*An exploding mine wounded seven American soldiers in a vehicle that ran over it early Saturday near the border with Syria.

*In Najaf crowds demonstrated in protest of Friday's bombing. Some anti-American slogans were heard (the US is blamed for not providing enough security.) Najaf police have arrested some 19 suspects in Friday's massive car bombing. They say that some have confessed, and that some have clear ties to al-Qaeda and/or Saddam's secret police. I'd take all this with a large grain of salt. Apparently the criterion for arresting people was that they weren't local Najafis and were different in dress or outward appearance. A couple of Basrans in a coffee house were taken away in handcuffs at first, but the US military expressed extreme skepticism that they were involved. The Najaf police chief appears to have described some Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians picked up as "Wahhabis." Only most Saudis and Qataris are really properly so called, which does not increase confidence in the Najaf police's cultural knowledge of Sunnis. CNN kept talking about 2 Pakistanis arrested, but the UPI and other print articles do not refer to them. It is no doubt a confused scene. As for the alleged confessions, I suspect that a hapless Sunni looking at the furious crowds of Shiites in the street and promised police protection if he will cooperate might well choose to enter the penal system than to try to walk the streets again after having been fingered as a suspect. The Pakistani newspaper Dawn characterized the likely perpetrators as a mix of Saddam loyalists and Sunni radicals, and that is entirely possible. But I would be very surprised if the Najaf police have already cracked the case the way that they claim.

*A good overview of Saturday's events in Najaf is by Dawn (Karachi). See

http://www.dawn.com/
2003/08/31/top10.htm

In Arabic, the equally good al-Hayat article is worth looking at.

http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/
08-2003/20030830-31p01-01.txt/story.html

*Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum, a moderate Shiite cleric with ties to al-Da`wa and the Khoei foundation, announced that he was suspending his membership in the American-appointed Interim Governing Council because the IGC was unable to provide security. He complained bitterly that al-Hakim, the Najaf authorities, and the US all had been tipped that there would be a bombing aimed at assassinating al-Hakim, but that no extra steps had been taken to keep him safe. He maintained that some 600 people had been wounded in the blast. This qualified resignation clearly a protest against American failure to make Iraq secure in the post-war period. It is also a blow to the Bremer administration of Iraq, since Bahr al-Ulum is popular and a more credible liberal than Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Abdul Aziz, the brother of the late Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, who slain in the Friday attack, is the head of the paramilitary Badr Corps and has spoken about a vision of Iraq as an Islamic Republic in the far future, though it might have a democratic government in the short term. It seems clear that American nation-building attempts in Iraq have been hit by an earthquake.

*It is increasingly clear that the $4 bn. a month the US pays to keep its troops in Iraq is a pittance compared to what the Bremer administration will need for rebuilding Iraq. Although Bernard Lewis and the neocons promised us that Iraqi petroleum would pay for reconstruction, sabotage has made that impossible so far. So, folks, your tax dollars will be used to reconstruct a wealthy petroleum country in the Middle East. In other news, financial analysts are complaining about the complete lack of transparency in the circa $6 bn. Iraqi budget overseen by Mr. Bremer. Wouldn't we want to start new traditions of open information, democracy and transparency there?

*Bulgarian troops in Karbala have received rocket-propelled grenade fire for the fourth time, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat, and Bulgarian officials in Sophia are begining to worry about their troops being in a highly unsafe environment. Apparently danger was not what they thought they were signing up for when they joined a superpower in a coalition of the willing. It is remarkable that the Western press is almost silent about these attacks in the Shiite south, which clearly is not as stable as Mr. Bremer had claimed it was.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas near Baquba northeast of Baghdad fired rocket-propelled grenades at a US convoy, killing one US soldier and wounding four others. One of the wounded soldiers will have to lose his leg. A fair-sized bomb went off Friday outside the British military headquarters in the southern city of Basra, destroying two automobiles 100 yards from the HQ. No casualties were sustained from this bomb, which the British communique called "small."

*The black Toyota Land Cruiser (some say it was a Volkswagen bus) was parked at the south entrance of the shrine of Imam `Ali and its attached mosque. Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, 63, and his entourage emerged from the entrance and got into three black Toyota Land Cruisers. Al-Hakim always exited from the south gate after giving the Friday prayer sermon at the Imam Ali mosque. Suddenly the fourth vehicle, which resembled those of al-Hakim, exploded, sending spurts of flame into the sky. The ayatollah's Land Cruiser was left a tangled and charred mess, as were the other two with his aides. The adobe covering of the shrine entrance collapsed on other worshippers then about to exit. As of Friday evening, 17 corpses had been pulled out of the rubble there, but more were believed trapped beneath it. Two buildings on the other side of the street collapsed, one of which had a restaurant in it, and the other of which had a retail store. The customers were buried under the broken buildings. Ayatollah al-Hakim had delivered a sermon in which he had once again condemned Saddam and the Baath Party. (al-Zaman, al-Sharq al-Awsat)

Al-Hakim's political rival, the young Muqtada al-Sadr, immediately condemned the bombing and called for a three-day closure of offices to mourn the fallen religious leader. (Some analysts suspect Muqtada's followers, the Sadrists, in the bombing, but as you will see below I find that not very likely. It is true that there was no love lost between them.) Baqir's brother, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, serves on the American-appointed Interim Governing Council. He condemned the attack and pledged that their organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, would continue. He is now the head of it.

Baqir's father, Muhsin al-Hakim, had been the highest-ranking Shiite jurisprudent in Najaf in the 1960s. He died in 1970. Baqir was active in the al-Da`wa Party, which aimed at establishing a state based on Islamic law in Iraq, in the 1970s. In the late 1970s, in particular, the Shiites in Iraq were restive (it was the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). Baqir was imprisoned for a time, and survived several (some say 7) assassination attempts. In 1980 he fled to Iran, at a time when Saddam was killing Shiite clerics he feared after the Iranian Revolution. Membership in the al-Da`wa Party was declared a capital crime. Saddam also invaded Iran. Baqir was involved in the establishment of an umbrella group for Iraqi dissidents in Tehran called the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq in 1982. It included al-Da`wa initially. In `1984, al-Da`wa withdrew from SCIRI (or SAIRI), to maintain its independence. In 1984, as well, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim became the head of the Supreme Council.

SCIRI sent agents over the border to blow up things in Iraq, and developed a paramilitary called the Badr Brigades (later it grew to become the Badr Corps).
The Badr fighters infiltrated into Iraq, often through the swamps in the South, to carry out guerrilla attacks on the Baath government.

In the run-up to the American war on Iraq in 2002-2003, Baqir al-Hakim proved willing to cooperate with the Americans, despite being a hardliner close to Iranian Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. Al-Hakim believed in Khomeini's theory of clerical rule, but he was a pragmatist willing to accept a pluralistic, parliamentary government in Iraq initially. He thought the Shiite majority would eventually create an Islamic Republic there on the Iranian model. He met with Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and other dissident groups, and SCIRI representatives held talks with the Americans.

Al-Hakim had an on-again off-again relationship with the US. He opposed a US occupation of Iraq, and wanted an immediate transition to a new Iraqi government, of which SCIRI would form part. He at one point threatened to have the Badr Corps fire on US troops if they tried to occupy the country. There were in fact firefights between the Badr Corps and the Marines in places like Baquba, and the US eventually insisted on the disarming of the Badr Corps. Al-Hakim initially declined to have SCIRI be part of the Interim Governing Council appointed by Paul Bremer, insisting that such a council should be elected. In this period he gave a sermon in Najaf in which he said that the US had shown its true colors as the Great Satan. In the end, he gave in and allowed his brother, Abdul Aziz, to serve on the IGC, but in return demanded that the US drop several other prospective appointees. He clearly did not like the US or the US occupation, and wanted a quick US withdrawal, but he was pragmatic enough to want his SCIRI to be well positioned to succeed the US as a major political force when they withdrew.

SCIRI probably has no significant grass roots in Iraq. There seems to be some loyalty to it in Baquba and Kut, eastern cities near Iran. It has proselytized in Basra and elsewhere in the South. But it seems a minority taste for most Iraqi Shiites. The Sadrists, who may number 2 million, dwarft SCIRI, which I suspect is just a few tens of thousands.

The U.S. has lost a pragmatic quasi-ally who signalled by his cooperation with the Americans that it was all right for Shiites to work through Bremer for a strong position in the new Iraq. Most other Shiite clerics refuse direct contact with the Americans. This bombing has certainly made Iraq even less governable.



*My reasoning in blaming the Baath Party for the bombing:


I saw Judith Yaphe of National Defense University interviewed by Soledad O'Brien on CNN Friday evening, and she gave an excellent overview of the possible perpetrators: Sadrists, Baathists and Sunni radicals.

In my NPR interview on Friday afternoon with Robert Siegel, I blamed the Saddam loyalists. Here is my reasoning:

I don't believe that Muqtada al-Sadr or his followers would risk damaging the Shrine of Imam `Ali, among the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, with a huge truck bomb. They are if anything overly sensitive to the holiness of Shiite symbols. I know it is easy for secularized Westerners to be cynical about an argument that "he wouldn't do that." But I really do not think someone with his views and context would.

Moreover, it is not his modus operandi. Muqtada's people have mobbed opponents, have stabbed them, have beaten them up and put them into the hospital, have surrounded their houses, and have threatened them. But they have never set off huge bombs. The most some of the ones in Sadr City (East Baghdad slums) have done is toss a grenade into a liquor store or cinema house, typically when no one is there, to enforce their puritanism.

If Muqtada had wanted Baqir al-Hakim dead, he could have simply sent another Shiite to worm his way into al-Hakim's confidence and stick a shiv between his ribs. It is the Sunni Baath who could not have gotten close to him in this way so easily (a Tikriti accent can be heard, and there are lots of minutiae about Shiism a Sunni Baathist could not easily know). A remoter way of assassination thus makes sense for the Sunni Baath. This explosion almost certainly killed and wounded persons who have some loyalty to the al-Sadr family, even if they attend Friday prayers at the Imam Ali mosque rather than in Kufa. Why would Muqtada take such a shotun approach?

