Arrest Warrant for Harith al-Dhari of AMS;
Higher Education Abductees Tortured;
Militias Capture 14 Western Security Guards
Militiamen in southern, largely Shiite Iraq took 14 private security guards captive, employees of the Crescent Security Group. Four of these civilians were thought to be Americans.
Four US troops were announced killed on Thursday, three of them in Diyala Province. Reuters also reports other political violence, including bombings in the capital and the spraying of bakery workers and customers with machine gun fire.
The Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for Shaikh Harith al-Dhari, the leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars and a major Sunni Arab clerical figure. Al-Dhari in opinion polling is among the most popular Sunni figures in the country. The AMS, which he heads, has been accused of having strong links to the guerrilla groups, including the 1920 Revolution Brigades. This arrest warrant, coming after the attack by Interior Ministry Special Police Commandos on the Sunni-led Ministry of Higher Education and recent kidnappings by the Sunni Arab guerrilla groups of Shiites-- all this activity points to a war among Iraq's major parties, many of whom have parts of the government under their control.
I was sent a copy of an Arabic fatwa by the Association of Muslim Scholars that said that since so many Sunni families had been forced out of Shiite neighborhoods into "our" neighborhoods, and since there was no way to house them, these Sunni Arab refugees should be put up in the homes of Shiite families who had fled Sunni neighborhoods. I guess the implication might have been to encourage an ethnic cleansing of Shiites in largely Sunni neighborhoods, so as to free up housing for internall displaced Sunnis.
Minister of Higher Education Abd Dhiyab al-Ujayli said Thursday that he had heard reports that torture and the breaking of limbs had been inflicted on the some 70 hostages still being held from Tuesday's kidnapping of 140 persons from the ministry building in Karrada, Baghdad. The government of PM Nuri al-Maliki maintains that 40 were kidnapped and only 5 remained hostages.
The comparison that leapt into my mind at this prospect of a cabinet minister so at odds with his own prime minister was to Kabul in 1995. Then, the prime minister, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, fought a destructive battle for control of the Afghan capital against the forces of the president, Burhanuddin Rabbani. Much of the city was destroyed and an estimated 60,000 were killed. The Sunni-Shiite battle within the government (and without)is wreaking destruction on a similar scale, though the buildings in Baghdad have not been hit so hard because the opposing militias cannot fight set piece battles as long as the US military is there.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a Sunni Arab leader of the Iraqi Accord Front, Adnan Dulaimi, asked the Sunni world for help in stopping Iranian interference in Iraq, "lest Baghdad become a capital for the Safavids." He spoke at a commemoration in Amman of the centenary of the birth of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Dulaimi's party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the IAF coalition, is a direct descendant of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which established a branch in Mosul in the 1930s. The Safavids were the Iranian Shiite dynasty that pushed Iranians to convert to Shiisma from 1501 forward. The Safavids actually did rule Baghdad 1508-1534 and again in the late 1500s and early 1600s under Shah Abbas. They were succeeded by the Sunni Ottoman Empire, which favored the Sunni Arab population and so made it an elite, something George W. Bush tried to undo. The Sunnis are not going quietly. When the Ottomans took back over from Shah Abbas in the 1600s, they mounted investigations and persecutions of the Iraqi Arab Shiites, whom they coded as "acem" or Qizilbash, i.e. as Safavid Iranians. That is, Dulaimi's rhetoric in Amman has a pedigree going back at least to the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s and 1600s. But it is important to note that in the 20th century, Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq was rare, and Iraqi national identity grew in strength.
CIA Director Michael Hayden gave testimony that strikes me as refreshingly frank on Thursday. In fact, it is ironic that the supposedly public and straightforward politicians and cabinet members, such as Cheney and Rice, mostly retail fairy tales to the US public. But the chief of the country's clandestine intelligence agency? He's telling it like it is. He revealed that daily attacks in Iraq are up from 70 in January to 100 last spring after the Samarra bombing, and then to 180 a day last month. He also said that there were only 1300 foreign al-Qaeda volunteers fighting in Iraq, whereas the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement was "in the low tens of thousands" strong. If there are 40,000 guerrillas, then "al-Qaeda" is only 3.25 percent of the "insurgency." That is why Dick Cheney's and other's Chicken Little talk about al-Qaeda taking over Sunni Arab Iraq is overblown, at least at the moment. Most Iraqi fundamentalists are Salafis, which is a different sort of movement than al-Qaeda. And the Baathists and ex-military and tribal cells cannot be disregarded by any means.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/17/2006 12:42:00 AM
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15 Comments:
Like Custer, Cheney/Bush will say the course till the end; so, there will be no fundamental policy change until there's regime change in the metropole.
In Iraq, there will be ongoing rebellion since the longstanding top dog group is being reduced to the runt of the litter. Given the tools, as you've suggested, the Shia will prevail--the only questions are how long and at what cost?
So, from the USA POV, it's a no-win stalemate that can only become a win in the sense that losses and costs are minimized through quick withdrawl, which has essentially been the situation since day 1.
