed to be accomplishing is all the more galling in the light of these fallen compatriots.

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Sunni walks out of Tourism Conference

AFP reports that Adnan Doulami, the religious director for Sunni Muslims walked out on a tourism conference on Saturday. He was protesting the remarks of Hussein al-Shami, director of Shiite pious endowments. Al-Shami attacked Wahhabis for denigrating shrines and saints, insisting that the shrines of the Shiite Imams are bestowers of wisdom. Sunnis in Iraq are apparently not used to Shiites openly speaking their minds like that.

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More on SA-14 Missiles

BruceR has further technical analysis of the SAM missile attacks on the DHL cargo plane on Nov. 22. Apparently the guerrillas thought they were hitting a military plane! He also translates the French Paris Match article on the incident.

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Bush to Sistani: Good to Have you Working with Us

It turns out that President George W. Bush did meet on Thursday with four members of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council. All 24 had been invited to a Thanksgiving Day event at the Baghdad Airport, but they were not told the nature of the event. So, only four showed up. One was Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a Shiite member from Basra and an ex-al-Da`wa Party member, who is a follower of Sistani. In al-Hayat, al-Rubaie is quoted as saying that Bush:

“asked us to convey a detailed letter to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, informing him of Bush’s appreciation and personal respect for him. In it, he affirmed that ‘we share with one another a basic goal, which is to make the Iraqi people happy, to return liberty to it, and to build democracy and achieve economic prosperity for it.”

Al-Rubaie said that Sistani was unhappy that two thirds of parliament would be appointed by local city councils that were themselves largely unelected, and which therefore lacked legitimacy and do not really represent the Iraqi people.

Another Shiite IGC member, the female physician, Raja’ al-Khuza`i, told al-Sharq al-Awsat that in his letter Bush had agreed that elections must ultimately be held, but said that the June hand-over date must be respected (implying that full elections as opposed to caucuses could not take place by then). She quoted Bush as saying, “It is your country. You are responsible for it. You must work hard to respect the [Nov. 15 transition] Agreement.”

Al-Khuza`i also described the remarks of IGC president Jalal Talabani to Bush. Talabani said that direct elections would take so long that the June deadline would be missed. He also dismissed the idea of using ration cards, saying that many Iraqis possessed multiple such cards, whereas others have none.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie told al-Sharq al-Awsat that local elections on a one person one vote basis might be a good idea. He was echoed by Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an official of the Shiite al-Da`wa Party, who said local elections were a good idea because “the goal is the participation of the greatest possible number of Iraqis in the process, in order to endow it with the greatest possible degree of legitimacy.”

An independent Sunni Arab nationalist on the IGC, Nasir Chadurchi, said that he did not think the Iraqi people were ready for a popular vote. Talabani’s spokesman agreed with him, also pointing to the lack of security as an impediment. He did think it might be good to elect more muncipal councils, which now mainly consist of US appointees.

Al-Hayat quotes Imad Shabib, a member of the political bureau of the “National Accord” (ex-Baathist officers), saying that a census to establish electoral rolls would take at least 14 months. He said that the problem with using the food aid rolls prepared for the UN food program was that they excluded the Kurds in the north, as well as the Iraqis who were living abroad in 1997.

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Two Us Troops Killed; US kills Sisters

Guerrillas in Mosul killed a soldier with mortar fire that hit the 101st Airborne Division HQ on Friday. On Thursday, a US soldier had been shot to death inside a military base in Ramadi.

The CPA is strongly denying a wire service story (earlier mentioned here) that US soldiers in Baquba shot dead two girls, Fatima and Azra, 15 and 12, on Thursday; the wire services said that they were collecting wood from a field in the middle of the day. The CPA says that the soldiers came into conflict with armed men, and then later found the two girls’ bodies in the woods, suggesting that it was guerrillas who killed them.

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