Rail, Old Baghdad Explosions

Guerrillas sabotaged a US military train shipment near Haditha west of Baghdad on Thursday, after which the shipment was looted of equipment, including computers. Afficionados of the film Lawrence of Arabia will remember the bedouin guerrillas blowing up Ottoman train shipments during WW I at British instigation.

Baghdad police foiled an attempted hand grenade attack on one of their police stations. Another explosion shook Baghdad's old city. It killed two people and started fires. Some say the cause was exploding propane gas bottles (i.e. that it was an accident), while others suspect a mortar attack. Baghdad was on edge after all the recent bombings and attacks, and AP says a lot of parents are keeping their children home from school.

Mitchell: Land Reform essential for Democracy

Professor Timothy Mitchell, of the New York University Political Science Department, spoke on contemporary Middle East affairs in Ann Arbor on Thursday. Mitchell is among the more original and insightful thinkers about the region. One point he made was that successful democratization, whether in Japan, India or elsewhere, has always been preceded by land reform. And, he pointed out, this sort of measure is completely absent from the American planning for the Iraqi economy. He said that the Baath years had seen enormous inequalities in landed wealth reemerge. We know that Saddam gave property to Sunni Arabs in Kurdish and Shiite regions, and rewarded the clan chieftains who supported him.

I have myself long felt that insufficient land reform is at one root of Pakistan's failures as a democracy. Whereas India's Zamindari Act of 1952 liquidated the big landlords and rajas of the British colonial regime, Pakistan's governments made only baby steps in this direction (under Ayub Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto--though many of Bhutto's measures were reversed by the regime of Gen. Zia al-Haq in the 1980s under the guise of the "Islamization" of Pakistani law). Pakistan's current prime minister is a big landlord from Baluchistan who once called on the army to suppress his peasants, in Zia's time. Big landlords generally don't find it in their interest for their peasants to vote independently, so they use party politics as a way of controlling the peasant farmers and keeping them powerless.

So far the CPA plan for Iraq appears to be to just let businessmen and wealthy landlords run wild, with all the risks of repeating the disastrous errors made in post-Soviet Russia.

Mitchell also wryly pointed out that the main form of American economic activity in Iraq hasn't been market driven at all, but rather has consisted of a few big corporations with pre-arranged contracts feeding safely at the public trough (the $20 bn. Congress just passed for Iraqi reconstruction will largely go to these champions of the free market).

I'd add that it is widely recognized that the trade unions played key roles in Japanese and German reconstruction and prosperity after WW II, whereas Bremer has been dissolving all such associations. It is not clear that the Iraqi workers will even retain the right to organize or strike (this right has largely been denied to US workers over the past 30 years, as judges have permitted corporations to engage in union-busting with impunity).

I'd say that one could forgive the Iraqis if they conclude that the American system in Iraq is a form of state socialism, with Bremer playing the Politburo, giving orders and exercising a veto even though no one elected him to office, and Halliburton and Bechtel playing state-supported industries. Perhaps it looks more like Cuba so far than like capitalist democracy.

Some Business Dealings of the CPA in Iraq may contravene International Law

I was glad finally to see some experts in international law raise questions about the American shock therapy plan for Iraq, which involves selling off state owned enterprises and allowing foreign firms to buy 100% of them and then immediately to export the profits out the country. It also deregulates all finance and banking. The Financial Times says questions were raised at a recent conference in London about whether for the Occupying authorities to take this step was legal under the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention (I have argued that it is not).

The lawyers also point out that pre-existing contracts made by the Baath government still have legal force and may even been enforceable, so if the CPA re-awards the contracts the new ones may be challenged.

My own feeling is that the US should go to early elections in Iraq so as to have a legitimate Iraqi government that could make these decisions. Otherwise, it is no different from Lord Curzon ruling by fiat from Delhi in the colonial era.


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?
pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=
StoryFT&cid=1066565448926

Feldman Denies Writing Report

Informed Comment received an email from Professor Noah Feldman saying that he had not, as al-Zaman alleged, written a report for the CPA on the likely form of the Iraqi constitution. It appears that al-Zaman was summarizing an article in the Daily Telegraph, and mistook a few oral comments for a position paper.


http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles
/news.asp?ArticleID=101683

The article said,

"the new, democratic Iraq appears bound to be an Islamic state – with an official role for Islam, and Islamic law enshrined in its constitution. That prospect is triggering alarm and opposition from the White House and the Pentagon, Noah Feldman, a leading American expert in Islamic law, said. "The end constitutional product is very likely to make many people in the US government unhappy. It's not going to look the way people imagined it looking," said Dr Feldman. "Any democratically elected Iraqi government is unlikely to be secular, and unlikely to be pro-Israel. And frankly, moderately unlikely to be pro-American".

Professor Feldman also points out that his Near East degree is from Harvard, not Princeton. He adds by email, "Although I did advise the CPA, and do think that we are headed for a state in which Islam plays a constitutional role..."

Informed Comment regrets the imprecisions in the earlier report.

Eyewitness Account of the Attack on the Al-Rashid Hotel

Posted by permission:

"10/26/03

Today things hit closer to home than previous acts of violence here in Baghdad. It was near 6:00 AM in the morning and I was half awake, I usually get up at that time. Then, boom, a thunderous thud rattled the building. I jumped out of bed and then another, hiss, thud, hiss, thud. So startled was I that I really lost track At the time it sounded like about 4 or 5 impacts. In reality it was 8 major explosive hits on the Al-Rashid hotel. The! n I heard the crackle of gun fire, wails of terror and a cacophony of activity outside my room but that was only the beginning of what proved to be a distressing day.

On the first impact I leapt out of bed a bit disoriented but woke up extremely fast, adrenalin flowing, and threw open the drapes to try and get a look at what happened. But I had people working with and for me staying in the hotel and I had to move. I jumped into my clothes, threw on my sandals, chambered a bullet in my weapon and remarkably remembered to grab my camera (a friend later said she was angry when she saw me emerge from my room with a camera but later was happy I got some pictures). Two people from across the hall from me and both were just emerging from their room unhurt. One in a cracking and half hysterical voice remembered that her sister was on a floor where it was reported there were several impacts. So I hurried down the hall on the same floor and saw a ! man emerging coved in dust and blood. There was a trail ! of blood to the stairs. On another floor I noticed a man standing in his underwear dazed and covered in a blanket of dust and blood. He was immediately helped by someone to the stairs and disappeared. Smoke billowed through the hallway. There was no mistake it was the pungent smell of explosives. Either RPG's or rockets of some kind.

I went into a stricken room to see if everyone was ok. The wounded had been evacuated. Certainly anyone in that room was wounded considering the damage I witnessed. The large windows were blown out completely and only a gnarled window frame remained. With a tinge of guilt I snapped a couple of pictures and raced out of the room.