Iraq's extreme destabilization is completely the fault of the US Executive, and the Iraqi people will continue to lose for perhaps as long as a generation. Think Cambodia; and somehow Kissinger is still a free man.
The facts Cheney/Bush et al attempted a al Likud to establish on the ground cannot be maintained; and the "prize" of Iraqi oil will go to the east as it is unlikely any Iraq Oil Ministry chief would live very long if contracts were let to either the US or UK. Iraq itself may become three states, or it might continue as one. IMO, the centrifugal forces will end when the occupiers leave, although violence will continue through the consolidation phase.
If we want to save lives on all sides, there must be a change in Imperial policy; and that will only occur through impeachment, conviction and removal of the primary executive officers. Although I must admit, I don't see Pelosi being able to do the job.
Arresting Mr. Al-Dhari isn't going to help much. Think the Sunni groups will end their boycott after this? The government that lets Muqtada Al-Sadr roam freely but arrests Sunni dissidents? You can just see the train wreck up ahead.
The Iraqi government is falling apart, but this is A Good Thing. There is no good coming out of it whatsoever(except for the theiving politicians,) just great harm.
My biggest concern is for them to end their squabbles. As an Iraqi, I am also concerned about what happens after the violence ends. These animals will not allow the decent Iraqis to build a future for the country. So, self destruct please and save us having to take you down.
Who leads the country after this charade is over is not critical, as long as he or she is not a traitor. Maliki, freed from the militias would do, but I favor a UN commissioner from a neutral and distant country.
Once the heads of the militias are cut off, the members will just melt away. This is from past experience in Iraq. Elections can follow once the violent Turbans are dead or back in their holes.
Cheney and Rice are not the only people telling porkies. The problem for the US is that they are the wrong kind of lies. So it would seem are al-Qaeda. Except that these are the kind that help you win wars.
Al-Qaida 'planted information to encourage US invasion'
A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.
The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence agencies, including MI5. He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaida had been training Iraqis.
Hadn't anyone in MI5 heard of Operation Fortitude. Perhaps they felt Tony Blair was so desperate for suitable intelligence for his dossiers that they had to provide him with anything they had regardless of the quality.
ps. I am aware that this could be a disinformation exercise in itself.
The lynch-pin of Republican strategy was success-- and the perception of success-- of the great imperial adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reality is incompetence and failure. Moreover, while the failure in Afghanistan could be covered-up by propaganda, the failure in Iraq has become generally transparent. This has dragged down the Republicans. To get a better idea of how this worked, think what Hitler's future would have been if the German army had become mired in Poland and stayed on the brink of defeat for years on end.There would have been no march of German supremacy; that depended on German military supremacy -- effective domination of the adversary by force. American military might is enormous but that does not translate into military or political supremacy because the nature of the adversary and of war have changed-- no more winning by overwhelming firepower; now the peoples that the West want to dominate understand that they can effectively resist by guerrilla struggles. Superior fire power does not translate into military supremacy any more.The Americans have learned nothing from Vietnam. -- Citizen Von Clausewitz
The point about the AMA document you were sent is that it refers to he Shiites as "rejectionists" (rafidha), which is inflammatory. Authenticity hasn't been established. It is part of a recent wave of incriminating documents published in Baghdad on both sides. For more on this and the background of the al-Dhari arrest, please see Signs of a broader conflict
Juan,
Often, when reading your running commentary/update of events in this unfortunate land which, by chance, happens to be the cradle of our civilization, my heart breaks in sorrow and my head bows for shame -- we have killed all their yesterdays and tomorrows and today is bursting into flame!
The "best case" scenario I can see right now is that Gates (that old cooker of intelligence) reports, "The Iraqis can take care of themselves" out we go home and ˝ a year later, when the country turns into a pool of bubbling blood and shit they will say, "Who could have known?"
Yeech!
Listening to President's Bush's comments while in Viet Nam are instructive as to how he will play out the next two years. Supposedly, his cavalcades are going past "people memorials" and "people monuments" celebrating the heroic Vietnamese struggle against colonialism; the current leadership seems to want to trigger some sort of epiphany in GWB or at least some sort of introspection.
The NPR report today started out with a reference to the U.S.'s loss to Communism in the region after a 20 year struggle, which gives me the sensation of being in some sort of time warp.
GWB in his public statements has referred to the "mistakes of Vietnam", such as not giving the "ideology of freedom time to triumph over the ideology of hatred" and not having enough patience to see the war to its conclusion.
It seems GWB is in Hanoi, recounting the Neocon myth of how the US was stabbed in the back in Viet Nam by hippies, liberals, and intellectuals and so was prevented from winning the war. Maybe his hosts won't understand the code he is speaking in, but his speech topics seem a little odd for the time and place.
It seems he is so insulated from the real world that he has convinced himself that the world would love him if his critics would stop lying about him.
From the content and delivery of his speeches, it seems that there is no chance of any coherent withdrawal from Iraq, no chance of any Pal/Israeli agreement or even just a ceasefire, or any sort of dialogue with Iran or Syria.
It is another 2 years of Lewis Carroll foreign policy.
