Iraq War Broke Back of US Counter-Terrorism: Experts


Fresh bombings and assassinations, and the discovery of 18 bodies brought the death toll in Iraq on Thursday to some 34.

A new poll of counter-terrorism and national security experts finds that 84 percent of them believe the US is not winning the war on terror, and they see the Iraq War as the reason why.

' One participant in the survey, a former CIA official who described himself as a conservative Republican, said the war in Iraq has provided global terrorist groups with a recruiting bonanza, a valuable training ground and a strategic beachhead at the crossroads of the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Turkey, the traditional land bridge linking the Middle East to Europe. "The war in Iraq broke our back in the war on terror," said the former official, Michael Scheuer, the author of Imperial Hubris, a popular book highly critical of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts. "It has made everything more difficult and the threat more existential." '

Let's list those results of the Iraq War again:

1. Recruiting bonanza for Qutbist terrorists

I.e. it was getting hard to get people to sign up for al-Qaeda-type operations after the Afghanistan War and the disruption of the organization. But what with Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, a lot of red-blooded Muslim young men are so angry that it is much easier to get their blood boiling. Hence Madrid and London.

2. Valuable training ground (and experience fighting the most sophisticated army in the world)

3. strategic beachhead at crossroads of Persian Gulf and Turkey (not so far from Europe and in the vicinity of 2/3s of the world's proven petroleum reserves).

Scheuer was on the Bin Laden desk at the CIA and knows whereof he speaks. He says the Bush war in Iraq broke our back when it comes to fighting the followers of Sayyid Qutb and Abd al-Salam Farag.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has a new translation of a key al-Qaeda text outlining the Qutbists plans for America. The CTC is doing excellent work and should be supported by everyone who cares about the security of our country.

The Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo addresses the key problem I saw with Bush administration policy toward those it has captured. Many of them are really bad characters, but it only compounds the mistake to deny them basic American rights.

If we go in that direction, we put at risk all that is most distinctive about the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence says, " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . ." It doesn't say "some men."
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Members of Israeli Parliament on the Gaza Operation

The USG Open Document Center translates this report from Israeli news broadcasts in Hebrew:

Israel: Islamic Movement, MKs Comment on Gaza Operation
Israel -- OSC Report
Thursday, June 29, 2006 T17:23:50Z

Ro'i Nahmias reports at 1036 GMT on Ynetnews: "The northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel aggressively condemned the arrest of HAMAS ministers and parliament members Thursday. 'The occupation is to blame and Israel carries full responsibility for what is taking place,' a message by the movement said. The statement said that 'the arrest of ministers, parliament members, and Palestinian mayors is proof that there is no place for Palestinian sovereignty in the lexicon of the Israeli government. Therefore, it is no wonder that the 'there-is-no-partner' melody is heard over and over again.' Before releasing the statement, the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel announced a day of fasting to identify with 'our besieged Palestinian people.'" (Tel Aviv Ynetnews WWW-Text in English -- centrist news site operated by Yedi'ot Media Group)

Israel radio reports at 1200 GMT: "Meretz chairman Yosi Beilin called on the government to set the earliest possible time to end Operation Summer Rains and to take steps toward achieving a comprehensive cease-fire. The longer it takes, Beilin said, the higher the risk of sinking in the Gazan swamp. He added that their arrest turned HAMAS leaders into heroes of the Palestinian street, despite their failure to run their people's affairs. His party colleague Zehava Gal'on said the government took up a military operation whose beginning is known but whose outcome isn't. Neither is it clear how it advances the release of the abducted soldier, she said.

"MK Jamal Zahaliqah of BALAD said that capturing people as bargaining chips is what criminal gangs do, not a state. The Israeli Government is pouring fuel on the fire and deliberately escalating the situation, he added. His party colleague Azmi Bisharah said that Israel is behaving like a terror organization, and that the abduction of elected public officials is an act of terror.

"MK Arye Eldad of the National Union-NRP congratulated the government for showing the first signs of understanding that Israel is at war. His party colleague Uri Ari'el said that the fact that no senior government or army official called on the Asheri family in Itamar as soon as their son Eliyahu was kidnapped is a disgrace bordering on discrimination." (Jerusalem Voice of Israel Network B in Hebrew -- State-funded radio; independent in content)

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Israel Detains Palestinian Ministers
Knocks out Electricity to Half of Gazans

Half of the Palestinians in Gaza, who were already living pretty miserable lives after decades of marginalization and brutalization by the Israelis, were left without electricity yesterday.

Palestinian officials like Saeb Erekat rejected the idea that knocking out electricity for hundreds of thousands of people is targeting a "terrorist infrastructure." In fact, destroying electricity generation capability interferes with water purification. Palestinian children will die because of this, from drinking unpurified water. And what crime did Palestinian toddlers commit, to be murdered in this way?

The Israelis escalated the crisis by detaining Hamas government ministers. The likelihood is that the captors of the Israeli soldier are freelancers. This wasn't something plotted out by the Haniyeh government, which, in fact, recently granted a huge concession on the issue of potentially recognizing Israel.

PM Ismail Haniyeh called for the United Nations Security Council to intervene.

The ministers detained are members of a freely and democratically elected government. I can't imagine under what legal authority the Israelis have arrested them. But everyone in the Middle East can see exactly what "elections" and "democracy" amount to. Bush's promises have never seemed so hollow.

Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, called for the US to get involved as an honest broker. Well, I suppose miracles do happen.

I am upset about the renewed crisis in Palestine because it is an emotional issue and will spill over into Sunni Arab Iraq. It is likely that pro-Palestinian Sunni guerrillas will kill some US troops specifically to avenge the people of Gaza. This is one reason I am complaining about the massively disproportional character of the Israeli response. It has the potential of further endangering American lives in the region.

And, it is counter-productive. The Israelis can't get back their soldier by destroying electricity plants in Gaza. They can't get more security by depriving Palestinians of security.

PS Jeff Morley at WaPo does a fine piece on the beach bombing background to the current round of violence.
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Bombings in Baghdad, Baquba, Mahaweel
Guerrilla Groups offer Truce if US will Withdraw

Reuters details Iraq's ongoing civil war violence:

Guerrillas bombed a market in the Shiite quarter of Kadhimiyah, Baghdad, killing one person and wounding 8.

Guerrillas detonated a car bomb near a throng of workers who had gathered to look for work at Baquba, killing 3 and wounding 12.

Also in Baquba, guerrillas set off a bomb at a Shiite mosque, which produced no casualties. But then when policemen came running in tesponse to the first bomb, guerrillas set off a second, seriously injuring the two policemen.

A US military raid that netted a radical Islamist resulted in the death of an innocent civilian, the US military admitted.

In Mahaweel south of the capital, guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb near a police patrol, killing 1 and wounding 3.

In Falluja, guerrillas killed two policemen.

Two US GIs were announced dead, one north of Baghdad and one in al-Anbar province.

Guerrillas in the south near Samawah targeted the Australian troops with a roadside bomb, but missed.

Several Sunni Arab guerrilla groups have offered a ceasefire to the United States if the US will pledge to withdraw all foreign troops within two years.

One problem with this offer is that the goal of the guerrilla groups in their roadside bombings and other violence is . . . to get US and other foreign troops out of the country. In other words, they are seeking to get simply by asking what they have not achieved in 3 years of concerted warfare.

Another problem is that there is no guarantee that when the US presence is completely gone the guerrillas will not try to storm the Green Zone and take over.

The two largest and most important Baathist guerrilla groups (Jaysh Muhammad and Jaysh Islam al-`Iraqi), along with the Salafi Jihadis of the Mujahidin Shura Council, all declined to join in the backchannel negotiations.

Finally, the Bush administration just has no intention of getting out within two years and will blow these groups off.

Relief agencies are overwhelmed and cannot meet the needs of Iraq's 150,000 recently displaced persons.

Billmon is scathing on the hypocrisy of the Bush administration and the Republicans in congress in branding anyone who talks of troop draw-downs in Iraq as devotees of "cut and run," while Gen. Casey is clearly trying desperately to figure out plausible ways of drawing down US troops in Iraq.

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases reports from the Iraqi press for June 27:

. . . Tariq al-Sha'b runs on page 2 a 300-word report on the statement issued by a number of Iraqi parties and civil society organizations condemning Al-Mahawil police for raiding the Communist Party's headquarters. . .

Al-Zaman carries on the front page a 1,100-word report entitled "1,500 Iraqi Dinars for 1 Liter of Gasoline in Black Market; Huge Jump in Commodity Prices and Transportation Costs; Kilometers-Long Lines and 7 Hours Waiting in Front of Gas Stations." . . .

Al-Zaman carries on page 3 a 200-word report entitled "Maysan Advisory Council Declares General Strike on Wednesday and Thursday in Solidarity with Karbala Advisory Council Chairman." [The Karbala council chairman, from the Fadila Party, has been arrested for possible complicity in terrorism.] . . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 2 a 320-word report citing a source at the Kurdistan parliament saying that a senior Kurdish delegation will visit Baghdad to urge Iraqi officials to quickly solve the issue of Kirkuk . . .

Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on the front page a 350-word report citing Al-Sadr Trend member Hazim al-A'raji calling for a national reconciliation inside the parliament. He held parliament members responsible for the blood shed in Iraq. . .

Dar al-Salam carries on the front page a 180-word report citing Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front member Salim al-Juburi saying that the front supports Nuri al-Maliki's initiative for national reconciliation, but the problem lies in the details. . .

Al-Mashriq carries on the front page a 400-word report citing Adnan al-Dulaymi calling on the Shiite religious and political scholars to open dialogue with their Sunni counterparts. . .

Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on the front page a 180-word report that a terrorist group has warned Shiite families in Al-Muqdadiyah to leave the city. . .

Al-Zaman carries on page 3 a 750-word report entitled "Baghdad Health Directorate: Campaign To Control Violations in Residential Areas; Baghdad's families Resort To Breeding Sheep To Overcome Economic Crisis."

Al-Adalah carries on page 4 a 1,500-word report on the illegal slaughtering of cattle and storing of meat.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid runs on page 4 an 80-word report on the role of unemployment and not enforcing the law in discouraging drug addiction. . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 14 a 120-word report citing director of Al-Sadr Bureau in Al-Diwaniyah saying that the bureau has started a campaign to clean up the governorate.

Al-Sabah carries on page 15 a 1,400-word report citing Karbala's inhabitants complaining about the fuel crisis in the governorate.

Al-Sabah carries on page 15 a 70-word report citing an official source in Al-Najaf Governorate saying that the governorate has signed a contract with a Bahraini company to construct a sports city at a cost of $42 million. . .

Tariq al-Sha'b carries on the back page a 600-word report entitled "Communist Party Supporters Association in Baghdad Holds Third Conference." . . .

Al-Da'wah runs on page 7 a 400-word article by Karim al-Najjar criticizing Iraqi newspapers for claiming that 5 million Iraqis issued a petition demanding the government to support Mujahidin-e-Khalq Organization. . .

Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on page 2 a 600-word article by the political editor strongly criticizing Saudi Arabia for supporting terrorism and exporting terrorists to Iraq to kill Shiites. . .

Al-Sabah al-Jadid runs on page 5 a 1,500-word report on the recent demonstration by Babil's Al-Qasim district's inhabitants, stating that the major reasons behind the demonstration were corruption and unemployment. . .

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Defending Markos
And the Discourse Revolution

I've been doing a lot of traveling recently, some of it abroad, and have barely been able to keep up with Iraq, much less with the blogosphere. I was sorry, as a result to have missed yearly Kos and to have been unable to return Markos Moulitsas's kindnesses (i.e. favorable comments and links) at that point. The internet community he fostered at Daily Kos has been absolutely central to progressive politics in the US in recent years.

I was therefore so sorry to hear that Martin Peretz at The New Republic, which he occasionally hijacks from its seasoned professional journalists for petty vendettas and cranky editorials underwritten by his wife's Singer Sewing Machine money has presided over an attempt to smear Markos, as Billmon details. Likewise, Kos was attacked, very unfairly, by David Brooks of the NYT, who comes off sounding like a conspiracy theorist from the McCarthy period.

That this smear campaign involved a forged email published without contacting its putative author at TNR is all the more egregious.

Smear campaigns, underpinned by just making things up about people, are the viruses of blogosphere politics. Memes in cyberspace are easy to get started and hard to knock down. The rich and determined can just buy the destruction of a reputation, and our watered-down libel laws offer no avenue of self-defense to the smeared where the person is a public figure. (The rich and determined can also buy and ruin major formerly liberal magazines like The New Republic).

Like Billmon, even after looking into it a bit, I can't figure out what wrong Markos is actually alleged to have committed. It is falling down funny to imagine that anyone "controls" bloggers, especially progessive bloggers. And as for money, for the most part a blogad goes for less than a 3-line classified ad in a small town newspaper does. And, blogads.com allows anyone to form a network on any basis, so Markos's just is not and cannot be the only game in town, quite apart from which lots of bloggers on blogads have the authority to "sponsor" other weblogs.

Billmon thinks that the attacks on Kos and his cyber-community may in part be coming from the section of the Democratic Party that leans toward Neoconservative philosophy and policies, and who, for instance, are disturbed by the prospect that Lieberman will be unseated by a Democratic challenger.

This point makes sense. But I think that the struggle is larger. For all the talk about freedom of speech and individual freedom in the United States, ours is actually a hierarchical society in which most people cannot afford to speak out unless they are themselves independently wealthy. A lot of Americans work for corporations, which would just fire anyone who became so outspoken in public as to begin to affect their company's image. Look at how many bloggers are anonymous! Purveyors of opinion in the mass media, who use their real names, are employed by, or in some way backed by, media moguls. It is fairly easy to depart from the spectrum of acceptable opinion (i.e. acceptable to the three million or so people who have disproprotionate weight in how America is run), and if one does, after a while one is not heard from so much any more. Thus, those attacking Kos work for Martin Peretz and Arthur Shulzberger, Jr., and if they didn't they would not have their current influential perches.

The very wealthy are used to getting their way in US politics and to dominating public discourse, since so much can be controlled at choke points. Journalists can just be fired, editors and other movers and shakers bought or intimidated. Look what happened to MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield, who dared complain about the propaganda in the US new media around the Iraq War. Phil Donohue, who presided over MSNBC's most popular talk show, was apparently fired before the war because General Electric and Microsoft knew he would be critical of it, and did not want to take the heat. Politicians who step out of line can just be unseated by giving their opponents funding (the Supreme Court just made it harder to restrict this sort of thing).

A grassroots communication system such as cyberspace poses a profound challenge to the forces of hierarchy and hegemony in American society. Now anyone with an internet connection and some interesting ideas can potentially get a hearing from the public.

Kos and his community, in short, are at the center of a discourse revolution. Now persons making a few tens of thousands of dollars a year can be read by hundreds of thousands of readers with no mediation from media moguls. The old joke had been that anyone can own a newspaper, it only takes a million dollars (a really old joke, since it would take much more).

The lack of choke points in cyberspace means that people like Kos can't just be fired. How then to shut them up? Why, you attempt to ruin their reputation, as a way of scaring off readers and supporters. This technique, as Billmon points out, does not usually work very well in cyberspace itself, though it can be effective if the blogger moves into a bricks and mortar institutional environment where big money and chokeholds work again. A political party is such an environment.

Cyberspace itself, though, is a distributed system, not a centralized one. That is why the charges against Kos are so silly. In essence, creatures of the old choke-point hegemonies are projecting their own hierarchical system inaccurately on Kos. Of course you wouldn't expect people like Peretz or David Brooks to understand what a distributed information system is, dinosaurs as they are, of both politics and media.
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Iraqi Sermons from June 23, 2006

The USG Open Source Center translates sermons in Iraq on 6/23/2006:

"At 0845 GMT Baghdad Satellite Channel in Arabic, reportedly sponsored by the Iraqi Islamic Party, carries a live relay of Shaykh Harith al-Ubaydi's sermon from the Sunni Al-Shawwaf Mosque in Baghdad.

In his sermon, Shaykh Harith Al-Ubaydi touches upon the issue of security. Al-Ubaydi asserts that only upright and trustworthy people should be charged with security responsibilities, adding that "those who are not trustworthy are incapable of providing others with security. Those who are unjust are incapable of providing others with justice." Al-Ubaydi also underlines the importance of retribution for the achievement of security and the elimination of crime.

Moreover, Al-Ubaydi maintains that sectarian and political tensions are the driving force behind the killings and abductions in Iraq. Al-Ubaydi asks: "Who benefits from these killings and the blood that is being spilled on the streets of Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Al-Anbar, as well as many other cities in Iraq?" He adds: "Who benefits from the bombing of mosques and husayniyahs? Who benefits from the bombing of churches? Who benefits from the assassination of scientists, doctors, and university professors?" Al-Ubaydi holds certain parties, "who do not wish for stability in Iraq, or who seek the benefit of their people," responsible for the atrocities committed in Iraq. Similarly, Al-Ubaydi denounces the killing of Sunni and Shiite imams and the displacement of Iraqi families."

Read the rest.
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Israel invades Gaza, Hits Bridges, Electricity

The Israeli military destroyed 3 bridges that connect Gaza, and knocked out electricity along the coast, as troops made incursions into Gaza.

I don't have time to comment much on all this right now, except to say that the use of force here is all out of proportion. Without electricity, you can't purify water, and uncooked water is a severe health problem, especially to babies. It can ultimately cause cholera.

The incursion was made necessary by the Sharon-Olmert unwise policy of unilateral withdrawal. Unilateral withdrawal means that no structure was put in place for security in the evacuated terrirories, which increasingly look like a failed state, a Somalia. The PLO and Hamas have fought hot encounters recently.

Why would anyone create a failed state all around their house, right in their neighborhood?

The US press has, as far as I can see, been irresponsible in not broadcasting much about the prologue to the present violence, the Israeli military's bombing of civilians on a Gaza beach earlier in the month. This atrocity was on the front page of every Arabic language newspaper every day for a while earlier this month. We cannot understand the region if we cannot understand how outraged they are, and the source of the outrage.

Predictably, the Israeli military's propaganda machine denied responsibility for the beach explosion. Human Rights Watch called the Israeli military inquiry "not plausible" based on its own evidence-gathering at the scene. The Israeli Army has a long history of using plausible deniability to muddy the waters about its accountability in deaths of innocents. If we had videotape of everything they have done in the West Bank and Gaza, we'd be having war crimes trials for the rest of the century. The fact is that Israeli culpability for the Gaza beach incident is, on the evidence gathered independently by HRW at least highly plausible. The press should be looking into it instead of taking talking points from war propaganda offices.
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Sunni Mosque Burned

Guerrillas (likely Shiite militiamen) use mortar fire to destroy a Sunni mosque and burn down 20 shops in Shahraban near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, on Wednesday morning.

Reuters reports the civil war violence for Tuesday. There were bombings in Baghdad, Kirkuk and elsewhere, killing some 21 persons in iraq on Tuesday.

Al-Zaman runs an article claiming that 632 Palestinians have been killed or imprisoned in Iraq since the war started in spring 2003.

Iraq displaced children suffer health effects, mental problems from their plight.
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Personal Investment as Commitment

AP says that a "safer Iraq" is needed for US investment. D'oh.

But this article reminds me of all the politicians (of both major parties) and bloggers who keep saying that things are just fine in Iraq and that the bad news is exaggerated by the "liberal media" (oh mythic phoenix!).

And, I think we ought to hold their feet to the fire. Every time someone says that in reality things are just fine in Iraq, we should ask them how much of their own, personal money they have invested in a private business enterprise in Iraq. The Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce can help them with specific investment opportunities.

I think we should exclude buying real estate or investing in mercen . . . I mean US contracting. Also, it has to be an investment in Arab Iraq, not the Kurdistan Regional confederacy. But, if things are going so great, then surely this is the time to put $100,000 into, say, a textile factory in . . . I don't know, Baquba. Most of these politicians and bloggers on the Right could afford such an investment, and most wouldn't even be too badly off if they lost the whole wad.

So, Fox Cable News anchors, rightwing bloggers, smug pundits, etc., etc.-- Pony up. How much have you put on the line here to back up your Dr. Pangloss-style rose colored glasses? And, if you haven't put at least a few tens of thousands of dollars into a private Iraqi business, then you do not have a leg to stand on.
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Saudi Ambassador Calls on Palestinians to Use Gandhian Tactics
Saudi Elected Parliament within the Decade?

I heard the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, give this speech Tuesday evening at the US-Arab Economic Forum, and am excerpting a few key passages. He also made remarks in the afternoon. At one point he said that he expected that within the next decade, Saudi Arabia's Shura Council or legislature would be popularly elected. I.e., it would become a democratic parliament. He said that the provincial legislatures would also be elected by then. I, at least, had not before heard such a direct and specific timetable laid out for this development. Of course, he is an ambassador and not the Saudi executive, but his remarks were unequivocal.

On Tuesday evening, he openly called on the Palestinians to give up all violence to and wage their struggle for self-determination using Gandhian principles of nonviolent peaceful resistance.

I have in the past been critical of Reagan-Fahd policies in the 1980s, both in Central America and in Afghanistan, and the willingness to fund irregulars (who in the next generation became the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan) to fight the Soviets. But from what I heard this eveing, Prince Turki, who as Saudi minister of intelligence circa 1980-2001 must have been a key part of those 1980s events, has had a significant change of heart. If so, he has learned more from the earlier mistakes than has e.g. Donald Rumsfeld (imagine Rumsfeld or any old Reaganaut invoking Gandhian ahimsa!) I have to say, I was startled. As for the question of sincerity, well, Reagan used to quote what he said was a Russian saying, "Trust, and verify." This could be an important development, and we should keep our eyes on the new Saudi Ambassador in Washington.

"A Force for Peace & Stability"

Speech by Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.

Prince Turki Al-Faisal

at the U.S. Arab Economic Forum Gala Dinner

Houston, Texas on June 27, 2006

. . . Political reforms are also being implemented to increase citizen participation, such as last year's elections for municipal councils. More elections are planned for the future in order to give our people a more direct say in the decisions that affect them.

Saudi Arabia's goal is also to promote peace and stability in our region. The Roman poet Horace once wrote: "It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire." Right now, our neighbors' walls are ablaze. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine all require immediate attention. In addition, the situation with Iran calls for international engagement and diplomacy. In each of these circumstances, the Kingdom is doing what it can to bring parties together, open up dialogues, and offer solutions for peace and progress.

Many of the world's problems also require humanitarian assistance, such as for natural disasters, disease and poverty. In those areas Saudi Arabia is a leader. Many people don't know that the Kingdom contributes more per capita in foreign aid than any other country in the world. We have also provided hundreds of millions of dollars to victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean region, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the earthquakes in Pakistan and, most recently, in Indonesia. . .

. . . So tonight, I lay down the following challenges for all of us.

First, to Saudi Arabia, I challenge ourselves to meet the needs of our youth and ensure that they have the education, the tools and the means to help change the world, and become a force for good and tolerance.

I challenge the Palestinian people to give up the armed struggle and follow the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King by engaging in civil disobedience instead of violence, even in the face of Israeli guns. Violence is the weapon of the weak; non-violence is the weapon of the strong.

I challenge the Israeli people to give up their illegal, immoral and colonial occupation of Palestine.

I challenge the United States to use the power and abilities with which God has blessed this great nation to bring about an end to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict through the implementation of the President's Roadmap.

And I challenge the Arab-Americans in this audience tonight to take a more active part in resolving the conflicts that exist in the world today. We must compel the governments of the world to take the required actions to end the injustices that fuel tensions, distrust, hatred and violence. And so as you leave this conference, I implore each of you to continue in your own right-as ambassadors from the Arab world. Whether you are from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, or any other part of the Arab world, you should be proud of your Arab heritage and legacy-which truly does extend here to the United States. You should be proud of the contributions Arabs have made to the advancement of humanity over the centuries, and to the greatness of American culture and life. And you should be proud of yourselves, for you are the only ones who can bridge the gap between the two great societies. It is not always easy, but it will always be rewarding. And it can't be done without you. . ."