In the stairwell I saw pools of blood on the landing. Most of the traffic was flowing down the stairs as I headed up to the next floor where several of friends stay. Damage there appeared to be even worse at a g! lance. I saw two people in the hallway; relieved that they were alright I asked them if they had seen any of the others. They had not. I told them to get out of the place and went to the end hall to check another room when my cell phone came to life. It was another guy who was housed on the same floor. He cried for me to get out of the building. I was more interested in finding out if he and his roommate were okay. His roommate had been complaining that his employer was sending him to work out in the desert. He lamented that he had to leave the Hotel and stay with the snakes. When I saw that he was ok but rattled later on in the lobby I joked with him that the desert didn't look so bad now. Both were ok and he accounted for the others on the floor, all of whom had made it to the lobby.

I head then to the next floor to check on the ! last of my friends. I beat on their door but got no reply. We tried then to break the door down. Just then however, one of them called and said she was in the lobby. That was everybody I knew in the danger zone. It was time to head to the lobby myself but I couldn't resist going to the end of the hall where one of the rooms had been pulverized. Water was streaming from the pipes and the door had been blown from its hinges. Most of the entry area was shredded. It looked like the rocket had traveled completely through the room and out the door to the next room. That room too had been evacuated. The reports were that the woman in that room had her arm severed.

That was it; I couldn't go any further and decided to get out. I followed the bloody footprints down the stairs to the lobby. It was bedlam. The couches and chairs were covered with the wounded while medics attended to them. I walked out the back of the building to see if I could survey the damage.&nb! sp; The ground was covered with glass shards, concrete, and wood. Drapes were hanging from the window ledges and impact holes could clearly be seen. On one of the higher floors the façade was completely blown away. Unfortunately, a PFC told me I needed to leave the area.

I returned to the lobby and made contact with everyone once again. One guy had been forced from his room in his underpants and tank-top undershirt. It is a good thing he isn't a briefs man! He was stuck in his undies for about 6 hours before they would let him back in to just get his clothes. Later, after most folks had dispersed to the palace to work until folks could return to get their belongings, the underwear crowd huddled together at the front gate waiting, hoping to get back in to clothe their nakedness. It is interesting the things you think about even under the most traumatic circumstances. One of those odd thoughts came to mind as I was rushin! g to and fro in the hallway. A woman I have become acqua! inted wi th once talked about the need to get pajamas so that she would be prepared in the event of an emergency. Apparently she generally sleeps nude. She also secured a 60 meter length of rope just in case she found the regular exits blocked. As I scurried around I wondered briefly if she had her pajamas on. Later in the lobby I spotted her safe and sound and clothed. We actually had a laugh about my strange mind. At least we could find something to laugh about.

But humorous moments were a rare blessing under the circumstances. One guy I had come to know was asked to identify the only fatality of the attack. He was a Colonel who I was also acquainted with. He had no chance of surviving the direct hit to his room. But he was a close friend of many here. There is something surreal when you find out someone you see everyday is dead. I wept as did many for the man who e! njoyed his time here and had in fact decided to extend his tour rather than return to a dreary life behind a desk. The preceding evening he had asked a friend to go with him to a party with FOX News personnel. He turned him down. Now he was racked with guilt for not going. Had they gone they may have stayed someplace other than the Rashid and he would be alive. But how could he have known? But second guessing after tragedies is a natural response to the helplessness and incomprehensibility of disaster. It is a by-product of the need to feel one has control. But over the uncontrollable such emotions just torture and rend the heart and soul. I wept for the friend who was racked with guilt as much as I wept for the victim of the attack in that moment. Finally, late that evening after everyone was settled I was greeted by a care package from a friend in the States; the only real good news of the day. So I took th! e goodies and shared them with a bunch of Brits trying to some! how forg et the horrible day. Mind you I just drank some milk but drunken Brits make for fine company. Finally I was able to collapse amidst the snoring masses here at the palace after everything was finally over.

The facts of the attack as I understand them are this. A trailer was pull up just outside the green-zone loaded with a rocket battery of 40 62mm rockets. Twenty-nine rockets fired, 27 impacted the hotel at various points ranging from the 3rd to the 11th floors. Approximately 15 people were wounded and one killed. The hotel itself sustained considerable damage but is intact structurally and it looks like it will reopen with extra security in a few days. It is an inviting target all full of Western occupation authorities and help.

Paul Wolfowitz was there at the time. I guess it was fitting it should happen while he was there because this was his imperial adventure anyway. Naturally, all we heard from him were slogans and rhetoric about enemies of freedom and standing fast. Yet we constantly hear cowardly politicians and chest thumping "patriots" talking about spending too much money and ignorantly arguing about how the inept leaderless Iraqis should be fending for themselves. It is infuriating to hear them arm-chair quarterback while others, many of who disagreed with the war, have come to help in some way. Meanwhile, the greatest proponents of the war laud the bravery of the soldiers and civilians without lifting a finger to help. The sad fact is that many of these champions of liberty have never lifted a finger to defend said liberty with arms or real effort. Most h! ave contempt for the Arab world and yet claim they desire its liberation from tyranny. Yet all they have brought is chaos. Now they cry about how much it will cost. It is much like two horny teenagers bemoaning the child they created in a moment of passion then slinking off for the coward's abortion denying the responsibility for the creation of a child. They need more troops here or the peace will be lost in a year or two, more westerners will die, but worst of all the Iraqis will be left to suffer from the tyranny of anarchy.

Later that night more rockets were fired and now there are signs of second guessing among those working here. I can feel the rumblings of discontent on the political horizon in the USA conspiring against this adventure. And with every bomb it quakes more violently (six bombs tod! ay detonated out of eight total - the Police foiled two of the! m), but only to the ruin of these "liberated" people. Meanwhile the cowards drink fine wine in black ties and toast their own power and brilliance while the courageous continue on trying to actually do something of value despite the hot perennial rhetorical wind blowing from Washington while the Red Cross and Ministry of Industry burn."

