Rice Meets Syrian Envoy
Donors Cancel $30 Bn. in Iraq Debt

Warren Strobel and Miret el Naggar report on US Secretary of State Condi Rice's meeting at Sharm El Sheikh with the Syrian foreign minister, Walid Moualem. She pressed him to have Syria close its borders with Iraq to infiltrators. US generals on the ground have recently reported that fewer infiltrators are getting through. The meeting represented an enormous turnaround for the Bush administration, which withdrew its ambassador from Damascus and hasn't talked to directly the Syrian government for years. Condi even called Nancy Pelosi to consult with her, given Pelosi's own recent talks in Damascus with Syrian president Bashar al-Asad.

Gee, all of a sudden meeting with the Syrian government is not an act of high treason.

I can only think that Condi's meeting with Mouallem is a sign that Dick Cheney's grip on power inside the White House is slipping badly, and that Condi has Bush's ear on the need to engage.

Mcclatchy wrote,

'"This is a marked improvement in the administration's ostrich policy approach and a tacit admission of how wrong it was last month in criticizing the speaker of the House and congressional colleagues, including myself, for going to Damascus," said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House International Relations Committee. '

I detect some attitude here on Lantos's part. You know the world is screwy when Lantos, among the most committed supporters of Israel in Congress, wants to see Condi talking to Syria. Wasn't he involved in cutting Syria off in the first place, with the "Syria Accountability Act?"

Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that Mouallem called the meeting "frank and productive." He said the two had not touched on the Lebanon issue.

Lending states agreed to cancel a whopping $30 bn. in debt owed them by Iraq. Saudi Arabia had announced two weeks ago that it would forgive 80% of the $15 bn. it says it is owed by Iraq, or about $12 bn.

The donors are discussing the Iraq Compact, a five year plan for the country.

On the civil war front, police found 25 bodies in the streets of Baghdad, 9 in Fallujah, and the corpses of 6 policemen in Baiji, north of Baghdad.

The Sharm El Sheikh conference , having dealt with economic issues, will now turn to security.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sharm El Sheikh on Iraqi T.V.

The USG Open Source Center has translated and summarized reports on Iraqi television about the conference being held at Sharm El Sheikh on Iraq:

Al-Iraqiyah, Al-Sharqiyah Coverage of Sharm al-Shaykh Conference 3 May (2) Iraq-- OSC Summary Thursday, May 3, 2007 Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic -- government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network -- and Baghdad Al-Sharqiyah Television in Arabic -- an independent, private news and entertainment channel focusing on Iraq, run by Sa'd al-Bazzaz, publisher of the Arabic-language daily Al-Zaman -- between 1300-2100 GMT on 3 May are observed to cover events and reports about the Sharm al-Shaykh international conference on Iraq as follows: Al-Iraqiyah: --At 1300 GMT, Al-Iraqiyah TV continues to carry a studio interview with Dr Walid al-Hilli, secretary general of the Human Rights Group in Iraq, started at 1230 GMT. Al-Hilli comments on the Sharm al-Shaykh conference. He describes the conference as "a huge and massive event attended by the permanent members of the Security Council, the G-8, the main industrialized world states, as well as the Arab states and other states that support Iraq and that affect the world economy and world policy." He adds: "Definitely, this hugely important event comes in support of Iraq, of the Iraqi Government, and of the political process in Iraq. Likewise, this huge gathering comes to support Iraq's march. These states are showing solidarity to render the process in Iraq a success and to help eliminate terrorism. Besides, the issue of writing off Iraq's debts, or 80% of these debts (will feature prominently on the agenda). In return, the Iraqi Government made pledges to the international community that it will safeguard the political process and democratic mechanism, that it will protect human rights, that it will commit itself to giving everybody his or her lawful rights, and that the rule of law will reign supreme." --At 1309-1317 GMT, an unidentified Al-Iraqiyah TV anchorman in Baghdad carries a live satellite interview with Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubay'i in Sharm al-Shaykh. Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubay'i Asked for his reaction to this conference, Al-Rubay'i says: "As a matter of fact, this is a huge and massive political and media event designed to back the International Compact With Iraq. In brief, the International Compact is a structure or an equation under which Iraq will make pledges or undertakings that it will continue with the political process, and that it will enhance this process." Al-Rubay'i adds: "In return, the world, or the international community, will pledge to help Iraq by dropping or writing off debts or reducing war reparations. Besides, the regional and world states will pledge to support the security process in Iraq, to ensure that all interference in Iraqi domestic affairs will stop and that national sovereignty will be reinforced. The world will help expedite the building of our Armed Forces and security forces so as to defeat terrorism and triumph over Al-Qa'ida and its stooges." When asked on what would guarantee compliance with the conference resolutions by the participating countries, Al-Rubay'i says: "Even the countries that are entertaining the notion of noncompliance with their undertakings and pledges" will find themselves compelled to show compliance because "the international community, the entire international community, is supportive of Iraq, of the political process, of the Constitution, and of the national unity government." When asked about UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon , Al-Rubay'i says: "Let me tell you something. Over the past few years, over the past four years, the United Nations has not played a huge role, one that would have lived up to the Iraqis' aspirations." He adds: "We seek to upgrade the level of UN efforts. Therefore, once this conference is concluded; specifically, the day after tomorrow, I will leave for Washington and New York for talks with the UN secretary general on the new ways and methods that could bring about an upgrade in ties with the United Nations, and also upgrade of UN presence in Iraq." . . . Within its 1700 GMT newscast, Al-Iraqiyah TV highlights the speeches delivered at the opening session of the Sharm al-Shaykh conference on Iraq. It also carries the following reports: --"Prime Minister Nuri Kamil al-Maliki has affirmed that a strong Iraq is a factor of stability in the region. He added: Whoever thinks that a weak Iraq serves his interests is mistaken. Al-Maliki made these remarks when he received US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at his place of residence in Sharm al-Shaykh. Rice urged Iraq's neighboring countries to support Iraq through its democratic institutions. She added that Iraq's neighboring countries will understand that supporting Iraq cannot be achieved except through bolstering its democratic institutions. Iraqi PM Al-Maliki and Condoleezza Rice For his part, the prime minister called upon the United States to conduct bilateral dialogues with some of Iraq's neighboring countries to achieve results that would serve stability in Iraq and the region. He indicated that the International Compact Conference and the neighboring countries conference offer a good opportunity for holding dialogues and achieving understanding among all participating countries." --"More than 50 countries and international organizations attending the International Compact Conference, which began its meetings in Sharm al-Shaykh today, were unanimous on the need to uproot terrorism and support the Iraqi people in the course of their efforts to build their future and rebuild their country. Through their speeches, the conference participants affirmed their full readiness to extend all kinds of support and backing to build Iraq and make it a secure and prosperous country that enjoys security and stability." --"During a meeting at his place of residence in Sharm al-Shaykh, Prime Minister Nuri Kamil al-Maliki and British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett discussed the results of the International Compact Conference held today, Thursday, and the willingness of the participating countries to help Iraq with regard to its debts. A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Media Office, a copy of which Al-Iraqiyah has obtained, said that Al-Maliki commended the support extended by the countries that are participating in the conference, which is viewed as a milestone for Iraq and the world. He stressed the importance of there being an Iraqi national compact to interact with the International Compact Document, the statement noted. The statement added that Al-Maliki underscored that a strategic option, rather than the option of force, will be used to consolidate security and stability in the country." --"Arab and international media have attached great importance to the convening of the International Compact Conference on Iraq in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm al-Shaykh. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry affirmed that some 1,000 media persons covered the proceedings of the said conference." --"Politicians and MPs were unanimous that the launch of the International Compact Document on Iraq will open the doors wide for a new phase to save the country. In statements to Al-Iraqiyah, they affirmed that the said conference reflects the success of the officials' relevant efforts." Then, Dr Salim Abdallah, MP for the [Sunni] Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front, is shown saying: "All the issues that were raised were agreed to before. Nonetheless, the Iraqi man in the street and the political blocs wonder when these programs will be implemented." He adds: "We think that it is high time these states fulfilled their obligations toward the deteriorating security situation, and toward a political situation that needs solutions." Iraqi MP Muntasir al-Imarah expresses optimism about the possible implementation of the provisions enshrined in the International Compact Document. Iraqi MP Abdallah Salih says that the Iraqi Government is required to take some steps, including the implementation of political and economic reforms. He adds: "We should positively address these demands for political and economic reforms, not out of a desire to satisfy others, but rather out of a desire to meet constitutional demands." --"Citizens today expressed optimism over the convening of the International Compact Conference on Iraq. In statements to Al-Iraqiyah, the citizens affirmed that the said conference reflects the international community's faith in the Iraqi people's creative ability to save Iraq." Citizens are shown making statements urging Iraq's neighboring countries to "help Iraq dismantle and rout terrorism" and write off Iraq's debts. Al-Sharqiyah: Al-Sharqiyah leads its 1300 GMT newscast . . . This is followed by several reports on the Sharm al-Shaykh conference, highlighting statements by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu-al-Ghayt, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, UN Secretary General Ban-KI moon, Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Saudi Foreign Minister Sa'ud al-Faysal. Al-Sharqiyah leads its 1400 GMT newscast with a report citing Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu-al-Ghayt as saying that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki. This is followed by a report saying: "Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Saudi Foreign Minister Sa'ud al-Faysal held a closed meeting in a tense atmosphere after the Saudi foreign minister failed to announce the writing off of 80 percent of Iraq's debts. Sources said that Al-Faysal told Zebari that Saudi Arabia was the first country to welcome Al-Maliki's government and to express readiness to support it to achieve national reconciliation that would ensure Iraq's stability. The Saudi foreign minister said that the Iraqi Government did not fulfill its promises of achieving reconciliation and disbanding militias, but it rather dismissed competent Iraqi officers who played an important role in confronting the outlaws. During the Sharm al-Shaykh conference, heads of the participating delegations read statements, stressing the need for the Iraqi government to fulfill its commitments in return for receiving support from the international." . . At 1430 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah interviews Ra'id Fawzi, member of the Arab Institute for Researches and Strategic Studies, in Amman, on the Sharm al-Shaykh conference. At 1444 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah carries a statement by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu-al-Ghayt, in which he says: "Among the issues discussed are the political, security, and economic situations; human rights; how the Iraqi authorities are carrying out their duties on the ground; and the issue of monitoring, supervision, transparency, and creditability. Today, the international community gave the Iraqi government and people its support, and the Iraqis should in return adhere to the commitments they made and take measures to implement the provisions of the International Compact document." At 1451 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah interviews [Shiite, SCIRI cleric] Hammam Hamudi, member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives. He says: "The International Compact with Iraq document and this large participation in the conference show that Iraq is important to the world, not only to the region. Everybody is concerned about Iraq's prosperity and stability. The International community is determined to support Iraq in the political, security, and economic fields." At 1452 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah carries the following on-screen message: "Sharm al-Shaykh conference: Al-Maliki's government is required to fulfill its promises." Al-Maliki Within its 1500 GMT newscast, Al-Sharqiyah carries the following "urgent" report as a screen caption: "Al-Maliki meets Mottaki; the two sides discuss the Iranian support for the Iraqi Government." Between 1504 GMT and 1546 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah carries live a news conference by the Egyptian foreign minister, the Iraqi prime minister, and the UN secretary general in Sharm al-Shaykh, during which the Iraqi prime minister and the UN secretary gen eral sign the International Compact with Iraq. (GMP20070503634001) At 1606 GMT, Ali Muhsin, Al-Sharqiyah correspondent in Sharm al-Shaykh, interviews Hasan al-Sunayd, member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, on the conference. Al-Sunayd says: "There is full international desire to help Iraq carry out the commitments it made in the International Compact with Iraq document." He adds: "For its part, Iraq introduced the International compact document and showed commitment to making political, economic, and security reforms. I believe that the commitments Iraq made allowed it to return to the international community and to come out of the political isolation imposed on it by terrorism." Within its 1700 GMT newscast, Al-Sharqiyah carries the following report: "Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met with Iranian Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of the International Compact with Iraq conference in Sharm al-Shaykh. Sources said that the two sides discussed the Iranian support for the Iraqi Government and the security situation in Iraq." Within the same newscast, Al-Sharqiyah reports: "Speaking to Al-Sharqiyah on the sidelines of the Sharm al-Shaykh conference, Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa stressed the important role the Arab League played in trying to find a solution to the Iraqi crisis since its beginning, adding that the Arab League exerted efforts to find a solution to the Iraqi dilemma. He also added that the Arab League hosted the first reconciliation conference in 2005. He added that agreement among all Iraqis and achieving national reconciliation is the one way to resolve the Iraqi's people's problems." Musa says: "Since the beginning of the problem in Iraq, the Arab League, contrary to what is believed, has been involved in finding a solution to the situation in Iraq. In 2003, the Arab League was the one that called on the interim Iraqi Governing Council, despite all the criticism directed to it, to take Iraq's seat in the Arab League. Had not been for this call, no international or regional organizations would have recognized it." . . At 1720 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah interviews Abd-al-Naf al-Zughbi, an expert in the Iraqi economy, to talk about the International Compact with Iraq, Iraq's economic commitments, the challenges facing the Iraqi economy and how to improve it, and other related issues. Between 1735 GMT and 1749 GMT, Al-Sharqiyah interviews Iraqi Government Spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh from Sharm al-Shaykh. Al-Dabbagh says: "Today's conference was very successful. As it was expected, there was a great international interest in Iraq and its security and stability." . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Murtha Urges Limited Funding
Bombing Kills 10 in Shiite Sadr City

Iraqi guerrillas killed 3 US troops and wounded 2 on Wednesday.

Guerrilla violence killed some 85 persons in Iraq on Wednesday. Reuters reports:

' BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 35 near a police station in the Baghdad Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Thirty bodies have been found around Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said. All had been shot.

BAGHDAD - Several mortar rounds landed in Abu Dshir, a residential district in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding eight, police said.

Ten bodies were found in Baquba.

John Edwards argues in his campaign commercials that the best response to Bush's veto of the supplemental spending bill on Iraq and the failure on Wednesday of Congress to overturn it, is to keep sending the same bill back to Bush.

It is satisfying to say so, but it probably isn't good political tactics. When Newt Gingrich played politics with the budget under Clinton and even shut down DC, it was Congress that took the hit in the polls. Just being obstreperous isn't very attractive.

Murtha is suggesting that they don't fund a whole year, maybe only two months. That sort of conditionality, whatever its mechanism, seems right to me.

Foreign ministers from the region and the world are gathering in Sharm El Sheikh for a conference on Iraq.

Condi Rice and the Iranians will conduct some bilateral talks at that conference, which could prove momentous.

The former chair of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq, Michael Bell, tells the NYT that Iraq reconstruction are doomed to failure as long as the lack of security continues. The article also points out that it is hard to scare up donors who will give billions when they see what has happened to the projects that went before.

This point is one reply we should make to those who argue that that bombings in Iraq are just for show and only mimic a real war without being one. They hve real world consequences on things like whether billions flow in to the government or not. (Not to mention that it is a stupid argument in the first place. Bombs that kill hundreds are war, not just its simulacrum.)

Iraq is now on the list of countries where there isn't sufficient religious freedom.

The British are only now figuring out that they were Cheney'd! Blair would reach an understanding with Bush, and then mysteriously it would be overturned when he got back to the White House. Dick apparently keeps W. on a short leash.

An author of the Iraq oil bill has now turned against it.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Note to Bush and Edwards: On How there is not Really any al-Qaeda in Iraq

I caught John Edwards on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room Wednesday afternoon. Blitzer asked him about Bush's remarks on al-Qaeda being enemy number one in Iraq.

Edwards replied with great good sense and admirable forthrightness, and I'll quote it in a second. But one thing I advise candidates in both parties to do is start recognizing that what the US military calls the Iraqi insurgency is primarily Iraqi nationalists, not al-Qaeda.

The US military and politicians made a key mistake when they saw the North Vietnamese Communists of Ho Chi Minh as primarily Communists, when in fact they were Vietnamese nationalists. It was the nationalist component that proved so attractive to many of their collaborators in the south. After the North Vietnamese Communists took over they almost immediately had a firefight with Communist China. It would be tragic if the US makes another such error in Iraq. Bush and Cheney speak as though the enemy there is a terrorist international, a stateless al-Qaeda dedicated to establishing an Islamic superstate and bringing down the United States. That is 99.99 % wrong. Almost all those fighting in Iraq are Iraqi nationalists. Just as Communist Vietnam posed no real threat to the US and was of little use to other Communist states as an ally, so a post-US Iraq would be a country of Iraqi nationalists (with, admittedly, ethno-religious subnationalisms playing either a decisive or an important role).

So here is the exchange between Blitzer and Edwards:

' BLITZER: But do you dispute that al Qaeda has a presence in the Al Anbar Province, in other provinces in Iraq, that they're trying to establish a base there, from which to do their evil deeds?

EDWARDS: No, of course I don't dispute that. That's obvious.

But -- but the president of the United States has made this situation worse. He hasn't made it better. And the question is, what is the plan that will maximize the chances for us being successful there? I believe -- and I think many of the leaders in the Congress believe the same thing -- that, as America starts to withdraw its presence in Iraq, we shift the responsibility to the Sunni and Shia leadership, and we create a greater possibility of there being a political reconciliation.

It is that political reconciliation and that resolution that creates a more secure environment on the ground, and will help stop what al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are attempting to do in Iraq.'

I concur in Edwards' analysis of the situation in Iraq. But I think it would help the public debate if he and others began querying the entire idea of "al-Qaeda in Iraq." He gave that one away, and when you give that one away, you risk giving away everything.

Al-Qaeda is technically defined as persons who have given their fealty to Usama Bin Laden and who have been given an operation to do by him. It is sort of like being a "made man" in the Cosa Nostra. Not every two bit gangster is a mafioso, and not every violent Salafi is al-Qaeda.

A recent study by Gen. Barry McCaffrey suggested that there are in fact 100,000 insurgents (I prefer the term guerrilla) in Iraq, not the 20,000 to 25,000 usually estimated by the US military.

Iraq's previous interior minister estimated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq at less than a thousand. Most of these are Salafi Jihadis of one sort or another (revivalist Sunnis).

So 99,000 insurgents are Iraqis. And none of them is al-Qaeda in the sense of being loyal to the organization or fighting for Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They are fighting for some vision of the Iraqi nation, whether inflected by religion or not.

So who are the Iraqi insurgents? An important component is Baathists and ex-Baathist nationalists. These are former military officers, party officials, intelligence operatives, etc. The Baath Party itself is said in the Arabic press to have split into four groups [scroll down]. Among the more important of the four, and the least willing to compromise, is that of Saddam Hussein's vice president, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri. Last January al-Hayat reported in Arabic that there were attempts to hold an Iraqi Baath Party congress in Damascus and reunify the fragments in preparation for a rehabilitation of the party in Iraq when de-Baathification was ended. Al-Duri opposed this step because he saw it as leading to defeat, not victory. Although he is said by some to be in Syria, that is inconsistent with his stance on the Damascus conference, and I think it is more likely that he is in the Mosul area.



In March, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri wrote to Arab leaders, calling himself the secretary general of the Ba'th Socialist Party and the commander in chief of the Iraqi armed forces, asking that they support his insurgency. A summary of the letter is appended at the end of this column.

Another guerrilla group made up of ex-Baathist officers is the Mujahideen Army. It has been unwilling to join the Holy Warriors Council (shura) because it doesn't like the Salafi Jihadis, and it has at points opened negotiations with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani.

Although Bush administration officials admitted in 2003 that al-Duri was a major leader of the insurgency, when they did not capture him and when the Baath resistance was galvanized, they increasingly blamed everything in Iraq on "al-Qaeda" and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But al-Zarqawi wasn't really al-Qaeda, whatever he later said, and had never gotten along with Bin Laden. He had formed his own organization, Monotheism and Holy War, and refused to share resources with al-Qaeda. Admittedly at some point in Iraq he announced that his organization was 'al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.' But lots of little burger joints try to imply that they are part of big franchises. The grease doesn't improve.

One reason for which Baathists and Sunni Arab nationalists are most often ignored as key components of the insurgency is that it suits everyone. The Baathis are doing horrible things, and don't want the credit for them. The radical Sunnis are small groups and do want credit, so they claim it and the Baathis don't contradict them. And, the Bush administration is ecstatic every time "al-Qaeda" takes credit for the violence in Iraq. That makes it easier for them to claim the Iraq War as part of their 'war on terror.'

When al-Zarqawi was killed in spring of 2006, it didn't have the slightest impact on the vigor of the insurgency. Ipso facto, he wasn't behind that much of it.

Iraqi Sunni fundamentalists such as the 1920 Revolution Brigade are not al-Qaeda. In fact, their name shows them to be Iraqi nationalists, since it refers to the 1920 revolution against British colonialism. Al-Qaeda is against country nationalism, emphasizing the Islamic ummah or community rather than individual nation states. The actual 1920 revolt, led by Shiites, would mean nothing to Bin Laden.

This point is important because self-conception tells you about the scope of action of a group. The 1920 Revolution Brigade is all about getting rid of foreigners from Iraq. It isn't about international terrorism or hitting the US mainland. We don't have to worry about it if US troops leave Iraq. Its members will just heave a sigh of relief and go back to their ordinary jobs. If it or others keep trying to hit Shiites after the Americans leave, they will likely get themselves massacred. They aren't a danger to skyscrapers on the east Coast in the US.


APPENDIX:

The USG Open Source Center summarized his letter on April 23. I reprint it here to give you a sense of the rhetoric and aims of this major component of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement:

Ba'th Party Secretary Izzat Ibrahim Urges Arab Rulers To Assist Iraqi Resistance Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary Monday, April 23, 2007 Terrorism: Ba'th Party Secretary Izzat Ibrahim Urges Arab Rulers To Assist Iraqi Resistance On 26 March, a jihadist website posted a letter written by Izzat Ibrahim, the general secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party, urging "Arab rulers to unite in fighting the enemies of Iraq and assisting the noble Iraqi resistance." The letter was related to the Arab summit held last month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A summary of the letter follows: The polite and emotional letter written by Izzat Ibrahim, who considers himself to be the commander in chief of the Iraqi armed forces, is addressed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the other Arab rulers to the summit held in Riyadh in March 2007. In the letter, Ibrahim places his "faith and confidence with the Arab rulers in the holy and proud land of Saudi Arabia to take action against the tyrant occupiers of Iraq who have killed, maimed, and displaced more than 4 million people since April 2003, erasing the social, financial, moral, and civilized existence of the Iraqi people." The writer accuses "the enemy of assisting Iran in a historical way to destroy the Iraqi nation and its identity and turn it into a Shiite Iranian controlled region." He further charges that "the American imperialism, Zionists, and the Shiite Iranians are building a base in Iraq for the Khomeini Safavid revolution to expand into Arab countries, changing its identity, and dominating the entire region." Ibrahim reiterates the fact that "the noble national resistance movement is the only legitimate representative of the Iraqi people" and calls for a "boycott of the (present) government of agents and traitors who came to Iraq to kill and displace Iraqis." He places "the historical responsibility of Iraq on the shoulders of the Arab rulers facing up to God and history." He adds that "the brave resistance of the Iraqi people is one of the greatest achievements in the history of the country, fighting the strongest power on earth and forcing the enemy to run away." In conclusion, he praises "the great sacrifices of the resistance" and vows to "continue the struggle until victory," hoping that "the Arab leadership will stand firmly with the Iraqi people." '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bush Vetoes Supplemental for Iraq
Rice will be Polite
11 Killed in Minibus attack

Bush vetoed the supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq that Congress sent him on May 1. You know, Bush and Cheney and others got this meme going last fall that critics of the war had a responsibility to put forward their own solution to the problems. So the Congress has stepped up to that plate and said that a beginning can be made to resolving the Iraq crisis only if the US makes a commitment to bring its troops out of that country on a short timetable.

Bush is now revealing that he did not actually want to hear other proposals besides his fatally flawed "stay the course" policy. So now the ball is in his court. He has the responsiblity to lay out what he plans to do in September when it almost certainly be clear that the security situation is not substantially better and the al-Maliki government is not less paralyzed.

Charlie Rose asked him this question, and he fudged it, saying he had no plan B. That's not good enough, George. What's your plan, since you don't like that of the Congress? The American public isn't going to put up with "stay the course" any more, and they aren't buying the alleged connection of Iraq to September 11.

With regard to the prospect that Condi Rice might talk to Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki at Sharm El Sheikh, Bush said that if there is an encounter, she will be polite. Bush sent an extra aircraft carrier to the Gulf to threaten Iran, and Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted to nuke Isfahan. But God forbid the administration should be rude to an Iranian official.

According to Reuters, guerrillas opened fire on a minibus in Iskandariya south of Baghdad, killing 11. Ten bodies were discovered in Baqubah, one hour northeast of the capital. In Baghdad on Tuesday, police found 15 bodies in the street and civilians were killed by mortar shells.

The office of the governor of Basra (Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili) protested his recent unseating by a vote of no confidence to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. His opponents, however, characterize this protest letter as illegitimate and untransparent, since it was sent secretly and personally rather than openly via the government bureaucracy.

KarbalaNews.net alleges in Arabic that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari promised the Iranians that Iraq would expel from its territory the members of the anti-Tehran terrorist group, the Mojahedin-i Khalq (MEK or MKO). Saddam had given them a base, Camp Ashraf, from which they sent terrorists over the border to blow things up in Iran. The Neoconservatives in the US Department of Defense wanted to go on using MEK in this same way, but the State Department labeled them a terrorist organization. If this report is correct, the Iraqi government may at last have taken a decisive step in this regard. And, it was possibly a demand of the Iranians with regard to their attendance at the Sharm El Sheikh Conference this week.

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Iranian national security council, met Tuesday with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (as well as with PM al-Maliki and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.) Larijani rejected US accusations that Iran is aiding militias to destabilize Iraq, saying that it is rather US allies who are making mischief there (presumably a slam at Saudi Arabia).

In a recent poll, 76% of Iraqis reject the security wall the Americans were building around Adhamiya in Baghdad (Arabic).

Pepe Escobar in Baghdad-- roving the Red Zone.

Tenet claimed in his book that Tyler Drumheller did not tell his office that the drunk fabricator, the Iraqi expatriate code-named "Curveball," was a drunk fabricator. Curveball more or less wrote Colin Powell's speech at the UN in February, 2003. Shorter Tyler Drumheller: Oh, yes I did.

The letter of six former intelligence officers blasting Tenet for his failure to speak out against the flimsy pretexts for the looming Iraq War is up at Daily Kos. Given the vindictiveness of this administration, these are 6 courageous persons with a hell of a lot of integrity.

The USG Open Source Center summarizes the Iraqi press:

' Al-Mashriq publishes on the front page a 200-word follow-up report on the statement issued by Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi outlining the results of his phone call with President Bush. The report cites Harith al-Ubaydi, parliament member from the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front, confirming that it is too early for the front to withdraw from the government. . .

Al-Mashriq runs on page 3 a 460-word follow-up report citing Husayn al-Falluji, parliament member from the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front, confirming that the front supports the projected cabinet reshuffle provided the replacement of Defense Minister Muhammad Abd-al-Qadir al-Ubaydi. The report cites political sources confirming that President Talabani is seeking to form a new political front comprising of moderate Iraqi political forces. . .

Ishraqat al-Sadr publishes on page 2 a 250-word exclusive report citing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Advisor Karim al-Bakhati criticizing the Al-Hurrah Satellite Television Channel and denying that he rejects the withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq.

Dar al-Salam publishes on page 2 a 300-word report entitled "Al-Fadilah Party: Threats, Violence, Extortion To Impose Political Willpower, Control Over Basra Governorate."

Dar al-Salam runs on page 5 a 300-word report confirming that the UAE Government has also declined to receive Prime Minister Al-Maliki. . .

Ishraqat al-Sadr publishes on page 2 a 400-word exclusive report citing an official source at the Al-Sadr Bureau in Al-Kazimiyah confirming that US planes shelled the bureau following the failure of US forces to break into it on 29 April. The report cites well-informed sources confirming that Law Enforcement Plan Commander General Abud Qanbar visited the district immediately after the eruption of clashes between Al-Sadr followers and occupation forces.