This material is distributed by DNX Partners, LLC on behalf of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
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The Zarqawi Effect

My article on the aftermath of the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Muslim world is out in Salon.com.

Excerpt:

' Whatever the meaning of the killing of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, it has not lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called him "the prince of martyrs" and vowed revenge on the U.S. Some reports suggest that the two U.S. soldiers captured at Yusufiyah were tortured and killed by Zarqawi's shadowy successor. The three weeks after his death have witnessed daily bombings with dozens of casualties throughout Iraq. And Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites. '

Read the whole article.
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Civil War Violence Leaves 60 Dead over 100 Wounded
130,000 Displaced in Past 4 Months

Bombings and other civil war violence took the lives of at least 60 Iraqis on Monday. In addition, guerrillas kidnapped 10 Sunni students who were attending a technical institute in Shiite East Baghdad.

In the worst incident, guerrillas detonated a bomb in a crowded market in the Shiite city of Hilla south of Baghdad, killing 30 and wounding 56.

In the village of Khairnabat near Baquba, a troubled city northeast of the capital, a motorcycle bomb in a crowded market killed at least 18 and wounded 30.

Guerrillas used a car bomb in the Amiriyah district of Baghdad to kill 5 Iraqi soldiers.

In Saydiyah, southern Baghdad guerrillas detonated a bomb at a checkpoint, killing 3 police commandos.

Guerrillas tried yet again on Monday to kill Adnan Dulaimi, a leader of the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front that is cooperating with the new government of PM al-Maliki. They only managed to kill his bodyguard.

Four Russian embassy employees, kidnapped earlier, were confirmed dead.

US and Iraqi troops--but mainly US troops are trying to take Ramadi neighborhood by neighborhood and then to garrison Iraqi troops in each so as to keep them secure in the long term. But there is a problem with Iraqi troops not showing up to fight, saying they do not want to fight other Iraqis or that they fear they will provoke tribal feuds if they fight the Dulaim in Ramadi.

As the AFP/ Daily Times piece linked above notes, the Iraqi government is saying that 7 Sunni Arab guerrilla groups, mostly Baathist in character, have indicated a willingness to engage in talks. This news may or may not lead anywhere. Guerrilla insurgencies often talk to the governments they are endeavoring to overthrow, and sometimes go on to overthrow it even after the talks.

Iraq violence in the past 4 months has expelled 130,000 persons from their homes and neighborhoods, leaving them displaced and uncertain of their future.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ DPA say [Ar.] that the people of Tikrit are disappointed in Maliki's reconciliation plan, insofar as the amnesty it offers to opponents of the new regime is too limited.

School enrollment is up over-all in Iraq. This phenomenon is largely a result of the removal of the United States/ United Nations sanctions, which had devastated the Iraqi middle classes, and had actually cause the literacy rate to fall substantially in the 1990s. Tavernise notes, however, that school enrollment has actually fallen in Baghdad, which is about a fourth of the country.
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Iraqi Petroleum Exports up
25 killed in Civil War Violence

Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times reports severe doubts about PM Maliki's reconciliation plan in the Sunni Arab al-Anbar province.

Iraq's petroleum production has recently surged to above 2 million barrels a day, according to petroleum minister Husain Shahristani. The government recently managed to get the northern Kirkuk pipelines back online, after they faced repeated sabotage. Bad winter weather had also harmed exports from Basra earlier this year, but that problem subsided with the onset of summer.

That the US military has contingency plans for troop cuts in Iraq is not actually very interesting. Actual significant troop cuts? That would be interesting. Swopa points out that the same story about planned cuts appeared in the NYT last summer.

Al-Zaman says that the Revenge Brigades in Basra, a secretive Shiite organization, is circulating a pamphlet warning Sunni Arabs in the largely Shiite southern port city that they had until 1 July to leave the city. The threat is part of a general move to ethnic cleansing of Sunnis in the city; many Sunni families are fleeing to West Baghdad hundreds of miles to the north.

Al-Zaman reports that US troops invaded the homes of Shaikh Mithal al-Hasnawi of the Sadr Movement, and of his brother, in the town of Hindiyah in Karbala province. Al-Hasnawi eluded them, not being at home. He is accused of being implicated in attacks on music shops

Reuters reports violence in Iraq's ongoing civil war on Sunday:

Guerrillas set off a roadside bomb in the al-Shorja shopping district of Baghdad, killing 3 and wounding 17. Then guerrillas detonated a bomb in a minibus, killing 2 and wounding 5 in al-Nahda district of Baghdad. Then in the eastern Zayouna district, a suicide car bomber detonated his payload at a police checkpoint, killing a police commando and wounding 9 persons. So that is 6 dead and 31 wounded from bombings in the capital, at a time when there is a major crackdown on the guerrilla movement in Baghdad.

Guerrillas kidnapped 16 employees of a technology institute at Taji north of Baghdad.

In Khan Bani Sa`d, near Baquba to the northeast of Baghdad, guerrillas attacked a police checkpoint and killed 5 Iraqi soldiers.

In the mostly Christian town of Bartila (near Mosul) in the north, guerrillas set off a car bomb near the office of the (Shiite) Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, among the leading parties in parliament, killing 2 persons and wounding 13.

There were other scattered shootings and assassinations around the country, with a GI killed near Tikrit. US forces killed or captured a number of guerrilla fighters. The total number of dead was at least 25 on Sunday, with dozens wounded.

Number of car bombings in Iraq from the dawn of time until 2002 before the US invasion: 0.

At least 50,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the US invasion, according to Iraqi health officials. I am told by people who should know that the Lancet estimate of 100,000 is perfectly plausible, and that was some time ago.

Fresh fighting broke out in Diwaniyah. Clashes took place in al-`Asri district, gunmen clashed with police commandos. (Just speculation, but this is probably actually a fight between Mahdi Army irregulars and Badr Corps who were recruited into the police commandos by the SCIRI-dominated Interior Ministry.

In downtown Amara, gunmen assassinated Haydar Abdul Husain al-Maliki, who had just received a fellowship to study English in Switzerland from the Iraqi Ministry of Education. He was in a taxi when he was cut down; the driver was wounded.

The Iraqi parliament seems set to affirm the free market legislation of Paul Bremer, allowing foreign concerns to own 100 percent of Iraqi firms and allowing unconstrained repatriation of profits.

Sarah Smiles of The Age in Melbourne reports on Australian worries that its troops will face a tougher situation replacing the Italians in Nasiriyah than they had in sleepy Muthanna. Nasiriyah has competing Dawa, SCIRI, Mahdi Army and Fadhila factions and has seen many anti-Western demonstrations. She interviews Ahmed S. Hashim, who has been in Iraq and talks of the new Iraqi army:

' Critics have described the new force [the Iraqi Army], forged after the 2003 war when the coalition dissolved the old Iraqi army, as highly unprofessional, and doubt its ability to provide security.

"I really wasn't impressed by them, their training or equipment," said Dr Ahmed Hashim of the US Naval War College, who was in Iraq as an adviser to the US Army until late last year.

"Some units were more like militias of each ethnic and sectarian group rather than a national army … Their allegiances are owed to political parties and class rather than the nation per se."

Smiles is to be congratulated for reporting the reality from Hashim, who is qualified to judge it; we see too little of this in the US press.
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23 Killed in Renewed Violence
Reconciliation Plan to be Unveiled

US troops had briefly arrested, then released, Shaikh Jamal Abdul Karim al-Dabaan. He is the chief Sunni jurisconsult (mufti) of Iraq, and the US military called his arrest "a mistake." A thousand people gathered to picket the house of the governor of Salahuddin Province in protest.

Reuters gives the specifics of some of the bombings and other violence on Saturday.

Al-Hayat says that 23 fresh lives were lost on Saturday to civil war violence.

Steve Hurst points out that the guerrilla and civil war violence has gone on in spades since Zarqawi's death. I'd make two further points. First, the daily carnage against Iraqis has been enormous in the past two weeks. There were several deadly car bombings again early Sunday in Baghdad itself. Second, the violence is not most "al-Qaeda"-driven. People in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah in Baghdad are mostly Baathists, not al-Qaeda, and some of them are surely planning out these bombings. Adhamiyah is now under actual attack by US and Iraqi forces, though there is some kind of news blackout on the operation. But the violence is going on anyway. The guerrillas, who still are able to coordinate, have just shifted operations to some other cities, or other districts of Baghdad. As Hurst notes, there was heavy fighting on Haifa Street near the Green Zone just the other day, an area of longstanding guerrilla activity that has been declared pacified over and over again by the US military and press. Bottom line, this article's corrective is a good one, but doesn't go far enough.

Update: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented a 28-point reconciliation plan to parliament on Sunday.

Al-Hayat reports that Malik views this initiative as a privilege of the executive and that he does not intend to have parliament vote on it. A Shiite parliamentarian said it was outrageous to by-pass parliament in this way. Also, significant elements within al-Maliki's own United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite) are disturbed by the idea of granting amnesty to Sunni Arab guerrillas.

The problem is quite the other way around. The amnesty is not extended to anyone who has "shed Iraqi blood," and the Bush administration made al-Maliki back off the idea of granting amnesty to guerrillas who had killed US troops.

But if the point of the amnesty is to bring the guerrilla leadership in from the cold, this amnesty is useless. What Sunni Arab guerrillas worth their salt have killed no Iraqis and no US troops? As for the rest, why would Sunnis who had not killed anyone need to be amnestied? And wouldn't they be rather pitiful guerrillas?

This is like Kissinger saying he would talk to the North Vietnamese but not to any of them who helped the VC kill ARvN and US soldiers. There wouldn't have been any round table talks (not that that whole thing went very well anyway. Just saying.)

It appears that the main point of the "reconciliation" is not in fact to reconcile with the guerrilla movement. It is an attempt to draw off support from it by rehabilitating the Sunni Arabs who had been Baath party members. Those who had not actively killed anyone would now be brought back into public life and deep debaathification would be reversed, as I read it. (Ironically, al-Maliki led the charge for deep debaathification in the past 3 years!) Sunni Arabs would be compensated for losses inflicted on them by Iraqi and US troops (this is key to settling clan feuds against the new order). Shiite militias are to be disbanded. Militia influence in Iraqi police to be curbed. etc.

The plan also hopes to separate out the ex-Baathists from the Qutbists, who style themselves "Salafi Jihadis" but actually are just violent vigilantes, who, in the tradition of Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, blithely brand as non-Muslims worthy of death anyone who disagrees with their version of Islam. The Qutbists are coded as mainly foreigners.

My reading is that large numbers of Iraqi Sunni Arabs have swung to fundamentalist religion, and that the ex-Baathists use them in various ways, and it won't be easy to break up this alliance of convenience.

I do not think this plan goes far enough. It is too little too late. But, well, reversing Ahmad Chalabi's deep debaathification, in which school teachers were punished for joining the Baath Party in 1994 to get a promotion, would be a positive step, if that is what is envisaged. But then there is the question of implementation, and the question of what economy or government is left for the ex-Baathists now to join. Moreover, there is a lot of anger that can't be dampened down so easily.

British forces seem unable to quell the rising tide of violence and insecurity in southern Iraq.

Some Iraqi veterans are already showing up back in the states as among the homeless.
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Militias Oppressing Iraqi Women

The USG Open Source Center translates an article about the oppression of women in the new Iraq.

Woman's Rights Observatory on Retreat of Women's Role in Political Process

Organized acts of oppression against Iraqi women The National Observatory for the Iraqi Woma's Rights: The militias prevent women from going to the market in Karbala

Al-Ittijah al-Akhar

Wednesday, June 21, 2006 T13:06:41Z

Document Type: OSC Translated Text

In a memorandum addressed to the United Nations and a number of embassies in Baghdad, the National Observatory for Iraqi Woman's Rights said that it has received bitter complaints from Iraqi female activists and defenders of women's rights in Iraq indicating that there has been a retreat in what the observatory described "woman's role in political life". The number of female ministers has dropped from six to four, the memo added. The memorandum drew attention to the fact that the Unified Iraqi Coalition, which is the largest bloc in the new government, has refused to nominate any woman for a ministerial position. The four appointed female ministers are all from other political blocs. Two of them are from the Kurdish Alliance; one is from the Iraqi al-Tawafuq Front and the fourth one is from the Iraqi List.

Read the rest.
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Bombings in Basra, Hibhib kill at least 20

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number 2 man in al-Qaeda, released a video Friday in which he pledged that the organization would take revenge on the United States for the killing of Zarqawi. He quoted Bin Laden as saying that the Americans would never rest easy until the Palestinians have their rights. In a recent video, al-Zawahiri had urged the jihadis to concentrate on Afghanistan, but on Friday he again expanded the field of endeavor.

Reuters has Friday's report on civil war violence:

Up to ten persons were killed and 15 injured by a car bombing near a gas station in the southern port city Basra. The Basra governor attempted to downplay the number of deaths.

Another bombing, near a mosque in the small town of Hibhib near Baqubah, killed 10 and wounded 15. Hibhib was where the US recently killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In nearby Buhriz, a roadside bomb at an army checkpoint wounded 3 civilians. Iraqi soldiers laid down fire around them in response, wounding another 11 civilians.

In downtown Baghdad, Iraqi policemen and soldiers clashed with guerrillas around Haifa Street. Three to five Iraqi police and/or army soldiers were wounded. There are also reports of US troops battling the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr.

Police fished 5 bodies out of the Tigris near Kadhimiyah. The bodies were probably those of factory workers kidnapped last week.

Also in the capital, 4 more US troops were announced killed.

In Kirkuk, the sister of the former speaker of the Iraqi parliament was injured in an attack.

Guerrillas in Hilla killed two policemen.
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CAIR: Miami Cult not Muslims

I just saw the spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations on CNN saying that the Miami cult members just arrested are not Muslims. I'd say that is a fair statement.

For one thing, they are vegetarians!

It seems pretty obvious that they are just a local African-American cult which mixed Judaism, Christianity and (a little bit of) Islam. It seems to be a of vague offshoot of the Moors group founded by Dwight York. I heard on CNN that one of them talked of being Moors. And Batiste, the leader, called whites "devils" in the tradition of the original Nation of Islam and York's Moors. Now CNN is saying one member said they practiced witchcraft [likely meaning Haitian voodoo or perhaps Santeria-like rituals]. One former member is called Levi-El, suggesting he might be associated with the Black Hebrew movement or an offshoot. Now a relative of one of the members, Phanor, said that they wore black uniforms with a star of David arm patch and considered themselves of the Order of Melchizadek. I wonder if it is "Seas of David" or "C's of David", with "c" meaning commando or some such?

I define cult as a religious group that has values that put it in a high state of tension with the norms of mainstream society, and that has a leadership that imposes high levels of discipline and demand for control of adherents' lives.

This Seas of David group primarily seems to have been studying the Bible. The mother of one insisted that he is a Catholic. Then there is all that Jewish symbology and terminology, even in their names. Islam was nothing more for them but a set of symbols they could pull into their syncretic local culture. The group drew on poor Haitian immigrants and local indigent African-American youth. If this were the 1960s, they'd have been Black Panthers or Communists.

American folk religion, pursued in small groups with charismatic leaders, is replete with such groups, from Father Divine to Jim Jones of the People's Temple to David Koreish.

The group never got past the stage of talking big, and violently. They talked dangerously, and some sort of intervention was warranted. Since they begged the FBI informant for "shoes," they weren't exactly a well-heeled group that seems very dangerous in actual practice. And, to what extent did the FBI informant press an al-Qaeda connection on these otherwise clueless but imaginative zealots?

But contrast the grandstanding of Alberto Gonzales on this group of poor unarmed ghetto folk with the way in which the Robert J. Goldstein case was treated. He actually had the bombs in his house and was going to blow up Floridians. No press called him a "Jewish" terrorist and no questions were ever raised about his possible international links.

Imagine the horror of an urbane Arab-American professional with university higher degrees, steeped in Islamic culture and contributing to American society, at being lumped in by the American press and officialdom with these cultists who appropriated his religion for their violent religious fantasies.

The other thing to say is that American law is soft on cultic practices, of dirty tricks against and smearing of critics, enforced third-party shunning, manipulation, and group coercion. These things are not protected by the First Amendment and I think one part of our counter-terrorism strategy must be to develop legal strategies to make it easier to disrupt the workings of cults before they accumulate a critical mass for violent action. The practice of just letting the head of the Internal Revenue Service decide if a group is a tax-free religion should also be revisited. In the past, some IRS heads appear to have been blackmailed by cults into granting them that status, which allows them to accumulate more wealth.

Whereas most terrorism is a form of educated, middle class politics, this particular group clearly grew out of the grievances and resentments of race and class inequality in the United States.

The sister of one was just on MSNBC saying that he deeply resented Bush spending money to drop bombs on poor people who could not defend themselves, while depriving the poor in the United States of any support. "We are not capable," she said. This is a theory of class war, connecting the poor of Kut with the poor of Miami's inner city. The city, by the way, has horrific levels of unemployment.

The position of the poor and workers in particular is deteriorating in the US, as more and more of the privately held wealth is concentrated in the hands of a white, privileged, few. The unions have been gutted, the minimum wage is inadequate, and racist attitudes are reemerging on a worrisome scale. Cities such as Detroit, New Orleans and Miami continue to witness enormous strains coming mainly from racist attitudes. In this case, the best counter-terrorism would be more social justice.
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Senate rejects Withdrawal
Bombings in Basra, Baghdad, Diyala
25 Executed at Mosul

53% of Americans want a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. How unrepresentative the Senate is is demonstrated by the lack of majority there for any sort of withdrawal from Iraq.

The Senate rejected the withdrawal plans put forward by the Democrats. The two parties have now drawn a clear distinction on Iraq between themselves on the basis of which voters will decide in November. The Democratic plan, of gradual withdrawal, will be even more popular in November than it is now. There is no sign of progress in Iraq. The killings go on daily. And the Iraqi parliametary committees have not been able to choose chairmen because they are wrangling over sectarian candidates.

More on the private contractors in Iraq and their use of coerced labor.

Iraqi oil minister Husain Shahristani complained on Thursday about Iranian complicity in petroleum smuggling in the water south of Basra.

The Lebanese Hizbullah denied on Thursday that it had any links to the Iraqi insurgency. The American charges in this regard puzzle me. Hizbullah is not helping the fiercely Sunni Arab guerrillas in the center-north and west. In the Shiite south, there are many Iraqi groups that would like to attack coalition forces, and they don't need Lebanese encouragement. If the US has captured Lebanese Hizbullah in Iraq, it should reveal their names and the circumstances of their arrest.

Israeli firms are under investigation for illegal exports to northern Iraq.

Some 25 persons have been executed Mafia-style in Mosul during the past week. Mosul, which lies in the north, is Iraq's third-largest city.

AP also reports,

' In other parts of the country Thursday, police reported 13 other deaths tied to insurgent or death squad attacks, including six bodies that floated to the surface of the Tigris River in Kut, a city 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. '

A police raid freed some of the dozens of Shiite workers abducted on Tuesday, but between 15 and 25 are still unaccounted for. It is still unclear exactly who was kidnapped. Some sources say that they were employees of the ministry of industry, others that they were factory workers.

Reuters reports ongoing Iraq violence:

In Basra, guerrillas fired mortar rounds at official buildings, but they fell short and wounded 9 Iraqi civilians near a gasoline station.

Guerrillas set off a roadside bomb near the car of the governor of Diyala provinve, injuring him, a bodyguard, and his driver.

A motorcycle bomb in central Baghdad killed 2 and wounded 25.

A roadside bomb south of Baghdad killed a US GI.

14 bodies of employees of an electricity plant were discovered in the Baghdad morgue. They had been captured by guerrillas and killed a week and a half ago.

Guerrillas in the Shiite holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad assassinated a police officer.

Guerrillas in Dhuluiyya killed an Iraqi soldier in his home.

Guerrillas in Hawija assassinated a carpenter on Wednesday.

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, Iraqi soldiers clashed with guerrillas, leaving one guerrilla dead and two wounded.

From BBC World Monitoring, summaries of the Iraqi Press for June 22:

Al-Mashriq carries on the front page a 650-word report citing Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani calling for providing security and services. . .

Al-Muwatin carries on page 2 a 1,100-word report citing Deputy US Ambassador David Satterfield criticizing Syria for allowing former regime leaders residing in Syria to support terrorism and the infiltration of terrorists into Iraq.

Ishraqat al-Sadr publishes on page 1 a 400-word report citing Muqtada al-Sadr calling for the withdrawal of multinational forces from Iraq, urging the Iraqi political parties to hold the national reconciliation conference, and criticizing the multinational forces for raiding Karbala Governorate.

Al-Bayyinah carries on page 1 a 100-word saying that the Central Criminal Court has issued the death sentence against Muhammad Army leader Mu'ayyad Yasin Aziz and an officer in the Iraqi Army called Umar Khalid Ubayd Jaddah al-Janabi for leaking information to terrorists . . .

Al-Muwatin runs on page 3 a 200-word report citing a security source in Basra confirming that security forces have defused two roadside bombs near the strategic oil pipeline in Basra.

Tariq al-Sha'b publishes on the front page a 700-word report citing a spokesman for Iraqi Army in Basra confirming that so far Iraqi Army's 10th Division has not received any instructions regarding the security plan in Basra. . .

Al-Mada runs on page 3 a 450-word report that 1250 families have fled from Al-Ramadi to Hit due to deteriorating public service conditions. . .

Al-Da'wah carries on page 7 a 500-word article by Muntazar al-Mu'min severely criticizing Ba'thists for still defending their party and attacking anyone who criticizes it. . .

Ishraqat al-Sadr publishes on page 1 a 500-word editorial by Chief Editor Fattah al-Shaykh saying that Al-Sadr trend is infiltrated by some opportunists who are demolishing it . . .

Al-Bayyinah publishes on page 2 a 500-word article by Hasan Karim accusing Tariq al-Hashimi of supporting terrorism.

Al-Istiqamah carries on page 3 a 900-word commentary by the newspaper's political editor holding the Association of Muslim Scholars' unrealistic conditions responsible for the postponement of the projected National Conciliation Conference, which was scheduled for 22 June . . .

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Press Access to Internet being Censored

Journalists at the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere are suffering a loss of internet access as a result of censorship programs that routinely filter out blogging sites such as Boing, Boing.

Readers should please let me know if Informed Comment is being routinely blocked by such software.
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Western Soldiers writing from Iraq, Then and Now

War Post shares letters of soldiers in Iraq back home, from two historical periods. Some letters are from Indian and British soldiers in Iraq in the early twentieth century colonial period. Some are from US soldiers now.
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Michigan Peaceworks event on Sunday

The internet isn't very good for narrow-casting, but for my Michigan readers let me draw attention to the following important event. And for everybody, send money to Peaceworks!

"BREWING PEACE": A dinner and silent auction to benefit Michigan Peaceworks

Sunday June 25, 5 to 8 pm
Arbor Brewing Company, 116 E. Washington, Ann Arbor.

Host and emcee: Mayor John Hieftje

- Talk by Renee Heberle (Assoc. Professor of Political Science at University of Toledo) on The Politics of Violence: Guantanamo & Beyond.
- "Iran's People, Culture & 2,500-year History": A slide show by Hosain Mosavat.
- Music by Jesse Sinatra
- Special encore performance of "Bush's Impeachment Blues" by Phillis & the Left Sidemen

$40 Adults/$15 children under 18. Reservations required, 734-761-5922.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Shiite Workers Abducted
4 Marines Killed

The US military announced that guerrillas killed four US Marines in al-Anbar Province.

Some reports said that guerrillas abducted 85 mostly Shiite workers from a factory in a mostly Sunni district of Baghdad. Later reports by Iraqi officials said it had been 30 that were abducted, and that 25 were released. Not good news for at least 5 people, even if that narrative is correct.

