Informed Comment

Ashcroft Appoints Special Prosecutor in Plame Identity-Disclosure Scandal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jawdah says that Basra Deputy Governor Abdul Hafiz al-Ani introduced himself as a businessman, and a political independent. He said he was a representative of a local cleric Sayyid Ali al-Safi [Abd al-Hakim] al-Musawi, who in turn represented Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Basra. [The deputy governor of Basra is indirectly a representative of Sistani? Maybe the place is already a theocracy!]

Al-Ani hoped for a constitution and an elected government, but said, “We do not want any more foreign forces in our country. We hope the British forces keep their promises and withdraw next June.” He said personal freedoms were “permissible” but not if they were abused and became an obstacle to consumption. He admitted that liquor stores had been firebombed, and said, “We would never allow the sale or consumption of alcohol in Basra.“

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

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

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

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More Iranians in Karbala than Iraqis?

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

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

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

“MR. SENOR: Yes?

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

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Firefight with Ansar al-Islam in Mosul kills 3

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

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Corruption Concerns Delay Pentagon Reconstruction Projects in Iraq

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

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Barzani: Kurdish Rights must be in Iraq Basic Law; Kubba: Washington rejects Loose Federalism

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

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

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

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

Barzani said, “The Kurdish issue is not an issue of citizenship to be settled in a democratic atmosphere by representatives of a side or on its behalf. The issue of the Kurds is a political and national issue. After the World War I, their homeland, Kurdistan, was divided against their will between some states. The part which is now called “Iraqi Kurdistan” was, consequently, attached to Iraq. Since then, the successive governments in Baghdad tried to annihilate the Kurds, using the most horrific and savage means . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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