31 Dead, 108 Wounded in Hillah Blasts
Basra Insecure

Suicide bombers in the Shiite city of Hillah about an hour's drive south of Baghdad killed at least 31 persons and wounded 108 on Monday. Al-Zaman says one bomber targeted recruits to the Iraqi security forces standing in line for a medical examination. Another hit recently fired security men who had been let go and who were demonstrating because they said they were still owed back pay. It should be remembered that these bombs inevitably kill a lot of civilian by-standers.

On Sunday night, one Iraqi soldier was killed and 4 were wounded in Baiji north of Baghdad in a bombing directed at a joint US/ Iraqi patrol in the west of the city. In the eastern part of the city of Balad, another Iraqi soldier was killed by a mortar strike. Two bodies of drivers were discovered at Sahliyah, who had been kidnapped by guerrillas last week. Guerrillas killed Col. Ahmad Salih al-Barzinji Sunday night after he had been kidnapped in Kirkuk.

In Irbil, guerrillas subjected the South Korean contingent to mortar fire for the first time, but did not appear to hit anything of value. On Sunday, the US military sweep of Hadithah in western Iraq came to an end.

An Iraqi army force detained (al-Zaman says "kidnapped") the Sunni cleric Shaikh Nawfal Kadhim al-Juburi, the prayer leader at the al-Salam mosque in Nahrawan in southeast Baghdad along with 35 worshippers in a dawn raid on the mosque. The raid was forcefully condemned by the Sunni Pious Endowments Board.

Al-Hayat Muhsin Abdul Hamid, a former president of Iraq under the American Coalition Provisional Authority and the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party who was mistakenly arrested by the US military and then released, said late Monday that he considered the arrest to have been "deliberate." Party spokesmen said that the arrest was a piece of American "stupidity" aimed at alienating the Sunni Arabs from political participation. Meanwhile, the other major religious group among the Sunnis, the Association of Muslim Scholars, condemned the arrest as proof that the elected Iraqi government "is not sovereign over the country" and said that Abdul Hamid's detention "underlined the power of the Occupier." They added, "no Iraqi is safe under the shadow of presence" of the occupying forces. An AMS spokesman said that the government's acceptance of this situation had multiplied the opportunities for the occupiers to intervene in Iraqi affairs. The AMS called for a united Iraqi front that would stop the occupying forces in their tracks. Adnan al-Dulaimi, another Sunni spokesman, said that there is a hidden hand plotting to marginalize the Sunni Arabs.

Abdul Hamid said he still did not know why he had been taken into custody along with his sons. He said, "American troops invaded my home at 4 am. They handcuffed me and led me to an unknown place, then transported me by helicopter to yet another location, where I was interrogated all day long about various matters." The US military apologized to Abdul Hamid for the inconvenience.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the victorious United Iraqi Alliance list that dominates parliament, complained recently that the guerrillas blowing up things in Iraq are just prolonging the US military presence in Iraq. He also complained that the US is stopping Iraq from buying heavy weaponry (I had been wondering where the new Iraqi tank corps was. There is a small one, but it is rudimentary). I conclude that al-Hakim is eager to get rid of the Americans, and feels frustrated that he cannot proceed with it until the Sunni Arab rejectionists stop their war and until he can find a way to get tanks and heavy artillery for his own forces so as to reduce dependence on the US.

Al-Hakim also leads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which was formed in 1982 in Tehran under the sponsorship of Ayatollah Khomeini and which had its HQ in Iran until 2003. It is therefore no surprise that Iran and Iraq are now moving steadily toward better and better relations, including plans for a rail link from Khorramshahr to Basra and another from Kermanshah to Diyalah province. Iran and Iraq will do a billion dollars worth of trade this year, but the number is likely to mushroom in coming years, especially if the security situation allows Shiite pilgrims to come to Najaf and Karbala. Iran expects trade barriers to be removed, and has expressed willingness to sell Iraq electricity.

Rory Carroll of the Guardian reports from Basra on the views of its police chief, who had been appointed by Iyad Allawi:

General Hassan al-Sade said half of his 13,750-strong force was secretly working for political parties in Iraq's second city and that some officers were involved in ambushes. Other officers were politically neutral but had no interest in policing and did not follow his orders, he told the Guardian. "I trust 25% of my force, no more." The claim jarred with Basra's reputation as an oasis of stability and security and underlined the burgeoning influence of Shia militias in southern Iraq. "The militias are the real power in Basra and they are made up of criminals and bad people," said the general.

It gradually becomes apparent, though, that al-Sade's jaundiced view of the situation in Basra is that of an ex-Baathist nervous about the rising influence of the Sadrists and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who are replacing Allawi's ex-Baathists with their own men in the police force.

Carroll would have done his readers a favor to have mentioned who won the provincial elections in Basra on January 30. Of 41 seats, 20 went to the Shiite Islamists of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Another 16 or so went to the Virtue Party or Fadilah, which follows the late ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. Carroll, it seems to me, is likely confusing Fadilah with the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. In fact, they follow Muhammad al-Yaqubi, a more low-key rival of Muqtada's who studied with Muqtada's father. Fadilah controls Basra city hall because it put together a coalition that gave it 21 seats, so it can outvote SCIRI. The two victors of the democratic elections, in any case, are now appointing the police, which are obviously loyal to the parties rather than to an ex-Baathist police chief installed by the widely disliked ex-Baathist and old time CIA asset Iyad Allawi.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports Tuesday that the Ministry of Interior has established a fifth branch of its special forces, called the Panther Brigade, in Basra. The ministry is now controlled by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and some Sunni leaders have claimed that its special forces are tools of Shiite dominance over Sunnis. Al-Sade may also worry about being outflanked by this Federal force, which has a special charge of fighting terrorism and protecting Federal property.

So I come away not knowing if al-Sade is accurately reporting a crime problem in Basra or is just expressing the sour grapes of an ex-Baathist whose prime minister lost the election in a crushing defeat, and who seems a little unlikely to survive in his post because of the current Iraqi spoils system.

"Yoshihiko Motoyama: Lawless private militaries milking Iraq conflict" explains the private paramilitaries operating in Iraq.

Now the senior Iraqi physicians are fleeing the country. More good news.

This article on unmanned aerial vehicles or UAV's and their military usefulness in Iraq begs the question of why, if they are so great, there are still all those bombings.

Reuters profiles the neighborhood watch program in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. It is a great idea and has had some success there, but it probably cannot be done in the Sunni Arab areas where it is most needed, for two reasons. 1) People are too afraid and intimidated to call in, for fear of reprisals and 2) a large number of people approve of the Iraqi guerrillas, to whom they refer as the "resistance."
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Iraqi Islamic Party Leader Released

The US military has released Muhsin Abd al-Hamid, the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The IIP runs the provincial council in Anbar and is the only major Sunni Arab religious party that has generally been willing to cooperate with the Americans. Abd al-Hamid served on the American-appointed Interim Governing Council.

His arrest had provoked major protests.

Reader Sally Quinn kindly sends a translation of a French report from Le Monde via Reuters/AFP:

"The Islamic Party, in a communiqué, demanded an explanation for the raid on the Baghdad residence of its leader as well as an official apology. "They must also release two of this three sons, Mokdad and Assayed, who are still beikng held along with several houseguests and bodyguards, said the party without indicating their numbers . . . Although critical of the current Shi'a-dominated government, the Islamic Party has not excluded its participation in the drafting of the permanent Constitution . . . recently the party has taken a position against the blind violence
targeting the populace and the security forces while criticizing the arrest of Sunni
clerics, the warhorses of the powerful Committee of Iraqi Ulema, which refuses to
participate in negotiations surrounding the drafting of the Constitution . . . Following his release, Mr. Abdel Hamid underscored the humiliation to which he was subjected by US soldiers, saying that they handcuffed him and interrogated him for hours."

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and President Jalal Talabani complained bitterly about the US action and apparently were not consulted about the arrest. They pointed out that the US keeps saying it wants to involve the Sunni leadership, but that arrests like this one just drive away even the moderates. The initial reports also talked about US troops confiscating money. Basically they kicked down his door, rifled through his things, hooded him, and dragged him away. There was no arrest warrant, no consultation with the supposedly sovereign Iraqi government, and apparently no knowledge of who Abd al-Hamid really is.

Susan Hu is leading a good discussion of the SNAFU over at Daily Kos. I've been watching CNN for hours and there is nothing about this.

A keen observer of Iraq's legal and economic scene writes in with regard to whether the US military was legally justified in arresting Abd al-Hamid in the first place.

"Discretion may be the better part of valour, but it is quite clear:

For starters, there is this:

'Article 15.

(B) Police, investigators, or other governmental authorities may not violate the sanctity of private residences, whether these authorities belong to the federal or regional governments, governorates, municipalities, or local administrations, unless a judge or investigating magistrate has issued a search warrant in accordance with applicable law on the basis of information provided by a sworn individual who knew that bearing false witness would render him liable to punishment. Extreme exigent circumstances, as determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, may justify a warrantless search, but such exigencies shall be narrowly construed. In the event that a warrantless search is carried out in the absence of an extreme exigent circumstance, the evidence so seized, and any other evidence found derivatively from such search, shall be inadmissible in connection with a criminal charge, unless the court determines that the person who carried out the warrantless search believed reasonably and in good faith that the search was in accordance with the law.'

The National Emergency Law makes clear that only “government officials” may arrest people. (Even if that were not clear, the requirement of a “court order” would seem unambiguous. Could there possibly be a constitution-type law that says that a court order is required for “government officials,” but anyone else, willy-nilly, who has colorable authority from somewhere else can “arrest” people?)