I also do not believe that Sunni radicals would set off a bomb next to Ali's shrine. He is the fourth caliph of the Sunnis. Even though some extreme Wahhabis might dislike the idea of a shrine to anyone (and 19th century Wahhabis even targeted the tomb of the Prophet in Medina), it just does not fit their m.o. In all of al-Qaeda's history, they have bombed embassies and foreign ships and foreign buildings, not Muslim holy places.

In contrast, this move makes perfect sense for Saddam loyalists. They have not scrupled to damage the shrine in the past, when they put down the 1991 uprising. Saddam sent out a videotape around August 15 calling on the Shiite clergy to declare jihad against the Americans. All of the major Shiite clerics, including Baqir al-Hakim rejected and derided this call. I believe that this bombing was the Saddam loyalists' response to that rebuttal. It also punishes Baqir al-Hakim for cooperating with the Americans and for his years of guerrilla attacks on the Baath from Iran.

The Baathists may also hope that the al-Hakims and their followers will blame the Sadrists, provoking civil unrest that contributes to the country's ungovernability for the Americans.

The Najaf bombing looks an awful lot like the bombing of the Jordanian embassy and the bombing of the UN headquarters. I now think all three are the work of Saddam loyalists, not of Sunni radicals with al-Qaeda links. All three targeted key de facto allies of the US, and have resulted in isolating it further. The Red Cross, Oxfam, and other aid agencies have much reduced their operations after the bombing of the UN headquarters, and IMF and World Bank officials have left, postponing important economic measures. Major Shiite clerics other than al-Hakim and his brother Abdul Aziz have refused direct contact with the Americans, and this reluctance is likely to have just been reinforced.

My considered opinion is that Saddam and the Baath loyalists have reverted to their old 1960s cell structure and are carefully planning out a series of high-profile attacks that have great strategic yield. The Baath wasn't much as a military power in the 1990s, but as masters of dirty politics they still have no peer. Ask Abdel Karim Qasim, the Arif brothers, and the thousands of dead among the al-Da`wa Party officers and rank and file.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Breaking news. Nearly 100 people have been killed and hundreds more wounded by a hug car bomb blast in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq. Among the dead is Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head since 1984 of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. His brother, Abdul Aziz, is a member of the Interim Governing Council appointed by the Americans. The blast occurred in front of the shrine to Imam Ali, which was slightly damaged.

It seems to me clear that this bombing was the work of Saddam loyalists. Baqir al-Hakim had waged a long terrorist and guerrilla war against the Baath. He cooperated with the Americans. When Saddam called on Shiite clergy to declare jihad on the US a couple of weeks ago, Baqir and others rejected the call forcefully and attacked Saddam as a tyrant. No believing Shiite would blow up a huge bomb right in front of Imam Ali's shrine. The truck bomb has become a signature of the remnants of the Baath, as with the attack on the United Nations HQ. The Saddam loyalists may hope that Shiite factions will blame one another and fall to fighting an internal civil war, adding to the country's ungovernability for the Americans.

More as details become available.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas in Falluja set off a bomb that wounded four US soldiers on Thursday. Hundreds of townspeople rallied after the attack for a march through town, chanting slogans in favor of Saddam Hussein and against George W. Bush. In a macabre scene, some displayed charred cloth that they said came from the clothing of some of the wounded soldiers. US soldiers searched part of the town after the attack. In the south on Weds. night, one British soldier was killed and another wounded in the village of Ali al-Sharqi, where they appear to have been ambushed by an angry mob, from which they took rpg fire. This incident recalls the attack at Majar al-Kabir at the end of June. Although the South is quieter than the Sunni Arab triangle, it can be dangerous as well. The reporting does not really give any motive for the attack.

*Al-Qaeda has posted a new letter on its site, written by a fallen leader killed in a gun battle in Saudi Arabia recently, which addresses the Iraq situation. Al-Qaeda feels that the fall of the Baath is favorable to the radical Islamist cause, since it discredits secular Arab nationalism. Al-Qaeda is convinced that radical fundamentalism (of course they don't call it that) will fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the regime. The scarey thing is that if Falluja and Ramadi are any guide, they might be right, at least about the Sunni Arab Iraqis.

Arabic URL: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/
view/news/2003,08,29,189885.html

*About 35 Iraqis are murdered in Baghdad alone every day, most in gang-related violence, according to Rosalind Russell of Reuters. That is an annual murder rate of nearly 13,000, for this one city, population 5 million. The murder rate for the United States, a country of over 280 million, in 2000? 16,000! Nor is Iraq just a violent society; physicians at Baghdad hospitals say they have never seen anything like it! Baghdad was quite safe under Saddam as long as you weren't involved in dissident politics. I'd say that for the US to allow this level of homocide is probably even a violation of its duties under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as an Occupying Power. No wonder women are afraid to go to hospitals for health care. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld likened the homicide rate in Iraq under US rule to that of Washington DC (in 2002 there were 163 murders in this city of 570,000. If DC were ten times as big, i.e., as big as Baghdad, that would only be 1,630 per year.) Nope, Mr. Rumsfeld, the comparison doesn't work. He was talking, of course only about US military deaths (which are already rather more than the number of murder victims in DC, anyway); I guess Iraqi murder victims don't count. But guess what? The Iraqi public really minds this crime wave, and it is turning them off to cooperation with the US.
See
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/
reuters08-28-073516.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Al-Zaman led yesterday with a horrifying story of burglars killing two families in Baghdad and attempts at looting a moneychanger's office and car theft by criminal gangs, if corroboration were needed. AFP says that families with missing members throng to the morgue in fear of finding them there.

*It has for some time been clear that much of the inaccurate information the US and Britain received about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction came from Iraqi expatriates and defectors. NYT correspondent Judith Miller has been exposed by her colleagues as relying on corrupt financier Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Pentagon-backed "Iraqi National Congress" for her reporting about Iraqi chemical weapons. We all saw former Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidir Hamza come on television all last year insisting that Iraq had a big nuclear weapons program even after 1998 (he was contradicted by other expatriate Iraqi nuclear scientists, but somehow Hardball and O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes did not have them on. Now the LAT and UPI are reporting a US government theory that some of the expatriates were fed disinformation by Saddam before they left, because Saddam hoped that the US would be afraid to attack him if he had big WMD stockpiles. Well, anything is possible. But Chalabi and Hamza had been outside Iraq for 40 and for 12 years respectively, and their misiniformation wasn't from the Baath. The US was snookered by these expatriates, all right, but it wasn't mostly Saddam's doing. Chalabi has been rewarded for lying to us (not to mention embezzling millions) by an appointment to the Interim Governing Council. I don't know what happened to Hamza, but I imagine he'll do all right for himself out of it all. And, of course, there were those forged letters purporting to be from Niger, which presumably came from the expats or from other forces (Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is another potential suspect) who wanted a US war against Iraq.

You can't blame the expats for wanting the US to overthrow Saddam, really, or for lying to get that result. What is shocking is that high officials of the US government like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush should have based so much of their policy on the gossip of expats who had no real on the ground intelligence to share. This whole experience should make the US doubly suspicious of Iranians who want Washington to overthrow the mullahs in Tehran, and of those who are allied with these expats, such as the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy, whose deputy director Patrick Clawson has been vocally supporting the terrorist group Mujahidin-e Khalq. (Makes you wonder what kind of deal the MEK has cut).

See also Glen Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker, "20 Lies about the Iraq War":
http://www.endthewar.org/features/20lies.htm

*US military spokesmen have acknowledged at last that a military helicopter deliberately blew down a Shiite banner from a telecom tower, which resulted in demonstrations in Baghdad. They at first denied it. The helicopter crew will apparently be reprimanded for poor judgment. The banner addressed the Imam Mahdi, or Shiite promised figure analogous to the Return of Christ, and its dislodging was viewed as a slap in the face by the Sadrist sect in Baghdad.

*The rector of al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, Dr. Muhammad Tantawi, has repudiated a fatwa or legal ruling given by one of his colleagues, which forbade Muslims to cooperate with the Iraqi Interim Governing Council appointed by the Americans. Tantawi said that the ruling was merely the opinion of a private individual and did not represent the views of al-Azhar as an institution, which concerns itself in any case only with Egyptian affairs. -Al-Hayat. This backtracking almost certainly comes as a response to severe pressure from the Egyptian government, which in turn was probably pressured by the US embassy in Cairo. That the Hosni Mubarak regime does favors like this for the US is one reason that there is no US pressure on it to democratize, in contrast to Iraq. The US is still a status quo power in the Middle East, despite all the neocons' talk about democratization, and Egypt is a pillar of the status quo, what with its peace treaty with Israel and military alliance with the US.

Arabic URL: http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/
nafrica_news/08-2003/20030828-29P01-02.txt/
story.html

A debate has broken out in Bulgaria about whether to send 15-20 civilians to help administer the city of Karbala, now under military control of the Bulgarian contingent. Some fear that the civilians' lives will be put in danger.
http://www.novinite.com/
view_news.php?id=25618

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Two US soldiers died in Iraq on Wednesday and nine were wounded. US Central Command said that "One soldier was killed and three injured in an explosive device attack in Fallujah." Another was killed in Baghdad when guerrillas attacked a military convoy; two of his colleagues were wounded. Guerrillas also attacked a convoy near Baqubah, wounding two US soldiers and an Iraqi worker, and killing another Iraqi. Guerrillas in Ramadi wounded two US soldiers. In Baghdad, two Iraqi policemen died in a running gun battle with car thieves that left a looter and a moneychanger dead, as well.