[The last bit was obviously added 10/27/03]

4 US troops killed, 1 wounded, 7 Ukrainian Troops wounded

Guerrillas in Blid, 60 miles north of Baghdad, attacked US troops Tuesday with rockets and automatic weapons, killing two. Monday night, north of Baghdad, a US tank hit a land mine, and it was destroyed, killing two soldiers inside. In Kut, guerrillas ambushed a Ukrainian patrol, wounding seven troops. (Ukraine has 1,600 troops in Iraq). Although many attacks have been launched on Coalition troops in the south, few have produced casualties, and certainly not on this scale. Some coalition partners have begun talking about withdrawing their troop contingents because of the danger. US bases in Samarra and Kirkuk also were attacked, but no casualties were taken. There have been 233 attacks in the past 7 days.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/
worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3326810,00.html

Reading into the Mind of a Terrorist

See Mark Clayton's summary of some of the techniques used by the 9/11 hijackers to stay in their monstrous mindset. It is based in part on some of my own work. I put up parts of a paper I gave on it (the link is to the left).


http://www.csmonitor.com/
2003/1030/p11s01-legn.html

Feldman: Iraq will be an Islamic Republic at Odds with the West

Noah Feldman, an independent consultant to the Coalition Provisional Authority and to President Bush has [written a report]* to the White House casting severe doubts on the likelihood that Iraq will emerge as a Western-style democarcy with separation of religion and state and a foreign policy stance friendly to the West. Al-Zaman's London office appears to have seen a copy of the report, and summarizes it today. Feldman, an NYU professor of law, says that after observing the situation there he is convinced that the Iraqi constitution will enshrine Islam as the religion of state and Islamic law as the basis for national law, that the new regime will refuse to recognize Israel, and that it is likely to be antagonistic to the West. Feldman said that the outcome is likely to contradict all the prognostications made before the war, that it would establish a pluralistic, secular democracy. Feldman, a Democrat, was appointed to consult on constitutional issues because he also has a degree in Islamic Law from [Harvard]. But his report, if al-Zaman summarizes correctly, has ended up demolishing the rhetoric of the neoconservatives who hyped the war last spring and who predicted that a new democratic Iraq would lead a wave of democratization in the region.

(*It now appears [10/31/03] that he did not in fact write a report to this effect, though oral remarks of his with the same purport appeared in a Telegraph interview.)

Sistani Representative Wounded in attack in Karbala

Shaykh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i was wounded in the head and five guards were also wounded when assailants tossed hand grenades and fired machine guns at him as he left the shrine of Imam Husayn in the holy Shiite city of Karbala late on Wednesday. Al-Karbala'i is the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Two weeks ago, fighting broke out between Karbala'i's guards and the militia of a supporter of Muqtada al-Sadr, who wanted to take over the shrine. On the other hand, some Shiite leaders appear to have been targeted by Sunni Arab radicals. It is unclear who was behind Wednesday's attack. Al-Karbala'i is being treated in the hospital. Sistani has complained that the ongoing violence in Iraq is made possible only by the lack of security in the country and the massive amount of arms in the hands of militias, and has called on the occupying authorities to disarm the militiamen.

Thai Prime Minister threatens pull-out of Troops

The Thai prime minister said Wednesday that the 447 Thai troops at Karbala would be pulled out of the country if they appeared to be in danger. Most of them are medics and engineers, and they are under Polish command. UPI reported, "Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told the panel that while Thai soldiers were safe, he would not allow them to risk "mortal danger."" I'd say that the coalition of the willing is pretty shaky if troops are only being supplied on the condition that their safety be guaranteed. Since Karbala has become more dangerous in the past month, the Thais may well follow through. Attacks on Bulgarian troops in Karbala have also provoked heated discussions in Sophia about whether they should be withdrawn. With the collapse of the deal to bring in the Turks, and the increasingly dim possibility of troops coming from South Asia, the Bush administration now risks the pull-out of the little contingents supplied by countries like Thailand if the security situation does not improve. In a separate development, Kenya formally declined to send troops without a stronger UN resolution; one member of the Kenya parliament asked the government to save the country from a "US dictatorship" by refusing to assist it in Iraq.


http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/
20031029-102650-4903r.htm

IGC sees Foreign Fighters supported by Baathists

Sources in the Interim Governing Council told al-Zaman that there is evidence that between 200 and 400 foreign fighters, from Sudan, Yemen, Palestine and even Chechnya, are responsible for suicide bombings in Iraq, and that they receive logistical support and help from a network of Baath loyalists. What I can't understand is, if Baath loyalists have such good logistics, and given that there are thousands of them, why it is useful to put so much emphasis on a couple hundred foreign volunteers. Iraq's 400,000 strong army had a lot of people in it who knew how to rig a bomb. It is not clear that outside volunteers would necessarily be as well trained, for the most part.

The foreign fighters thesis had cold water poured on it the day before yesterday when US military sources told the Washington Post that satellite photos and other surveillance of the border to not show any infiltration of fighters from Syria. They thereby dared contradict Bill Safire, of the New York Times, who loudly proclaimed that the resistance to the US is all Syria's fault. But then, Safire has an axe to grind, whereas US officers on the ground have a need to gather accurate intelligence. If you put resources into patrolling the Syrian border when it is unnecessary, you leave yourself open to attacks from other quarters that really do pose a threat.

One US Soldier Killed, 7 wounded; Deputy Mayor of Baghdad Assassinated

Tuesday: Guerrillas fired from a rooftop into the main US military base in Tikrit, wounding at least one US soldier from the Fourth Infantry Division. Guerrillas detonated a car bomb near a police station and a school in Fallujah on Tuesday, killing four Iraqis. Late Tuesday, eight enormous explosions were heard in the southern area of Fallujah. Guerrillas subjected a US military convoy near Mosul to small arms fire but there were not US casualties. Guerrillas launched three mortar shells at the Jadriya district, across the Tigris from the CPA palace HQ. No word yet on casualties.

Monday: Guerrillas launched a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Baghdad on a US convoy that had stopped to disarm roadside bombs, killing one US solider and wounding six others.

Sunday: It was revealed that Baghdad Deputy Mayor Faris Abdul Razzaq al-Assam was assassinated in Baghdad. Al-Zaman says six gunmen opened fire on him as he sat in a coffee house, after having returned from the international donor's conference in Madrid.

Iraq War Death Toll: 8,700 Iraqi Troops, 3,400 Iraqi Civilians

A new study by The Project on Defence Alternatives, based on field hospital data and US government reports, finds that approximately 13,000 Iraqis were killed in the US attack of March-April. A little less than a third of the dead, 3,400 or so, were noncombatants (i.e. persons who did not take up arms against the Anglo-American invading forces).

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/
common/story_page/0,5478,7704217
%255E401,00.html

Iraq's Christians Meet, ask for own Province

A conference of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians met in Baghdad Monday, and came to two principal decisions (al-Zaman). They decided to seek a province of their own in Ninevah, near Mosul (a district that also has many Kurdish villages alongside Christian ones). And they decided that Iraqi Christians should be known as Chaldeassyrians instead of as Chaldeans and Assyrians, so as to stress the unity of the Iraqi Christian community. Iraqi Christians are estimated at 3.5 percent of the population. Nestorian Christians in the Middle East who spoke Syriac or Aramaic or used them in their liturgy were called Assyrians. (Nestorians had tended to stress the humanity of Jesus and rejected the phrase "mother of God" for Mary because it compromised that humanity). A group of Assyrians in Cyprus and Iraq broke from Nestorian doctrine in the 1400s and became Uniates, one of a number of Eastern churches admitted into communion with Rome. They allowed to keep their own liturgy rather than adopting Latin (the Chaldeans use Aramaic, the language of Jesus). Pope Eugenius IV called this new Assyrian Uniate Catholic group the "Chaldeans." The rest of the Nestorians in the region continued to be called Assyrians.. About 80% of Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans or Uniate Catholics. The conference is urging that they unite into a single group, which I presume means that the Chaldeans are willing to see the Nestorian Assyrians as coreligionists rather than as heretics.