16 corpses were found in the streets of the northern Sunni city of Mosul [Ar.]. Some were police or security men, others businessmen, and had likely been tagged as "collaborators" by the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement that is trying to overthrow the new government.

Gunmen in largely Sunni Zubayr north of Basra invaded a school and assassinated its principal [Ar.]. Al-Zaman says that security is collapsing again in Basra.

A car bomb in Sadr City, Shiite East Baghdad, killed 2 and wounded 14.

Another of Saddam's defense attorneys was assassinated. That tribunal, which at one time seemed as though it would be source of good news for the Bush administration, has been handled so badly that it has become nothing short of an embarrassment. Three defense lawyers killed, and one witness alleging that some of the men Saddam is alleged to have had killed at Dujail are still alive. Saddam even emerged after the February bombing of the golden dome at Samarra and the subsequent faith-based massacres between Shiite and Sunni as a voice of national unity. To give the old mass murderer the occasion to grandstand that way. It is incompetence, criminal incompetence.

Australia's economic ties with Iraq, surely among the main reasons it has troops in the country, have been imperilled by the shooting of a bodyguard of the trade minister by Australian troops.

7 Marines and a sailor were charged with the murder of an Iraqi civilian at Hamdaniyah. This case is in addition to the Haditha massacre and another murder case at Salahuddin.



Don't miss the interview given by Tom Engelhardt. Money para:

"I've always claimed that, when you read articles in the imperial press, the best way -- and I'm only half-kidding -- is back to front. Your basic front-page stories, as on the TV news, usually don't differ that much from paper to paper. It's when you get toward the ends of pieces that they really get interesting. Maybe because reporters and editors sense that nobody's paying attention but the news junkies, so things get much looser. You find tidbits the reporter's slipped in that just fall outside the frame of the expectable. That's what I go looking for. Sometimes it's like glimpsing coming attractions.

Here are a couple of tidbits I picked up deep in the Times recently.

There was an interesting front-page piece by Sabrina Tavernisi, "As Death Stalks Iraq: Middle Class Exodus Begins." After the jump, pretty deep inside, there's this line: "In all, 312 trash workers have been killed in Baghdad in the past six months." There it is: basic, good reporting that no one's going to notice or pick-up on. And yet it probably tells you just about everything you need to know about life in Baghdad today. Forget the security forces, forget top officials. Three hundred and twelve garbage men slaughtered. Holy Toledo!

So that kind of reporting, hidden but in plain sight, can start me on an Iraq piece."

The Iraq War isn't just over there. It hits home, too.
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For Outgoing Senator Santorum:
Top Ten Ways We Know Saddam Did not Have WMD

"There are many Senators whom I hold in a certain respect and would not think of declining to meet socially, if I believed it was the will of God. We have lately sent a United States Senator to the penitentiary, but I am quite well aware that of those who have escaped this promotion there are several who are in some regards guiltless of crime--not guiltless of all crimes, for that cannot be said of any United States Senator, I think, but guiltless of some kinds of crime.
- Mark Twain in Eruption

In the fantasy world of the Hard Right, Senator Rick Santorum and Michigan Representative Pete Hoekstra attempted to make it look like some old pre-1991 shells lying around Iraq with degraded chemicals in them were the dreaded "weapons of mass destruction" that the Bush administration went to war over.

AP bothered to actually ask the Department of Defense about this, which might be expected to know something on the subject:

' But a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age. Also, Democrats said a lengthy 2005 report from the top U.S. weapons inspector contemplated that such munitions would be found. '

As Think Progress noted (link above), Alan Colmes let the Sanatarium know the bad news for his little smoke and mirrors routine on cable television:

' COMBS: Congressman, Senator, it’s Alan Colmes. Senator, the Iraq Survey Group — let me go to the Duelfer Report — says that Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there. And Jim Angle reported this for Fox News quotes a defense official who says these were pre-1991 weapons that could not have been fired as designed because they already been degraded. And the official went on to say these are not the WMD’s this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had and not the WMD’s for which this country went to war. So the chest beating at this Republicans are doing tonight thinking this is a justification is not confirmed by the defense department.

SANTORUM: I’d like to know who that is. The fact of the matter is, I’ll wait and see what the actual Defense Department formally says or more important what the administration formally says. '

Quite apart from who said what, here are the Top Ten Ways We know Saddam Didn't Have WMD:

1. The authors of Cobra II show that before the 2003 Iraq War, Saddam called his top generals together and let them know that he did not in fact have any WMD any more. They were allegedly shaken and disturbed.

2. The Saddam regime faced certain destruction in March-April 2003, but no Iraqi military unit deployed any WMD to save themselves.

3. All searches of all tagged facilities in post-war Iraq found that the weapons programs had all been closed down by the mid-1990s.

4. On September 30, 2004, the U.S. Iraq Survey Group Final Report concluded, "ISG has not found evidence that Saddam Husayn (sic) possessed WMD stocks in 2003, but the available evidence from its investigation—including detainee interviews and document exploitation—leaves open the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq although not of a militarily significant capability." Let me put that in bold for Mssrs. Santorum and Hoekstra: not of a militarily significant capability.

5. What most people mean by weapons of mass destruction is nukes. Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program after the United Nations weapons inspectors dismantled it in the early 1990s.

6. Remember those "mobile biological weapons labs"? When Irv Lewis Libby, now in custody, realized that UN inspectors were finding no evidence for biological weapons labs, he made up this silly idea of mobile labs. Biological weapons labs need a clean room. Where would you put that on a winnebago? And, would you really want your germ lab to hit a pothole? In reality? The trailers were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, just as the Iraqis had said.

7. Chief inspector David Kay has already admitted that "We were almost all wrong"! Kay staked his professional reputation on there being WMD in Iraq, and he actually chased it on the ground for months and months. If he could have found any shred to uphold his basic human dignity, he would have. He couldn't.

8. Not only has the Department of Defense admitted it, so has the CIA.

9. Chemical weapons are battlefield weapons, not weapons of mass destruction:

"National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Talk of the Nation 1500-1600 PM
May 8, 2006 Monday
LENGTH: 5971 words
HEADLINE: A History of Chemical Weapons
ANCHORS: NEAL CONAN
BODY:
NEAL CONAN, host . . .
Mr. TUCKER: Yeah, I think it's important to distinguish between tactical weapons and strategic weapons. Chemical weapons were really designed for battlefield use. They--very large quantities are required to cover these--the size of a city. So they are not really contemplated as strategic weapons the way nuclear weapons would be used against entire cities. So perhaps there is some distinction there. Whether chemical weapons should be called weapons of mass destruction is somewhat debatable. They are really more tactical or battlefield weapons. . . '
Mr. JONATHAN TUCKER (Author, War of Nerves; Senior Fellow, Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute)"

10. Powell and Rice admitted as much in spring of 2001!:

Powell: "but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq..."

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Kirkuk Governor: Not a Cent from Baghdad!

The USG Open Source Center translates an interview with the governor of oil-rich, ethnically turbulent Kirkuk city.
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Bombings in Basra, Baghdad
US Airstrike Kills 13 at Baqubah

A suicide bomber targeted pensioners standing in line in Basra, killing 1 and wounding 5.

In Baghdad, a bomber killed 7 and wounded 18 in a market.

Al-Zaman/ DPA say that police found 16 corpses in various parts of Iraq.

Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] dozens of physicians went on strike in Baghdad on Tuesday to protest the assassination of a specialist.


The US killed 15 persons it says were insurgents in an air strike near Baqubah. Locals denied that the deceased, who include an 12-year-old boy, were involved in violence. Arab news channels tended to see that strike as a tragic error or as a "massacre."

British Lieutenant General Nick Houghton came out Tuesday with a gloomy portrait of sectarian violence in the southern port city of Basra:

' "There is a worrying amount of violence and murder carried out between rival Shia factions," he said. "The security situation in Basra has no doubt got worse of late due to the protracted period of talks to form the government." That, he said, allowed "a period of time in which politics that should have been conducted more appropriately, actually were conducted through violent means on the streets". Gen Houghton continued: "There has been inter-faction rivalry, much of it then reflecting in non-judicial murder between rival Shia factions struggling for political and economic power." '

Supreme Jurisprudent of Iran Ali Khamenei, pressed again Tuesday for withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.
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Rosser Guest Op-Ed: Innocent Kurdish-Americans Victimized by Patriot Act

A Travesty of Justice: Oppressing the Kurds of Harrisonburg, Virginia

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.

On June 26, three Kurdish men in Harrisonburg, Virginia (Rasheed Qambari, Ahmed Abdullah, and Amir Rashid) will be sentenced for sending money to Iraqi Kurdistan without a license to their families and those of fellow members of their community via the traditional hawala system (a fourth man, Fadhil Noroly, will be tried on July 11). This is a felony offense under amendments to the Patriot Act introduced after 9/11.

No longer does the transfer have to be linked in any way to any illegal activity or terrorism, nor does the party doing the transferring have to know that what they are doing is illegal. Even the FBI and prosecuting attorneys agree that none of these transfers through the traditional halawa system had anything to do with terrorism or anything of the sort. Indeed, one prosecutor declared to Rasheed Qambari during his trial on January 31, "we know that you are not the bad guys." What is going on here?

First of all observers should realize how completely absurd these cases are. Prior to 1996 these men, and most of the 70 Kurdish families now living in Harrisonburg in the Shenandoah Valley, were involved with aiding US and UK aid organizations. In that year Saddam Hussein attempted to have them arrested and killed (he succeeded with many who did not get out). The US government airlifted about 6500 of them out to Turkey as part of Operation Pacific Haven. After extensive security vetting in Guam, many were allowed to immigrate as refugees into the US, with this group ending up in Harrisonburg. These people were anti-Saddam and anti-terrorism, literally dancing in the streets at his overthrow.

Nevertheless, after 9/11, the FBI began visiting their homes, as well as those of other Muslims in the Harrisonburg community, asking them about links to terrorists and terror groups. During these interrogations these four men all told of their money transfer activities for the community to help out their families with medical and other problems. They were told that this was not a problem. No one told them that they needed to obtain federal licenses or that that they were doing anything illegal. Two of them never made any profits on their activities (Qambari in particular has translated for hospitals, schools, and even the courts for free). The two that made small profits obtained local business licenses and were under the impression that this was sufficient.

During the summer of 2006, about eight homes of Kurds in the area were raided in massive operations that involved as many as 12 different government agencies. Families were mistreated and belongings were seized, including things that did not belong to those raided (including $20,000 for the down payment on a house for someone not raided, an amount only recently returned). On October 19, 2005, the four men were indicted and were arrested in the early hours two days later. At their indictment a Croatian translator was provided, and Ahmed Abdullah spent a week in jail because he was afraid to answer any questions due to his inadequate English. On January 31, Qambari was convicted. This led to Abdullah and Rashid pleading guilty, while Noroly still holds out for a trial. They face possible sentences of up to five years and possible deportation. Qambari has stated that his life will be in danger if he returns. All four men had applied for US citizenship (they all are married with children born in the US), and Qambari had even passed the final exam with a perfect score, only awaiting his swearing in, when these events intervened.

There was almost no coverage of this in any media, only a brief, not-on-the front cover story in the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record (DNR) that repeated the prosecution's argument that Qambari was threatening "the integrity of the US financial system" by his activities. Since then a movement has grown in the area, triggered initially by blogposts by this writer on Maxspeak (whose archives contain much material) and then appearing in various local media. The most thorough story on this appeared in the June issue of the local monthly, Eighty-One, by Jeremy Nafziger, which can be accessed here [pdf]. A front page story appeared in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 18, entitled, "Kurdish Defendants Find Support in Town's Clasp," by Karin Brulliard. After two op-ed pieces, several letters, and a petition signed by over 600 citizens, the very conservative DNR came out in an editorial on May 8 for "leniency in sentencing" of the men. Leading this local movement has been a group called Standing With Our Neighbors (SWON), which has been spearheaded by local religious groups, especially many Mennonites from Harrisonburg. The DNR editorial cited an op-ed by me, "If I am Deported back to Iraq, I will die" (titled "An Investigation Gone Sour" in the paper), which can be accessed at http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb.

What has led to this travesty? These cases arose out of a Joint Terrorism Task Force based in Roanoke involving many agencies. They searched and searched and found nothing, but needed to show somebody that they were doing good. So, they nailed these people who have done nothing wrong other than try to help their neighbors, ignorant of the law. Given the visits to the mosque by the FBI and the general situation, it is clear that this reflects a broader anti-Muslim character of these investigations and the associated lack of respect for human rights. One can appreciate that this statute might need to be used against actual terrorists if there is no other evidence that can be used against them in court (much as Al Capone was eventually convicted of income tax evasion). But no one says these men are terrorists. This is an anti-terror bureaucracy gone out of control. Prosecuting these men makes as much sense as when autoworkers in Detroit beat a Chinese man to death because they were upset at Japanese car imports. This is an unfair and disturbing prosecution that indicates how seriously in jeopardy our rights in America have become endangered by egregious enforcement of the Patriot Act. I only hope that the judge is indeed lenient with these very worthy men.

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. Professor of Economics and Kirby L. Kramer, Jr. Professor of Business Administration James Madison University Editor, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

=========

Ed. note: See also This recent Washington Post article.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraq Intel Chief Decries Partisanship

From the USG Open Source Center, a translation of an interview with Iraq's intelligence head:

' Iraqi Intelligence Chief Al-Shahwani Warns of Danger of Partisan Politics

Interview with Iraqi Intelligence Service chief Major General Muhammad al-Shahwani by Sa'd Abbas; place and date not given: "There Will Be Security in the Country When the Political Parties Stop Undermining the Authority of the Prime Minister"

Al-Zaman
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 T16:37:56Z

Document Type: OSC Translated Text


(Abbas) How far has the intelligence service gone in terms of qualitative preparedness?

(Al-Shahwani) One can say that Iraq at present possesses a professional intelligence service. The intelligence service is much better and more advanced than its predecessor under the former regime, technically and in terms of national loyalty. However, in view of the abnormal security situation in the country, the intelligence service does not practice its duties in many fields outside Iraq, as it is supposed to do. The country's circumstances require the intelligence service to focus its activity inside the country, yet it has had a presence in some fields in some of the neighboring countries. So far, we have not been able to work in more distant areas, such as Europe and other countries.

The rest is here.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Open Source: Cole with Wright

Here is the transcript of my appearance Monday evening with Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker on Chris Lydon's PRI show, Open Source, to discuss radical Islamism and Iraq after Zarqawi.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dems Back Phased Withdrawal
Republicans: Stay and Stay, Spend and Spend

Senate Democrats have come up with two resolutions, with most of the coalescing around the vaguer one.

AP describes the more popular resolution:

' The resolution would urge _ but not require _ the administration to begin "a phased redeployment of U.S. forces" in 2006 and, by year's end, give Congress its plan for "continued redeployment" thereafter. Additionally, the resolution calls for American troops, which have been focused on combat operations in Iraq, to more quickly switch to "a limited mission of training and logistic support of Iraqi security forces, protection of U.S. personnel and facilities, and targeting counterterrorism activities." It also maps out steps Senate Democrats say the fledgling Iraqi government must take to lay the foundation for a successful democracy and calls for an international conference to help Iraq overcome problems it faces. '

My hero, Russ Feingold, and other heroes Barbara Boxer and John Kerry, are pushing a more specific withdrawal plan with a July 1, 2007 deadline for withdrawal of most US forces. AP says:

' It would require the administration to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007, leaving in place only U.S. troops essential to training Iraqi security forces, conducting counterterrorism operations and protecting U.S. personnel and facilities. "A deadline gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government, and most importantly, it allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country," Kerry and Feingold, two Democrats eying potential presidential candidacies in 2008, said in a joint statement. '

The old traitor Karl Rove, who revealed the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to the Iranians (and everyone else), castigated the Democrats' proposals as "cut and run." Rove wants us to go on spending $5 billion a month in Iraq, and to go on losing thousands of maimed young people.

Here are some other examples of cutting and running:

The United States withdrew from the Philippines in 1946.

Britain withdrew from India in 1947.

France withdrew from Morocco and Tunisia in 1956.

France withdrew from Algeria in 1962.

Rove only has two choices. He either has to agree that these withdrawals were a good thing, or he has to blame Britain and France for cutting and running. Does this mean he thinks the US should try to re-colonize the Philippines? Does he want France to take back over Algeria? By the way, neither India nor Algeria was stable when the colonial power withdrew.

Either, Mr. Rove, the US is a Republic among independent nations, or it is a Colonial Power intent on subjecting other peoples. If it is a Republic, it should be leaving Iraq to the Iraqis. If it is a Colonial Power, then it is doomed. Because no instance of successful foreign colonialism on the nineteenth-century model has been implemented in the past 50 years, for the simple reason that the peoples of the global south are socially and politically mobilized-- literate, urban, industrial, skilled, networked-- in a way they never were before in history. And no mobilized people can be successfully occupied.

The US military presence in Iraq is retarding a political settlement. It makes the Shiites and Kurds cocky and unwilling to compromise with the Sunni Arabs. It keeps the Iraqi army weak and ineffective, lacking proper armor or an air force. And US military tactics of search and destroy are turning progressively more Iraqis against us over time. The longer the US stays in Iraq, the more likely it is that one day one of our cities will be attacked by Iraqi terrorists bearing a grudge for Fallujah or Tal Afar or whatever other Iraqi cities we plan to destroy.

And, about that $5 billion a month. I live in the Detroit area. This is what my city looks like:



Could we please have just one of those $5 billion dollar installments you are squandering in Iraq, Mr. Rove, to -- you know-- fix up Detroit a little bit. I'd say those windows need replacing. And since you painted all those schools over there, maybe you wouldn't mind painting some of the buildings in my area. We don't have any oil, but we have a helluva port and enormous industrial capacity. It is just that, you know, the Federal government has been busy rebuilding a foreign country (which somehow still seems to be in flames and run down, despite having its own petroleum). And somehow my city just isn't a priority. In fact, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Rove, but my recollection is that neglect of Detroit has driven its population below 1 million, and that as a result, the Federal government actually cut back on the aid it gives the city. Is that really good urban policy? Wouldn't it make more sense to bring Detroit back to life and reinvigorate the American Midwest?

Is it cut and run? Or is it 'withdraw and spend American money on Americans'?

And what is the Republican plan? Is it "Stay and stay, and Spend and Spend?"
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

26 Dead in Civil War
3,000 Demonstrate in Karbala

Japan has announced that it will withdraw its 600 troops from Iraq over the next few weeks. The announcement was probably prompted by the plan to turn security in Muthanna province, where the Japanese soldiers are stationed, over to Iraq.

Japan joins Italy in this firm commitment to withdrawal. Muthanna is under the control of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps militia, and presumably they will provide what security there is in the province.

The British appear to just have given up on lawless Maysan, a stronghold of the displaced Marsh Arabs, who have largely gone over to Muqtada al-Sadr. Their departure from Amara strikes me as more a surrender than a withdrawal. Amara has not been kind to British troops, ever since WW I.

The Australian troops that had been at Samawah in Muthanna will be moved to Nasiriyah, to replace the departing Italians.

Three US troops have been charged with premeditated murder for shooting Iraqi detainees.

The US military operation against Ramadi continued on Monday, though details were scarce. It is a little odd that we can have a major military operation, of great importance to the ongoing war, and yet know almost nothing of its course. Likewise, I have seen no reporting on the progress of the supposed sweep of guerrillas in Baghdad. It doesn't in any case appear to have put a crimp in the car bomb industry, as yet.

Reuters reports civil war violence in Iraq:

In central Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed 4 and wounded 10 in an attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint.

In south Baghdad, a car bomb killed 3 and wounded 3 in an attack on a police checkpoint.

Guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb near the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, south of the capital, killing one and wounding 5.

In the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, guerrillas assassinated a senior police officer and injured two of his bodyguards.

Al-Zaman/ AFP say that [Ar.] guerrillas assassinated Gen. Khudair Abdallah `Ibad, the deputy police chief of Fallujah. In Mosul, guerrillas assassinated an officer in the former Baath army.

Guerrillas assassinated Makki Mandil al-Maliki, a military commander in Amara, as well as a junior officer, while wounding a third officer. They also killed 4 policemen in the Imarat al-Sakniyah district in central Amara.

Gunmen killed 3 family members in Mada'in.

In and around Baqubah, five civilians were killed and five wounded in a firefight.

In the Kifl area south of Hilla, a roadside bomb killed a civilian and wounded 5.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP report that some three thousand persons demonstrated in Karbala on Monday morning against the US military's arrest of Aqil al-Zubaidi, the head of the provincial council. Al-Zubaydi, from the Shiite Fadhila [Virtue] Party (a non-Muqtada branch of the Sadr movement), is under house arrest at the center of the city and stands accused of involvement in terrorist attacks. Shaikh Muhammad al-Hasnawi warned the Americans of an explosion of popular rage if this sort of thing went on.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Friday Prayer Sermons in Iraq

The USG Open Source Center translates Iraqi television's roundup of Friday sermons on 16 June.

"Iraqi Television: Roundup of Friday Sermons 16 Jun
Iraq -- OSC Report
Monday, June 19, 2006 T17:09:10Z

Document Type: OSC Report

At 0845 GMT Baghdad Satellite Channel in Arabic, reportedly sponsored by the Iraqi Islamic Party, carries a live relay of Shaykh Jamal Abd-al-Rahman's sermon from the (Sunni) Dhi al-Nurayn Mosque, which mainly focuses on religious matters.

Within its 1700 GMT newscast, Baghdad Al-Furat in Arabic, a television station affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), cites the representative of Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, Shaykh Abd-al-Mahdi al-Karbala'i, imam and preacher of Al-Husayn Mosque in Karbala, as denouncing the "suicide attack" on (Shiite) Buratha Mosque in Baghdad, which had left dozens of worshippers "martyred" and "wounded."

The channel cites Al-Karbala'i as saying that "terrorists" and "takfiri criminals" have added yet another "black day to their dark past." Moreover Al-Karbala'i holds the US forces responsible for the deteriorating security in Iraq, adding that the "US forces" are obliged by law to take all the necessary measures to ensure the security and stability of Iraq.'

See the rest.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

US Embassy Document

A kind reader typed up and corrected some typos in the US Embassy document [pdf] published by the Washington Post on Sunday. Here it is:

"a 121430Z UN 06
PM MEMBASSy BAgHDAD
TO SECSTArE WASXDC 5042

INFO IRAQ COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS BAGXDAD 001992

E.O. 12958: N/A TAGSt P14GM. PRE ,. ASEC. AMGT, IZ
SUBJECTS Snapshots from the Office: Public Affairs Staff Show Strains of Social Discord

SESITIVE

1. (SBU) Beginning in March. and picking up in mid-May, Iraqi staff in the Public Affairs Section have complained that Islamist and/or militia Groups have been negatively affecting their daily routine. Harassment over proper dress and habits has been increasingly pervasive. They also report that power cuts and fuel prices have diminished their quality of life. Conditions vary by neighborhood, but even upscale neighborhoods such as Mansur have visibly deteriorated.

Womens Rights

2. (SBU) The Public Affairs Press Office has 9 local Iraqi employees. Two of our three female employees report stepped up harassment beginning in mid-May. One, a Shiite who favors Western clothing, was advised by an unknown woman in her upscale Shiite/Christian Baghdad neighborhood to wear a veil and not to drive her own car. Indeed, she said, some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative.

3. (SBU) Another, a Sunni, said that people in her middle-class neighborhood are harassing women and telling t h em to cover up and stop using cell phones (suspected channel to licentious relationships with men). She said that the taxi driver who brings her every day to the green zone checkpoint has told her he cannot let her ride unless she wears a headcover. A female in the PAS cultural section is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats in May. She says her neighborhood, Mhamiya, is no longer permissive if she is not clad so modestly.