*The Shiite Da`wa Party in Iraq has strongly condemned the guerrilla attacks and sabotage that have plagued the post-Saddam era. In an interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat, the party spokesman, Abdul Karim al-`Anzi said that these acts damaged Iraq and were being committed by left-over Baathists. He wanted to know where these guerrillas were when Saddam was killing Iraqis all those years. He said that his party, like all Iraqis, rejected Occupation, and implied that he wanted a hand-off to an elected Iraqi government as soon as possible. He said that his party is cooperating with the "good believers" of the Interim Governing Council, even though it had severe reservations about that body being appointed rather than elected in some fashion by the Iraqi people, and about the American veto over its decisions. He also severely criticized the IGC for concerning itself with bureaucratic minutiae that are meaningless to most Iraqis, while doing nothing about the lack of water, electricity, gasoline and security. Although the August president of the IGC, Ibrahim Jaafari, is a leader of the London branch of al-Da`wa, al-`Anzi seems to deny that Jaafari is in any way representing the party. Asked about the differing responses to the Occupation of the southern Shiites and the guerrillas of the Sunni Arab triangle, al-`Anzi insisted that all the major Shiite clergy had rejected the Occupation.

Al-`Anzi was not terribly clear as to why, if the Occupation is rejected, it is so terrible to fight it. He seems to imply that violence against the US at this juncture will harm Iraqis, and that political groups must work with the IGC to get a transition to a new Iraqi government on a short timetable. (The IGC is saying that they will appoint a government within two weeks and have a new constitution ready within a year).
(Arabic:
http://www.asharqalawsat.com/
view/news/2003,08,28,189713.html

The tone this major party leader takes should give no comfort to the US administration. al-Da`wa has some grass roots in Iraq. And, it is clear that they are holding their nose about the Occupation only because they hope it will be brief. The US shouldn't dawdle about handing civil administration over to an Iraq government as soon as elections can be held.

And that's another thing. Mr. Bremer seems to think you can't have elections until you have a constitution. But that's not how it happened in Afghanistan. Surely you could pass a basic Organic Law governing national governing offices and elections, and then work out the details of the Constitution after the elections? In some sense, isn't that what happened in the US, which already had a government under the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution was drafted in 1789? French Foreign Minister Villepin's suggestion that elections be scheduled for later this year sounds good to me.

*Richard Perle, powerful member of the Defense Advisory Board that counsels the Pentagon, has "admitted" that the US "made a mistake" in not working more closely with the "Iraqi opposition." The press even seems to be buying this load of horse manure and reporting it with a straight face. All Perle is doing is criticizing the State Department and the CIA for refusing to work with the corrupt expatriate financier Ahmad Chalabi, who seems to have struck some sort of shady deal with the Defense Department that if they would only put him in power, he'll give them everything they want (including Iraqi recognition of and provision of oil to Israel). Actually, refusing to preside over the coronation of Chalabi, who has no support whatsoever inside Iraq, was among the few things the US got right. The CIA and State called this one.

*Incidentally, the Defense Department neocons seem to have floated a trial balloon about an Iraqi oil pipeline to Israel, which the State Department promptly shot down.
State says no such project can be discussed for two years, after which it will be up to the Iraqi people to decide, though it seemed to petroleum experts unlikely that a) the northern Kirkuk fields, which are declining, could support another pipeline in addition to the existing one to Turkey or b) that it would make economic sense to try to have a pipeline from the new southern fields all the way up to Israel. And, by the way, if the pipeline to Turkey is vulnerable to terrorism (it was hit again Weds.), imagine what would happen to an Iraqi pipeline to Israel. Finally, even if this idea were practicable, it wouldn't be helpful to US policy goals in the Middle East to talk it up right now. The thing I mind most about the neocons aside from their rigid ideology is there complete lack of tact.

*The US has caught a handful of Saudis who slipped across the border to attack US forces. But apparently there are more fighters from other countries, such as Yemen and Syria. The Saudis say they have no information on the matter and that policing the Iraq-Saudi border (over 400 miles long) is a US responsibility now. Earlier press reports talked of some 3,000 Saudi youth gone missing and suspected of having gone off to Iraq to fight a jihad. Some of the foreigners may also have come for the looting. See

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?
StoryID=20030827-042903-9490r.

*Index (with apologies to Harper's). According to Jim Sciutto of ABC
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/
World/iraq030827_reconstruction.html:

-Number of 27 major Iraqi cities where water is dirtier and less often available now than under Saddam: 12
(includes Baghdad, Najaf & Tikrit)

-Cost of providing clean, reliable water to Iraqis: $16 billion.

-Percent by which Saddam's regime outproduced the current American administration in electricity: 28

-Cost of modernizing the electricity grid: $2 billion

-Amount of money Bremer administration in Iraq has left: $10 million

-Percentage of the former 3 mn. barrels of oil per day that is now being pumped by the US in Iraq: 55

-Number of times the oil pipeline to Turkey has been set ablaze: 2 (the second time was 27 August).

-Number of 240 Iraqi hospitals that have reopened: 240

-Percentage of women who are too afraid of being kidnapped to leave their homes to go to a hospital: 100

-Percentage of Iraqis unemployed: 60

-Percentage of Americans who were unemployed in the Great Depression of the 1930s: 25

-Number of troops in the Iraqi army in March, 2003: 400,000

-Number of troops in the Iraqi army now: 12,000


*President Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates (a small Gulf federation) said Wednesday that his government had closed down the office of an Arab League Center that had been accused of promoting religious bigotry, especially anti-semitism. It had received government money and was called the Shaykh Zayid Centre for Coordination and Follow-Up. Shaikh Zayed's statement said that the Center "had engaged in a discourse that starkly contradicted the principles of interfaith tolerance, directives were issued for the immediate closure of the centre." It added that Shaikh Zayed "has always been a strong advocate of interfaith tolerance and harmony among religions, as constantly reflected in his words and actions. This respect for all faiths is a basic principle of Islam."

The closure appears to come in large part because of a student campaign waged at Harvard University that argued that Shaikh Zayed's gift of $2.5 million should be returned to him, given the activities of this center. The campaign, headed by Rachel Fish, was called MoralityNotMoney and its statement said that "The Centre published a book claiming that the American government masterminded the September 11 attacks, hosted notorious Holocaust deniers, and featured a lecture by a Saudi professor who claimed that Jews use gentile blood for holiday pastries. The Los Angeles Times quoted the Centre's director as saying the "Jews are the enemies of all nations." "

Congratulations to Ms. Fish and the other Harvard students for forcing this change, which seems to me quite a significant victory against bigotry in the Middle East.

On the other hand, Ms. Fish now works for the David Project, the Web site of which doesn't appear to be as upset about anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab sentiments. I guess at 50 I should just give up looking for fair-minded heros and be satisfied with the few flawed ones we have. Maybe if some Palestinian analogues to Ms. Fish can accomplish something with regard to the racism directed against them in the US, it will all even out. But it would be nobler if people also cared about bigotry not directed at their own ethnicity.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?
StoryID=20030827-042903-9490r.

*My remarks about the unwisdom of putting Bulgarians in charge of Karbala yesterday elicited the following response:

Dear Professor Cole:

I read your weblog regularly and always with pleasure. I found your comments suggesting that Bulgaria was an inappropriate ally for the "Coalition of the Willing" to be off base, however.

You are certainly correct, that Bulgaria under Communism (and before) engaged in occasional forced Bulgarization programs and that the most recent, in the late 80's, culminating in 1989, was the cause of mass emigration to Turkey. It should be noted that the assimilation program was framed in ethnic rather than religious terms (not all Muslims were targeted, only ethnic Turks). More importantly, the policy was soundly rejected by the post-Communist regime. Since then, most (though of course not all) of the erstwhile muhacir from this period have returned to Bulgaria (in particular because of Bulgaria's greater success in its application to EU membership). Ties between Turkey and Bulgaria have been generally warm and anti-Muslim intolerance, while still evident, has largely been pushed to the fringes of political discourse.

None of this, of course, makes the case for a slip-shod "Coalition of the Willing" rather than the legitimacy a UN coalition force would bring. I share your dim view of the Bush administration's policy on that count. But I see nothing in Bulgaria's post-communist past that should prevent it from taking a role in the occupation.

Best wishes,

Howard Eissenstat

Howard Eissenstat
Department of History
Loyola Marymount University
One LMU Drive, Suite 3500
Los Angeles, CA 90045-2659

I'm glad to be corrected about current government attitudes to Muslims. But I remain skeptical of putting the Bulgarians in charge of Karbala.

The US State Department Human Rights report for Bulgaria is at:

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/
hrrpt/2002/18358pf.htm

It isn't as awful as I feared, but there are significant problems. 17 major properties belonging to Muslims have still not been returned to them. As for "ethnic" versus "religious" persecution, I don't think a clear distinction can be made in the Balkans. Muslim converts intermarried with immigrant Ottomans of various ethnicities. Anyway, Saddam also sent "Persian" Iraqis out of the country, but everyone knew it was also a way of hitting the Shiites. Religious and ethnic hatreds are usually intertwined, and a clear distinction between Slav and "Turkish" Muslims could never be maintained. The Serbian extremists viewed all Bosnian Muslims as alien Turks, after all.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Two US soldiers died in Iraq in the past 36 hours. Guerrillas attacked a US convoy between Falluja and Ramadi, killing one soldier and wounding two others. Another soldier died when an Iraqi automobile struck him as he was changing a flat tire near Tikrit.