Chaldeans complain that they were given no representation by the US on the Interim Governing Council (there is an Assyrian member).

US Intelligence Failures on Iraq WMD Rooted in Trusting Chalabi, Likud, Neocons

Carl W. Ford Jr., the just-retired assistant secretary of State for intelligence and research, has given an extended interview to the Los Angeles Times in which he forthrightly acknowledges that something went wrong with US intelligence estimations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/
iraq/la-fg-intel29oct29,1,7733575.
story?coll=la-home-leftrail

Ford's allegations follow those of his colleague, Greg Thielman, reported by Frontline and by Sy Hersh
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/
content/?031027fa_fact

Actually, to us ordinary folks without security clearances, it has been fairly apparent for some time that the "intelligence" on Iraqi weapons was questionable. There were Iraqi nuclear scientists in the West who were telling anyone who would listen that the program was abandoned in 1991. But they weren't given the airtime on MSNBC, Fox and CNN. It was given to poseurs like Khidhir Hamza, who appears to have first attempted to sell his life story as a scientist working for Saddam. When that didn't work, I was told, he then turned to writing the mendacious Saddam's Bombmaker.

The problem was that the intellectual context for the interpretation of what evidence was gathered was highly politicized. The US intelligence services had satellite photos that were highly ambiguous. They saw them through the lens of three main groups: 1) Iraqi expatriates with an axe to grind; 2) Israeli hardliners like Ariel Sharon; and 3) his backers among American neoconservatives who managed to take charge of Pentagon and NSC Middle East policy.

A great deal that the US intelligence folks knew about Iraqi weapons programs was supplied to them by corrupt expatriates like Ahmad Chalabi, who were trying to bait the US into a war to overthrow Saddam, so that they could come in and take over. Some of the rest came from the greedy and unscrupulous, such as Hamza.

Other information derived from satellite photos and telephone intercepts. The satellite photos would just show a vehicle driving up to a building that used to be used for say, biological weapons development back in the 1980s. The analysts interpreted that as evidence that the site was being revived for that purpose. But the truck would actually belong to looters who were stealing the equipment and copper wire. The telephone intercepts would show what Saddam wanted them to show, since he knew the calls were bugged--and he wanted the world to think he had WMD to ward off an attack. There was very little use of Iraqi human intelligence, which could easily have inspected the supposedly reactivated weapons sites (if looters could get in, so could an Iraqi agent run by the CIA).

In addition, the US depends heavily on Mossad, Israeli intelligence, for assessments of threats in the Middle East. As Benny Morris has shown in Israel's Secret Wars, however, Mossad can be stupid or self-interested just like any other organization. UPI reported on June 28, 2002:

"Israel also has "clear indications” that Iraq resumed efforts to produce fissile materials, Mossad leader Ephraim Halevy said while addressing a closed session of the council Wednesday in Brussels. The Israeli Yediot Aharonot newspaper published the full text of the speech Friday." (
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/
articles/2002/6/28/54138.shtml).

Halevy was just plain wrong. One doesn't know whether he was a "weasel," producing such an assessment because Israeli PM Ariel Sharon demanded it, or whether he was misled by the same Iraqi expatriates who lied to the CIA. If US intelligence counted Mossad's reports as separate and confirmatory to what Chalabi was saying, they may have made a huge mistake and simply counted Chalabi twice. Not only was Mossad producing false intelligence that misled the US, but Sharon created an office of special plans similar to that of US undersecretary of defense for planning Douglas Feith in the Pentagon (headed by Abram Shulsky), with the charge of producing intelligence that would support an Iraq war.

Robert Dreyfuss quoted a high former US government official in The Nation for June 19, 2003, saying of Sharon's operation:
"According to the former official, also feeding information to the Office of Special Plans was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit, which paralleled Shulsky's--and which has not previously been reported--prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans. It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad--which prides itself on extreme professionalism--had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq. This secretive unit, and not the Mossad, may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official."


http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=dreyfuss

Karen Kwiatkowski, then working at the Pentagon describes how she saw with her own eyes that "career Pentagon analysts assigned to Rumsfeld's office were generally excluded from what were "key areas of interest" to Feith, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, notably Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. "In terms of Israel and Iraq, all primary staff work was conducted by political appointees; in the case of Israel, a desk officer appointee from the Washington Institute for Near Policy [a think tank closely tied to the main pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee]." " http://www.atimes.com/atimes/
Middle_East/EH07Ak01.html

A front for the main pro-Sharon Israeli lobby actually supplied the Israel desk officer to the Pentagon! Why not just forget the pretense and appoint Ariel Sharon the US Secretary of Defense?

Kwiatkowski provides more information; according to Jim Lobe: "At the National Security Council (NSC), they communicated mainly with Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, until Elliott Abrams, a dyed-in-the-wool neocon with close ties to Feith and Perle, was appointed last December as the NSC’s top Middle East aide. “They worked really hard for Abrams; he was a necessary link,” Kwiatkowski told IPS Wednesday. “The day he got (the appointment), they were whooping and hollering, ‘We got him in, we got him in.’” But she recounts one incident in which she helped escort a group of half a dozen Israelis, including several generals, from the first floor reception area to Feith’s office. “We just followed them, because they knew exactly where they were going and moving fast.” When the group arrived, she noted the book which all visitors are required to sign under special regulations that took effect after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. “I asked his secretary, ‘Do you want these guys to sign in?’ She said, ‘No, these guys don’t have to sign in.’” It occurred to her, she said, that the office may have not wanted to maintain a record of the meeting. One person in the OSP with a long career in the National Security bureaucracy told her at one point: “What these people are doing now makes Iran-Contra look like amateur hour.”"


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0807-02.htm

By the way, the same groups, like WINEP, that bamboozled the US public into the Iraq war with lies, now want to take over the academic Middle East Studies establishment and use Federal funds to dictate to people like me what we can and cannot say about Middle East politics. They have managed to get congressmen to create a McCarthyite "advisory board" to supervise federally funded international studies programs at major universities, on the grounds that we academics are "disloyal" (!) Since they have managed to deprive so many in Washington (including virtually all sitting members of Congress) of an effective voice on Middle East affairs if it contradicts the Ariel Sharon platform, they assume it will be easy enough to silence a few rumpled professors in the Midwest. They have another think coming. The Syrian Baath Party and other real experts in censorship have tried to bowdlerize my prose. Stanley Kurtz is a piker compared to Hafez al-Asad.