Ishraqat al-Sadr carries on page 2 a 400-word editorial by Adil al-Abid criticizing Iraqi security officials for their failure to prevent terrorist attacks despite the deployment of explosive detection equipment and the establishment of large number of checkpoints across Baghdad.

Dar al-Salam publishes on the front page a 350-word report accusing occupation forces and Iraqi National Guard of attacking the Al-Nu'man Public Hospital in Al-A'zamiyah District and insulting its patients and medical cadre. The report accuses the Health Ministry of closing the hospital for sectarian reasons.

Dar al-Salam runs on the front page a 400-word report entitled "US Inspector General: Iraqi Government Wastes $12 Billion." . .

Finkelstein v. Dershowitz.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Mission Accomplished, 4 Years on: A Commentary in Links

Remarks by President Bush announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq Thursday evening [May 1, 2003] from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln:

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing

Riots, Looting? Stuff Happens

and reconstructing that country.

7 of 8 major reconstruction projects in danger of failing.

US has failed to reconstruct Iraq.

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty,

Trudy Rubin: ”Wolfowitz told me he believed that the London-based Iraqi opposition (headed by Ahmed Chalabi) would return to Baghdad and assume the reins of power . . ."

Al-Maliki Government uses Saddam-era law to block corruption probes.

and for the peace of the world . . .

The Iraq Effect: War has Increased Terrorism Seven Fold.

"Iraq civilian attacks send worldwide terror deaths soaring: US".

In the images of fallen statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era.

Toppling of Saddam statue faked.

For a hundred years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, Allied Forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war. Yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.

Study: War Blamed for 655,000 Iraqi Deaths.

In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food, and water, and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices. And everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

Bloody Iraq Uprising Rocks US.

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes.

One thing is certain: the Death of Saddam was About Revenge, not Justice.

We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.

David Kay: No Evidence Iraq Stockpiled WMD.

We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave — and we will leave behind a free Iraq . . .

How to get Out of Iraq.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3,000 Sadrists Protest US Raid
32 Killed in Funeral Bombing

Some 3,000 Iraqis came out Monday in Baghdad to protest US military action against the Mahdi Army at Kadhimiya, the site of revered shrine to the 7th Imam or descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

Members of the Iraq parliament as a result want to restrict US forces from coming within a mile of the shrine.

Mahdi Army fighters and even units are defying Muqtada al-Sadr's command to lie low, and are again killing Sunnis at night and engaging in firefights with the US.

Muqtada al-Sadr has called on Iraqis to oppose the US military presence in their country by painting murals.

The bombing of a Shiite funeral in Khalis killed 32 and wounded 60.

Some 70 other Iraqis were killed in other political violence on Monday, as detailed by Reuters. Among the attacks:

' RAMADI - A tanker laden with chlorine gas exploded near a restaurant west of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, killing up to six people and wounding 10, police and hospital sources said. . .

BAGHDAD - At least two people were killed and 15 wounded when a bus bomb exploded in a tunnel targeting a police checkpoint, police said. The explosion badly damaged the tunnel, which is on a main artery in western Baghdad. . .

SUWAYRA - The bodies of six people were retrieved from two rivers in Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Eight gunmen were killed in a U.S.-Iraqi operation in Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military said, in what some witnesses described as a clash with the Mehdi Army militia loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The U.S. military said in a statement one Iraqi soldier was killed in the incident in the Shi'ite Kadhimiya district. . .

Bodies of 10 truck drivers kidnapped from Baiji were discovered on Monday.

There was a 91% increase in terrorism in Iraq between 2005 and 2006.

WaPo is reporting that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki got rid of mainly Sunni military officers who were good at going after the Mahdi Army. The way the story is told seems to me a little one-sided and I'd like to hear al-Maliki's side of it before deciding.

Egypt is proposing a 3-month cease fire in Iraq as an outcome of the Sharm El Sheikh conference to be held later this week.

The representative in Iran of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Majed Qammas, said Monday that "the participation of Iranian officials in the Sharm el-Sheikh conference will benefit the Iraqi nation and the entire Middle East."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Touchy, Touchy Terrorists

The USG Open Source Center summarizes an internet comment by a supporter of the Salafi "Islamic State of Iraq," in which he lashes out at the criticism of the organization posted by someone he says is a Baathist. Some call The Islamic State in Iraq "al-Qaeda," but it doesn't have operational links to Bin Laden and is probably better thought of as radical Iraqi Salafism.

Statement Denounces Ba'th Party for Criticizing Islamic State of Iraq Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary Monday, April 30, 2007 Terrorism: Statement Denounces Ba'th Party for Criticizing Islamic State of Iraq On 22 April, a participant of one of the jihadist websites posted a statement in which he denounced the Ba'th Party for a statement it posted to Al-Basrah.net and in which, he claims, they libeled the Islamic State of Iraq and its amir, Abu-Umar Al-Baghdadi. A summary of the statement follows: This forum participant denounced the Ba'th Party because of a statement it had posted to the Al-Basrah.net in which, he claims, they "libeled" the Islamic State of Iraq and its amir, Abu-Umar al-Baghdadi. He included a link to the original statement stating that he felt the text was too offensive to be posted. It is noteworthy to mention that the original statement he references does not have any indication of it originating from the Ba'th Party. That statement was written on 18 January 2007 by Abu-Sarhan Al-Ba'qubi and posted to Al-Basrah Net. This poster lists the purported libelous points such as claims of Al-Qa'ida's kidnapping and arrests of mujahidin from other groups and their indiscriminate killing of women, children and the elderly, and it claims that "members of Al-Qa'ida fled when the Americans arrived."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

25 Killed in Basra Blast;
Political Crisis in Basra as Governor is Unseated ;
Iran will Attend Sharm El Sheikh Meet


On Sunday evening, militiamen set off a bomb that killed 25 and wounded dozens in the poor Hayaniya district in the southern Shiite port city of Basra. Early reports put suspicion on the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.

Militiamen in Basra killed another British soldier on Sunday, bringing the total military fatalities for the UK in April to 12 and making it the worst month of the war in that regard.

Al-Hayat , writing in Arabic, alleges that on Sunday night, the elected Governing Council of Basra decided to fire provincial governor Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili, the leader in that region of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila). The move came in the wake of a campaign waged by the rival Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq against him after the Virtue Party withdrew from the Shiite party coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. Al-Hayat's sources maintained that British forces escorted al-Wa'ili to the airport, from which he left for parts unknown.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the GC vote of no confidence against al-Wa'ili carried by 27 votes. There are 41 seats on the council. Al-Wa'ili was initially elected by a slim margin of 21 to 20, with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq having the 20. But the Virtue Party only had 15 seats, and was kept in power by 6 independents that voted with it. Obviously, all six have now defected to SCIRI, along with one Virtue member. The Virtue Party is denying the legitimacy of the vote and insisting that al-Wa'ili remains in office. Its spokesman says that 2/3s of 41 is 28, and that that is the number of votes necessary for a vote of no confidence. He implied that SCIRI is trying to monopolize Basra's oil wealth. All of Iraq's oil exports go through Basra these days, since the Kirkuk pipeline keeps getting hit. Iraq export on the order of 1.6 million barrels a day of petroleum through Basra, with up to 500,000 barrels of that being stolen and smuggled out. Political parties and militias are among the major petroleum smugglers in Basra. This article says that anxiety has seized the people of Basra over the conflict. Since all the parties are armed to the teeth, if there really were a constitutional crisis in the province, it could turn really, really bloody.

There are still over 6,000 British troops in the province, and Prince Harry is being sent there. A recently returned British private spoke out over the weekend, maintaining that "Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face."

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a source close to nationalist Shiite cleric says that he has sent representatives to Arab countries "to lay the foundation for a Sunni-Shiite alliance." The source said, "Sadr commissioned Aws al-Khafaji and Ahmad al-Shaybani to make a tour of Arab, regional and Islamic states in order to unite Sunnis and Shiites." He added, "The tour will end in the next few days, and will include meetings with Sunni clergymen in the Islamic world, along with political and Islamic personalities in the regional and Arab environs-- to explain the dimensions of the suspicious efforts to provoke conflict between the sects." (The subtext is that al-Sadr's emissaries will try to convince Sunnis that the US is actually behind the death squads killing Sunnis in places like Baghdad. As much as the US presence in Iraq is disliked by those Muslim states, I don't think many responsible people will buy Muqtada's line. For Sunnis, he has real credibility problems. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia won't even meet with PM Nuri al-Maliki these days.)

Iran may have helped the US capture an al-Qaeda operative, Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, late last year. If so, the two US raids on Iranian personnel in Iraq in early 2007 were particularly rude.

Kucinich's introduction of articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney, which the corporate media has dismissed as Quixotic, got support from the California Democratic Party meeting in San Diego. The the party called on Congress to investigate misconduct by Bush and Cheney and take all appropriate steps, up to and including impeachment. It also called for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Guerrillas in the refinery town of Baiji kidnapped the drivers of 15 fuel trucks about to set out for al-Anbar province to the west, and then set fire to or stole the trucks. (Al-Zaman says they were stolen).

Reuters reports that:

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed three people and wounded eight others in the southern Baghdad Zaafaraniya district, police said.

BAGHDAD - At least seven Katyusha rockets landed near a Sunni mosque in the northern Baghdad Adhamiya district, killing two guards and wounding seven others on Saturday, police said.

Edmund Sanders of the LAT gives us a thoughtful, sensitive, informed account of the meaning for Iraqis of the assassination attempt Sunday on beloved broadcaster Amal al-Mudarris. A Shiite from south Iraq whose family suffered at Saddam's hands, she has long been a natural target for the Baathists who have been acting as spoilers in the new Iraq. Gunmen shot her in al-Khadra district of Baghdad as she was leaving her home, wounding her seriously in the head. Aljazeera showed her in her dingy hospital bed, the bandaging on her cheek looking amateurishly applied to me. It brought home how badly the medical facilities have deteriorated. Dozens of journalists have been killed in the course of the Iraq War.

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic says that 1 soldier died and 20 were sickened by poisoning at the Iraqi military camp at Kut. Last October, dozens of soldiers were sickened at the same facility.

The US military says that it captured 4 Shiite extremists who had been part of a network importing explosively formed projectiles into Iraq.

Iran has decided to attend the 2-day conference of foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt that will begin on Tuesday. Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki will lead the delegation. In his interview with Charlie Rose last week, Bush said of the possibility that US Secretary of State Condi Rice and Mottaki would have direct bilateral talks, "They could, they could."

Iraqi National Security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie welcomed Iran's participation. He said, "It's very important for Iraq to get the United States and Iran talking to each other."

Remember all those painted schools that the Administration and its supporters endlessly crowed about? It turns out that 7 of 8 major reconstruction projects in Iraq are in danger of failing.

Indonesia, the world's fourth largest country and the largest Muslim country, called for an immediate US withdrawal from Iraq at the Inter-Parliamentary Union. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono seems to envision a United Nations command succeeding the US forces there. Indonesian Speaker of the House Agung Laksono added, "It is a good momentum for the IPU to urge the United States to leave Iraq immediately, because it is immoral if a sovereign state like Iraq is still controled by Washington."

US Senator Dick Durbin says that the Senate Intelligence Committee received information in 2002 that was the polar opposite of Bush administration public pronouncements on Iraq. He says he remained quiet because the briefings of the Intelligence Committee were classified. Well, that is still true, so why is he talking now? And, I have just two words for the good Senator: Daniel Ellsburg.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Safi: Al-Maliki Must be PM for All Iraqis

The USG Open Source Center summarizes broadcasts of Friday prayers sermons in Iraq last Friday. Note that a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani upbraided Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Da'wa Party for his tendency to speak mainly of the welfare of the Shiites, urging himm to be prime minister of all Iraqis. In contrast, he praises Adil Abdul Mahdi, the Shiite vice president, who comes from the rival Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It is a remarkable and telling rebuke, and I think a sign of Sistani's growing impatience with the narrow concerns of the more sectarian leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance.

Iraqi Friday Sermons for 27 Apr Discuss Security, Political Issues Iraq -- OSC Summary Sunday, April 29, 2007 Major Iraqi television channels - Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah, Baghdad Baghdad Satellite Channel, Baghdad Al-Sharqiyah, Baghdad Al-Furat, Cairo Al-Baghdadiyah, and Baghdad Al-Diyar - are observed on 27 April to carry the following reports on Friday sermons: Al-Iraqiyah: Within its 1700 GMT newscast, Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic - government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network - carries the following report on today's Friday sermons: "Shaykh Ahmad al-Safi, representative of Grand Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Ali al-Sistani has warned politicians of using the extremist religious rhetoric. In a Friday sermon at the Al-Husayn Shrine, Al-Sayyid Al-Safi stressed the importance of putting an end to the security deterioration in some of the Diyala areas." "Al-Safi classified terrorism as two kinds, the external terrorism and the official terrorism, stressing that the latter is more dangerous than the external terrorism, especially since it contains political dimensions that affect Iraq's progress and development." Al-Safi is then shown saying: "I say that the prime minister should not talk about the right of Shiites only. This is not right, taking into consideration that he is the prime minister of Iraq. He should speak about Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and all sects. When the vice president travels abroad he speaks about Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis, and all sects. However, anyone who speaks harshly to the point of causing moral destruction to others is not an official." At a Friday sermon attended by Shiites and Sunnis, Shaykh Ahmad Abd-al-Razzaq, imam and preacher of the Falih Pasha Mosque in Al-Nasiriyah, says: "We want an Arab position that pleases our hearts, removes our tears, and saves our blood." . . Baghdad Al-Furat Television Channel in Arabic - television channel affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) led by Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim, carries within its 1700 GMT newscast a report on today's Friday sermons, as follows: Shaykh Muhammad al-Haydari, imam and preacher of Al-Khillani Mosque, says: "There are operations now, but they are not as they should be. Therefore, aid should be extended to some areas and a quick action should be carried out to purge these areas from the takfiris (holding other Muslims to be infidel), terrorists, and Saddamists." Shaykh Hamid al-Sa'idi, imam and preacher of the Buratha Mosque, says: "I stress to you that there are no peoples in the world who have seen an ordeal like the current one in Iraq. We have been bleeding for four years now. Our houses are being demolished, our nerves are being destroyed, and our sanctities are being attacked. However, we are still continuing the march and we are still ready to make sacrifices in order to achieve our aspirations." Shaykh Talal al-Sa'di, imam and preacher of Friday sermon at Al-Kazimiyah mosque, says: "We are with the security plan and with every step they make. They are aware of the policy of the Al-Sadr Trend and the Al-Mahdi Army." The channel carries an episode of its weekly "Friday Sermons" program at 2008 GMT, as follows: Shaykh Muhammad al-Haydari, imam and preacher of Al-Khillani Mosque, says: "Our people and brothers in the Diyala Governorate have been experiencing an ordeal for a long time. The Al-Anbar Governorate has also experienced an ordeal by the takfiris and the criminal gangs, but, all praise is due to God, thanks to the efforts of its sons and tribes and support from the government and the army and police forces, the people there have managed to liberate many areas in the Al-Anbar Governorate. However, the Diyala Governorate is still suffering major problems." Al-Haydari stresses the "displacement" issue and highlights the suffering of the displaced citizens. He urges the government to solve the problems of these citizens. Speaking about the Congress debate on the issue of withdrawal from Iraq, Al-Haydari says: "What counts is the position of the Iraqi people. Certainly, more than 99 percent of the people do not want the occupation." Shaykh Hamid al-Sa'idi, imam and preacher of the Buratha Mosque, discusses the security situation and the daily "booby-trapped cars" in Iraq. He says: "We pinned great hopes on the Law Enforcement Plan, and the government has made serious efforts in this regard." Assessing this plan, he says: "We can say that it is a plan that has managed to achieve something, but regrettably, it has failed to achieve all the desired objectives. However, the plan can be considered one of the signs of hope." Iyad al-Zamili, imam and preacher of the Al-Diwaniyah Mosque, says: "The higher religious authority is now worried about what is taking place in Iraq. It calls for a quick action. (Terrorist) elements and groups move in the governorates to foment seditions. There is sedition in a certain governorate every day with the aim of disrupting the situation. This is a part of the conspiratorial plan of destroying the entire political process and all the achievements that have been made over the past period."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

9 US Troops Killed;
60 Killed, 170 Wounded in Karbala;
Over 60 Bodies Found;
Sadr Admonishes Bush

Iraqi guerrillas killed 9 US GIs on Friday and Saturday. Five of them died in active fighting in al-Anbar Province, which doesn't actually seem to have been turned around yet, unlike what is alleged in some quarters. A truck bomb attack had killed 10 Iraqis in the city of Hit on Friday.

Guerrillas blew up a market near the shrine of Abu al-Fadl Abbas in the holy city of Karbala on Saturday, killing a reported 80 persons and wounding 170. [Figures from Aljazeera early Sunday morning.] The sacred character of Karbala makes this sort of attack especially likely to provoke Shiite-Sunni tensions and violence. Wire services report:

' Television images showed a man running down a smoke-filled street holding a lifeless baby above his head. Smoke was rising off the baby. Ambulances had rushed to the blast scene in Kerbala, 100 km southwest of Baghdad. '

Reuters reports on political violence in Iraq on Saturday, revealing that "the war of the corpses" is heating up around the country. Some 17 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad, victims of sectarian death squads. In the mixed city of Baqubah, 60 miles northeast of the capital, police found 27 bodies. In the northern Sunni Arab city of Mosul, police found 16 bodies. Other important attacks:

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol, wounding two soldiers in al-Qahira district in northern Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - Three mortar rounds landed in al-Resala district in southwestern Baghdad killing three civilians and wounding 10 others, including two children, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded three others in Kadhimiya district in northwestern Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a group of day labourers killed one and wounded eight in the Zaafaraniya district in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed five civilians and wounded one when they opened fire on their vehicle in Bayaa district in southwestern Baghdad. . .

Young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on Bush to acquiesce in the desire of the Iraqi people that the US set a timetable for withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.

In Islamic lore the Mahdi or promised one will return at the end of time to restore the world to justice. He will be opposed by an evil one-eyed figure, the Dajjal, which is usually translated the "anti-Christ" by analogy with apocalyptic Christian beliefs. Muqtada called Bush the Dajjal.

Muqtada's letter about Bush was read out in parliament by Liqa' Al-Yasin, female MP from the Sadrist bloc. The Shiite cleric called Bush "a great evil," adding, "Bush ignores all the calls asking for withdrawal or for the setting of a timetable for withdrawal, despite the demonstrations that the Iraqi people staged in Najaf and in every spot around the globe."

Muqtada addressed Bush, claiming that the UN had asked for a US withdrawal (not true). He denied that a US withdrawal would throw Iraq into greater chaos:
"What chaos can be greater from what we face in Iraq, in which blood runs every moment, without let-up . . ?" He asked if Bush had just traded Saddam's dictatorship for one of Shiite-hating Sunnis (nawasib) and excommunicators (takfiris). He asked what had become of Bush's debaathification, since he was now asking that Baathists be reinstated in the government. He taunted Bush for having announced an intention to disarm Iraq, complaining that Bush had filled "our beloved Iraq" with weapons. He asked, "How have you fought sectarianism, when you are reinforcing it by building walls and instituting partitions on a sectarian, political basis-- not on a national, Iraqi, Arab or Islamic basis.

Referring to the Democratic Party's dissent from Bush's policies in Iraq, Muqtada asked, "Do you want us to follow your mistakes and your plan, when you have yourselves turned against it? . . . What kind of democracy is this that you desire? Thousands go out to vote, then you go back to national reconciliation with Baathists and terrorists?

Addressing Bush, he said, "While you once predicted that your picture would hang in Iraqis' homes, now it is under their feet . . . You have destroyed the reputation of the West among Easterners generally." He accused Bush of having US troops put their feet on the necks of Iraqis, and desecrating the Qur'an.

He accused Bush of turning Iraq into an arena of contention. He said, "Bush, you wanted to make America more secure, but you have set it ablaze . . ."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, speaking to a US congressional delegation, rejected US pressure and said that Washington's interference in domestic Iraqi political affairs was a "red line," the crossing of which he could not accept. The main issue that seems to have exercised him is US pressure on his government to change the "de-Baathification" process and to rehabilitate former Baathists (most of them Sunni Arabs) as public persons who can hold high government posts.

The oil investment law passed by al-Maliki's cabinet is also still getting a hard ride.

The LA Times reports on how security is deteriorating in Basra under the pressure of political and militia rivalries, leading to an increase in attacks on British troops.

Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom called on Bush to sign the bill specifying a US troop withdrawal from Iraq. Money quote:

' "The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place," he said.

"The president has let [the Iraq war] proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. He lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies." '

Hmmm. I don't think Odom can be accused by the Republicans of being unpatriotic. He's not just some civilian politician. He isn't even a Democrat. He's a man of substantial military and intelligence experience. Certainly his credentials to speak on the impact of the war on the US military are impeccable.

In a video posted to the internet, an important al-Qaeda leader complained that the Shiites are not joining in the fight against the US but on the contrary are fighting al-Qaeda alongside the US. An anti-Shiite program is common among radical Salafis in Iraq, but had earlier been questioned by al-Qaeda leaders in the east.

Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, will visit Iran in May.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraq Criticizes Senate Vote;
72 Killed in Violence

An Iraq government spokesman has criticized the Senate vote for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. (I was going to complain about Iraqi interference in US domestic politics. Then I thought, well, it is only fair that they return the favor.)

All 8 Democratic presidential contenders support a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Former CIA director George Tenet's memoirs contain slams at Vice President Cheney for rushing the country to war with questionable assertions.

Junior officers in the US military are beginning to speak out against the top brass and the mistakes the latter have made in Iraq. Lt. Col. Paul Yingling warns that the US faces the possibility of losing in Iraq.

Guerrilla violence killed about 72 Iraqis on Thursday.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Thursday:
Police found 26 bodies in Baghad. Police found 3 bodies in Kirkuk. In Baghdad, guerrillas used a car bomb to kill at lease 6 and wound 15 in a district near Baghdad University.

Iran is playing hard to get and is still not sure it will attend the Sharm El Sheikh conference on Iraq to be held in early May. Washington had envisaged a conversation there between Secretary of State Condi Rice and the Iranian delegation.

With Blair going out, Labour Party politicians are ordering a rethinking of the UK's commitment to having troops in Iraq.

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases items from the Iraqi Press for April 26:

' Al-Bayyinah runs on the front page a 70-word report citing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Political Advisor Sadiq al-Rikabi confirming that Al-Maliki will independently nominate the candidates for the vacant ministerial posts and reject the demands of political blocs regarding the upcoming cabinet reshuffle.

Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 100-word exclusive report confirming that a seminar will be held in Baghdad University on 28 April to discuss the proposed Oil and Gas Bill. The report adds that parliament member Haydar al-Abadi, former Planning Minister Mahdi al-Hafiz and other Iraqi experts will attend the seminar.

Al-Bayyinah publishes on the front page a 500-word editorial praising late Shaykh Usamah al-Karbuli, Abd-al-Sattar Abu-Rishah and other Al-Anbar tribal chiefs for maintaining the unity of Iraqis and confronting the Al-Qa'ida Organization and other Takfiris in the governorate. . .

Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 600-word exclusive report citing sources close to the Association of Muslim Scholars confirming that the Jordanian Intelligence Agency has notified Association Chairman Harith al-Dari to stop his political activities against the Iraqi Government on the Jordanian territories. . .

Al-Zaman runs on page 3 a 300-word report entitled "Al-Fadilah Party Criticizes Government for Keeping Silent About Threats Against Basra Governor." . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page 4 a 550-word report entitled "Salah al-Din Tribal Chiefs Demand Activation of National Reconciliation Project; Al-Shakti: Force Alone Will Not Restore Security, Constitution Should Be Amended." . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page 4 a 200-word report entitled "Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front Proposes To Postpone Voting on Gas and Oil Bill Until After Amendment of Constitution." . .

Al-Mu'tamar runs on the front page an 80-word report saying that Al-Fadhila Islamic Party has demanded that parliament establish a neutral committee to investigate the situation in Basra. (OSC plans no further processing)

Al-Mu'tamar runs on the front page a 220-word report citing President Jalal Talabani demanding that the sectarian dispute in Tal Afar is contained. . .

Al-Mu'tamar runs on the front page a 40-word report saying that the Iraqi al-Tawqfuq Front withdrew from parliament yesterday to protest the national security law, which they described as illegal. . .

Al-Zaman carries on the front page a 240-word report citing a high-ranking police officer, who requested anonymity, confirming that joint Iraqi-US forces are imposing tight siege around Al-Tahrir District of Ba'qubah to search for Iraqi Islamic State Chairman Abu-Umar al-Baghdadi. . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 4 a 75-word report citing a security source in Wasit denying that Iranian forces have occupied a border police station in Al-Kut. . .

Al-Sabah carries on the front page a 140-word report citing eyewitnesses coming from Maysan saying that the security situation in the governorate is deteriorating, especially assassinations against women. . .

Al-Mada runs on the front page a 120-word report saying that, in the first day of utilizing the technical equipment and explosive sonar, three car bombers and an improvised explosive device were detected. . .

Al-Mada runs on the front page a 110-word report on an Al-Qa'ida operative who recruits 12-year-old children to commit acts of suicide. . .

Al-Manarah runs on page 4 a 200-word report entitled "Basra Teachers Union Declares Open Strike in All Schools in Governorate."

Al-Manarah devotes all of page 5 to a report on the expanded symposium organized by the Civil Society Center in Central and Southern Governorates to discuss the proposed Freedom of Journalism in Iraq Bill.

Al-Bayyinah publishes on page 2 a 200-word report on the demonstration staged by the Passengers Transportation State Company's workers demanding salary increase. . . '

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Riverbend join Ranks of Refugees from Iraq

Prominent Iraqi blogger Riverbend and her family are at last leaving Iraq. The discussions she reports have happened thousands of times a month among Iraqi families:

Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Jordan or Syria? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?

After Jordan or Syria- where then? Obviously, either of those countries is going to be a transit to something else. They are both overflowing with Iraqi refugees, and every single Iraqi living in either country is complaining of the fact that work is difficult to come by, and getting a residency is even more difficult. There is also the little problem of being turned back at the border. Thousands of Iraqis aren't being let into Syria or Jordan- and there are no definite criteria for entry, the decision is based on the whim of the border patrol guard checking your passport.

An airplane isn't necessarily safer, as the trip to Baghdad International Airport is in itself risky and travelers are just as likely to be refused permission to enter the country (Syria and Jordan) if they arrive by airplane. And if you're wondering why Syria or Jordan, because they are the only two countries that will let Iraqis in without a visa. Following up visa issues with the few functioning embassies or consulates in Baghdad is next to impossible.

So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

Only a few fleeing Iraqis have been admitted to the United States, which is a travesty.

Worse, Iraqis who want to come to the US as refugees seeking asylum often face a catch-22 of being defined as terrorists because they have been victimized. For instance, if a family had a member kidnapped, and payed ransom, and then fled to Jordan and applied to come to the US, their having paid the ransom would be considered a form of material support to terrorism and they would be excluded!

In the past 14 months, 750,000 Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes. And the US media lets politicians get away with saying that things are "improving"!

See Dahr Jamail on the Iraqi refugee crisis in Jordan and Syria.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraq Casualty Numbers Doctored
Attacks Near Mosul, Khalis
Sadr Condemns Wall

Since the Bush administration doesn't actually have any good news on Iraq, they are just making it up. It confirms your worst suspicions. They haven't been counting victims of car bombings when they say that violence is down in Iraq! Bush administration spokesmen and officials are just saying that fewer bodies are found in the streets, victims of death squads. But the number of victims of car bombing has actually increased in this period.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is withholding statistics on Iraqi casualties from the United Nations.

It is official: The real parts of the Iraq War are being treated as imaginary, and the imaginary parts are being treated as though they are real.

Early Thursday morning in Iraq, guerrillas in Khalis attacked Iraqi troops, killing 9 and wounding 15, 10 of them soldiers.