*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has issued a strongly worded condemnation of the failure of the US to provide security in Iraq. "The Iraqi people have, since the fall of the previous regime, suffered from bad secuirty conditions and an increase in crime, to which citizens have been exposed throughout Iraq." He condemned as "sinful" the latest of these breaches of security, the bombing of the office of his colleague Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim in Najaf on Sunday. He called on "those concerned" "to put an end to this dangerous phenomenon and to take the necessary steps to improve the security situation, including a strengthening of national Iraqi forces charged with providing security and stability, and supporting them with sufficient personnel and materiel." In a related story, the son of Grand Ayatollah Sa`id al-Hakim, Muhammad Hussein al-Hakim, rebuffed an American request to meet with them. He said "We do not want direct contact with the Americans. What we need is for the national forces to be free to act." He called on the Americans to increase the number of border outposts, suggesting that foreigners may have been behind the bombing. -Al Zaman
(
http://217.205.164.249/azzaman/
http/display.asp?fname=/azzaman/
articles/2003/08/08-26/995.htm

*Ahmad Safi, a key aide to Grand Ayatollah Alis Sistani gave an interview yesterday to al-Hayat newspaper. Al-Safi told journalist Ibrahim Khayyat in Najaf that the American occupation is unacceptable, and that there might be a resort to arms by Shiites as a last resort if it isn't ended in a timely manner.

Asked about Sistani's preferences with regard to the drafting of a new constitution, Al-Safi said that the chief religious leaders of the Iraqi Shiites want the whole people to be able to choose. He regretted that both under the monarchy and in the republic, a sigificant proportion of the people had been left voiceless. He stressed that the religious leadership viewed the constitution as an absolutely central issue. He insisted that all Iraqis be able to see in the constitution safeguards against their being tyrannized. Al-Safi said that there were three camps on the issue of the constitution. One wanted it written by foreigners outside Iraq, another wanted it written by expatriate Iraqis, and a third wanted it written by Iraqis inside Iraq. He said that the important thing is that it be written by Iraqis, and by Iraqis with a strong sense of the Iraqi nation, such that the drafters can be objective and set aside their sectarian or sectional interests. "For this reason," he added, "the religious leaders believe that a committee must be formed, and that a group of people must be elected to draft it, such that the people have confidence in the drafters. After it is drafted, it must be voted on in a popular referendum."

Asked about Hussein Khomeini's recent call for a separation of religion and state, al-Safi said no one in Iraq wanted to repeat in Iraq the mistakes of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He implied that in Khomeini's Iran, religion had been politicized. In contrast, he said, politics needed to be infused with religion, as did economics and the wider society. The tool for this infusion of religion was the fatwa or legal ruling, which would be given with regard to certain key issues. [Al-Safi is saying that the clergy needn't rule, as in Iran, but that religion should have a major influence, through the mechanism of the fatwa].

The Arabic interview is at
http://www.daralhayat.com/
special/features/08-2003/
20030826-27p10-01.txt/story.html.


*Polish troops moving in to replace the US Marines in the Shiite holy city of Karbala have already come under mortar fire, according to Andrew England of AP. The Monday night incident resulted in no casualties, according to Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski in Warsaw. He said, "Those were warning shots indicating that there are still people ready to fight for Saddam Hussein's ideas.'' Maybe; but it seems to me that there are few Baathists left in Karbala, and it is more likely that the fire came from radical Shiites seeking to set the right tone in a new relationship with the Poles. The Poles have put the Bulgarians in charge of Karbala city itself, and the US Marines have just handed the city over to Lt. Col. Petko Marinov and his 250 Bulgarian troops. There has already been a roadside bombing of one of their vehicles; again, no casualties.

I find all this Coalition of the Willing business troubling. Bulgarians are 83% Christian and only 12% Muslim, and the government has very bad relations with Muslims they consider ethnic Turks, chasing a lot of Bulgarian Muslims out of the country in recent years. Are these really the people you want in charge of one of the holiest shrines in the Muslim world? They are unlikely to have any Arabists. And, what are they speaking when communicating to the Americans? Russian? I wouldn't say cultural sensitivity to the sensibilities of Muslims is their strong suit, and that is what we desperately need in Karbala of all places.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3074257,00.html
and

http://www.hrw.org/reports
/1989/WR89/Bulgaria.htm


*Al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, Egypt, among the preeminent Sunni Muslim religious institutions in the world, has issued a fatwa or legal ruling forbidding Muslims from any cooperation with the appointed Iraqi Interim Governing Council, according to IslamOnline. It gives the text as saying, "“The council lacks religious and secular legitimacy, as it had been imposed on the Iraqis under the power of occupation and does not conform to Islam’s established principle of shura (counseling)." The ruling argued for popular sovereignty: “Iraq is an Islamic country whose government should be legitimate and set up in accordance with the principle of Shura.” This language echoes the ruling of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani saying that the delegates to the constitutional convention must be elected rather than appointed by the Americans. Popular sovereignty appears to have become a key legitimizing idea even among conservative clerics in the Middle East.

*The words of Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraqi, at a recent news conference, according to Australian Broadcasting Co. reporter Geoff Thompson were as follows:

Ambassador Bremer was asked whether it might be more accurate to say that perhaps it was the presence of American forces in Iraq which had turned Iraq into a new battleground in the United States war on terror.

PAUL BREMER: No, it would be completely inaccurate because Iraq under Saddam Hussein for 20 years was identified as a state sponsor of terrorism, correctly in my view. This was a state which sponsored terrorism, it is no longer a state which sponsors terrorism, I don't sponsor terrorism, I try to defeat it.

Thompson contrasts this denial to the statements made to him in Baghdad of two members of the Interim Governing Council appointed by Bremer:

YOUNADEM KANA: Yeah, for sure it's a magnet for terrorists, yeah. For sure it's a magnet for terrorists and especially the most fanatic extremists, let's say, bin Laden's group al-Qaeda, for example – yes, it's a magnet. . . . It's more easy for them to reach . . . Americans, not only for Americans, for all Coalition forces, even allies. (Kana is the Christian representative on the IGC).

Thompson then quotes Muhyi al-Kateeb [former Iraqi ambassador and more recently proprietor of a gasoline station in the US]:

MUHYI AL-KATEEB: Because we have no control of our borders yet, so it is heaven for terrorism.

GEOFF THOMPSON: As long as there is an American presence here it's going to be an attractive place for terrorists looking to target Americans?

MUHYI AL-KATEEB: I agree.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Do you see a certain irony in the fact that America's war on terror, in a sense, made the invasion of Iraq and the ousting of Saddam Hussein possible politically, and now in fact it's attracting, it's attracting people who wish to battle America on that front?

MUHYI AL-KATEEB: It is ironic. But this is the reality of it. I mean, our borders are open and they're very long ones too, and we have a lot of neighbours that don't like what is going on inside Iraq. So I assume that they are going to use that to, maybe to send some signals to the Americans on the Iraqi soil, unfortunately.

The entire piece is online at:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/
content/2003/s932829.htm

*For the illegal pilgrim trade of Iranians to the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, see James Hider's smart piece in CSM. He points out that this illicit pilgrim trade poses severe security problems. But Iraqi border police and US forces at the moment are unable to do anything about it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003
/0827/p17s01-woiq.html

*The Shiite custom of temporary marriage is reappearing in Iraq, according to Hannah Allam of Knight-Ridder. In Islam, marriage is a contract between husband and wife. In Sunni Islam, the contract is for life except if terminated by divorce. In Shiite Islam, there are two kinds of marriage--the lifetime contract, and mut`a (Persian: sigheh) or temporary marriage. In temporary marriage, the contract specifies a time period during which the marriage is valid, after which it lapses. A lot of Western (and Sunni) observers deride temporary marriage as a form of prostitution, but this charge is at least somewhat inaccurate. Children born during a temporary marriage have full rights, and during the term of the marriage the woman is a recognized wife. Americans who shack up with one another for a few months and then move on are basically engaged in mut`a, common-law style, except that US law is usually far less kind to the offspring of these unions. All that said, as it is practiced in contemporary Iran and Iraq, mut`a socially disadvantages women and reinforces patriarchy. I say socially rather than economically because both societies have a lot of war widows, and polygamy and mut`a are ways for them to have husbands in societies where many of the eligible men in their age range were killed in the Iran-Iraq war or other violent conflicts. (The medieval European solution to the problem of there being more women than eligible men was to get them to a nunnery. In contemporary America, there is also a surplus of women, especially in the Vietnam generation; a lot of women are just left without mates.) Of course, in a welfare state where women were truly equal to men, the women would not need to contract temporary marriages or become a second wife to ensure financial survival. But that anyway does not describe Iraq at the moment. I think the practice is on the whole a bad one, but I am just suggesting we not be too quick to condemn the women who adopt it, for most are pretty desperate. See
http://www.realcities.com/
mld/krwashington/6623752.htm.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Today I fulfilled my sad duty to Navy Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman of putting up an archive of his email messages to me. Kylan was shot dead in al-Hilla while with the Marine expeditionary force on August 21. The archive is large (400 k) and so may load slowly for those with slow connections. I apologize in advance about that. The archive is at http://www.juancole.com/archives/kylan.htm .


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*A US soldier was reported killed Monday of "non-hostile gunfire," presumably a firearms accident.

*Angry crowds about 2,000 strong filled the streets of Najaf Monday for a funeral procession for the bodyguards killed on Sunday by a bomb meant for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim. They vowed revenge, and some were overheard blaming young Shiite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr and his Sadr Movement for the bombing. Sadr spokesmen have denied responsibility for the attack. As usual, Neil MacFarquhar of the NYT does an excellent job in profiling the factions
at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/
international/worldspecial/26SHII.html?
ex=1062475200&en=
257c754560ee043e&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE .
The Najaf bombing was condemned by Lebanon's Hizbullah Shiite militia, which urged Iraqi Shiites to unify. (Hizbullah and Amal, the two main religious Shiite groups in Lebanon, fought one another bitterly in the mid to late 1980s, much weakening the political clout of the Shiites, so Hizbullah knows whereof it speaks).

*A large, peaceful demonstration was held by Shiites from the slums of Sadr City in front of the US headquarters in Baghdad on Monday according to Tarek al-Issawi of AP. They said they were protesting the lack of security in Najaf that allowed a bomb to go off near the offices of al-Hakim on Sunday, as well as the recent attack by Sunni Kurds on Shiite Turkmen at the village of Hauz Kharmato. After an hour, the demonstrators moved on to the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which they charged with having begun the fighting in Hauz Kharmato and then having spread the conflict to the city of Kirkuk. Some 11 persons have died in that fighting. The PUK blames the rioting on provocation by agents provocateurs of Saddam Hussein.