For Karen Kwiatkowski's whistle blowing on the neocons in the Pentagon, see

http://www.lewrockwell.com/
kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski-arch.html

The are only three really big winners in the Iraq war: Iraqi Kurds, Iraqi Shiites, and the Israelis. The Israelis, unlike other US allies, have contributed nothing to rebuilding Iraq, and virtually the only thing seen from them has been a) false intelligence and b) hectoring of the US to go on to invade Iran immediately, also apparently mainly for the political gain of Sharon's Likud party. Sharon has also, of course, completely ignored the Bush administration's pleading to make peace with the Palestinians and to seek a Palestinian state. Instead, Sharon is gobbling up the West Bank the same way he seems to gobble up eight meals a day (surely no politician has had a gut quite like that since Henry VIII).

Greenstock Charges Foreign Terrorists in Monday's Wave of Attacks

Special representative of the British government in Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock, told the BBC that the modus operandi of the suicide carbombings of the Red Cross HQ in Baghdad and several police stations was the mark of foreign terrorists coming in via Syria, Iran and Afghanistan. (via al-Zaman)

Actually, this is just speculation on his part. Lots of secular organizations have used the technique of suicide bombings or suicide attacks. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka pioneered the technique, and they are Marxist materialists who don't believe in the human soul. The Baath Party is perfectly capable of generating such attacks. While press reports did say a fifth driver on Monday, who was apprehended, had a Syrian passport, we don't know what that means. And, many Syrians are Baathists.

Bangladesh, Portugal, will not send Troops

The US military's desperate search for an international division of peace enforcers in Iraq has pretty much completely failed. Bangladesh and Portugal, whom the US had pressed to provide troops, announced Monday that they would not. They said that their publics were overwhelmingly opposed, and that the recent UN resolution was too thin to change that. South Korea is also dragging its feet on sending new troops. India has formally declined. Pakistan goes back and forth between saying no and maybe someday. Only Turkey is willing to supply 10,000 troops, but they are not wanted by the Iraqis, and probably will not be invited to come.

The failure to find allies is all Bush's fault. He is the one who trampled on UN and NATO allies in pursuing a unilateral war, and who refuses to let the UN have a substantial role in post-war Iraq. His administration bungled post-war security, scaring off countries that might otherwise have provided peace enforcing troops. He is also unwilling to reward allies that do help with Iraq security with anything substantial. He is running Iraq the way Ebenezer Scrooge ran his little company, and neither of them is likely to have a lot of friends over come the holidays.

Optimistic, Pessimistic Views of Kurdistan

A friend of mine in northern Iraq sent me the following recently, which I reprint with permission. It is more upbeat than the news from the Sunni Arab triangle.

"I have now seen more of northern Iraq than I ever dreamed possible -- from Dohuk and Zahko through Irbil to Sulaymaniah. Though the threat level remains high, we have had relative freedom of movement throughout the region. Perhaps what has struck me the most is the difference between areas within the former Kurdish Autonomous Zone and the areas previously controlled by the Iraqi regime. Driving across the Greater Zab river and the former Green Line, the change is shocking . . . The Kurds have had a decade to adjust to a relatively free market system and were free to operate as they saw fit outside of Saddam's control, so the differences are understandable. There is also a certain comfort to moving about the Kurdish areas. We feel welcomed and much more safe here than we do when we venture into Mosul. Even Kirkuk has recently become a much more dangerous place than it was just weeks ago. Various Coaltion locations there come under attack nearly daily, making what was once routine operations a bit more dicey and requiring increased focus on force protection operations.

In Mosul, it is a mix of stability and sporadic violence. Children wave as we pass by (despite our attempts at staying inconspicuous, even the kids can spot us blocks away), but the looks from most adults on the streets is less than comforting. Much of my perception, I know is tainted by fear, but we do try to gain an honest assessment of the feelings on the street.

I don't know if it is making the news at home, but Mosul is becoming quite an experiment in military-civil relationships. The commanding general of the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division has placed a priority on working with the population of the city to develop mechanisms to create stability, self-governance, and economic development. Soldiers are still manning checkpoints and standing guard, but they are also out in the city helping leaders to develop city councils, building/repairing schools, and assisting in seasonal agricultural sales and distribution. While some may dis miss these efforts as 'hearts and minds' fluff, it truly is targeted toward getting a region back on its feet. Certainly the city still has a long way to go before we can start to claim mission success, but at least the road has been staked out toward completion."

On the other hand, another friend of mine spoke recently to some mid-level Iraqi Kurds:

"They talked a lot about Iraq's future and said nothing. Only grudgingly [do] they accept the idea of being iraqis again, as
you know.. . . [With regard to the prospect of Turkish troops being posted ot Iraq] they . . . pointed out, that they would have a hard time to hold back their own peshmergas and to prevent them from attacking the Turks. To me, they seemed seriously critical of US foreign policy. A Turkish aim is to crush what has remained of [the leftist revolutionary] PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan. "

Khamenei Warns of Secret Plans to Dismember Iraq

In an interview with al-Zaman, Iran's Supreme Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei, said that he was extremely worried by the complex and confusing issue of Iraq, and that he prayed daily for the unity of the Iraqi people. He expressed concerns that there were forces that wanted to see Iraq split up, and said that Iraqis should fight them. He urged that they craft a constitution that expressed their national identity and ethnic plurality, but also addressed the issue of modernity.

It is not clear who he thinks wants Iraq to split up, but he probably has the US in mind. Some neoconservatives have long argued for breaking up the country, which would permanently weaken it. The break-up seems unlikely to happen, since none of the neighbors, including Turkey, would stand for it.


Arabic URL http://www.azzaman.com/azzaman/http/
display.asp?fname=/azzaman/articles/
2003/10/10-27/996.htm

Iraq's Neighbors meet on Crisis

The foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors will meet in Damascus in early November, with interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari representing Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Kuwait will all send their foreign ministers. Observers will include Egypt and Bahrain.

This meeting is an encouraging sign. At some points the "6 plus 2" group of Afghanistan's neighbors plus Russia and the US played an important role in the Afghan crisis, and the ultimate solution of backing the northern alliance plus creating Karzai as a credible Pushtun leader was supported by this group.

The US clearly cannot provide security or services to Iraq all by itself, and cultivating neighbors like Syria and Saudi Arabia rather than alienating them will be important to any US success in the region.

57% of Americans want some Troops to Come Home;
50% of Americans Disapprove Bush Handling of Iraq

According to a CNN/ USA Today poll taken Oct. 24-26, exactly half of Americans disapprove of the way the Bush administration has dealt with the Iraq situation since May 1. (In April, only 18 percent disapproved. I'm happy to say that I was among the appalled in April).

57 percent of Americans say they want some or all US troops to come back to the US from Iraq, up from 46 percent in late August. Only 41 percent say to maintain present troop levels or send more. (2% must just not care).

But 54% of Americans still think the war was a valuable enterprise.