4. (SBU) These women say they cannot identify the groups that are pressuring them many times. the cautions come from other women, sometimes from men who they say could be Sunni or Shiite, but appear conservative. They also tell us that some ministries, notably the Sadrist controlled Ministry of Transportation, have been forcing fem1es to wear the hijab at work. Dress Code for All?

5. (SBU) Staff members have reported that it is now dangerous for men to wear shorts in public; they no longer allow their children to play outside tn shorts. People who wear jeans in public have come under attack from what staff members describe as Wahabis and Sadrists.

Evictions

6. (SBU) One colleague beseeched us to weigh in to help a neighbor who was uprooted in May from her home of 30 years, on the pretense of application of some long-disused law that allows owners to evict tenants after 14 years. The woman, a Fayli Kurd, says she has nowhere to go. no other home, but the courts give them no recourse to this new assertion of power. Such uprootings may be a response by new Shiite government authorities to similar actions against Arabs by Kurds in other parts of Iraq. ( MOTE: An Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province , as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq. One editor told us that the KDP is now planning to set up tent cities in Irbil, to house Kurds being evicted from Baghdad.)

Power Cuts and Fuel Shortages a Drain on society --

7. Temperatures in Baghdad have already reached 115 degrees. employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without. That was only about four hours of power a day for the city. By early June, the situation had improved slightly, In Hai Si Shaab. power has recently improved from one in six to one in three hours. Other staff report similar variances. Central Baghdad neighborhood Bab al Muathama has had no city power for over a month. Areas near hospitals, political party headquarters, and the green zone have the best supply, in some eases reaching 24 hours. One staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 2l hours of his appointment, her building had City power 24 hours a day.

(SBU) All employees supplement City power with service contracted with neighborhood generator hookups that they pay for monthly. ‘ One employee pays 7500 ID per ampere to get 10 amperes per month (75,000 10 = USD 50/month). For this, her family gets 6 hours of power per day, with service ending at 2 am. Another employee pays 9000 ID per ampere to get 10 amperes per month (90.000 USD 60). For this, his family gets 8 hours per day, with service running until 5 am.

9. (SEW Fuel lines have also taxed out- staff, One employee told us May 29 that he had spent 12 hours on his day off (Saturday) waiting to get gas. Another staff member confirmed that shortages were so dire, prices on the black market in much of Baghdad were now above 1,000 Iraqi dinars per liter (the official, subsidized price is 250 ID).

Kidnappings, and Threats of Worse

10. (SBU) One employee informed us in March that his brother in law had been kidnapped. The mean was eventually released, but this caused enormous emotional distress to the entire family. One employee, a Sunni Kurd, received an indirect threat on her life in April. She took extended leave, and by May, relocated abroad with her family. Security Forces 4istrusted

11. (SBU) In April, employees began reporting a change in demeanor of guards at the green zone checkpoints. They seemed to be more militia-like, in some cases seemingly taunting. One employee asked us to explore getting her press credentials because guards had held her embassy badge up and proclaimed loudly to nearby passers-by ‘Embassy’ as she entered Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people.

Supervising a Staff At High Risk

12. (SBU) employees all share a common tale their lives: of nine employees in March, only four had family members who knew they worked at the embassy. That makes it difficult for them, and for us. Iraqi colleagues called after hours often speak Arabic as an indication they Cannot speak openly in English.

13. (SBLT) We cannot call employees in on weekends or holidays without blowing their cover. Uikewise, they have been unavailable during multiple security closures imposed by the government since February. A Sunni Arab female employee tells us that family pressures and the inability no share details of her employment is very tough; she told her family she was in ’ Jordan .then we sent her on training to the February. Mounting criticisms of the U.S. at home among family members also makes her life difficult. She told us in mid­June that most of her family believes the U.S. ­- which is widely perceived as fully controlling the country and tolerating the malaise ­- is punishing populations as Saddani did (but with Sunnis and very poor Shiitenow at the bottom of the list), Otherwise, she says, the allocation of power and security would not be so arbitrary.

14. CSBU) Some of our staff do not take home their American cell phones , as this makes them a target. Planning for their own possible abduction , they use code names for friends and colleagues and contacts entered into Iraq cell phones. For at least six months, we have not been able to use any local staff members for translation at on-camera press events.

15. (SBU) More recently, we have begun shredding documents printed out that show local staff surnames. In March. a few staff members approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate.

Sectarian Tensions Within Families

16. Ethnic and sectarian fault lines are also becoming part of the daily media fare in the country. One Shiite employee told us in late May that she can no longer watch TI! news with her mother, who is Suruti, because her mother blamed all government failings on the fact that Shiites Are in charge. Many of the employees immediate family members, including her father, one sister, and a brother, left Iraq years ago. This month, another sister is departing for Egypt, as she imagines the future here is too bleak,

Frayed Nerves and Mistrust in the Office

17. (SBU) Against this backdrop of frayed social networks, tension and moodiness have risen. One Shiite made disparaging comments about the Sunni caliph Othman which angered a Kurd. A Sunni Arab female apparently insulted a Shiite female colleague by criticizing her overly liberal dress. One colleague told us he feels “defeated’ by circumstances, citing the example of being unable to help his two year old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in stifling heat. 1$. (SBU) Another employee tells us that life outside the Green Zone has become emotionally draining. He lives in a mostly Shiite area and claims to attend a funeral every evening,’ He, like other local employees, is financially responsible for his immediate and extended families. He revealed that ‘the burden of responsibility; new stress coming from social circles who increasingly disapprove of the coalition presence, and everyday threats weigh very heavily.This employee became extremely agitated in late May at website reports of an abduction of an Iraqi working with MNFI, whose expired Embassy and MNFI badges were posted on the website Staying Straight with Neighborhood Governments and the ‘Alasa

19. (SBU) Staff members say they daily assess how to move safely in public. Often, if they must travel outside their own neighborhoods, they adapt the clothing, language, and traits of the area. In Jadriya, for example, one needs to conform to the SCIRI/Badr ethic; in Yusufiya, a strict Sunni conservative dress code has taken hold Adhawiya and Salihiya, controlled by the secular Ministry of Defense, are not conservative. Moving inconspicuously in Sadr City requires Shiite conservative dress and a particular lingo. Once­upscale Mansur district, near the Green Zone, according to one employee, by early June was an unrecognizable ghost town.

20. (SBU) Since Samarra, Baghdadis have honed these survival skills. Vocabulary has shifted to reflect new behavior. Our staff ­- and our contacts -- have become adept in modifying behavior to avoid A1asae, informants who keep an eye out for outsiders” in neighborhoods. The Alasa mentality is becoming entrenched as Iraqi security forces fail to gain public confidence.

21. (SBU) Our staff, report that security and services are being rerouted through local provider whose affiliations are vague. As noted above, those who are admonishing citizens on their dress are not known to the residents. Neighborhood power providers are not well known either, nor is it clear how they avoid robbery or targeting. Personal safety depends on good relations with the neighborhood governments, who barricade streets and ward of f outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or co-opted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors.

22. (SBtJ) A resident of upscale Shiit/ Christian Karrada district told us that outsiders” have moved in and now control the local mukhtars, one of whom now has cows and goats grazing in the streets. When she expressed her concern at the dereliction, he told her to butt out.

Comment 23. (SBtJ) Although our staff retain a professional demeanor , strains are apparent. We see that their personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels, despite talk of reconciliation by officials. Employees are apprehensive enough that we fear they my exaggerate developments or steer us towards news that comports with their own worldview. Objectivity, civility, and logic that make for a functional workplace may falter if Social pressures outside the Green Zone don’t abate. "

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bush's Abuse of History
Snow's Battle of Bilge

The president of the United States is in some ways the nation's leading public historian. More people hear about American history from him than from virtually any other source, with the possible exception of Hollywood.

It has therefore been dispiriting to witness the falsehoods about American history consistently purveyed by the Bush administration. Bush and his officials have repeatedly made allegations that simply are not true, but they sin most grievously against the muse of Clio with their flat-footed and implausible analogies.

On Sunday, the most prominent among Bush's spokesmen from the ranks of Fox Cable News anchors, Tony Snow, did it again. He compared our current situation in Iraq to the Battle of the Bulge. This battle began in mid-December, 1944, a little over 3 years after the US entered the war. Snow also suggested that the American public was ready to throw in the towel at that point in the war!

Is the only way this tawdry administration can make itself feel good to defame the Greatest Generation? My late uncle used to tell us stories of how he fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Is Tony Snow saying he was a coward? That the Americans back at the homefront were?

From CNN on Sunday:

BLITZER: "Let's talk a little bit about troop withdrawal potentials for the U.S. military, about 130,000 U.S. forces in Iraq right now.

In our most recent CNN poll that came out this week, should the U.S. set a timetable to eventually withdraw troops from Iraq, 53 percent said yes; 41 percent said no.

Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today. She's going to be on this show, coming up.

She wrote this: "We have now been in Iraq for more than three years. And we believe that the time has come for that phased redeployment to begin. It is also time for the Bush administration to provide a schedule and timetable for the structured downsizing and redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq."

"Does that make sense?"

SNOW: "The president understands people's impatience -- not impatience but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?

But you cannot conduct a war based on polls. And you can't conduct this kind of activity. What you have to do -- and the president's been clear about this -- is take a look at the conditions on the ground. Let's think for a moment of the alternative.

If the United States pulls out -- and what's been interesting is that most people realize that simply pulling out would be an absolute, unmitigated disaster, not merely for the people of Iraq but the larger war on terror."

On the question of American faintheartedness in the face of the Ardennes assault by the Germans, here is what was on the front page of the New York Times on December 20, 1944:



"nothing but confidence in our ability to deal with . . ." "It has long been foreseen that the enemy might make some such counter-stroke . . ." "the risks of powerful armies closing in on his flanks seem even greater . . ." Oh, yeah, we were obviously petrified! Why, it is amazing that Gen. Patton didn't just slink away for very shame at our pusillanimity!

Not only were the Americans determined in the face of the Nazi assault, but the NYT reported that the Belgian resisters to the Nazis urgently requested permission to line up to fight the German army, a request that Gen. Erskine declined. Ragtag Belgian irregulars weren't afraid, much less the public and military of the United States of America!

And here is the concluding para. of the NYT editorial on Jan. 13, 1945:



So let me get this straight. The NYT editorial says, "This state of affairs calls not merely for watchfulness on the part of the allies but also for the recovery of the general control of strategy as soon as possible."

So Tony Snow thinks a poll would have shown that the US public was shaking in its booties at the Battle of the Bulge? He thinks the New York liberal press was calling for an abandonment of the war? What a steaming crock!

So his premise is just not true. But neither is his analogy on the mark. We are not at the Battle of the Bulge in Iraq. We are at the beginning of 1983 and we are the Soviets in Afghanistan. Here is what wikipedia says about that era:

"1983

The Muslim insurgency remains locked in military stalemate against Soviet and Afghan troops. The government controls the cities, while the guerrillas control the countryside. There are conflicting reports on the success of the regime in either neutralizing the insurgency movement or crushing it with the aid of some 110,000 Soviet troops. Reports on the war are sketchy and probably biased, since they are based on accounts given either by Pakistan-based rebel groups or by journalists taken on conducted tours by the government. President Karmal is firmly in command of the ruling PDPA. Infighting between the Parcham and Khalq factions of the party is less evident in 1983 than in previous years, and it appears that the Soviets have succeeded in bringing them under control. Afghanistan continues to depend on the Soviet Union for economic aid and food assistance."

Three years later, Soviet documents show, Gorbachev had decided he could not win in Afghanistan, and that he would have to withdraw. Shortly thereafter, the CIA gave Stinger shoulder-held missiles to the Mujahidin (including to our then ally Gulbuddin Hikmatyar), and Gorbachev had to accelerate his plans. In 1988 the Soviets withdrew. A year later the Soviet empire lost its Eastern European satellites, and in 1991 it collapsed.

Would the Soviets have been better off getting out of Afghanistan in 1983? Without any doubt whatsoever. Would the chaos in the country have been worse than what eventually happened, in the 1990s? Highly unlikely.

As for Snow's contention that for the US to get out of Iraq would be a defeat in the war on terror, it is exactly the opposite. The US occupation of Iraq is now reviving the terror movement among Muslim radicals. This is the conclusion of experts such as Fawaz Gerges and Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin. The quicker we end the miltiary occupation, the sooner we will stop inadvertently training the next generation of terrorists who want to hit us.

And, anyway, as the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi demonstrates, there is no real need to worry about terrorism flourishing in western Iraq. The neighbors-- Jordan, Syria and Turkey-- would never put up with it, for fear it would spill over onto them. And as that operation showed, the Jordanians are better at tracking down Arab terrorists than the US military (yes, it soes help to know Arabic fluently).

Moreover, there is some danger of Bush's imperial over-stretch imperiling our republic. Our budget deficits, enormous indebtedness, the sinking dollar, and other effects of imperial overstretch and Republican Party irresponsibility could lead to a crisis of epochal proportions.

Everything Snow said was wrong, and most of it was insulting-- whether to my late uncle, to the greatest generation in general, or just to our intelligence.
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25 Dead in Violence
US Tightens Checkpoints at Ramadi

Al-Hayat says that civil war violence [Ar.] killed 25 in Iraq on Sunday.

Iraqi police found 11 bodies in the streets of Baghdad and Karbala on Sunday morning. They were killed with a bullet behind the ear. Typically such killings are sectarian reprisals. The Al-Sadiq Mosque and its attached Islamic University in West Baghdad took mortar fire, wounding 3.

A large car bomb in Mosul killed one and wounded 17 others.

Guerrillas kidnapped 10 bakers from a Shiite part of Baghdad. In Kirkuk, guerrillas kidnapped a translator for the US military. (Bakers may be being targeted on the theory that they make ordinary, every day life possible. Or this could be sectarian reprisal.)

al-Hayat says that the Sunni Council of Pious Endowments has called on Sunni mosques in Basra to close their doors in protest against the assassination of a prominent Sunni clergyman in the city on Friday.

The US military has set up additional checkpoints and closed off some roads at Ramadi in an attempt to combat the guerrillas based there, among the most active in the country.

One of the problems with the continued large US military presence in Iraq is that it is strangling the Iraq military. For instance, no Air Force allowed. Likewise, not much of an armored division. How can Maliki hope to rule a country like Iraq without those things?

Kurdish Islamists are agitating for the constitution of the Kurdistan Regional confederacy to include a provision that Islam is the principal source of legislation. They want to emulate the Federal constitution of Iraq, which stipulates that Islam is the religion of state and no legislation can be passed by parliament that contravenes Islamic law.

Gareth Stansfield wonders, with some authority, whether Kurdistan can overcome its internal fissures.
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Iraqi Military Experts Discuss Iraqi Army, Intelligence

From the USG Open Source Center, a translation of a transcript of a disccussion in Arabic by Iraqi military experts, carried by an Arabic-language Iranian satellite channel. Note that some of the things charged here are contradictory or implausible, but this discussion is a good window on what some Iraqis are thinking about the present situation.

Iranian Al-Alam TV "'Iraq Today' Program Views Iraqi Army
Al-Alam Television

Sunday, June 18, 2006 T21:50:25Z

Document Type: OSC Report

Today's edition of Al-Alam TV's "Iraq Today" program was presented by Baghdad-based Qasim al-Ubudi. The subject of discussion was the Iraqi army. The guests were Maj Gen Abd-al-Qazim al-Khuza'i, an "expert in military and security affairs"; Qasim Khudayr Abbas, a "legal expert", and Salah al-Tukmahchi, a "political analyst" interviewed via video link from London. The first two guests were at the studio.

. . . The three guests agreed that the USA was not willing to create a strong Iraqi army to justify the presence of its troops in Iraq and that it was still needed. They were also unanimous that the dissolution of the Iraqi army by Paul Bremer was a "grave mistake".

See the rest.
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Iraq Press Highlights for 18 June

Translated by the USG Open Source Center-- my selection of a few telling items:

Highlights: Iraqi Press 18 Jun 06

Iraq -- OSC Report
Sunday, June 18, 2006 T15:00:56Z

Document Type: OSC Report . . .

Al-Zaman carries on the front page a 240-word report entitled "Iraqi Women Demand Balanced Representation in Government." . . .

Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 100-word report criticizing Deputy Justice Minister for saying that Shiite militias control Interior Ministry.

Al-Bayyinah publishes on the front pag e a 140-word report citing National Dialogue Front Chairman Salih al-Mutlak confirming his detention in Amsterdam for 36 hours and criticizing Baghdad satellite television channel for airing false reports on the incident. . .

Al-Bayyinah carries on page 2 a 200-word report citing the chairman of Hizballah Movement's Political Bureau criticizing Association of Muslim Scholars member Bashar al-Faydi for his recent statements holding the movement and other Shiite forces responsible for the ongoing sectarian violence in southern governorates. . . [The Iraqi Hizbullah is a component of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and has no relationship to the Lebanese Hizbullah.]

Al-Zaman runs on page 5 a 500-word report on the statement issued by Association of Muslim Scholars yesterday, 17 June, condemning the assassination of its member Shaykh Yusif Ya'qub al-Hassan in Basra.

Al-Sabah carries on page 3 a 240-word report on a statement by Iraqi Lawyers Association that Al-Karkh Court of First Instance has annulled the justice minister's order to dissolve Iraqi Lawyers Association.

Al-Sabah carries on page 4 a 300-word report citing the former director of Trabil border entry calling on the parliament and Interior Ministry to investigate smuggling of lead to Jordan.

Al-Sabah carries on page 4 a 400-word report citing Wasit Governorate Council Acting Chairman Ahmad Husayn criticizing Supreme Judicial Council's decision calling on chairman of Appellate Court in Wasit to send all lawsuits to Baghdad.

Al-Sabah carries on page 15 a 550-word report citing media spokesman for Karbala Governorate Council saying that the council's members have decided to suspend their membership protesting the US arrest of the council's chairman . . .

Al-Bayan publishes on page 10 a 750-word report entitled "Iraq Intends To Re-Open Oil Pipeline through Syria; Government Plans To Construct Three New Refineries."

Al-Bayyinah carries on page 4 a 600-word report on the severe fuel crisis in Maysan . . .

Al-Zaman carries on page 2 a 400-word report on the fuel crisis in Al-Nasiriyah.

Al-Zaman carries on page 2 a 900-word report on drinking water shortage in Baghdad.

Al-Zaman carries on page 3 a 200-word report citing an official source at Public Works and Municipalities Ministry attributing the recent drinking water shortage in

Al-Husayniyah and Al-Rashidiyah Districts to sabotage on water pipelines. . .

Al-Adalah publishes on page 4 a 1,200-word report on the fuel crisis in Dhi Qar Governorate. . .

Al-Sabah al-Jadid runs on page 4 a 500-word report on the fu el crisis in Al-Amarah Governorate.

Al-Sabah al-Jadid publishes on page 5 a 500-word report on electricity and fuel crisis in Wasit Governorate.

Ishraqat al-Sadr carries on page 8 a 1,000-word report commenting on the deterioration in public services in Al-Sadr City. . .

Al-Da'wah carries on page 3 an 800-word report citing Al-Hillah's citizens complaining about the collapse in public services in their city.

Al-Mashriq carries on the front page a 600-word report that the newspaper has learned from well-informed sources that Oil Ministry will increase oil product prices starting tomorrow Monday in accordance with an agreement with IMF to cancel Iraq's debts. . .

Al-Mu'tamar publishes on page 2 a 100-word report on the fuel crisis in Arbil.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

40 Killed, 90 Wounded in String of Bombings
Al-Hakim Pushes for US-Iran Talks

Bombings and other civil war violence took the lives of some 43 persons in Iraq on Saturday. There were 7 bombings in Baghdad. One car bomb aimed at an Iraqi security forces checkpoint in al-Alawiyah district in the center of Baghdad killed 11 persons, one a police officer, and wounded 15 others. A later car bomb blew up an Iraqi police checkpoint just southwest of the capital, a Shiite area, killing 12 and wounding 38. Also, another car bomb was detonated near an office of the political movement of clerical Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, killing 5 and wounding 6 others. Reuters has further details. The report in The Age adds, "In the town of Mahmudiya just south of the capital, a car bomb targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint killed seven people."

I take no pleasure in being right, but it is obvious that killing Zarqawi had no effect whatsoever on the course of the Iraqi Civil War.

Much less Iraq, it turns out that things are pretty parlous for employees at the fortress-like US embassy in Iraq. The positive spin Bush's handlers tried to project during his visit was being belied by his own embassy cable traffic, according to WaPo.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the clerical Iraqi leader of the largest bloc in parliament, is in Tehran for talks and still pushing for direct Iranian-US negotiations on Iraq. IRNA reports:

"Given the achievement of the Iraqi nation in formation of a government based on the Constitution, a new phase has started in Iraq," he added.

Hakim said that Iran's government has continuously confronted Saddam Hussain's regime and incurred great loss in this regard, adding that the Iraqi people will always keep this in mind.

"After Saddam's downfall, Iran has continued to support the Iraqi nation and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was the first official to visit Iraq after formation of its new government," he added.

He stressed that his country's government and nation are willing to have strong ties with Iran, adding that this is due to Iran's clear stance, their common borders and the power of Iran in the region."

Update: Iran replied to al-Hakim,, "No way!"

Meanwhile, Nermin Mufti does not think it is a good sign that al-Hakim continues to push for two regional confederacies in southern, Shiite, Iraq, on the Kurdistan model.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that al-Hakim is upset at al-Maliki for the latter's plan of rehabilitating some high Sunni Arab former officers.

Iran accused American troops of being a source of significant turmoil in Iraq.
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15 Dead in Shiite Mosque Bombing
Diwaniyah Street Fighting

This wire service says that some 40 died in guerrilla violence in Iraq these past few days.

Reuters reports civil war violence on Friday:

A suicide bomber in Baghdad struck a Shiite mosque, killing at least 15 and wounding 25. This is very bad, given the high sectarian tensions in the capital. It is the Buratha Mosque of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which has been hit before. Some reports say he used a shoe bomb, but this confuses me since he seems to have been inside the mosque when it detonated, and you don't use shoes inside the mosque.

Guerrillas fired mortar rounds at a north Baghdad neighborhood, killing 3 persons and wounding 16.

Southwest of Yusufiyah near Baghdad, guerrillas attacked a US military checkpoint, killing one GI and perhaps as many as 3 (two are missing).

In the southern port city of Basra, roiled by sectarian violence visited on minority Sunnis by the majority Shiites (and sometime vice versa), guerrillas shot Shaikh Yusuf al-Hasan, a Sunni religious leader, down dead near the mosque where he led prayers.

US military criminal investigators are looking into the deaths of three Iraqis in US military custory in May.

Al-Zaman and AFP say that US and Iraqi military forces staged an assault Friday on the Euphrates Military District of the city of Diwaniyah, south Iraq. Some were parachuted in. The troops engaged in street battles with Iraqi guerrillas in the quarter.

The attack came after Multinational Forces and Iraqi police raided the house of Shaikh Muhammad al-Umrani, the preacher and prayer leader at the large al-Dagharah mosque. Al-Umrani was not arrested. The raid provoked the firing at the local multinational forces base of Katyusha rockets, which eyewitnesses said caused substantial property damage and may have led to casualties.
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Zarqawi sought US-Iran War

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was hoping to provoke a US-Iran war as a way of bogging the Americans down further and defeating them in Iraq.

Remember all those times Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld came out and said they suspected that Shiite Iran was somehow aiding the Sunni Arab insurgency? You remember how baffled I was at this bizarre allegation? You wonder whether they were being fed disinformation by a Zarqawi agent, and falling for it.

After they fell for the biggest whoppers of the 21st century, as retailed by Ahmad Chalabi, have Bush administration officials been gullibly swallowing an al-Qaeda black psy-ops operation intended to mire US troops in the Dasht-i Kavir? For people who think of themselves as tough as nails hardheaded realists, the Bushies seem awfully easy to fool.