Note that initial press reports, including some in Arabic, were confused, and I remember them saying that it was the Kurds who were the Shiites at Hauz Kharmato (Also given as Tuz Kharmato). This was an error, and I apologize; I have fixed it in the postings below. Most Turkmen are Sunnis, and so are most Kurds. But both groups have small Shiite minorities. The Shiite Turkmen are the descendants of the Turkic Qizilbash tribesmen who conquered Iran in the late 1400s and helped establish the Shiite Safavid state in 1501. But, other, Sunni Turkmen had been in part responsible for spreading Sunni Islam in Anatolia in the medieval period.

It is actually quite interesting that the Arab Twelver Shiites of Sadr City are identifying with the Turkmen Shiites. The Turkmen tend to follow heterodox forms of Shiism that most Twelver clergymen would see as heretical or theologically extreme (ghulat). That the Sadrists and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are attempting to make a claim to representing these northern populations that practice a kind of folk Islam points to an increasingly politicization of religion and of religious identity. Most Twelver Shiites in Iraq and Iran normally could not care less if Alevi Turks in Turkey get into a fight with the Sunnis, since the Alevis are also heterodox Shiites. The Turkmen of Hauz Kharmato are unlikely to be more bookish and orthodox than the Alevis. Another point: The Sadrist demonstrators in Baghdad may have been attempting to divert attention from the charges that they were behind the Najaf bombing, by turning the focus to conflicts in the distant north.

The Turkmen Front of Northern Iraq sent a message to the foreign ministry of Turkey asking that Turkey send in troops to protect the Turkmen. Turkey in turn complained ot the US about their treatment by the Kurds. This set of exchanges is also ironic, since the ruling party in Turkey is a Sunni religious party. The same sort of people who support the "Justice and Development" or Ak party have in the past been involved in persecution of Shiite Alevi Turkeys in Turkey, who are little different from the Turkmen of Hauz Kharmato. So, Turkey and some Turkmen see the conflict as a racial clash between Turks and Kurds, whereas for Iraqis, this issue is being painted as a Sunni-Shiite conflict.

The Turkmen are such a small group, probably 400,000, that ordinarily, in domestic terms, it would have been unlikely that Turkmen-Kurdish violence could pose a threat to the stability of the Iraqi North (the Iraqi Kurds are some 4 million strong, or ten times as numerous). But if the Turkmen really can get Turkey seriously involved, that creates a nightmare scenario. Remember that Kirkuk is an oil town, and that Iraqi exports of petroleum to Turkey, worth $7 mn. a day, have to go through this region, which will be difficult if ethnic fighting and foreign intervention destabilize it.

For a quick overview of these ethnic and religious issues, see
http://www.theestimate.com/public
/041803.html and
http://www.theestimate.com/
public/050203.html.

The author, presumably Michael Dunn (who also edits The Middle East Journal notes:
"The third major group in northern Iraq are the Turkmen (also Turkoman, Turcoman, etc.), whose origins are from Central Asia. They are Oghuz Turks, and though their name is essentially the same as that of the Turks of Turkmenistan, they have intermingled through the centuries with other Turkish speakers, including Ottoman Turks from Anatolia and Azeri Turks from Iranian and former Soviet Azerbaijan. Like their Central Asian ancestors, they remained semi-nomadic horsemen until fairly recently, then settled in the cities of northern Iraq and in Diyala in eastern Iraq. Some estimates put the total Turkmen population of Iraq at around 400,000 to 500,000, most but not all of them in the north. These numbers, like all numbers on this subject, are in dispute: some Turkmen say there are three million; some Kurds say only about 300,000. Turkmen advocates insist that Kirkuk and Mosul were once essentially Turkmen cities which have been taken over by Arabs and claimed by Kurds. Generally speaking, villages are either all Kurdish or all Turkmen. The major point of dispute is Kirkuk, though Mosul is also a flashpoint. Turkey sees itself as the protector of the Turkmen minority, and this, combined with Turkey’s own internal problem with Kurdish separatists, creates one of the most volatile potential points of conflict, as the world was reminded when Kirkuk fell to the Kurds."

*For the ways in which the US is cooperating with Iraqis with unsavory pasts, including some associated with the notorious Anfal campaign that used poison gas against the Kurds, see Nir Rosen's fine exposé at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03236/214533.stm.

*As if terrorism, al-Qaeda infiltration, low-grade guerrilla war, and sabotage against petroleum pipes, water and electricity stations were not enough, Iraq is now increasingly facing a big problem with the drug trade. A delegation of concerned citizens of Basra came to Baghdad to complain, according to al-Sharq al-Awsat. The drugs are being almost openly smuggled in from several neighboring countries, especially Iran. Some coffeehouses in Basra have apparently more or less put drugs on the menu. People in Karbala and Najaf, the Shiite shrine cities, are complaining that so-called pilgrims who ostensibly are coming from Iran to visit the holy shrines are often in fact drug smugglers. The report did not say what drugs were being most often purveyed, but one suspects it is marijuana and Afghan opium/heroin.




For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Ayatollah Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim was slightly wounded in the neck by flying glass on Sunday when a bomb went off outside his offices in Najaf shortly after he finished his prayers. Three of his bodyguards who went to investigate the bomb were killed, and ten of his aides were wounded. Sa`id al-Hakim is one of four senior ayatollahs who constitute the Religious Institution (al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah) in Najaf, the preeminent seminary center for the training of Shiite clergymen. He is a close colleague of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Both Sistani and Sa`id al-Hakim are political quietists who have declined to campaign vigorously for the expulsion of the Americans. Last week when a tape attributed to Saddam Hussein called on the Shiite clergy to declare jihad or holy war against the US, Sistani and his colleagues openly refused to do so, and condemned Saddam's long years of tyranny. (Sa`id al-Hakim himself has called for calm, despite what he says is a failure of the US to fulfill its promises). It may well be that this bomb was the Baathist reply to this show of defiance by the leading Shiite clergymen.

Some suspicion naturally also fell on the militant Sadrists, followers of young Shiite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr, some of whom have firebombed liquor stores and cinemas in the past. Muqtada's spokesman denied that he was behind this bombing, though, and I think that is right. The modus operandi is more that of the Baath resistance, and Muqtada has been careful to avoid overt, planned violence against rivals lest his movement be closed down by the Americans before it can position itself to take power.

It may also be that the Baathists are trying to provoke violence among the Shiite factions so as to make Iraq even more ungovernable. Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim is the uncle of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose brother, `Abdul Aziz, serves on the Interim Governing Council. But Sa`id is not associated with SCIRI; he is much closer to Sistani. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim suggested that the bombing was intended to provoke a Sunni-Shiite war, and was planted by Baathists for that purpose. He also said that he held the US, the occupying power under international law, responsible for providing security to Iraqis. (al-Sharq al-Awsat).

The clergy in Najaf have been asking the US administration for more security for some time. The Najaf ayatollahs are among the more respected in the entire Shiite world, and to have them blown up while supposedly under US protection makes the US look very bad in the Shiite world. This point is more especially true since the bomb went off so close to the shrine of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. If that shrine had been damaged, there would have been hell to pay.

Hundreds of local people surrounded Sa`id al-Hakim's house as he and others wounded were taken off to the hospital. (Al-Zaman, WP)

Iran condemned the bombing and complained that the US should be providing the Iraqis with better security than it is.

*The tension between Sunni Kurds and Shiite Turkmen in the north remained high on Sunday. The office of Muqtada al-Sadr strongly took measures to support the side of the Shiites, according to al-Hayat. Muqtada also condemned any attempt to isolate the north from the rest of the country. He complained about ongoing ethnic cleansing [presumably of Shiite Turkmen] in the Kurdish areas. There were demonstrations in Ankara against the Kurdish police having fired on Turkmen demonstrators. The Turkmen representative on the Interim Governing Council, Songol Habib Omar Chapouk, called for the Kurdish militias that control Kirkuk to be disarmed, and said that Kirkuk "is a Turkmen city". She warned of ethnic violence if the situation is not calmed. (- al-Hayat). Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Kurdish Patriotic Union sent delegations to Kirkuk in hopes of calming the situation. Note that most Turkmen are Sunnis, but the spark for this particular conflict had been ignited in a fight between the small Turkmen Shiite minority and Sunni Kurds at the village of Tuz Kharmato. The ethnic conflict in Kirkuk between Kurds and Turkmen is probably an all-Sunni affair. (revised 8/26/03)

*In Karbala, the atmosphere was tense after the Marines there closed the offices of Hizb al-Wahdah (the Unity Party) the day before yesterday (al-Hayat). Large crowds have gathered to protest the decision. There is a lot of bad feeling toward the Marines going back to recent incidents where they shot into civilian crowds on receiving gunfire from among the demonstrators. One was killed and nine wounded a few weeks ago. The Islamic Unity Party is headed by Muhammad Qasim (Kassim or Qassim), and it initially welcomed the Americans (see
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/
issues/iraq/after/2003/0429timetable.htm). Unfortunately al-Hayat did not say why the US troops closed the office or what the issues are here.

*An Iraqi feminist organization charges that organized criminal gangs have kidnapped over 400 women in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam on April 9, either holding them for ransom or selling them into sexual slavery. The women have held demonstrations demanding more security for women at Firdaws square in downtown Baghdad. (AFP). Another feminist group has criticized the Interim Governing Council, demanding that a percentage of government jobs be set aside for women and that women have substantial representation among the drafters of the new constitution. (Al-Sharq al-Awsat).

