Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Saturday, March 31, 2007

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Tomdispatch.com serves up a rich smorgasbord of analysis on Iraq, including Tony Karon on Condi Rice and diplomacy, and Mike Davis on how car bombings are wrecking the new security plan.

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Friday, March 30, 2007

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Al-Dhari on Year 4 of American Iraq

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






' Head of Iraqi Muslim Scholars Interviewed on 4th Anniversary of 'Invasion': Interview with Shaykh Harith al-Dari, head of the [Sunni] Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, by Khalil Harb;

Date and place not given: "Harith al-Dari tells Al-Safir the solution lies in the departure of the occupation, the formation of a national army, and the abolishing of the political process; Al-Dari praises firmness of Syrian stand, hopes for a Saudi role to rescue Iraq and for rapprochement with Iran; the resistance will remain and attacks on civilians is not jihad; Al-Maliki is worse than Al-Ja'fari and our relationship with Al-Sadr is deteriorating." '

Al-Safir
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

(Harb) Four years have passed since the occupation of Iraq. What does this mean to you?

(Al-Dari) It means the worst four years of my life and the life of every sincere Iraqi citizen that is loyal to his homeland and nation.

(Harb) In your opinion, what are the most dangerous consequences of the war?

(Al-Dari) If the war continues and the occupation does not leave soon, the most dangerous consequences of the war would be the disintegration of the Iraqi social fabric, the partition of Iraq, God forbid, and the transformation of its demographic structure. Another serious consequence would be deepening the social rifts among the sons of Iraq. On the level of the neighboring countries and the region, many problems and incidents would erupt and only God knows their magnitude. Many signs pertaining to these problems and incidents have already begun to loom.

(Harb) In light of the position of the Association of Muslim Scholars regarding what has been happening in Iraq during the years of the occupation, do you think that you have been wrong in any of your positions? Have the events demonstrated that the positions you have taken on the major issues been sound positions? Would you cite some examples?

(Al-Dari) I do not think that we in the Association of Muslim Scholars made a mistake in any position we have taken so far both on the political level as well as on the level of Shari'ah. The events have demonstrated the soundness of our positions. For instance, take our position on the so-called political process. From the very beginning, we said that it is a failed process that would not lead to the liberation of Iraq and to rescuing it from the situation in which the occupation has put it. Furthermore, this process does not provide us with the security and social living conditions that are needed. The events have shown the soundness of what we had expected. This political process was designed to be a cover to the US project and was established on sectarian and ethnic foundations. There is also our position on the constitution that was imposed by the occupation and the forces that have imposed their hegemony on Iraq. These forces inserted articles and paragraphs in the constitution that might lead to dividing the land of Iraq and the people of Iraq and might destroy Iraq's Arab and Islamic identity. Another example, which is the most important, is our position on the occupation. From the start, we demanded the departure of the occupation - and at least the scheduling of this departure - and we said that it is the basis of the whole problem. As the days passed, we saw the savagery, butchery, and bad intentions of the occupation that led to the strengthening of the resistance against it. Those that opposed our position in the past are now asking for scheduling. Another example is our position on the federation that is intended to divide Iraq and that many known internal and external quarters are endorsing. We took an opposing stand to this federation and we rejected it because it represents the wishes of the enemies of Iraq, especially Israel. Last but not least, there is our unionist, moderate, and patriotic Islamic approach that we took and to which we adhered from the first days of the occupation. We stuck to this approach despite the psychological and security pressures that were used against us in order to drag us to adopt sectarian and factional discourses.

(Harb) In your opinion, what is the ideal way out from what Iraq is going through?

(Al-Dari) (The ideal way out) is canceling the political process that has brought all these evils and calamities to Iraq and that has brought it to the brink of the abyss that was expected. This political process should be replaced with a strong government that is reinforced with the nucleus of a strong national army that is loyal to Iraq and to all its sons rather than to the sectarian and factional parties and militias. This should be accompanied with a serious scheduling of the total withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq without delay. As we have repeatedly pointed out and warned, the events and the positions have shown that it is the occupation that holds all the threads of this dirty game.

