Informed Comment

President al-Yawir Decries “Collective Punishment”

13 Killed in Continued Battles

Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawir strongly protested US air strikes against Iraqi cities, comparing them to Israeli tactics in Gaza and branding them a form of “collective punishment.” Collective punishment was a Nazi tactic during World War II, and was forbidden as a tool to occupying powers in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Al-Yawir’s condemnation of the US use of the tactic is the strongest to date from a high-level Iraqi politician. The comments seem likely to create a diplomatic crisis, and bode ill for Bush administration plans to pursue a scorched earth campaign against Fallujah and other cities in al-Anbar province in November. Al-Yawir is from a Sunni tribal background.

Wire services report that

‘ Thirteen people have been killed since Tuesday night in drive-by shootings, ambushes and grenade attacks south of the capital and elsewhere. ‘

In one incident, guerrillas attempted but failed to assassinate a local leader of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

The US used a howitzer to kill three guerrillas who had been firing mortars in Baghdad.

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Is Justice Being Delayed by Bush Administration Politics?

Several high-profile FBI investigations, in which substantial progress have been made, may well have been put on hold by the Bush administration for political reasons. That is, it has been alleged to me that the White House may have leaned on the FBI– not to drop the investigations but to postpone some key arrests until after the November elections.

The first such case is the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity as a covert CIA agent to the press as way to undermine the credibility of her husband, Joe Wilson, who had gone public about his warnings to the administration that the story about the Iraqi purchase of uranium from Niger was bogus.

Warning: The text below will use the word “Neoconservative.” In my lexicon, a Neoconservative is a person from a social group that typically voted Democrat before 1968 but now votes Republican. Neoconservatives include all the white southern Christian denominations, such as the Southern Baptists, that emigrated from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party as a result of the Nixon strategy, as well as the Reagan Democrats (largely working-class Catholics) and Jewish Americans who trod the same path. Neoconservatives tend to be far-right Zionists in the Jabotinsky tradition, whether they are Jews or Christian Zionists, and they are associated with a desire to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the West Bank or at least to so circumscribe their existence there as to render them nonentities. The latest Neoconservative to enlist in the cause is Zell Miller, and he typifies the anger, recklessness and disregard for open, democratic values that characterize the movement.

Neoconservatives have gained allies for themselves from some rightwing Realists, such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, to the extent that it may well be that the latter two have been converted to the Neoconservative ideology, which is distinctive because of its historical origins on the right of the old Democratic Party and in some cases in the far left (Christopher Hitchens is another example). Some have attempted to argue that the very term “Neoconservative” is a code word for derogatory attitudes toward Jews. This argument is mere special pleading and a playing of the race card, however, insofar as only a tiny percentage of American Jews are Neoconservatives, and only a tiny percentage of Neoconservatives are Jews. The Neoconservative movement is an example of what social scientists call cross-cutting cleavages, which are multiple loyalties and identities typical of complex urban political societies.

We now know that the Niger story involved the forgery of documents by a man with ties to Italian military intelligence, and that moreover Italian military intelligence has ties to Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode and Lawrence Franklin, pro-Likud Neoconservatives, two of whom had high-level positions in the Pentagon and all three of whom were tightly networked with the American Enterprise Institute. Franklin (a Neoconservative Catholic) is being investigated for spying on the US for Israel. The nexus of Italian military intelligence, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and the Neoconservatives in the Pentagon suggests a network of conspiracy aimed at dragging the US into wars against Iraq and Iran. The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq after the war was in some significant part staffed by young people who had initially applied to work at the American Enterprise Institute as interns.

Joe Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA in response to a request by Dick Cheney that they investigate the story of the Iraq uranium purchases, and he came to the (correct) conclusion that the whole idea was implausible given the structure of the industry in Niger, which was heavily under the control of European companies. The Neoconservatives around Dick Cheney, including Scooter Libby and John Hannah, were highly commited to the Niger uranium story as a casus belli against Iraq, and were furious when Wilson revealed that he had shown it false in spring of 2002. They were convinced that the CIA was behind this strike at their credibility, and that Valerie Plame had been the one who managed to get Wilson sent. That is, in their paranoid world, Wilson’s honest reportage of the facts was a CIA plot against the Iraq War and perhaps against the Neoconservatives around Cheney and in the Pentagon.