As far as Iraqi law is concerned, there is no question, and any question there might be could be resolved by an act of the National Assembly.

The authority of the MNF derives from SCR 1546 and an alleged “partnership,” with respect to which there is no partnership agreement (normally legally fatal), which authorizes “all necessary measures,” but one would have to ask the members of the Security Council what that would mean in the current context.

As to whether a Security Council resolution is superior to a national interim “constitution,” I leave for another day. Strict constructionists like Senator Coleman might think not."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

30 Dead, Dozens Wounded by Guerrillas
In Response to Operation Lightning

Guerrillas in Baghdad fought determinedly against the 40,000 Iraqi soldiers fielded to crack down on violence in Baghdad. AFP writes,

"Four car bombs in and around the capital killed 16 people, most of them security personnel, Sunday, in a swift response to Iraq's widest homegrown clampdown since the fall of Saddam Hussein over two years ago. Nine soldiers taking part in Operation Lightning died in a suicide car bombing at their roadblock just south of the capital, while two policemen were killed when a suicide car bomber targeted their patrol in southwestern Baghdad. In western Baghdad, a car bomb targeting police commandos killed three people and wounded 20, an interior ministry source said, adding that police had then fought a firefight with men in the area. An earlier suicide bombing near the oil ministry left two dead, while violence elsewhere claimed the lives of a British soldier and seven Iraqis."

John Burns of the NYT says that the guerrillas are putting up a vigorous fight against government troops and that 14 died in a pitched battle between the two that lasted for hours.

US troops arrested Muhsin Abd al-Hamid Monday morning. He is the head of the (Sunni) Iraqi Islamic Party and had served on the Interim Governing Council appointed by Bremer. The IIP initially announced that they would take part in the parliamentary elections, then declared neutrality because of the November, 2004, Fallujah campaign.

Forbes reports, "Hamid, leader of the Iraq Islamic Party, was hooded and taken away after US troops broke windows in his home and allegedly mistreated him and his sons, the party official said. "

Actually it is not clear under the provisional Iraqi constitution that it is legal for US troops just to go arrest people.

The arrest of a major Sunni leader will cerainly have an impact on the guerrilla movement. Journalists are already talking about a new potential civil war among the sects.

Will write more on Monday afternoon.
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No God But God

Max Rodenbeck makes odd statements and basic errors in his review of Reza Aslan's "No God but God" on the struggle between moderates and extremists in the Muslim world.

Rodenbeck writes:

"Aslan's wish to emphasize the tolerant, merciful side of Islam can lead to pitfalls. It is not particularly comforting to learn that when the prophet triumphantly returned to Mecca, the city of his birth that had rejected him, there were no forced conversions and ''only'' six men and four women were put to the sword."

First of all, we don't know that Muhammad had anyone at all killed when he took Mecca in 630. The sources reporting this are late, 200 years after the fact, and the authors use terms like "dhukira anna" ("it was mentioned that") instead of giving tight citations as they usually do. My teacher, the great historian of early Islamic sources, Marsden Jones, flatly disbelieved the few execution stories based on the wording of the sources.

Muhammad was a merchant of Mecca from a noble family, who began receiving what he interpreted as revelations from God around 610 A.D. (C.E. or Common Era). He began preaching the one God, but was persecuted by the pagan Meccan elite. In 622 he emigrated to the nearby Yathrib, which later became known as Medina, just ahead of an attempt to assassinate him. Even in Medina, the Meccan elite came after him, intending to kill him and wipe out his religion. He and the Muslims fought back, and

they ultimately won.

It is certainly the case that Muhammad did not have his primary enemies killed, and did not visit vengeance on the city that had tried to murder him and wipe out his religion through active warfare over more than a decade. Aslan's praise for Muhammad in this regard is a commonplace and completely appropriate.

Here are some instances of prophets not behaving with Muhammad's magnanimity:

Exod.17

1. [9] And Moses said to Joshua, "Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Am'alek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand."
2. [10] So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Am'alek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
3. [13] And Joshua mowed down Am'alek and his people with the edge of the sword.
4. [14] And the LORD said to Moses, "Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Am'alek from under heaven."

Or how about this from Chapter 8 of the Book of Joshua?

"# [18] Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai; for I will give it into your hand." And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
# [21] And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city went up, then they turned back and smote the men of Ai.
# [23] But the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.
# [26] For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
# [27] Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took as their booty, according to the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.
# [28] So Joshua burned Ai, and made it for ever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day.
# [29] And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening; and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day."

So actually, yes, Muhammad's treatment of Mecca was remarkably gracious, and it is weird that Rodenback should have so much trouble acknowledging it. Muhammad did not have his opponents among the Meccan elite hanged, did not kill all the Meccans, did not raze the city. The scribes that wrote the Joshua story many centuries later depicted him as a bloodthirsty mass murderer egged on by Moses, his mentor in wiping people out. All those Westerners who go on about how much better the Bible is than the Koran apparently haven't actually read much of the Bible.

Then Rodenbeck writes:

"The killing and enslavement of Jewish tribes at Medina receives a similarly light gloss, although Aslan may be right to point out that their ''Jewishness'' may have been rather vaguely defined."

Rodenbeck is mixing up several distinct narratives here. And, again, we don't have early sources. The late sources we do have from a couple of centuries later do not agree with one another on key details and may well reflect Muslim-Jewish relations in post-conquest Iraq. But the narratives we do have suggest that their authors thought that the Jewish tribes in Medina (who are depicted as joining in pagan rituals) initially pledged neutrality in the Muslim/Meccan struggle, but later many of them sided against Muhammad. Personally, I think such narratives are very suspect (see, e.g., Rizwi S. Faizer, "Muhammad and the Medinan Jews," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 463-489 ).

Then Rodenbeck writes:

"Even archconservative Saudi Arabia is slowly evolving. In April, its top religious authority declared that forcing a woman to marry against her will was an imprisonable offense."

Rodenbeck seems not to know that in traditional Islamic law women were full persons under the law, with the sort of property rights that Western women lacked until about 1850. Indeed, I suspect that Muslim women were the wealthiest and most powerful women in the world between 632 and 1850 or so. It has been the general stance of Muslim jurists through the centuries that a girl cannot be married off to someone without her consent. Ibn Abbas says that when a girl came to the Prophet and said that her father forced her to marry without her consent, Muhammad gave her the choice of annuling the marriage or keeping it. (Ibn Hanbal No. 2469). It wasn't just an ideal, either. Judith Tucker found a Hanafi jurist of 18th century Palestine maintaining that it was wrong to marry a girl off to someone against her will. Obviously, some fathers have married daughters off against their will, but that is a matter of patriarchal custom, not Islamic principle.

You can't treat Muhammad as a historical figure in a vacuum or by reading the sources naively. And you can't write knowledgably on modern Islamic reform if you don't know what Muslim authorities have written on issues in the medieval and early modern period.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

43 Iraqis Dead in 2 Days
Shiite Pilgrims Massacred
Killings in Sinjar, Hilla


Wire services report that the unconventional sectarian civil war in Iraq continued on Saturday. Guerrillas in Qaim executed 10 Shiite pilgrims originally from Diwaniyah returning from Syria. The shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and the sister of martyred Imam Husain, is located near Damascus and likely the pilgrims had been up to visit it. If there is anything calculated to provoke Sunni-Shiite civil war, it is the murder of people who just came back from a religious pilgrimage to a sacred Shiite site.

In addition, two suicide bombers killed at least five Iraqis and wounded dozens more when they set off their payloads at a join US/Iraqi army base near the northern town of Sinjar close to the Syrian border.

Guerrillas killed four Iraqi soldiers and wounded a fifth when they shot up the car carrying them near Hilla, a Shiite city south of Baghdad.

It was announced by Iraqi authorities only on Saturday that there had been bombings in Tikrit and killings in Babil province south of Baghdad on Sunday that left a dozen or so dead.

The Scotsman reports that "A roadside bomb blast targeting a US convoy in Mosul killed three Iraqi civilians, including a 10-year-old boy."

It also reports that the Association of Muslim Scholars (Sunni) and the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI, Shiite) have reached an initial agreement to back off their earlier confrontation witon one another and to "serve the nation." The agreement came about through the mediateion of Muqtada al-Sadr and his aides, Shiite nationalists who are probably on friendlier terms with the hard line Sunnis than they are with the Badr Corps, their rival. Another meeting of the two sides is planned.

About 1,000 US and Iraqi troops continued their find and destroy operation against guerrillas in Haditha in western Iraq.

Tidbits from the Iraqi press via BBC World Monitoring for May 28:

"Dar al-Salam on 26 May publishes on page 2 a 250-word report on the statement issued by the University Professors Association condemning the US "occupation" forces for violating the Al-Anbar University campus. . .

Al-Zaman publishes on the front page a 220-word report citing the newspaper's reporter as saying yesterday, 27 May, that Iraqi security forces backed by multinational forces are imposing a tight siege around Buhriz district in the Diyala Governorate, in a search for specific individuals. Al-Zaman publishes on page 3 a 150-word report citing police sources in Al-Diwaniyah confirming the arrest of a gang involved in forging official documents . . .

Al-Ufuq carries on page 4 a 200-word report stating that the Education Ministry has reinstated 88 teachers in the Karbala Education Directorate. [These were Shiites fired by Saddam for not being loyal Baathists.] . . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page 6 a 600-word article commenting on the fatwas being issued by religious authorities in Iraq and urging the Iraqi public to listen to their conscience and not only to these fatwas."