(Harb) Do you consider Al-Maliki's government is generally better than its predecessors and why?

(Al-Dari) Al-Maliki's government is worst than the governments that preceded it. It is worse even from the government of his colleague Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. Al-Maliki's government is considered an extension of Al-Ja'fari's government in objectives, trends, and conduct. It is openly biased on the sectarian level. Al-Maliki's government protects the criminal and killing gangs and it defends the actions of the militias.

(Harb) Your stand opposing the occupation had been clear from the start. Did the Americans try to contact you in the past few years to win you over to their policy in Iraq? When and how?

(Al-Dari) The Americans did not contact us directly except once at the beginning of 2005 and prior to the first elections. They asked the French ambassador to act as mediator because we knew him from his frequent visits to the association - especially after the abduction of the French journalists - and he sympathized with us and was dissatisfied with the practices of the occupation in Iraq. We accepted his intercession. A delegation came to us made up of the US Charge D'Affaires - in lieu of the ambassador called Negroponte - and a number of US Army generals and officers. We and a number of members of the Association of Muslim Scholars met with them in Egypt and the association met with them in Baghdad. The purpose of the visit was to confirm the support of the association for the elections. They said that the elections would contribute to bringing security and stability in Iraq. We told them: What would contribute to bringing security and stability in Iraq is giving hope to the Iraqi people that they will leave Iraq and not the elections that will bring a weak government that will ask you to remain in Iraq. He said: We do not agree. I told him: Yes, we do not agree and the meeting was over. After this meeting, we have not met with any of them to this date, praise be to God.

(Harb) Many have wagered that the resistance against the occupation would come to an end, but the days have shown that this did not take place. What is your comment?

(Al-Dari) Yes, many have wagered and many have conspired that the resistance would end or would be stopped but it continued. It disappointed them and dashed all their expectations. In fact, it gained strength and became more effective against the enemies and their agents. The resistance foiled and continues to foil their schemes in Iraq because it was not driven merely by emotions or incorrect calculations of the material power of the enemies as some have wrongly thought. Therefore, the resistance will continue as long as the occupation is on the land of Iraq. Anyone that thinks otherwise would be wrong.

(Harb) Some are arguing against the resistance operations. How do you distinguish between the resistance against the occupation forces and the attacks against civilians by any faction or sect?

(Al-Dari) The difference between the resistance and other forces is very clear except to those that hate the resistance against the occupation forces or think badly of it either because they are agents or are envious of the resistance. We - and others like us that recognize the legitimacy of resistance and the right of nations to resist against their enemies and occupiers - believe that the resistance should be against the occupying enemies and their obvious agents that cooperate with, support, and fight with the occupiers. Those that target innocent and peaceful Iraqis from all sects, denominations, and faiths are condemned criminals that transgress against Shari'ah and are outside the law and the national values. They are like the enemies and occupiers of the homeland regardless to which sect or faction or faith they belong.

(Harb) How true are the reports that are spread every now and then that the resistance is a Sunni resistance only, that the death squads are Shiite, and that the suicide bombers are Sunni terrorists? In your opinion, what is the purpose of using such classifications?

(Al-Dari) The resistance in Iraq is an Islamic and national resistance in which most of the components of the Iraqi people participate and the majority are Sunnis. As for the death squads, most of them belong to the militias of the Shiite parties and the Kurdish political parties that are participating in the government. These do not represent the masses of our Shiite and Kurdish brothers. They represent the agendas of the parties to which they belong only. Most of the Shias and the Kurds are against them and they dissociate themselves from their criminal deeds. As for the suicide bombers, the majority of them are Sunni Iraqis and others that represent the policy of one known faction of the resistance. At first, their operations were directed against the occupation forces only and later expanded to include the government forces these forces helped the occupation forces to repulse the resistance and to attack some cities that reject the occupation, such as Al-Fallujah, Samarra, Al-Najaf, and other cities. It is noted that this kind is almost ending with simpler alternatives although the media outlets sometimes mention this in official inaccurate announcements that are often hasty. From the start, the association opposed this style because it is not necessary and due to the dangers inherent in its tragic consequences in most cases.