It has been being leaked for many months now that the FBI believes the leak came from persons in Cheney’s circle, possibly John Hannah and/or Scooter Libby. The FBI could well be ready to move in the case. But I have been told that it has orders from the White House to back off until later this fall.

There has likewise been no arrest of Franklin, though one was expected by now. This is not, as the Neoconservatives and their supporters in the press are beginning to allege, because the case against Franklin is weak. Rumors are flying in Washington that the FBI found a whole cache of classified documents in his house. If this is true, it was illegal for him to keep them there. We know that the evidence against Franklin was so air tight that Franklin was turned by the FBI, and was attempting to gather incriminating evidence against other Neoconservatives on their behalf. At some point the FBI as a courtesy let Franklin’s boss, Douglas Feith, know of their investigation, and apparently soon after the story was leaked to the press.

Is it possible that Franklin hasn’t been charged yet not because the case is weak, but because the White House does not want to anger the powerful AIPAC lobbying organization just before an election, and does not want to risk alienating Neoconservative voters in swing states like Florida? Indeed, isn’t it likely that the Franklin investigation was leaked to the press by persons in the Pentagon who feared they were under investigation, and who knew very well that such a story leaked in late August before the election would get the investigation squelched or much delayed?

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On the Virtues of Changing the Mind

It is depressing for me to see George W. Bush on the stump doing a stand-up comedy routine about John Kerry, parroting the predictable line that Kerry has had more than one opinion about Iraq. Serious news reporters who have gone back over the record find that Bush’s charge is without merit, and that Kerry has been consistent on his Iraq position.

The thing that most worries me is not when a politician’s thinking evolves on a subject and he changes his mind. It is when a politician refuses even to consider changing his mind. Such inflexibility is almost always a sign of rigidity, which can be catastrophic in the most powerful man in the world.

So Bush vowed not to retreat in Iraq.

Bush has been refusing to retreat, or even to reconsider, for a long time now. At a news conference in the spring, Bush was asked if he had made any errors, and he replied that he could not think of any. Yesterday he said he did not regret his “mission accomplished” speech aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, in which he declared the Iraq war over. Bush keeps saying that there are 100,000 fully trained Iraqi security personnel, and seems to think that there are hundreds of UN election workers on the ground in Iraq.

This kind of single-mindedness and refusal to even think about altering course reminds me of Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War.

It is indisputable that the Iraq situation is Fouled Up Beyond Repair, or FUBAR. The number of daily attacks has gone above 80. The Green Zone where the government offices are is taking mortar fire. Little of the country is actually under control, and it goes further out of control at the drop of a hat. Amarah was in full rebellion against the British in late August, forcing them to fire 100,000 rounds of ammunition in a major battle of which most Americans remain completely unaware. The country is witnessing a guerrilla war that is vast in geographical reach, such that the guerrillas struck British troops and National Guardsmen in the far southern city of Basra on Tuesday. Americans have little appreciation of geography, and still less of foreign geography, but let’s put it this way. The guerrillas were battling in Fallujah and Basra on the same day. They are over 300 miles apart. This is like being able to strike in both Youngstown, Ohio and Baltimore, Md. on the same day. The guerrilla resistance is not small, or localized, or confined to only 3 provinces.

Many in the CIA have concluded that “There’s no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments.”

When you are deep in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. Whatever Bush has been doing in Iraq for the past 18 months demonstrably has not worked. He desperately needs a change of mind on these policies. He needs to try something else.

The image of him giggling about Kerry changing his mind on Iraq takes on a chilling aspect when you think of him as Captain Joseph Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez. Hazelwood told the helsman to steer right and then went to bed. The helsman didn’t steer far enough right, and plowed into the Bligh Reef and disaster. Part of the reason was that corporate cost cutting had left the ship without radar. If you think about it, in fact, a wrecked oil tanker is a good image of Bush administration Iraq policy.