In Zumar, west of Mosul, guerrillas attacked the local HQ of Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic National Party.

Police found 18 bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Wednesday.

Nationalist young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday condemned the US plans to build a wall around the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, calling it "evil" and warning it would reinforce sectarianism. Al-Sadr has a pan-Islamic rhetoric, but at night his Mahdi Army goons murder Sunni Arabs in the street. It remains to be seen if he is capable of reining in his goons and actually put together an anti-Coalition alliance of both Shiites and Sunnis.

The House of Representative passed a budget supplemental containing a timetable for withdrawal of US troops, in defiance of Bush, who says he will veto it. The LAT points out that far from being unpopular with constituents back home, the Dems have gotten a lot of support from voters for trying to rescue our trapped troops from the quagmire.

The House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee has subpoened Condi Rice with regard to the alledged nuclear weapons program and purchase of yellowcake from Niger.

Speaking of accountability, Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachement against VP Richard Bruce Cheney.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

McCaffrey: Iraq Gov't Dysfunctional
Support for al-Maliki Eroding

Now that Senator John McCain has retired the Straight Talk Express, retired general Barry McCaffrey, a veteran of the Gulf War, has taken up the mantle. McCaffrey has recently carried out a study of the situation in Iraq. Highlights (not in original order):

"We’re in trouble."

"The Iraqi government in power is dysfunctional."

"There is essentially no province in Iraq where the central government holds sway."

"Iraq’s neighbors are bearing no good will toward a favorable outcome in Iraq."

" . . . collectively the American people have said that the conduct of the war has been so incompetent that we’ve come to disbelieve the administration has the ability to carry this off."

"The next president, unless the situation in Iraq is dramatically turned around, is pulling the plug."

Gee, I guess Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are in pretty good company after all. It is Dick Cheney who is living in fantasyland.

In contrast, it seems clear that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld routinely sent spokesmen out to lie to us about cases like that of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. Lynch says she was no Rambo, and that Tillman was killed by 'friendly fire' was covered up.

USA Today reports that support for the al-Maliki government in parliament is eroding. He hasn't been able to push key legislation through parliament, and appears indecisive. (I think the problems are structural, not inherent in al-Maliki's personality. He seems pretty decisive to me. But he heads what is essentially a minority government, since his United Iraqi Alliance only has about 85 members in the 275-member parliament after recent defections. He can only survive by depending heavily on the Kurdistan Alliance, a bloc deeply committed to a weak federal government. He doesn't have much of an army of his own, and cannot independently do much about the guerrilla war. It is not clear who could do better.

Kim Gamel of AP writes about the new "dump truck bomb" tactics of the Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq.

The LA Times reports a major split in the Iraqi Baath Party. The Baath is more important as a component of the guerrilla war than is usually admitted by the US press and by the Bush administration. Al-Hayat reported this winter that actually the Baath has split into 4 parties, with Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri leading the most influential one.

The US is pursuing indirect diplomacy with Iran on a range of issues now, Warren Strobel and Nancy Youssef report.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq for Monday.

Regional players don't want the US to depart Iraq.

Tomdispatch considers the Virginia Tech murder spree in a global context, with former State Department official John Brown writing on 'the Cho in the White House.'
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iraqi Press on Baghdad Wall

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases Iraqi press stories on the plan to build a wall around the district of Adhamiya (A'zamiyah) in Baghdad:

Iraqi Media Highlights Al-A'zamiyah Wall Construction Story, Cites Reactions Iraq -- OSC Report Tuesday, April 24, 2007 T14:13:33Z Iraqi media has increasinlgy highlighted reaction to the construction of Al-A'zamiyah wall and the positions of key players in Iraq as well as citizens of Baghdad. According to Iraqi reports, US troops began building the wall around the predominately Sunni district of Al-A'zamiyah in Baghdad. The wall, which is comprised of reinforced concrete blocks, each of which weighs more than six tons, will be 5.4 km long. The general tone of Iraqi reporting is negative and critical, with some outlets media outlets comparing it to the Berlin Wall and the containment wall first implemented by Israel's former Prime Minister Aiel Sharon, while others opine that it is a sign of a failed US policy to curb sectarian violence in the city. Click here to view a map of the district of Al-A'zamiyah in Baghdad. Wall of Al-A'zamiyah Baghdad Al-Sharqiyah Television in Arabic -- Independent, private news and entertainment channel focusing on Iraq, run by Sa'd al-Bazzaz, publisher of the Arabic-language daily Al-Zaman leads its 1300 GMT newscast on 23 April with a report on "a huge demonstration staged in Al-A'zamiyah City to protest the establishment of the wall which the Iraqi security agencies in cooperation with the US forces have started to erect on 10 April to isolate the city." The report notes that the demonstrators carried banners calling for removing "the concrete blocs and barbwire which they said have turned the area into to a big prison." Demo in Al-A'zamiyah On the official Iraqi position on this development, Al-Sharqiyah notes "conflicting statements by Iraqi security officials in charge of the security plan with respect to their knowledge of the construction of the construction of this wall. Staff Lieutenant General Abbud Qanbar, commander of the Law Enforcement Plan, denied the existence of this wall. However, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki confirmed that it does exist. Proof of this is that he requested in a news conference with the Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa halting construction of this wall." Admiral Fox in News conference The station also cites Admiral Mark Fox, head of the strategic communications brigade of the multinational forces, as saying that "the Iraqi and US forces are working together in Baghdad to establish security, noting that the decision to build the wall was endorsed by the Iraqi Government before the implementation of the project." After devoting the first nine-minutes of its newscast to the wall issue, the station moves to report on another development by starting its second story with the following sentence:" From Al-A'zamiyah wall to the walls of the Green Zone which are breached sometimes." Within its Harvest news program, the station at 1808 GMT carries a report citing reactions of several Iraqi politicians. The report notes that "Mahmud Uthman, member of the Kurdistan Alliance, said that the construction of the wall around Al-A'zamiyah area constitutes the height of failure, a bad and shameful step, and a violation of human rights. He stressed that this is a clear proof of the failure of the US and Iraqi governmental policy vis-a-vis preserving security, noting that this step means reaching the end of the road." For his part, Iyad al-Samarra'i, deputy for the Islamic Party, said that building the wall under the excuse of providing security protection is not enough to a take measure that segregates areas. For his part, Nassar al-Rubay'i, head of Al-Sadr Bloc in the Iraqi Council of Representatives, said that the wall is a first step towards building more than the Berlin Wall in Iraq. However, Deputy Jalal al-Din al-Saghir said that the idea of building the wall includes positive and negative aspects, adding that the idea is useful in terms of preventing interference in the affairs of Al-A'zamiyah. The negative aspect is infringing on human rights not to mention the consequences of building the wall. Izzat al-Shahbandar, deputy for the Iraqi list headed by former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, said that the operation proves the inability of the Iraqi authorities and the occupation forces to devise effective and acceptable means to defend people." Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic -- government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network, makes no mention of the development concerning Al-A'zamiyah wall during its 1400 GMT newscast on 23 April. At 1421 GMT, the station carries a recording of the news conference by Brigadier General Qasim Ata, spokesman for the Law Enforcement Plan; and Mark Fox. In the news conference, Ata speaks about the security barriers set up in Baghdad by saying:" I confirm that the security barriers set up in all areas and those proposed to be set up in other areas are temporary security barriers aimed at securing the citizens." He adds that "some brother politicians referred to the barriers as sectarian barriers and others likened them to the China Wall and others likened them to the Berlin Wall." He maintains that "this issue has been blown out of proportion. Why is this focus on Al-A'zamiyah area and why did not the media focus on other areas?" He asks why has not there been focus on barriers built elsewhere by these people "who try to trigger sectarian sedition." Within its 1400 GMT newscast on 23 April, Baghdad Al-Furat Television Channel in Arabic -- Television channel affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) led by Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim, reports that " Brigadier General Qasim Atta, Law Enforcement Plan spokesman, strongly criticized the role of media in exaggerating the issue of the security barriers which are set up in Baghdad's streets as part of the Law Enforcement Plan." This is followed by a video report which features excerpts of the said news conference. The reporter maintains that "using explosives detectors and surrounding hot areas with barriers are measures which the security services abide by in order to reach the planned level of stability in Baghdad and other areas." Cairo Al-Rafidayn Satellite Channel in Arabic -- Pro-Sunni, anti-US Iraqi channel believed to be affiliated with the Association of Muslim Scholars, carries as the second news item in its 1200 GMT newscast on 23 April a report on Al-A'zmaiyah wall which starts as follows:" Iraqis have welcomed the decision to halt continuing the construction of Al-A'zamiyah wall with much comfort especially since simil ar walls had only bad impacts on their peoples in the world. For his part, US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker justified the occupation's construction of the wall as an attempt to preserve the city's security." This is followed by a video report on this development noting that "Iraqis received Al-Maliki's statements voiced in Cairo on Al-A'zamiyah wall with comfort especially since Al-Maliki's backtracking means that the decision to build the wall which separates between Iraqis, who have coexisted throughout years peacefully and without resorting to this segregation among their sects, is incorrect." The report also sounds out the opinion of Iraqis on the construction of the wall. One Iraqi citizen says:" The prime minister's decision to halt construction of the wall is positive." A second citizen says: "This is a correct decision by the Prime Ministry represented by the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki because this is something that might split the people and cause segregation among the components of the people." The reporter notes in the report that "for its part, the US occupation dealt with Al-Maliki's call for halting the construction of the wall cautiously, expressing resumption of dialogue on the construction of the wall which it claims preserves security in Al-A'zamiyah in an attempt to divide Iraqis." At 1207 GMT, the station holds a telephone interview with Yasir Majid, political writer and analyst, in Baghdad. He argues that "an initial examination of the pertinent statements indicate contradictions and that there are multiple decision-makers, and the unavailability of the least degree of coordination or agreement between the occupation forces and Al-Maliki's government." Cairo Al-Baghdadiyah Satellite Television in Arabic -- Private Iraqi television known for its opposition to the US presence in Iraq, reports within its 1400 GMT newscast on 23 April on the protest staged by Al-A'zamiyah's residents against con struction of the wall as well as Al-Maliki's statements in Cairo calling for halting construction of the wall. Afterwards, the station features excerpts of the news conference by Qasim Ata showing him as saying that "some media outlets reported that the security forces will build a 12-meter high and five-kilometer long segregation wall in Al-A'zamiyah area. Such reports are inaccurate. As I said, we will set up security barriers which will either be in the form of concrete blocs, barbwire, or sand barricades not only in Al-A'zamiyah area but in all areas suffering from the terrorist and takfiri operations." Aside from Iraqi media, key players in Iraq have also declared a position on the construction of the wall. In a statement posted to its website, The Association of Muslim Scholars condemned the construction of the wall. The AMS stated that "Following in the steps of chief criminal Sharon, the other chief criminal Bush now seeks to build sectarian separation concrete walls after the failure of all his plans to eradicate resistance, break the will of the people, and entrench sectarianism among the people's segments. This ugly crime shows the failure of the security plans of the occupation troops and the current government. Second, it demonstrates that these two sides have reached a hysterical stage. These troops, whose madness has led them to annihilating around one million Iraqis, today seek to impose collective punishment against those who reject their illegitimate presence. In doing so, they followed the example of abhorrent Sharon."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

10 Coalition Troops Killed
Dems set Withdrawal deadline
Iraqi crowds Reject Security Wall

It was with a heavy heart that I read that 10 Coalition troops were killed on Monday, 9 of them Americans. The guerrillas who attacked the US outpost also wounded 20 other soldiers, 5 of them seriously.

Militiamen in Basra killed a British soldier.

I'm sad about all this because we won't have round the clock cable television coverage of them, or lower the flag to half mast for them. And although we do not yet know the names of those killed, we know who they are like.

They are like Christopher North of Sarasota, Fl., a hero who aspired to be an FBI agent and who as a teenaged boy loved fast cars and motorcycles.

They are like Wade Oglesby, a painfully shy teenager with a "British sense of humor," an "incredibly nurturing" young man who dropped out of high school to care for his ailing mother and then his sister. When his mother died, he joined the army. His stepbrother said of him, "That kid would bend over backwards and go to the ends of the earth if you needed anything."

They are like Michael Rojas, and Army Staff Sgt. Jesse Williams, of Santa Rosa, "who died on April 8. Williams was killed by a sniper's bullet . . . Williams was 25 years old and on his second tour of duty. He leaves behind a wife, Sonya, and an 11-month-old daughter, Amaya. His wife said Amaya was the pride of his life." Scroll down for the Williams family photos.

They are like Michael Slater, just out of high school in West Virginia, who had all along wanted to join the army to serve us. We are told, "Rachelle Atkins graduated with Slater and described him as energetic, funny and happy. In high school, they worked together at the Red Line Diner in St. Albans, where he was a busboy. “He was really fast,” Atkins said. “I never had to worry about tables needing cleaning because he was always on top of things.”

They were like Kristen Turton, whose mother said of him, "If either of us were ill, he would look after us. I would always get flowers on Mother's Day and we would get lovely presents for birthdays and Christmas. "He was our life and our sunshine. Now he has gone, the sunshine has gone out of our lives."

Saddam is gone. There was never any threat to the US or UK from Iraq, and there is not now one. What is the mission, for which these young people have given their lives this spring? What do we tell their children about why their daddy is no longer there for them? Is it just Karl Rove's best guess about what will win the next election? Better business for Dick Cheney's golf buddies among the Big Oil CEOs? George W. Bush's cokehead emotional shallowness and inability to admit he ever made a mistake? What?

We ask our men and women in uniform to risk their lives, sometimes to sacrifice them, for the security of our nation. But the security of our nation is not in doubt. We ask defense attorneys to defend someone who might be guilty, and prosecuting attorneys to attempt to convict someone who might be innocent, since justice requires a fair trial, and guilt and innocence are seldom clear. In the same way, we sometimes send our military into a war, the justice of which is not clear. They have done their job, the job the American and British publics gave them, uncomplainingly. But if the prosecuting attorney suddenly finds evidence that the defendent is innocent, he has to drop the charges. Iraq is innocent. It isn't a threat to the US. It may now be a threat to itself or its region, because of the civil war. But it and its region will just have to deal with that. And they will deal with it better if we don't keep getting in their way.

That is why the Democratic majority in the House and Senate agreed on a date by which they want US troops out of Iraq. Because enough sunshine has gone out of our lives, enough children are without a parent, enough lives have been blighted, for a mission that no one has been able to define with any clarity.

Monday began with an attempt by the US military to forestall a demonstration in the Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya in northeast Baghdad. The attempt failed, when many hundreds (looked like well over a thousand to me on Arab satellite television) residents nevertheless marched in the streets to protest the building of a wall around their neighborhood as part of the security plan.

There was a great deal of uncertainty Monday about whether the wall building around Adhamiya would be halted. Some local Iraqis likened and its effect to what the Israelis have done in the West Bank, making everyone's life miserable because it is so hard to move around through crowded or mysteriously inactive checkpoints. An Iraqi general insisted that the building works would continue. US Ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, affirmed that the US would respect the wishes of the Iraqi government in this regard.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Monday. Among the major incidents:

RAMADI - Three suicide car bombers killed 20 people and wounded 35 others in the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Ramadi . . .

BAQUBA - A suicide car bomber attacked a gathering of senior police officials in the city of Baquba, killing 10 policemen and wounding 23 . . .

NEAR MOSUL - At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded when a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into the office of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (PDK) . . .

BAGHDAD - Six people were killed and 14 wounded when a suicide bomber blew up in a restaurant near the entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone . . .

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed one person and wounded four others in a parking lot across the road from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad . . .'

My opinion piece on Muqtada al-Sadr and his recent political moves,
"As premier loses stature, radical cleric is gaining it," is available at the "San Jose Mercury News."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

69 Dead in Bombings, Shootings;
Al-Maliki Stops Wall-building at Adhamiya

Reuters reports that a lot of wounded vets from the Iraq War are having to turn to private care. A chilling passage: "Of the nearly 24,000 wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third suffer from some degree of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, according to the General Accounting Office."

What? A third have brain injuries! That's 8,000 persons!

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked Sunday that the US military halt its construction of a security wall around the Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya. Al-Maliki spoke from Cairo where he is meeting with foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors.

The mainstream US media will sidestep this point, but al-Maliki pretty explicitly said that the reason he called off the wall building is that he doesn't want his government compared to that of Israel. That is, the Adhamiya wall is being likened in the Arab world to the Apartheid Wall being built by the Israelis in the West Bank. Al-Maliki made the statement in Cairo, and when he referred to the "other walls" he didn't want the one in Adhamiya compared to, he pointed toward Israel. The Western press is bringing up the Berlin Wall as part of his meaning, but the videotape makes it absolutely clear that his referent was Israel's project. On the other hand, Nassar al-Rubaie, a Sadrist member of the Iraqi parliament, did warn that the US is building a series of Berlin Walls in Baghdad.

The politics of the wall points to the ways in which the Israeli-Palestinian issue is absolutely central to the difficulties the United States is having in being accepted in Iraq. Many Iraqis perceive the US presence as just an extension of Israeli occupation of Arabs and Arab land, and routinely refer to US troops as "the Jews."

The Israeli government has grossly mistreated the Palestinian people, the current condition of which is grave. The wall the Israelis are building is built on Palestinian land and has stolen more land from Palestinians and has in some instances run through Palestinian villages, cutting them in two and separating families. The Apartheid Wall has provoked demonstrations.

So being a foreign military force in an Arab country and looking like they are building security walls similar to that of the Israelis just puts the US and its ally, al-Maliki, in a very difficult position.

Not to mention that walling people up is intrinsically unappealing as a governing strategy. Mahmud Osman, a member of parliament in the Kurdistan Alliance and a former member of Paul Bremer's Interim Governing Council, told al-Zaman that the Adhamiya wall is "the peak of failure" for the new security plan and "a violation of human rights." He added that the wall "is a clear sign of the failure of the American and government policy for safeguarding security." Other MPs complained that the policy would create and reinforce sectarian divisions in the capital.

The US military had planned to build 5 such walls around Sunni Arab districts in Baghdad. It is not now clear if any will be built. Another corner of this story is the unpredictability of the political environment for the US military. It is inconceivable that al-Maliki did not earlier sign off on the Adhamiya wall, but then he changed his mind. The US officer corps in Iraq must be fit to be tied.

Some 69 Iraqis were killed in political violence on Sunday. 11 bodies were found in the capital on Sunday. Suicide bombers in Baghdad hit a police station, striking a blow at the new security plan, killing 12 and wounding 95. Another car bomb in the Saidiya district in the south of the capital killed 6 and wounded 37.

Up north around Mosul, Sunni Arab guerrillas captured a bus with Christian and Yezidi Kurdish passengers, separated them out by religion,and then executed 23 Yezidis. The murders were said to come from a local dispute stemming from the marriage of a Yezidi girl to a Sunni, and consequent Yezidi attacks on the groom.

The word Yezidi comes from the ancient Iranian Izad, a word meaning "God," and is related to the Persian "yazdani," meaning "divine." The religion is a survival of ancient Iranian beliefs and motifs shaped by a Muslim social context. Thus, the 7 angels they revere are probably originally 7 Indo-European gods. The chief angel, Melek Ta'us ("King Peacock"), is said to have extinguished the fires of hell with his tears, so that Yezidis do not believe in hell and are universalists. There are Zoroastrian influences on their beliefs and rituals, though these may actually derive from a common Indo-Iranian ancestry. It is not true, as some outsiders have alleged, that Yezidis are devil worshippers. They believe Melek Ta'us was a good angel, not satan. For a blogger's encounter with Iraqi Yezidis, see this site.

Indo-European peoples called Parsumash immigrated into what is now Iran and Iraq from about the 800s BC, according to the Assyrian clay tablets. These were probably tribal predecessors of the Medes and the Persians. The Kurds are linguistic and cultural heirs of these ancient Iranians, whose mythology was similar to what is in the Vedas. Most Kurds converted to Islam, but some retain older religious ideas.

This incident demonstrates that if the Iraqi conflict escalates (yes, it still can get worse), the Kurds may well get drawn in, willy nilly.

Guerrilla groups in South Iraq are saying that they will attempt to capture Prince Harry and use him to release imprisoned colleagues when he deploys to Basra. This article misidentifies the groups. Thar Allah is not an "Iranian-backed Sunni" group (it is rather Shiite), and I can't find any evidence that the Malik ibn al-Ashtar Brigade is Mahdi Army.

Mohamad Bazzi of Newsday considers the rising importance of young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for the future of Iraq's government.

How many terrorists are there in Iraq? Good question. Of 18,000 persons in US custody, only 250 are foreign fighters.

The Fall of John McCain.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3 US, 1 Polish-- Soldiers Killed
Protests Against Adhamiya Wall

Iraqi guerrillas killed three US soldiers and wounded 6 others on Saturday.

In a separate attack, guerrillas killed a Polish soldier and wounded others. The attack occurred near Diwaniya in Shiite south Iraq. US troops also came under attack in that area.

A city council member in Fallujah was killed by guerrillas on Saturday. He is the fourth member to be assassinated. The mayor of the city of Musayyib was also killed.

Some Iraqis are voicing criticism of the new wall being built by the US military around the Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that many Iraqis, including several members of parliament, are worried that the new US military tactic of erecting concrete walls around troubled Baghdad districts will turn the city into a series of isolated cantons and actually reinforce sectarian divisions. An official in the Iraqi Department of Defense told the Saudi-backed London daily, "The districts that will be isolated by barriers after the isolation of Adhamiya and Dura are al-Amiriya, al-Amili, al-`Adl on the Karkh side of the capital, and Sadr City on the Rusafa side."

The article says that the US will deploy sonar bomb detectors at checkpoints in the Iraqi capital.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in an interview that he looked with favor on the idea of establishing a separate province for Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq. This statement is controversial, since the way I figure it, it would have to be carved out of Kirkuk province, which is claimed by the Kurds. Assyrians and Kurds generally don't get along, at all.

State Department official David Satterfield, Condi's man in Baghdad, let Massoud Barzani and the Kurds have it in an interview on al-Arabiya on Saturday, over Barzani's inflammatory threats against Turkey and the harboring of 5,000 PKK guerrillas in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Members of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) staged a small demonstration at the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah on Saturday to protest the demonstration held last Monday in Basra, sponsored by Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters, that called for the resignation of Virtue Party governor Muhammad al-Wa'ili. The Iranian ambassador to Iraq visited Ayatollah Muhammad Yaqubi, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Virtue Party, on Saturday, in an attempt to mediate the dispute among southern Shiite factions.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sadrists Reject Abandoning De-Baathification;
US Walls off Adhamiya

One of the four benchmarks that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pressed on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on his recent trip to Baghdad was the end of "de-Baathification" or the exclusion of former Baathists from government jobs and high positions. Most of those disadvantaged by this process have been powerful Sunni Arabs, and it has fed the guerrilla movement. Muqtada al-Sadr's movement on Friday rejected any alteration in the laws and procedures of de-Baathification, according to MP Falah Hasan Shinshal. He is a member of the Iraqi parliament's de-Baathification Committee, and said that any change in the law on this issue would be unconstitutional, since Iraq's charter forbids former Baathists from holding high officer or entering into politics. Those who support the end of de-Baathification argue that it would allow thousands of ex-Baathists to regain their government jobs and enter public life, while those Baathists actually indicted for committing crimes would be tried. The fundamentalist Shiites and the Kurds will have difficulty making the changes that Gates demanded.

Meanwhile, Muqtada al-Sadr's party reinstated two members of parliament who had earlier been reported to have been expelled from the party for meeting with American officials. This move suggests that Muqtada has ambitions for his bloc in parliament, and wants it at full strength. Thus, all is forgiven.

The US military is building a wall around the Adhamiya neighborhood, a Sunni Arab Baath stronghold that is surrounded on 3 sides by Shiite districts. I can remember when they built a berm around Tal Afar, as if that was supposed to resolve the problems there. No such luck. See below.

The northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar was put under curfew after Sunni Arab guerrillas called on other Sunnis to leave the city because they were going to attack it with chemical weapons. Last month guerrillas killed 152 persons with a truck bomb, the single deadliest attack in the past 4 years.

The convoy of Ammar al-Hakim, the son of Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, was ambushed on Friday as it moved between Najaf and Baghdad. His guards were wounded but Ammar was unharmed.

Sawt al-Iraq writing in Arabic reported a large demonstration after Friday prayers in Baghdad by supporters of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) in Basra. This was a counter-demonstration to the rally held last Monday in Basra that demanded the resignation of the (Virtue Party) governor.

Nancy Youssef of McClatchy reports that the US military is no longer investing a lot in training or retraining Iraqi troops. They want to see the existing Iraqi troops demonstrate competence and fighting spirit instead.

Reuters reports political violence on Friday in Iraq.

Iraqi physician who estimated a high death toll in his country is denied a visa. Hmmm.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

5 Coalition Troops Killed, 20 Iraqis Executed
Gates Warns Clock Ticking

Guerrillas killed 5 Coalition troops in Iraq-- 3 Americans and 2 British, and wounded others.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned the Iraqi leadership in a visit to Baghdad on Thursday that the US commitment to that country is not open-ended. Gates indicated earlier that he wanted to see the Shiite and Kurdish government move with greater speed toward reconciliation with the Sunni Arab population. Like all Bush administration officials, he was obliged by the Karl Rove spin machine to say he thought "progress" was being made in Iraq. I'd hate to see what deterioration would look like if that is true. It isn't progress when nearly 300 Iraqis get blown up or shot in a single day, as happened on Wednesday.

Guerrillas conducted two major attacks in the capital on Thursday. At Jadiriya in Baghdad they killed 13 and wounded 26. They fired mortar shells at another neighborhood, killing 3 and wounding 1. Police found 20 bodies in Baghdad on Thursday. Salafi Jihadis executed 20 Iraqi security agents and posted the video to the Web.

Sadrist leaders are saying that Mahdi Army militiamen will not attack US troops, according to Reuters. Shiites in beleaguered Baghdad neighborhoods are demanding that the militia return to the streets to provide security. This step might, however, bring them into conflict with the US military, and they would prefer to see the US weaken the Sunni Arab guerrillas. The Shiite demands for security may ultimately, however, be overwhelming for the movement and it might have to give into them or risk being seen as ineffectual.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bloody Wednesday: Guerrillas, Violence kill Nearly 300 Iraqis

Well I guess those Baghdad markets aren't as safe as Senator John McCain thought. And, they look remarkably unlike small town Indiana this morning, contrary to what Congressman Mike Pence alleged a couple of weeks ago.

The thing about reality and politics is that sooner or later, reality outstrips rhetoric, and then the politics is revealed for the lie it is. The silly allegation that the guerrillas are only artificially making it look like the surge is falling is another piece of fluffy illogic. Define "success" for the surge, and then measure reality against it. You could say that it is still early to make a judgment. You can't say that there is no evidence after 6 weeks for whether progress is being made. In that regard, the answer is clearly a resounding "No."

Nearly 300 persons were killed or found dead in Iraq on Wednesday and hundreds were wounded. Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that the smell of blood and gunpowder wafted through Baghdad on Wednesday In the capital alone, Sunni Arab guerrillas carried out five horrific bombings in Shiite neighborhoods that, with some mortar attacks and shootings, killed around 200 persons and wounded many more.

The morning began with a guerrilla bombing of a police checkpoint at the gate to the Shiite slum of Sadr City, which killed 41.

Then the terrorists opened the gates of hell, carefully placing high explosives in a Shiite market and detonating them as workers gathered to take minibuses home after a hard day's work. The blast incinerated or tore apart some 140 persons and injured 150 more, according to Reuters.

Al-Hayat says: "Eyewitnesses said that furious citizens, who busied themselves with collecting bodies charred by the horrific explosion and gathering body parts spread over an area of fifty years, threw stones and the rubble produced by the explosion at a joint American/ Iraqi force that came to the market, forcing it to withdraw before this demonstration of popular rage."

Peddlers in the market put their wooden trolleys to work as ambulances for the wounded.

There were reports of children being pulled alive from beneath the charred corpses of their relatives.