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Military Analysts Who Lived in Aluminum Fairy Land Rewarded

Two Army analysts who mistakenly claimed that aluminum tubing bought by Iraq was for centrifuges to enrich uranium received job performance awards during the past 3 years. When the specifications of the tubing were finally shown to the International Atomic Energy Commission in March of 2003, Mohammed ElBaradei was able to falsify the allegation within 24 hours, issuing a statement that tubing with those specifications could not be used for uranium enrichment. If Elbaradei could see the falsehood of the claims almost immediately, it is not plausible that US analysts could not.

Every American should go back and read thoroughly the transcripts of the reports to the UN of Mohamed Elbaradei in February and March of 2003.

On March 7, 2003, he said:

"Based on available evidence, the IAEA team has concluded that Iraq efforts to import these aluminum tubes were not likely to have been related to the manufacture of centrifuge, and moreover that it was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program . . .

The IAEA was able to review correspondence coming from various bodies of the government of Niger and to compare the form, format, contents and signature of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related documentation.

Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded with the concurrence of outside experts that these documents which formed the basis for the report of recent uranium transaction between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded. However, we will continue to follow up any additional evidence if it emerges relevant to efforts by Iraq to illicitly import nuclear materials."

Compare that to what the Bush administration was telling people in the same period, and it is clear. Elbaradei was living in the real world. The US government and the US press and the US punditocracy was living in a fantasy land.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Muqtada: All Factions Must Participate in Constitution-Making

The Herald Sun reports that late on Friday, ' "A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a police patrol, killing seven people, including three policemen and wounding 24 civilians," Lieutenant Mahmud al-Azzawi said. '

Guerrillas assassinated a major Sunni Arab tribal leader, Shaikh Sabhan Khalaf al-Juburi (al-Jibouri), 52, on Friday in Kirkuk, according to AP. Al-Juburi, though he was a Sunni Arab, had good relations with the Kurds, unlike many Sunni Arabs in the northern, disputed oil city of Kirkuk.

Al-Hayat: In Baghdad, the Sunni cleric Shaikh Mahmud al-Sumayd`i, member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, stressed that Iraqis should give their loyalty to the country, not to their sect.

In Najaf, Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said in his Friday prayers sermon that the same (Sunni) groups that had blown up Shiite mosques and Christian churches and Shiite crowds was now making wild accusations against the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of SCIRI. Such false accusations, he said, were one new technique of terrorism. The other new form of terrorism that he saw had occurred recently in the northern city of Telafar, where individuals were butchered by Sunni jihadis for having identification on them showing that they were Shiites. Telafar, a city of 200,000 in the north not far from the Syrian border, is largely Turkmen, and most of its Turkmen are Shiites.

Al-Qubanji was essentially accusing the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars of being in league with terrorists, and branding its leader, Hareth al-Dhari, a terrorist.

Al-Zaman:

Attacks continued in several Iraq cities.

Muqtada al-Sadr called Friday for the participation of all Iraqis in the drafting of a constitution, and asked that no faction be excluded. His aide, Shaikh Hazim al-A`raji, read out Muqtada's sermon at the Kufa mosque: "We want the permanent constitution to be drafted in a way that guarantees justice to all sections of the people , so that no segment is wronged . . . We demand that all be included in the writing of the constitution." Earlier Muqtada had been quoted as saying that his group would not participate in the drafting of the new constitution as long as there was a US military occupation, and that anyway the Koran was his constitution.

Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahru'l-Ulum said that the constitution drafting committee would meet within the next 24 hours. He spoke after he had met with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. (The Bahru'l-`Ulum family is traditionally a clerical one with close ties to the grand ayatollahs in Najaf). Informed sources said that the Sunni representation on the 55-person committee in parliament would be raised beyond the present 2 delegates.

Armed guerrillas fled the city of Telafar in the north after they had been surrounded by Iraqi police and the noose was tightening. They scattered in nearby villages.

Iraq said it needed $10 billion immediately from donor nations in the international community for urgent reconstruction projects and fighting unemployment.

Three Iraqi policemen were killed Friday in Mosul in one incident. In another, a policeman was killed and four were wounded by a roadside bomb that was followed by the spraying of machine gun fire, in Mosul's Basinjar quarter.

In Dulu'iyyah a truck driver working for the Americans was killed by a roadside bomb.

The corpse of a policeman was discovered in the Qadisiyah quarter of Samarra.

Iraq was forced to halt petroleum exports through the northern Ceyhan pipeline because of sabotage.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

US Helicopter Shot Down, 2 Soldiers Dead
PM Jaafari launches a Campaign around Baghdad

Guerrillas shot down a US helicopter near Baqubah on Thursday, killing two US soldiers.

Stephen Kamarow explains the reservations many Iraqis have about what strikes them as an indecisive leadership style in Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.

His Minister of Defense, Saadoun Dulaimi, and his Interior Minister, Bayan Jabr, announced Thursday that they intended to deploy 40,000 troops and police around Baghdad in what they called "Operation Lightning" in a bid to stop the deadly campaign of suicide bombings launched so effectively by the guerrillas since the naming of the new government.

Reuters reports that Humam Hamoudi, the chair of the constitution drafting committee in parliament, is attempting to find ways of expanding Sunni representation on that body beyond the two current members of parliament (out of 55 total). He says that the Sunnis may hold elections for the positions.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the situation in Iraq's universities, where as many as 100 professors have been assassinated and the poor security environment has slowed progress in restoring Iraq's higher education establishments.

Syria revealed on Thursday that it had arrested 1200 persons who were trying to pass through its territory on the way to iraq. Syria has been annoyed at US claims it is not doing enought to stop infiltration of radical Muslim militants from Syria into Iraq. Syria has been arresting such persons all along, but is now making the fact public as part of its tiff with Washington. The Bush administration appears to believe that it can get cooperation from the Syrian government at the same time that it is openly dedicated to overthrowing it. That time has passed.

Guerrillas attempted to deploy a dog with a bomb belt against a convoy of Iraq troops, but the only victim was the unfortunate animal.

Kevin Zeese analyzes the Congressional debate on May 25 on setting a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq, introduced by Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). The motion lost 300 to 128 with 5 not voting.
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Blog-Casting and the Future of Blog Advertising

Carl Bialik of the WSJ has an article on attempts to count various things about web logs, including how many there are, how many Americans read them, how much they are linked to, and what their readership is. Many of these questions are driven by Madison Avenue (i.e. US advertising firms) who are interested in the medium's advertising potential.

As I see it, the problem for advertisers is that blogging appears to be a form of narrow-casting. They like broadcasting. You place an ad on even a low-ranking cable television show like Star Trek Enterprise (while it was still limping along) and about 3 million people see it every week. You place an ad on even a popular weblog like MyDD and Blogads says that it has 146,000 page views a week. (Technorati.com measures its popularity rather by looking at how many other blogs link to it.)

Many of the problems of measurement are probably intractable, but the advertising issue has already been solved by Henry Copeland of Blogads, with the concept of networked ads (which I prefer to call blog-casting). Any group of bloggers can set up a network, as the Liberal blogs have done. Altogether the Liberal Blog Advertising Network can provide an advertiser with a million or so page views a week in one fell swoop. The ads once taken out will appear on all the blogs maintained by members of the network, so they become a form of broadcasting, or blog-casting. Blog readership is demonstrably growing, and pretty soon such networks will be able to compete at least with cable television for ability to reach viewers.

Bialik says some advertisers want to measure unique hits rather than page views, because they don't want to pay for the same person to see the ad more than once in a week. Why? A weekly rate actually benefits advertisers. The ad is there continuously 24/7, rather than once for 30 seconds as in television, and it cannot be bad for readers to see it repeatedly. As for the page view issue, no one can be sure what it is measuring. Page views are counted every time a browser accesses a site (though at my server, my number for "referrals" or browsers coming to the site from elsewhere is higher than that for page views for some odd reason).

Lots of people read weblogs at university computer labs, internet cafes, or at offices with joint computers, so that one internet protocol number may in some cases actually represent several different persons over the day. Moreover, my understanding is that a lot of big service providers, such as Comcast, cache pages the first time they are accessed by a customer and thereafter tend to serve the page from their cache at their server, so that a lot of readers of a weblog may not reach all the way to the bloggers' original server, to be counted as a unique hit. And, it is now possible for readers to copy the entire page/entry and to email it as html, ads and all, to friends. A lot of that is done, and it is impossible to measure. Still, I think that between tools like technorati.com and counting page views, some estimation of advertiser value can be arrived at that will make the business model work.

Do I worry about blog advertising corrupting the medium?

Not very much.

In my view, corporate news media have been harmed by media consolidation (having only a few owners, all of them big wealthy corporations) far more than by advertising. It is an editorial decision whether to insist that the news division make 15 percent profit or whether to keep it as a loss leader. They had advertising in Bill Paley's day, too, but at that time CBS news was a big, relatively independent operation. If you have only 5 CEOs making that decision for virtually all television news, and if they are competitors, then there is a real danger that they will all sacrifice news to profit.

But because the price of entry is so low, you can never have ownership consolidation in weblogging. It will always be a distributed medium and therefore very difficult to control. If professional bloggers emerged who came to be unduly beholden to their advertisers and started not covering certain stories or spinning them for the sake of their sponsors, other non-professional bloggers would just step into the breach. If corporate media bought up a few big bloggers, they would still have to compete against literally millions of independents, and if any of the independents was providing what the audience wanted better, the traffic would shift to them. In the world of weblogging, any form of censorship actually creates opportunities for those immune to it.