Bush should stop slapping his thigh and guffawing about that flipflopper Kerry and being to think seriously about changing his mind on some key policies himself. Otherwise, an Iraq as failed state could pose a supreme danger to the United States, the kind of danger that the Bligh Reef posed to the Exxon Valdez.

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Demolition of Old City in Najaf?

I got two interesting messages about Najaf today. The first was from Dr. Kamil Mahdi, who has lectured in economics at Exeter University in the UK and is an Iraqi expatriate and former political exile:

From: Kamil Mahdi

Did you realise they are demolishing the old city of Najaf, just like that?! This is an act of unbelievable vandalism and ignorance, and it is in the style of Saddam.

We all know the arguments about increasing visitor numbers etc, but this is not the time nor the way. There has been no investigation of alternatives nor are there any mechanisms for consultation of the population at large, let alone any structures of democratic decision-making. There appears to be money from Kuwait for an extensive development, and one can legitimately ask why the Kuwaitis are being so generous with this project at this very time, when they continue to demand a pound of Iraqi flesh in UN compensation and in Saddam’s debts.

The destruction of Najaf which is now under way is drastic and irreversible. Read the statement by Hussain Al-Shami, the Shi’i waqf [Pious Endowments] head. Clearly, the whole thing was a mere idea two weeks ago, and already demolition has begun.

People should at least discuss the rights and wrongs of such decisions. There is no such discussion. Is this the so-called democracy all these people have died and are dying for? If this is carried out without an open and meaningful public consultation that takes place in a rational atmosphere and in total transparency, it will be nothing short of a criminal assault on Iraq’s heritage and on its history. All over the civilised world, historic cities are protected, preserved and developed in ways that retain the character and identity of the city and the integrity of its physical and social fabric.

We should ask the ministers of this Interim Government, many of whom have travelled or lived outside Iraq for decades. Have they not seen how the rest of the world tries to protect its heritage, and succeeds? Have they not seen services provided in old cities and extended to old houses, and have they not seen historic cities regenerated with modern amenities? Other countries cherish their historic cities for their great cultural roles and also for the high economic value of their tourism. Such cities are a repository of the nation’s memory and are symbols of the shared experiences of the people of the land. Even after wars, people try to rebuild them with painstaking attention to historic detail. With all the manifestations of civil conflict we witness in Iraq today, we Iraqis should be the first to realise the importance of national symbols that bring us together. The old city of Najaf is not the cause of the conflict that took place there. On the contrary, destroying it will encourage more extemism among the young who will lose cultural reference points.

Major “redevelopment” must not be allowed to go ahead Saddam-style. The action appears to be motivated by security concerns and by highly questionable financial considerations. Economically, it is not in the interest of the people of Najaf to destroy the old city. All of the old city can be attractive to visitors, not just the holy shrine, and there is plenty of space for commercial and industrial development elsewhere in Najaf. Rushed “development” of the kind being undertaken is frequently accompanied by greed and financial corruption. It will benefit big contractors and absentee landowners, and the losers are usually the people who live in the city and those who value it, that is all of us Iraqis.

Where are those ministers who have allegedly been selected for their professionalism? It is not acceptable to allow this to go ahead under the pretext that there is a need to expand the shrine. The timing suggests that this is a dishonest pretext. In any case, most visitors will want to be close to the tomb itself, so the crowd will always be at the centre. Expanding the outer perimeter would not necessarily solve any problem. Besides, the expansion means that the space will only be used in a few major religious occasions each year, instead of being used all the year round if the old city is developed. What is needed are measures that might include regualtion of visits, and that are based upon careful study, long-term planning and gradual implementation. There has to be a clear rationale for any action, and development must be to the highest professional standards with plans that must be publicised beforehand and that must be open to the scrutiny of other professionals, with the involvement of UNESCO, ISESCO, ALESCO and all those who are concerned with world heritage and with Islamic culture.

We Iraqis are engaged in a terrible internecine conflict. Outsiders have divided us and are increasingly waging their campaigns through Iraqis. In these circumstances, we can at least unite to defend our heritage? We cannot pretend that the destruction of Najaf is being done by the local Najaf administration alone, without outside interference.

