Posted on 04/30/2004 by Juan
Photographs of Abused Iraqi Prisoners
Screen captures from the CBS 60 Minutes broadcast of photographs of abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghuraib prison are available at memory hole. Others are floating around the internet that are even more explicit. There was also apparently coerced male on male sexual activity. The genteel mainstream news reports of this scandal (which have given it less attention than it deserves or than it will get in the Arab press) have not commented on the explicitly sexual message sent by the abusers, which is that Iraq is f**ked.
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Posted on 04/30/2004 by Juan
Guest Commentary: Ray Close on ‘The Real Meaning of Fallujah’
Guest Commentary
Ray Close
‘ The proposed plan to turn over control of the Fallujah security situation to an Iraqi force under the command of four retired generals is much more significant than might at first be apparent.
On the strategic level, with regard to overall American policy in Iraq, it represents a defeat for those who have contended all along that the insurgency is being carried on by a small group of thugs who do not enjoy widespread support within the Iraqi population at large. Today Donald Rumsfeld is explaining that he is merely acceding to the recommendations of local American military commanders that this compromise arrangement be substituted for the original plan for an all-out assault —- weakly shifting from himself to them the responsibility for this sudden abandonment of both tough tactics and tough rhetoric. This represents a humiliating defeat for those who have argued that the United States had no choice but to “pacify” Fallujah, arrest the insurgents, confiscate their weapons, and reestablish the authority of the American military occupation forces. The new plan would accomplish none of those explicit and uncompromising assertions made repeatedly over the past few weeks by the president himself, by US military commanders in the field, and (please note) by politicians in the United States of BOTH PARTIES.
Strangely, George W. Bush does not seem willing yet to acknowledge this obvious defeat for his policies. One cannot attribute this merely to bad advice from his mentors, unless one is to believe that the neocons have a complete monopoly on all in-put to his mental processes. That is not a credible explanation. It seems more likely that his stubborn adherence to simplistic explanations of all anti-American sentiments and actions is another sign of his worrisome inability to comprehend the subtleties of this and other similar international challenges falling within the broad title of “the war on terror”. Perhaps his intellectual mind-set (“there is no common ground between freedom and terrorism”) simply makes it impossible for him to see the world as anything other than a zero-sum conflict between good and evil. That is very troubling quality, especially in the leader of a superpower.
Another conclusion one may draw from events of the past few days is that the general US strategy for dealing with Iraq, which has been based on predictions and recommendations of the neocon cabal in Washington (especially Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle) is becoming exposed at last as the disaster that informed analysts always knew it would become. As the neocons become more and more discredited, the political currency of their chief Iraqi protege, Ahmed Chalabi, sinks rapidly in value. Hence the efforts of the neocon faction to discredit the United Nations and its principal representative for Iraqi affairs, Lakhdar Brahimi, whose ascendancy they recognize as an obvious measure of their own failure.