Technical limitations and expense make it almost impossible for anyone now to start up a new 24 hour a day news channel. But anyone can start a blog. I expect journalist cooperatives (both professional and amateur) to emerge over time that do podcasting, and eventually webcasting with video, finally breaking the current semi-monopoly in broadcast news.

So it seems to me that blog-casting with regard to advertising, but retaining lots of independent blogs is the best of all possible worlds. And advertising blog-casting may finally begin addressing a key problem in the business model, which is that blog advertising rates are ridiculously low. Bloggers are essentially offering a front-page panel for what a small classified ad would cost in a small town newspaper, and the circulation rates may be similar.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Bombings and Assassinations Continue
US Military Sweep in Haditha

Thursday morning's 70 minutes of mayhem began at 7:20 a.m. Baghdad time. Guerrillas detonated two bombs, and carried out two drive-by shootings and a stabbing in a little over an hour. A roadside bomb targeted a US convoy, wounding at least one civilian. A bomb in the Shu'lah quarter of Baghdad killed three Iraqis, including two policemen, and wounded six. A guerrilla stabbed Fakhri Abd al-Amiri, an official of the Dawa Party, to death in al-Qadisiyah, West Baghdad. Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari belongs to the Shiite Dawa Party, which has a cell structure and aims at establishing an Islamic state. Guerrillas sprayed gunfire at Dr. Musa Abbas, professor in the College of Arts of al-Mustansiriya University. The gunmen also killed three of his bodyguards. The attack took place in the Risala district of south Baghdad. Drive-by shooters wounded 4 Iraqi soldiers in the Ghazaliyah quarter of the capital. US soldiers fighting at Telafar shot a child who got caught in the crossfire.

Guerrillas assassinated the police chief of Sharqat Wednesday while he was driving in the nearby city of Mosul, in front of the university. The bullets also wounded 4 university students.

AFP reports that guerrillas detonated two bombs in the northern Kurdish city of Dohuk, killing one policeman and according to al-Zaman wounding 8 others. A bombing in Dura, Baghdad, targetting special troops of the Interior Ministry killed 1 and wounded 8. Violence around the country seems to have killed or wounded dozens on Wednesday, though the death toll was lower than in recent days.

US troops continued their Western offensive on Wednesday, moving into Haditha, a city of 90,000. They said they killed 10 guerrillas and found the local townspeople afraid of the jihadis.

Mahir Dili, the dean of the College of Arts at Anbar University, who lives in Haditha, said that 15 US troops invaded his home at 5 am. They asked him if he owned any weapons or was harboring any guerrillas, then thoroughly searched his home and left when they found nothing (al-Zaman). The report suggests that the Haditha sweep is being done relatively blind, without good intelligence, so that a mild-mannered dean gets treatment that should ideally be reserved for a suspected guerrilla or helper of guerrillas.

Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor reports the good news that Iraqi army soldiers have had some success in restoring security to Haifa Street in Baghdad, which was long a guerrilla stronghold. The report mentions that the Iraqi troops have sometimes called in US tanks. I have long wondered where the new Iraqi tank corps is. Without effective armor, how can they win on their own?

On Tuesday, guerrillas attempted to assassinate Member of Parliament Salamah Khafaji, who was on her way from Baghdad to Najaf to consult with young nationalist Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Four of her guards were critically injured. Sadr has been mediating between the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It was the fourth attempt on her life.

AP reported earlier this week that Muqtada al-Sadr refuses to have his people take part in the drafting of the new constitution: "Radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite with a large following, told an Iraqi television network Monday that ''as long as Iraq is occupied we will not take part in drafting the constitution. We consider the Quran as our constitution." Only 3 parliamentarians ran as loyalists to Muqtada, in any case.

Darrin Mortenson reports on the reactions to the reemergence of Muqtada among Marines at Camp Pendleton, who fought his forces last year. The remarks are judicious.

ash-Sharq al-Awsat/ Reuters: Hundreds of Shiite supporters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Badr Corps, its paramilitary wing, demonstrated in Najaf on Wednesday against the charges by Hareth al-Dhari of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars that Badr was behind the assassination of Sunni clerics and worshippers. The demonstrators were joined by some members of local rural clans. Several demonstrators said that al-Dhari's comments were "irresponsible and were aimed at plunging the country into a sectarian war and causing the Iraqi people to break ranks." Another said it was suspicious that al-Dhari issued his charges just after Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi departed Iraq. Several demonstrators demanded that al-Dhari apologize for his remarks and withdraw them.

Al-Zaman said that there were signs that the mediation attempt of Muqtada al-Sadr was failing.

The death penalty is back in Iraq, applied in the southern, largely Shiite, city of Kut to alleged members of the Ansar al-Sunna terrorist group (Sunni radicals). For a while after the fall of Saddam, some Iraqi politicians vowed to end the death penalty in the country to mark a decisive change of course from the policies of the Baath Party, which executed tens of thousands of persons. Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch points out that given the level of insecurity and violence in Iraq, a government policy of executing people could lead to massive numbers of executions.

Amnesty International is not impressed with the human rights situation in the Middle East generally and in Iraq in particular.

Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk are charging that the Kurds are trying to take over the city in order to make a claim on its petroleum resources. The Kurds, who hold 26 of 41 provincial council seats, deny the charges.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP says that most Kurdish youth know little Arabic, and prefer to learn English as their second language. This trend, the article says, raises questions about national integration. A school principal in Irbil with 1442 students said that they were delighted to be able to study in Kurdish, and no longer know any Arabic. Arabic, he said, is now a third language. The decline in knowledge of Arabic in the north dates from the establishment of the no-fly zone after the Gulf War in the early 1990s.


BBC World Monitoring for 24 May reports:

Al-Da'wah publishes on the front page a 500-word report on the latest developments in Iraq.

"The report focuses on a number of topics including the ongoing efforts by various Iraqi political and religious forces to defuse the current sectarian crisis in the country and to form a fund to compensate the victims of terrorism in Iraq.

The report adds that the cabinet has decided to form a Financial Committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Dr Ahmad al-Chalabi which will be responsible for reviewing all the contracts signed by various state institutions.

Sawt al-Ahali . . .: The report cites a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry announcing that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'fari will visit Iran shortly.

The report cites National Assembly Member Jawad al-Maliki as saying: "The government will seek Interpol's help to arraign the ministers of the former government who have been charged." . . .

Al-Mada publishes on page 2 an 80-word report quoting Basra Governor Muhammad Musbih al-Wa'ili announcing that Thursday will replace Saturday as the week holiday in Basra, adding that government and private banks are excluded from this change.

Al-Mada publishes on page 3 a 2,000-word interview with Minister of Telecommunications Jwan Fu'ad Ma'sum who says that women lack political experience . . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page 4 a 220-word report citing a security source in the Maysan Governorate affirming that security forces have intensified the security measures in the wake of the recent spree of assassinations in the governorate. The report cites police sources confirming the assassination of Shaykh Haydar Abd-al-Zahrah al-Bahadili, a Shi'i cleric, in Al-Amarah yesterday, 23 May.

Al-Ufuq carries on page 6 a 600-word report on the "threats" to Iraqi physicians' lives. Al-Ufuq runs on page 6 a 700-word report on the "assassination fever" in Iraq. The report interviews a number of Iraqis and cites their comments on the increase in the number of assassinations.

Al-Furat publishes on page 1 a 50-word report citing a security source in Al-Muthanna Governorate saying that the governorate's Internal Affairs Office has arrested Al-Muthanna Custom's officer on "charges of corruption". Al-Furat carries on page 2 a 400-word report citing a survey conducted by the Planning Ministry stating that 40% of the Iraqi women feel that "criminals" are "major threat" to their lives . . .

Al-Mada publishes on the front page a 120-word report saying that two Iraqi children were killed in Safwan in separate incidents, one was trampled down by a US convoy and the other by a British patrol. The report adds that Basra intelligence forces have found three missiles hidden at a farm.

Al-Mada publishes on page 2 an 80-word report saying that the chief editor of the Ansar al-Mahdi newspaper has escaped an assassination attempt while he was returning home in Al-Baladiyyat area in Baghdad.

Al-Mada publishes on page 2 a 1,000-word report quoting a high-ranking police official announcing that 14 suspects were arrested in Al-Wahda district north of Al-Kut Governorate.

Al-Mada publishes on page 3 a 700-word report citing the rush created by Iraqi youth to join the security and police forces, despite the risks. Al-Mada publishes on page 6 a 1,000-word report citing tribes in Babil Governorate expressing readiness to secure the area and to reveal terrorist networks . . .

Al-Mada publishes on page 2 a 120-word report saying that the Al-Najaf Governor As'ad abu Kalal has presided over a meeting for the public service departments to discuss the spread of typhoid in Al-Najaf Governorate due to polluted drinking water, adding that the Council has closed a primary school for the same reason. The report also quotes the governor confirming that there is a severe shortage in medical supplies and that the supply is 34% short of demand.

Al-Bayan publishes on page 5 a 1,500-word article by Husayn Allawi discussing the role of politics in the ideology of the Al-Da'wah Islamic Party.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Islamism versus Secularism in Iraq: A Debate

I saw this debate on al-Jazeera (Doha) on Sunday in Arabic at 17:15 GMT, on 22 May 05. It was some of the best television discussion of Iraq I've ever seen, and the BBC World Monitoring has translated it now (May 24, 2005). The al-Jazeera anchor was quite fair, and at one point intervened to ask Tariq al-Hashimi if he really thought all the sectarian violence could be blamed on the Americans.