Sayyid Sistani and the other ulema must speak up against this vandalism. We all condemned Saddam for destroying the centre of Karbala. How can we keep quite about the same being one to Najaf? The people who are destroying the old city of Najaf are destroying the livelihoods of thousands of families in the area, and future generations will never forgive this barbarism.

. . . there is no time to lose. It is the responsibility of those of us outside Iraq to expose what is happening and to demand an immediate halt to the demolition. What is needed is help to the people of Najaf who have suffered so much, not wholesale destruction.

Dr Kamil Mahdi

Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

University of Exeter

Exeter EX4 4ND

Fax: (44 1392) 264035

Secretary of IAIS tel.: -44-(0)1392-264036

Visit the IAIS website at

http://www.ex.ac.uk/iais

Then a European correspondent who is in contact with Najafis sent me the following:

H. called from Najaf today.

Europeans don´t get the al Arabiya info on whats going on. There´s not much of a thorough description of the overall destruction, the kharaba [destruction] loss, the job loss, the water situation and the US “social welfare benevolence” system in Iraq delivering bread, flour, oil, kerosene…. whatever.

Al Arabiya have problems themselves describing the mess. They´re not allowed into

the Najaf city core, the mosque area.

There are three shields. Three thousand Hawza [Seminary] guards serve and attend to downtown, the City of Nejef. The Hawza guys are local people respected and fairly cooperative to anyone.

But Al Arabiya crew (nor any crew) are allowed to pass the middle shield of Iraqi National Guardsmen, who are not locals, maybe Kurds, maybe Baghdadis. Whatever, they don´t respect locals, being rude and violent.

As outer shield the Americans, controlling their middle men. There won´t be

much of info ecology around that place, would there?

Once the Sadrists left, the Americans tried to enter the city. Just as had happened roughly a year ago, during the invasion, they got driven out by civilian crowds, stoning them, hurling whatever they could find onto the “infidels”. They quickly left the city to the Hawza boys

Did you ever imagine . . . the big entrance door to the mosque is blocked. Bricks are laid covering all of it. The Ali mosque has been looted. Valuable

gems, golden things disappeared.

After the sadrists left, some weeks after, I don´t know, robbers broke inside and ripped the place. Hawza had the door all bricked over. People are devastated by the

heresy – the theft.

The Najaf mosqe quarter is like a big cross with the mosque in the centre. The 4 beams in this cross form a covered bazaars system. Two parallell beams are totally destroyed by American air pounding, possibly blowing up Sadrist munition caches too, making things worse.

Bulldozers work their way through the antique bricks, the black ash layers, mud and dirt, having months and months ahead of work just for disposal. How long then the rebuilding?

Finally, I would like to underline, there is not a shred . . . to confirm this info.

Just H´s words to his exiled Najafi friend for now living in my house.

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Pelosi Derails CIA Plan to Buy Iraq Elections

Time Magazine reports that the Bush administration had had a plan to use the Central Intelligence Agency to funnel money to candidates it favored in the forthcoming Iraqi elections. The rationale given was that Iran was bankrolling its own candidates.

This plan was apparently derailed in part by the intervention of Democratic Minority Leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, who remonstrated with National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice about it.

I’d like to make three comments on this story. The first is to point out that this sort of behavior by the Bush administration fatally undermines the ideal of democracy in the Middle East. If Muslims think that “democracy” is a stalking horse for CIA control of their country, then they will flee the system and prefer independent-minded strongmen that denounce the US. The constitutional monarchies established in the Middle East by the British were similarly undermined in the popular imagination by the impression they gave of being mere British puppets. This was true of the Wafd Party in Egypt in the 1940s and early 1950s, which the Free Officers overthrew in 1952 in the name of national indepencence. It was also true in Iraq, where in 1958 popular mobs dragged the corpse of the pro-British Prime Minister Nuri al-Said through the streets and finished off the British-installed monarchy.