*Iraqi police officers will be sent to Hungary for an 8-week police training course at a former Soviet base, according to de facto Baghdad police chief Bernard Kerik. The police academies inside Iraq are too small for the job. On their return, the officers will receive four to six months on the job instruction. The first group of 1500 officers will begin training within four months, while 28,000 will be graduated during the next 18 months. These 28,000 new recruits will be added to the 37,000 former Baathist policemen who have been reinstated by the US, for a total of 65,000, which is what the US thinks Iraq needs. (-NYT). I've heard Kerik say in interviews that the 37,000 former Baath police he has now are "all that he can trust". I.e., if more than that were called back up, you'd start getting some very dirty, bad characters. I don't know how the 37,000 have already been vetted so fast, but I'd be surprised if they don't already include at least some bad characters. No one has talked about the ethnic make-up of the police. Are the 37,000 reconstituted by the US primarily Sunnis? If so, that could be a problem, especially if the US isn't careful from where it recruits the new 28,000. It is also worrisome that it will take 18 months to get the police force up to its required strength. It is probably true that the Iraqis can police better than US GIs, but the policework needs to be done now, as the recent bombings prove.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Gunmen killed three British soldiers in the southern port city of Basra on Saturday. Details are contradictory and sketchy. Some reports say they had a bomb tossed at them, others wonder if their unmarked car just came to be targeted by car thieves.

*Ethnic violence near Kirkuk as Shiite Turkmen clashed with Sunni Kurds over a rebuilt Shiite shrine to the 4th Imam, `Ali Zayn al-`Abidin (-WP). Intervening US troops killed three on each side, and the total number of dead is 11. There are still lots of ethnic tensions in the north, among Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs. Kurdish-Turkmen fighting has international repercussions, since Turkey will take the side of the Turkmen and will see the Kurds as treacherous. Turkish officials have frequently threatened to intervene in Iraq if they feel the Kurds become too threatening to their interests. (revised 8/26/03)

*A fuel tanker blast in Basra on Saturday killed or wounded dozens of people. There appears to have been a fight over the fuel, leading to an act of arson and thus the explosion. See
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/
arabtimes/breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=2489

*French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepin said Friday that the best way to deal with Iraqi resistance to the Anglo-British occupation is to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people more quickly. He called for UN-assisted elections for a parliament by the end of this year (i.e. Dec. 2003). US officials such as Paul Bremer have said that parliamentary elections must await the writing of a new constitution and, of course, of new electoral laws, as well as the compiling of voting lists. Villepin warned that there was no military solution to the unrest in Iraq, and that a transfer of sovereignty was the only practical step.

*I heard Alex Witt on MSNBC rather indignantly ask a guest this morning why the US should surrender any control of Iraq to UN member nations, since it was the US that fought the war (with Britain) and those two made the sacrifices. I was stunned. First of all, this business of reporters and anchors tossing around so much attitude really must stop. That wasn't her role. If she wants to play Bill O'Reilly, she should get a talk show and give up anchoring. Second, the sentiment is inane. No one said the US had to give up control of Iraq (as though it has much control). The negotiations at the UN are about what it would cost the US to acquire some new allies who would send substantial numbers of troops into Iraq. What should those countries put their troops in harm's way for the sake of US political, economic and military goals? The Bush administration wants to treat India and Pakistan like Gurkhas, the loyal Nepalese troops who fought for the British Empire for "salt." Those countries have their own domestic politics and international interests, and aren't going to just be ordered around by Bush for the sake of a little bit of foreign aid or a benign countenance in Washington. So, Ms. Witt, you should answer the question. Why should they? France and Russia, likewise, aren't going to get involved gratis. But the US Defense Department does not want to give up any control, or accept any constraint on the tendering of Iraq reconstruction and petroleum contracts. O.K. If they want all the goodies for themselves, the Americans should bite the bullet and take complete responsibility for Iraqi security themselves. Problem is, they don't have a large enough army to do that on their own, and they also lack the political legitimacy in the Arab world that the UN has. As the French say, tant pis. Too bad. I'm still waiting to hear any of the warmongers like The National Review apologize to the French and admit they were right about almost everything: no WMD in Iraq, no al-Qaeda ties, and no real casus belli, plus the danger of throwing the country into chaos.

*Kidnappings, 60% unemployment, worry about feeding one's children so desperate it drives people to crime . . . A harrowing report on what it is really like to be an Iraqi in Basra is at:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/
national/136024_yahya21.html.

*The French-based group Doctors without Borders has packed up and left Basra out of severe security concerns. These guys operated in Afghanistan and are known to be so brave as to border on foolhardiness. If they think Iraq is that unsafe, it is a very, very bad sign.

*One of the items the Bremer administration in Iraq always cites as evidence of progress in rebuilding is that the court system and appointment of judges has gone well, and the legal system is now functioning. Serious doubt is cast upon this claim in an article by James Varshney of the Newhouse News service. He depicts a system riddled with corruption and cronyism:
http://www.newhousenews.com
/archive/varney082203.html





For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*It is with great sadness that I report that a friend of Informed Comment, Naval Reserve Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman (31), was killed Thursday near al-Hilla. The wire services said: "BAGHDAD: A US serviceman on duty with a Marine unit was shot dead south of Baghdad, the US military said today, as the UN prepared to fly out more staff in the wake of this week's truck bombing attack. A gunman shot the serviceman yesterday after approaching his vehicle, which had been caught up in traffic in the city of Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, the military said in a statement. The attacker escaped into a crowded market. " Kylan had studied, and later taught, at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and was an Arabist. He was called up in January, and was scheduled to go home at the beginning of September. He had planned to begin a Ph.D. in Middle East Studies at George Washington University. He was bright and informed. An article about him is: http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/
iraq/bal-te.md.huffman23aug23,0,1855968.story?
coll=bal-local-headlines

Like many real military people, Kylan thought the Iraq war was a big mistake. But he also felt he had a duty to keep the US military as informed as it could be. He emailed me before he went to Iraq.

(For a fuller archive of Kylan's messages, see http://www.juancole.com/archives/kylan.htm).

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 05:25:28 0000 (UTC)
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
To: Juan R. Cole
Subject: update
Cc: nizami@earthlink.net
X-Mailer: Earthlink Web Access Mail version 3.0

Juan - quick update for you on Umm Qasr port facility, derived from newsletters of Barwil Agencies. The contractor in charge, SSA Marine, has hired Barwil Agencies to work as one of the agents in the port. Updates can sometimes be found at www.ssamarine.com or www.barwil.com.

As of late June / early July, there were ongoing security problems, including a major sulfur fire at the old terminal, which damaged the sulfur facility and loading equipment. A badge entry / access control system is being set up as a result. SSA Marine has also reportedly hired a private security firm, Olive Security, as well as an Iraqi group called Basra River Services (armed former Iraqi Navy and Coast Guard personnel) to secure the port facility. This appears to have had an effect, and vessels have been unloading containers, palletized goods, and bulk food (reportedly 84,500 tons bagged rice and 17,460 tons wheat flour last week).

Bechtel has gotten a substation running, which is supplying power to the new port, including container cranes. As of last week, however, the cranes still needed additional testing and re-certification, as they were damaged by looters after the war. Work is also continuing on the grain elevator, and ships wishing to discharge any cargo will have to be able to do so by themselves. Another problem is truck transportation from the port facility to the ultimate destination. While many trucking companies have hired private security, there is still no insurance available to cover loss in transit - not surprising.

A dredge has been operating at the quay and entrance channel, with draft at one berth at 12.5 meters, which should be adequate for most any ship which might call.

Customs is in place to check goods and manifests, but there is not yet any provision for immigration, so no one is allowed to debark and enter Iraq from shipboard.

Incidentally, I may be headed back to Iraq, to Basra and Hilla, next month. I'll keep you posted if I go, and send you a narrative and pictures if I come back...luckily I won't be headed to Sunni country, but I guy I knew (and who was a good friend of a friend) was killed near Hilla not long ago enroute to relieve an ambushed unit.

Cheers,

Kylan


I told him to be careful out there.

He said:


Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 16:10:20 +0300
Subject: Re: update
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
To: "Juan R. Cole"

Oh, I'll be careful as careful as I can, and I won't be going unarmed
this time. Unfortunately, the body armor they provide us won't stop
rifle ammunition, even on the trauma plate over the heart. Command
detonated mines combined with small arms / RPG ambushes on the highway
are another concern. In addition, the folks I'm supposed to be
briefing were mortared the other day during a meeting, and had one
round hit the building, knocking people off their chairs inside, and
wounding a Marine on the roof. Should be interesting ;)

I wouldn't worry too much about Abu Hatim; he seems like a pretty
decent guy from what the Brits say, for a guerilla leader trying to
transition to politics, anyway. And he's not at all connected to Imad
Mughniya and the guys from Lebanese Hizballah...

More later,

Kylan


Another message:


From: "Jones-Huffman, Kylan (LT)"
To: "'Juan R. Cole"
Subject: thanks!
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 11:33:14 -0000

Juan - thanks for concisely laying out a position on Iraq which takes into account reservations about the way the war was sold and spun, but which doesn't, in a fit of righteous indignation, advocate actions which would essentially punish Iraqis for American mistakes. Enough of that will happen anyway, without the assistance of the morally certain - it's always the poor average person who gets it in the neck.

My boss here reminded me that it is still dangerous in Iraq, especially in Hillah, and asked whether I really wanted to go on my planned trip next month (Navy intel types aren't usually keen to be shot at). I told him that, now that we are there, we can't afford to fail, for our own sakes as well as that of the Iraqi people. If there is something I can do to make a direct contribution, I feel that I have an obligation to do so. And in this case, I think that I can make a contribution, if only by helping to sensitize people to issues like the Karbala shrine shooting (which no one appears to be taking seriously - perhaps I'll be able to find out whether there is more behind it). Naturally, I don't much want to be ambushed and suck up an RPG, but I'm in a position to do some good, so I wouldn't feel right sitting safely here in the air conditioning.