It is introduced as follows:

"Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel Television at 1715 gmt on 22 May carries a new 45-minute edition of its weekly programme "The Iraqi scene", moderated by Abd-al-Azim Muhammad in the Doha studio. Guests of the programme via satellite from Baghdad are Dr Tariq al-Hashimi, secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party; Sa'd Jawad Qandil, member of the Political Bureau of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI] and Dr Ghassan al-Atiyah, director of the Iraqi Institute for Democracy and Development. The main topic of discussion is the conflict between Sunnis and Shi'is in Iraq following the recent abductions and assassinations."

Here, I'll just give one particularly characteristic and important statement from each of the three.

The moderator asks Ghassan al-Atiyah about "sectarian tension" in Iraq and its reasons. He replies:

"We have been dismembered. The parties, which came to rescue us from the hegemony of a dictatorship and the tyranny of the ugliest dictatorship in the region, have turned into a tool to destroy what was left of the Iraqi entity. I do not exempt anyone from this. I am one of the political people who sought change. Let us be frank. Theoretical and complimentary remarks are made on television while in practice killing and slaughtering by the two sides are taking place on the ground. All justify the killing of the other side in the name of religion. The major tragedy is that the US occupation of Iraq and the policies adopted after occupation contributed to consecrating sectarian and ethnic division in our country instead of uniting the Iraqis. The democratic, liberal, leftist, and nationalist forces have been marginalized. The Sunnis were not the only ones who were marginalized but all these forces."

Al-Atiyah called for the establishment of effective liberal and socialist parties in Iraq that could appeal on a secular basis across sectarian lines. (The World Monitor translation drops this crucial point out). Later he said, ' "There is no freedom or democracy in any country where Islam has been politicized. How will the situation then be in a country that is divided on sectarian bases?" He blames the Shi'i parties for refusing to postpone the January elections and the Sunnis for boycotting them. '

Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraqi Islamic Party (Sunni):

' He denies that the Islamic political parties are responsible for what is taking place in the country. He defends his party and says the Iraqi Islamic Party's programme has no sectarian or ethnic tendencies. He then agrees with Dr Al-Atiyah that the current crisis in Iraq began with the "implementation of the political quota system in the Governing Council." He hopes the next general elections at the end of the year will end this quota system "for which the occupation is responsible in part and parcel." Continuing, he says: "I think the Iraqis are victims rather than initiators of the crisis. The country is still in the hands of the occupier. Sovereignty is incomplete and this must be admitted. Therefore, the occupation is primarily responsible for what is taking place on the ground." He adds that "the security file is still in the hands of the occupier and this is an extremely serious impasse." He then blames the government security services for "failing to uncover the perpetrators of crimes." ' . . . Later he says that

' Incitement campaigns by Al-Iraqiyah television and other suspect channels and news media with the aim of planting the seeds of an abominable sectarianism must immediately stop." He adds that Al-Iraqiyah television "disseminated false claims by persons who claimed to have been involved in killings." '

I presume he is implying that the religious Shiite parties have gotten control of the state media and are using it to blame Sunnis for all the violence.

Saad Jawad Qandil of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI):

'Asked what the Iraqi Government can do to solve the crisis, Qandil says: "I join Dr Tariq al-Hashimi in saying that the solution lies in defusing any sectarian sedition through national unity and the participation of all sectors of the Iraqi society in one national plan with the aim of upholding the supremacy of the law and isolating all sectarian tendencies among the Iraqi people. I also call for preventing and isolating and even suing all those who incite sectarian sedition. The false accusations we heard in the news media last week incite sectarian sedition. This does not help national unity or defuse sectarian strife. We need unity." '

Qandil was complaining about the Sunnis blaming the Badr Corps (the paramilitary of SCIRI) for the killing of Sunni clerics and worshipper recently. Qandil earlier said that the Badr Organization was now an independent service organization not connected to SCIRI. He said he did not view Muqtada al-Sadr as an honest broker between the Association of Muslims Scholars and Badr, because Muqtada had already supported the position of Hareth al-Dhari.

The debate was honest and al-Atiyah pulled no punches. But you knew as you watched that the future lies with Qandil and Hashimi, who came across as defensive and much less open about their real goals.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sometimes You are Just Screwed

Readers occasionally write me complaining that I do not offer any solutions to the problems in Iraq. Let me just step back from the daily train wreck news from the region to complain back that there aren't any short-term, easy solutions to the problems in Iraq.

The US military cannot defeat the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement any time soon for so many reasons that they cannot all be listed.

The guerrillas have widespread popular support in the Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, an area with some 4 million persons. Its cities and deserts offer plenty of cover for an unconventional war. Guerrilla movements can succeed if more than 40 percent of the local population supports them. While the guerrillas are a small proportion of Iraqis, they are very popular in the Sunni Arab areas. If you look at it as a regional war, they probably have 80 percent support in their region.

The guerrillas are mainly Iraqi Sunnis with an intelligence or military background, who know where secret weapons depots are containing some 250,000 tons of missing munitions, and who know how to use military strategy and tactics to good effect. They are well-funded and can easily get further funding from Gulf millionnaires any time they like.

The Iraqi guerrillas are given tactical support by foreign jihadi fighters. There are probably only a few hundred of them, but they are disproportionately willing to undertake very dangerous attacks, and to volunteer as suicide bombers.

There are simply too few US troops to fight the guerrillas. There are only about 70,000 US fighting troops in Iraq, they don't have that much person-power superiority over the guerrillas. There are only 10,000 US troops for all of Anbar province, a center of the guerrilla movement with a population of 820,000. A high Iraqi official estimated that there are 40,000 active guerrillas and another 80,000 close supporters of them. The only real explanation for the successes of the guerrillas is that the US military has been consistently underestimating their numbers and abilities. There is no prospect of increasing the number of US troops in Iraq.

The guerillas have enormous advantages, of knowing the local clans and terrain and urban quarters, of knowing Arabic, and of being local Muslims who are sympathetic figures for other Muslims. American audiences often forget that the US troops in Iraq are mostly clueless about what is going on around them, and do not have the knowledge base or skills to conduct effective counter-insurgency. Moreover, as foreign, largely Christian occupiers of an Arab, Muslim, country, they are widely disliked and mistrusted outside Kurdistan.

US military tactics, of replying to attacks with massive force, have alienated ever more Sunni Arabs as time has gone on. Fallujah was initially quiet, until the US military fired on a local demonstration against the stationing of US troops at a school (parents worried about their children being harmed if there was an attack). Mosul was held up as a model region under Gen. Petraeus, but exploded into long-term instability in reaction to the November Fallujah campaign. The Americans have lost effective control everywhere in the Sunni Arab areas. Even a West Baghdad quarter like Adhamiyah is essentially a Baath republic. Fallujah is a shadow of its former self, with 2/3s of its buildings damaged and half its population still refugeees, and is kept from becoming a guerrilla base again only by draconian methods by US troops that make it "the world's largest gated community." The London Times reports that the city's trade is still paralyzed.

So far the new pro-American Iraqi troops have not distinguished themselves against the guerrillas, and it will probably be at least 3-5 years before they can begin doing so, if ever. Insofar as the new army is disproportionately Shiite and Kurdish, it may simply never have the resources to penetrate the Sunni Arab center-north effectively. There is every reason to believe that the new Iraqi military is heavily infiltrated with sympathizers of the guerrillas.

The guerrilla tactic of fomenting civil war among Iraq's ethnic communities, which met resistance for the first two years, is now bearing fruit. There is increasing evidence of Shiite murders of Sunni clerics and worshippers, and of Sunni attacks on Shiites, beyond the artificial efforts of the guerrillas themselves. Civil war and turbulence benefit the guerrillas, who gain cover for violent attacks, and who can offer themselves to the Iraqis as the only force capable of keeping order. AP reports an Iraqi official saying today that there is a civil war going on in the northern city of Telafar between Sunnis and Shiites. I doubt US television news is even mentioning it.

The political process in Iraq has been a huge disaster for the country. The Americans emphasized ethnicity in their appointments and set a precedent for ethnic politics that has deepened over time. The Shiite religious parties, Dawa and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, won the January 30 elections. These are the parties least acceptable to the Sunni Arab heartland. The Sunni Arabs are largely absent in parliament, only have one important cabinet post, and only have two members in the 55-member constitutional drafting committee. Deep debaathification has led to thousands of Sunnis being fired from their jobs for simply having belonged to the Baath Party, regardless of whether they had ever done anything wrong. They so far have no reason to hope for a fair shake in the new Iraq. Political despair and the rise of Shiite death squads that target Sunnis are driving them into the arms of the guerrillas.

The quality of leadership in Washington is extremely bad. George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and outgoing Department of Defense officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, have turned in an astonishingly poor performance in Iraq. Their attempt to demonstrate US military might has turned into a showcase for US weakness in the face of Islamic and nationalist guerrillas, giving heart to al-Qaeda and other unconventional enemies of the United States.

If the US drew down its troop strength in Iraq too rapidly, the guerrillas would simply kill the new political class and stabilizing figures such as Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Although US forces have arguably done more harm than good in many Sunni Arab areas, they have prevented set-piece battles from being staged by ethnic militias, and they have prevented a number of attempted assassinations.

In an ideal world, the United States would relinquish Iraq to a United Nations military command, and the world would pony up the troops needed to establish order in the country in return for Iraqi good will in post-war contract bids. But that is not going to happen for many reasons. George W. Bush is a stubborn man and Iraq is his project, and he is not going to give up on it. And, by now the rest of the world knows what would await its troops in Iraq, and political leaders are not so stupid as to send their troops into a meat grinder.