This morning, I heard the Iraqi foreign minister vehemently protesting the characterization of the four Iraqi generals in Fallujah by the American media as “former Saddam Hussein generals.” They are, he insisted very adamantly, IRAQI generals, not “SADDAM” generals. His message seemed very clear. He was saying to all Americans: “We can handle this ourselves, damn it! We may not have your numbers or your firepower, and we may not yet be adequately trained. But if YOU try to pacify Fallujah and the rest of Iraq by brute force, you will make this country impossible for ANYONE to govern, and that means that when you eventually leave Iraq, (God willing!), you will leave us in an even worse mess than we were in before you arrived. So let us do it by ourselves, please, for better or for worse. ”
I take all of this as additional strong evidence supporting the points that I made last week, before the new compromise solution in Fallujah was proposed:
1. The political personalities around whom Lakhdar Brahimi and the United Nations will build a transitional governing authority in Iraq after 30 June (whoever they may be; it doesn’t matter) have already privately abandoned any expectation that the United States military will be an appropriate or an effective force on which to rely for the establishment of unity and stability in the country; where there is no such expectation, there can no longer be any real trust, and where there is a lack of trust, there will inevitably be conflict, first political, soon violent;
2. The leadership group on which Lakhdar Brahimi bestows “legitimacy” on 30 June will have the intention (perhaps not publicly expressed at first) of vesting complete responsibility for military and security decision-making to a strictly IRAQI command authority just as quickly as possible; in the short term, this may seem virtually impossible because of insufficient resources, but it has become the clear objective of even the most moderate and reasonable Iraqis of the leadership class; the political imperative of independence may very well trump the obviously high short-term risks of chaos; the Iraqi people place a very high value on stability, and rightly so, but the force of national self-determination can become irresistible in an atmosphere of foreign occupation, and reason is sometimes the loser in that contest. Ask the Hungarians in 1956. Ask the Palestinians today
3. This means that the US Army will probably be obliged to leave Iraq before Bush, Rumsfeld & Company are prepared to manage the retreat as if it were a triumphant event for freedom; the Americans will therefore be seen by the rest of the world, and particularly the Muslim world, in much the same light as were the Israelis when they departed from Southern Lebanon —as a frustrated and defeated occupation force expelled by victorious nationalists; this will make many Americans who supported the “liberation” of Iraq extremely angry and resentful; the British and other members of the glorious “coalition of the willing” will effectively have to make the best of a bad situation — if they haven’t wisely removed themselves from the scene in the meanwhile;
4. All of which makes the probabilities of chaos and civil war in Iraq next year even higher than we pessimists have been predicting. (UNLESS the “expulsion” of the American “occupiers” serves to unify Iraqis and restore their sense of national unity and common purpose; my fear is that this would be only a temporary triumph at best; historic divisions and rivalries would very soon resurface, and chaos would pick up where it left off.) “
Ray Close is the former CIA Station Chief for Saudi Arabia.
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Posted on 04/30/2004 by Juan
10 US Troops Killed on Thursday
Between a huge roadside bomb in Baghdad, a rocket propelled grenade attack in Sadr City, and an attack in the eastern city of Baqubah, guerrillas killed 10 US troops on Thursday. There were further airstrikes on the Julan district of Fallujah, but the day ended with a decision not to invade the city. A South African citizen and at least 10 Iraqis were also killed around the country.
Four mortars were fired early Thursday morning near the Japanese base in Samawah, a small Shiite city of southern Iraq. Two mortar shells landed just outside the base. No one was hurt.
The US bombed the Julan quarter of Fallujah heavily on Thursday. The Guardian reports civilian casualties and argues that most of the fighters are not ex-Baathists or radicals, but young Fallujan men defending their city.
The New York Times did a fluff piece on the Fallujah bombings, quoting US military figures about how precise the AC-130 warplanes are. I am highly skeptical of these claims. Even blowing out the windows of a building, which bombing with howitzers would do, creates a hazard of flying glass that can severely injure civilians in the area, including children. The US would not use 500 pound bombs and AC-130s to get at a gang in Los Angeles or New York that had attacked police officers. It shouldn’t be using such tactics in a country where it is the Occupying Power, either.
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Posted on 04/30/2004 by Juan
Stand-Down in Fallujah
The US abruptly decided Thursday not to press the Marine assault on Fallujah. Instead, it is forming a 1000-man Iraqi unit to restore order in the city, led by a former Baath officer. There is controversy about who the commanding officer will be. Al-Hayat named Major General Jasim Muhammad Salih al-Muhammadi. Western wire services said it would be Salah Aboud, former army deputy chief of staff who at one point in the early 1990s had been an aide to the notorious “Chemical Ali,” Ali Hasan Majid.
There are everywhere signs that the United States has embarked on a policy of re-baathification, rehabilitating thousands of ex-Baathists and putting them to work. Fifty former Baath officers met with Minister of Defense Ali Allawi on Thursday, expressing their deep disappointment with the current make-up of the new Iraqi army. The policy has two goals. First, it is aimed at mollifying the Sunni Arabs, who have given the US so much trouble in the past year, and from whom the high-ranking Baathists were largely drawn. Second, it serves as a threat to insurgents and Shiites, that if they continue to make trouble, they will be facing the aides of Chemical Ali.
