Informed Comment

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

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

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

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

Another Bulgarian soldier died Sunday of wounds received in the bombings on Saturday that killed 4 of his compatriots. (al-Hayat).

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MI6 Manipulated British Media

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

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

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

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

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

What does seem clear is that because of the Special Relationship, we in the US have been the victims of this press manipulation, too.

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(More) Hurdles for Iraqi Democracy

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

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

Then, in the Informed Comment quote of the day, Interim Governing Council member Muwaffaq al-Rubaie criticized the “American” way of doing things.

In the Los Angeles Times: On the desirability of the Interim Governing Council members serving in the new transitional government to be elected May 31, Rubaie said: “They should play a pivotal role in the next leadership. They have expertise and experience. You need continuity. We can’t have this idiotic American system of dumping everyone from their positions when a new president wins election.”

Well, so much for the prospects for democracy in Iraq. Al-Rubaie doesn’t even understand the principle of peaceful change of personnel from one administration to the next. And he is by no means the least democratically minded member of the IGC!

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

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

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Alawi: Saddam will be Tried in Secret; Withdrawal Timeline for US Troops to be Negotiated

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Ken MacLeod’s Blog and Iraq

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

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

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

For US readers, MacLeod’s books can be ordered from Amazon.com. I recommend them warmly.

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Shiite Issues in the News

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

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

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

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10 US soldiers Wounded, 6 other Coalition Troops Killed, 36 wounded;

Governor of Karbala Hospitalized with 80 other wounded Civilians

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

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

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

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