(Harb) For quite a time, your relationship with the Al-Sadrist current was good, but in recent months, it appears that this relationship has deteriorated. Why?

(Al-Dari) Yes, our relationship with the Al-Sadrist current and its leader Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr was good due to his patriotic position in the beginning that rejected the occupation, the political process, and the federation. But he retreated, handed over the arms of his army to the government, and participated in the military operation. The militias of his army - the Al-Mahdi Army - became involved in the ethnic cleansing operations. They turned into tools manipulated by the occupation, the Iranian intelligence service, and the Badr organization that breached his ranks and steered him toward the despicable designs of sectarian cleansing that led to the fall of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. However, Al-Sayyid Muqtada did not condemn or denounce these criminal acts clearly and called for them. Thus, it was natural for the relationship between us to lose trust and to deteriorate.

(Harb) One of the consequences of the invasion and occupation are the attempts to foment a sectarian conflict in Iraq. How are you dealing with this?

(Al-Dari) One of the goals - not the consequences - of the invasion and the occupation was to foment sectarian and ethnic strife in Iraq. This was obvious in several matters: For instance, weapons were left to be looted by anyone without any objection by the occupation forces. The Governing Council was formed on sectarian bases. The drafting of the constitution that consecrated hegemony was left in the hands of the Shiite and Kurdish political leaders that support the US project. Other components of the people were marginalized, including the majority of the Shias and the Kurds that reject the occupation. The elections that were overseen by the occupation were rigged in favor of the interests of its known allies. Despite all these exposed to foment sedition, the occupation did not succeed. This is due to God Almighty first and to the steadfastness and fraternal and patriotic cohesion of the Iraqis throughout history. When they failed to ignite civil war, they resorted to the satanic act of detonating the mausoleums of the two imams Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari, may peace be upon them. This act was carried out by the security organs of the Interior Ministry with the supervision of the intelligence service of a neighboring country and the knowledge of the Americans. This led to the organized criminals deeds that were masterminded by the security forces of the Iraqi government that was led by Dr Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. These criminal deeds were reinforced with fatwas several religious authorities issued that and that were based on the statement issued by the highest Shiite religious authority that accused a specific side minutes after the news was announced without verifying the quarter that actually carried out that heinous criminal deed. The religious authority accused the Saddamists, the takfiris (Muslims that hold other Muslims as infidels), and the Al-Nawasib (pejorative term used by Shias to describe Sunnis). He and his followers know who is meant by Al-Nawasib. He accused them of committing the atrocious criminal deeds that were actually perpetrated by mobs and militias that are part of certain Shiite political components that are well known, such as Badr, the Al-Mahdi Army, and others. Despite all this, the situation did not deteriorate into a civil war due to the self-restraint and discipline that the Sunnis demonstrated. The Association (of Muslim Scholars) urged this self-restraint in order to contain the sedition that was planned by those we just mentioned. In our efforts, we were helped by brothers Shaykh Jawad al-Khalisi, Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Ali al-Baghdadi, Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Mahmud al-Husni al-Sarkhi, and other figures and well known patriotic authorities.

(Harb) In your opinion, who is the primary beneficiary from the sectarian sedition and the slaughtering on the basis of one's identity card? Why do some organizations of the resistance sometimes claim responsibility for attacks against civilians? Is this not wrong?

(Al-Dari) The immediate beneficiary from the sectarian sedition and the slaughtering on the basis of one's identity card are the enemies of Iraq and the enemies of Iraq's unity and power led by the occupation. It has been proven with irrefutable evidence that the occupation stands behind many of the evil and criminal quarters that target the sons of our people. After the occupation, those that stand to gain are its allies, the advocates of sectarian and separatist schemes, and the agents of the countries that hate Iraq and that do not wish the welfare of Iraq. As for the targeting of civilians, this is due to many factors. Some of these factors are purely sectarian in character, other factors are ideological, and others are destructive and intended to foment sedition and shuffle the cards in order to reach a certain specific goal or objective that may include pure vengeance and revenge. This serves the interests of those that promote sectarian sedition and slaughtering on the basis of one's identity card. Some organizations of the resistance sometimes endorse such actions for reasons of their own. But this is a wrong endorsement and is prohibited by Shari'ah. It is not an act of acceptable jihad and does not help its proponents to reach their legitimate goals, if they have legitimate goals. We in the Association (of Muslim Scholars) have denounced such un-Islamic and inhuman acts and methods. We pray to God to distance us from such perpetrators regardless to which faction or sect they may belong.