One detail - Ansar al-Islam, as I understand it, is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, led my a fellow named Mullah Krekar (recently expelled from Sweden or Norway?) and an off-shoot of the IGK. It doesn't have much of anything to do with Pakistan, except insofar as the same Gulf mujahidin facilitation network which feeds the Kashmiri and Chechnyan conflicts also feeds AI. In addition, there appear to be some links to Jordanian extremist Abu Mu'sab al-Zarqawi, whose group is alleged to work on low-grade, improvised toxins and poisons, among other things.

Thanks again for putting out timely, informative information. I refer everyone I know to your website.

Cheers,

Kylan



Just before he left:


From: "Jones-Huffman, Kylan (LT)"
Cc: "'nizami@earthlink.net'"
Subject: trip to Iraq
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:55:27 +0100


Well, travel plans finally fell into place at the last minute, and I'm flying out to Kuwait tonight, with onward convoy to Hillah tomorrow morning. I'm trying to decide if I want the M-4 carbine or an MP-5 submachinegun in addition to the SIG 9mm pistol they are going to issue me; I think the longer the range, the better. M-4 outranges an RPG, but unfortunately the insurgents still get to shoot first. Apparently, we also take spare body armor to sit on, in case we hit a mine on the way...

Anyway, I'll be in Iraq (Hillah, Basra, possibly Baghdad) for 3-5 days, and should be back by 25 August at the latest. I'll e-mail when I return. I'm taking my computer and camera, but doubt I'll have a chance to access e-mail while I'm up there - there isn't even cell phone service yet, except for Iridium.

Hopefully, I'll have some good stories when I return, since the people I'm going to visit have been mortared and ambushed several times, luckily without injury. I'm officially going to provide briefings and analytic support to the Marines as they turn over occupation responsibilities to Polish and Spanish troops in the southern region. I'm going to concentrate mostly on the political issues surrounding the Interim Governing Council, as well as some of the dynamics and interplay of Shi'a clergy. Using the Shi'a revolt of 1920 to frame the problem seems to work well, so I'll probably do that. If I can keep someone else from trying to tear down a banner of the Imam Mahdi, or getting into a violent confrontation with a crowd out side the shrine of Imam Husayn, I'll feel like I've made a contribution ;)

Cheers,

Kylan


From Kuwait:


Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 12:18:10 0300 (GMT)
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
Subject: arrived in Kuwait

Well, the SAS Radisson is quite nice, if expensive. As you can see, it has a LAN connection, so I can access my e-mail. Flight was uneventful, though I found it interesting that my Kuwaiti visa is a number written on a sticker applied to the back of my military ID card...

Tomorrow we are off to Hillah, after we draw weapons, ammunition, and better body armor from one of the local American bases. The route is fairly well traveled, and comparatively safe (though there have been a few ambushes, mostly using improvised explosive devices, such as several artillery shells wired for command detonation, and hidden under rocks at the side of the road...)

Not sure how long we will be up in Iraq - 3-6 days, possibly. When we get back, I'll post another e-mail from the room here. Inshallah, we won't wander into any kill zones while we are there, but I think it's important to go nonetheless. I may get the chance to speak with or brief some people in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Hillah and Basra, as well as the Marines, and Polish and Spanish officers who are taking over occupation duties from the Marines.

More later!

Kylan



From Iraq:


Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 13:19:59 +0400 (GMT+04:00)
From: Kylan Jones-Huffman
Subject: note from Babylon

Just a quick note to say that I'm safe and enjoying the heat in Hilla. Hottest it's been was 141 the week before we got here, and it's been a bit cooler so far. Been out in town a few times, and it feels pretty safe - my Arabic (poor though it is) has come in handy several times, including a trip to meet the new internal affairs officer in the police department. We did get the universal signs of the hand drawn across the throat and the pulled trigger finger from some tribesmen swathed in ghutras sitting in the back of a pickup we passed north of Diwaniya, but not much other than that. I showed them my M-16 and smiled, and we left it at that.

I've got a fair number of photos, and some other interesting stories for when I get back to reliable communications. Hope you all are doing well. I doubt I'll get up to Baghdad, but did hear about the bombing at the UN HQ there. Haven't seen much detail, and won't have a chance for a few days. My initial reaction is Hizballah, but it could be someone like Zarqawi. Mujahidin and Ba'thist types are less likely. Perhaps we'll find out eventually, but I doubt it...

Cheers,

Kylan




I only knew Kylan from email exchanges. His death sent me to my knees like a kidney punch. I will post some more of his messages, which he gave me permission to do when I asked, in future.





For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Guerrillas in Iraq killed one 1st Armored Division soldier and wounded two others with an improvised explosive in Baghdad just before midnight Wednesday. In Afghanistan, Taliban forces killed a US Special Operations officer in Orgun in Paktia province.

*CENTCOM commander Gen. John Abizaid, a straight shooter, is admitting that 140,000 US troops may be in Iraq indefinitely, according to Peter Spiegel of the Financial Times. The US does expect foreign troops (but who?) and local Iraqi forces (good luck) to take over Iraqi domestic security chores. But Abizaid says that US troops may then be 'redeployed for a "more aggressive posture on external duties", such as securing borders.' He added, "It depends on the security situation. It doesn't necessarily mean that additional foreign troops would cause a corresponding drawdown of American forces." I don't like the sound of that one bit. The US cannot afford to maintain 140,000 troops (many of them reserves) in Iraq for the long haul. And, what borders need to be policed? Kuwait, Jordan,Saudia and Turkey are all US allies. The Iranian border is all that is left. And if the plan is to have US troops go mano a mano with the Revolutionary Guards along the Iraq-Iran border, that is a recipe for disaster. Abizaid's views here contradict what we have been told by his bosses, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Of course, Dr. Wolfowitz was maintaining not so long ago that after the war we could quickly draw down to about a division in Iraq (about 20,000 troops). In actual fact, the US National Security Council estimated last winter that 500,000 US troops would be required to restore security to a postwar Iraq. Of course, no such number will be sent; but then we may not get good security any time soon, either. See
http://news.ft.com/
servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/
StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479232025.

Abizaid is also saying that terrorism is now replacing hit and run attacks as the most pressing security threat in Iraq, fingering Ansar al-Islam. I have to say I am a little suspicious of this rhetoric. The hit and run attacks have killed more than 60 US soldiers and wounded over 1200 since May 1, whereas the two major terrorist attacks targeted the Jordanian Embassy and the UN HQ. And, for all we know, the UN bombing was carried out by the same sort of people who do the hit and runs when they have access to fewer bombs. Bringing up terrorism seems to me a way to get the US public behind the Iraq endeavor again, since it evokes the threat of more September 11 style attacks. All this is ironic, since the US was not in danger from Iraq to begin with.

*Former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler is raising the question of why the US is not sharing what Tariq Aziz and others have told them about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. (All the speculation that Chemical Ali, just apprehended, will finally spill the beans is silly; Tariq Aziz knows as much or more than he does). Butler said, ""What arrangement has been made with Tariq Aziz? He knew everything. Certainly [former presidential scientific adviser] Amir [Hamudi Hasan] al-Saadi did. Why aren't they putting us out of our misery by telling us the truth of these matters? Have they already told the United States but the United States for some reaon isn't telling ... others. I'm making no accusation, I'm puzzled." Uh, Mr. Butler, the answer seems pretty obvious. Scott Ritter was right, and the Iraqis destroyed all or almost all of their WMD stockpiles and mothballed all or almost all of their programs. There have been numerous statements to the press by high Iraqi officials to this effect. If it weren't true, the US would have gleefully demonstrated the contrary. The US silence is the sheepish toe-swinging of a little boy caught in a tale tale that produced major carnage.

*Japan's plan to send Self-Defense Forces to Iraq to help with humanitarian aid is now being rethought, in the aftermath of the bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad. My reading is that PM Junichiro Koizumi is a closet chauvinist, and that sending the SDF to Iraq was intended by him to be a first step toward the rehabilitation of the Japanese army. But, obviously, if the SDF forces are sent to Iraq and get blown up, the whole thing would backfire badly with the Japanese public, which still has a strong pacifist streak. There has been an uproar about sending the SDF abroad already, anyway. Koizumi has stirred controversy by insisting on visiting a Shinto shrine where many Japanese officers are buried, some of whom are considered major war criminals by the Chinese and the Koreans. For all the more militant sectors of the capitalist world (and Koizumi is the least of them), the Iraq war was seen as a cure for the Vietnam Syndrome and a way to rehabilitate 'small wars' for the purpose of regime change and expansion of business opportunities. It will be ironic if it just produces a new version of the Vietnam Syndrome, the Iraq Syndrome. The global Right has never understood or accepted the rise of nationalism and the end of the colonial era, which is why they misjudged Iraq so badly.

*For rivalries inside the Shiite Sadr movement, see Nir Rosen's excellent piece in the Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/
atimes/Middle_East/EH22Ak04.html


*My Daily Star Op-ed for Aug. 21, 2003:

Expand the UN role in Iraq

Juan Cole

The bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad Tuesday signaled a new and dangerous phase in the struggle between the United States and Iraqi guerrillas. By targeting the UN, the radicals were attempting to push out of the country the most popular foreign political institution, and to deprive the US administration in Baghdad of a key source of legitimacy.

The perpetrators may have thought of themselves as Iraqi nationalists, or they may have been Sunni radicals affiliated to Al-Qaeda. Each group would have its own grievances against the United Nations. Remnants of the Arab nationalist Baath Party may remember with bitterness the UN economic sanctions on Iraq and the weapons inspections that they considered so humiliating.

The Sunni radicals are the other suspects. Truck bombings against diplomatic offices such as embassies have been the stock in trade of Al-Qaeda, which has also frequently used suicide bombers, unlike the secular Baath Party. Al-Qaeda has a longstanding grudge against the UN, and members have plotted the destruction of UN headquarters in New York. Osama bin Laden has denounced Muslims who cooperated with the world body.