Later on, the guerrillas set off two smaller bombs, killing even more Iraqis.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of the colonel in charge of security for the Sadriya Market. (That may make him feel good, but surely is bad for morale in the officer corps of the new army. Reprimanding or demoting him would make sense, but arresting him? Who would want to serve under such circumstances?)

Police also found 25 corpses in the streets of Baghdad, victims of death squads and torture. In Ramadi, authorities found 25 more decomposing bodies on Wednesday (they had found 17 the day before). In Mosul, police found 9 bodies.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Baghdad coroner's office is reporting a significant uptick in the number of unidentified corpses coming into the Baghdad morgue, especially from the (Sunni) Karkh area. This trend is a reversal of the lower numbers of corpses being found daily in February and March.

McClatchy has more details.

A big nitric acid cache was also found in Baghdad, probably intended for use in bomb making by the guerrillas.

The British turned over security in Maysan Province to local authorities on Wednesday. The southern, Shiite province, with its capital at Amara, is largely in the hands of the Sadrists. It is bizarre that the US is fighting them in Diwaniya but the British are handing over control to them in Maysan. Go figure. The British have now withdrawn from Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Maysan, three of the four provinces where they initially had security duties. They are now at a few bases in Basra.

The US more or less turned security in Najaf Province over to Iraqis (i.e. the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is infiltrated into the police). The al-Maliki government hopes to see security in Karbala turned over next.

Parliament will soon take up the draft oil law passed by the Iraqi cabinet. The Kurds are insisting on virtual autonomy in awarding petroleum contracts in their areas. Other parties are concerned that the law potentially gives away too much to foreign oil companies. On the other hand, the law was drafted by Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear engineer who is close to Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and it is hard to imagine either that he can't count or that he wants to detract from Iraq's sovereignty over its most valuable commodity.

Iraq may have twice as much petroleum as anyone thought, a new study says. But, none of it will get developed under the current circumstances.

Kuwait is in talks with Iraq over the possible importation of natural gas.

Saudi Arabia has forgiven $15 billion in debt owed it by Iraq from the days of the Iran-Iraq War. Unencumbering Iraq of its massive debts, racked up by Saddam Hussein's wars, is key to any hope of eventually (10 or 15 years down the road?) nursing the country back to economic health. This step is the first major favor the Saudis have done the al-Maliki government, which Riyadh tends to view with suspicion as a sectarian, Shiite, pro-Iranian affair. It is further evidence that of all the major regional powers, Saudi Arabia is best placed to play a major role in resolving the Iraq crisis, if only the Americans would step aside and let it.

Scott Harrop on the ridiculous claims in the NYT and the Pentagon of Shiite Iranian arms going to the hard line Sunni Taliban. Iran is allied to the Hazara Shiite party in Afghanistan, the Hizb-i Vahdat, members of which the Taliban massacred and are still trying to kill. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for Iran to arm the Taliban.

Officers I've talked to in the US military are absolutely convinced that Pakistan is behind the neo-Taliban. For Peter Pace to bring up Iran is just another piece of indirection. It is one thing to be amused by a magician's tricks, it is another to believe they are real. The second belongs to a category: that of a sucker born every minute. You let the American Enter-Lies Institute and Michael Rubin lie you into a war with Iran, America, and you will be very, very, very sorry.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

85 Killed or Found Dead in Baghdad, Ramadi, etc.
Return of Death Squads to Baghdad?
A Majority of Americans Say War is Lost

In the past 6 months, US troops have been killed in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began.

For the first time in polling on the Iraq War, a majority of Americans (51%) say that they expect the United States to "lose" in Iraq. Worse, 66 percent say that the war was not worth it! The public is divided about what to do about this white elephant it clearly thinks it bought. A slight majority says that a timetable for withdrawal should be set, while 48% oppose such a step. Only 29% say that Bush is doing a good job in Iraq. (One shudders to imagine what a bad job would have looked like!)

Some 85 persons were killed or found dead in Iraq on Tuesday.

Iraq's streets continued to function as a macabre open morgue. Police found 25 corpses, most showing signs of torture, in Baghdad. The creeping back up of the number of corpses found each day suggests renewed activity on the part of death squads, both Sunni and Shiite. I'm surprised that they are able to operate with such impunity in the capital given the increase in the number of US and Iraqi troops there.

In Mosul, nine bodies were found. Near Diwaniyah in the Shiite south, 4 bodies were discovered. There has been fighting in Diwaniya between the Mahdi Army and local police, dominated by the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. In Suwayra south of Baghdad, 3 bodies were fished from a river.

In Ramadi, authorities made a gruesome discovery of a small mass grave with 17 decomposing bodies in it, probably victims of the Salafi Jihadi movement, "The Islamic State of Iraq."

There were also scattered car bombings and mortar strikes.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual leader of the Shiites, met Tuesday with Sunni clerics and they issued communiques calling for the end of sectarian violence. (The Iraqi clerics, including Sistani, have, however, lost political control and no one much pays attention any more to such counsel.)

Sam Dagher of CSM reports on the way that the resignation of the Sadrist ministers from al-Maliki's cabinet points to fissures within the ruling United Iraqi Alliance coalition of fundamentalist Shiite parties.

The big demonstration in Basra on Najaf -- some say 20,000 strong-- and continued militia violence in that city pose a challenge to stability in Iraq's major petroleum exporting port. Without security in Basra, it is hard to see how the Iraqi government can hope to survive.

The transcript and streaming video of my appearance Monday on the Lehrer News Hour-- regarding the resignation of the Sadrist ministers from the cabinet-- is now available both as transcript and streaming video.

Tom Engelhardt on tell-tale changes in Bush's rhetoric and figures of speech with regard to the Iraq War.

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases Iraqi news items for April 16:

' Al-Manarah on 15 April runs on page 3 a 1,000-word report citing Maysan Governor Adil Muhawdar Radi confirming that Iraqi security forces are ready to assume security responsibility in the governorate. Radi outlined the development projects in the governorate. . .

Al-Sabah al-Jadid carries on the front page a 340-word editorial by Chief Editor Isma'il Zayyir urging the government to enforce law and order in Basra before it turns into another Al-Fallujah. . .

Al-Sabah carries on the front page a 120-word report citing Al-Sadr Bloc Chairman Nassar al-Rubay'i saying that the bloc will withdraw from the government because multinational forces still control the security responsibility. . .

Al-Sabah carries on page 3 a 260-word report saying that the Supreme Judicial Council has presented a memorandum to parliament calling for the lifting of immunity from Adnan al-Dulaymi for his alleged involvement in supporting terrorism. . .

Al-Mashriq carries on page 2 a 170-word report citing Iran officials doubtful of an imminent US attack because the majority of its forces are tied up in Iraq.

Al-Mashriq carries on page 3 a 1,400-word report entitled 'King Abdullah warns against hidden calls to divide Iraq.' . .

Al-Mashriq carries on page 3 a 300-word report saying that a number of Iraqi members of parliament criticized the conference held in Baghdad to discuss the temporary leadership of the southern region to include three Maysan, Basra, and Dhi Qar Governorates. . .

Al-Adala carries on the front page a 120-word report saying that Kuwait has reiterated its solidarity with Iraq, Algeria, and Morocco to combat terrorism. . .

Al-Adala carries on the front page a 120-word report citing Ammar al-Hakim saying targeting Karbala will either to control authority or cause murder of the masses.

Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on page 2 a 120-word report citing Parliament Second Deputy Speaker Arif Tayfur saying that a US company, in coordination with the Interior Ministry, will be in charge of protecting parliament.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

7 US Troops Killed;
Iraq Has Two Virginia Techs Every Day;
Thousands Protest in Basra, Demand Governor's Resignation

I keep hearing from US politicians and the US mass media that the "situation is improving" in Iraq. The profound sorrow and alarm produced in the American public by the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech should give us a baseline for what the Iraqis are actually living through. They have two Virginia Tech-style attacks every single day. Virginia Tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the US, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. But next Tuesday I will come out here and report to you that 64 Iraqis have been killed in political violence. And those will mainly be the ones killed by bombs and mortars. They are only 13% of the total; most Iraqis killed violently, perhaps 500 a day throughout the country if you count criminal and tribal violence, are just shot down. Shot down, like the college students and professors at Blacksburg. We Americans can so easily, with a shudder, imagine the college student trying to barricade himself behind a door against the armed madman without. But can we put ourselves in the place of Iraqi students?

I wrote on February 26,

' A suicide bomber with a bomb belt got into the lobby of the School of Administration and Economy of Mustansiriya University in Baghdad and managed to set it off despite being spotted at the last minute by university security guards. The blast killed 41 and wounded a similar number according to late reports, with body parts everywhere and big pools of blood in the foyer as students were shredded by the high explosives. '

That isn't "slow progress" or just "progress," the way the weasels in Washington keep proclaiming. It is the most massive manmade human tragedy of the young century.

According to the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) actually trying to help the estimated 8 million Iraqis in dire need of aid . . . things are not going that well in Iraq.

Thousands of persons demonstrated Monday against the governor of Basra Province, complaining of poor social services and collapsing security, and demanding his resignation. Among the demonstrators were followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Sadrists are not that numerous in Basra, so this demonstration was probably joined by other disgruntled groups, including the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the number of demonstrators totalled 20,000. Some Western wire services, however, suggested that there were as few as 3,000.

Guerrillas killed 5 US GIs on Monday in Baghdad and al-Anbar Province. The killings of 2 others on Sunday were announced Monday.

Sunni Arab guerrillas kidnapped 11 Shiite Turkmen from a town south of Kirkuk on Monday night. Such Shiite captives are often killed.

McClatchy reports that police found 11 bodies in Baghdad on Monday, down from Sunday's total of 30. Several persons were killed by mortar attacks, roadside bombs, and sniping in the capital on Monday.

Police found 6 bodies in the streets of the northern, mostly Sunni Arab city of Mosul (pop. 1.5 million) on Monday. Also, "police said that 13 Iraqi army soldiers from the second battalion were killed and 4 others were injured when insurgents attacked their check point in Al A’daya village south west Mosul city today." Guerrillas also shot down a lecturer and a dean at Mosul University.

In Tikrit, north of Baghdad, guerrillas killed 3 policemen and wounded 6 civilians with a suicide car bomb attack.

South of Baghdad at Mahmudiya, mortar shells killed 3 and wounded 17.

Iran condemned Sunday's murder of 5 Iranian oil tanker drivers near Baquba.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that an official in the Baghdad municipal council told it that there are hundreds of thousands of orphans in Baghdad schools.* She said that no steps have been taken to provide special services to this sector of schoolchildren, for lack of resources, and that only 2,000 are receiving government aid. (The Lancet study published last fall found 605,000 excess violent deaths in Iraq since the US invasion. These were fairly evenly spread around the country, and Baghdad is a fourth of Iraq, population-wise. So 150,000 excess deaths should have occurred in Baghdad. If we assume for the sake of argument that 100,000 of those killed were child-rearing adults, and if we assume 5 children per family and assume that in most cases only one parent was killed violently, that would be 500,000 orphans in Baghdad. Not all would yet be in school. The official alleged 900,000 orphans,but that strikes me as too high. I'm not a demographer, though, and would be interested in knowing what the Public Health people think about this statistic.)

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-proclaimed "Islamic State of Iraq" says that Iraq under American military occupation is a "university for terror."

To illustrate the point, the architect of the three massive bombings in Algiers, Algeria, last Wednesday says that he wants to turn Algeria into another Iraq. Muslim fundamentalists and the secular military government in Algeria fought a devastating civil war in the 1990s and into the zeroes of this century, which left an estimated 150,000 persons dead. The radical Salafis (Sunni revivalists), now calling themselves al-Qaeda in North Africa, are threatening to reprise that dirty war, which they lost. Some Algerian jihadis are getting training in Iraq, where they have gone as volunteers to fight US troops.

The Taliban in Afghanistan are also beginning to adopt the tactics of Iraqi guerrillas which include attacks on civilians in hopes of mobilizing them into the war on one side or another, on the theory that civil conflict is always good for growing an insurgency.

Fred Kaplan at Slate lays into Senator John McCain for admitting that if he is elected president, he'd quite possibly get out of Iraq, just as the Democrats he is now attacking propose.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking in Australia, said he left it to Australia and the US whether to withdraw from Iraq or not. He said that he did want to stress that if the US and Australia withdrew, they should do so in such a way as to retain their authority and preserve their gains in the region.

The problem with this advice is that it is impossible to follow it. Any US withdrawal from Iraq will inevitably affect its prestige. But then, the quagmire is a daily reminder to everyone in the region of the limits of US power.

Olmert made a big deal about 'living in the region' and therefore 'knowing something of its dynamics.' I think his war on Lebanon last summer demonstrates the falsity of the latter claim, and my advice to Canberra would be pretty much to keep his track record in mind. Even in Israel, he is at 14% in the polls.

Anyway, I think the implication of his statement, despite his beating around the bush, is that he doesn't relish a US and Australian withdrawal from Iraq because he thinks it will adversely affect Israeli security. Olmert doesn't understand regional dynamics and doesn't seem to see that the longer the US and its two remaining major allies in Iraq try to stay there, the worse the situation gets, which actually is the thing that is threatening to Israel.

The Belgian Minister of Defense has demanded that Israel pay for the clean-up of the 1 million cluster bombs Olmert ordered fired into south Lebanon, mostly in the last 3 days of the war last August. There was no military purpose to this act of vicious sabotage, and it was clearly a war crime. The goal was to injure Lebanese civilians returning to South Lebanon, and, since they largely support Hizbullah, to weaken that group in the south. Kudos to Andre Flahaut for daring stand up on this issue. Israeli politician Shimon Peres has admitted that deploying the cluster bombs was a "mistake."

So if the Australians know what is good for them, they won't pay too much attention to Olmert, perhaps the most inept prime minister Israel has ever had.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Dick Cheney and the Two 21st Centuries;
On Nukes, Vice President Confuses Television with Reality

I caught a clip of Dick Cheney on Sunday saying that "in the 21st century," the US could stay in Iraq and ensure that a stable government was established that could defend itself.

I was struck by his invocation of the 21st century, as though it were automatically on the side of the US, or more especially on the side of American hawks.

It is true that the 21st century is characterized by sophisticated American military weaponry. Although, sometimes maybe the equipment is too sophisticated by half, as with the Osprey.

But even though the 21st century allows the US to deploy enormous air craft carriers and to light up targets with a laser so that smart bombs can take them out, it is not a century that guarantees that Cheney will get his way in Iraq.

The 21st century is also the century of independence for the countries of the global south. It is the century that followed on wave after wave of decolonization, during which the French were shown not to be able to stay in Algeria, the British were kicked out of the Indian subcontinent, and the Dutch had to relinquish Indonesia.

The French conquered Algeria in 1830 after a spat set off when the local ruler or Dey slapped the French ambassador across the face with a horse fly swatter. Algeria was at the time probably only 10 percent urban, and lacked modern industry. My guess is that the literacy rate was 3 percent or so, and the literate were mainly in Algiers and Oran, the cities. The Algerians put up a years-long struggle against the French with rural, tribal and Sufi resources, but ultimately the French were able to prevail. They had more and better guns. But by 1956 urbanization had advanced, there was more wealth in the Arab economies, and networks of literacy, radios, etc., had been established. The Algerians were socially mobilized and could be politically mobilized by the FLN. The
French tried hard to put down the independence movement. There were 11 million Algerians, and something like 50 million French, and the French were willing to see nearly 1 million Algerians die in the struggle.

But in the end, the French failed. In part, this outcome derived from American pressure, since Washington was afraid that a prolonged and genocidal French counter-insurgency campaign would push the Algerians into the Communist camp. Europe is likely to return Eisenhower's favor with regard to the US in Iraq, since the Europeans are petrified that the US will turn the Muslim world toward al-Qaeda.

So actually the late 20th century and the 21st century aren't on the side of the US project in Iraq. Iraqis are much more socially and politically mobilized now than the Algerians were in 1960. Iraq is farther away from the US by orders of magnitude than Algeria was from France, and far less important to its public. (The French had declared Algeria to be "French soil.")

You could instance Britain in India just as easily, or for that matter the Soviets in Afghanistan. And, the contests, while uneven, are increasingly less so. India now has a multi-billion dollar software industry. Cheney is still living in a day of the white man's burden (you have to wonder whether the history of White/Native American relations in Wyoming shaped his views on these things.)

The Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq enjoy all the advantages of internal social and political mobilization-- sophisticated tactics, high-powered munitions, excellent networking and communications. They benefit from a vast Sunni Arab hinterland of support that includes the oil millionnaires of the Gulf (there are a lot of them and they hate to see fellow Sunnis mistreated) and the committed young professionals of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, the Sudan, and North Africa.

Against 6 million truly mobilized people, a mere 160,000 foreign troops is unlikely to prevail. The US lacks good intelligence on the guerrillas, and there is no prospect of it getting better intelligence soon. In fact, every year more Sunni Arabs hate us than the year before.

Cheney has been watching the television show "24" too much, and says he is worried about terrorists getting a nuke. That prospect is actually very, very remote. Cheney worries about high tech terrorism because he does not understand low key social mobilization. He is worried about the wrong thing. Slum kids with RPG-29s and GPS systems are the real threat to his plans.

There are two 21st centuries, that of the Osprey on which Cheney is depending, and that of the national liberation movements. There is the 21st century of the aircraft carrier and that of the suicide bomber. There is the 21st century of the Tomahawk missile and that of the religiously inspired crowd, hundreds of thousands strong, who demonstrated at Najaf last Monday (about which everyone has already, unwisely, forgotten).

It is precisely because it is the 21st century that the US is unlikely to be able to stay in Iraq in the way Cheney imagines.

When Cheney and his pals came back into office in 2001 after Clinton defeated them in 1992, the terrorism czar Richard Clarke was amazed at how hung up they still were on Iraq and threats posed by lumbering rogue states. They had not seen the rise of al-Qaeda and discounted asymmetrical struggles. Clarke said that it was as though they had been frozen in amber since 1992.

But since Cheney & Co. don't even so much as seem to know about how Nehru, Gandhi and Jinnah kicked Britain out of India, it would be more accurate to say that they have been frozen in amber since 1945. They haven't understood the social history of decolonization.

The Project for a New American Century was always a project for a new American empire, an empire of the old rickety nineteenth-century sort. Its time passed a long time ago. Peoples of the global south don't have to surrender their independence to European district commissioners anymore. They have enough biopower to forestall that fate.

Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Cheney.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sadrists to Pull out of Cabinet
50 Killed in Spate of Bombings

The six cabinet members belonging to the Sadr Movement in Nuri al-Maliki's government are set to resign. The movement's 32 parliamentarians will continue to attend sessions of the legislature, but presumably would vote against the prime minister in a vote of no confidence. The Sadrists want the Iraqi government to insist on setting a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and are annoyed that PM al-Maliki publicly rejected that approach recently when he was in Japan.

Sam Dagher of CSM describes the parliament as already in "disarray." Unlike a lot of the tear-jerkers written by sentimental journalists last Friday after the bombing of parliament, which suggested that everyone had united in response, Dagher gives us a more clear-eyed view of the scene:

' The heated exchanges at the meeting Friday illustrated the sectarian divide in parliament. Mustafa al-Hiti of the National Dialogue Front (NDF), the Sunni bloc to which the killed parliamentarian Mohammed Awadh belonged, spoke about a "conspiracy" by other government organs to weaken parliament and target Sunni lawmakers. Hassan al-Shimmari of the Shiite Fadhila Islamic party, which recently broke ranks with the dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) bloc, demanded better security for the building and "more respect" for MPs. Nassar Al-Rubaie from the group loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr berated his colleagues for not having the courage "to hold the US occupation forces responsible for the attack," since they were chiefly in charge of the Green Zone's security.'

I now count those who would probably vote against al-Maliki if the question was called this way: The Iraqiya List of Iyad Allawi: 25; The Fadhila Party: 15; the National Dialogue Front (secularist Sunnis): 11; Sadrists: 32. That is 83. I don't know what the Iraqi Accord Front (fundamentalist Sunnis) would do. They have 44 seats. If they voted against, that would be 127. It would take 138 to cause the government to fall, which means that if the Sunnis were disgruntled enough, and if a few (11) other Shiites defected, even al-Maliki's powerful coalition of Kurds and fundamentalist Shiites could not protect him. I think the Iraq government is gradually collapsing; likely the end state is just dysfunctionality rather than anything dramatic. There was a Lebanese parliament all through the Civil War there, it just did not do anything and couldn't meet (the parliament building lay on the Green Line along which the fighting raged).

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic says that the Mahdi Army has imposed its dominance on parts of the Ghazaliya district of Baghdad, having usurped houses on Mashjar St.

The same source says that MP Hasan al-Shammari, a spokesman for the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila), warned of a social explosion in Basra as a result of calls for rebellion against the local authorities. He said a plot has been uncovered to assassinate the governor of Basra province, Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili, and to occupy the governor's mansion. (Among Fadhila's rivals in Basra is the Sadr Movement and its Mahdi Army militia).

The Sadrists had called for a big demonstration in Basra on Monday, but other political leaders, such as PM al-Maliki, argued that it should be cancelled given the tense security situation in the city. Basrans have been buying and storing supplies in case things go bad.

Dilip Hiro at Tomdispatch.com on the potential of the Sadr Movement to eclipse Bush's surge.

With regard to political violence in Iraq on Sunday, some 50 were killed. AFP explains:

' a spate of devastating blasts killed 43 people in Shiite shopping areas. Eighteen people died when a booby-trapped car blew up outside a restaurant and a second ripped through a market in the southern Al-Shurta al-Arabaa suburb of Iraq's capital, a medic said.

As the skeleton of burnt wreckage still smouldered, a bus rigged with bombs exploded in a downtown shopping district in Karrada, killing at least 11 people and wounding 18, defence and security sources said.

In the northern and predominantly Shia district of Al-Utaifiyah, a suicide bomber boarded a minibus and blew himself up, killing six people and wounding 10, said another security official on condition of anonymity.

Soon after nightfall, another two roadside bombs exploded within minutes of each other in Karrada, killing eight people and wounding 23, a security official said. '

Reuters adds further attacks, including truck bombings in the northern city of Mosul that left 4 dead and 17 wounded.

Richard Oppel of the NYT profiles the deadly situation in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. Not a good scene.

Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that according to Shaikh Ali al-Faris of the Dulaim, some Sunni Arab tribes in the north are reaching out to Shiite tribes in the south in hopes of building an Iraqi national movement to force US troops out of their country, which would transcend sectarian considerations. If any such pan-Islamic alliance ever did develop, it would become very difficult for the US to stay in Iraq. Faris maintains that attempts by the Iraqi government to bring guerrilla groups into the political process have failed, largely because of the ongoing foreign occupation, which is a deal breaker for them. He dismisses allegations by other Sheikhs that the tribes are going over to the al-Maliki government and the Americans. This is the most balanced article I've seen in al-Hayat on the role of the tribes of al-Anbar province.

James Zogby discusses the new role of Iraq as the 'Afghanistan' of the zeroes, attracting a Jihadist international from North Africa and elsewhere.

The United Nations High Commission on Human Rights is holding a conference to highlight the challenges facing the some 4 million Iraqis displaced by the aftermath of Bush's invasion.

Al-Zaman also reports that the issue of Kirkuk will be taken up at the Sharm el Sheikh conference of Iraqis and their neighbors scheduled for April 20. Residents of various ethnicities will discuss its possible fate.

As longtime readers know, I think Kirkuk province should be partitioned and the parts with high Kurdish populations be given to the Kurds. Turkmen and Arabs should have their own enclaves.

Patrick Seale on the role of the Neoconservatives and the Israeli Right in pushing the United States into the Iraq War.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

289 Iraqis Killed or Wounded in Day of Rage
Four Killed in Karbala Demonstration

McClatchy estimates that 289 Iraqis were killed or wounded in political violence on Saturday. This passage is extremely important to understanding the sentiments of the Shiites of the South, among the main victims of the violence:

' Aqeel al Khazaali, the governor of Karbala, blamed the Baghdad Security Plan for the attack inside the relatively safe southern city. Karbala is about 50 miles south of Baghdad. "The Baghdad crackdown and the tribes in Ramadi are forcing the terrorists to leave their cities," he said. "Now Karbala is under fire from terrorists, and the central government has to take the necessary steps to help us to protect the holy city." '

The destabilizing character of this assault on the city of the Prophet's Grandson is seen in that many residents blamed the elected governor for not ensuring security-- such that a big crowd rioted in protest. The crowd is said to have marched on the governor's mansion and surrounded it, demanding his resignation, and set two police cars afire. They accused the United States of having had a hand in the bombing. Nothing could be more dangerous to the position of the US in Iraq than to have it believed that it had anything to do with a massive bombing near the shrine of Imam Husayn. (It is a ridiculous allegation, but will be believed by the more disgruntled Shiites.)

Iraqi press sources say that Karbala police fired on the rioters and killed four. Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mudarrisi, the leading clerical authority in Karbala, has called for an investigation into the shootings, according to this Arabic article. He criticized the police for lack of self-discipline at a perilous time, and warned against attempt to foment Shiite on Shiite violence and social turmoil (fitnah).

Iran is offering aid to the beleaguered Shiite holy city.

There were a number of other violent incidents on Saturday, in addition to the massive early morning bombings at Karbala and near the Jadiriya bridge in Baghdad, which together left dozens dead. (Al-Hayat speculated in Arabic that the Jadiriya bomber had tried but failed to hit the bridge itself, thus further isolating one part of the capital from another.)

Police found 20 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. Typically such corpses are victims of sectarian death squads.

Guerrillas attacked the convoy of the deputy Minister of Industry and wounded 3 of his bodyguards in the Jihad district of southwest Baghdad. The deputy minister was unscathed.

Guerrillas also attacked the home of Sunni fundamentalist member of parliament Adnad al-Dulaimi, wounding 6 of his guards. He himself is abroad, presumably in Amman.

The attacks come on the heels of the bombing of the Iraqi parliament, which in the end killed one parliamentarian, Muhammad Awadh. There were other bombing and mortar attacks in the capital.

Elsewhere in Baquba to the northeast, guerrillas deployed a roadside bomb to kill 3 policemen and wound 8 others.

Likewise, in Baiji north of the capital, a suicide car bomber killed 5 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 4 others.

In Mosul, police found 4 bodies.

Two British servicemen were killed and 5 wounded when two military helicopters collided just north of Baghdad.

Radical Salafi Jihadis of the "Islamic State in Iraq" say that they have captured 20 Ministry of Interior security men and are holding them ransom for the release of Sunni Arab women in Iraqi government custody. They claim that (Shiite) government security forces have raped a Sunni Arab woman and are also demanding the surrender of the released rapists.

In Baghdad, al-Hayat says that a group of Iraqi parliamentarians held a conference to announce the formation of the "Provisional Command of the Southern Region," comprising Basra, Dhi Qar and Maysan provinces. The politicians said that most blocs in parliament agreed with the establishment of such a provincial confederacy. [140 MPs voted to expedite this process last October.] Other blocs, such as the Sunni Arabs and the Sadrists, fear that such regional federations will lead to the breakup of the country. (Maysan's agreement is a little odd in this regard, since it is dominated by Sadrists . . .)

British troops killed 8 militiamen caught laying mines in the southern Shiite port city of Basra. Some observers reported that the slain bombers had been members of the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that there were calls after Friday prayers in Basra for a massive demonstration there on Monday. Some say it was called by the Sadr Movement as a way of rattling the governor of Basra, Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili, who belongs to the rival Islamic Virtue Party. Militias of the two parties clashed not long ago.

The remaining 1300 South Korean troops in northern Iraq will be withdrawn, Seoul says. Their presence in Iraq is highly controversial back home.

The United States appointed the Iyad Allawi government in June of 2004, a heavily CIA-influenced regime with a strong anti-Iran, anti-Shiite orientation. It established an Iraqi National Intelligence Service in which ex-Baathists were prominent, and they detained Shiite activists. The Shiite governments since elected do not like or trust the INIS, and so Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has developed his own, Shiite intelligence service under the Minister of State for National Security. Ned Parker of the LAT examines the consequent contradictions and potential for internal conflict.