Second, I found the Time magazine diction about Pelosi sexist. The article described her as having “come unglued” on hearing of the plan. “Coming unglued” is the wrong image here. She didn’t go hysterical and fall apart. If you were going to be glib, you could have described her as “livid” or “going ballistic.” But such journalistic buzzwords for alarm and anger are reserved for men (no doubt the phallic connotations of intercontinental ballistic missiles help gender the image). Pelosi did not become “unglued.” Rather, she intervened forcefully and effectively. She appears to have mobilized a bipartisan “powerful women” network with Rice, whom she strong-armed (another simile not usually used of women). Of course, she also was in a position to mobilize the Democrats in Congress across gender boundaries.

The ultimate Congressional check on presidential abuse is not mentioned in the Constitution. It is the Leak to the Press, with Time cooperating. Although the story suggests that the battle was fought and won by Pelosi months ago, in fact the leak at this point in time is designed to forestall the Bush administration from reverting to plan A if it wins the November election.

The other corner of the story is Iran. The scheme to influence the elections is justified with reference to Iranian funding of candidates.

But is this charge plausible? The pre-picked slates of candidates for the January elections will run on a handful of party tickets– including the 2 Kurdish ones, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord, the Shiite al-Da`wa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. I don’t know for whom the Sunni Arabs are supposed to vote if these are the choices.

So to whom might Iran give money? It has a tight alliance with Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. But then so does the US, and has had for two decades.

Iran might give money to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was based in Tehran for over 20 years. But SCIRI has complained bitterly in recent months that Iran’s Arabic-language satellite television channel declined to criticize Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army for their thuggish behavior in Najaf. Iran and SCIRI no longer seem on very good terms. In 2003, the Iranian hardliners had warned the al-Hakim family that leads SCIRI not to ally with the Americans in overthrowing Saddam. It was Rumsfeld who negotiated with SCIRI and brought them to Iraq and gave them a seat on the Interim Governing Council, and then gave them the Finance Ministry in the current caretaker government. This is a party that the CIA needs to counteract? The Bush Administration practically installed it in Iraq!

The Iranians might give money to al-Da`wa, another Shiite party. But al-Da`wa cooperated with the US invasion and rule of Iraq, and members or ex-members were given several seats on the Interim Governing Council. Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim Jaafari is a leader of al-Da`wa. He was appointed by the UN in consultation with the United States. So, now, the US has to give money to other people to keep Jaafari out of office? What sense does that make? Nor is the London branch of al-Da`wa, from which Jaafari comes, very close to the hardliners in Iran. It is more lay than clerical, and rejects the Khomeinist theory of clerical rule.

As for the Iraqi National Congress, Rumsfeld practically turned Iraq over to it in summer of 2003, and would have completely done so if Colin Powell and Tony Blair hadn’t stopped him. So now CIA black money has to be used to block it because of its ties to Tehran–ties that Rumsfeld knew all about all along?

I confess to not being able to understand the US-inspired scheme for the elections, with a limited number of party slates, or how independent candidates could run in such a system. It appears to me that the Sadrists are effectively excluded under this system (which may suit them– see below). If this exclusion is already built into the system, then Iran could hardly change anything by giving the Sadrists money. The evidence is that anyway to top leaders of Iran are nervous about Muqtada al-Sadr being a loose cannon, and it is not at all sure that they would fund him even if he were running, which he is not. He complains bitterly about Iranian influence on Iraqi Shiism, for his part.

So, the “cover story” of forestalling “Iranian influence” doesn’t hold water. Bush just wanted to buy himself an election, in the Bush tradition. (Bush’s grandfather Prescott, a US senator, probably made much of the pile on which he ran by investing in Nazi companies).

Pelosi did not come unglued. It was this tawdry plot against democracy, which undermines the very ideal of it in the region, that came unglued.

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Sadrists to Boycott Elections: Daraji

Shaikh Abdul Hadi al-Daraji, a lieutenant of the young Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, said Monday that Muqtada would not contest elections while Iraq was suffering American occupation. He said he expected the Sadr Movement to boycott the elections.

Darraji said, according to AFP,

“We believe that the elections under occupation will not be a fair and free one, we believe this election will be a forged one . . . When we, the religious authorities, reject the elections then those who follow us should not take part in it and they will not . . . What we want and our number one priority is a free Iraq so when Iraq is free and occupation is out then Sadr’s movement will take part in the political life in Iraq.”