I read all this to say that a bare majority of Americans still thinks it was a good idea to go into Iraq, but a more solid majority wants it all to be over with right now, and about half the population thinks the post-war performance of the administration has been abysmal. I suppose it will eventually occur to the public that having the war at all implied having post-war instability that requires over 100,000 US troops to remain in the country a good long time. And when that connection dawns on them, the bare majority who still think the war was a good idea will evaporate.


http://www.azcentral.com/news
/articles/1027poll-bush27-ON.html

66% of Europeans think Iraq War was Unjustified

Meanwhile, a European poll found that two-thirds of Europeans felt the US war on Iraq was unjustified. Even among the publics of US allies, the UK and Spain, a majority condemned the war. Only in Denmark was a majority in favor. (Denmark has the least percentage of Middle Eastern and Muslim immigrants of any country in Europe). Interestingly, the publics of UK and Spain are more afraid of terrorism than the rest of Europe, which tracks with their slightly more favorable view of the Iraq war (though if they think the war did anything to address the problem of al-Qaeda, they are sorely mistaken).


http://www.news.scotsman.com/
latest.cfm?id=2102815

Breaking News: Who was behind the Baghdad Blitz of October 27?

As you all know by now, car bombings targeted a Red Cross HQ and three police stations in Baghdad Monday morning, in a coordinated attack spanning 45 minutes. 35-40 persons were killed and over 200 wounded according to wire service reports available 4 pm EST Monday. One US soldier was killed and six wounded. The coordination of the attack exceeded virtually anything yet seen in post-war Iraq, where individual car bombings have sometimes been devastating. A fifth attack, at another police station, was foiled, and a Yemeni [actually it now seems, Syrian] driver who entered through Syria was detained. He had shouted at the Iraqi police that they were collaborators.

The attacks left Baghdad shaken and nervous. US officials actually came out and said that progress in Iraq cannot be measured by a few bombs going off! Uh, without security nothing else follows, friends. Not financial investments, not NGO aid, not more troops sent by allies. The Red Cross is needed for Iraq's reconstruction, but it is likely more or less to get out of Iraq now. The UN has already largely been chased out.

That the driver was foreign indicated to some observers that the attack was pulled off by al-Qaeda-linked foreign Mujahidin. It is also often alleged that Ramadan is seen by Muslim radicals as a particularly auspicious time to attack. Of course, I do not have any idea who planned the car bombings on Monday, but I don't think this reasoning resolves the problem. The regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen is Arab nationalist; so is that of Syria. There are lots of Arab nationalists in both countries. Arab nationalism is not dead as a sentiment, and for those devoted to it, going to Iraq to fight now makes as much sense as defending Abdel Nasser during the Suez Crisis of 1956. That is, the Western press equates foreign fighters with Sunni radicalism, but Arab nationalism is international, too.

As for Ramadan, I'd be interested in knowing if Sunni radicals have actually ever struck then. In Arabian society there were truce months. Early Muslims were reproached by the Meccans for occasionally violating the truce months by raiding caravans, and the Qur'an defends such guerrilla tactics on the pragmatic grounds that the Meccans' attempt to wipe out the Muslim community was rather a worse sin than fighting during such a month. I suppose the same could be said of Ramadan now (which in Islam became a holy month of fasting). But it is not as if there is any mandate that one must or ought to fight in Ramadan; quite the opposite, the default would be to spend that month on spiritual meditation, since it is the month in which the Qur'an was revealed. On the other hand, a secular Arab nationalist like Sadat was perfectly happy to fight the 1973 war during Ramadan.

I suspect that Sunni Arab nationalists are actually the most logical suspects, as they have been all along. The Coalition forces don't have a single proven al-Qaeda operative in custody in Iraq, but have lots of ex-Baathists. (It is also true that once you get away from organizations, there is not that much difference between a lot of Sunni Arab nationalists and Sunni Muslim activists. A lot of people could be mobilized into either one.

By the way, the car bombings of the police stations replicate the sort of attack launched in East Baghdad on October 9, which got blamed on the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. I suggested at the time it might instead have been the work of Baathists (maybe seeking to provoke a US fight with Shiites). These attacks today make that suggestion even more plausible.


http://www.juancole.com/2003_10_01_
juancole_archive.html#106576922638350695

Was Wolfowitz the Target?

Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey denied that the rocket attack on the al-Rasheed Hotel was aimed at assassinating Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, arguing that the attack was plotted for two months or so, whereas Wolfowitz's trip was only recently announced. It seems to me that Dempsey was trying to suggest that the attack was random. But logically speaking, the guerrillas could have started preparing an attack two months ago, without having specified a date for their operation, and opportunistically struck at Wolfowitz once they had the capability and knew that he had shown up. That is, they were planning to hit the al-Rasheed all along, but may have altered their timing in light of his announced visit. The Western press corps, at least, seemed to widely know that Wolfowitz was at the Al-Rasheed, which strikes me as poor security arrangements.

Iraqi guerrillas have ferreted out excellent intelligence on key US installations and personnel. They hit the military intel center at Irbil, e.g. And the recent carbombing at the Palestine Hotel wounded Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, a Shiite member of the Interim Governing Council; and it seems likely IGC members staying at the hotel were targets. I'd say the likelihood is that Wolfowitz was being targeted.

Wolfowitz's trip was an unadulterated disaster. His announcement that he was sleeping in Tikrit was clearly a dig at Saddam and the Baathists; but then a Blackhawk was downed there while he was at the US base in Tikrit (one US soldier was wounded). And then his hotel was struck in Baghdad, with a US colonel killed and 17 other persons wounded, several of them military. Wolfowitz was visibly shaken, his voice quavering, immediately after the attack. US personnel were forced out of the hotel, perhaps permanently. The colonel was probably the highest ranking officer killed in Iraq so far.

This occupation is not very much like the British India Niall Ferguson puts forward as such a wonderful example for the US. Except for the Great Rebellion of 1857-58, the British in New Delhi mostly weren't regularly forced out of their nice hotels. (That's if British India were a nice place, which it wasn't; the signs at the clubs said "dogs and Indians not allowed.")

The last time Wolfowitz went to Iraq, he inadvertently provoked huge demonstrations in Najaf and Baghdad by followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, who feared that the extra security measures in Najaf preparatory to Wolfowitz's arrival indicated that al-Sadr was going to be arrested. Wolfowitz got out of Najaf just ahead of the demonstrations. (Then the Wall Street Journal tried to deny that the tens of thousands of demonstrators had even rallied, chiding the NYT for reporting on them!)

The problem with Wolfowitz's trips to Iraq is that they are clearly political, requiring visits to touchy places such as Najaf and Tikrit, to make political points about US dominance of the country. But the Deputy Secretary of Defense should only be visiting Iraq for military reasons, and his visits should be conducted secretly so he can see military commanders and troops. If Wolfowitz goes on campaigning to be mayor of Tikrit, he is liable to get himself killed.