The guerrillas have added to their repertoire, branching out from small attacks on US military personnel with rocket-propelled grenades. Over the weekend, saboteurs blew up the oil pipeline to Turkey near Kirkuk, in two separate places. It may take weeks to repair. Each day the conduit is out of commission costs the Anglo-American civil administration in Iraq $7 million. Without income from such petroleum exports, the US will find it even more difficult to provide key services and to train a new Iraqi military.

Rebuilding Iraq depends crucially on the help of the United Nations and its member states, and of nongovernmental organizations such as charities. Reconstruction will cost $7 billion this year, and petroleum exports are unlikely to cover more than half that sum. The overall cost of rebuilding Iraq may be $100 billion or more, and just maintaining the US military in Iraq costs $48 billion a year. At a time when the Bush administration’s deep tax cuts have pushed the budget deficit to $450 billion a year, the US simply cannot afford to undertake reconstruction on its own.

Yet the bombing may help further isolate the US in Iraq. Civilian aid organizations may be unwilling to risk running offices if they fear their workers will become soft targets for terrorists. Many have already found it difficult to operate in Iraq because of a continuing crime wave that includes car thefts, robberies and burglaries. There is no danger of the UN pulling out altogether, but many of its efforts will be less successful if conducted from behind heavy barricades ­ something the organization has avoided. Indeed, it was notable that while the Shiite religious leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani has refused to meet with Paul Bremer or other US officials, he did consult with the late head of the UN mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Also, member states such as India, France and Egypt have refused to send troops to Iraq, in part out of fear that guerrillas would target them. The task of the US to acquire more military allies has just become much harder.

There is no doubt that the various guerrillas fighting the US administration in Iraq are, at the very least, succeeding in creating the impression that the Americans are not in control. The situation on the ground is not quite as bad as the guerrillas would like to make it seem. Still, the conflict has moved to a public relations phase ­ in Iraq, the US and in the wider world. The guerrillas are winning the public relations war, and it is fairly easy for them to do so. All they have to do is commit symbolic acts that humiliate the US administration in their country.

The bombing of UN headquarters may reveal that the guerrillas fear most of all the moral authority and legitimacy of the international body. Without this, the US and Britain look suspiciously like neoimperialists to angry young Iraqis, whom the radicals hope to enlist in their fight. Ironically, the wisest American response may be to involve the UN much more extensively in Iraqi security and reconstruction.

It is increasingly clear that the Americans cannot rebuild Iraq by themselves and need the world community to help. Such a change in course would be the best way to honor the sacrifice made by de Mello and his colleagues Tuesday.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
opinion/21_08_03_c.asp



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Three guerrillas fired AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades at a US military convoy near Tikrit, killing a US citizen working as a translator, and wounding two US soldiers on Wednesday.

*Still no firm clues in the truck bombing of the UN HQ. Now there is some question about whether it really was a suicide bombing, or whether the driver managed to escape before impact. The munitions were not the fancy plastic stuff, but the FBI says that "the bomb was made up of about 450kg of old ordnance, including mortar rounds, artillery shells, hand grenades and a 225kg bomb," according to the wire services. I'd have to say that this materiel is more likely to come from Baath storehouses than from al-Qaeda suppliers, who almost certainly could have afforded somethng less cumbersome. I heard some speculation that the Lebanese Hizbullah may be operating in Iraq, but I think that sort of thing is simple minded. A modus operandi is not the only element in identifying a criminal. You also have to look at motive and opportunity and other evidence. There is no evidence that Hizbullah would have wanted to hit the UN in Baghdad. Just because they also do truck bombing is no basis on which to bring them into the picture as suspects. They've mainly been fighting with the Israelis over Israeli occupation of Arab land in recent years, and although they have made fiery pronouncements against the US presence in Iraq, there is no evidence I know of that they have any systematic presence in the country. Certainly, their main Iraq contact in the past was the al-Da`wa Party, most members of which are cooperating with the US administration; indeed, al-Da`wa-linked figures have some 4 of the 25 seats on the Interim Governing Council. This bombing was almost certainly done by Sunni Arabs, whether nationalists or Islamist radicals. From what I'm seeing, the Baathists are looking more and more plausible.

*Colin Powell is reportedly trying to get Italy and the UK to commit more troops to Iraq, and to convince France and Germany to join the effort. He almost certainly will not succeed with the latter two, despite the sympathy generated by the bombing, without a new UN Security Council Resolution that devolves more decision-making power in Iraq on the United Nations. Why should other countries put their troops in harm's way to support a solely US administration of Iraq? (A lot of international leaders may be asking why they should put their troops in harm's way at all.) The Bush administration made a very major mistake in blowing off the United Nations last spring. It just wasn't necessary. If Bush had delayed the start of the war 45 days, he could have had a majority of votes on the Security Council in favor of a war. If he had delayed 2-4 months he probably could have gotten France and Russia aboard. It wouldn't have cost $4 billion a month to wait a bit, which is what it does cost the US every month its 140,000 plus troops are in Iraq. A Security Council Resolution in favor of the war would have brought billions of dollars and thousands of troops from the international community, and made it far easier to provide security to post-war Iraq. The downside? Bremer wouldn't be able to just award contracts to Halliburton and Worldcom with no oversight or bidding. How would that constraint have hurt the American public? What if, you ask, the US had waited, and France and Russia had still refused to go along, because the inspectors could not find weapons of mass destruction? Well, the WMD wasn't there, so maybe there was not a casus belli. The war could have been called off, or the US could have gone ahead on the basis of the UNSC majority. Either outcome would have been preferable to the chaos and expense we see now.

*International Monetary Fund and World Bank officials attached to the UN in Baghdad are going home. This development will substantially delay some rebuilding projects in Iraq. In other words, the guerrilla attack achieved one of its goals.

*Iraqi labor relations: Most of Baghdad's 130 printing presses went on strike in Baghdad Wednesday, preventing all but 6 newspapers from appearing. The employees of the city's presses are upset that the Ministry of Education has contracted with foreign presses to print new Iraqi textbooks. This is the first printer's strike in 30 years. The strike was universally agreed upon by a meeting of printers, but a few presses reneged. That allowed the 6 newspapers to be published. I have to say, that given the danger of deflation in Iraq and the need to get money and employment to the people, it does seem wrong to farm major projects like Iraqi textbook production out to foreigners. I suppose one question is whether the Baghdad printers actually could do the job. If so, the contract should have gone to them.

*Muhammad Bahr al-`Ulum, a member of the Interim Governing Council, says that there will be 23 ministries and that ministerial appointments will be announced within 3 days. He also said that a law has been drafted to allow the trial of 2,000 high ranking Baathists, and part of a program of de-Baathification. (-Al-Hayat). He said that a committee charged with making suggestions about the drafting of the Iraqi constitution began work last Monday, and would issue a report in about a month. He added that the recent United Nations according of some sort of semi-recognition to the IGC had allowed many Arab states to deal with it. The IGC has received invitations from several Gulf states, and now from Jordan [and Saudi Arabia], in the aftermath of the UN decision. (This anecdote should be read out loud to US administrators of Iraq: the UN equals legitimacy, whether you like it or not.)

*Ibrahim Jaafari, President of the IGC (for August), told Kuwaitis on Weds. that Saddam had occupied and harmed the Iraqi people even before he occupied and harmed the Kuwaitis. (-Al-Sharq al-Awsat). He hoped for the reestablishment of friendly relations between Baghdad and Kuwait City, such as had existed before the 1990 Iraqi invasion. I was favorably impressed by the forthrightness of Jaafari's comments. He came out with it, and did not beat around the bush. As a member of the al-Da`wa Party who opposed Saddam for decades, he has some standing to speak this way.

*Iraqis in the street are angry at the perpetrators of the UN bombing, but are also furious at the US for not providing better security. So says al-Sharq al-Awsat correspondent in Baghdad Nasir al-Nahr. He says Iraqis he talked to are convinced that the true target of the bombing was the Iraqi people, and that it was perpetrated by outsiders.

*Shiite leaders in Najaf condemned the bombing vigorously. Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim denounced it, along with sabotage against gas pipelines and water mains, as aimed at preventing Iraqi political life from returning to normal. The office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the son of Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi also issued denunciations. From a Shiite point of view, the current political process is carrying Iraq toward a Shiite majority in an elected parliament and toward a Shiite prime minister, and they don't want that process delayed or disrupted. (-AFP)

*Ahmad Chalabi, chairman of the Iraqi National Congress and member of the Interim Governing Council, says that the IGC had prior indications that a truck bombing was being planned against a soft target, and passed the information over to the Americans, according to UPI. I think Chalabi is just grandstanding and trying to make it look as though he has better internal intelligence than do the US and the UK in Iraq, in hopes of making himself indispensable to them and coming to power. The Coalition authorities have already denied that they had any indication that an attack of this sort was coming, so he is calling them liars. And, if all he knew was that there might be a bombing against a soft target, he didn't know much. Any of us could have predicted that. Chalabi has no internal support and almost certainly has no better intelligence about the guerrillas than anyone else, and I hope that Paul Bremer will not fall for this power play. See http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?Story
ID=20030820-111847-1945r

*I remember just after the bombing of the UN HQ, I saw US civil administrator Paul Bremer on television, saying that he thought the truck bomber may have been attempting to assassinate UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello in specific, since he struck so close to the latter's office. De Mello was trapped in rubble, and was able to make a cell call before he died. I didn't think about it at the time, but it had to have crossed Mr. Bremer's mind that "there but for the grace of God go I." The guerrillas may have hit Vieira de Mello only because they just could not get to Mr. Bremer, who is very well guarded if, from all accounts, rather isolated from the Iraqi people. The realization made Bremer's observation more poignant for me. I hate to think about all the thousands of Americans who are in danger in Iraq, because of key mistakes made by Pentagon planners before the war.





For "cont'd" postings, click here.