Easy to get hurt fighting for your country. Hard to get personal attention afterwards.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

100 Dead in Bombings, Violence;
Iraq, Kurdistan, traded Barbs

After the bombings of a major bridge in Baghdad and the cafeteria of the parliament, guerrillas on Saturday detonated a car bomb at a bus station in the Shiite holy city of Karbala near the shrine of Imam Husayn. Dozens are thought to have been killed or wounded, with early reports of 56 dead and 70 wounded. Because Karbala is sacred to the sentiments of Shiites, any insult to its sanctity is likely to produce a great deal of anger and grief.

In Jadiriya south of Baghdad, a car bomb killed 35 and wounded 50.

The dead included 3 US GIs, with seven wounded. Guerrillas mounted a frontal attack on a US patrol base late Thursday

The Iraqi parliament is defiant after it was bombed on Tuesday.

Further incidents of political violence are reported by Reuters and by the McClatchy 's daily roundup.

Civilian deaths are up in the rest of the country, down slightly in Baghdad, since the mid-February beginning of the new security plan.

Iraqi politicians responded sharply to the threats of Turkish general Buyukanit to engage in hot pursuit of the Kurdish PKK into Iraqi territory. Even the Sunni Arab speaker of the parliament, Mahmud Mashhadani, warned the Turks that those who interfered in Iraq would have their hands cut off.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Parliament Bomber was Probably Bodyguard;
Turkey Threatens to Invade Iraq;
Wolfowitz Promotes Girlfriend

The bombing of the cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament on Thursday was likely the work of a bodyguard of one of the members of parliament. Who exactly was killed and wounded among the parliamentarians has been a matter of dispute, as Iraqslogger points out in a good overview. MP Muhammad Awadh of the National Dialogue Front, a secular-leaning Sunni Arab list, is the one on which the various reports agree. At least one other MP was killed, either a Kurd or a Shiite. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that 3 MPs died, and says 30 persons were wounded, some seriously. It identifies the dead as Awadh, along with Taha al-Lahibi of the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front and Niyami al-Miya'i of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. Wire services said that between 10 and 14 MPs were wounded, said to include several members of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance and more Kurds.

Survivors were said to be bloodied and dusty, and to be flicking human body parts off their suits. A video of the bombing is here, courtesy al-Hurra.

There was this spate of headlines about the Iraq parliament bombing that said "Bush condemns Bombing of Iraq Parliament." Why do American journalists do that? Is that really news? Did anyone entertain some doubt as to whether he would be pleased? In my view it is just a way for the White House to influence the news cycle and put a spin on the news (now it is not about how terrible the bombing was, but about Bush's disapproval). I'm not complaining about mentioning the condemnation way down in the article, the way the LA Times did. I mean where you make it the lede and headline. It is this kowtowing by editors to Karl "Benedict Arnold" Rove's spin machine that got us into this mess.

In Middle Eastern autocracies like Syria, the television news will show long clips of the president sitting with some visitor, with the sound off but some music in the background. It seems to go on forever. Stories about Bush's comments on an event like the parliament bombing are the American equivalent of those toadying, lingering camera caresses. Bush is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq, because he created this situation with his greed and ineptitude. If you were going to do a story on his reaction to a bombing in the Green Zone, it should be about how he didn't do enough to stop it. Or, you could ask why he keeps suggesting that there is a moral derangement in the bombers, which explains everything. The bombers aren't just immoral, they are using kamikaze tactics in a political cause (ending the US military presence in their country and dislodging the government set up under US auspices). Diverting attention from their politics to their immorality is a way for Bush to deny that his own political project in Iraq provoked this response.

Just to get a flavor of how "so and so condemns" stories really function, check out "Iranian FM spokeman strongly comdemns bombing Iraqi parliament". Surely Tehran's condemnation is as consequential as Washington's? And surely it is evidence against the silly US allegation of Iranian aid to Sunni Arab guerrillas? (For the real reasons for these absurd allegations coming from Washington, see John Pilger today.)

Al-Hayat also points out that the Sarrafiya Bridge, which was destroyed by a truck bombing on Thursday, had been a symbol of the cosmopolitan character of the capital. It was built by the British in the time of the monarchy (which ended in revolution in 1958). [Update: Al-Hayat was wrong in placing the bridge between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods; I regret transmitting the error.]

Parliament speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani, a fundamentalist Sunni, expressed suspicions that the bridge was taken out to isolate the Sunnis of Karkh and Rusafa from one another.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense and current head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz is personally corrupt. He was corrupt when he tried to turn Iraq over to Ahmad Chalabi, who had been convicted of embezzling $300 million from his own bank. He was corrupt when he pushed the Iraq War with a bunch of phony arguments and the most disgusting campaigns of vilification against anyone who disagreed with him. And he was corrupt when he arranged for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza,* to get enormous wage increases.

Wolfowitz should be fired. After what he did to my country, he has no business in public office, anyway. But he is also just corrupt.

Bush has liberated Salih Rabi'a, all right-- from his 3 children, his wife, and probably to some extent his sanity.

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski points out that the Bush administration is paralyzed by the Iraq War; that Bush rules by instilling fear in the public; that Bush intends to dump the problem in the lap of the next president; that the Dems probably can't stop him from doing just that; and that if Bush drags us into a war with Iran, it will tie down the US for 20 years and cripple US global leadership for a generation. Yup, Zbig has nailed it.

Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke condemned the Bush administration for being stingy about letting Iraqis come to the US, whose lives had been put in danger because they worked for the Americans and who have been forced out of Iraq.

The powerful Turkish General Yasar Buyukanit said Thursday that Turkish forces needed to go into northern Iraq after Kurdish PKK guerrillas he believes are being given safe haven there. He said he had not yet submitted a request to parliament for authorization. The Turkish-Iraqi border is now a tinderbox. This is the other shoe in the Iraq conflict.

Buyukanit's comments probably come in response to a recent provocative interview given by Kurdistan leader Massoud Barzani.

Buyukanit also slammed US President George W. Bush implicitly, blaming the US for spoiling Barzani: “He [Mr Barzani] is at a very low level and I look to the one who enables him to speak so, who enables the division of Iraq, which is the greatest threat to the region.”

Ben Lando of UPI writes the really important story on Iraq-- the insecurity in Basra and its potential impact on the government in Baghdad. I am quoted:

' Also last week, British troops stationed in the area -- and on the verge of being withdrawn from the country -- were ambushed. Six were killed. Cole said if the British do leave, security in Basra is left to U.S. or Iraqi troops. Cole said he doubts they are up to the job.

"Then Basra could go completely out of control," Cole said. "Security in Basra is shaky. That to the extent it exists at all it's being provided by the British. Were the British to withdraw most of their troops by December under the new Labor (Party) prime minister, it's hard to see how security would be maintained.

"And if it's not maintained then it becomes more and more difficult to export petroleum through Basra and make sure the government actually gets any of the receipts," Cole said. "That would be the end of the Iraqi government." '

The Islamic Army of Iraq has split from the Islamic State in Iraq, which claims to be "al-Qaeda." In guerrilla wars, where you have a lot of guerrilla cells, there are often such splits and red on red violence. This was common in Afghanistan, too. Personally, I doubt it means much for the war. Members of both groups may be feuding, but they still hate the Americans more than they hate each other.

--------------

*I was told by someone somewhere that Shaha Riza's mother had been an Iraqi expatriate from a family that had settled in Tunis. I cannot now verify that and it isn't in the standard internet biographies of her. I cannot even remember how I came into this piece of information. Until someone can nail it down, I retract.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bridge Damaged, 9 dead in Truck Bombing;
Sadrists, Sunni Accord Front threaten withdrawal from Iraqi Government; Dodd, Obama Critique McCain

Thursday morning in Baghdad, a truck bomb detonated on the Sarafiya bridge in Baghdad. Early reports gave the casualty toll as 9 dead, but observers said that five or six cars were sent into the river and likely the number of fatalities would rise. Aljazeera is saying that there were 20 passengers in the cars. The bridge is a major artery linking east and west Baghdad.

Two more US troops were announced killed on Wednesday, with several more wounded.

Reuters reports that police found 11 bodies in Baghdad on Wednesday, and 9 in Mosul. There were several bombings and mortar attacks in Baghdad.


British troops fought an intense gun battle with Shiite militiamen in a rough neighborhood of Basra, beginning on Tuesday, which left between 10 and 20 militiamen dead. I presume these are Mahdi Army, though it isn't clear from the report in the Telegraph. There are several Shiite militias in Basra, and some Marsh Arab tribes function as militias or mafias.

The Iraq Islamic Army, a major Sunni Arab guerrilla group, says that it is willing to parlay with the Americans on three conditions: The US Congress must announce that the US will leave Iraq; the Sunni Arab resistance must be recognized as a legitimate party in the dispute; and the talks must be sponsored by Russia, Turkey or the European Union. The IIA excludes ex-Baathists from its ranks and has recently been fighting Salafi extremists who call themselves "al-Qaeda," but says that it wants to unite the Sunni Arab resistance.

Sunni and Shiite guerrillas are continuing to engage in ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad despite the increase in the number of US and Iraqi troops there.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has issued a report saying that the situation for Iraqi civilians is bad and getting worse, and that there has been no tangible improvement for them in Baghdad. It says that thousands of bodies are at morgues throughout the country because families do not know they are there or are afraid to go pick them up. Mothers keep their children at home until the dead bodies are collected from the street so they won't see them.

The Iraq War has spurred terrorism and provided a training ground for al-Qaeda, according to a new British report.

The US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell argued on Wednesday that Iran is giving military aid to Sunni guerrillas in Iraq. Since the Sunni guerrillas are killing and blowing up Shiites every day, and since Iran is closely allied with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, the leaders of which have repeatedly been targeted by Sunni guerrillas. That Iran is trying to kill its own guys in Iraq is flatly implausible. Caldwell can come out and say it every day, and I will come out here and say it is implausible every day. Anti-Iranian sentiments are a key characteristic of the Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Iranian arms may be being smuggled into Iraq, but it is unlikely that the government is doing the smuggling, or that they are more important than all the other arms that are being smuggled into Iraq from a variety of neighbors. So the US military might well find Sunni guerrillas with Iranian arms.

We also know that some Sunni guerrillas want to foment a war between the US and Iran. So captured Sunni guerrillas may be feeding interrogators this line that they are getting help from Iran, to make trouble. That is, whatever the US military is finding in the way of evidence for this absurd allegation can be explained in some other plausible way, so as to avoid our having to come to conclusions that make no sense whatsoever. I am hoping that journalists covering the war will treat these allegations with the profound skepticism they deserve.

The easy way for the US military not to be inconvenienced by arms smuggling into Iraq from neighboring countries is for it to leave Iraq.

These ridiculous allegations against Iran of supporting Baathists and Salafis in Iraq are probably just pressure tactics. The Iranians want the US to release five diplomats who had been invited to Irbil by Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani, but who were kidnapped by the Bush administration. The US maintains that they are intelligence field officers. Iran is threatening not to attend the upcoming Sharm el Sheikh conference on Iraq if their men are not released.

The US is refusing to release the Iranian personnel.

Young nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a communique on Wednesday sharply rebuking Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for saying in Japan that there was no need for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops in Iraq.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of protesters assembled in the holy city of Najaf on Monday, despite the dangers of traveling in Iraq, to protest the continued US military presence in the country, answering Muqtada's earlier call. Monday was the fourth anniversary of the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Muqtada said in his statement that his parliamentarians are considering boycotting the al-Maliki government.

The 32 Sadrist deputies engaged in such a boycott in November and December (to protest al-Maliki's meeting in Jordan with George W. Bush), making it difficult or impossible for parliament to get a quorum. (Many of the parliamentarians actually live abroad, whereas the Sadrists are in town, so their absence is crucial). A Sadrist boycott of the al-Maliki government, coupled with the defection of the Islamic Virtue Party from his coalition, could make it difficult for parliament to function, and could stop the passage of the proposed petroleum investment bill. The Bush administration appears privately to have told al-Maliki that passage of that bill by June is a benchmark on which his government will be judged.

Al-Zaman writes in Arabic that its sources say that a Sadrist withdrawal is unlikely. It says that the Sadr Movement is now made up of three major groups: Sadrists who have become loyal to al-Maliki; the parliamentarians; and the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr.

The Iraqi Accord Front, a coalition of Sunni Arab fundamentalists with 44 seats in parliament, may withdraw from the political process, as well. Several of its MPs have been targeted for raids by the US military and have been tied to Sunni guerrilla groups. Others have abruptly fled the country without filing the requisite paperwork. MP Khalaf Ulyan, one of 3 leaders of the Front, had his house raided recently and the US alleged it found weapons there. He is abroad.

If the Sunni Arabs in parliament withdraw, and the Sadrists withdraw, that really could spell the end of any quorum and produce [an even more] complete legislative gridlock. Al-Zaman is saying that the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of the three members of the IAF coalition, has indicated that it would not depart from the political process.

Prime Minister al-Maliki was forced to reaffirm that foreign policy is the prerogative of the Baghdad government, in the face of threats and pronouncements of Kurdistan Regional Government president Massoud Barzani on April 6. Ankara is enraged by Barzani's threats to cause trouble in Diyarbakr if Turkey interferes in the Kirkuk issue.

The US military in Iraq appears to have killed an awful lot of Iraqi civilians out of being trigger happy. I mean, you sympathize in a guerrilla war situation with troops being suspicious even of civilians, but a schoolboy with a bookbag?

48 percent of adult respondents in a recent poll said that Bush should sign the appropriations bill that contains language on setting a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

43% said that they thought Bush should veto the bill.

Barack Obama criticized John McCain on Wednesday, suggesting that the current surge in the number of US troops will not resolve Iraq's civil war.

Senator Chris Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate, called for more diplomacy on Iraq and criticized the idea that an increase of troops can succeed. He critiqued the position of John McCain in support of a "surge," as a military solution to the problem.

The retired generals seem implicitly to agree with Obama and Dodd since they are voting with their feet. Bush cannot so far sign any of them up to be a "war czar" to oversee the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Mostly, they have figured out that Dick Cheney actually calls the shots on war policy, and that Cheney is inflexible and not living in the same dimension as the rest of us. Having responsibility for two wars with no actual authority to make policy would be an unenviable position to be in. News that SecDef Robert Gates wanted to close down Guantanamo and stop the torture, and was over-ruled by Cheney, probably gave these candidates pause.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

3 US Troops Killed, 16 Wounded
19 Iraqis Dead, 33 Wounded in Muqdadiya Bombing

The wire services reported at least 55 killed in political violence in Iraq on Tuesday, with hundreds wounded.

Guerrillas detonated a car bomb near Baghdad University in the south of the capital, killing 5 persons and wounding 11.

Guerrillas deployed a roadside bomb to kill 3 US troops on Monday, wounding a fourth.

Gun battles in central Baghdad left scores wounded, including 15 US troops. The clashes in two Sunni Arab neighborhoods lasted all day and left 20 guerrillas dead. All but three of the injured US troops were able to return to duty fairly quickly.

In Muqdadiya northeast of Baghdad, a woman detonated her belt bomb amidst a crowd of applicants for work as policemen outside a police station, killing 19 and wounding at least 33.

Police found three bodies in Mosul and two near Kirkuk-- victims of sectarian hatred.

Discontent among Iraq's Shiites with the situation in their country is now rife, even though they had initially been overjoyed at the fall of Saddam.

Pelosi and Lantos are thinking seriously of trying to make a trip to Iran, according to the SF Chronicle. I still cannot entirely figure out where all this diplomacy is coming from among the AIPAC Democrats. But it is obviously a complete revolt against the Neoconservative philosophy, wherein the natural thing would be to try to overthrow the Iranian government, not dicker with it.

Tom Engelhardt on how the Bush administration destabilized the Arc of Instability.

Gary Kamiya at Salon.com on "Why the Media Failed" in the run-up to the Iraq War. The sad thing is, I doubt the situation would be much different today. The information system in the US is corrupt. Many reporters I know in the corporate media deeply resent their bosses and editors, whom they often view as rightwing hacks.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

White and Carapico re: Cole, "How to Get out of Iraq"

My piece in The Nation on "How to Get out of Iraq" is generating some good discussion on an email list to which I subscribe. With their permission, I am sharing below comments of two seasoned observers of the Middle East.

Sheila Carapico writes:

Let me second Juan Cole's central point, which I would reword as follows: instead of the surge vs. unilateral withdrawal debate there needs to be a search for a rational, negotiated or multilaterally monitored disengagement of US troops. I realize it's a tall order -- but not necessarily more daunting than a military solution. To think about this we need to stop envisioning battlefield scenarios and start imagining ceasefire scenarios, or violence-reduction strategies. And we need to stop acting as if the future of Iraq were an either-or decision to be made in Washington between Democrats and Republicans. It's going to involve Iran, especially, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, and other countries in the region, and it's likely to be connected to the larger Arab-Israeli conundrum. A plan for peace in Iraq could really use the the active collaboration of Europe, Russia, and China, too. I wonder whether Pelosi's visit to Damascus, along with however those British detainees were released, indicates an attenuation of the "Syria-is-naughty, Iran-is-naughty, so we are not speaking to them" line. I am not sure of this, since by many accounts the Speaker went bearing a message from Israel, and not from Washington. But perhaps she brought something home. There are a vast array of alternatives between pacification by force and a unilateral pull-out (Gaza, anyone?) Let's try to think of some. Remember cease-fires, before they were vilified this summer by Rice and Bolton? Is there no one in the world with the moral authority to at least call for all sides to halt the bloodshed, if only for a day? The civil wars in Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Lebanon didn't only wear themselves out, there were talks leading to negotiations that eventually, if imperfectly, led to a laying down of arms of principle factions. Can anyone imagine scenarios for violence abatement? If a reduction in the American use of force can only make matters worse, as the consensus seems to hold, then are there visions for how, possibly, some other kind of policing or peace-making or financial incentives (or poetry readings?) might mitigate those outcomes? This discussion also raised anew the question of what we are doing in Iraq, now. Are we there to protect the Kurds? To prevent full-scale ethnic cleansing? Or to preserve the al-Maliki government (which, tautologically, asks us to remain there for that purpose)? or to secure an American strategic presence? or to get a the oil legislation passed? If we can specify specific goals, then policy debates can be reformulated: what would it take to protect the Kurds, from Turkey or from Iraqi elements? Would the current Iraqi government really survive an American departure? What would it take to secure an indefinate SoFA, if that is our minimal national interest, that would maintain bases but get troops out of the cities? What incentives might Iran be offered to support Shia peacemakers? Sheila Carapico University of Richmond

With regard to the US and the Kurds in Iraq, Wayne White writes:

I couldn't agree more that the Kurds probably do not need U.S. protection as the situation now stands. And I realize that a post-U.S. withdrawal Iraq, viewed from today's perspective is a rather murky problem to explore analytically, with various possible outcomes (and sub-plots within) which will likely elude the predictions many of us are groping toward at this time, including those of yours truly. However, it is quite possible that the removal of U.S. and other Coalition troops would allow the Kurds to deal with their territorial claims beyond their current holdings as they please. Consequently, there is a distinct possibility that the Pershmerga (with the assistance of predominantly Kurdish units of the Iraqi security forces) would move to seize control of a number of mixed areas currently beyond what has been generally recognized as the Kurdish autonomous region. Some claims talked about have extended deeply into Diyala Governorate in the south and as distant as Tel Afar to the west. Meanwhile, in the center of the country, Shi'a elements (also backed by many units of the Iraqi security forces) would likely move similarly, resuming their removal of Sunni Arabs from various remaining neighborhoods of the greater Baghdad area and some mixed areas beyond, one way or another. These are ugly scenarios, for sure. Such actions would be the primary trigger for a post-U.S. withdrawal civil war--with violence much worse than witnessed to date. I agree very much with Juan that staying on in Iraq at this late stage of the game can probably achieve little more than the loss of more American lives & money, but I have no illusions about what might well happen afterward. The only factor that would lie beyond anyone's ability to predict is the intensity of that struggle. Indeed, many of those favoring the continued presence of substantial U.S. combat forces for several more years use such potentially dire scenarios as a justification for remaining in Iraq. However, they themselves are making a highly questionable assumption: that by staying on, extending the time-line of our armed presence in Iraq, post-withdrawal outcomes would be any prettier. One point on the Pershmerga. Although well-organized, let us not forget that before the 2003 war, Peshmerga of Jalal Talabani's Popular Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were unable to remove the small pocket inside Iraq along the Iranian border containing only a few hundred fanatical jihadists of the Ansar al-Islam, despite at least two attempts to do so. Peshmerga would likely run into far more numerous Sunni Arab jihadists and insurgents in a far larger struggle for substantial real estate in the north, many willing to die (a rough translation of the word Peshmerga, ironically) if necessary, in an attempt to resist any Kurdish efforts to take over significant, additional stretches of territory. Wayne White Middle East Institute Middle East Policy Council Washington, DC

Thanks also to Jeff Severns Guntzel for his comments on the plan.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Tens of Thousands in Najaf Demand US Departure from Iraq

Tens of thousands of followers of young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rallied in the Shiite holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad on Monday, protesting the continued presence of US troops in Iraq. They burned US flags and held up posters saying, "America will fall, will fall." Chillingly, some of the demonstrators appeared to be soldiers in the Iraqi army. Although the Iraqi government tried to spin the demonstration as a celebration of the fall of Saddam, it was in fact an ironic denunciation of the US for not withdrawing from Iraq after the demise of the Baath. Sadr City residents in Baghdad also supported the demonstration by flying Iraqi flags. Iraqi authorities appear to have been terrified of Muqtada's street power, and they imposed a curfew on the capital.

A statement by Muqtada was distributed to demonstrators at Najaf and the LAT gives some of it: "We live at this moment and so far 48 months of anxiety, oppression and occupational tyranny have passed, four years which have only brought us more death, destruction and humiliation. Every day tens are martyred, tens are crippled and every day we see and hear U.S. interference in every aspect of our lives, which means that we are not sovereign, not independent and therefore not free. This is what Iraq has harvested from the U.S. invasion."

Al-Ra'y quotes the statement as saying, in addition, America has striven to ignite sectarian turmmoil among the sons of the people. We say to the American people and to that of Europe, we want peace and liberty and independence." He addressed American and European publics, saying, "We urge you, on the basis of simple humanity, to put pressure on your governments to end our torture and the shedding of Iraqi blood." He also pledged to the Arab world his solidarity with its causes.

Sadr MP Nassar al-Rubaie said, "Today is a call for resistance, for liberty and honor after four years of Occupation from which Iraq has gained nothing but killings without any services, even electricity and water. There is no sovereignty for the people or the government. We are not saying that sovereignty is limited. We are saying that it is absent."

Sunni clerics and members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, were bussed up from the southern city of Basra. Abdul Qadir Abdul Da'im of the IIP said, "The demonstration is a love letter that gathers together Iraqis and unifies them with regard to demanding the departure of the Occupation from this country. We must close ranks so that we can liberate our land from the north to the south."

Iraqslogger has photos.

Fred Kaplan at Slate discusses the proposals for a US withdrawal from Iraq put forward by Steven Simon and myself. Simon's thoughtful paper is in pdf format at this Council on Foreign Relations site.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Cole in Salon: McCain's Iraq Problem

My column , "John McCain's Iraq Problem," is now available at Salon.com.

Excerpt:

' On Sunday, April 8, Sen. John McCain appeared on CBS's "60 Minutes" in an attempt to do damage control. Pressed on his assertion, in a CNN interview last week, that Gen. David Petraeus goes about Baghdad in an unarmored Humvee, he admitted that he was wrong. "Of course I'm going to misspeak," he observed, as though he could put the controversy behind him with weasel words. But he did not actually back off his recent sunny pronouncements about the situation in Iraq. "I believe we can succeed, and I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic."

In the past two weeks, McCain has produced a trove of Iraq-related images and quotes that are sure to dog his faltering bid for the presidency. On March 26, during an interview with conservative radio host Bill Bennett, McCain said, "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today." The next day, he insisted to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that Gen. Petraeus was driving around armorless. Then, on April 1, in an attempt to back up his words, McCain went on his infamous Baghdad shopping trip. The Internet was soon awash with mocking photos of McCain strolling blithely through the Shurja market in a Kevlar vest. On Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran footage of McCain dickering over a rug with a merchant, then pulled back to show the senator surrounded by heavily armed and armored U.S. troops, and also mentioned that attack helicopters were hovering overhead. In the past year, only the image of Israeli Minister of Defense Amir Peretz looking out on the battlefield through binoculars with the caps still over the lenses has made a politician look more foolish. '

Read the whole thing.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

How to Get out of Iraq

I repeat:

My article, "How to Get out of Iraq,", is now out in The Nation.

Here is a copy of an email I sent about the piece to a discussion list:

Just to clarify in light of . . . comments, I was not proposing an optimistic scenario, or, indeed, any scenario at all.

I was simply saying that Saudi Arabia and Iran do not have to have a proxy war in Iraq if they don't want to have one, and that it is possible for them to take the prudent steps that would forestall it.

Many commentators present the prospect of such a war as inevitable or as preventable only by a continued US military presence. The US presence, however, has made things worse every single one of the past three years, because it unwittingly removes the incentives to compromise from local Iraqi forces and helps to paralyze the neighbors from playing a prominent role. Remove the US military from the equation, I am arguing, and it is far more likely that all parties concerned will begin behaving more responsibly.

I cannot guarantee that outcome. I can say that the past 3 years do not make me sanguine that things will get better with a continued US dominance.

I also wrote to an email discussion group:

With regard to the fate of the Iraqi Kurds if the US withdraws: I don't believe that the US troops are doing the Kurds of Iraq any good. There are very few US troops in the north. Are there any at all in the KRG? There are some near Kirkuk. Some 3000 GIs were recently withdrawn from Mosul and sent to Baghdad as part of the current security plan.

The Kurdistan Regional Government is stable and relatively secure because over 60,000 well-armed and well-trained Peshmerga provide security. The Peshmerga are recognized by the Iraqi constitution as the legitimate security forces of Kurdistan, so there is no reason that the US cannot go on supplying and training them. I don't believe there is any evidence that they need US ground troops in order to survive. The Peshmerga are the best and most committed indigenous military force in Iraq and virtually the only part of the Iraqi army (where they have been detailed to it) that have consistently stood their ground in firefights.

The Kurds needed protection when Saddam was in power and had 4,000 remaining tanks with which to menace them. That situation has changed.

As for the politics of the situation, the same thing applies here as elswhere. The Kurdish political leadership under Massoud Barzani has been remarkably inflexible with regard to key demands of the Sunni Arabs, and I believe that this inflexibility derives in some large part from a conviction that US troops will protect the Kurds and so they need not negotiate with the Sunni Arabs as equals. Remove the US from the equation, and I expect everyone will be more flexible.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

10 US Troops Killed
Thousands of Sadrist Demonstrators Come to Najaf

Thousands of followers of young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr converged on Najaf Monday, planning to join rallies against continued US military occupation of Iraq. April 9 is the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to US forces. Although some journalists are writing that al-Sadr called for violent attacks on US troops, the communique he released on Sunday simply says that Iraqi Army troops and Mahdi Army militiamen should not fight one another and should not allow the Americans to manipulate them.

Sadrist passions are running high because of a joint US/Iraqi government campaign against Sadrist militias (the Mahdi Army) in Diwaniya.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Muqtada launched in his communique, "a call to the Mahdi Army and the security apparatuses to stop fighting [in Diwaniya]." He said, "That is enough struggling and fighting, for it merely ensures the success of the plans of our enemy and your enemy. Our Iraq can no longer bear the shedding of this blood. The blood of an Iraqi is a red line [that must not be crossed.]" He added, "Iraqi Army and Police: Do not get drawn in behind the Occupier. For it is an obvious enemy to you." He said, "The armies of darkness represented by the Occupation forces, and more especially the great evil, America, have begun sowing the seeds of comflict, whether openly or through their agents--who have sold their land and their honor. We behold the turmoil taking place in Diwaniya, which the Occupier planned out to turn brotherhood into struggle and fighting."