(Harb) How do you think can the Arab countries help in rescuing Iraq from its current situation? Which are the countries that are most influential in this regard?

(Al-Dari) The Arab countries can rescue Iraq from its current conditions by using their geographic, material, and political potentials and resources. They can also rescue Iraq by using what the Iraqi resistance made available to them when it obstructed and foiled the US schemes and made the United States consult these countries or seek their help to resolve its predicament in Iraq. As to how the Arab countries can rescue Iraq, there are many ways to do so and these ways are obvious to these countries. God Almighty will guide those that are willing to bear the responsibility for such an honor. The countries that can play such a role are first, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in view of its known weight in many vital aspects. Saudi Arabia is followed by Egypt and then the rest of the Arab countries that are ready to play such a role.

(Harb) Is it possible to see a better relationship between you and Iran in the near future since you are saying that Iran is determined to evict the occupation from Iraq, which is your primary goal as well? Is it possible to have a rapprochement between you since this would create a positive climate in the Iraqi street and the region?

(Al-Dari) Since we became afflicted with the occupation, we have been concerned to have a good relationship with all the neighbors although some of them, particularly Iran, cooperated with the occupation against us. Despite this, we wish to have a stronger relationship with Iran than with others in view of its good neighborliness and the good effect this has on conditions in Iraq for many reasons. Unfortunately, however, our hopes were dashed when we saw Iran entering Iraq, meddling in its affairs, and favoring one faction of the sons of Iraq over others and overlooking their wishes and conduct even if they are at the expense of Iraq's unity and the interests of Iraq's other sons. Iran is accepting and blessing the political process although it is illegitimate. It is keeping silent over all the practices and actions carried out by its allies and parties and currents that support it despite our advice to Iran through some of its officials that have visited Iraq. We remained silent and did not comment on Iran's intervention and bias for about the first three years of the occupation. When we lost hope that they would reconsider their stand, we expressed our opinion and we were among the last to express our opinion on their blatant intervention in Iraq and their designs on Iraq. Nevertheless, we hope they would reconsider their stand on Iraq for their sake in the future and for the sake of Iraq and the region. We hope that they would shut the doors of evil that are open against us and against them. We hope they would realize that good neighborliness is in the interest of all and will lead to the security and stability that we need and that the whole region needs. As for your question on a possible rapprochement between us, we say that this can happen if Iran can show us that it is dealing with all the Iraqis without being biased in favor of one faction and if it gives up its designs and ambitions in Iraq.

(Harb) How do you describe your relationship with Syria? What is your position on the accusations leveled against Syria that it supports the terrorists in Iraq?

(Al-Dari) Our relationship with Syria is good. It is based on respect and appreciation for its firm fraternal stands toward Iraq and the Iraqis that are represented by its opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Syria does not bargain on Iraq or on its interests despite the strong pressures and threats against it. It describes the occupation as occupation and the resistance that targets the occupation as resistance rather than terrorism as others call it. Syria warmly hosts more than one million Iraqis that have been displaced by the abnormal conditions in Iraq. For these stands and other stands, we appreciate Syria. We owe Syria a debt of loyalty for its Arab and humanitarian stands toward its brethren in Iraq that are going through hard times. In view of Syria's opposition to the occupation and in view of the fact that it was not dragged behind its schemes, we are not surprised that Syria is being subjected to all sorts of chargers, including the charge of supporting the terrorists. If what is intended by the term terrorists are those that are resisting against the occupation, I do not know of an Arab country - regardless of whether it is Syria or another Arab country - that is supporting them materially. However, if what is intended (by the word terrorists) are those that are targeting the innocent sons of Iraq from all the factions to carry out their hostile schemes and agendas against Iraq and its sons, these are supported only by the enemies of Iraq and the enemies of Iraq's unity. Syria supports Iraq and its independence and unity. It does not support its enemies.