American hawks tied to the Israeli Likud Party, such as Michael Ledeen and Michael Rubin, who are also trying to get up an American war on Iran, turn out to have the same goal as Zarqawi!

It is the case that if you did want to see the US completely defeated and humiliated, you could not do better than have Washington open a second conventiional front in Iran. Iran is much bigger than Iraq, more rugged in terrain, and 3 times more populous, and its population is politically savvy, literate and highly mobilized.

So, it doesn't matter whether you listen to Ledeen and Rubin on attacking Iran or to Zarqawi on the same subject. Either way, such a move spells disaster for the United States and should be opposed by genuine patriots who care about this country--until and unless Iran actually does something to the US that calls for a military response.
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Over 2500 US Troops Dead in Iraq
18,490 Wounded
Time to Leave?

AFP reports that the Iraqi Civil War claimed at least 27 lives on Thursday:

"Three successive roadside bombs targeting Iraqi army patrols killed five soldiers and injured six others in the northern town of Tal Afar on Thursday, police said. Four soldiers were killed when the first roadside bomb hit their vehicle. A second bomb went off as soldiers on foot rushed to the site. The third bomb hit an Iraqi army vehicle nearby. Gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque near Tikrit, killing four people and wounding 15, police said.

At least 18 more people were killed in other violence-related incidents across the country. In Baquba, gunmen killed 10 people, including two brothers, police said. Police found seven bullet-riddled bodies across Baghdad. A policeman was also shot dead by armed men."

According to al-Sharq al-Awsat [Ar.], a joint US-Iraqi force arrested Shaikh `Aqil Fahim al-Zubaidi, head of the governing council for Karbala province, on charges of abetting terrorism. Hundreds of angry protesters rallied in his defense. Al-Zubaidi belongs to the Virtue Party (Fadhila) of Shaikh Muhammad Yaqubi.

The number of US troops killed in Iraq, whether in combat or through incidents such as vehicle collisions (often occuring during the heat of battle), has now passed the 2500 mark. An average of two die each day. Among the 18,490 wounded are thousands with serious injuries that will affect them the rest of their lives. Those suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome, which can lead to alcoholism or mental disease and disability, constitute more thousands.

I agree with Congressman Murtha that the main lesson of the killing of Zarqawi is that we don't need all those ground troops in Iraq, who mainly take casualties when driving around. If we didn't have so many troops there, they would not have to drive around so much. They aren't trained as police, aren't mostly doing counter-insurgency, don't have the language or local cultural skills to track down the guerrillas, and their search and destroy missions probably alienate more Iraqis than they are worth. We'd be ahead of the game with some Jordanian intelligence units coordinating with Iraqi forces,and maybe some US special ops teams who could call down the 500 pound bombs once the terrorist location is identified.

The argument coming from the American military-industrial complex that the US could not have killed Zarqawi if there had been a troop draw-down is simplistic, as with all purely interest-driven arguments. It depends on which troops are withdrawn. The onces in Najaf province are acting really just as an occasional support to the Badr-infiltrated police in their struggle against the Mahdi Army militia. Those troops did not help get Zarqawi. Most of the US troops in Iraq don't have the linguistic or cultural knowledge to do effective counter-insurgency. In fact, my own suspicion is that it was the enlistment of Jordanian agents that was crucial. That, and Zarqawi stupidly alienated the Dulaim by blowing up police recruits in Ramadi. Tribal feuds tend to follow you once you start them.

Most of the ground troops in Iraq are either not needed or are engaged in counter-productive activities. Keep the ones that are really needed for counter-insurgency (they would be few), and stop trying to use them to do routine police work in Baghdad or Karbala.
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Kurdish Weekly Despairs of Iraq

From the USG Open Source Center translation of an editorial by a pro- Kurdistan Democratic Party (led by Massoud Barzani) magazine:

"Iraqi Kurdish Weekly Says Leadership Better Leave Baghdad, Return to Kurdistan
Unattributed commentary: "Three years in Baghdad and a ruined country"
Govari Gulan
Thursday, June 15, 2006 T14:15:29Z

Document Type: OSC Translated Text

. . . it is time to wonder:

We, as Kurds, are not going to discuss the normalization of the Arabized areas and the revenue yet, but we can ask how do Arabic forces see the Kurdish participation in the political process in Baghdad? How do we deal with them three years after the fall of the dictatorship?

Read the rest
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Basra Crowd Attacks Iranian Consulate
Fighting in Adhamiyah

An angry crowd of Iraqi Shiites attacked the Iranian Basra consulate on Wednesday, protesting an insult aired on Iranian television against Shaikh Mahmud al-Sarkhi al-Hasani, a popular preacher [in Karbala who is very anti-American and is fixated on the coming of the Mahdi or promised one. See my posting from fall of 2003. - update]. They set fire to an annex of the building, and black smoke billowed above it. Iraqi Shiite leaders said that they feared further violence if Iran did not apologize. Many Basra Shiites still hold a grudge against Iran for the latter's shelling of the city during the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. Sadrist Iraqis in particular denounce the dominance of Persian Shiism over Iraqi Shiism. The crowd planted an Iraqi flag on the building.

I hope no one was hurt, and I don't take any pleasure in this kind of mob violence. But I have to say that seeing an angry crowd of Shiite activists invade an Iranian diplomatic building is ironic, given the invasion of the old US embassy in Iran in late 1979 by Iranian followers of Khomeini and the MEK.

In its report on the incident, al-Zaman/ AFP reports that lawlessness still reigns in the city, and that armed groups calling themselves the Imam Husain Brigades are forcing Basra's Sunni Arabs to leave their homes, and threatening them with death. Such ethnic cleansing of Sunnis, its sources say, has actually increased significantly during the past two weeks. Some 300 to 400 displaced families have been forced into depending on their old ration cards for food, and it is charged that neither the police nor local authorities have taken the least action to stop it.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bulani announced that he would disband Iraq's militias. He has not said how, and if he really did try to take on the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, you wonder how long he would last.

Two car bombs in Iraq, killing 2 and wounding 8. Clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and local gunmen in the Sunni district of Adhamiyah in the capital, as the government launched its sweep against the guerrillas in Baghdad.

Nicholas von Hoffman at the Nation on Iraq's nightmare scenario. Readers who don't subscribe to the Nation really should do themselves and progressives everywhere a service and start taking it.

Increasing numbers of Iraqi women are being raped and abused by the same armed men that make the country so unstable.

Political scientists Stephen Walt, Robert Art and John Mearsheimer were warmly welcomed at the US Naval War College, despite the fact that they pulled no punches on the Iraq fiasco. They told officers seeking a way forward in Iraq that there are no good options, that things could get even worse, and that we are faced with Camus's The Plague. They nevertheless got a warm round of applause. Unlike Cheney and Rumsfeld, real military men want to be told the straight reality of things. Bravo.

[Update: An eyewitness present at the event disputes the press account and says that the comments on Iraq came at the end and were abbreviated, and that the applause was in fact merely polite and not very enthusiastic, and that many of the officers present had been in Iraq and are committed to the enterprise.]


Traveling. Will blog more Thursday afternoon EST.
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Steele on Ahmadinejad: Of Arenas of Time and Intransitive Verbs

Jonathan Steele of the Guardian does a good piece about the controversy over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's quotation from Khomeini that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" -- which some Iranian activists and the Western press translated as "Israel must be wiped off the face of the map."

The only thing I would add is that mahv shodan is in fact an intransitive verb construction. Shodan is to become. An mard khoshhal shodeh is "that man became happy." It is not a transitive verb. That is why mahv shodan is better translated "vanish," also an intransitive verb. The transitive is mahv kardan, to "wipe out" or "eliminate."

The New York Times was told by supposed Persian language experts in Iran, and appears to believe, that mahv shodan is a transitive verb construct. It makes me a little worried about the state of grammar in Iran, and in the Persian speaking staff of the NYT, and also about its newsgathering prowess. If they cannot find out that shodan is intransitive, something well known in Persian grammar for thousands of years, you wonder what other assertions they are swallowing. I told them this, by the way, before the article came out. I guess we academic Persianists are not trusted to know an intransitive verb when we see one. No wonder we're mostly not trusted to know more important things.
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Islamists, Experts Speculate on Abu Hamza, new leader of "al-Qaeda in Iraq"

Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the new leader of the Salafi Jihadis in Iraq, has threatened to kill Sunni Arab leaders cooperating with the US in the Green Zone in the center of Baghdad.

al-Sharq al-Awsat interviews Sunni Islamists and Arab experts on Islamists for their reaction to the emergence of al-Muhajir as the successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its sources thought him likely from the Levant (Syria or Lebanon, maybe Jordan), an expert in Islamic canon law, and from the post-Afghanistan generation of radical Sunni activists (perhaps even cutting his teeth on violence in Iraq itself during the past 3 years).

The USG Open Source Center translates:

'Report on Islamic Fundamentalists' Opinions on al-Zarqawi's Successor
Report from London by Muhammad al-Shaf'i: "Fundamentalists differ on personality of Abu-Hamzah al-Muhajir, concur he is a non-Iraqi Shari'a scholar and will be more Zarqaw-yish and violent"

Al-Sharq al-Awsat (Internet Version-WWW)
Tuesday, June 13, 2006 T16:45:28Z

Journal Code: 1431 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT
Document Type: OSC Translated Text
Word Count: 815

A prominent Egyptian fundamentalist leader has expressed the view that Abu-Hamzah al-Muhajir, the successor of al-Zarqawi at the head of the Emirate of Al-Qa'ida Organization in Iraq (expression similar to the one once used for Taliban in Afghanistan), will be more Zarqawi-yish and prone to violence than Abu-Mus'ab himself who was killed by US forces last week. Fundamentalist web sites were meanwhile abuzz yesterday with entries of fundamentalists proclaiming their fealty to al-Muhajir. A fundamentalist leader living outside Britain, who requested that his name not be disclosed, told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that Abu-Hamzah al-Muhajir hails from the land of the Levant, that he is reputed to be well versed in Shari'a science, and that he was one of the founders of the organization along with Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi.

Read the rest.
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Maysan Governing Council Members Go on Strike

The deteriorating security situation in southern Iraq has been dealt another blow, as provincial governing council members have suspended their membership. The following is the USG Open Source Center translation.

'Al-Zaman: Maysan Advisory Council Protests British Forces' Raids
Report by Basim al-Shaykh Ali: "Maysan Advisory Council Suspends Work in Protest Over British Forces' Raids"

Al-Zaman

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 T16:42:56Z

Yesterday (11 June), Maysan Advisory Council members suspended their membership in protest over the raids carried out by British forces two days ago, during which a number of people were either killed or injured. The British Army confirmed that British troops have been subjected to a series of attacks, while Iraqi police said that five people were injured and five others were killed in clashes between Al-Mahdi Army and British forces in Al-Amarah. However Martyr Al-Sadr Bureau in Maysan denied the clashes . . .

Read the rest
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Bush Sneaks In and Out of Baghdad Again
24 Dead in Kirkuk Bombings

Iraq's civil war claimed at least 55 lives on Tuesday. Guerrillas detonated a coordinated set of car bombs in Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing 24 persons and wounding nearly 50. Among the targets were senior police officers, and the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (led by Jalal Talabani). Although the press is trying to tie this operation to the Zarqawi group, Kirkuk is such a complicated political scene that it is unwise to speculate on the identity of the guerrilla group that targeted the city. Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs are competing for the oil capital of the north, and Kurds have taken over the police force and are flooding the province with settlers, creating enormous discontents.

In other violence, an intelligence officer was assassinated in Karbala, guerrillas targeted a police convoy in Samarra with a bomb but killed 4 civilians and wounded 7 others; two university professors were assassinated, one in Baghdad and one in Basra, and 14 corpses were found in the capital.

This Reuters report has to be read carefully to see how parlous the situation in Iraq really is. The president of the United States, who supposedly conquered the country three years ago, had to keep his visit secret even from the prime minister he was going to visit, until five minutes before their meeting. That tells me Bush's people don't trust Nuri al-Maliki very far. In fact, apparently Bush's people don't trust Bush's people very far-- only Cheney, Rumsfeld and Condi are said to have known about the trip in the US. And, Air Force One had to land after a sharp bank, to throw off any potential shoulder-held missile launchers in the airport area. The president couldn't go to the Green Zone in a motorcade, for fear of car bombs, but had to be helicoptered in. This ending says it all: "Bush left after night fell to return to Washington. The plane left at a steep angle with its lights out and the shades drawn." See also this photo.

In almost surreal rhetoric, Bush said Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs must be curtailed. He said this after the Iraqi vice president and the head of the biggest bloc in parliament both went off to Tehran and praised Iran's stabilizing role. If Bush thinks that Shiite Iranians are the problem in fanatically Sunni Ramadi and Adhamiyah, we're in even bigger trouble than I thought.

Bush tried to define down victory to a general ability of people to go about their lives. He said it was unreasonable to expect to end "all violence." But Mr. Bush, no one suggested that you end "all violence." The goal here is to win the guerrilla war.

During a guerrilla war, people always go about their daily lives, except when a bomb is going off in their specific neighborhood. So if the goal is that Iraqis should be able to buy bread and go to school and drive to work, most of them have that already most of the time. It is just that little problem of some 12,000 people a year being blown up, assassinated, or beheaded and their heads wrapped in cellophane and stored in banana crates along the side of the road that remains.

In other words, Bush defines the main weapon in the guerrilla war, carbombings, as ineradicable, and declares that he can win that war without actually ending its main weapon. It is a cheap trick of rhetoric, a prestidigitation of the lips. "These are not the 'droids you're looking for."

Meanwhile a new security sweep will be launched in an attempt to make Baghdad more secure. Let's see if this one is more successful than Operation Lightning, a similar set of sweeps launched last year this time to no apparent lasting effect.

US troops are under enormous strain in Iraq. They cannot most often tell friend from foe. When they first arrived, they were encouraged to make friends with local Iraqis, but now often are told to keep to themselves, just because it isn't clear who the guerrillas are. They are apparently constantly taking mortar or sniping fire, most of it ineffectual and so never announced to the press. If they go out on the road, they are in substantial danger of being blown up. Few units haven't lost a dear friend and colleague. They are fighting for a local government that often seems not much to want them and clearly wishes them gone sooner rather than later (Maliki says at most 18 months). Some high ranking members of the government have been scathing about them. The Europeans see US troops in Iraq as a bigger threat to stability in the Middle East than is Iran. Some 60 percent of Americans think their being there was a mistake in the first place, which cannot be good for morale, which is slipping inside the military according to polls. They signed up to fight for their country and their country asked them to fight in Iraq, and in the military you do as you are told, so it is a raw deal for them to end up being so unappreciated when they are doing brave things every day. So I get it that they are frustrated. But, it just is very bad politics for them to sit around singing songs about killing Iraqis, and worse politics to videotape it.

It is hell to be stateless. 200 Palestinian refugees are stuck at a border camp, trying to flee Iraq for Syria. They fear going back to Baghdad. Some 20,000 Palestinians in Baghdad are now in danger; some fear the general violence and insecurity, others fear reprisals. Some Iraqis identify them with the former regime (stateless people are often forced into parlous political compromises). Palestinians were expelled from their country by Zionist settlers in 1948, who refused to let them back in or compensate them for their lost property. Israel continues to insist that millions of Palestinians remain stateless by refusing to recognize the Palestine Authority as a state. In the modern world, there are substantial similarities between statelessness and slavery.
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Bush to an Iraq in Shambles:
You Create Your Own National Fund
Or, "Let them Eat Cake"

An informed observer writes:

' THURMONT, Md., June 12 — President Bush proposed today that Iraq create a national fund to use its oil revenues for national projects, as part of a strategy to build loyalty to the new government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. '

Just what they need, now.

Is this to be sprung on the two Cabinets by video-conference tomorrow? Is this to test the quickness of response of the new Prime Minister?

It would have to be established by the Council of Representatives, which meets once a week or so, and has not yet even adopted, as far as I know, its own rules of procedure, and if it were to be complete, would also require amendments to the Constitution. The members of the Council of Representatives seldom meet because they must do so in a convention center designed for traveling salesmen and must pass through eight check-points to get there where they have no office space in which to work, and, therefore, must do whatever work they do at home or elsewhere to which they must go by armed convoy.

We won’t give you any more money, but here is an idea as to what you should do in anticipation of winning the war we started, but cannot win, you must, with whatever equipment we are about to decide you may have, but, mind you, air power is out, you must rely upon ours, you cannot be trusted yet.

Let’s invade Iraq and see what happens, trusting that we can figure it out as we go along. Garner and the State Plan are out, he seems to be going native or something, who do we have, how about that fellow who is a terrorism expert? Talabani, Barzani, and al-Hakim, you guys are not representative, bring in some others and get representative, but elections are out.

Hey, how about caucuses, they work in Iowa; how about a trust fund, doesn’t Alaska have one? Let’s give ‘em a constitution for six months so that they can see what one looks like, even although they have one, and had another before that.

Foreign policy by stream of consciousness and throw-away lines.

What next? '

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Fallujah Imam: Be Vigilant in Face of US Conspiracies
Sadrist al-Nu`mani: Violence in Iraq Orchestrated by US
Shiites Condemn HAMAS

The USG Open Source Center provides summaries of the major sermons in Iraq's big mosques, Sunni and Shiite, last Friday. The difference in the concerns of Sunni and Shiite preachers is striking and a cause for concern. Mind you, this is what is on Iraqi television channels, it is not just in the mosques. Do yourself a favor and read the entire report. Some of the good stuff is toward the end.

' Iraqi Television: Roundup of Friday Sermons 9 Jun
Iraq -- OSC Report
Monday, June 12, 2006 T13:39:27Z

At 0845 GMT Baghdad Satellite Channel in Arabic, reportedly sponsored by the Iraqi Islamic Party, carries a live relay of the Friday sermon from the (Sunni) Dhi al-Nurayn Mosque [Sunni Arab]. Shaykh Jamal Abd-al-Rahman begins his sermon by recounting the "sad events" of the previous week, in which Sunnis in Basra were "murdered and displaced." Furthermore, Shaykh Abd-al-Rahman produces an ultimatum letter that was given to a resident of Al-Shu'lah city threatening to kill him if he fails to evacuate. Al-Rahman reads out the contents of the letter, while leaving out the name of the religious authority who appeared to sanction it, in order to avoid any accusations of stoking tension among Muslims. Al-Rahman calls on (Sunni) Muslims to remain resilient in the face of the "oppressors" who seek to weaken them . . .

Read the rest.
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Backgrounds of New Security Ministers

The USG Open Source Center rounds up information on the new ministers of interior and defence, and of national security.

'Iraq: Interior, National Security, Defense Ministers Profiled
Iraq -- OSC Report
Monday, June 12, 2006 T12:51:57Z

Jawad al-Bulani

- Born in Baghdad in 1960, but comes from the city of Al-[A]marah, Al-Diwaniyah Governorate, southern Iraq

- Served in the former Iraqi Army's Aviation Engineering Department until 1999

- Head of the Shiite Political Council, founded by Ahmad al-Chalabi

- Ran in the December 2005 elections as a candidate member of Ahmad al-Chalabi's list

- A few days prior to his nomination for the post of interior minister, he announced his "resignation from any political body or entity."

Read the rest.
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Abdul Aziz al-Hakim to Tehran
Basra, Federalism, Iran's Nuclear Program on Agenda

Shiite Iraqi clerical leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is multi-tasking, according to al-Zaman [Ar.]/ AFP Al-Hakim first went to Najaf. There, he consulted with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and 2 other grand ayatollahs. Then he met with young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr. Its sources say that the two discussed ways of calming the fighting and tensions between the Badr Corps fighters and the Mahdi Army in the southern port city of Basra, Iraq's sole window to the outside world and sole secure avenue for the export of petroleum. Although PM Nuri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency and deployed the 10th Iraqi Army division there to man checkpoints, al-Zaman says that security has not notably improved. There are daily kidnappings and assassinations and firefights, it says. British installations are all taking mortar fire.



Then al-Hakim went off to Tehran. His trip has two purposes, according to the Baghdad daily. One is to mediate between the Americans and the Iranians over the nuclear crisis. The other is to explore with the Iranian government how it might be helpful in quieting Basra, and to consult with the ayatollahs in Tehran over al-Hakim's plan to form regional confederacies out of provinces in the Shiite south of Iraq.

Car bombs in Baghdad on Monday killed 10 and wounded 51. Another 4 died in a bombing in Tal Afar in the north. Altogether 14 persons died in the ongoing civil war, not counting the 9 terror suspects killed at Baqubah. That would put total deaths in political violence at 23.

The Zarqawi terror group in Iraq has named a successor on the internet, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. He may possibly be Abu Hamza al-Masri, though the Egyptian security forces have questioned whether such a person exists. The autopsy shows that Zarqawi died of lung damage from the air strike.

Jordanian authorities have arrested four members of the Jordanian parliament from the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood who went to Zarqa to mourn Zarqawi's death with his family. The Jordanian regime and the majority of the Jordanian public despised Zarqawi as a terrorist who killed fellow Muslims in the hotel bombings in Amman. These four relatively radical MPs crossed a line in contemporary Jordanian politics and they will not get away with it.

US forces raided what they said was a terrorist safe house in Baqubah, killing 9 persons, and taking three wounded captive. Presumably the raid was prompted by information gleaned from hard disks and other sources captured when Zarqawi was killed. Two children were among the dead. This tells us only that the terror network is family-based, and the adult male fighters meet in homes where there are civilians.

Helena Cobban on the incredible shrinking US at Salon.com. See also her blog, Just World News.

At Tomdispatch.com: Former Diplomat John Brown Helps Bush Address the Nation.
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Bush Deliberations: Need for Political Track in Counter-Insurgency



Paul Bremer says he hopes Bush's cabinet summit will develop an effective military plan for defeating the insurgency in Iraq. Bremer came to Iraq saying appalling things like "we will go on imposing our will on this country" or words to that effect, and appears to have learned nothing.

Counter-insurgency is tough. The best the hawks can usually do is cite the British in their colony of Malaya in the 1950s, when they curbed a communist movement. But 1960 was a long time ago. And, the British still got kicked out of Malaysia as a colonial power. And, the British had been there over a century, and had all kinds of linguistic and cultural knowledge. And, Communism mainly appealed to the Chinese minority, 1/3 of the coutnry.

Contemporary counter-insurgency requires not just a military plan but a successful political track, of negotiating with guerrilla leaders and bringing them in from the cold. That is what the US has never developed, and there are structural reasons for which it is difficult. A lot of the guerrilla leaders are Baathists or ex-Baathists, and served in the Iraqi military in ways that make them anathema to the Kurds and the Shiites. So it is very difficult for the US to buck its main allies and try to make up with the Baathis. And what could the US offer the Sunni Arab religious revivalists? The prospect of living under a government dominated by Shiite fundamentalists and Kurdish warlords, which they see as a puppet government of the United States? How could they live with that?

So, Mr. Bremer, the problem is not a military one. The US already has overwhelming fire power. The problem is a political one. And it is not a political problem even the best and brightest will easily resolve.

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq are opposed to the US presence almost to a person. They are 5 or 6 million strong, and probably have 60,000 or so fighters if we count weekend warriors (I know this is higher than US military estimates, but if US military estimates were correct there would not still be an insurgency. The US military tends to grossly underestimate the enemy; one general in spring of 2004 said he thought the Mahdi Army only had 1,000 fighters.) The Sunnis have the best educated managers in their ranks, the best trained strategicians and tacticians, and they probably know where tens or hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions are still hidden. They make enormous sums of money through petroleum and other smuggling, and can easily get big money from hard line Sunni Gulf millionaires. Moreover, the US cannot militarily concentrate all its forces on the Sunni Arab areas, since there is a (Shiite) Mahdi Army low-intensity guerrilla effort in Maysan Province in the South, and Sadr City can't be all that stable either.