Whoever made the decision to pull back and try to put an Iraqi face on the confrontation in Fallujah had more good sense than has been demonstrated by American leaders recently in Iraq. A bloody invasion of Fallujah had the potential of greatly deepening Iraqi and Arab hatred for the United States. It remains to see whether the new Iraqi force is up to the task of restoring order and quelling the fighters. The police in Fallujah have so far been ineffective, often admitting that they refuse to fight Iraqis on behalf of the Americans.
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Posted on 04/30/2004 by Juan
Haeri Criticizes Muqtada
Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri, now in Qom, Iran, criticized Muqtada al-Sadr, according to AFP/ash-Sharq al-Awsat. Technically, Muqtada is under the authority of al-Haeri, though if Muqtada has managed to finish his studies and is a jurisprudent (mujtahid) he would not have to follow any other cleric blindly. Al-Haeri said that Muqtada had not had the right to declare holy war on the Americans in al-Haeri’s name. This according to his brother, Muhammad Husain al-Haeri.
Al-Haeri, of Iranian extraction, had fled back to Iran from Iraq in 1976. He had been a leader of the al-Da`wa Party when in Iraq.
Al-Haeri says that the US must leave Iraq as soon as possible.
I would not get too excited about al-Haeri’s comments. He is far from the scene, and Muqtada is well beloved because his father was a leader for so many Shiites. Muqtada has far more influence in Iraq now than does al-Haeri.
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Posted on 04/29/2004 by Juan
USA Today Poll: 57% of Iraqis say ‘US Out Now’
From March 22 to April 2, 60 trained Iraqi pollsters interviewed 3,444 randomly selected Iraqis for USA Today. This is one of the first polls in Iraq that seems to me well weighted statistically, though to be sure we’d have to know more than USA Today told us.
The numbers are negative for the US, and are much more negative than previous such polls. Moreover, the polling ended by April 2, just before the Shiite uprising and the worst of the Fallujah fighting, so that it is highly likely that the present attitudes of the Iraqi public toward the US are much more negative.
Amazingly, 57% of Iraqis say that US troops should leave Iraq immediately. If one subtracted the Kurds, a much higher percentage of Arabic speaking Iraqis say this. And, they say it with their eyes open. About 57% also admit that life would get harder (i.e. there would be a lot of instability) if the US suddenly withdrew. They want the US gone anyway, and will take their chances.
Over half say there are circumstances under which it is all right to attack US troops! A February poll I discussed here had said that only 10% of Iraqi Shiites held that attacks on US troops were ever justified, and 30% of Sunni Arabs felt that way. The number in al-Anbar province (think Fallujah) was 70%, but it was high for Iraq at that time. Again, if the earlier polling was correct, there was a massive shift in opinion on this matter. We went from having about 3 million Iraqis think it was all right to attack US troops to more than 13 million.
[My earlier comment on the Feb. poll: “That is, the poll actually shows that in absolute numbers, there are more Shiites who approve of attacks on Americans than there are Sunni Arabs. The numbers bring into question the official line that there are no problems in the South, only in the Sunni Arab heartland. The other problem is that attitudes change, and sometimes they change rapidly. The US cannot count on the percentage of Shiites who approve of attacks on its troops remaining at 10% if it is strafing Sadr City in Baghdad. Every 1% increase in the number of Shiites who approve of attacks equals 160,000 new enemies.“).
For the question, “Has the Coalition invasion of Iraq done more harm than good?”, in the USA Today poll 46% say “more harm,” whereas only 33% say “more good.” But the ethnic breakdown here is startling. Only 2% of Kurds say the invasion did more harm. 56% of Sunni Arabs say it did more harm, and so do 59% of Baghdadis (Baghdad is about 2/5s Shiite but the Shiites there are probably Sadrists in the majority, who agree with most Sunnis about the undesirability of the US presence). Among Shiites, 47% say it did more harm, 28% say it did more good.