The reports of the CIA buying the election give enormous credibility to statements by rejectionists like al-Daraji. I just heard the report on al-Arabiyah, but haven’t heard commentary yet.

Al-Hayat carries an exclusive story via Ali al-Rubai`i, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ishaq Fayyad. Fayyad is an Afghan Hazara. He expressed anxiety and concern about talk of postponing the elections scheduled for January. He said that the concern is shared by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and that they plan to issue a joint statement on the issue. Fayyad insisted that elections are feasible, and that Iraqi government forces and “the Occupation forces” (i.e. the Americans) are sufficient to ensure an atmosphere of security in which the elections can go forward.

I was struck in this report by the talk of a joint Fayyad-Sistani communique. It makes me wonder if the two other Grand Ayatollahs, Muhammad Said al-Hakim and Bashir Najafi, have doubts about the feasibility and/or desirability of early elections. It is also rare that Fayyad speaks to the press– one almost never sees any statement by him, in contrast to Bashir Najafi. I wonder if Fayyad’s Afghan context, which is admittedly pretty weak by now, since he came to Iraq when he was 10, affects his view of the desirability of elections. The Afghanistan presidential elections are now in train, and the Shiite Hizb-i Vahdat Party is preparing for parliamentary elections this coming spring in Afghanistan.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports from Kuwaiti sources that the destruction visted on Najaf by the US assault on the Sadrists in August is far more extensive than usually realized. Ali al-Mu’min, who is with a humanitarian organization, said that ordinary activities were still at a standstill in Najaf, which seemed substantially depopulated, and that vast swathes of its buildings and homes had been destroyed.

The report is supported by the following email I received from Europe:

. . The Najafi guy living at my house got a phone call from Najaf on Saturday.

Hotel Nejef and Hotel “Imam Ali” (newly built in 2002) were flattened by American

cruise missiles during these last Sadrist months. Sadrist snipers were said to be the reason . . . Rajul Street, B’s childhood “hood” is rubble. Old, culturally, historically valuable buildings and surroundings like bazaar environment areas, several hundred years old, are rubble and dust.

The Valley of Peace, this huge churchyard is littered with cluster bomb cans – unexploded. Someone should dig in to that fact.

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Violence Kills 23

US Soldiers Wounded at Karama

Al-Arabiyah is reporting that guerrillas detonated a car bomb near a national guard facility in Mosul, killing or wounding several persons on Monday morning. Also, US war planes attacked Sadr City on Monday, killing 5 and wounding 48. Al-Arabiyah showed wounded children in the hospital. A rocket slammed into Karrada in Baghdad, killing one person and wounding several others.

On Sunday, wire Services report that guerrillas detonated two car bombs at Karama, east of Fallujah, outside an Iraqi national guard base. The bombs wounded “several” US and Iraqi soldiers.

In the Tamim district of Ramadi, fighting between US Marines and Sunni Arab nationalists left 4 Iraqis dead and 10 wounded.

In Baghdad, a rocket landed in a busy shopping street in the city centre, killing one person and wounding several others.

US military forces engaged guerrillas near Baquba in the east, and in the course of the fighting a farmer was killed in the crossfire.

US warplanes bombed Fallujah again on Sunday, more than once, attempting to strike at a meeting of Monotheism and Holy War downtown. The US struck three times in 24 hours. Hospital officials said they received 8 dead and 22 wounded, including women and children. Residents asserted that many victims remained buried under the rubble.

Guerrillas at Latifiyah just south of Baghdad launched an attack on a group of gasoline tankers, in which they killed 10 persons and wounded 26 on Saturday. They sprayed machine gun fire at the tanker trucks, setting all five ablaze, after which they engaged in a running gun battle with members of the National Guard who were accompanying the convoy.

In Baqubah, the US military arrested a high officer in the Iraqi National Guard whom they suspect was actually working for the Sunni Arab nationalist forces. Talib al-Lahibi was a former officer in the Baath army. Most close observers believe that the Iraqi national guards, police and bureaucracy are riddled with double agents working for the cause of expelling the US rather than for the caretaker goverment.

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