The US simply does not and never will have enough fighting troops in Iraq to impose a purely military solution on the guerrilla movements. It must find a political solution. but that in turn would require the kind of willingness to compromise and approach national reconciliation coolly that the Shiites and the Kurds have so far vehemently rejected. The US is as hobbled by its allies as by its foes, in making a settlement.
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Beeman Guest Editorial: The Journalism/Think Tank Merry-Go-Round

William O. Beeman

"The Journalism/Think Tank Merry-Go-Round
And the Dilemma of the Academic Public Intellectual"

' [I want to address] the question of the sad, sad state of American academics in policy formation in the United States today. Think tanks, where no one ever has to go through peer review before publishing the most questionable material, are in the ascendancy. Real scholars are derided as the academy is openly attacked by these quasi-intellectual bodies. No wonder! If the think-tankers' shoddy methods and ideological biases were subject to the scrutiny they deserve, 90% of the garbage that is self-published by their house organs and pushed by their publicity machinery would never see the light of day.

It is so sad now that governmental bodies are no longer calling on academic experts for public testimony in even the most crucial matters where they have unique knowledge. On no subject is this more true than in the Middle East area. If you are not in a think tank in Washington, apparently your expertise matters not at all. Never mind that that the think tank denizens were never in the region, don't know the languages, and never did any research in their lives. If their ideology is in line with the White House, that is good enough.

The media bears a great deal of responsibility in this matter. Lazy, news-cycle driven and subject to the pressure of ideology and publicity flackers, it is so much easier to just call the think tank down the street, or a PR firm like Benador Associates where someone is on call and already in suit and tie, or skirted suit to get to the studio within the next 20 minutes, than to spend the extra half-hour trying to locate an ISDN feed in . . . Minneapolis or Austin to get the best possible expertise on a subject at hand. For the print media a quote--any quote--is often good enough to anchor a story. No time to wait for someone to call back after a seminar! If the reporter can't get the quotable phrase on the first phone call, its on to the next, or once again, to the on-call quotables at the think-tank around the corner.

Even when someone with real expertise can be located, the media vitiates the message by making a fetish of "balance"--an odd feature of American public discourse, documented by my colleague Deborah Tannen in her classic book, The Argument Culture. This means that whatever the subject, a pro and con side must be represented--even if one of the positions is absurd, or representative of an extreme fringe opinion. This results in match-ups like Paul Krugman debating Bill O'Reilly on economic matters and other such ludicrous pairings. This situation has created careers for people like Anne Coulter, David Frum and Jonah Goldberg, who otherwise know very little--but they are reliable as "cons" (pun intended) on virtually any topic that requires an expansion of intellect. No wonder the public doesn't know which way is up.

Sadly, the academy has reacted badly to this state of affairs--not by encouraging its members to shine the light on the slime and mold generated by these propaganda machines, but by fomenting retreat into its own dark little corner where it can be safe and "uncontroversial." The better not to run afoul of its more vocal and ideologically driven alumni and trustees, who believe along with Bill O'Reilly that all knowledge is just opinion anyway, so why not just tell the professoriate what they should be teaching, and what positions they should be espousing? Writing for the public is not only unrewarded by the academy, it is absolutely detrimental to academic careers. Thus fine scholars who do decide to speak out are hit both ways--both by the ideological hacks for whom their truths are uncomfortable, and by their own institutions who see their public activities as controversial and undignified.

Contrast this with the situation in Japan, France, Brazil--in fact, anywhere else in the world--where academics are welcomed and respected in the field of public discourse, and move readily in and out of positions of public responsibility. Likewise, scholars of distinction, such as the incomparable Eric Rouleau, are prized and well-compensated members of the fourth estate.

Despite these stringencies, those of us who are tenured at institutions of higher learning have a special responsibility--a sacred duty--to speak out at every turn to defend free inquiry, and solid knowledge. We are privileged to be able to have careers in research, writing and teaching, and are in debt to society for this. We have the obligation as patriotic citizens and seekers of truth to use, as Juan has consistently, the fruits of our research and knowledge to inform not just the dozen or so colleagues who share our academic sub-specialization, but the public who is hungry for this material, and in the current intellectual desert in America, who desperately needs it. '

William O. Beeman
Professor, Anthropology; and Theatre, Speech and Dance
Brown University

Blog and current Op-ed pieces--Culture and International Affairs
(2004-2005 Visiting Professor, Cultural and Social Anthropology,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

Professor Beeman's latest book: The "Great Satan" vs. The "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other. (Praeger/Greenwood). '
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50,000 US Troops to be Garrisoned in Iraq
Shahwani Opposes Militias in Security Forces

A suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Baquba killed 8 and wounded 4 late Sunday.

The US will keep a garrison of 50,000 troops in Iraq for years to come, if it can.

A difference in strategy is emerging between Iraqi intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Shahwani, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, over the Shiite militias such as the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army. Al-Maliki has urged that they be merged into official government security forces. Shahwani opposes this move, fearing that they will then dominate those security forces. He favors giving them sinecures in the civilian bureaucracy instead. (He is aware that you can't just turn loose tens of thousands of trained, experienced fighters with no job or pension, without risking further violence. So he agrees that they should be given jobs but wants to make them pencil pushers). Maliki as PM heads a minority government that could easily fall in a vote of no confidence, and may not be in a position to alienate the Sadrists and Badr supporters in parliament.

More information about Saturday's battle in Amara. Al-Zaman reports that the Iraqi police in Amara, a major city in southern Iraq, are saying that 5 Iraqis, among them one woman, were killed and 15 were wounded in clashes between Mahdi Army militiamen who follow Muqtada al-Sadr and British forces. A British soldier was severely wounded, and a tank fell into a canal. The British had be taking mortar fire at their base, Abu Naji, outside the city, and made the expedition into the city to investigate who was doing the firing. They surrounded the Thawrah, Risalah and Abu Rummanah districts in Amara. Ali Kadhim, deputy vice chairman of the governing council of Maysan province, of which Amara is the capital, said that the members of the council had decided to suspend their membership on it and announced that it would cease doing any work. The outbreak of violence raises questions about the earlier plan to withdraw all British troops from the province on 22 June, announced by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. (I think everyone understands that the Sadr Movement has taken over Maysan, so whether the British troops are there or not is irrelevant, since they cannot dislodge the Sadrists or their Mahdi Army paramilitary; and they are probably just a provocation.)

Iraqi vice president Adil Abdul Mahdi met in Tehran with Foreign Minister Manucher Mottaki on Saturday. He said,

' “We believe that Iran-Iraq friendly relations are a matter of strategic importance which would benefit the interests of the two countries and the region . . . Some people are trying to damage the Iran-Iraq ties by enticing sectarian strife, but we will thwart their plans by expanding bilateral economic, political, and cultural relations . . . We view the power of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the benefit of the entire region and accordingly we take steps in enhancing cooperation and ties (with Iran)" '

Yes, that was the Vice President of Iraq speaking. And he had been within two votes in his party of being prime minister. And, except for that last bit about IRI power benefitting the region (that regime is an extremely reactionary force there), he is right about good Iran-Iraq relations being absolutely necessary to Gulf stability.

Abdul Mahdi also expressed hopes about the outcome of the ninth meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors. This meeting really should be supported more directly by the US and should be used to enhance Iraq's security. The role of Jordan in the operation against Zarqawi is an example of what could be achieved.

Al-Hayat reports on the political atmosphere in Iran. It says that the circle of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not expect an escalation to war with the US. One official said that the crisis could pass if the US specified a "reasonable level of enrichment" that Iran could carry out on uranium for its peaceful nuclear energy program. Another joked that there was not need for the US to invade Iran. He said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and established an Islamic republic there. Then it had done the same thing in Iraq. Since Iran has had an Islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a US invasion. [It is a joke but there is much truth to it. The Northern Alliance that the US installed in Afghanistan is a coalition of the Sunni Jami'at-i Islami and the Hazara Shiite Hizb-i Vahdat. And in Iraq, you now have the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Da'wa Party, not to mention the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front, as the leading parties, and the new constitution forbids legislation contradicting Islamic law.] The Iranian officials also said that the US is depending on Iranian cooperation in its hopes for a troop draw-down in Iraq.

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Arabist Anthony Shadid, writing in WaPo, explores the way in which the jihadi struggle in Iraq is radicalizing Sunnis in places like Lebanon, with likely destabilizing results down the line.
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Zarqawi Autopsy
Jordan Refuses Repatriation of Body

The US is sending a forensics team to do an autoposy of Abu Musaba al-Zarqawi. Al-Hayat reports that his family is demanding to know the results [Ar.] , after a local villager at Habhub near Baqubah told a story to a Western wire service and other Western news sources about Zarqawi's death. He says that after the bombing, villagers rushed to the site, and found a survivor, putting him in their ambulance. US troops then arrived, said the villager, and pulled the man out of the ambulance and beat him to a pulp or in one version, strangled him with his headscarf. This story is implausible, but may gain purchase in the Arab world after the Haditha massacre and the news that Guantanamo prisoners were found hanged.

"Al-Qaeda" in Iraq is threatening major attacks in revenge for the killing of Zarqawi.

As elsewhere in the region, there were mixed feelings in Zarqa, Jordan, about Zarqawi's death. The Jordanian government is taking full credit for its role in tracking him down, calling it "Operation Hotel Martyrs," i.e. revenge for Zarqawi's operation that killed dozens at 3 hotels in Amman last fall. The announcement comes as Jordan celebrates the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, during which the Hashimite ancestors of the present king waged a successful guerrilla revolt against the Ottoman Empire to attain their independence. They had been unafraid to ally with the British in this endeavor. The celebrations in Jordan, held Saturday, are a kind of Army Day, in which there are parades and pride is expressed in the Jordanian military. This complex of celebrations underlines a secular or at least civil dimension to Jordanian nationalism. Some Islamists code the last Ottoman sultans as revered caliphs or Sunni popes, but the leaders of the Arab revolt declined to see them that way, just as tyrants. Some Islamists would decry the cooperation of Faisal and others with the British in attaining their independence, but the leaders of the Arab revolt were unapologetic about it. (Lawrence of Arabia incorrectly made himself the hero of the revolt, but the David Lean film is a good start in understanding all this). So the official ideology of Jordan is anti-Islamist and has a strong element of civil nationalism around the monarchy and Bedouin history, and is unafraid to be an ally of the West. In this light, it is easy to see why Jordanian authorities absolutely refuse to allow Zarqawi to be buried in Jordan.

As Reuters reported, the Iraq Civil War ground on Saturday:

In the ethnically mixed oil city of Kirkuk in the north, guerrillas shot dead 2 members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, including a security employe. Guerrillas also shot a civilian and injured another as they were driving in the city. Some 7 guerrillas had been arrested by a joint US and Iraqi (likely Kurdish) force on Wednesday. The reports, maddeningly enough, never say whether the guerrillas are Arab or Turkmen, or Peshmerga from other parties.

In Falluja, west of the capital, guerrillas killed a man and a woman in their car.

Just north of Baghdad in Tikrit, guerrillas killed two civilians in their car, and police found the beheaded body of a soldier that had been thrown in a river.

In north Baghdad, guerrillas used a roadside bomb to injure an important police officer, Major Gen. Ali Husain, and to kill his driver and wound one other person. In south Baghdad, guerrillas set off a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol, but only managed to wound 5 civilians.

In in the south, in Amara, British troops were taking indirect fire, and they moved into the city from their base outside. There appears to have been fighting, probably with the Mahdi Army militia or Marsh Arab tribesmen, and a "multinational force soldier" was wounded.

Pakistan launched a major raid against al-Qaeda fighters being trained in Waziristan, in which some 30 are said dead.
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Heavy Fighting in Ramadi
Anbar Mourns Zarqawi

Al-Zaman reports that heavy street fighting broke out on Friday in downtown Ramadi between US forces and guerrillas. According to the al-Zaman correspondent in the city, the fighting was heaviest at 20th and at 17 Tammuz streets and the al-Kas district. Medium strength weaponry (i.e. more than just light arms) were used. The US deployed gunship helicopters. US Marines occupied several tall buildings. (In urban warfare, tall buildings become like Hamburger Hill, the high ground on which you can put mortar emplacements and dominate the district). There has been no confirmation from US military sources of the fighting, but it is suspected that this was a reaction by Zarqawi's supporters in the city. Zarqawi had for some time been based in Ramadi, but was forced by US pressure to leave it in summer of 2005 for the area near the border with Iran, according to al-Zaman's sources.

Al-Zaman adds, "According to our correspondent, the prayer for the dead was read in most of the mosques after the Friday congregational prayers, in Hit, Qaim, and Ramadi, on the occasion of Zarqawi's death. Marine patrols with Lebanese translators were seen near the major mosques in more than one place in Anbar province, to monitor the preachers.

DPA says there are mixed reactions to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Al-Anbar province. Some hope security will now improve. Some think that the US exaggerates Zarqawi's importance. This was the chilling one:

' Thirty-year-old professor Ahmad Yassin said 'the martyrdom of the jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi represents a grave loss for both the Arab and Islamic Worlds. We lost a great man who died defending the Islamic civilization from Zionist imperialism. I don't think this man can be replaced.' '

Zarqawi would just have been a serial killer if he had lived in normal times, the sort where police are surprised to find hundreds bodies buried in his back lot, and suddenly solving missing persons cases in the region for years back. That anyone at all, much less a highly educated intellectual, could speak of him in these glowing terms sends chills down my spine. Because it means he has a legacy.

Al-Zaman/ DPA say that guerrillas attacked a US convoy in Al-Amiriyah in Baghdad and that there were casualties but it was not possible to confirm this report. Gunmen in the southern city of Basra assassinated Professor Ahmad Abdul Qadir Abdullah, who taught in the college of sciences at Basra University. The corpse of Fahd Muhammad Abdul Rahim was also found in the street in Basra. Guerrillas launched an attack in Kirkuk. In the oil refining town of Baiji, guerrillas killed three engineers who worked at the refinery.

Police found five bodies in various parts of Baghdad, including a woman's. They had been shot except for the woman, who was strangled. A body was found in Kirkuk.

Six Iraqis, including two policemen, were wounded by a roadside bomb in the Sayyidiyah district of Baghdad.

Baghdad citizens had to walk on Friday, as a ban on vehicle traffic was enforced to stop any campaign of car bombings by supporters of the slain terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Three huge explosions had ripped the capital on Thursday, killing 31 and wounding scores.

On late Thursday, the brother of the governor of Ninevah Province was assassinated as he left a mosque after afternoon prayers, according to al-Zaman. Another brother, Usamah, had been governor of Ninevah in 2003, and was assassinated. Duraid Kashmula, a surviving brother, is the current governor. Guerrillas at one point also tried to kill his son.

On Friday, al-Zaman says, guerrillas also attacked the funeral procession for the slain Zuhayr Kashmula! When security isn't good enough even for major provincial governors' family members to be safe, or even for their funerals to be safe after they have been murdered, imagine what it is like for ordinary people.

A senior Iraqi oil ministry official was abducted late Thursday, it was announced Friday.

The Jordanian Daily al-Ra'i gives some details on the new security ministers appointed in Iraq. Prime Minister al-Maliki appears to have just gone to the parliament with the names, without a lot of negotiation with all parties, since some were surprised by some of the choices. Working by consensus had not produced results, so he gave parliament a choice of voting yes or no. A minister needed 138 to be confirmed. Only 198 out of 275 parliamentarians were in attendance.

182 voted for Jawad al-Bulani as Interior Minister. Izzat Shahbandar of the secular National Iraqi List headed by Iyad Allawi complained that he had not heard before that Bulani was a candidate, and complained that al-Maliki had not consulted them about this move. He complained that al-Ubaidi for Defense and al-Wa'ili for national security were essentially sectarian candidates, and said he hoped that Bulani was not cut from the same cloth. Bulani is an independent member of the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. He rushed to assure everyone that he belongs to no specific party within the UIA, and especially not to the Fadila Party. He pledged to act as an Iraqi nationalist. The NYT reports that Bulani served as an officer in the Iraqi army until 1999 and never left Iraq. Since the fall of Saddam, he has experimented with several political parties, including the Sadr Movement, the movement of Marsh Arab leader Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, and the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi. The NYT says he was at one point a member of the Iraqi Hizbullah, but left in 2005. There are two Iraqi Hizbullahs. One is the party of al-Muhammadawi, which has shrunk as the Marsh Arabs largely went over to Muqtada al-Sadr. The other is a sub-branch of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The NYT hyperlink, for which the reporter is not responsible, goes to articles about the Lebanese Hizbullah, which is not related to either of the two Iraqi organizations with this name. Clueless American observers get this wrong all the time, and NYT should clarify.

142 voted for Abdul Qadir Muhammad Jasim al-Ubaidi as Minister of Defense. That is, al-Ubaidi was just barely confirmed. If he had been rejected, it would under ordinary circumstances have caused a government crisis. MPs from the Iraqi Accord Front (fundamentalist Sunni) objected to al-Ubaid, who is a Sunni Arab but had been a Baath Party member and military officer until he broke with Saddam over the invasion of Kuwait.

160 voted for Shirwan al-Wa'ili as minister of state for national security. He is from the Dawa Party - Iraq Organization, the section of the party headed by Abdul Karim al-Anizi, which operated inside the country in the Saddam years. PM Maliki is from the Islamic Dawa Party, which mainly went into exile. Adnan Dulaimi of the (Sunni religious) Iraqi Accord Front objected to al-Wa'ili and asked that the vote be postponed. He complained that he should at least have been warned that the nomination was coming. PM Nuri al-Maliki replied that appointing the cabinet ministers was the prerogative of the biggest bloc in parliament, the United Iraqi Alliance, and as such did not require consultations with other parties. (This statement would not actually be true if he really was trying to lead a government of national unity).

My guess is that the Shiite members of parliament from the United Iraqi Alliance mainly voted for Maliki's nominees. But UIA lacks a majority in parliament, and these nominees probably passed on the strength of votes from UIA ally the Kurdistan Alliance. My guess is that the Kurds had problems voting for a Sunni Arab former officer who only broke with Saddam in 1990, and who was therefore in the regime during its attacks on the Kurds in the late 1980s. As an ex-Baathist he got no support from the religious Sunnis, who have 44 seats. And some Shiites may not have supported him. He may have gotten support from Allawi's list, and from the National Dialogue Front, mainly Sunni ex-Baathists. Al-Maliki took a real chance in just springing him on parliament without an assured majority, and if 5 MPs had voted differently, he would have lost the gamble and a lot of face. I would speculate that he succeeded by putting together a different coalition for each of the three votes, and that that is how he will remain prime minister in future, if he can.

Required reading: Gareth Smyth's excellent interview with Muhsin al-Hakim, 33, the son of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim (who is both the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the head of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance coalition in parliament). Muhsin has long been a political spokesman for the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of SCIRI. I knew that SCIRI dominated the provincial governments of several southern provinces of the Shiite south, and that the deputy governor of Najaf, e.g., is from the Badr Organization (the Badr Corps ran as a party in its own right in both local and national elections!) But Muhsin here lets it drop that the governors of five provinces are Badr. He says that these are the most orderly and secure provinces in the country. And it is true, that in contemporary Iraq the choice may be between having law and order with militia rule, or having chaos with ineffective government forces. Better yet would be law and order with effective government forces, but in June 2006 that just is not where we are at in Iraq.
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Key positions Filled
Guerrilla Movements Pledge to Fight on

Iraq has filled the key positions of minister of defense, minister of interior, and minister of state for national security. Defense went to a Sunni who had been an officer in the old regime but broke with it in the early 1990s. National Security went to a member of the Da`wa Party's indigenous Iraq branch (i.e., not the long-time expatriates, like Ibrahim Jaafari and PM Nuri al-Maliki). Interior went to a member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. It is not clear that he can get Interior and many police departments back out of the hands of the Badr Corps, the Iran-trained paramilitary of the Supreme Council, a key member of the UIA.

Al-Hayat says that successors to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are vowing to fight on. One report disputed that Abd al-Rahman al-`Iraqi was killed along with him, and said he was organizing for reprisals. Another report, from the US military, suggested that he had an Egyptian successor. Al-Zaman adds, that sources close to the Sunni Arab resistance movements, among the Army of Islam and the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution and the Army of Mujahidin said that Zarqawi's organization, which had announced open war on the Shiites of Iraq, had distorted the motives of the Resistance and harmed its potiential. They consider him a martyr, but differ with him in their interpretation (ijtihad) of Islam. One big problem for the guerrilla movement has been that it has largely been ethnic Sunni Arabs, and Zarqawi's tactics made pan-Islamic alliances difficult. The resistance movements appear to hope that with him out of the way, a Sunni-Shiite joint resistance to US presence might become more plausible. Al-Hayat says that they pledged "to intensify their operations during the coming phase against the American forces, as a way of demonstrating the true weight of al-Qaeda." (I.e., the indigenous Iraqi movements are saying that Zarqawi's group is not that important, and they will show who has really been doing the fighting.)

Three deadly car bombs in Baghdad on Thursday underlined that the struggle will likely go on.

Am traveling but will try to post more over the weekend.
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Yale Affair

I am not going to talk about the Yale affair per se.

But I did want to clear up some misimpressions I've seen here and there.

First, it should be remembered that senior professors are sort of like baseball players, and other teams look at them from time to time, as recruitment prospects. It goes on constantly, formally or informally. Such looking is never taken very seriously by anyone unless it eventuates in an actual offer.

Second, it is important in interpreting these things to know who initiated the looking. I am not actively seeking other employment, and did not apply to Yale; they came to me and asked if they could look at me for an appointment. I am very happy at the University of Michigan, which has among the largest and oldest Middle East Studies programs in the United States. It is like Disney World for a Middle East specialist. To its credit, the University invested tens of millions of dollars in creating positions and building library and other resources in this field at at time when it was considered marginal by many other universities. Michigan also has a History Department that is among the very best and largest in the country, characterized by diversity of area specialization and innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship. It is a nurturing and congenial intellectual environment. Many fine departments in the US have a North Atlantic focus or bias, but Michigan for decades has had a global emphasis.

The press has some out of date impressions about our major research universities, imagining that the old hierarchy of Ivy League versus the rest is still meaningful. It is not. Research universities, whether state (Berkeley, the University of Michigan) or private, are much more similar than they are different. Were I ever to go to another place, it would likely be as a pioneer in a less well-developed Middle East Studies program, for the purpose of building up something that we already have at Michigan. That is, it would be a personal sacrifice for some purpose, and not a decision easily made.

I was extremely fortunate to have been hired at the University of Michigan right out of graduate school. I moved from UCLA to the pinnacle of my profession at a young age. I am doing what I enjoy doing, which is studying and teaching the Middle East and South Asia, and communicating about it to various publics. I have not, and short of foul play cannot be stopped from doing what I am doing, and what I enjoy. I welcome critiques of my work. There are obviously some critics, however, who go rather beyond simple critique to wishing to silence or smear me. In the former, at least, they cannot succeed by mere yellow journalism. So I have what I want, but they cannot have what they want. I win, every day.

Many thanks to all the kind messages and votes of confidence from readers. I've decided that this is a subject better closed, so am not taking comments.
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Zarqawi Killed in Baquba

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced Thursday morning that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed, along with 7 aides, in a US airstrike. [Early press reports incorrecting reported the death came in a gun battle with US and Iraqi troops at Baqubah].

Zarqawi had been a significant leader of the Salafi Jihadi radical strain of Islamist volunteers in Iraq, and had succeeded in spreading his ideas to local Iraqis in places like Ramadi. He engaged in grandstanding when he renamed his group "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia," even though he had early been critical of al-Qaeda and had a long rivalry with it. For background, see the Zarqawi file.