(Harb) Do you contemplate returning to Iraq soon? The Iraqi government has ordered your arrest. Are you worried that it might ask the Interpol to apprehend you?

(Al-Dari) Yes, I think of returning soon and when the reasons are available. As for the Interpol, I am not worried about that. The Interpol is not a policeman of the Iraqi government that carries out its orders or its arbitrary and illegal demands.

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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

1990 divided by 31 is 64 per day.

1646 divided by 27 is 61 per day.

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reuters rounds up political violence in Iraq for Tuesday.

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Monday, March 26, 2007

Green Zone Takes Rocket Fire
New Offer of Jobs to Baathists


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

Sean Penn at an antiwar rally in San Francisco:

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


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

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Guerrillas Kill 5 US Troops
Shiite Reprisals in Haswa
Allawi Bid for New Coalition Founders


Iran is considering trying the 15 British sailors it captured at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, in what it claims were Iranian territorial waters. British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Iran that it should not underestimate the seriousness of the capture. The sailors were taken captive at a time of increased US sabre-rattling toward Iran. This weekend, the UN Security Council voted to sanction Iran for its nuclear enrichment program, which Iran says is purely for civilian purposes.

Sunni Arab guerrillas deployed roadside bombs to kill five US GIs on Sunday. Clashes erupted between local guerrillas and Iraqi security forces in the working class Fadil District of Baghdad. Police found 22 bodies, most of them in Baghdad. Another ten persons died in other violence. Reuters gives details of other political violence, including a Shiite attack on Sunni mosques in Haswa in reprisal for Saturday's attack on a Shiite mosque.

McClatchy describes the violence in Haswa:


' In retaliation for yesterday['s] bombing in the mixed city of Haswa (50 Km south of Baghdad) gunmen burned 4 Sunni mosques and attacked the Iraqi Islamic party (IIP) headquarter in the city. Around 1 p.m. and during the funeral of yesterday bombing victims, Shiite gunmen attacked and burned two mosques, Abdullah Al Jubouri and Hiteen mosques. The gunmen set a bomb in Usama bin Zaid mosque and burn it. The fourth mosque, Al Anwar mosque, gunmen bombed the Minaret and burned the mosque after no resistance were noticed. Almost at the same time the gunmen attacked the IIP headquarter in the city and a clash started between the guards and the attackers till around 4:30 p.m. The three hours continues clashes and sectarian violence stopped after the arrival of the American and Iraqi troops. Police said 2 men were injured only but sources of the IIP said 15 of the attackers were killed. '
The Iraqi Islamic Party sits in parliament.

Marid Abd Hasun, a political conselor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, held a reconciliation meeting in Basra in an attempt to resolve the disputes between the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadilah) and the Sadr Movement-- quarrels that led to open fighting last Thursday. The conference ended without achieving any real reconciliation.

90 Iraqi members of parliament called on prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to allot emergency funds to care for the intellectuals and artists inhabiting the famed al-Mutanabbi Street, favorite site of booksellers in Iraq, which was recently blown up by guerrillas.

The facilitator for the assassin in the attempt on the life of vice premier Salam al-Zawba'i was a distant relative of the official who had fought alongside Sunni Arab guerrillas but been pardoned at al-Zawba'i's request. Some reports are saying up to three of his bodyguards were involved in the plot. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi government is blaming the assassination attempt on the Baath Party. (Note that the Western press was almost unanimous in blaming "al-Qaeda;" but the Iraqi government is better placed to know who is trying to kill its officials). Al-Zawba` is a Sunni Arab clan, the leader of which has, like the vice premier, been willing to cooperate with the Americans. The incident shows the ways in which ideology is sometimes more powerful than kinship ties in today's Iraq. The hope sometimes expressed that tribes could step up and stop the guerrillas founders on such data.