Even short of that, every time he goes he makes himself look clownish, and makes the US look like fools. Wolfowitz is the one who wanted 7 wars and kept talking patronizingly about the ability of the US to reshape Iraq and the Middle East, and he can't even get a good night's sleep when he is there.


http://www.timesreporter.com/
left.php?ID=23835&r=1

Iraqis Prefer Technocrats

Al-Zaman reports a poll indicating that most Iraqis prefer technocrats (engineers, physicians, scientists, etc.) as their leaders, and show much less trust in traditional politicians or Muslim clergymen. There seemed to be a widespread feeling that there were no traditional politicians in Iraq that were up to the job (i.e. knew politics but were untainted by association with the Baath regime). The approval rating of Ibrahim Jaafari, a member of the Interim Governing Council representing the Shiite al-Da`wa Party, which is largely led by technocrats even though it is a religious party, was 52.4 percent. On the other hand, Ayatollah Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and also a member of the IGC, has an even better approval rating of 57.7 percent. In contrast, the favorite of the Pentagon and the neocons, corrupt financier Ahmad Chalabi, was only approved of by about one fourth of respondents, even though he was promoted onto the IGC by the Americans and even served as president for a month. The high approval ratings for al-Hakim somewhat contradict the general findings reported by al-Zaman, of preference for technocrats. And if Jaafari is the kind of technocrat people are thinking about (he is a physician), then Iraqis may actually want an Islamic government led by technocrats along with a few clergymen.

3 US Soldiers Killed, 4 wounded Friday

Guerrillas near Samarra' about an hour's drive north of Baghdad fired mortars at the US base there Friday, killing two US soldiers and wounding four. A guerrilla shot a US soldier guarding a grain silo in the north near Mosul.

Also at Mosul, guerrillas fired grenades at a police station, killing two children and woudning three adults

Guerrillas fired rockets into a crowded market in a suburb of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi civilian and wounding six others.

On Thursday, guerrillas near Baqubah fired a mortar at Camp War Horse, wounding 13 US soldiers.

Muqtada al-Sadr Condemns Interim Governing Council: "As bad as Saddam"

The young Shiite clerical leader Muqtada al-Sadr lashed out at the US-appointed Interim Governing Council on Friday, according to AP. He said that the new regime is not much different from that run by Saddam.

Muqtada was in large part referring to the plans by some on the IGC to arrest him, given his opposition to the US presence in Iraq. (They also suspect him in a murder and some other violence). In some ways Muqtada has been skating near the edge of arrest since April, but has refused openly to sanction attacks on US troops. His main offenses from a US point of view have been the organization of a militia and his strident anti-Americanism. Clerics loyal to him have been involved recently in clashes with US troops, but his own direct involvement in such incidents is unclear. In his sermon he implied that the IGC intends to arrest him merely for thought crimes.

Lack of Medicines for Chronic Diseases

The interim Iraqi health ministry has contacted pharmaceutical companies worldwide, urgently seeking medicines to treat chronic diseases. The ministry lacks many such medicines in its storehouses. (al-Sharq al-Awsat)

Elections in Tikrit

In an apparent reversal of Paul Bremer's opposition to municipal elections, Tikrit elected a city council on Thursday. Apparently in the absence of voter registration roles, authorities granted each known household in the municipality one vote. (This procedure would have resulted in a largely middle aged and elderly male electorate, since the patriarch would most likely be the one to excercise the single vote allowed). Naji Hussein Jabara won as mayor. Presumably elections were allowed in Tikrit even though they were earlier blocked by Bremer in places like Najaf because the CPA thinks that it will make the city more governable if it has chosen its own leadership. Tikrit has witnessed many attacks on US troops.

Guerrillas set off a bomb in Fallujah on Thursday, wounding a US paratrooper. Guerrillas set off a bomb near a pipeline in northern Iraq, killing two Iraqi Civil Defense Corps members. 10 others were wounded. The 101st Airborne Division engaged in a firefight with guerrillas, killing two and injuring another. A car packed with explosives was discovered in Baghdad and its Syrian driver was arrested.

The Iraqi interim Interior Ministry announced that it has hired 1000 school guards to prevent the kidnapping of children and the holding of them for ranson. Lack of security has discouraged some families from sending children to school, especially girls. There has been a wave of such kidnappings in the past few months.

British representative in Iraq Jeremy Greenstock complained Thursday about Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq. He warned Iran to cease using them to interfere. He named the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iran as "harmful" and as posing a threat to Coalition troops. SCIRI had announced that the Badr Corps would be turned into a reconstruction force, but some remain armed. SCIRI is supposedly an ally of the Coalition and has a seat on the Interim Governing Council. Its leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim recently went to Iran for consultations with governmental figures there, including hardline leader Ali Khamenei. Iran is said to be giving money to several political forces in Iraq, including not only religious parties but also the secular expatriate leader Ahmad Chalabi.

Guerrillas Kill 2 US troops, wound 10

Guerrillas killed two US troops at Kirkuk on Wednesday, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat; this report was not confirmed at press time by the US military. The paper also reported three US troops wounded at a Kurdish village, Laylan, near Kirkuk.. Guerrillas wounded 2 US soldiers in Baghdad with an explosive device aimed at their convoy as it entered a tunnel, around 6:45 am on Wednesday. Guerillas wounded 4 US soldiers in Fallujah with a bombing of their convoy. Local townspeople gathered to watch the wrecked vehicle burn, looting it and cheeing. They then threw fuel on it. In Mosul, guerillas exploded a bomb in front of a convoy of the 101st Airborne Division, slightly injuring 1 US soldier. Lt. Gen. Sanchez said at his news conference that the number of attacks is increasing, and recently peaked at 35 one day. Although he tried hard to pin some attacks on al-Qaeda, he more or less admitted that they are mainly carried out by Sunni Arab nationalists from Iraq. He let slip that no confirmed al-Qaeda suspects is in US custody. The US has made hundreds of arrests. I believe that the opposition is mainly homegrown.

Pessimistic Rumsfeld Memo Leaked

Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo to four of his associates in the Department of Defense on October 16 that worried about how the US is doing in the war on terror. He admitted that there was little in the way of a measurement for progress, but worried that the US had shown insufficient boldness.. He worried that many al-Qaeda operatives still eluded the US, and wondered whether the Pentagon can be reconfigured fast enough to catch them. He also admitted that Iraq and Afghanistan will be a "long hard slag," and that not as much progress had been made in apprehending top Taliban officials as had been in capturing the top 55 Baathists in Iraq.

On the other hand, the politics of the memo's release are suspicious. Did Rumsfeld worry that the Bush/Rice "It's Morning in Iraq" PR campaign made the administration look pollyannaish and naive? Did he feel a dose of realism would actually help the administration with the US public? Is he making the point that Condi's elevation to head of the Iraq coordination effort is irrelevant, since he is still in charge of Big Think at the powerful Pentagon?


http://www.ajc.com/news/content
/news/1003/23rumsfeld.html

Demonstration in Khalidiya

Hundreds of protesters rallied on Wednesday in the Western Sunni city of Khalidiya, demanding that three women arrested by the Americans be released. AFP alleges that US soldiers went to their homes searching for their husbands, who are suspected in guerrilla attacks against US forces. The men had disappeared, so the soldiers arrested their wives. If this report is true, it is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly forbids the use of collective punishment against civilians in occupied territories. (The wives are unlikely to have committed criminal acts themselves).