There is no evidence of operational links between his Salafi Jihadis in Iraq and the real al-Qaeda; it was just a sort of branding that suited everyone, including the US. Official US spokesmen have all along over-estimated his importance. Leaders are significant and not always easily replaced. But Zarqawi has in my view has been less important than local Iraqi leaders and groups. I don't expect the guerrilla war to subside any time soon.

Baqubah is dangerous not because of Zarqawi but because it is a mixed Sunni-Shiite and Kurdish area that had Baath military installations and arms depots, and enough Sunni Arabs from the old regime know about them to work them against rising Shiite and Kurdish dominance.

On the other hand, there have been persistent reports of a split between the main arm of the guerrilla resistance, the Sunni Arab Iraqis, and Zarqawi's group.

Al-Hayat reports today [Ar.] that groups in Fallujah have launched attacks on Zarqawi followers there after the latter attacked the al-Husain Mosque in the Askari quarter two days ago, destroying the tomb of the founder of the mosque within it. (Salafis influenced by Saudi Wahhabism despise attendance at saints tombs, insisting on a Protestant-like elimination of all intermediaries between human beings and God. Many Islamists in Fallujah are actually Sufis, who value saints in the way rural Catholics do.) An attempt by the radical Salafis to destroy the mosque (on the grounds that it had been tainted with polytheism) was stopped by the "1920 Revolution Brigades," a local ex-Baathist group. There was a running gun battle between the two.

Zarqawi's group had also tried two days ago to attack a Fallujah police station, but they were repulsed by local tribal youth. The battle left two cars burned and 4 dead from the tribe of Al-Bu `Isa.
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Maliki Names Security Officials
27 dead in Civil War Violence

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki broke a nearly 6-month deadlock on fully forming a new government by naming three key security officials, who will be presented to parliament now that there is consensus about their acceptability among the four major parties.

I suspect that Maliki's release of hundreds of mainly Sunni prisoners was part of the deal-making, necessary to get Sunni Arab parliamentarians on board.

Al-Hayat says that [Ar.] al-Maliki intends to present a national reconciliation plan at the Arab League-sponsored conference later this month, which will include a provision for amnesty (for Sunni Arab guerrilla leaders who come in from the cold).

I count 27 dead in this Reuters report of assassinations and bombings in Baghdad, Hawija, Mosul and elsewhere. The deaths include a GI.

Women's secular freedoms in Iraq have been snatched away.

The USG is acknowledging a wave of killings of gays in Iraq by radical Islamists.
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Interview with Iraqi Speaker of the House

The USG Open Source Center translates an important interview with Iraq's Sunni Arab speaker of the parliament.

'Speaker On Government Formation, Security, Sectariansim, Militias, Other Issues
Interview by Amir Ali al-Hassun with Representative Council Speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani

Al-Bayyinah

Thursday, June 8, 2006 T06:57:47Z


For the first time in Iraq's contemporary history, a parliament consisting of 275 members has been elected through free and honest elections. The parliament will be chaired by Dr Mahmud al-Mashhadani for the next four years. In this interview, we present a quick review of the ideas of this man and what is going on in his mind regarding expectations for the future of the political process in Iraq.

(Al-Hassun) First of all doctor, let us start with what happened in the parliament's recent session. Proceedings were delayed because of some articles in the Iraqi constitution which a number of political sides want amended while they are busy forming the national unity government. What is your comment on this delay and the government formation?

(Al-Mashhadani) Praise Allah, and peace be upon His prophet. The program and work paper that were presented were balanced. First we formed a temporal committee to draft the parliament's bylaw because without this law the performance of the parliament would be inefficient, as actually happened. The formation of the second committee was in fact not included in the timetable, but discussion was opened to revise the articles of the constitution. Most sides, or rather all sides, think that the present situation of confusion, security disorder, and delay in government formation, is conducive to delay the formation of this government. Others believe that unless the security file is solved and tensions are removed, we should not get into disputes that might kindle a new strife. This is a political and not a constitutional view. The constitutional view is that we should form a standing committee for four months to revise the articles of the constitution and agree on disputes. I believe that when the confusion is over, especially since we are at the beginning of solving the security file and have given chance to all sides for the first time after the fall of the former regime and the beginning of occupation, there will be many points raised and they will not take us a long time to agree upon.

Read the rest.
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Iraqi Civil War leaves 22 Dead
Iraqi Islamic Party Charges US with Massacres

In the continuing Iraqi Horror Picture Show, police found 9 heads along a road at Hadid in Diyala on Tuesday, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in fruit cases.

Guerrillas also targeted a funeral procession in southeast Baghdad with a car bomb, killing 5 and wounding 18.

In central Baghdad, guerrillas tried to hit a US military convoy with a roadside bomb, near the Allawi bus station. Instead, they killed a woman and wounded a child.

Guerrillas fired three mortar rounds at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which they have hit before. Instead, the shells landed at the Nadha bus station, leaving two civilians dead and 7 wounded.

Guerrillas also assassinated a Baghdad district council member, Thu`ban Abdul Kadhim, and his two bodyguards in the Jihad district of the capital.

Reuters also mentions two other incidents:

"BAGHDAD - A man and his wife were gunned down in the western Furat district, medical sources said. . .

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one woman in Baghdad. Two people, including a teenage girl, were later killed when police who had sealed off the area opened fire when their car failed to stop despite warnings, witnesses said."

The dead woman has been mentioned twice, but subtract one mention and the total above comes by my count to 22.

I continue to feel that we are getting only a small part of the picture of Iraqi violence. I was listening to NPR this afternoon in the car, and the report said that US troops had killed about 100 guerrillas in Ramadi during the past month. I think it fair to say that almost none of those deaths was reported in the media. And, a lot of assassinations and kidnappings must go unnoticed in the glare of the big bombings.

The Iraqi Islamic Party on Tuesday accused the United States military of having committed numerous massacres against innocent civilians, not only Haditha. Specifically, its spokesman, Omar al-Juburi, charged that:

' "On May 13, US forces launched an air assault on a civilian car in Latifiyah and killed six people inside the car," Juburi told reporters.

"On the same day the US forces attacked with aircraft the house of a civilian, Saadun Mohsen Hassan, and killed seven of his family members."

Juburi said US forces carried out another air strike the next day on the house of Sheikh Yassin Saleh Shallal in the town of Yusifiyah "killing 13 people, including women and children." '

I am afraid that if we started counting all the innocent civilians killed by US airstrikes on Iraqi towns and cities as murders, the number would be very large indeed.

The significance of these charges is that they are coming from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a group that has been mostly willing to cooperate with the US. Indeed, al-Zaman says that they handed the file to US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The IIP forms the core of the Iraqi Accord Front, the Sunni religious coalition that holds 44 seats in parliament. A vice president, a vice premier, 4 cabinet members, and the speaker of the house all belong to this coalition. So these charges are originating not with hard liners or radicals outside the new system, but with persons who are de facto allies of the United States. If this is how a key element of the Iraqi Accord Front feels about the US, relations between Washington and parts of the new government it so trumpeted are obviously very shaky.

Al-Zaman reports that the Sunni Arabs of Basra are mostly forced to stay at home, going out only when absolutely necessary, for fear of being assassinated or kidnapped. They are virtual prisoners in their homes.

The assassinations are ongoing, despite new security steps of the al-Maliki government. The day before yesterday, a Sunni Arab was killed in the middle of Basra. Sunni Arabs also pray at home rather than going to mosque, for fear they would be targeted or captured. Sunni Arab government employees have begun staying home and missing work in ever greater numbers.

The state of emergency declared by PM al-Maliki has not brought security. A wave of assassinations, mostly aimed at Sunni Arabs, has swept Basra.

The Arab League is preparing to send a commission to Basra, at the request of the Sunni Arabs. (Arab League member states have as their citizens mostly Sunni Arabs.)

Meanwhile, al-Zaman says, hundreds of British troops have spread through Basra neighborhoods, arresting persons on its list, who belong to the Mahdi Army or Iraqi military intelligence. (The latter in Basra was presumably mostly recruited from the Badr Corps paramilitary of the [hard line Shiite] Supreme Council).

US troops risk brain injury by returning to duty with even mild concussions.

This communique from the Baath Party on June 1 will be completely ignored by the public and even by Iraq analysts. But in my view it probably issues from the circle of Izzat Duri or his successor, the likely spider at the center of the guerrilla web. It is much more important than anything Abu Musab al-Zarqawi says.

Most Iraqis are poor. Those that aren't don't let on about their wealth. Or else.

An Iraq War veteran has called for Fox pundit Bill O'Reilly to apologize for mistakenly asserting that US troops massacred German POWs at Malmedy (it was rather the other way around). O'Reilly speaks a lot in public and one inevitably makes mistakes occasionally. But he really should have just apologized for this howler. Fox doctored the transcript sent to Lexus Nexus, substituting "Normandy" for "Malmedy," referring to the US reprisals for the German atrocity.
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50 Kidnapped Violently
AMS Pulls out of Reconciliation Conference

Megan Stack* poignantly describes the scene where 50 Iraqis were brazenly kidnapped by men in camouflage uniforms at a bus station in Baghdad on Monday. The wealthy among them will be identified and held for ransom. Some persons kidnapped eventually are released, others are killed.

One Italian soldier was killed and 3 wounded, one very seriously, when their vehicle was bombed in southern Iraq. Italian withdrawal from Iraq is top on the agenda of a meeting of PM Prodi with British PM Blair.

Reuters reports 10 Iraqis killed around the country, some of them guerrillas, in the ongoing war.

It does not mention another 10, reported by al-Zaman. These were university students shot down in the Dora district of Baghdad.

Al-Zaman also reports the assassination of a municipal council member in Mansur, a district of Baghdad.

I count 26 or so dead in political violence on Monday.

Al-Zaman says that the deputy governor of Najaf, Abdul Husain Aytan, has imprisoned hundreds of former members of the Baath Party during the past two weeks. Aytan is a member of the Badr Corps Shiite paramilitary.

The US military in Ramadi fired four artillery shells at the train station, attempting to take out guerrillas who were off-loading weaponry there. AP says, "A hospital official, Dr. Omar al-Duleimi, said American forces killed five civilians and wounded 15. The U.S. military said the mission had "positive effects on the target," but it denied that civilians were killed or injured in the city west of the capital. " I suppose 5 persons are dead and 15 are wounded, but that it is unclear if they were civilians or guerrillas. Anyway, that guerrillas might even think they could openly offload weaponry at the train station in Ramadi tells me all I need to know about the state of security in the city.

The Association of Muslim Scholars again warned the Maliki government not to launch a major Fallujah-style assault on Ramadi.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard line Sunni religious group, says it will not participate in the Arab League-sponsored national reconciliation conference to be held on June 20. This withdrawal is very bad news if the point of the conference is to reach out to the persuadable in the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement, since the AMS clerics appear to have lines of communication into that group. The Arab League is pushing for the conference.

The 24,000 Palestinians in Baghdad, who lost their own homeland in 1948, are being targeted and forced to flee once more. Almost all Sunni Arabs supported the Baath at one time, so if that is the reason for targeting the Palestinians, then most Sunni Iraqis and large numbers of Shiites should be targeted, as well. The dilemma of the Palestinians, who labor under continued Israeli occupation in the West Bank and often in refugee camps elsewhere, seems never to end.

Doug Thompson maintains that field commanders are telling the Pentagon brass that the Iraq War is lost, and that they cannot contain the civil violence leaving some 1000 Iraqis dead per month.

The terrible stress of fighting in Iraq may help explain the rage and loss of control among US troops that led to the Haditha massacres.

This lyrical exploration of the geopolitical implications of the renewed militarism, and friendship for Bush, of Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi is well worth reading.

----

Initially by mistake misattributed to Borzou Daragahi. Apologies to Ms. Stack.
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Islamist and Jihadist as Iraq Education Minister

In his memoirs, US Civil Administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, expressed delight that when his appointed Interim Governing Council selected cabinet ministers, they avoided the American "red lines," which included a demand that the minister of education not be an "Islamist" so as to protect the interests of what he referred to as Iraq's "secular majority." Who knows, between the Sunni Arabs, the Kurds and the Shiite middle classes, maybe Iraq even had a "secular majority" in summer of 2003. Bremer's policies helped drown that particular baby. The Sunni Arabs voted for Islamists 4 to 1 last December 15, and the Shiite middle classes have mostly swung to the Islamist United Iraqi Alliance, which dominates the government.

Anyway, the new Education Minister is from the local Iraqi branch of the Da`wa Party, a party founded in the late 1950s to promote an Islamic state in Iraq. Here is an article about him from the Dawa Party newspaper, translated by the USG Open Source Center. Mr. Bremer's red lines are long gone.

' Biography of Education Minister, Al-Da'wah Party Member Khudayir al-Khuza'i

Unattributed report: "Education Minister Dr Al-Khuza'i: Academic and Jihadist March, Ambitions To Change Iraqi Education System"

Al-Da'wah

Sunday, June 4, 2006 T21:38:47Z


Dr Khudayir Musa Ja'far al-Khuza'i is one of the influential figures inside the Unified Iraqi Coalition [United Iraqi Alliance]. From the beginning, he managed to draw official and public attention by dealing courageously with difficult issues and for his bold political views.

Al-Khuza'i was born in 1947 in the city of Maysan (as published; Maysan is a governorate, not city), the most ferocious city in the south in the confrontation with the ousted totalitarian regime.

He continued his education until he got his PhD in the philosophy of Islamic thought and another PhD in Koranic studies. In addition, he has authored many books on the interpretation of the Koran. His contribution has not been confined to the academic field. He is a writer and an excellent lecturer. He has worked at universities for 20 years. He is a leading figure in Al-Da'wah Party-Iraq organization and the party's official spokesman. He is a member of the previous and present House of Representatives. He is well known for fighting the ousted regime for three decades and from various positions. High hopes are pinned on him to raise the standard of the country's educational system. Observers believe that Al-Khuza'i has a strong and courageous character and can achieve significant gains in the education sector.

(Description of Source: Baghdad Al-Da'wah in Arabic -- Issued by the Islamic Da'wah Party, Iraq Organization) '

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At least 80 Dead, with Students Slaughtered
No Security Chiefs

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki failed again on Sunday to appoint ministers of the interior and defense, two key security posts at a time of increased violence. The Supreme Council (hard line Shiites) is still trying to hold onto the ministry of interior (domestic policing), which is one way it ensures the primacy in police and other forces of members of its Badr Corps militia. Other Iraqi forces,and the Americans, do not want the post to go to SCIRI again.

Violence again shook Iraq on Sunday, as its civil war grinds on. At a small town a couple hours northeast of Baghdad, guerrillas pulled students off a bus and killed 24. Some reports say that the guerrillas let 4 Sunni students go. Some names, such as Omar, are give-aways that one is Sunni, but it is more likely that the story is fishy.

In Basra, Shiite police surrounded a Sunni mosque and killed 18 men within (according to al-Zaman). The police, who suffered two dead in the incident, appear to have suspected that the mosque was being used as a guerrilla base. The Sunni Pious Endowments board, in contrast, accused the Basra police of attacking the mosque and killing innocents within while they were praying.

The Association of Muslim Scholars (hard line Sunni) accused the US of planning a military attack on Ramadi of a scorched earth sort.

Al-Zaman says that 20 bodies were discovered by police in Baghdad on Sunday, likely victims of faith-based reprisals.

If we count up all the deaths mentioned by Reuters, including that of a GI in Anbar, they come to 62. Figure in the 5 extra bodies in Baghdad that al-Zaman reports, and the 6 policemen killed by a bomb in Mosul, reported by the same source, and raise the Basra Sunni mosque death toll to 20 as al-Zaman reports it, and I count 80 dead or announced dead on Sunday. Even to a US media as jaded by now about this violence as our own, that should stand out as an exceptional day. But it won't. The totals of deaths are being reported in the 20s as far as I can see. Even just the Reuters accounts would take you to 62.

Al-Zaman/ AFP say that hundreds of protesters came out Sunday in the southern Shiite city of Samawah, demanding the removal of Muthanna governor Muhammad Ali al-Hassani, whom they blamed for the lack of fuel, drinking water, electricity and services. The demonstration was fired on by police, and in the riot 18 persons were wounded, 12 of them policemen. They had been throwing stones and bottles at government buildings. When they were fired on, they grew enraged and tried to invade some of those government buildings. At the Water Utilities building, they broke out windows and set the frame afire. On Saturday, the governor had used local television to broadcast a strict prohibition against any demonstrations. Shops are closed in the city and flames are rising from some points. Iraqi security forces have closed off some streets.

Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times gets the story on the Shiite militias of Basra. They both contribute to law and order of a sort and also constrain civil liberties. Their most pathological manifestation is the death squads that having been hitting Sunnis and secularists (and, apparently, Marsh Arabs and other militias).

Criminal gangs and guerrillas both use pipeline sabotage as an aid to petroleum smuggling, which finances more guerrilla actions and more criminality . . . What the drug trade was to insurgencies in Viet Nam and Afghanistan, petroleum is to the Iraq War. Only, the CIA appears to have encouraged and benefitted from the former, whereas the latter both hurts the US economy and enables disorder in a country the US is trying to control.

The Iraqi government says that 180,000 Iraqis have been displaced by faith-based ethnic cleansing since mid-February. That would be a civil war all on its own.
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Khamenei: No Nuclear Weapon Program, No First Strike
Goal is Energy Independence
Abu Ghrayb, Haditha Weaken US Human Rights Claims

The US media presented only a snippet from the speech of Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran on Sunday, in which he threatened to damage oil supplies to the West if the US militarily attacked Iran. He did say that, but he also announced that Iran had no intention of striking first, had not attacked and would not attack another country, and that it has no nuclear weapons program and does not want a nuclear bomb. I didn't hear any of those statements reported on television.

For some strange reason, a relatively full text of important speeches given by world leaders is almost never provided to the public by any US media in English. I doubt there are even a handful of speeches easily accessible in English by Spanish President Zapatero, e.g. I cannot entirely explain this strange phenomenon, of the coccooned and almost deliberately ignorant approach to the world of the US corporate media and their audience.

The odd thing is that the American public pays tax dollars so that the Open Source Center of the USG can translate such primary texts. They are, however, not made freely available, though you can get them via university and maybe other good libraries.

Below I present the OSC translation of some important passages of the speech. I should think it is obvious that I loathe Khamenei and his regime, but I suppose I have to say so yet again in today's wretched intellectual environment. I find Khamenei's claims that Iran does not abuse human rights to be particularly offensive.

Still, I do think that if the public is going to hear part of Khamenei's speech, it should hear some of the other parts, too.

PS, see Tom O'Donnell's paper on petroleum, not nukes, as the driving issue in the crisis between Washington and Tehran.

' Iranian TV: Ayatollah Khamene'i Speaks on Khomeyni's Death Anniversary (2)
Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN)

Sunday, June 4, 2006 T20:31:17Z

Tehran Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1 in Persian at 0645 GMT on 4 June carries a live broadcast of a speech by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kahmene'i on the occasion of the 17th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeyni's death. The speech is given at Ayatollah Khomeyni's mausoleum.

TV shows a large gathering of people at the mausoleum supporting the supreme leader by their slogans.

The following is the part of Khamene'i's speech relating to international relations and the nuclear issue.

(Khamene'i) "Science cannot be begged from others. Science should be inspired from within. A nation should use its talent to become truly knowledgeable. At the same time, it would only be through national unity and nationwide peace that faith, justice and science could flourish. At the absence of peace and calm, the country cannot benefit from science or faith, and it will not be possible to establish justice for the people. The enemy is therefore willing to grant its biggest prize to those who can shake the pillars of peace in Iran and to fight against the people's faith in God, themselves, the (revolution's) path and success . . .

"Those who want to distance universities and research centres from science and research are working for the enemy, and the enemy is ready to give them its biggest prize. . .

"The person who pursues this nation's honour and this nation's scientific progress is an insider. The strangers (Persian: gharibeh) are those who are enthusiastic for America's hegemony. They are the ones who work at home for the enemy that's lying in wait and act in its favour. These are the strangers . . .

"Let me say a few sentences about enemies' propaganda. The propaganda commotions against the Iranian nation and the system of the Islamic republic are mainly set in train in the world by the Americans, Zionist media and the news empire affiliated to Zionism. . .

(They make) Several points about Iran:

First, that there is an international consensus against Iran.

Second, that Iran is a threat to the world.

Third, that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb and nuclear weapons.

Fourth, that Iran is a violator of human rights.

These are the few sentences which the enemy's entire propaganda activities harp on. And they keep repeating these in different ways in the world, using a variety of ploys. Of course, the truth is clear to our nation. It is also clear to many intelligent people in the world. But I'll briefly say something (in this respect).

"There is no consensus against Iran. This is a lie by the Americans and a few people who are America's allies in the world. (Crowd chants in support)

"Some 116 non-aligned countries supported Iran in its bold move to acquire nuclear technology. The Organization of the Islamic Conference has voiced support for Iran. Independent governments all support Iran. All those people who have acted as middlemen to repeat America's words to us, under the American pressure and out of courtesy, have told us in secrete that they have been asked by the Americans to say so and that they do not think the same way.

"The world and the countries that want to secure their future are all against the monopoly of nuclear technology by a few countries. To say that no country has the right to have access to nuclear technology means that in 20 years' time, all of the countries of the world will have to beg certain Western or European countries to meet their energy demands. They will have to beg for energy in order to run their lives. Which country, nation, or honest official is ready to take that? Today, our nation has taken a step forward in this road. It has become the pioneer and stands courageously by this end. Other nations have no problem with this (move), let alone having a consensus against it. The consensus is among a number of political monopolist countries. This consensus is worthless . . .

"The American and Zionist propagandists say Iran is a threat to the world. This is the second issue. Iran is not a threat to any country and everyone knows this fact about Iran. We have not threatened neighbouring countries. We have friendly and brotherly ties with all the countries of the region. Our government has healthy and good relations with European countries. These relations with Europe will be even better in the future, when gas plays a more important role as a source of energy. They need our gas. We have friendly and good ties with the Arab world. The most important issue in Arab society is the Palestinian cause. On this issue, we speak openly about whatever they (Arabs) have in their hearts. We have a very clear and transparent position on the Palestinian cause and Arab nations like this position whole-heartedly. They feel proud when we voice that position. The Arab officials too want the same in their hearts, although they cannot speak about it as openly as we do due to certain issues.

"We have friendly ties with different countries in the region, in Asia and other parts of the world. They all recognize and appreciate Iran's rights, its role and its influence. We also have good ties with Russia. The Russians know very well what would happen to them if a pro-American government was in power in Tehran. We (Iran and Russia) have common interests in central Asia, the Middle East and this region.

"We have no problem with the world. We are not a threat whatsoever to the world and the world knows it. The Americans, with their shameless propagandas, want to influence world public opinion. However, they haven't yet managed to do so and will not be able to do so in the future either.

"Their other issue is [their assertion] that Iran seeks [a] nuclear bomb. It is an irrelevant and wrong statement, it is a sheer lie. We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules. We have announced this openly. We think imposing the costs of building and maintaining nuclear weapons on our nation is unnecessary. Building such weapons and their maintenance are costly. By no means we deem it right to impose these costs on the people. We do not need those weapons. Unlike the Americans who want to rule the world with force, we do not claim to control the world and therefore do not need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and our explosive powers are our faith, our youth and our people who have been present on the most difficult scenes with utmost power and faith and will continue to do so. (Chants of slogan, God is great).

"The American political institutions and propaganda machines are behind all these false ballyhoos. The Zionists also help, along with them and side-by-side them. They are the cause of everything.

"I would like to address a few sentences to the American officials and the team which is running America today and claims to lead the world too. I hope they listen to it, think about it and understand it. I want to ask them to compare themselves with our government. Compare your (American) president with ours. Your government is the most hated government in history of the United States today. They (Americans) announced it to the world in their own opinion polls. The government currently in power in America is the most hated government in history of the United States according to its people. Compare this with our own government. Our government is one of the most favourite governments since the Constitutional Revolution (1906). (Chants of slogan, God is Great, Khamene'i is our leader, death to America, death to Britain).