Of the demonstration planned for Najaf, a Sadr spokesman said that participants would fly only the Iraqi flag to underline that it was a purely Iraqi rally. Demonstrators are demanding a US departure from Iraq.

Al-Hayat says that a Sadr spokesman in Diwaniya was announcing that al-Sadr's announcement had convinced some units of the Mahdi Army to stand down and let Iraqi government troops into their neighborhoods.

10 US GIs were killed in Iraq over the weekend. Police found 17 bodies dumped in Baghdad on Sunday.

On Sunday, Sunni Arab guerrillas deployed a massive car bomb in Mahmudiya, a town south of Baghdad, killing 17 and wounding 24. The blast, which targeted industrial workshops, leveled a three-story building.

Reuters reports other political violence in Iraq on Sunday, including these incidents:

"BAGHDAD - Seven people were killed and 21 wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded near an intersection in Ilaam district in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGDHAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed one policeman and wounded seven in the Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said.

HILLA - A roadside bomb targeting a police Scorpion Brigade patrol wounded three policemen in the Shi'ite city of Hilla . . .

The Vatican probably can't say "I told you so," given that pride is a sin. But this Easter address by the Pope on Iraq is pretty close. "Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees," the Pope said.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

64 Dead in Iraq; 4 US Troops Killed;
Bombings in Baghdad, Bodies in Baquba;
US vs. Mahdi Army in Diwaniya

AP reports that 64 persons were killed or found dead in Iraq on Saturday. Among them were 4 US troops, killed by a roadside bomb near Baquba.

27 bodies were found in Baquba, a mixed city northeast of the capital. Police found 7 bodies in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar. Karbala authorities said that 22 Shiite shepherds had been killed and that 6 of their bodies were found in al-Anbar province. Police found 12 bodies in Baghdad.

McClatchy says that guerrillas came into Baquba and chased 21 shopkeepers out of their shops, then burned them, causing over a million dinars of damage. Some parts of Baquba also took mortar fire on Saturday.

A car bomb in the Shiite Sadr City part of Baghdad killed 1 and wounded 5. Guerrillas in Baghdad set off 5 roadside bombs and sent mortar shells on some neighborhoods, wounding over a dozen Iraqis. US forces raided the offices of Khalaf al-Ulyan, a member of parliament from the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front.

Major fighting continued in Diwaniya between US forces, allied with the local police, and the Mahdi Army militia. The Shiite fundamentalist militia had been taking over entire neighborhoods of the city and making them offlimits to police and central government figures. Reuters says that local Iraqi authorities reported that 13 bodies came into the morgue and that 41 persons were injured. They said that 6 of the dead were non-combatants killed when US warplanes bombed a house said to be used by militiamen. The US maintained that only one person, a deadly militiaman, was killed in the attack.

Aljazeera reviews the reports of some Iraqi bloggers that the Wall Street Journal is not publishing.

Iran barred Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from its air space during his trip to Japan Saturday evening. Al-Maliki had had good relations with Tehran and it is not clear why Iran took this step. A recently freed Iranian diplomat claimed Saturday that he had been tortured while in US custody.

The Telegraph has discovered documents indicating that the British authorities plan to have troops in Iraq through 2012 at least. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is claiming that a recent British raid on a police HQ in Basra violated Iraqi sovereignty. They want an apology.

A British captain who knows Arabic and Pushtu and has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan has concluded that both wars are wrongheaded and counter-productive and that good men are now getting killed for an effort that is a "shambles."

US detention centers in Iraq are alleged to be terrorist training grounds, according to the LAT.

William Douglas of the McClatchy wire service examines Bush's allegation that if the US leaves Iraq, the "terrorists will follow us here." He finds that security experts generally find the claim unsubstantiated and exaggerated. (I.e., it is propaganda, folks.)

Hannah Allam finds anxiety increasing among Saudi Arabia's newly emancipated Shiite Muslims that the violence in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites will cost them. Moves toward granting them more rights by the Wahhabi authorities have slowed recently.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Attack on Sunni Baghdad Satellite Channel Draws Criticism

The US Government Open Source Center translated or paraphrased the following report from Sunni fundamentalist party internet sites;

Iraq: AMS, Iraqi Islamic Party Condemn Attack on Baghdad Channel Friday, April 6, 2007 The Iraqi Islamic Party WWW-Text in Arabic -- website of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, led by Tariq al-Hashimi, available at www.iraqiparty.com -- is observed on 5 April to post a statement on an attack targeting Baghdad Satellite Channel, television station believed to be sponsored by the Iraqi Islamic Party. Describing the attack as "a desperate attempt to muzzle the voice of justice" and "a sterile endeavor to foil the efforts to alleviate the injustice inflicted upon the distressed people," the statement says: "Since its inception, this channel has been committed to moderate national rhetoric, and has taken up the mission of defending Iraqi citizens regardless of their religious or sectarian affiliations." Reminding that "this was not the first attack targeting this free voice," the statement urges the channel's staff "to carry on with their national efforts despite all the obstacles and risks facing them." On 5 April, the Internet website of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) in Iraq, available at www.iraq-amsi.org, is observed to post a statement "condemning" the attack targeting the premises of Baghdad Satellite Channel. The statement says: "Targeting media outlets is nothing but another means to muzzle opinions. This crime is a continuation of the suffering which the Iraqi people have been going through for four years due to the occupation that is oppressing them. At a time when the spokesmen for the so-called the security plan talk about their big achievements, the scenario of targeting innocent Iraqis is still raging. While the AMS condemns this outrageous crime, it expresses solidarity with Baghdad Satellite Channel."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Friday Sermons in Iraq

The USG Open Source Center translates excerpts from the Iraqi Friday prayers sermons delivered a week ago, many of which were reacting to the Arab League Summit held in Saudi Arabia.

Iraqi Friday Sermons for 30 Mar Discuss Arab Summit, Security, Political Process Iraq Saturday, March 31, 2007 Major Iraqi television channels - Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah, Baghdad Baghdad Satellite Channel, Baghdad Al-Sharqiyah, Baghdad Al-Furat, Cairo Al-Baghdadiyah, and Baghdad Al-Diyar - are observed on 30 March to carry the following reports on Friday sermons: Al-Iraqiyah: Within its 1700 GMT newscast, Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic - government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network - cites Sadr-al-Din al-Qubbanji, imam and preacher of Al-Najaf al-Ashraf Mosque, as saying that the "Riyadh summit has not achieved the minimum level of the Iraqis' aspirations." For his part, Shaykh Abd-al-Hadi al-Muhammadawi, read during the Friday sermon at Al-Kufah Mosque the statement of Muqtada al-Sadr, in which he stressed that the issue of the presence of the US forces in Iraq is the business of the Iraqi people. He added that no one has the right to extend or call for maintaining this presence." Al-Qubbanji says: "The final statement did not condemn the takfir (holding other Muslims to be infidel) fatwas (religious rulings). The shedding of blood in Iraq is the result of these takfir fatwas. The final statement did not express support for the political process or for the persecuted Iraqi people. Here, we are trying to alert the Arabs and draw their attention to this." Turning to the Accountability and Justice Law, which will be presented to the Council of Representatives, Al-Qubbanji says: "God be praised, there are competent people at the Council of Representatives, and the political blocs and figures can competently and carefully study and cautiously and fairly deal with this draft law. We believe that we have a host of constants. If the draft law adheres to these constants it will be alright. If the draft law conflicts with these constants it will be rejected." Reading the statement of Muqtada al-Sadr, Shaykh Abd-al-Hadi al-Muhammadawi says: "O wronged Iraqi people, make the whole world hear that you reject the destructive occupation and terrorism, and that you love Islam, peace, and freedom. This is in order to keep the reputation of beloved Iraq and its people clean and to cut off the tongues of lies and charlatanism that seek to harm Iraq and its people. This can be achieved by staging a unified demonstration in Al-Najaf al-Ashraf on 9 April this year in response to the call of freedom and peace." Speaking on the anniversary of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, Shaykh Dr Abd-al-Karim al-Khazraji says: "The Prophet, may God's peace and blessing be upon, teaches us not to cut off a tree. Compared with the tree, the human being is more important and nobler than the tree. He also teaches us not to kill women, children, and old people. This is God's religion, O brothers. The prophet came with a law for the whole world. However, what we currently see is that the human being has become cheap and his blood is being shed." In the Babil Governorate, Usamah al-Musawi, imam and preacher of Friday sermon at the Martyr Al-Sadr Office, says: "We are one of the most prominent sides participating in the political process. We have some 30 or 32 people at the parliament. We also have ministries and members of the governorate councils." He adds: "We support the government of Al-Maliki. This is why they seek to harm and provoke us in order to topple the government on the pretext that it cannot protect the Iraqis." He says: "We are not intimidated by any threat from anyone or from any source. Our chests are open for their bullets, and our necks are ready for their swords. However, we will not be intimidated, and we will not kneel down or surrender, and let them do whatever they want." He also calls on the Iraqis to stage a "unified demonstration" in Al-Najaf al-Ashraf on 9 April "in response to the call of freedom and peace." Baghdad Satellite Channel: Baghdad Baghdad Satellite Television in Arabic - television channel believed to be sponsored by the Iraqi Islamic Party, at 0900 GMT is observed to carry a live relay of a Friday sermon from an unidentified mosque in Baghdad. The sermon is delivered by an unidentified preacher. He begins be praising God and His Prophet and urging worshippers to fear God. Speaking about the Arab summit in Riyadh, the preacher says: "I will not divulge a secret if I say that this summit was very disappointing, particularly regarding the tragedy of Iraq. If I had the opportunity to make the Arab kings and presidents, who met in Riyadh yesterday and the day before yesterday, hear my voice, I would have told them that you met while your brothers in Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere were seriously suffering from injustice and occupation." Speaking about the "new world order, which is represented by world Judaism, its state, Israel, and the only pole that monopolizes the leadership of the world, the United States, may God disgrace it," the preacher says: "This quarrelsomeness and injustice have exceeded their limits in a way over which one cannot remain silent." He says that what is strange is that the more the United States inflicts injustice on Iraq the more and more the Arabs throw themselves in its arms. If the Arab rulers had some independence, they would dissociate themselves from the United States and stop revolving in its orbit inasmuch as it dissociates itself from our interests and supports our enemy." Continuing to address the Arab rulers, the preacher says: "O Arab rulers, what do you have to say about these biased and unjust statements, which participate in killing us and in shedding our blood and which bless the shedding of Muslim blood? What do you have to say about the massacres that are being perpetrated against Iraq and our Palestinian brothers and what can you do to support your brothers? What do you have to say about these US statements that collude with Israel to the point of crime and plotting?" The preacher criticizes the Arab leaders who supported the United States, the United Kingdom, and others in "attacking and occupying Iraq, tightening the siege on its people, and stripping it off its weapons, which are nothing compared to Israel's weapons of mass destruction." He adds that an Arab politician once said that "the day will come when the Arabs will regret what has befallen Iraq and the loss of its weapons." The preacher then elaborates on the attempts to partition Iraq. He says that this "plot is also aimed at partitioning the neighboring states." He adds that the "conspiracy is aimed at changing Iraq's Arab identity." He concludes his first sermon by criticizing the militias that kill innocent people and attack mosques. The preacher devotes his second sermon to the anniversary of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. . . Al-Furat: Within its 1700 GMT newscast, Baghdad Al-Furat Television Channel in Arabic - television channel affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) led by Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim, carries a report on today's Friday sermons, in which some preachers criticized the results of the Arab summit in Riyadh. Muhammad al-Haydari, imam and preacher of the Al-Khillani Mosque, says: "Some of them called for abrogating the constitution and the political process. Some of them denounced the militias only, but they did not denounce terrorism. The speech of the Kuwaiti amir, however, was balanced." Shaykh Abd-al-Mahdi al-Karbala'i, representative of the religious authority in Karbala, says: "All the good blocs and forces, which seek to achieve security and stability for this people, should unite and cooperate to confront terrorism. All sides should realize that the danger of this terrorism is not confined to a certain group, class, or sect, but it targets all sides without exception." At 1800 GMT, the channel carries an episode of its weekly "Friday Sermons" program. The program shows Muhammad al-Haydari, imam and preacher of the Al-Khillani Mosque, saying: "The government and the security agencies took upon themselves to defend the Iraqi people." He adds: "We should be patient and endure. It is true that our pains are great, but it is also true that our duty is to be patient because we want to check the plans of the enemy, which is trying to drag Iraq to sectarian sedition, bloody conflict, and civil war." He adds: "It is clear that over the past three or four days, there was an escalation in operations. We feel that there is a great state of alert by the terrorists to carry out bombing operations anywhere they can amid the people. The objective behind the escalation at this time is to send a message to the Arab message in which they say that we are still here and we are strong. They call themselves resistance. They want to say that we are still fighting and we have our influence. This is the message they want to send to the Arab summit." He says that the Arab summit should know that these people are "cowards and that they kill women and children" Turning to the Arab summit's final statement, Al-Haydari says: "In general, we consider it in our favor, although it includes some paragraphs that are not in our favor, but it includes denunciation of terrorism and support for the political process. It also calls on the Iraqi Government to carry out reforms." He says: "Some sides call for rejecting sectarianism. This is a true and a sincere call. However, they should stop the sectarian campaigns against the followers of Al Al-Bayt (Shiites) in their own countries." Shaykh Abd-al-Mahdi al-Karbala'i reminds members of the Council of Representatives of their "legal and religious" responsibilities toward defending the Iraqi people. He says that among the first of your tasks is "to achieve the interests of this people and to seek to consolidate them by enacting the laws that achieve this and by strongly confronting the attempts to strip these wronged people off these achievements and gains. Regrettably, however, we find some of these brothers think only of how to win more personal privileges and serve their own interests or those of the group with which they are affiliated." He adds that these members should know that the people "can remove them from their posts and chairs." Turning to the Arab summit, the preacher says: "Although we express our appreciation for some resolutions on the Iraq issue, we, at the same time, express our strong regret over and astonishment at the fact that these resolutions have failed to touch on the acts of terrorism that target all the sons of the Iraqi people, Sunnis and Shiites, Muslims and Christians, Arabs, Kurds, and others. These resolutions have also failed to denounce and condemn these acts." He adds: "We also express our strong regret over some other resolutions, which include interference in some of Iraq's affairs." Shaykh Yusuf al-Hamadani, imam and preacher of the Martyr Taha Mosque in Basra, devotes his sermon to the anniversary of the birthday of the prophet. Turning to the Iraqi situation, Al-Hamadani says that over the past two weeks, there were "terrorist, criminal, and takfiri operations targeting innocent people." He adds that those who kill innocent people by using all means will kill people "with a nuclear bomb if they manage to obtain it." He describes the terrorists' use of the chlorine gas in Al-Fallujah as a "qualitative move in the criminal terrorist operations." . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Chlorine Truck Bomb Kills 30, Wounds 100;
Rumayla Pipeline Near Basra Bombed;
Assault on Mahdi Army in Diwaniya

Alissa J. Rubin of the NYT reports that a chlorine truck bomb in Ramadi killed 30, including women and children, on Friday, and sent about 100 persons to the hospital with shrapnel wounds or breathing problems.

In the Shiite south, US and Iraqi troops conducted a campaign in Diwaniya against the Mahdi Army militia, which has fought several engagements against local police. The police in Diwaniya include many elements of the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Badr is a rival of the Mahdi Army. It has been alleged that the Mahdi Army in Diwaniya was not under the control of young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and was ignoring his orders in favor of local rogue leaders. Iraqslogger has more.

With reference to operation 'Black Eagle' in Diwaniya, AFP notes: "Bleichwehl said troops, facing scattered resistance, discovered a factory that produced “explosively formed penetrators” (EFPs), a particularly deadly type of explosive that can destroy a main battle tank and several weapons caches."

All this time, the US Pentagon has been maintaining that EFPs had to be imported from Iran and could not be produced in Iraq. But voila, an Iraqi EFP factory. One of the key components, which is difficult to mill, is routinely used in oil field technology, and lots of Iraqis know how to make it.

Police found 11 bodies in Baghdad, and four in Tal Afar, according to Reuters, which reports a number of bombings and assassinations bombardments in Baghdad, Kirkuk and elsewhere. McClatchy reports an even great range of violent incidents on Friday, including several mortar attacks in Baghdad.

Among the most significant was an attack I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere: "5 p.m. yesterday (Thursday), the Rumayla oil pipeline 50 km west of Basra has been damaged by a bomb."

A Rumayla oil pipeline was damaged by a bomb!? Rumayla to my knowledge hasn't suffered much from pipeline sabotage. Oil has been smuggled from it, yes. Militias and tribes conduct turf wars over the smuggling rights. But just blowing it up? That would be counterproductive for smuggling. The action suggests that one of the competing smuggling mafias or militias has been successfully frozen out of the action. In that case, they lose nothing if they blow the pipeline up, and they harm their rivals.

The Rumayla fields have 500 wellheads and produce most of the 1.8 million barrels a day of petroleum that currently support the Iraqi economy. The northern Kirkuk fields most often cannot export at all, because the pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey constantly gets blown up by Sunni Arab guerrillas. If the Rumayla pipelines start being routinely targeted by Shiite militiamen in the south, it might spell the end of the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Maliki. It is not as if the government takes in much revenue from taxes, or has any great prospect of doing so. This pipeline bombing has been little noticed, but it is very important if it signals the beginning of a series of such attacks.

In a canny move, the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday offered pensions to high-ranking military officers in the former Baath regime. A wise policy, though possibly too little too late. Much of the trouble in Iraq is being caused by these very officers, though it gets blamed on "al-Qaeda" in the Western press. If the Baath officers really could be mollified, it would have a big impact on whether Iraq can return to stability. Officers at the rank of major or below have the option of joining the new Iraqi army.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

70 Killed in Iraq
Diplomacy of Iran May be Legacy of British Sailor Hostage Crisis

The killings of 18 Iraqi, British and American soldiers by Iraqi guerrillas and militiamen were announced on Thursday.

AFP estimates that 52 persons were killed or found dead on Thursday, with 20 bodies brought to the morgue at Baquba northeast of Baghdad.

Other violence, including roadside bombings and mortar attacks in Baghdad on Friday, are reported by Reuters.

Militiamen in the southern Shiite port city of Basra deployed a roadside bomb to kill four British soldiers and their interpreter when it penetrated their armored fighting vehicle. The incident occurred near the Hayaniya district, a slum where the Mahdi Army of the Sadr Movement is strong. (In general, in Basra, the Mahdi Army is a minority affair.) Tony Blair's implication that Iran was involved in this attack somehow is likely incorrect. Iran and the Mahdi Army mostly don't get along very well. Besides, an allegation like that should be accompanied by some proof.

In Mosul, 40 Sunni Arab guerrillas attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint. They set vehicles aflame and confiscated the soldiers' weapons, having found them asleep.

On Thursday, Sunni Arab guerrillas deployed roadside bombs in Baghdad to kill 4 US GIs.

Near Latifiya, guerrillas directed heavy fire at a US helicopter, apparently forcing it to make a hard landing in which 4 of the 9 service personnel aboard were injured.

Sunni Iraqi clerics meeting in Amman have agreed to form a new organization, the Council of Islamic Clerics. They issued a communique that said:

' The conference stresses the need for working with all means, including the legitimate resistance, to expel the invasion forces and ensure laying down a timetable for their pullout.'

Bernard Gwertzman's interview of me on the release of Iran's hostages and the Iranian role in Iraq is available at the Council on Foreign Relations web site.

Jim Lobe interviews Gary Sick, Trita Parsi and me on the Iranian capture and release of the British sailors, and what might be the aftermath.

Noam Chomsky on 'What if Iran had invaded Mexico?'

Shorter Washington Post: Feith and Cheney were just making it all up as they went, and lied us into a quagmire of a horrible war.

Cheney repeated on Thursday on Rush Limbaugh his ridiculous assertion that Saddam Hussein was running Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as an al-Qaeda agent in Baghdad.

Someone should please tell Cheney that his own government captured documents in Iraq that show that Saddam's security forces were a) afraid of al-Qaeda and Zarqawi and b) were trying to capture him once they heard he was in Iraq. The pdf link in my posting on this shows the APB Iraq put out for Zarqawi and the wanted poster.

I don't know why this information hasn't percolated up to Cheney or why the US press doesn't call him on his ridiculous assertions that are contradicted by clear documentary evidence in USG hands.

Zeinaub Chami on the propaganda effort by the Zionist Organization of America to bring so-called "ex-terrorist" Muslim speakers to the Detroit Metro area, and who say questionable things about the Muslim tradition.

Yes, whenever I want to know about Islam, I go to the Zionist Organization of America and to the retired terrorist dentists that they recommend.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Rash of Kidnappings of Dozens of Shiites
Iraq Government misplaces or Steals $8 Billion

AP reports that Sunni Arab guerrillas kidnapped 22 Shiite shepherds and stole thousands of sheep on Wednesday when the Shiites came up from Karbala to al-Anbar Province in search of pasturage. Reuters reports that there was also another major kidnapping on Wednesday: "LATIFIYA - Gunmen manning a fake checkpoint kidnapped passengers traveling in six minibus taxis and a car, near the town of Latifiya 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, an official in the Hilla police chief's office said. . ."

Six minibuses would have had a lot of people in them. This route is one traveled by Shiites going back and forth from Baghdad to their holy cities.

Reuters reports that in addition to the shooting of 11 electricity workers near Hawija in the north, in the northern mixed oil city of Kirkuk: "Nine civilians were wounded on Tuesday when three roadside bombs exploded in a mainly Kurdish district of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said . . ."

A returning US naval reservist reveals how bad the situation is in Iraq. Money quotes:

' “If you’re going to walk around over there, I’d strongly suggest investing in Kevlar (body armor),” Christensen said. “There are definitely warmer spots of American compassion, but things are still very … touchy.”

Christensen said his team was discouraged from interacting with Iraqi citizens, because it was difficult to tell friend from foe.

“There would be 10- or 11- year-old kids that would give us a ‘thumbs up’ when we drove by them, and then throw grenades under our truck after we passed,” he said.

But Christensen said the worst violence was saved for Iraqi groups that assisted in the American reconstruction of the country, such as the Iraqi Security Forces.

“If there is one group of people that they hate more than us, it’s the Iraqi Army,” he said. “If they catch wind that one of our convoys is working with the Iraqi Army, they’ll fight to the death. You take a few minutes for yourself before you (leave the base) on missions like that.” '

Let me just get this straight. The US is putting all its hopes in the prospect that "as the Iraqi forces stand up, we'll stand down." But the Iraqi forces provoke the fiercest resistance among the guerrillas, and their presence on a mission actually increases the danger to US troops! I don't think this standing up business sounds as though it is going well.

Until the Iranian government announced Wednesday that it would release the 15 captured British sailors and Marines, , according to al-Sharq al-Awsat writing in Arabic, the inhabitants of the southern Shiite port city of Basra were growing anxious that they might get caught in the crossfire of any hot conflict between the West and Iran. Some complained about the relative passivity of the Iraqi government during the crisis. "They were acting as though it had happened in some other country," one Basran said.

A spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani denied on Wednesday that the Shiite spiritual leader opposes a new law supported by President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that would reinstate Baathists in high government positions if they cut off any relationship to the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Sistani's opposition was reported by visiting politician Ahmad Chalabi, who admittedly has credibility problems.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Shiite Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has been working on a Status of Forces Agreement that would define the relationship between the Iraqi state and the multinational forces (mainly American). His draft is said to insist on Iraqi control of the airports and borders. US troops would require permission to kick down doors and conduct searches. These provisions were discussed by Iraqi officials and MPs with American officials. Among the parliamentarians engaging in the talks was Qusay Abdul Wahhab, a member of the Sadr Movement, which has demanded an immediate US departure. As the next item makes clear, the Sadr leadership was distressed at Abdul Wahhab's participation in these talks and has expelled him from the party over it. Salman al-Jumayli, a leader of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party, denied that his party had approved the draft SOFA. He said his bloc insists on provisions for a withdrawal timetable for American troops.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the politburo of the Sadr Movement announced Wednesday that it had expelled two members of parliament from the party because they had met with US officials during the past two days. Abdul Mahdi al-Mutayri, a member of the Political Committee that took the step, said, "The Committee expelled the former minister of transportation, Salam al-Maliki, and the MP Qusay Abdul Wahhab, who met with American officials two days ago." He clarified, "Muqtada al-Sadr approved the expulsion." He was referring to the young Shiite nationalist cleric that leads the Sadr Movement begun by his father. He said that consorting with Occupation officials is contrary to the principles of the Sadr movement. Al-Zaman says that this announcement is the first public indication of the existence of tensions within the Sadr Movement, which has a fourth of the seats in the United Iraqi Alliance, the ruling Shiite bloc in parliament.

Al-Zaman also reports that the Iraqi government has been secretly transporting unidentified corpses from the Baghdad morgue to a vast cemetery near the Shiite holy city of Karbala. The Baghdad daily says that 2500 unidentified corpses have been disposed of this way since last June. It alleges that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has forbidden the Baghdad morgue from announcing the true death toll, but that morgue officials admit that 16,000 unidentified or unclaimed corpses came in during 2006.

Privatizing Iraqi petroleum may not be so easy if the oil workers union has anything to say about it. And, it does.

Iraqi officials cannot account for $8 billion during the past 3 years, with much of it embezzled. Some $2 billion disappeared during the prime ministership of US-appointed PM Iyad Allawi.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar Seminary and among the leader Sunni authorities in the world, has conveyed to the Iranian leadership his dismay at the support it has given to the militias of religious parties in the Iraqi government and to death squads that kill and kidnap on a sectarian basis. The message was contained in a letter that was carried to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, who had visited Cairo last week. Khatami, according to al-Azhar sources, had promised to pass it on to the Iranian leadership.

In the Khatami period, al-Azhar had pursued Sunni Shiite ecumenism. Tantawi even signed off on a joint fatwa with Sistani and other Shiite clerics accepting that Shiites and Sunnis were both Muslims in good standing and that it was wrong for one Muslim to declare another Muslim an infidel for belonging to one of the four major Sunni rites or to the Jaafari school of Shiite Islamic law.

This letter is a sign that tensions are growing between even mainstream, moderate Sunni and Shiite clergymen throughout the Middle East, tensions fueled by the sectarian violence in Iraq.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

11 Electricity Workers Killed at Checkpoint
Democrats threaten to take On Bush on Iraq Funding

Police discovered 14 bodies in Baghad, 7 in Baqubah and 3 in Mosul on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Guerrillas detonated two roadside bombs in south Baghdad. Early on Wednesday, gunmen killed 11 electricity workers near Hawija southwest of Kirkuk, after setting up a phony checkpoint.

Congress and the president are locked in a series of battles, over funding for the Iraq War, setting a timetable for withdrawal, and talking to leaders of states that the White House does not like, such as Syria. Senator Harry Reid appears set to play chicken with George W. Bush over funding for the troops, seeing who will blink first.

According to one Iraqi newspaper, the Dems are getting an unexpected ally. Saudi King Abdullah is said to prefer cooperating with the Democrats than with the White House on resolution of the Iraq crisis (see below).

More, this time from Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo, on why Senator John McCain's sunny pronouncements at the Shurja Market in Baghdad don't hold water.

The Gulf Times Reporst [scroll down] that "Iraq has issued invitations for 15 Arab, Asian and American firms to drill 100 oil wells in the country’s south as part of efforts to boost production, the oil ministry spokesman said yesterday."

The American public admits that their country is too quick to go to war in a new poll. And, 84 percent say that they think the US should not again go to war without the support of its allies. (Apparently the public, unlike the Neocons, still considers France an ally.)

MENA in Cairo is reporting that Harith al-Dhari, a leader of the Sunni fundamentalist Association of Muslim Scholars, is denying reports that the US has reached out to Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq. "America might have spoken with ineffective parties that have no say whatsoever in the Iraqi resistance," al-Dhari is quoted as saying. He also maintained that the US presence in Iraq fuels the violence, and that plans for federalism are aimed at breaking up the country.