Firefight in Najaf

A group of armed men attacked the Najaf headquarters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq at midnight Tues.-Weds. Four of six assailants were apprehened, and a spokseman for SCIRI said that they admitted to being Saddam loyalists. It was alleged in September that Baathists attempted to assassinate Ayatollah Hussein Bashir al-Najafi, the Pakistani cleric in Najaf, and that assailants were arrested in his living room. I suspect Baathists in the Aug. 29 car bombing at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. But it is also possible that the fighting in Najaf is between Shiites, and SCIRI just does not want to admit to such internecine battles for PR reasons.

Demonstration in Fallujah

The arrest of a senior prayer leader in Fallujah sparked a protest Wednesday by 100 religious and tribal leaders. AFP says they shouted "Death to Americans, their spies and collaborators" as they made their way to the government offices. It was a small demonstration, but if it is true that they were religious and tribal leaders, then they represented thousands of persons.

Arrest Warrant for Muqtada al-Sadr?

The Guardian reports today that sources close to the Interim Governing Council say an arrest warrant is being prepared for fiery young Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. They say his organizing activities have come to be seen as a growing threat, and he will be charged in the murder of Majid al-Khoei on April 10, based on interviews with over 20 men apprehended in the wake of that incident.

Muqtada's organizing of a private militia and his plans for a shadow government are a threat to stability in Iraq. It seems to me, however, that it would be very difficult to prove that he ordered al-Khoei killed, given the chaos after April 9. There is a danger that this arrest is prompted by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is a rival to Muqtada's organization and which has a seat on the Interim Govering Council.

In my view, it probably would have been better incrementally to coopt Sadrist neighborhoods, using carrots rather than a stick. Arresting Muqtada makes him a martyr, and will ensure regular demonstrations against the US by his cadres. It may cut his network down to size; but it may also galvanize it to expand.



http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/
archives/2003/10/23/2003073024

Demonstration Tuesday in Karbala

AP reports that a demonstration was held by followers of Muqtada al-Sadr in Karbala on Tuesday to protest the closing of the al-Mukhayyam Mosque and the arrest of numerous followers of Muqtada there.

On Wednesday the Shiite party, al-Da`wa, issued a statement condemning the recent violence in Karbala and urging that differences be resolved peacefully. (al-Sharq al-Awsat).

Zogby Criticizes Cheney Use of Zogby Poll

The Zogby polling group did a sounding in Iraq last month, some results of which were trumpeted by US Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview, in which he alleged that most Iraqis supported a US style government. The true percentage who took that position? 23%. Zogby complains that there was lots of other bad news that the American Enterprise Institute glossed over or misinterpreted.

As you know, I don't even think the poll was representative. Only one of the four cities sampled, Basra, was even Shiite, and East Baghdad was not consulted.



http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
story.php?sid=20031022175308392

Dozens Demonstrate in Baghdad against Desecration of Koran

It started with a minor incident. A female employee going into the Ministry of Petroleum had to subject to a daily search of her purse. But the US troops guarding the building on Tuesday wanted more, they wanted her to let trained police dogs sniff her purse. For Americans, dogs are cute, friendly pets, who sometimes can be trained to protect their masters from dire threats like terrorism. But in the Middle East, people only rarely keep dogs as pets. Many Muslims consider them ritually impure, and this is especially true for Shiites. The female employee had a little Koran in her purse, and she did not want an impure dog's snout nuzzling her holy book. So she refused to submit to the search. There was a tussle, and her Koran fell on the floor, which is a form ofdesecration. News spread of the incident, provoking the demonstrations, which had to be dispersed by US troops firing in the air. The demonstrators are demanding that the troops be replaced with Iraqi police..

An Iraqi woman blogger, Riverbend, explains:


http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_
riverbendblog_archive.html#106675794843454837

Evangelicals in Congress seek to Shape Iraqi Constitution

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. have inserted provisions into the legislation that would authorize $87 bn. for Iraq, according to Knight Ridder. The legislation instructs the Coalition Provisional Authority to work to ensure that the new Iraqi constitution protects freedom of religion, especially freedom of evangelical Christians to proselytize in Iraq.

It is precisely because he is afraid the US will dictate the new constitution that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is insisting that the drafters be popularly elected. No elected constitutional convention is going to write a constitution of the sort Mssrs. Brownback and Wolf want.
This sort of maneuvering reminds me of the evangelical push in British India in the 1830s-1860s, when they became influential among officials of the East India Company and overturned decades of policy aimed at limiting Christian missionary work. In 1857 the country erupted in a massive revolt, led in part by mutinous British Indian troops of the Bengal Army, who were desperately afraid that the British intended to deprive them of their caste and ancestral religions. The British managed brutally to suppress the uprising, which they called a Mutiny. But in the aftermath Disraeli and other prominent British politicians roundly condemned the arrogance of the evangelical Christians in helping provoke these bloody events.


http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/
news/special_packages/iraq/7069340.htm

IGC moves Against Sadr Militia in Karbala

The Interim Governing Council sent Iraqi police into the al-Mukayam mosque in the holy city of Karbala Tuesday to arrest armed militiamen loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr. They were assisted by US troops, but it was good that the main steps were taken by Iraqis. Interior Minister Nuri al-Badran (an ex-Baathist officer) said that the move was authorized by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other senior clerics. Al-Badran said, ""All the gunmen surrendered with their weapons," he said. "Twenty-one people were arrested. Another 20 guarding outside the mosque were arrested. Those taken into custody briefly included Shaikh Khalid Kadhimi, a Sadr lieutenant in Karbala.

In a statement distributed in Najaf, Sistani complained that the recent fighting in Karbala had only occured because of "the disappearance of an effective central government." He said the incidents occurred because of "the existence in the hands of destructive elements large quantities of arms." It said that Sistani had sent his personal representative, Husain Shahristani, to Karbala to negotiate an agreement making the holy sites weapons-free zones. It maintained that Sistani had emphatically and repeatedly told Interim Governing Council members that immediate steps should be taken to confiscate illegal weapons. It regretted that no such campaign to disarm such elements had been launched. The statement emphasized that Sistani was not taking sides in intra-Shiite disputes, and that his fatherly love encompasses all (AFP /al-Zaman).

Also on Tuesday, a Polish convoy came under rocket propelled grenade fire near Karbala. There were no casualties.

Armed Sadrists take Back their HQ near Basra

Shaikh Murtada al-Hajjaj, the assistant head of the office of Muqtada al-Sadr in Basr