"Wherever your president, Mr Bush, visits he is faced with the people's protest demonstrations and abhorrence. This is the case in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Latin America, governments come to power by using anti-US slogans. Today in Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and many other Latin America countries as soon as presidential candidates use anti-US slogans the people vote for them. Can someone be hated more than this?

"The American government doesn't allow its people to hold a normal telephone conversation safely. This means that they can't trust their people and can't allow them to hold a telephone conversation freely. They have passed a law allowing them to control the telephones. This is your situation.

"Well, compare this with the situation in our country. Compare it to visits by our country's officials.

"See what enthusiasm the people showed towards Iranian presidents during the (Iranian) president's visit to Indonesia and our former presidents' visits to Lebanon, Sudan, Pakistan and other places. Why don't you understand this? Why don't you confess such things?

"You have confessed to spending 300b dollars in Iraq so that you could bring to power a government which was your puppet and took orders from you. But you failed. They have confessed to spending 300b dollars, but they've probably spent more than this so that they could bring a government to power which took orders from America. But they failed because the Iraqi nation was obstinate.

"In Palestine you did your utmost to stop the Hamas government from coming to power. But you failed. And contrary to your wish, the Palestinian nation voted for the Hamas government. You exerted pressure from various sides on the Palestinian government. However, this strengthened the Palestinian people's solidarity with this government. In Lebanon, senior agents from the American State Department went to Beirut and stayed there for a few months to see whether they could hold Lebanon in their clutches, undermine the resistance in that country and create a Lebanon which follows Israel. But you failed because the Lebanese people held a grudge against you. It's the same everywhere else.

"Why doesn't Mr Bush confess that, by his conduct, he's made America, the American nation and America as a country, despised in the world? Why don't you confess that you've been weakened? Why don't you confess that your blade has gone blunt in the world? (But) You still make threats.

"Compare our president's message to the American president to the Americans' impolite and feeble message, which was disseminated in the world a few days ago. Out of keeping with diplomatic convention. Brimming with dim-witted arrogance. Full of threats. Hollow words. If you were capable of harming the Islamic republic, you wouldn't have wasted a minute during these 27 years.

"The former American secretary of state openly said: I have to tear out the Iranian nation by its roots. He (or she; Persian is gender neutral) is finished and gone; the Iranian nation has grown daily. (Crowd chants in support)

"You speak about human rights. You speak about being against terrorism. How the hell can an administration that has Guantanamo Prison and Abu-Ghurayb Prison and crimes like the Haditha crime and the recent crime in Kabul and dozens and hundreds of other such things on its record dare to speak about human rights? (Crowd chants in support)

"In order to threaten Iran, you (America) say that you can secure energy flow in the region. You are wrong. Beware that if you make the slightest mistake about Iran, the energy flow through this region will be seriously in danger. (Chants of slogan, God is great, Khamene'i is our leader, death to America).

"You will never be capable of providing energy security in this region. You are not capable and you should know this. We will never start a war. We have no intention of going to war with any government. We have a high aspiration and we will use all our energy to reach it. That aspiration is to build an Iran which provides this nation with moral and material prosperity. We want an Iran that can be a role-model for all other nations. Other nations know (it) well and endeavour (to reach this end) themselves.

"We want to properly use this big country and its huge natural and human resources - the resources which have been given to this nation and its officials. We want to relieve this nation of the burden of hundreds of years of humiliation. This nation feels proud and powerful and it has every right to feel so. This nation is proud and powerful, but it has been kept behind. Both corrupt dictator systems and their foreign ill-willed supporters (have kept Iran behind). . .

"Peace and blessings of God be upon you." . . .

(Description of Source: Tehran Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN) in Persian -- State-run 24-hour news channel in Persian, Arabic and English; presenting up to the minute domestic and international news. It offers exclusive interviews on a variety of topics, as well as information on universities, labor, and economic developments from the capital and the provinces '

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Nearly 30 Dead in Basra Bombing, 62 Wounded

Political violence in the Iraqi Civil War left 44 dead on Saturday in an arc that stretched from the far south to the northeast of the country.

In Basra, guerrillas used a car bomb to kill 28 persons (according to late reports) and wound 62. The bomber set it off at a market in the south of the city, late afternoon on Saturday. Basra security has deteriorated dramatically this year. It is unclear who the perpetrator is. Some Arabic sources are speculating that it is an answer to Zarqawi's call to redouble the fight against Shiites. Al-Hayat speculates that it might have been a response to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's call to curb the oil-smuggling gangs in the city.


Courtesy KarbalaNews.net.

In the northeast, guerrillas launched a sophisticated attack on a police checkpoint near Baqubah. They threw grenades and used RPGs against police, killing 7 of them and wounding 10 other persons.

Also near Baqubah, heads of 8 persons were sent to the police, including 7 cousins and a Sunni mosque preacher, in empty banana cartons (-al-Hayat]. The preacher, according to a note found with the head, stood accused of having arranged for the assassination of 4 Shiite physicians in the area.

In Baghdad, a Russian diplomat and one other person were killed by guerrillas, who kidnapped 3 other Russian embassy personnel.

A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister's office on Saturday rejected a US military appraisal that troops at Ishaqi in mid-March did nothing wrong. They attacked a safe house from which they maintain they took fire, and appear to have shot dead 11 civilians, including 4 children and 5 women. They then demolished the house and reported only 4 civilian deaths in such a way as to imply that they had died in the collapse of the building. A videotape was leaked to the BBC last week that clearly showed the bodies had died of gunshot wounds. The Iraqi government says it will do its own probe of Ishaqi.

Salafi Jihadi militiamen wearing black dominate some Sunni Arab neighborhoods in once-modern Western Baghdad, and they terrorize unveiled women.

A "British Brigade" of 150 young radical Muslim Britons has gone off to Iraq to fight for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Salafi Jihadi movement. The illegal Iraq War and Anglo-American occupation of Iraq has radicalized many British Muslims, including the cell that blew up the London subway on 7/7 last year, and which was probably run by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Of the 150, those who survive will learn deadly skills that they can apply to future terror operations in the West.

Meanwhile, 23 Yemenis went on trial Saturday for forming an armed unit and planning to go fight the Americans in Iraq. Yes, you can hear the purling waters of Bush's Arab Spring just everywhere.

The networks in their evening news segments have given less and less attention to Iraq. It is hard and expensive to cover, reporters risk their lives, and they often get pressure in the aftermath for not having been "balanced".
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14 Killed, 71 Wounded
Maliki Demands Haditha File from US

14 deaths were from political violence were announced on Friday, according to Reuters, from bombings and assassinations around Iraq. In the most deadly single incident, "Two roadside bombs went off in an old and popular street market in central Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding 57 . . ." 71 were announced wounded, including 2 US troops.

The US military denied reports about a deliberate massacre of civilians by the US military at a house in Ishaqi in mid-March. A spokesman said that the troops had taken fire from the house and had responded with appropriate force. The BBC aired a video on Thursday that showed shot-up dead children at the building. Local Iraqi police alleged that the GIs deliberately killed the civilians and then tried to cover up their crime by having the building collapse on them. The US military calls this scenario "absolutely false."

Seven Marines are facing charges that they dragged an unarmed man out of his house and shot him, and that they may have tried to frame him by planting a shovel and AK-47. An Iraqi human rights activist charged that US troops murdering innocent Iraqis seemed to be a "daily event."

Iraq's new government will ask the US for the Haditha file, regarding an alleged massacre by GIs last November.

50 families had to be moved from Buhriz on Friday and distributed among other towns in Diyala after they received death threats if they did not leave their homes. A 9 pm curfew has been imposed in the province until further notice. The governor of Diyala is disgusted at this ongoing process of ethnic cleansing, and is unhappy with the performance of the new Iraqi army, though happier with the police.

Al-Zaman reports that on Friday the state of emergency was implemented in Basra. Unites of the Iraqi Army 10th Division were stationed at the major intersections and sensitive areas therein. It says that some locals are calling on the provincial security council appointed by Prime Minister al-Maliki to establish an emergency provincial government that could take control of security in the city for the period of one month. Two new members have been added to the security council, one from the Fadhila or Virtue Party and the other from the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni fundamentalist). The previous members were Safa' al-Safi, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs, Salam al-Maliki of the Sadr Movement, Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Corps, and three members of the (Shiite) United Iraqi Alliance. These major parties have been fighting one another, and there has been violence from criminal gangs and smuggling rings.

Al-Zaman reports that US troops are conducting search and seizure operations in Samarra, searching for the radicals who assassinated a police commander. Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that a curfew had been imposed there.

A sermon attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi calls Shiites snakes, threatens to kill Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and threatens violence against the (Sunni) Association of Muslim Scholars for not urging Iraqis to avoid joining the new police and army. (The extra details are from al-Zaman.) It also taunted the Mahdi Army that it gave up the fight against the US troops in spring of 2004. (-al-Sharq al-Awsat).

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP report that the representative of Sistani, Shaikh Abdul Mahdi Karbala'i, has crticized those Iraqi officials who isolate themselves from the people in the Green Zone of central Baghdad. He said the Green Zone can only be entered with special ID, as though it were a visa to another land.
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Fate of Palestinian Refugees in Iraq

It is hell to be stateless.

From the USG Open Source Center:

' PLO's Al-Agha: Palestinian Killings in Iraq Part of US-Israeli Settlement Conspiracy
Report by Al-Quds correspondent in Gaza: "Dr Al-Agha: It Is a US-Israeli Conspiracy To Force Settlement [of Palestinians]. The Refugees' Department Condemns the Killing of Palestinians in Iraq"

Al-Quds

Friday, June 2, 2006 T20:41:35Z


Dr Zakariyah al-Agha, member of the PLO Executive Committee and head of the PLO Refugees' Department, has condemned the killing of Palestinians residing in Iraq after they had been subjected to threats by armed Iraqi groups and warned to leave immediately Iraq or face death, especially in Al-Hurriyah and Al-Tubji areas.

Dr Al-Agha added that the Refugees' Department in the PLO has informed the Iraqi Government and all concerned parties in Iraq of this issue so that they will adopt measures to protect them, noting that due to these threats, large numbers (of Palestinians), estimated at hundreds of people, are preparing to leave (Iraq) via the Syrian borders.

Dr Al-Agha explained that the assassination attempts and operations have been carried out on daily basis, especially during the past ten days, against Palestinians in Iraq. Last Tuesday, a Palestinian national, Faysal Abd-al-Qadir, was assassinated and scores of others were chased and tortured. Moreover, Al-Agha noted that at dawn yesterday, the US forces arrested three Palestinians in Sahat al-Hurriyat area; they are Jamal Khadr Muhammad, Muhammad Khadr Muhammad, and Khadr Jamal Khadr. Furthermore, last Monday US forces arrested Subhi Abu-Qutaysh and two of his sons.

Al-Agha noted that after the fatwa that was issued by Al-Sistani prohibiting the shedding of Palestinian blood, the killing operations against Palestinians in Iraq have increased. Al-Agha ruled out that these brutal actions are carried out by the sons of the Iraqi people who have hosted Palestinians in their land, guaranteed them an honorable living, and bolstered their steadfastness until they can return to the homes from which they were displaced in 1948, in accordance with UN Resolution 194.

Dr Al-Agha accused foreign and suspicious groups that cooperate with the US occupation of carrying out such attacks, killings, torture, arrests, and acts of intimidation against Palestinian refugees in Iraq. He held the US and British occupation forces responsible for what Palestinians in Iraq are currently facing and for the current chaos and crimes in Iraq.

Dr Al-Agha noted that the targeting of Palestinians in Iraq falls within the US-Israeli plan to pressure and strangulate the Palestinian refugees in a bid to force them to accept the settlement plans that the Americans and the Israelis have presented in the United Nations' corridors as substitute solutions for what has been endorsed by international legitimacy in terms of just and comprehensive solutions for the Palestinian refugees' problem. Moreover, he noted that the ongoing saga of attacks and hunting down of Palestinians in Iraq by these groups falls with the context of this plan.

Dr Al-Agha stressed that (the Refugees' Department has contacted the) United Nations in a bid to alleviate the refugees' suffering, to provide protection for them, and to urge the international community to shoulder its responsibilities and commitments on the basis of the refugees' right to return to their homeland and right to receive (humane) treatment in accordance with human rights and international law. Moreover, in a telephone contact, the Refugees' Department sought clarifications from the refugees' affairs section in the US Embassy in Amman with regard to the arrest campaign that is being carried out by US forces against Palestinians in Iraq. The US Embassy has promised to follow up this issue.

Within the same context and with regard to refugees stuck in Syria, Al-Agha said that following the entry of refugees in Iraq into Syria to Al-Hawl camp in Al-Hasakah, a group of Palestinian refugees, 236 individuals, rushed toward the Syrian borders. They are now stuck in the buffer zone and are suffering from very difficult conditions. He stressed that the Refugees' Department is following their case around the clock in coordination with all concerned parties, foremost of which is the (UN) High Commission for Refugees, because they are encompassed in its mandate in light of the fact that they are not registered on the UNRWA's lists to receive the necessities and relief that would ensure them an honorable and secure living.

(Description of Source: Jerusalem Al-Quds in Arabic -- Independent, largest circulation Palestinian newspaper; supports Palestinian Authority and peace process) '

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Maliki condemns Haditha Massacre
26 Dead in Violence

56 percent of Americans say that going to war against Iraq in 2003 was the wrong thing to do. And, nearly half say that the US should now either get all troops out or begin withdrawing troops. In fact, nearly 30 percent say all troops should be brought home.

Political violence, including mortar attacks on south Baghdad, left 16 dead on Thursday.

PM Nuri al-Maliki condemned the Haditha massacre and demanded that compensation be paid to the families.

The massacre was also given as a reason, by a radical guerrilla group "Brigades of Husayn," for which it would kill all Iraqi "collaborators" with Coalition troops in the country.

Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] there is a dispute between Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Basra notables. He appointed a security council for the province that his spokesman says has wide prerogatives, including the authority to dismiss officials. The Basra notables of the governing council dispute these prerogatives. (Apparently they consider the committee extra-legal or extra-constitutional). The Basra notables put forward an alternative plan for returning security to the city, including: 1. Dealing with British troop excesses; 2. opening the door of investment; 3. combatting smuggling rings; 4. ending administrative interference among local institutions. The security committee contains persons linked to the parties and militias that have contributed to the breakdown of order in the city, which has reduced Basrans' confidence in it.

I am told via an email from a Basrawi that the Iraqi 10th Division trooops have put up checkpoints in Basra and are stopping cars with no license plates, and that this action is producing a positive impression on the public.

The US military sees Ramadi as a site of increased activity by the Salafi Jihadis, whom people are incorrectly calling "al-Qaeda" for propaganda purposes. These are Sunni Arab revivalists. While the most prominent such group, that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had originally been mainly foreign, there is evidence of significant Iraqi conversion to it. Ramadi has been a center of opposition to the US presence for over two years, and I am not sure what the mix is, in the resistance movement there, of local Arab tribal groups, Sunni Arab urban nationalists, neo-Baath military men, and Salafi Jihadis. But since the city is clearly dominated by political forces opposed to the US and the new Iraqi government, I'm not sure exactly what the significance is of a slightly elevated influence from the Salafi Jihadis.

Continued high unemployment is one cause of discontent in Iraq.

The high rate of civilian death, some of it at the hands of the US military, is also making Iraqis upset.
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Ishaqi Massacre Emerges in Wake of Haditha

The BBC has received video footage that appears to implicate US troops in the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians at Ishaqi on March 15, and in a subsequent cover-up attempt. The BBC report, and interviews with local police, along with the video, supplied by a Sunni religious group that opposes the US presence in Iraq, suggests the following narrative: The US military got a tip that an al-Qaeda (i.e. probably Salafi Jihadi) operative was in this house in Ishaqi. They went there, and appear to have shot up the inhabitants, thinking that they would be killing members of an al-Qaeda cell. The bullet wounds do not appear to be short-range ones. In fact, they killed a grandmother and 8 children, with 2 others. I presume that the GIs left the scene long enough for an Iraqi to come in and videotape.

It is alleged that the US troops then came back and collapsed the building. They reported that the building collapsed in the course of their assault on an al-Qaeda safehouse, killing 4 civilians. But the collapse appears to be after the fact and part of a cover-up. The killings themselves, bad as they are, are not as bad as what is reported from the previous November at Haditha, since the long-range bullet wounds may indicate that they went in, guns blazing, before they realized who they were killing. At Haditha, it appears that Marines were just taking revenge on civilians for the killing that morning of one of their own. What is scarey at Ishaqi, if the story is borne out, is the cover-up.

You wonder how many of the innocuous-sounding US military reports on casualties in such operations hide crimes and cover-ups. And, that the Ishaqi tape is getting play on the BBC is almost certainly a result of the revelation of the Hadith massacre. Scandal begets scandal. The Western mass media are now more predisposed to credit such evidence, which means they will likely receive more and more such evidence.

My estimation is that the number of Iraqis in Anbar Province who said it was all right to attack US troops doubled to 80 percent in 2006 from 40-odd percent in January of 2004. Doubled. And Ishaqi and Haditha and lots of similar such incidents are the reason for this doubling. The doubling, by the way, equals the loss of the counter-insurgency struggle in the Sunni Arab heartland. The errors and sometimes crimes were not just costly. They were fatal.
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Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood Calls on Shiite Religious Authorities to Prohibit Attacks on Sunnis in Basra

From the USG Open Source Center, an article on Jordan's Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood there, calling on Khamenei, Sistani, Fadlullah and others to forbid attacks on Sunnis. The immediate context is the fears of the Basra Sunni community, which is tens of thousands strong in the largely Shiite city of 1.3 million. Its leader say it is being ethnically cleansed. This call is a sign of the further internationalization of the Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq.

' Al-Ra'y: IAF Calls on Shiite Religious Authorities To Prohibit Targeting Sunnis
Report by Majid al-Amir entitled: "Islamic Action Front Calls on Shiite Authorities to Prohibit Targeting Sunnis"

Al-Ra'y

Thursday, June 1, 2006 T15:19:07Z


Amman, 1 June (2006) -- Hamzah Mansur, head of the Islamic Action Front (IAF)'s Shura Council, has called on Shiite religious authorities in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon to prohibit the targeting of Sunni Muslims by Shiite Muslims. This comes against the background of the recent decision of the Sunni Waqf Council in the city of Basra to close 170 mosques to protect the lives of Muslims and to prevent their displacement from their homes.

In the letters sent to the Shiite religious authorities and posted on the IAF website, Mansur condemned targeting the Sunni mosques in Basra and threatening the worshipers of killing and displacement. He said: "We view these practices with great concern because they serve the US-British scheme, which was a complete fiasco in Iraq due to the steadfastness of the Muslim Iraqi people and their valiant resistance. This scheme deliberately intended to foment sectarian disagreements to cause suffering among Muslims and make them the victims."

The IAF Secretariat General sent yesterday the letters to Ali Khamene'i, the supreme guide of the Islamic Revolution in Iran; Ali al-Sistani, Iraqi Shiite authority; Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, the Lebanese Shiite authority; Hasan Nasrallah, secretary general of the Lebanese Hizballah; Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraqi Shiite authority; and Jawad al-Khalisi, Iraqi Shiite authority.

(Description of Source: Amman Al-Ra'y in Arabic -- Jordanian daily of widest circulation; partially owned by government. Internet version also available at: http://www.alrai.com/) '

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Maliki Declares State of Emergency in Basra
42 Bodies Found, Guerrilla Bombings Kill and Maim in Baghdad, Mosul
US Troops Accidentally Shoot Pregnant Mother

Reuters reports the following major violence in the Iraqi Civil War, along with many more smaller attacks in which only one or two persons died or were injured:

In Mosul in the north, guerrillas detonated a car bomb that wounded 20 persons, including 5 policemen. Later reports say that the five policemen died of their wounds.

North of Baghdad, the Mayor of Muqdadiyah, his brother and cousin were assassinated in a guerrilla bomb attack.

US troops shot to death two women civilians. One of the two was a pregnant mother trying to get to the hospital. They did not slow down, or at least not sufficiently, on approaching a checkpoint in al-Mutasim near Samarra. Iraqis were outraged at the news, coming as it does on revelations about a Marine unit that is alleged to have murdered 24 Iraqi civilians in cold blood last November.

And in the capital,

' *BAGHDAD - A mortar attack in the southern outskirts of Baghdad killed nine people and wounded 17 . . .

BAGHDAD - Four civilians were killed during clashes that erupted between insurgents and policemen in northern Baghdad, a source in the Ministry of Interior said. Seven people, including policemen, were wounded.

HAWIHJA - Six civilians were seriously wounded on Tuesday when three mortar rounds landed in a crowded market in the town of Hawija, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk . . .

In addition, 42 bodies were found around the capital, bound and executed Mafia-style, in faith-based revenge killings.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited the southern oil port of Basra on Wednesday and declared a month-long state of emergency. Iraq's second-largest city and the key to its remaining petroleum revenues has been roiled by violence between party militias, by Shiite on Sunni violence, and by tribal feuds among Marsh Arabs and between them and the militias. The Basra city administration is largely controlled by the Fadhila or Virtue Party, an offshoot of the movement founded by Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, but one that does not recognize Sadiq's son Muqtada as his legitimate successor. Virtue has been at odds with the ruling Dawa Party and the Supreme Council, and was not given, as it wanted, the post of petroleum minister. In turn, it has declared a work slow-down in the petroleum industry in the city, a significant proportion of which it controls. Governor Muhammad al-Wa'ili has attempted to fire his police chief and the local Iraqi army commander and has feuded with clerical representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Al-Zaman / Reuters say [Ar.] Maliki took security affairs away from the governor and gave them to General Abdul Latif al-Thu`ban of the 10th Division.

Al-Hayat reports that al-Wa'ili [Ar.] the governor of Basra from the Virtue party, blamed the Suprem Council, the local representatives of the chief Shiite religious authorities (i.e. Sistani), and 'outside agitators" who came in to support gangs engaged in smuggling. (The outsiders are presumably being accused of being Iranians, though from his diction he thinks they are crminals, not agents of the state.) The head of the governing council excused local government inability to restore order by pointing to its lack of money for security forces.

President Jalal Talabani has suggested that the federal government could just remove some local officials from power. For all Basra's problems, this approach would be extremely unfortunate. Al-Wa'ili and his supporters won the local elections in Basra on Jan. 30, 2005, gaining 21 seats to the 20 of the Supreme Council. For the federal government to remove an elected, sitting governor is a slippery slope. Does it beomce a precedent? This kind of high-handedness in India under Indira Gandhi seems to me to have helped produced massive turmoil in Kashmir and Panjab, and it did not help things in Maharashtra or elsewhere that she intrigued to get out a non-Congress governor and get a Congress one in. It would be like allowing Bush to fire Governor Granholm in Michigan because security is so bad in Detroit. This kind of thing can lead to a one-party state.

Two ironies here: The Kurds would take up arms at the very mention of the possibility that Maliki might dismiss any officials in Kurdistan. And, from a Virtue Party point of view, Maliki's tough rhetoric just sounds like Dawa and the Supreme Council are trying to win by federal intervention what they lost at the ballot box, and marginalize an elected party.

Anyway, I don't find it plausible that Maliki can restore order to Basra any time soon, and if he intervenes with too heavy a hand (he spoke of an "iron fist"), he could easily make things much worse (e.g. pushing the Virtue Party into becoming a guerrilla resistance.)

Al-Zaman/ AFP say that the Debaathification Committee has asked the Malik government to dismiss three or four of the ministers it just appointed, on the ground that they had been too high in the Baath party in the old regime. Typically such debaathification targets Sunni Arabs or secular Shiites. Al-Maliki has been big on debaathification, so we will see if he gives in on this. If he does, I should think it will cause a parliamentary crisis, with him losing the support of yet another party or two.
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