Therefore, I conclude that the United States is stuck in Iraq for the medium term, and perhaps for the long term. The guerrilla war is likely to go on a decade to 15 years. Given the basic facts, of capable, trained and numerous guerrillas, public support for them from Sunnis, access to funding and munitions, increasing civil turmoil, and a relatively small and culturally poorly equipped US military force opposing them, led by a poorly informed and strategically clueless commander-in-chief who has made himself internationally unpopular, there is no near-term solution.

In the long run, say 15 years, the Iraqi Sunnis will probably do as the Lebanese Maronites did, and finally admit that they just cannot remain in control of the country and will have to compromise. That is, if there is still an Iraq at that point.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

14 US Troops Dead in 3 Days
Civil War in Telafar

The Associated Press reports that a car bomb in Baghdad killed 3 US troops, and a drive-by shooting killed a fourth on Tuesday. The deaths brought the three-day total of US military fatalities to 14.

Guerrillas detonated a bomb near a girls' school in Baghdad, killing 6 persons but apparently no students.

Paul Garwood also reports that

"In the northern city of Tal Afar, there were reports that militants were in control and that Shiites and Sunnis were fighting in the streets, a day after two car bombs killed at least 20 people. Police Capt. Ahmed Hashem Taki said Tal Afar was experiencing "civil war." Journalists were blocked from entering the city of 200,000."

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that a police official in Telafar reported immense loss of life in the violent clashes. The Sunni jihadis are said to have taken over the major hospital. They are being resisted by armed Shiite Turkmen townspeople.

The Turkmen Bloc issued an appeal to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and other major political figures, saying that Telafar is ablaze with the flames of the radical anti-Shiite (takfiri) forces that have infiltrated from beyond the border. They added that the city "is a prisoner in the hands of terror." They complained, "Its citizens are exposed to being slaughtered every day." Member of parliament Muhammad Taqi al-Mawla, who belongs to the Turkmen Bloc, called on the government to intervene quickly to save the city. He said that in the current conditions, no child could go to school and no employee could reach the workplace.

This report sent chills down my spine. Major urban Sunni-Shiite violence is likely to spill over to other parts of the country.

Nancy Yousef of Knight Ridder reports on rapidly advancing plans to unite three of Iraq's southern provinces (Basra, Dhiqar and Maysan) into one super-province with a distinctly Shiite cast. This move comes in part in response to Kurdish plans to create a Kurdish super-province of Kurdistan. In part, it is an attempt to restrain the power of the central government vis a vis the provinces, since a large province is in a better bargaining position with Baghdad than a small one. Reorganizing Iraq into a small number of ethnically based provinces, however, could lay the groundwork for the eventual break-up of the state.

Al-Hayat says that Hussein Shahristani, deputy speaker of parliament, announced that the constitution drafting committee of the Iraqi parliament will be headed by Shiite hard liner Humam Hamoudi, a major proponent of imposing Islamic law on the once-secular country. The Daily Star points out that Hamoudi is a Shiite cleric, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and an aide to the party's leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

Parliamentarians are still seeking ways of increasing the Sunni representation on the constitution-drafting committee, which at the moment stands at a pitiful 2 out of 55. MP Abdul Hadi al-Hakim (United Iraqi Alliance) suggested that each provincial council select some delegates to be added to the committee. (This would not actually help balance things very much).

The speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Hajem al-Hasani, said Tuesday that the Iraqi constitution "will fail in establishing security in the country unless the Sunni rebels and other groups not now participating are granted an effective political role, not just an advisory one." He compared Iraq to an "unstable nuclear reactor" and said, "the upcoming political stages will decide if we are heading toward stability." He added, "The Resistance must form a political wing, as happens everywhere in the world." He said that no one can "wipe out the Sunnis completely."

I had to rub my eyes. The speaker of the Iraqi parliament is calling for inclusion of the guerrillas in the constitution-writing process, and asking them to form a political wing so that they can be so included. The gap between the 17 Sunni parliamentarians and their Shiite and Kurdish colleagues (who make up the rest of the 273) is truly vast.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Zarqawi Wounded?

The news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been wounded, reported at a jihadi web site, dominated US television news on Tuesday.

I'm not sure why. A report on a web site cannot be verified. Al-Zarqawi's group may be trying to throw the United States off his trail. Or the report could be a black psy-ops operation of Donald Rumsfeld.

Nor is it new news. There have been rumors for some time that the US military surrounded Ramadi and its hospital to get at Zarqawi, who was wounded, but that he managed to slip away.

If Zarqawi did die, what difference would it make? He is responsible for only a fraction of the violence in Iraq, and has lots of jihadi lieutenants who would gladly take his place.

So, we cannot know if it is true. If it is true it is old news. And it wouldn't matter much to the situation in Iraq. I'd file that under "not a story."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

49 Killed, 130 Wounded in Iraq's Day of Rage

Car bombs and other attacks killed at least 49 Iraqis on Monday and left at least 130 wounded, according to AP. Four American troops have also been killed in the past two days.

Al-Zaman/ AFP :

In Telafar, a largely Turkmen city in the north, two suicide bombers set off their payloads outside the mansion of Hasan Bekdash Al Julagh, a local notable, killing 20 civilians and wounding 10 seriously. That morning, someone had tossed a grenade into Al Julagh's garden, killing his son. Wire services say that Al Dulagh was a Shiite Turkmen with close ties to Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party. (Most Turkmen do not get along with the Kurds). These clues make for a murder mystery of some complexity. Was he killed because he is a Shiite? Or because he is a Turkmen client of Kurdish leader Barzani?

BBC World Monitoring for May 22 notes, "Al-Mada publishes on the front page a 150-word report saying that three National Assembly Turkoman members have sent an "urgent call" to President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'fari to quickly solve the "tragic situation" in Tal'far which is the work of the Takfiri [hard line Sunni] forces that have come from beyond the borders." That is, they are saying that largely Turkmen Telafar has nevertheless become a base for jihadi activity on the part of foreign fighters slipping across the border from Syria, which is nearby. This situation may help explain Al Julagh's fate. (Takfir means excommunication, and it is what the Shiites feel the extremist Salafis do to them.)

In Talibiyah, in the poor Shiite Jamilah quarter of northeast Baghdad, guerrillas detonated an enormous bomb in front of the Haba'ibna ["Our Dear Friends"] eating complex, which had a restaurant, a cafe and a sweets shop. The explosion killed 10 and left 113 wounded. Some twenty-two automobiles were destroyed at the smoldering site. Police had for some time frequented the place, but the owners had recently asked them to stop coming, for fear that their presence might provoke such terrorism. I saw the footage on LBC, and it took a strong stomach to watch the wounded carried away. The bomb crater looked gigantic.

In Tuz Khurmatu south of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber killed 7 civilians and wounded 13 outside the governor's mansion. Among the wounded was an official of the Kurdistan Patriotic Union.

In Samarra (an hour north of Baghdad), guerrillas set off two car bombs in front of the main gate to the US base, wounding 4 civilians and four Americans. A third man wearing a bomb belt blew himself up at the same site, but had been shot before he could get close enough to inflict casualties. Mortar shells also fell on the police station, killing 2 and wounding 21.

In Mahmudiyah (half an hour south of Baghdad), on Monday night guerrillas detonated a car bomb near a Shiite worship center, killing 5 and wounding 19, most of them children. The center was a Husainiyah, a building dedicated to mourning Imam Husain and other early Shiite leaders, and it is an institution distinctive to Shiites. An attack on it is clearly sectarian.

In Kirkuk, a house took mortar fire, producing an unspecified number of casualties, both killed and wounded.

AFP says, "Major General Wael Rubaye, the new commander of a special operations room recently set up by the ministry for national security to coordinate the fight against insurgents, and his driver were shot dead by insurgents in the capital early Monday, the cabinet office said in a statement." When your coordinator of the fight against insurgents is shot just after he is appointed, you can conclude two things. 1) You have been heavily infiltrated. 2) Your security is not good.

The US military along with 15,000 Iraqi troops claimed to have made a sweep of some dangerous Baghdad neighborhoods, arresting 285 Iraqis they suspected of being terrorists, and capturing $6 million in cash. The claims could not be independently verified by AFP. The sweep will last several days.

It was announced, according to al-Hayat, that 295 American civilians and security personnel have been killed in Iraq so far this year.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sadr Mediates Sunni-Shiite Dispute

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ DPA: Young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr said Monday that the attempts of his aides to mediate between the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq's Badr paramilitary had achieved advances.

Deutsche Press Agentur reported that Sadr told them in Najaf, "Our delegation detected a desire on the part of both parties to make an opening and to ensure the triumph of the language of dialogue, rather than that of bigotry and prejudice. I can say that the delegation took the process to the next level." He added, "We called on all to put the welfare of Iraq and of the Muslims above every other consideration, and to strengthen the ties of mercy and love, since the present phase requires all to cease and desist for the sake of a united Iraq."

Hareth al-Dhari of the Association of Muslim Scholars had accused the Badr Corps of kidnapping and killing Sunni clerics and worshippers. A delegation of Sadrists led by Shaikh Hadi al-Daraji met separately with the AMS and with Badr. A joint committee has allegedly been formed as a result to attempt to resolve the dispute.

The Badr Corps has threatened to take Hareth al-Dhari to court for libel.

Meanwhile, BBC world monitoring for May 22 translates:

"Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 70-word exclusive report citing reliable sources at the Al-Sadr trend affirming that the leaders of the trend have vowed to confront terrorism. The sources added that the trend has adopted a new policy in this regard after "diagnosing the real enemy of the Iraqi people."