Al-Dhari's allegation is given some credence by the denial being issued by Salah Umar al-Ali, an ex-Baathist dissident, that he had been contacted by the Iraqi government in an attempt to reach out to the ex-Baath leadership. The claim that the Iraqi government was talking to him was carried by al-Hayat recently. If Iraqi officials are lying to al-Hayat about al-Ali, they are probably lying about the whole range of alleged contacts. So far, both Bush and al-Maliki seem still determined to crush their enemies rather than trying to bring them in from the cold.

William Tucker, recently embedded with US troops in Iraq, compares the US colonial occupation of that country with its experience in the Philippines and concludes that Iraq is unlikely to be a succcess.

The USG Open Source Center paraphrases the Iraqi press for 3 April:

"Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah carries on the front page a 370-word report citing a senior Iraqi official source saying that the Saudi King has rejected an offer from President Bush to visit Saudi Arabia because the king wants to cooperate with US democrats. . . Al-Muwatin on 2 April publishes on the front page and on page 2 a 1,500-word report entitled "Terrorist Groups Impose Fatwas Banning Drinking Cold Water, Smoking, Shaving, Using Computers, Satellites on Diyala Residents; In Tall Afar, Curfew Imposed, Schools, State Offices Closed, Prime Minister's Visit Anticipated." Al-Muwatin on 2 April carries on the front page a 260-word report citing President Talabani confirming that the Al-Mahdi Army has stopped its operations since the inauguration of the Law Enforcement Plan. The report cites Vice President urging Sunni insurgents to stop their attacks on Shiites. Al-Muwatin on 2 April runs on the front page a 200-word report citing Baha al-A'raji, parliament member from the Al-Sadr Bloc, criticizing the government for not investing in the initial success of the Law Enforcement Plan to attack terrorist strongholds in Baghdad. . . Dar al-Salam carries on page 5 a 140-word report entitled "Shiite Turkomans Council Holds Kurds Responsible for Tall Afar Bombings." . . Al-Zaman runs on the front page a 300-word report citing former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi criticizing the deployment of additional US forces in Iraq and doubting the success of the Law Enforcement Plan. . . Al-Zaman carries on the front page a 400-word report entitled "Al-Sadr trend Calls for Public Conference To End Deteriorations in Al-Diwaniyah Governorate." . . Al-Mashriq runs on page 3 a 650-word report citing a member at Kirkuk Governorate Council calling for Kirkuk to be a special region with joint administration including, Arab, Turkoman, and Kurds. . . Al-Muwatin on 2 April publishes on page 4 a 220-word report on the demonstration organized by Basra University students on 1 April to protest against British forces for raiding the university campus. Al-Muwatin on 2 April carries on page 4 a 130-word report entitled "Anti-Tank Mines Seized in Maysan Governorate." Al-Muwatin on 2 runs on page 4 a 200-word report citing a security source confirming that the Maysan criminal Court has sentenced two drug dealers to 15 years. Al-Bayyinah runs on page 2 a 750-word report citing Sunnis in Diyala warning against the attempts by the "Islamic State of Iraq" to seize their mosques and kill them like Shiites in the governorate. Al-Bayyinah carries on page 4 a 330-word report citing a security source in Ninawah saying that unidentified gunmen have managed to control the Abu Tammam Telephone Exchange in Mosul. Al-Bayyinah carries on page 4 a 700-word report saying that security agencies in Al-Diwaniyah held a security conference to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the governorate. Al-Mashriq runs on page 5 a 560-word report on the increasing oil smuggling operations in Basra. Al-Adala carries on the last page an 80-word report citing the Trade Ministry erected technical and electronic equipment on its food-rationed trucks to protect them robbery. Al-Zaman carries on page 2 a 400-word report entitled "Al-Nasiriyah Textile Factory Workers Organize Demonstration Demanding Salary Increase." Al-Zaman publishes on page 5 a 700-word report entitled "Mosul's Humble Hotels Accommodate Displaced, Poor Families; Services Absent, Tourism Stars Appear in Daylight." . . Al-Mashriq runs on page 4 a 1,300-word report on the begging phenomenon that has increased on Iraqi streets due to the poor security conditions. . . Al-Sabah carries on page 14 a 1,000-word report citing citizens complaining about the increase of prices in Iraqi markets. Al-Sabah carries on page 14 a 130-word report citing an official source in the Kurdistan Region saying that the region will sign oil investment contracts with 15 oil companies. . .

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

21 Shiites from McCain's Market Killed
3 US Troops Killed
Massive Truck Bomb at Kirkuk

Remember that Baghdad market visited on Sunday by Senator John McCain to show how calm things are? James Hider of the London Times writes, , "21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market [Shurja] visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress."

Kirk Semple of the NYT bothered to actually interview the merchants at Shurja market. They were surprised at Indiana congressman Mike Pence's characterization of it as “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime . . .”

Yeah, those Indianans are hard core. Why, they'll kidnap a couple dozen Methodists at the outdoor market, blindfold them, drill holes in them, expose them to acid, and dump them on Main Street just before dawn to get a rise out of the police patrolmen when they show up for coffee and donuts.

If I were from Indiana, I'd be rather angry about Pence's comparison, and would vote him out in the next election.

In Kirkuk, Hider of the Times says, a huge truck bombing killed 14 and wounded 130, many of them children at a nearby school. [Late reports put the death toll at 15]:

' Buthayna Mahmud, 10, was horrified to see the bodies of her classmates strewn on the ground in flames. “Everyone I saw was wearing the blue school uniform drenched with blood. Some of their dresses were torn. I only saw fire. I heard teachers and students shouting,” she said. “When we rushed out of the school, we saw pupils on the ground, some of them burning.” “We were at the last lesson and we heard the explosion. I saw two of my classmates sitting near the window. They fell on the floor, drenched in blood,” said Naz Omar, a girl in the fifth form. “They could not speak. I was terrified. I said, ‘God is Great. I need my mother. I need my father’.” '

The Kirkuk bombing comes in the context of rising tensions over the Kurdish plan to annex the province, over the objections of the Turkmen and Arabs, as Iraqslogger notes. This source also discusses dissent inside the Sadr Movement over Muqtada's decision to cooperate with the new security plan.

Iraqi guerrillas killed 3 US troops on Monday.

Reuters reports other political violence in Iraq on Monday.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Increase in Iraq Deaths Despite Surge
6 US GIs killed over weekend
McCain Continues Magical Mystery Tour

For all those journalists and politicians who keep insisting that there are new "glimmers" of "hope" in Iraq because of the new security plan started 6 weeks ago, here is a sobering statistic from the Iraqi government. (I'm looking at you, John McCain. See below for more on McCain).

Iraqis killed in February: 1806 (64.5/day)
Iraqis killed in March: 2078 (67/day)

As the wire services report, that is a 15% increase if figured by the month. I provided the figures, above, to show that it is an increase even if figured by the day (4%). (I should have, in the earlier version of this post, highlighted the latter in the exposition rather than getting carried away by the wire service headline, as some readers have kindly or sometimes acerbically insisted.)

(Of course, the real numbers are much higher than these government statistics suggest, since passive information gathering on casualties only catches a fraction).

While 44 Iraqi soldiers died in action, the total for US troops in March was 85. AFP is suspicious about the disparity given that US and Iraqi authorities have said that Iraqi troops are leading the security crackdown. If that were true, they should have more casualties than the Americans.

Killings in Baghdad have declined a bit, and death squad murders at night have been impeded, so that fewer bodies are found on the streets in the morning. But car bombing casualties rose. And, some of the violence was displaced from the capital to other cities, such as Baqubah and Mosul, which explains why the total is up so much. The US withdrew some 3,000 troops from Mosul last summer to concentrate them in Baghdad, and since then Mosul seems to me to have become increasingly insecure. It is Iraq's second largest city.

So the over-all death toll has actually increased since the surge began.

Another cautionary note is that major attacks on Shiites in the capital and elsewhere seem to me to be way up. They may not take revenge immediately, but they will eventually. That the US has forced the Shiite militias off the street will be held against America, since Iraqis conclude that they are being killed because the Americans are not letting them defend themselves.

Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi told the Associated Press that he met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and 3 other grand ayatollahs in Najaf on Sunday, and that they rejected a measure recently passed by the Iraqi cabinet offering to reinstate Baath officials to their jobs in government if they severed links to the insurgency. Chalabi is quoted as reporting, "The grand ayatollahs said it is dangerous for the criminals to return to leading posts in the state." Chalabi has often proved himself willing to lie, as when he hoodwinked the US into invading Iraq on false pretences, and was indicted in Jordan and Switzerland for embezzling $300 million from his Petra bank. Nevertheless, this particular statement is likely true, since one of Sistani's clerical aides underlined the position in his Friday prayers sermon a few days ago (I blogged it Saturday). The majority Shiites in parliament, and their Kurdish allies, would already be reluctant to pass the provision, since they have a grudge against the Baath Party, which persecuted them and killed their relatives. Sistani's opposition may well doom the measure, which the Bush administration had set as one of four benchmarks it wanted the al-Maliki government to achieve by June.

Iraqi guerrillas killed 6 US GIs on Saturday and Sunday in the Baghdad area.

A British soldier was also killed on Sunday, in the south down at Basra.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Sunday. Among the bloodier episodes:

* Police found 16 bodies in Baghdad, victims of sectarian death squads

* Sunni Arab guerrillas set up a fake checkpoint in Baquba, northeast of the capital, and kidnapped 19 Shiite civilians from a nearby village.

* Kamikazes detonated two suicide truck bombs near Mosul at an Iraqi army base, killing 2 and wounding 17 (the wounded were mostly soldiers).

* Omar al-Juburi, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, barely escaped assassination by roadside bomb in western Baghdad.

This grandstanding trip that John McCain took to Baghdad on Sunday is another occasion for propaganda to shore up his falling poll numbers in his presidential campaign. He said, "Things are better and there are encouraging signs. I've been here . . . many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able go out into the city as I was today."

He said that only three days after the US embassy issued an order that personnel are to wear 'personal protective equipment' when moving between buildings inside the Green Zone! He said it the day two suicide belt bombs were found inside the Green Zone. So he could ride in an armored car in from the airport. That's the big achievement? What about when he gets to the Green Zone? Then he has to put on PPE to go to the cafeteria.

Look, I lived in the midst of a civil war in the late 1970s in Beirut. I know exactly what it looks and smells like. The inexperienced often assume that when a guerrilla war or a civil war is going on, life grinds to a standstill. Not so. People go shopping for food. They drive where they need to go as long as they don't hear that there is a firefight in that area. They go to work if they still have work. Life goes on. It is just that, unexpectedly, a mortar shell might land near you. Or the person ahead of you in line outside the bakery might fall dead, victim of a sniper's bullet. The bazaars are bustling some days (all the moreso because it is good to stock up on supplies the days when the violence isn't so bad). So nothing that John McCain saw in Baghdad on Sunday meant a damn thing. Not a goddamn thing.

It makes my blood boil.

Because McCain, you see, knows exactly what I know about guerrilla wars and civil wars. Hell, people used to shop freely in Saigon in the early 1970s! And if he is saying what he is saying, it is because he is attempting to convey an overly optimistic picture with which to deceive the American public.

The deception will get even more of our young men and women in uniform blown up, at a time when their mission has become murky and undefined. If the American public sacrifices the lives of the troops with their eyes open, for what they see as the sake of the security of the United States, then the loss of life is regrettable but the mission is clear, defined, and has public support. But if the American public is lied to and only thinks a mission is being accomplished as a result, then the sacrifice of soldiers' lives is monstrous. The Iraq War has become monstrous in this way. And John McCain, whom I had long respected as a straight shooter, has now been seduced into playing illusionist with the lives of our troops.

I have a great deal of admiration for General Petraeus. I believe he really cares about the welfare of Iraqis, that he knows something serious about counter-insurgency, and that he will do the very best he can to restore security to Baghdad. I don't think the key is the extra 17,500 troops, but how exactly the troops already there are deployed. But according to press reports, he laughs when people ask him if the surge is working yet. He knows that it is a long haul. And he also implied that if he thinks it isn't working by June, or the Iraqi government hasn't done everything it could by then, he may have some tough decisions to make, since he can't go on risking his troops' lives for a mission that isn't getting done.

That's what McCain should be saying. That it is too early to tell, militarily. He should let us hear the doubt in his voice. And that if it doesn't work, if al-Maliki doesn't step up, then the US troops will come first. I don't hear that kind of realism, and dedication to the welfare of the troops, from McCain. I used to, when he wasn't running for president. He isn't going to be president, and the albatross of this war he has bought into is why. Not only because it is an unpopular war, but because he cannot see it in a clear-eyed way. We don't need any more presidents with big blinders on.

Kyra Phillips, who is CNN's correspondent in Baghdad, bravely took on McCain and the retired generals who are peddling this horse manure about how improved the situation in Iraq is, on Sunday on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. The transcript:

[Blitzer]: In Iraq, meanwhile, earlier today, Senator John McCain and some other Republican congressmen spent some time getting a personal view of the security on the streets of Baghdad, elsewhere. Joining us, now, from Baghdad, CNN's own Kyra Phillips. Kyra, you've had a chance to hear what Senator McCain and his delegation have to say today. First of all, update our viewers, Kyra, on what their bottom line is. KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's what's interesting, Wolf. And this is what I'm taking away from all of this, as I listen to these politicians and also go out onto the streets throughout Baghdad and greater Baghdad, is that it's very easy to go into certain areas and say things are improving. For example, I went into Dora Market yesterday with General David Petraeus. Things are improving. Shops are opening up. But, still, Al Qaida is active in the area. They're still dealing with a death squad. So, I could see a John McCain coming forward today, like he did, saying, look, I'm not saying this is mission accomplished, but there's still a lot going on. There's still a lot of challenges. There's still a lot of danger. It's the easy answer, Wolf, for anybody. There are improvements going on throughout this country, but, also, there are incredible security challenges and violence that plagues this country. BLITZER: Kyra, when you went out with General Petraeus this weekend and you walked around some streets in Baghdad, describe for us how much security he and you had. PHILLIPS: I would probably say triple the presidential entourage, Wolf. (LAUGHTER) Now, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but in all seriousness, outer, inner, and perimeter security; sniper teams, personal security guards, humvees, helicopters -- you name it. That man cannot travel this country without security. And he even said to me, you know, we'd be in a lot of trouble -- all these men around me would be in a lot of trouble if anything happened to me. There's a great responsibility. He is the general commanding all U.S. forces in Iraq. He has to have security. Anywhere he goes, he must be protected because he's the man in charge of all the military action that's happening in this country. So, yes, we went through Dora Market, and we had security everywhere. He wore a soft cap. I didn't wear a helmet. We felt comfortable. Why? We had lots of security. BLITZER: But for average -- I take it then -- correct me if I'm wrong, Kyra, and you've been there for a few weeks now -- for a U.S. soldier to simply leave his or her base and get into a car and drive to a coffee shop... PHILLIPS: No, forget it. BLITZER: ... go to a restaurant and just meet with a bunch of friends. That's outrageous? PHILLIPS: No. That's a pipe dream, Wolf. I mean, I wish -- even driving down the streets of Baghdad, you see the closed-down restaurants. People aren't going to -- whether you're a journalist, whether you're military, whether you're a leader in this country, whether you're an Iraqi civilian, you are taking a risk. I talked to shop owners on the streets. I can only stay there a short time. Sometimes I can't even go there at all. I'm a target. I'm an American. But even the Iraqis say, yes, I have to come to work, but every day I'm worried something is going to happen to me. Everybody is at risk. There is not one type of individual that is safe in this country, including the extremists.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Justice Minister Resigns over Political Deadlock;
Talabani: Success in Talks with Sunni Guerrillas

Iraqi Justice Minister Hashem al-Shibli, has resigned. A Sunni, he represented the Iraqi National List of Iyad Allawi. The BBC suggests that one of his motives was the contradiction between his constitutional duty to oversee the upcoming referendum in Kirkuk Province concerning its possible annexation to the Kurdistan Regional Government, and his own party's opposition to the referendum.

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Iraqi parliamentarians are rebelling against the decision of the cabinet on Thursday to implement article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which provides for a referendum in Kirkuk Province on whether to join the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Iraqi National List of Iyad Allawi (25 seats), the [Sunni] Iraqi Accord Front of Adnan Dulaimi (44 seats) and the [Shiite] United Iraqi Alliance of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim were involved in Saturday's discussions. That is, the Arab MPs are rethinking their approval of article 140. It would not be in the constitution unless the Shiite fundamentalists of the United Iraqi Alliance had agreed to allow it in summer, 2005.

Al-Hayat says that al-Shibli's resignation reflects negatively on the Iraqi political scene. In resigning, he said that "the political process is heading toward a deadend," casting doubt on the ability of the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki "to achieve a genuine national reconciliation."

Meanwhile, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, maintains that some Sunni Arab guerrilla groups have reached out to the government and indicated a willingness to give up their arms and join the political process. (Talabani has said these things before, but it is hard to see in what way these contacts are yielding any practical political gains.)

Al-Hayat quotes Iraqi government sources as saying that "The negotiation map now ongoing concentrates on opening channels of contact with outside forces deriving from three pivots: Dissident Baathists from the Saddam Hussein period or before it, such as Salah Umar al-Ali, Muhammad Dabdab, and others; Baathists who fled abroad from Iraq after the American occupation of 2003; and winning over those who split from Saddam's vice president, Izzat al-Duri, who are led by Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmad, Muzhir Matani `Awad (both formerly members of the leadership) and the former minister `Abd al-Tawwab al-Mullah Huwaysh."

Talabani is also said to be in contact with cells of the "Islamic State of Iraq" in al-Anbar Province. He is seeking to take advantage of the split introduced when the al-Zawba' tribe, which supplies the fighters of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, joined the opposition to "al-Qaeda" or the Salafi religious revivalists.

They said that the "Islamic Army" group is now fighting al-Qaeda in Dur, Samarra, al-Alam, Tuz Khurmato and al-Dulu'iyyah, and the tribes of al-Dayiniyah and al-Izzah in Diyala. Other groups with which there have been contacts include the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the Black Banners, the Army of the Orthodox Caliphs, and the Umar Brigades, with whom an attempt is being made to mobilize them against the Islamic State in Iraq.

[Al-Hayat has been issuing this same report for over a year, about contacts with the Sunni Arab guerrillas, and it is hard to see what has come of it all.]

Al-Hayat says that political violence left 37 Iraqis dead on Saturday.

Reuters reports the following incidents among many others:

' KIRKUK - Gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying civilian workers employed at an Iraqi military base near Hawija, 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, killing eight and wounding two, police said. Four brothers were among the dead.

MAHMUDIYA - Three mortar bombs hit a residential area in Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding four, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed five people and wounded 22 outside the Sadrayn hospital in the Shi'ite district of Sadr City in Baghdad, police said.

HILLA - A car bomb killed four people and wounded 23 in the Shi'ite city of Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

TUZ KHURMATO - A suicide car bomb targeting Shi'ite day labourers killed two people and wounded 11 in the town of Tuz Khurmato, 70 km (43 miles) south of Kirkuk, police said.'

McClatchy reports more political violence, including incidents in Diyala Province. Police found 10 bodies on the streets of the capital on Saturday.

AP reports that former appointed prime minister of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, has spoken critically of the United States. He and his bloc are pushing back against the new petroleum bill, which the US government wants the al-Maliki government to shepherd through the Iraqi parliament.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

25 Dead in Sectarian Killings in Mosul;
Muqtada Calls for Massive Demonstrations;
Talabani admits that US is Occupying Iraq

The sectarian killings in the northern city of Tal Afar appear to have spilled over onto another northern city, that of Mosul, where police found 25 bodies Thursday according to Reuters.

Amer Mohsen at Iraqslogger summarizes Iraqi press reports on the reluctance of Iraqi authorities to punish 18 Shiite policemen from Tal Afar who were implicated in attacks on Sunnis. Many policemen in Iraq were recruited from the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the leading party in the ruling Shiite bloc.

US diplomatic officials have been scrambling to contain the damage done by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia when he addressed the Arab League and complained of the "illegitimate" American "occupation" of Iraq. They now have a new headache! Iraqi President Jalal Talabani agrees with King Abdullah! The generally pro-American Talabani, a major Kurdish leader as well, admitted that the US presence had turned into a ruinous occupation for his country, when his turn came to address Arab League delegates.

The controversy is a little silly. As Al-Jeeran.Net notes, US officials have in the past repeatedly admitted that under international law their troops in Iraq fall into the category of occupation forces.

According to Sawt al-Iraq writing in Arabic, young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had a sermon read out in his name in Kufa and Baghdad mosques on Friday in which he called for massive anti-US demonstrations in Najaf on April 9, the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to US forces in 2003. That Muqtada chose this date is deliberately ironic, since pro-American Iraqi expatriate politicians have argued for making that date a sort of Iraqi Independence Day. There had earlier been a debate over whether it was appropriate to honor a day that witnessed a Western military incursion into the country.

Shaikh Abd al-Hadi al-Muhammadawi read out the sermon in the Kufa Friday Prayers Mosque. Muqtada demanded that US troops leave the country "even if the American Congress were to decide they should stay in Iraq." He insisted, "The issue of whether US troops should remain in Iraq depends on the Iraqi people, and no one has a right to extend their stay or to demand that they remain."

He added, "The departure of American forces from Iraq at the present time will bestow security on Iraq, represent a victory for peace, and mete out defeat to terrorism." He called on the Iraqi people "to fly the Iraqi flag above their homes and buildings and government offices to signify Iraqi sovereignty and independence."

He also pressed on all sections of the population "the necessity of letting the entire world hear that Iraqis reject the occupation."

He criticized "what has befallen Iraq during the Occupation, including tyranny, despotism, and the shedding of the blood of innocents." He complained about the lack of health and city services."

He added, "The Occupiers did not content themselves with all this, but also isolated Iraq from the Arab and Islamic worlds" and he accused the US, saying "they have proved able to sow the seeds of sectarian and ethnic conflict among Arabs and others, including between Arabs and non-Arabs among Muslims and others." He called on the people of Iraq to aid Iraq and to stand with it. An English language AP report on the speech is here.

In Najaf, Sadr al-Din al-Qubanchi of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq preached a sermon at the Mosque of the Shrine of Ali in which he complained that the final communique of the Arab League summit on Iraq neglected to condemn terrorism and the practice of arbitrary excommunication. [He is saying that the Sunni Arabs dominating the Arab League have a blind spot about the atrocities committed against Shiites in Iraq by Sunni Arab guerrillas and about the pernicious practice of takfir or excommunication, in which radical Salafi Sunnis declare that Shiites are not Muslims at all and therefore deserve to be killed.]

Al-Qubanchi added that Baathists are guilty until proven innocent. [This statement was his protest against plans to grant Baathists amnesty and restore to them jobs in the government.]

Meanwhile, Ilaf reports in Arabic that Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i, the clerical agent in the Shiite holy city of Karbala of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, attacked in his Friday sermon the political parties in parliament that he said support terrorsm. [He is referring to Sunni Arab blocs].

Al-Karbala'i also expressed reservations about a recent plan to give jobs to Iraqis who had belonged to the Baath Party. He urged caution lest it "give criminal individuals from the security agencies of the former regime a loophole that allows them to return to important jobs."

AP notes that this step is one of four pressed on the Iraqi government by Bush:

' The Bush administration has set out four benchmarks for al-Maliki's government. One is passage of the de-Baathification law as a way to reconcile with Sunni insurgents. Aides say al-Maliki has been warned by U.S. officials they will withdraw support for his shaky government if that proposal and three others -- one on fair distribution of oil revenues, one setting a date for regional elections and several constitutional amendments -- aren't passed in parliament by June 30. All four would benefit the Sunni minority that ruled over the oppressed Shiite majority for decades. '

That both the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution of Iraq and Sistani appear to be opposed to amnesty for leading Baathists augurs ill for the new government plan. Frankly, it augurs ill for Iraq.

Tomdispatch.com serves up a rich smorgasbord of analysis on Iraq, including Tony Karon on Condi Rice and diplomacy, and Mike Davis on how car bombings are wrecking the new security plan.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bombers kill over 130, wounding over two Hundred
US Embassy Orders Personal Armor in Green Zone

Oh, yeah. Those rightwing Iraqi bloggers that Bush depends on for his news about the country have sure imposed security on Iraq by their sunny faces.

Reuters reports on the horrific and massive bombings carried out by Sunni Arab guerrillas against Shiite civilians in markets that left at least 130 dead and over 200 wounded. At a market in the Shaab district of Baghdad two suicide bombers wearing bomb belts killed 76 persons, mainly women and children, and left about 100 wounded. Reuters says that a senior Iraqi health minister said, "It is impossible to tell the exact number of dead because we are basically counting body parts."

The bombers in Baghdad had to use bomb vests because increased security and checkpoints have made it more difficult to pull of a big car bombing in the capital. I had thought that car bombings could actually be stopped with better security techniques. But I don't know what you could possibly do to stop the deployment of a bomb belt in a market by local inhabitants. This development is very depressing.

On the other hand, in Diyala Province, which is not getting the same number of troops or checkpoints as Baghdad, is a place they can still carry off truck bombings. And the guerrillas did, deploying 3 car bombs and mortar strikes in the small town of Khalis against the Shiite minority there. They killed 53 and wounded 103. They saved the third bomb for when the police showed up to respond to the second, setting it off on their arrival and killing a lot of them.

The US embassy in Baghdad circulated a memo to all Americans working for the US government in the Green Zone. It ordered them to wear protective gear whenever they were outside in the Green Zone, including just moving from one building to another. Guerrillas have managed to lob a number of rockets into the area in recent days, and killed one US GI on Tuesday.

The Green Zone is therefore actually the Red Zone. I.e., it is no longer an area of good security contrasting to what is around it. Senator McCain was more wrong than can easily be imagined. Not only can American officials not just stroll through Baghdad districts unarmed and unprotected by armor, but they can't even move that way from one building to the next inside the Green Zone!

Al-Hayat writing in Arabic confirmed that Shiite police particiapted in the massacre of Sunnis on Sunday at Tel Afar. Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi called for a purge of Shiite militia elements from the Iraqi security forces.

The US Thursday expressed puzzlement over the statement by Saudi King Abdullah that the US was engaged in an illegitimate occupation of Iraq. Various government spokesmen pointed to UN Security Council resolutions authorizing US troops in Iraq.

But those ex post facto resolutions cannot go back and change the fact that the Bush administration violated the UN charter when it invaded Iraq in spring of 2003. I think that is what King Abdullah was driving at.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Shiite Fighters Kill 70 Sunnis in Tal Afar
Saudi King Abdullah Condemns Illegitimate US Occupation of Iraq

Kim Gamel of AP reports that Shiite militants and some Shiite policemen went on a rampage in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar on Wednesday, killing 70 Sunnis indiscriminately, injuring another 30, and kidnapping 40 others. The Shiites were taking revenge for a Sunni truck bombing of Shiites on Tuesday that killed 80 persons and wounded 185. According to what I was told by a knowledgeable US resident of the city a couple of years ago, Tal Afar is 80 percent Turkmen, and the Sunnis are a slight majority there. Gamel says that the Shiites are the majority.

Guerrillas have been firing rockets at will into the Green Zone, the supposedly safe district of downtown Baghdad where the US embassy and Iraqi government offices are located. Reuters reports that on Wednesday they killed a US soldier in the Green Zone that way, and wounded another. On Tuesday they had killed a US contractor in the zone. Also on Tuesday, guerrillas had killed a US Marine in al-Anbar province. Folks, when guerrillas can kill a US soldier inside the Green Zone, Baghdad is just not safe.

Guerrillas in Fallujah attacked Iraqi and American troops with a chlorine gas truck, wounding 7 US GIs and 8 Iraqi troops. There were scattered bombings and killings in the rest of the country.

Saudi King Abdullah said on Wednesday at the opening of the Arab League meetings, "“In beloved Iraq, blood is shed among our brothers while there is an illegitimate foreign occupation and a hateful sectarianism that is threatening to develop into a civil war . . .”

King Abdullah followed up on these harsh criticisms of the US by cancelling his planned appearance at a White House dinner in April. The Saudi royal family is fit to be tied that Bush gave Iraq away to fundamentalist Shiite parties that have close ties to Iran.