But how many schools did we repaint? How many tonnes of candy did we hand out to jubilant Iraqi children?
If we can just stay the course until all those kids get into their 30s, 40s and 50s and start to assume positions of leadership, they're bound to remember all that candy they got from American soldiers, and then everything will all work out for the best.
Bush Sees Hope for Iraq in Vietnam
Pollyanna wanna cracker?
{puns reserved}
OOOPS
I meant to add - below the headline from today's Guardian (UK) - this from Defense and the National Interest
Situation Report on the Expedition to Iraq, by Fabius Maximus.
11/12/06 Fabius concludes that the next six months will be critical, as they have been since at least mid-2003.
Let's not go overboard on sectarianism. When the Safavids under Ismail first took over Baghdad in the 1500s, they deliberately tore down Sunni shrines and made life miserable for the Sunnis. When Sultan Suleyman a few years later took it, he was smart - he not only rebuilt the Sunni shrines, he also rebuilt Shi'i shrines. I wouldn't be surprised if years later the split between the Ottomans and Safavids grew a little more heated; they were after all at war for a hundred years and more. Religon no doubt came to be a touchstone of identity in the fighting. Shi'is were obliged, for example, to take the long road through Syria for the Pilgrimmage as long as the wars were on. But sectarian infighting - as opposed to Iranian vs Ottoman fighting, Persian vs Turk, isn't talked about much. It was nothing compared to the insane bloodshed of the present.
Can we please refer to "security contractors" as what they really are: "mercenaries" These are the same "security contractors" who continue to operate in Iraq completely outside the bounds of Iraqi, U.S. or international law. I am not inclined to be sympathetic about people who earn substantial sums of money doing what U.S. service personnel do for a pittance, only without any accountability whatsoever.
If I may expand on Mr. Pelicano's comments, ...
The term of art in this matter is, "Quasi-military armed forces." This term was used by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1977 Equifax decision that interpreted or restated or construed the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893, 5 USC 3108, thus:
"Contracts with “Pinkerton Detective Agencies or similar organizations” are prohibited by 5 U.S.C. 3108. This prohibition applies only to contracts with organizations that offer quasi-military armed forces for hire, or with their employees, regardless of the contract’s character. An organization providing guard or protective services does not thereby become a “quasi-military armed force,” even though the guards are armed or the organization provides general investigative or detective services. (See 57 Comp. Gen. 524.)"
The court used the term interchangeably with the word "mercenaries."
The quasi-military armed forces who were kidnapped on Wednesday worked for Crescent Security. Crescent was performing a contract for the US Army, awarded through Joint Contracting Command - Iraq/Afghanistan. The contract was awarded sometime in August 2006. This requirement was advertised as solicitation W91GY0-06-R-0015 issued on May 14, 2006 for Cargo Transportation/ Security Serivces in Iraq.
One of Professor Cole's Students is a defense contractor who is capable of performing related services. He saw this requirement and asked the Army to remove the part that called for contractors to perform military functions. Soliciting for contractors to provide quasi-military armed forces violates the Anti-Pinkerton Act and the relevant provision in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, 37.109. The Army declined.
This Student then filed a legal case with the Government Accountability Office on May 26, asking that the Army be compelled to obey this particular law. The Army submitted an Agency Report on 27 June which included the following statement by Major Peter Hartman of the US Army Legal Services Agency in Arlington, VA:
"This requirement is akin to services provided by Brinks and Wells Fargo when they transport money [in the USA] and provide security services during the transportation. Such security services certainly do not constitute "quasi-military armed forces."
This statement is in footnote 7 at the bottom of page 10 of the Agency Report. He's talking about the exact services that these contractors were performing Wednesday when they came under attack.
Maybe Major Hartman could explain how often warring factions in a civil war take the guards of Brinks armored cars in Arlington, VA hostage. Maybe David Walker, the Comptroller General who heads up the GAO, could explain why the Army does not have to obey this particular law. The GAO decision pointedly said that these duties, providing armed escorts to convoys in a war zone, "are guard and protective services, and not 'quasi-military armed forces' activities."
You people who blame President Bush are too kind to the multitude of bureaucratic enablers who ignore their oaths to support and defend the Constitution. Without the Peter Hartmans and David Walkers, President Bush would never have gotten away with his violations of the laws of God and man.
blowback:
The information that al-Libi invented the Iraq-al Qaeda connection is not new. It has been known for about a year now that this was suspected within the intelligence community even before the war. Apparently he revealed this under torture, which shows he had some false stories ready in case he "cracked". Whether this was a deliberate ploy or simply a case of telling his interrogators what they wanted to hear, is almost moot now. I can't believe that al Qaeda could have relied, strategically, on the overwhelming stupidity and magical thinking of the Bush administration.
ent lord:
If anyone succeeds in triggering introspection in Bush, an unlikely prospect in any case, that could be even uglier than what we've got now.
You say, "It is another 2 years of Lewis Carroll foreign policy," which causes me to wonder, how could our Constitutional system be so flawed as to put all the tools of foreign policy in the hands of one man? Doesn't the health and sanity of the world demand something more proactive than just waiting this out?
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