The prospect of faction fights between the Mahdi Army of Sadr and the jihadis around Zarqawi is not actually a pleasant one to contemplate. But it is probably where Iraq is headed if the guerrilla war continues.

Other tidbits from BBC World Monitoring for May 22:

"Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 220-word exclusive report citing sources close to the Iraqi government as saying that the positive impact of the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Karazi's recent visit to Iraq will be reflected not only on the bilateral relations between Iraq and Iran, but also on the security situation in the region. The sources added that Karazi will carry a request letter to Syria to stop terrorist infiltration into the country." . . .

"Al-Furat publishes on page 2 a 100-word report citing eyewitnesses as saying that the Iraqi Army raided five mosques and arrested 150 worshippers during the Friday prayer sermons in Al-Shujayriyah district near the city of Al-Suwayrah on 20 May." . . .

Al-Dustur publishes on the front page a 600-word editorial by Chief Editor Basim al-Shaykh commenting on the closure of the Iraqi newspaper Al-Yawm al-Akhar and the arrest of its chief editor by the authorities. The writer criticizes the "oppressive" measures taken against a "prominent journalist," urging the Iraqi judiciary to consider the current critical stage and act accordingly and to abandon "personal interests."

An Iraqi newspaper was just closed down? Why didn't we hear about it in the English language press?
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$100 Million "Mishandled" in Iraq

An international audit has found that the Allawi government "mishandled" $100 million in petroleum funds that should have been used for development, and that the US Coalition Provisional Authority gave out uncompetitive contracts and misspent development monies.

I don't know what they mean by "mishandled." I think they may be suggesting embezzlement or other corruption on a huge scale, but are being delicate and statesmanlike.

In a related item, BBC world monitoring for May 22 notes, "Al-Bayyinah publishes on page 9 a 400-word article by Zayd Salim al-Juburi strongly criticizing former Prime Minister Allawi for issuing, shortly before the end of his term in office, a number of decrees to lease houses to former ministers and senior officials in his ministry in the Green Zone for 25 years and to pay them high salaries and pensions."

The same source reports,

"Al-Bayyinah carries on the front page a 120-word report citing political sources in Damascus as saying that the goal of former Prime Minister Allawi's recent visit to Syria was to recruit the Ba'thists and former regime followers for a new political party. The report adds that Allawi had taken this step in response to the withdrawal of several political figures such as Husayn al-Sadr, Qasim Dawud, Wa'il Abd-al-Latif, Sawsan al-Sharifi, and Muhammad al-Hakim from the Iraqi Electoral List. The report adds that the new leaders of the Ba'th Party led by Hasan Hadi al-Dulaymi have held a meeting in Al-Anbar Governorate recently. The report adds that Qasim Salam, member of the former Ba'th Party National Command, who is currently residing in Algeria, has allocated $800 million for the new Ba'th Party organization in Iraq."

I hadn't heard about Sayyid Husain Sadr and Wa'il Abdul Latif (prominent Shiites) deserting the Allawi "al-Iraqiyah" list in parliament. Since Allawi has been locked out of any power, his is not a star one would exactly hitch oneself to. If it is true that he still dreams of establishing a "Baath lite" in Iraq, he is doomed permanently among the Shiites and the Kurds.
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8,000 Antiquities Still Missing from Iraq

The Independent summarizes a paper given by John Curtis of the British Museum at an art crime conference in London, concerning Iraq's ancient heritage looted while Americans stood by and watched:

"[H]alf of the 40 iconic items from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad still had not been retrieved. And of at least 15,000 items looted from its storerooms, about 8,000 have yet to be traced."

Of the recovered items, 4,000 were recovered inside Iraq, about 1,000 in the US, 500 in France, and 200 in Jordan.

Even worse, lots of antiquities have been looted directly from excavation sites, ruining them for history. Once a piece is separated from its context and soil layer, its significance is often impossible to guess. Thousands of years of Iraqi history are being destroyed.

The political Right in the United States has all along attempted to play down the significance of the cultural looting. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked at one point, "How many antiquities could they have?", exemplifying the pure Philistinism of the Bush administration. Flacks like Charles Krauthammer have even called the looting a "myth" and then used the supposed "myth" as a basis to attack critics of the administration's handling of Iraq!

As the Iraqi National Museum was being looted, US troops were busy guarding the Petroleum Ministry.



The Lady of Uruk (3100 B.C.) Recovered September 2003 north of Baghdad.
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14 Killed
Sadr Tries to Mediate between Sunnis, Shiites

At least 14 persons were killed in Iraq on Sunday in separate incidents. There was a car bomb in Tikrit, which wounded US and Iraqi soldiers. The director general of the Ministry of Trade, Ali Musa Salman, was shot down in Baghdad. There were firefights at Qaim and Mahmudiyah and Yusufiyah.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite nationalist, sent a delegation to Shaikh Hareth al-Dhari of the (Sunni) Association of Muslim Scholars on Sunday in an attempt to mediate between them and the Badr paramilitary of the (Shiite) Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The Sadrist, Abdul Hadi al-Daraji, also met with Sunni cleric Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi.
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Is it George's Fault?
Laura Bush Heckled at Wailing Wall over Pollard Affair
And at Temple Mount by Palestinians

I was alarmed at the tenor of the reporting about First Lady Laura Bush's close brush with both Israeli and Palestinian protesters, at the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock respectively. Suzanne Malveaux, who was with her, clearly sounded shaken from the experience. Things could have been much worse.

I blame her husband George for putting her in this danger. There have been demonstrations and counter-demonstrations at the Jerusalem holy sites for weeks, because of charges by Palestinians that a far rightwing Zionist group planned to demolish the Dome of the Rock. On another level, George W. Bush was the one who said, at his National Security Council meeting on January 30, 2001, that he intended to just "unleash Sharon", to allow all kinds of trouble between Israel and Palestine, and let conflict "clarify" things. His unconcern with the Israel/Palestine issue, which is key to US global security because of the strong feelings in the Muslim World about Israel's colonization of the West Bank, contrasts deeply with the strenuous efforts made by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, to resolve the conflict. By January of 2001, the two sides were extremely close to an agreement. Instead of pressuring incoming rightwing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to continue to negotiate, Bush "unleashed" him. Sharon predictably ran riot, mounting a campaign of murder and assassination against his Palestinian enemies (Sharon was actually once caught on mike planning out such a murder). At one point Sharon had a US-made F-16 fire a missile into a civilian apartment building to get at a Hamas official, killing 15 innocent people, including a little baby. John Bolton, by the way, tampered with the US government memo on the missile strike so as to shield Sharon from criticism.

After Laura Bush visited the Wailing Wall,

' Dozens of protesters stood nearby, shouting, "Free [convicted spy Jonathan] Pollard now" . . . The first lady was mobbed by protesters and local reporters, and Secret Service agents and Israeli police had to physically hold back the crowd as she approached the wall. '

The First Lady simply should not have been put in that kind of situation, where far-right Zionist fanatics had such physical access to her. The outcome could have been much worse-- remember what happened to Israeli Prime Minsiter Yitzhak Rabin.

As for their demand that Jonathan Pollard be freed from US prison, where he is serving a life sentence for delivering mountains of classified information to Israel (and thence to the Soviet Union), it is monstrous. Pollard inflicted incalculable damage on the United States and is one of its most dastardly traitors. High-ranking US officers with an intimate knowledge of the case told Seymour Hersh that there is no doubt that documents he provided to the Israelis ended up in the hands of the Soviets. This happened either because Israeli intelligence peddled them to Moscow or because Israeli intelligence itself was penetrated by the KGB. By sending highly classified material out of the United States (for tens of thousands of dollars in a private account), Pollard initiated its transfer to Moscow as surely as if he had just dropped it off at the Soviet embassy. Pollard should never be released, and anyone who demands his release is no friend of the United States. Giving the signal that it is all right to spy intensively on the United States would be the worst possible move in these parlous times.

This is more especially true since the pro-Israel lobbying organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is under FBI investigation for the passing of classified documents to Israeli embassy official Naor Gilon by two high-level AIPAC officials (recently fired). (Gilon, rumored to be Mossad or Israeli intelligence, is still at his cover post in Washington!) AIPAC should be made to register as an agent of a foreign power, at the very least. Like other unopposed or wealthy and focused single-interest organizations (the Cuban-American community with regard to policy toward Havana e.g., or the oil lobby that has its eyes on Alaska), AIPAC virtually sets policy for Congress in its area of interest. AIPAC is fabled for targeting any US congressmen or women who criticize Israel for un-election, and for generally succeeding. (It may not be as formidable as its reputation, but its reputation makes senators and representatives unwilling to take it on). That its officials are simultaneously spying for Israel is extremely scary. In this context, the demand that Pollard be freed functions as a demand that organizations like AIPAC be held harmless from spying on the United States of America for a foreign government.

It is George W. Bush who has encouraged the Israeli far right, by "unleashing Sharon" and letting the rightwingers know that Washington will support them no matter what. That is how they came to have the chutzpah to try to mob the First Lady. These are people that every US citizen is involuntarily taxed hundreds of dollars a year to support, and this is our thanks? We are spied on and then denounced for jailing the spy? And our First Lady is nearly mobbed?

At the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest shrine in Islam, "40 or 50" angry protesters came toward her, but the US Secret Service whisked her away. CNN says, ' As she left the mosque, one heckler yelled, "How dare you come in here?" and "Why do you hassle our Muslims?" '

Ironically, Laura Bush has been much more sympathetic to hurt feelings on the Muslim world about abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere than has her husband.