Although the Saudi statement is remarkable for its brutal frankness and coldness toward the United States, its real significance is its slam of the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Abdullah has not only said that the US presence is an illegal occupation, he has said that the al-Maliki government is nothing more than Shiite sectarian hegemony. The Saudis are known for their behind the scenes diplomacy and their public discretion. King Abdullah is hopping mad, to talk this way. It augurs ill for US-Saudi relations. Abdullah is also angry that Bush is letting the Palestine issue fester and that he pushed for open Palestinian elections but then cut off the Hamas government once it was elected. Abdullah thinks Bush is pursuing irrational policies, the effect of which is to destabilize the Middle East. He is so angry that he sounds a bit like Iraqi Sunni fundamentalist leader Harith al-Dhari, who is connected in some shadowy way with the Sunni guerrillas fighting the US. (See the interview, below).

Iran is offering to settle the issue of its capture of 15 British sailors and Marines in what it maintains were Iranian waters, if only the British will admit they were in the wrong.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Al-Dhari on Year 4 of American Iraq

The US government Open Source Center translates an interview with Sunni fundamentalist leader Harith al-Dhari, a leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars, printed by al-Safir newspaper in Lebanon.

' Head of Iraqi Muslim Scholars Interviewed on 4th Anniversary of 'Invasion': Interview with Shaykh Harith al-Dari, head of the [Sunni] Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, by Khalil Harb; Date and place not given: "Harith al-Dari tells Al-Safir the solution lies in the departure of the occupation, the formation of a national army, and the abolishing of the political process; Al-Dari praises firmness of Syrian stand, hopes for a Saudi role to rescue Iraq and for rapprochement with Iran; the resistance will remain and attacks on civilians is not jihad; Al-Maliki is worse than Al-Ja'fari and our relationship with Al-Sadr is deteriorating." ' Al-Safir Tuesday, March 27, 2007 (Harb) Four years have passed since the occupation of Iraq. What does this mean to you? (Al-Dari) It means the worst four years of my life and the life of every sincere Iraqi citizen that is loyal to his homeland and nation. (Harb) In your opinion, what are the most dangerous consequences of the war? (Al-Dari) If the war continues and the occupation does not leave soon, the most dangerous consequences of the war would be the disintegration of the Iraqi social fabric, the partition of Iraq, God forbid, and the transformation of its demographic structure. Another serious consequence would be deepening the social rifts among the sons of Iraq. On the level of the neighboring countries and the region, many problems and incidents would erupt and only God knows their magnitude. Many signs pertaining to these problems and incidents have already begun to loom. (Harb) In light of the position of the Association of Muslim Scholars regarding what has been happening in Iraq during the years of the occupation, do you think that you have been wrong in any of your positions? Have the events demonstrated that the positions you have taken on the major issues been sound positions? Would you cite some examples? (Al-Dari) I do not think that we in the Association of Muslim Scholars made a mistake in any position we have taken so far both on the political level as well as on the level of Shari'ah. The events have demonstrated the soundness of our positions. For instance, take our position on the so-called political process. From the very beginning, we said that it is a failed process that would not lead to the liberation of Iraq and to rescuing it from the situation in which the occupation has put it. Furthermore, this process does not provide us with the security and social living conditions that are needed. The events have shown the soundness of what we had expected. This political process was designed to be a cover to the US project and was established on sectarian and ethnic foundations. There is also our position on the constitution that was imposed by the occupation and the forces that have imposed their hegemony on Iraq. These forces inserted articles and paragraphs in the constitution that might lead to dividing the land of Iraq and the people of Iraq and might destroy Iraq's Arab and Islamic identity. Another example, which is the most important, is our position on the occupation. From the start, we demanded the departure of the occupation - and at least the scheduling of this departure - and we said that it is the basis of the whole problem. As the days passed, we saw the savagery, butchery, and bad intentions of the occupation that led to the strengthening of the resistance against it. Those that opposed our position in the past are now asking for scheduling. Another example is our position on the federation that is intended to divide Iraq and that many known internal and external quarters are endorsing. We took an opposing stand to this federation and we rejected it because it represents the wishes of the enemies of Iraq, especially Israel. Last but not least, there is our unionist, moderate, and patriotic Islamic approach that we took and to which we adhered from the first days of the occupation. We stuck to this approach despite the psychological and security pressures that were used against us in order to drag us to adopt sectarian and factional discourses. (Harb) In your opinion, what is the ideal way out from what Iraq is going through? (Al-Dari) (The ideal way out) is canceling the political process that has brought all these evils and calamities to Iraq and that has brought it to the brink of the abyss that was expected. This political process should be replaced with a strong government that is reinforced with the nucleus of a strong national army that is loyal to Iraq and to all its sons rather than to the sectarian and factional parties and militias. This should be accompanied with a serious scheduling of the total withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq without delay. As we have repeatedly pointed out and warned, the events and the positions have shown that it is the occupation that holds all the threads of this dirty game. (Harb) Do you consider Al-Maliki's government is generally better than its predecessors and why? (Al-Dari) Al-Maliki's government is worst than the governments that preceded it. It is worse even from the government of his colleague Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. Al-Maliki's government is considered an extension of Al-Ja'fari's government in objectives, trends, and conduct. It is openly biased on the sectarian level. Al-Maliki's government protects the criminal and killing gangs and it defends the actions of the militias. (Harb) Your stand opposing the occupation had been clear from the start. Did the Americans try to contact you in the past few years to win you over to their policy in Iraq? When and how? (Al-Dari) The Americans did not contact us directly except once at the beginning of 2005 and prior to the first elections. They asked the French ambassador to act as mediator because we knew him from his frequent visits to the association - especially after the abduction of the French journalists - and he sympathized with us and was dissatisfied with the practices of the occupation in Iraq. We accepted his intercession. A delegation came to us made up of the US Charge D'Affaires - in lieu of the ambassador called Negroponte - and a number of US Army generals and officers. We and a number of members of the Association of Muslim Scholars met with them in Egypt and the association met with them in Baghdad. The purpose of the visit was to confirm the support of the association for the elections. They said that the elections would contribute to bringing security and stability in Iraq. We told them: What would contribute to bringing security and stability in Iraq is giving hope to the Iraqi people that they will leave Iraq and not the elections that will bring a weak government that will ask you to remain in Iraq. He said: We do not agree. I told him: Yes, we do not agree and the meeting was over. After this meeting, we have not met with any of them to this date, praise be to God. (Harb) Many have wagered that the resistance against the occupation would come to an end, but the days have shown that this did not take place. What is your comment? (Al-Dari) Yes, many have wagered and many have conspired that the resistance would end or would be stopped but it continued. It disappointed them and dashed all their expectations. In fact, it gained strength and became more effective against the enemies and their agents. The resistance foiled and continues to foil their schemes in Iraq because it was not driven merely by emotions or incorrect calculations of the material power of the enemies as some have wrongly thought. Therefore, the resistance will continue as long as the occupation is on the land of Iraq. Anyone that thinks otherwise would be wrong. (Harb) Some are arguing against the resistance operations. How do you distinguish between the resistance against the occupation forces and the attacks against civilians by any faction or sect? (Al-Dari) The difference between the resistance and other forces is very clear except to those that hate the resistance against the occupation forces or think badly of it either because they are agents or are envious of the resistance. We - and others like us that recognize the legitimacy of resistance and the right of nations to resist against their enemies and occupiers - believe that the resistance should be against the occupying enemies and their obvious agents that cooperate with, support, and fight with the occupiers. Those that target innocent and peaceful Iraqis from all sects, denominations, and faiths are condemned criminals that transgress against Shari'ah and are outside the law and the national values. They are like the enemies and occupiers of the homeland regardless to which sect or faction or faith they belong. (Harb) How true are the reports that are spread every now and then that the resistance is a Sunni resistance only, that the death squads are Shiite, and that the suicide bombers are Sunni terrorists? In your opinion, what is the purpose of using such classifications? (Al-Dari) The resistance in Iraq is an Islamic and national resistance in which most of the components of the Iraqi people participate and the majority are Sunnis. As for the death squads, most of them belong to the militias of the Shiite parties and the Kurdish political parties that are participating in the government. These do not represent the masses of our Shiite and Kurdish brothers. They represent the agendas of the parties to which they belong only. Most of the Shias and the Kurds are against them and they dissociate themselves from their criminal deeds. As for the suicide bombers, the majority of them are Sunni Iraqis and others that represent the policy of one known faction of the resistance. At first, their operations were directed against the occupation forces only and later expanded to include the government forces these forces helped the occupation forces to repulse the resistance and to attack some cities that reject the occupation, such as Al-Fallujah, Samarra, Al-Najaf, and other cities. It is noted that this kind is almost ending with simpler alternatives although the media outlets sometimes mention this in official inaccurate announcements that are often hasty. From the start, the association opposed this style because it is not necessary and due to the dangers inherent in its tragic consequences in most cases. (Harb) For quite a time, your relationship with the Al-Sadrist current was good, but in recent months, it appears that this relationship has deteriorated. Why? (Al-Dari) Yes, our relationship with the Al-Sadrist current and its leader Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr was good due to his patriotic position in the beginning that rejected the occupation, the political process, and the federation. But he retreated, handed over the arms of his army to the government, and participated in the military operation. The militias of his army - the Al-Mahdi Army - became involved in the ethnic cleansing operations. They turned into tools manipulated by the occupation, the Iranian intelligence service, and the Badr organization that breached his ranks and steered him toward the despicable designs of sectarian cleansing that led to the fall of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. However, Al-Sayyid Muqtada did not condemn or denounce these criminal acts clearly and called for them. Thus, it was natural for the relationship between us to lose trust and to deteriorate. (Harb) One of the consequences of the invasion and occupation are the attempts to foment a sectarian conflict in Iraq. How are you dealing with this? (Al-Dari) One of the goals - not the consequences - of the invasion and the occupation was to foment sectarian and ethnic strife in Iraq. This was obvious in several matters: For instance, weapons were left to be looted by anyone without any objection by the occupation forces. The Governing Council was formed on sectarian bases. The drafting of the constitution that consecrated hegemony was left in the hands of the Shiite and Kurdish political leaders that support the US project. Other components of the people were marginalized, including the majority of the Shias and the Kurds that reject the occupation. The elections that were overseen by the occupation were rigged in favor of the interests of its known allies. Despite all these exposed to foment sedition, the occupation did not succeed. This is due to God Almighty first and to the steadfastness and fraternal and patriotic cohesion of the Iraqis throughout history. When they failed to ignite civil war, they resorted to the satanic act of detonating the mausoleums of the two imams Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari, may peace be upon them. This act was carried out by the security organs of the Interior Ministry with the supervision of the intelligence service of a neighboring country and the knowledge of the Americans. This led to the organized criminals deeds that were masterminded by the security forces of the Iraqi government that was led by Dr Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. These criminal deeds were reinforced with fatwas several religious authorities issued that and that were based on the statement issued by the highest Shiite religious authority that accused a specific side minutes after the news was announced without verifying the quarter that actually carried out that heinous criminal deed. The religious authority accused the Saddamists, the takfiris (Muslims that hold other Muslims as infidels), and the Al-Nawasib (pejorative term used by Shias to describe Sunnis). He and his followers know who is meant by Al-Nawasib. He accused them of committing the atrocious criminal deeds that were actually perpetrated by mobs and militias that are part of certain Shiite political components that are well known, such as Badr, the Al-Mahdi Army, and others. Despite all this, the situation did not deteriorate into a civil war due to the self-restraint and discipline that the Sunnis demonstrated. The Association (of Muslim Scholars) urged this self-restraint in order to contain the sedition that was planned by those we just mentioned. In our efforts, we were helped by brothers Shaykh Jawad al-Khalisi, Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Ali al-Baghdadi, Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Mahmud al-Husni al-Sarkhi, and other figures and well known patriotic authorities. (Harb) In your opinion, who is the primary beneficiary from the sectarian sedition and the slaughtering on the basis of one's identity card? Why do some organizations of the resistance sometimes claim responsibility for attacks against civilians? Is this not wrong? (Al-Dari) The immediate beneficiary from the sectarian sedition and the slaughtering on the basis of one's identity card are the enemies of Iraq and the enemies of Iraq's unity and power led by the occupation. It has been proven with irrefutable evidence that the occupation stands behind many of the evil and criminal quarters that target the sons of our people. After the occupation, those that stand to gain are its allies, the advocates of sectarian and separatist schemes, and the agents of the countries that hate Iraq and that do not wish the welfare of Iraq. As for the targeting of civilians, this is due to many factors. Some of these factors are purely sectarian in character, other factors are ideological, and others are destructive and intended to foment sedition and shuffle the cards in order to reach a certain specific goal or objective that may include pure vengeance and revenge. This serves the interests of those that promote sectarian sedition and slaughtering on the basis of one's identity card. Some organizations of the resistance sometimes endorse such actions for reasons of their own. But this is a wrong endorsement and is prohibited by Shari'ah. It is not an act of acceptable jihad and does not help its proponents to reach their legitimate goals, if they have legitimate goals. We in the Association (of Muslim Scholars) have denounced such un-Islamic and inhuman acts and methods. We pray to God to distance us from such perpetrators regardless to which faction or sect they may belong. (Harb) How do you think can the Arab countries help in rescuing Iraq from its current situation? Which are the countries that are most influential in this regard? (Al-Dari) The Arab countries can rescue Iraq from its current conditions by using their geographic, material, and political potentials and resources. They can also rescue Iraq by using what the Iraqi resistance made available to them when it obstructed and foiled the US schemes and made the United States consult these countries or seek their help to resolve its predicament in Iraq. As to how the Arab countries can rescue Iraq, there are many ways to do so and these ways are obvious to these countries. God Almighty will guide those that are willing to bear the responsibility for such an honor. The countries that can play such a role are first, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in view of its known weight in many vital aspects. Saudi Arabia is followed by Egypt and then the rest of the Arab countries that are ready to play such a role. (Harb) Is it possible to see a better relationship between you and Iran in the near future since you are saying that Iran is determined to evict the occupation from Iraq, which is your primary goal as well? Is it possible to have a rapprochement between you since this would create a positive climate in the Iraqi street and the region? (Al-Dari) Since we became afflicted with the occupation, we have been concerned to have a good relationship with all the neighbors although some of them, particularly Iran, cooperated with the occupation against us. Despite this, we wish to have a stronger relationship with Iran than with others in view of its good neighborliness and the good effect this has on conditions in Iraq for many reasons. Unfortunately, however, our hopes were dashed when we saw Iran entering Iraq, meddling in its affairs, and favoring one faction of the sons of Iraq over others and overlooking their wishes and conduct even if they are at the expense of Iraq's unity and the interests of Iraq's other sons. Iran is accepting and blessing the political process although it is illegitimate. It is keeping silent over all the practices and actions carried out by its allies and parties and currents that support it despite our advice to Iran through some of its officials that have visited Iraq. We remained silent and did not comment on Iran's intervention and bias for about the first three years of the occupation. When we lost hope that they would reconsider their stand, we expressed our opinion and we were among the last to express our opinion on their blatant intervention in Iraq and their designs on Iraq. Nevertheless, we hope they would reconsider their stand on Iraq for their sake in the future and for the sake of Iraq and the region. We hope that they would shut the doors of evil that are open against us and against them. We hope they would realize that good neighborliness is in the interest of all and will lead to the security and stability that we need and that the whole region needs. As for your question on a possible rapprochement between us, we say that this can happen if Iran can show us that it is dealing with all the Iraqis without being biased in favor of one faction and if it gives up its designs and ambitions in Iraq. (Harb) How do you describe your relationship with Syria? What is your position on the accusations leveled against Syria that it supports the terrorists in Iraq? (Al-Dari) Our relationship with Syria is good. It is based on respect and appreciation for its firm fraternal stands toward Iraq and the Iraqis that are represented by its opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Syria does not bargain on Iraq or on its interests despite the strong pressures and threats against it. It describes the occupation as occupation and the resistance that targets the occupation as resistance rather than terrorism as others call it. Syria warmly hosts more than one million Iraqis that have been displaced by the abnormal conditions in Iraq. For these stands and other stands, we appreciate Syria. We owe Syria a debt of loyalty for its Arab and humanitarian stands toward its brethren in Iraq that are going through hard times. In view of Syria's opposition to the occupation and in view of the fact that it was not dragged behind its schemes, we are not surprised that Syria is being subjected to all sorts of chargers, including the charge of supporting the terrorists. If what is intended by the term terrorists are those that are resisting against the occupation, I do not know of an Arab country - regardless of whether it is Syria or another Arab country - that is supporting them materially. However, if what is intended (by the word terrorists) are those that are targeting the innocent sons of Iraq from all the factions to carry out their hostile schemes and agendas against Iraq and its sons, these are supported only by the enemies of Iraq and the enemies of Iraq's unity. Syria supports Iraq and its independence and unity. It does not support its enemies. (Harb) Do you contemplate returning to Iraq soon? The Iraqi government has ordered your arrest. Are you worried that it might ask the Interpol to apprehend you? (Al-Dari) Yes, I think of returning soon and when the reasons are available. As for the Interpol, I am not worried about that. The Interpol is not a policeman of the Iraqi government that carries out its orders or its arbitrary and illegal demands.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

McCain Checks into Cloud Cuckooland
116 Iraqis Killed in Day of Carnage

Senator John McCain has contracted Rumsfeld's Disease. This malady consists of a combination of bad temper, misuse of language to obfuscate reality, and a Panglossian optimism in the face of stubborn, sanguinary facts on the ground.

McCain, for instance, hailed that deployment of Iraqi brigades "at or above 75% of their programmed strength"! Put another way, a quarter of the Iraqi troops ordered to Baghdad technically speaking went AWOL instead! If a quarter of all US troops ordered to Iraq fled to Canada or refused to leave their home base, that would be a catastrophe. But McCain manages to deploy weasel words to make this incredible statistic seem a positive thing. Moreover, even his basic facts may be wrong. Last I knew, one of the Iraqi brigades ordered to Baghdad only came at half strength.

McCain alleged that only about 500 civilians were killed in political violence in Baghdad in February, down from December's toll.

But McCain is wrong to look only at Baghdad. Here is what I wrote on March 1:

An Iraqi official leaked government figures on Iraqi civilians killed in January and February, and tried to spin the US press by saying that there had been a significant drop in such casualties.

But this official reported deaths for 1-31 January and compared them for the toll 1-27 February. Uh, the per day total isn't that different, it is just that February is a short month and the figures were given through the day before it ended!

1990 divided by 31 is 64 per day.

1646 divided by 27 is 61 per day.

While human life is precious and a drop of 3 a day is welcome, I wouldn't call that drop significant.

That is, the Iraqi government statistics for deaths in February were not 500 but 1646. And, as I pointed out, the decline in daily deaths is so far small. In addition, it would not actually be good news that 500 innocent civilians were slaughtered in Baghdad alone in February. Baghdad is a fourth of Iraq by population-- that would be a monthly death rate of about 2000, some 24,000 a year (the Lancet study published last fall found that deaths from violence occur at a similar rate throughout the country). All the real numbers are much worse than the above discussion implies, since passive information- gathering is notoriously unreliable.

McCain ignores the incredible violence against Shiite pilgrims during Ashura, in which hundreds were massacred, mostly outside Baghdad. That is, concentrating on Baghdad is a fallacy. The indications are that the guerrillas are compensating for the higher cost of their operations in Baghdad by shifting some their activities to other cities, such as Baquba and Tal Afar. But they have by no means given up the fight in Baghdad itself, as anyone who followed violence there could tell you.

Then there is this sad exchange on CNN between Wolf Blitzer and McCain:

[Blitzer Clip]: Everything we hear if you leave the so-called Green Zone, the international zone, and you go outside of that secure area, relatively speaking, you’re in trouble if you’re an American.

[McCAIN CLIP]: That’s where you ought to catch up on things, Wolf. General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee. I think you oughta catch up. You are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. We certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media. But I know for a fact that much of the success we’re experiencing, including the ability of Americans in many parts. Not all, we have a long, long way to go. We’ve only got two of the five brigades here to go into some neighborhoods in Baghdad in a secure fashion.

So then Wolf Blitzer asked Michael Ware, the intrepid CNN correspondent who is actually in Baghdad, about this comment. Ware replied:

WARE: Well, I’d certainly like to bring Sen. McCain up to speed if he ever gives me the opportunity. And if I have any difficulty hearing you right now Wolf, that’s because of the helicopters circling overhead and the gun battle that is blazing away just a few blocks down the road. Is Baghdad any safer? Sectarian violence, one particular type of violence, is down. But none of the American generals here on the ground have anything like Sen. McCain’s confidence. I mean, Sen. McCain’s credibility now on Iraq, which has been so solid to this point, is now being left out hanging to dry. To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I’d love Sen. McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.

And to think that Gen. David Petraeus travels this city in an unarmed humvee? I mean, in the hour since Sen. McCain’s said this, I’ve spoken to military sources and there was laughter down the line. I mean, certainly the general travels in a humvee. There’s multiple humvees around it, heavily armed. There’s attack helicopters, predator drones, sniper teams, all sorts of layers of protection. So, no, Sen. McCain is way off base on this one.

Remember when, in summer of 2003, Donald Rumsfeld asserted that there was no guerrilla war in Iraq? Remember when he implied that the violence there was no worse than a little race riot in Benton Harbor, Michigan? McCain increasingly sounds like that.

McCain has fallen ill with Rumsfeld's Disease in part because he is losing in the polls because the public doesn't like his gung ho stance on Iraq. If only, he thinks, he could convince the public that actually things are turning around there.

And in part he has succumbed to it because of frustration with his colleagues in the Senate, who just voted to get US troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. McCain thinks things have improved so much that his colleagues are basing their decisions on old information.

The greatest fallacy of all is in McCain's assumption that short-term changes in the Baghdad security environment, produced by deploying an extra US division there, can necessarily be translated into long-term gains. It is much more likely that guerrillas are just lying low and will come right back out when the Americans draw back down (the US can't keep an extra division in Iraq forever.)

McCain is typical of the hawks of his generation, which lost the Vietnam War. For many of them, a war on Iraq promised vindication and restoration of pride. It had all the delights of a Rambo movie, but the advantage of being real. The problem is that in both cases, Vietnam and Iraq, the US fought local nationalisms dressed up in universal ideologies (Communism, Islamism & Baathism). It is a losing proposition, for the most part. Local nationalisms mostly win out these days.

On Tuesday, AP reports that two massive truck bombings ripped through a market in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar, killing 63 persons and wounding dozens.

Al-Hayat, writing in Arabic, estimated the death toll from political violence in Iraq on Tuesday at 116. Truck bombers killed 17 and wound 32 in the Sunni Arab city of Ramadi north of Baghdad.

Reuters rounds up political violence in Iraq for Tuesday.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Green Zone Takes Rocket Fire
New Offer of Jobs to Baathists

Guerrillas fired a rocket into the Green Zone on Monday, shaking the US Embassy and Iraqi government offices but causing no casualties.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, has weighed in with Tehran to release 15 British sailors and Marines captured in what the Iranians claim were their territorial waters. Zebari says that they British were in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government and in accordance with UNSC resolutions, and were operating in Iraqi waters.

Former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray called for the immediate release of the British sailors, but admitted that the Iranians had a legal case for objecting to their activities. They were in disputed waters and checking for smuggled automobiles. Murray can't figure out how automobile smuggling in the Persian Gulf is any of the business of the British navy. He says it would be different if they had been checking on arms smuggling.

(Murray in a more recent posting points out that the
BBC reported that British scientists concluded that the Lancet report of last fall finding 600,000 excess violent deaths in Iraq since the Bush/Blair invasion was based on 'best practice.' The Blair government denounced the study when it appeared and seems to have buried the scientists' report, which it requested.)

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani will put forward new legislation offering an amnesty program for Baath officials. If they come in from the cold within 3 months, they can be restored to high office. The Debaathification Commission, headed by corrupt financier Ahmad Chalabi and on which Nuri al-Maliki played the role of hardliner earlier on, had excluded such figures from a role in public life. The problem is that the mere announcement of a three-month amnesty is highly unlikely to bring in from the cold the people who are now heading the Sunni Arab guerrilla movements. And, at a time when security is so bad that the vice premier is blown up with the connivance of his own security guards (and tribesmen), it can't be a pleasant prospect to be a Baathist branded as collaborator. AP suggests that the real motive for the measure is twofold. First, its announcement may take some pressure off the Iraqi government at this week's Arab League summit, where, as Iraqslogger notes, a draft proposal is said to urge abolition of the 'Debaathification Commission' and disbanding of Shiite militias. Second, rehabilitating the Baathists and being nicer to the Sunni Arabs is the platform on which former appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has been campaigning to form a new political bloc-- a campaign that has been met with some favor in neighboring Sunni Arab states and Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put his foot in his mouth by saying that US troops should stay in Iraq, otherwise the resulting chaos might cause the Hashemite monarchy of Jordan to fall. Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel and puts up with Israeli colonization of the West Bank even while condemning it-- i.e. Jordan functions as a de facto ally of Israel. Olmert sees its potential loss as a threat to Israeli security. The Jordanians are hopping mad about Olmert's comments. They see their regime as perfectly stable, whereas they wonder how long Olmert's government can last, with only 2% of Israelis expressing trust in him in polls. And, the Jordanians believe that the real threat to regional security is Israel's steadfast refusal to grant the Palestinians their own state within recognized and viable borders.

What the Jordanians are not saying, but is worth saying, is that if chaos in Iraq was a threat to the stability of Israel's neighbors and therefore to Israel itself, it was foolish for Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert to act as cheerleaders for an Iraq War back in 2002 and early 2003. War has unpredictable consequences. Olmert is wrong about the fragility of the Hashemite monarchy, but is right-- too late!-- that the violence in Iraq may well rebound against Israel.

Sunni Arab politicians meeting in Amman, Jordan are critical of the draft Iraqi petroleum law that has been presented to parliament by the Iraqi cabinet. The Monday Morning (Beirut) article contains these quotes:

' Faleh al-Khayat, a former head of planning at the Oil Ministry, warned that “major foreign oil firms are greedy and will covet Iraq’s oil wealth” if the bill is adopted. “If Iraq’s giant oilfields are developed, they would yield 80 percent of Iraq’s proven reserves estimated at 115 billion barrels”, he argued.

MP Saleh Mutlak of Iraq’s National Dialogue Front echoed him: “We have no need of foreign companies. We’re experienced enough to reap the fruit of our wealth”. Mutlak also said he feared the bill may not live up to government hopes that it will unify Iraq. “We don’t want a new law that will further divide us. We need a law that will unite the Iraqi people”. . . Motlak said Parliament in Baghdad should not ratify the bill “until we reach the appropriate climate for investments in Iraq”.

MP Ali Mashhadani agreed. “Our oil wealth is black gold that must be kept underground until security conditions are appropriate to take advantage of it. It has been entrusted to our safekeeping by the people we represent”. According to Mashhadani “Iraq has sold 125 billion dollars’ worth of oil since the start of the US-led occupation.” The Iraqi people have not benefited from this revenue and “are eating garbage”, Mashhadani said, suggesting that income from oil sales be given to the people in the form of state-subsidized “monthly ration cards” . . .

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Monday, including guerrillas' use of a roadside bomb in Zaafaraniya, Baghdad, to kill one policeman and wound 3 others. The report also says, 'A curfew was imposed in the town of Iskandariya 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad after clashes erupted between gunmen and security forces, police said. Mortars also landed in a central residential district, killing two and wounding four. ' In central Baghdad, a bombing killed 2 and wounded 5.

Sean Penn at an antiwar rally in San Francisco:

"Let's make this crystal clear: We do support our troops, but not the exploitation of them and their families. The money that's spent on this war would be better spent on building levees in New Orleans and health care in Africa and care for our veterans. Iraq is not our toilet. It's a country of human beings whose lives that were once oppressed by Saddam are now in 'Dante's Inferno.' "

Tom Engelhardt on how Americans are not actively protesting a war that opinion polls show them to widely oppose.