More harm: Total 45%, Baghdad 59%, Shiite 47%, Sunni Arab 56%, Kurds 2%
More good: Total 33%
About the Same: Total 16%
To the question of whether coalition military forces are mainly liberators or mainly occupiers, 71% said occupiers. The percentage among Arabs, both Sunni and Shiite, who said this, was about 80%. The Kurds mostly disagreed, which brought the numbers down. (The US never put that many troops in the Kurdish north, depending on the peshmerga fighters, so the Kurds are in fact much less occupied than the Arabs).
An opinion poll done by an Iraqi institute a couple of months ago found that about 47% of Iraqis said that the US invasion was a source of humiliation, and 48% said it was a liberation. If that poll was valid, it means that there was a massive shift in opinion by late March and a big growth in anti-Americanism. Based on my close reading of the Iraqi press and reports of sermons, I believe that the Israeli murder of Hamas clerical leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on March 22 was the turning point in the big spike in anti-American feeling. There were lots of demonstrations that the Western press did not cover, and a lot of oratory.
Regarding George Bush, 55% of Iraqis have an unfavorable view of him, and if we exclude the 4 million Kurds and just look at the Arabs, his unfavorable rating is above 60% for both Sunnis and Shiites. Since Iraq is now for all practical purposes the 51st state, I say we let the Iraqis vote in the US elections in November.
Oddly, 61% of Iraqis still say that the US invasion and overthrow of Saddam was worth it (though only 28% of Sunni Arabs say it was worth it). That is, the poll does not show that Iraqis have begun regretting the US overthrow of Sadam. It shows that they have begun regretting the continued US Occupation.
And, the bad news is that despite the ballyhooed transfer of sovereignty on June 30, the actual US occupation is likely to last for a decade unless Iraqis throw the US out. And given their present mood, one should not dismiss the possibility that that is what they will do.
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Posted on 04/29/2004 by Juan
Fallujah and Najaf
al-Hayat reports that the Interim Governing Council continues to attempt to negotiate a settlement at Fallujah between guerrillas and the US Marines. The Marines called down 500-pound bombs and AC-130 howitzers on the Julan neighborhood again on Wednesday, in reply to heavy fire from insurgents based there. Eyewitnesses said 10 buildings were destroyed and others damaged. There is no word on casualties, including civilian casualties. The IGC said that any general US attack on any Iraqi city had the potential to cause thousands of noncombatant deaths. The Sunni Islamist Muhsin Abdul Hamid has taken the lead in conducting negotiations, and he maintained that much of the city had returned to normal (apparently meaning the other neighborhoods beside Julan, which was receiving 500 pound bombs).
With regard to the situation in Najaf, US troops tightened their control of the approaches to it and began searching all vehicles moving between Najaf and Kufa.
An aide to Muqtada al-Sadr warned the Americans that there would be a violent reply if their forces entered Najaf. He also accused the Kurdish peshmerga fighters of helping the American forces. Husam al-Musawi said, “Our response will be violent and unpredictable.” He described the erection of a barrier between Kufa and Najaf by the Americans as a laughable step aimed at isolating Kufa from Najaf. He said that any US patrol inside Njaf would be attacked as a form of self-defense. He said there was decisive proof of the participation of Kurdish fighters with the Americans in the siege of Najaf. (-ash-Sharq al-Awsat).
Some teachers in the Najaf seminaries called upon radical young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to leave the shrine of Imam Ali, just as the Imam Husayn had departed from Mecca (when he led his uprising against the Umayyad empire in 680-81). This according to the Iranian newspaper, Baztab. The seminarians said that it was obvious that Muqtada’s bloody confrontation with the US was doomed to fail, and that he should do the right thing and take his fight out of Najaf so as to protect it, just as Imam Husayn had protected Mecca.
In Qom and Mashhad in Iran, each of which has major seminaries, there were strikes and protests on Wednesday against the US siege of Najaf. A major cleric, says al-Hayat, warned the US against moving against southern Shiite cities in Iraq, especially Najaf and Karbala.
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