Mrs. Bush said the Newsweek report compounded anti-American sentiment stemming from the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. She said that abuse was "not any sort of typical thing from the United States." "We've had terrible happenings that have really, really hurt our image of the United States," she said. "And people in the United States are sick about it."

George W. Bush's policies have pushed approval ratings for the United States in the Muslim world on down to practically zero. It wasn't always like this. In 1999, 75 percent of Indonesians (the most populous Muslim country) had a favorable view of the US. On Sunday, 7,000 Indonesians protested at the US embassy against reports of Koran desecration by US military interrogators. The International Committee of the Red Cross says that it repeatedly presented to the US military what it felt were "credible" reports of Koran desecration. Passions were further inflamed Friday by a New York Times report on the way US military interrogators at Bagram in Afghanistan tortured two detainees to death. (The Indonesian protest was in part with reference to Bagram.)

It is George W. Bush who has set up the New Gulags, attempting to create political and legal enclaves which are completely beyond the law, where the "quaint" Geneva Conventions do not apply, where detainees do not get to see a lawyer, where they are not owed a speedy trial or basic human dignity, where they can essentially be tortured with impunity. Only low-ranking military personnel are being prosecuted for the abuses, but they were certainly authorized in at least a general way by the tone set in the White House.

We all now live in one world, on one globe. The Arab-Israeli conflict or the struggle within Islam between progressive and reactionary forces affects us all. Therefore, Bush's policies toward both affect us all. Laura Bush got a small taste of how much they affect us on Sunday.
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Muqtada Tries to Mediate Between Sunnis and Badr

Three Sunni Arab organizations arranged a meeting of 1,000 Sunni notables on Saturday, in an attempt to form an umbrella group with greater political clout.

The LA Time reports that,

' Meanwhile, a tribal leader from Madaen told the gathering that if security conditions didn't improve in his region, "We will raise arms and nothing will stand in the way of jihad." '

The Washington Post says that the convention passed a resolution that condemned terror but did recognize the legitimacy of attacking "the occupier." Adnan Dulaim, head of the Sunni Pious Endowments Board, argued for Sunni participation in the civil political process. He is also the activist behind the 3-day mosque strike that began after Friday prayers.

The convention called for the resignation of Bayan Jabr, the minister of the interior. Jabr has long been a prominent member of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of two main parties that won the January 30 election. Many Sunnis suspect the Interior Ministry secret police of being behind the kidnapping and killing of Sunni clerics and worshippers. The secret police in turn are suspected of being members of the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of SCIRI.

Jabr angrily refused to step down, saying that only members of parliament had the right to ask for a minister's resignation. He pointed out that many of the Sunni leaders at the convention had boycotted the election, depriving themselves of a voice in the new government. Al-Hayat says that Jabr also said that he would cooperate "with the devil" to end terrorism in Iraq. He said that plans to reinstitute the death penalty are going forward. He said the Ministry cooperates with all sorts of organizations, but only with regard to "information." He said a new plan would be put forward to deal with the deterioration in security.

On Saturday morning, a squadron 20 vehicles of the Interior Ministry's Wolf Brigade secret police was passing by Baiji, north of Baghdad, when guerrillas opened fire on it, killing at least 3 (al-Hayat says 8 died).

al-Hayat: The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) declined to consider an initiative launched by young Shiite nationalist leader Muqatada al-Sadr to promote a reconciliation between the Association of Muslim Scholars (a hard line Sunni group) and the Badr Organization, the Shiite paramilitary of SCIRI. Al-Hayat says that Sadr, along with Sunni leader Hareth al-Dhari of the AMS and the four grand ayatollahs in Najaf (including Sistani) agreed to issue a call for Iraqis to avoid civil strife.

Saad Qandil, the vice president of the political office in SCIRI, said that the Badr Organization has shown no interest in having Muqtada al-Sadr as a mediator, because his position is "not balanced," pointing to Sadr's tilt toward al-Dhari. Sadr had been planning a series of visits to the two organizations in hopes of bringing them together.

At the Sunni convention in Baghdad, the Mosul delegation denounced al-Dhari for seeking a confrontation with the new government. (Al-Dhari's accusations against the Badr Corps and the Ministry of the Interior are explosive and many believe they could lead to an intensification of Iraq's unconventional civil war.
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US Public Confidence on Iraq Plummeting

A new Harris Interactive poll shows that US public confidence in the Iraq venture is falling rapidly.

Question: How confident are you that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful?

May 2005

Confident: 25%
Not confident: 54%
Not sure: 20%


Mar. 2005

Confident: 30%
Not confident: 49%
Not sure: 21%


Thinking about everything that has happened, do you think that taking military action against Iraq was the right or wrong thing to do?


May 2005

Right thing: 39%
Wrong thing: 48%
Not Sure: 13%


March 2005

Right thing: 41%
Wrong thing: 45%
Not sure: 15%
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Saturday Satire

Not to be outdone.


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Sadrists Clash with Police in Nasiriyah
Baghdad Sunni Mosque Protest
Ramadi Demonstrations against Koran Desecration

Thousands of protesters rallied in Iraq (some reports say 6,000) on Friday denouncing the continued US military presence in the country. Many of the demonstrators in the south were followers of nationalist Shiite young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and they were protesting the desecration of the Koran by the United States military.

Some three thousand demonstrators also came out in Sunni Ramadi to protest reports that US military interrogators had desecrated the Koran, according to Waleed Ibrahim of Reuters. He quotes one of the activists at Ramadi: "‘Political solutions are over and military solutions will start. We will die rather than accept the desecration of our Holy Book and the detention of our women,’’ said Samir al-Dulaimi, head of the Muslim Clerics Association in Anbar province, during the protest."

In Najaf, Kufa and Nasiriyah, followers of Muqtada had painted US and Israeli flags on the ground in the way to mosques, so that worshippers trampled on them as they headed to worship. After prayers at the Kufa mosque, crowds chanted, "Down, down, with Israel; down, down with the USA!" In Najaf, there was a demonstration (either the same one or another, separate rally) against Kuwait for broadcasting last Monday a clip of Lebanese songstress Nancy Ajram singing and dancing before a backdrop that included the image of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

In Nasiriyah, the demonstrations took an ugly turn when Sadr militiamen clashed with local police, leaving four policemen, four civilians, and nine Sadr supporters wounded. Al-Zaman says that one of their motivations was to protest the US desecration of the Koran. AP neglects this detail, but explains:

In Nasiriyah, about 320km south-east of Baghdad, al-Sadr supporters clashed with guards at the headquarters of Dhi Qar provincial Governor Aziz Abed Alwan. The fighting broke out before noon as about 2 000 members of al-Sadr's al-Mehdi Army marched toward the cleric's local office, which is near the governor's headquarters. Armed men guarding the headquarters shot toward the crowd in an apparent bid to disperse it, prompting retaliatory fire from al-Sadr supporters -- injuring four police officers and four civilians. Another nine al-Sadr supporters were injured, said Sheik al-Khafaji, an official at al-Sadr's Nasiriyah office.

Al-Zaman said that the number of those injured in the Sadrist clash, including 4 policemen, was much higher, putting it at 89. It said the figure of "9" quoted above referred only to Mahdi Army militiamen.

In Baghdad's Kazimiyah quarter, national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie was the target of assassination by car bomb. He escaped, but the bomb killed two civilians and wounded 3.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Shiite), called for calm and self-restraint in the face of provocations to sectarian violence. (al-Zaman).

Sunni clerics in Baghdad called in their Friday prayers sermons for a three-day closure of mosques to protest what they call the targeting of Sunnis for kidnapping and assassination. A leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Harith al-Dhari, charged on Wednesday that the Shiite militia, the Badr Corps, was behind the incidents. Badr's leader denied the accusation.

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Sunni cleric, Shaykh Abdul Ghafur al-Samarra'i of the Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad said in his sermon that the mosque closings were "a first step" and "a peaceful protest," but warned that further steps would be taken if attacks on Sunnis persisted. He said that it was an especially dangerous situation when persons who represented themselves as belonging to an official government agency commit atrocities. (Sunnis have claimed that the now Shiite-dominated Ministry of the Interior is behind the attacks). He said he was nevertheless calling for calm and self-restraint.

At the Abu Hanifa Mosque, the capital's second largest, in Adhamiyah, Shaikh Mu`ayyad al-Adhami announced in his sermon that his mosque, too, would close for three days. He also said, "Today Iraq has become, after its occupation, a slaughterhouse for freedom, a butcher shop of the innocent, and a catalogue of score-settling."

Yasser Salihee of Knight Ridder reports on the struggle of some Sunnis to keep their mosques in the face of Shiite claims on them. Many Sunni mosques in the south have been usurped by Shiites, especially by Sadrists.

Several US servicemen were killed on Friday, at least 4 in separate incidents, and several more in a military truck that was struck by a car bomb, but no details had been released at the time of this writing.

I was struck Saturday morning by the difference between my summary of events on Friday and those in the major US papers. The Washington Post does not mention the violence at Nasiriyah, does not give a number for the 6,000 Sadrist demonstrators, and makes the Sunni mosque closing the lede.

The New York Times has even less, just a squib at the end of a long article on Saddam Hussein in his underwear. The LA Times is somewhat better but still very summarized.

It seems clear to me from the Arabic reports and the wire services that the demonstrations in the Shiite south and in Ramadi (only mentioned in the wires) were in part about the Guantanamo Koran desecration story, yet this meme is largely absent from mainstream press reporting. Why?

I suppose the Washington Post and the NYT had to put their editions to bed before I did, but this level and focus of coverage strikes me as just inadequate. The US public has no idea how bad things are in Iraq, or what is really going on there, and this is one reason.
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