Al-Hayat also says that the "Islamic State of Iraq," the fundamentalist guerrilla group active in western Iraq, has demanded that the city of Tikrit accept its rule, in return for which it would release Sheikh Naji Jabarah al-Juburi, the chieftain of the powerful, largely Sunni Arab Jubur tribe.

KarbalaNews.net, a Shiite web site, argues that the attempts of former appointed prime minister Iyad Allawi to form a new parliamentary bloc have foundered. Allawi, an ex-Baathist and old time CIA asset, was attempting to group political forces against the Shiite fundamentalist majority. The leader of the Iraqi National List (25 seats in parliament) billed himself as seeking a non-sectarian alliance, though in fact it would have been an anti-Shiite one. Among the coalitions he hoped would join is that Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, and Adnan Dulaimi, a high official in that group, had seemed to signal its willingness. But now Iyad al-Samarra'i, the no. 2 man in the Iraqi Accord Front and a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party has denied that the fundamentalist Sunni MPs (44 out of 275 in Parliament) are interested in allying with Allawi. He said that Dulaimi had been too hasty in his pronouncment on the issue. Then Dilshad Miran, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, denied that Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani had indicated any interest in joining the new bloc. Then Izzat al-Shabandar, a leader of Allawi's Iraqi National List, admitted that the effort had been unable to garner any American support. Finally, Nadim al-Jabiri, the leader of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadilah), said that his group had no interest in bringing down the al-Maliki government. Virtue (15 seats in parliament) had recently withdrawn from the Shiite fundamentalist United Iraqi Alliance, and there was speculation that it might join up with Allawi. That seems unlikely in light of al-Jabiri's statement. So, in short, the whole effort appears to have fallen apart. Nor was there any real prospect that such a diverse coalition could have held together for very long even if it had been formed. And, any success Allawi would have had in marginalizing and sidelining the Shiite fundamentalist majority would have just thrown Iraq into greater turmoil. You can't mobilize people politically and then just tell them to sit down and shut up. That's how revolutions are created (e.g. Algeria 1991)

The prayer leader of the shrine of Ali in Najaf, Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji, visited Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on Sunday. Sistani urged politicians to sacrifice sectorial, personal and sectarian goals for the sake of Iraq's national interests.

Barack Obama said Sunday, according to this site, that 'the Iraq war is diminishing America's standing in the world and diverting millions of dollars that should be spent on health care, education and alternative energy research in the United States . . . "We have to recognize that if we don't make some fundamental changes right now that we could be the first generation in a very long time that leaves an America behind that is a little poorer and a little meaner than the one we inherited from our parents, and that's unacceptable . . ." '

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

90 Killed in Wave of Bombings, Violence


Two US troops were announced killed on Saturday.

AP reporter Kim Gamel details a wave of bombings and mayhem across Iraq on Saturday. The deadliest attack was a suicide truck bombing at a police station in Baghad, which killed 20 and wounded 28, many of them police. Guerrillas bombed a pastry shop in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar, killing 10 and wounded 3. A truck bomber killed 11 and wounded 45 in Haswah, south of Baghdad. Suicide car bombers killed 20 and wounded 30 in attacks on police at Qaim near the Syrian border.

Reuters gives other incidents and estimates that 25 bodies were found in Baghdad on Friday, 8 in Fallujah, and another 4 in Mosul. The found-body count, of nearly 40, is much higher than in the AP story. Al-Hayat estimated the day's death toll from political violence at 90.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the British made a security sweep in the southern, largely Shiite port city of Basra on Friday, killing one Iraqi and arresting 28. The fighting was with Shiite militiamen, presumably.

As'ad Abu Khalil points out that the graffiti on a wall in a photo published by the New York Times is not by a native Arabic speaker, since it is full of spelling and vocabulary errors (in just four words!) The word "dam," blood, which has a short "a" or fathah, is spelled with an alif, making it long. And the word for infidels is spelled incorrectly. Some of his readers pointed out that there are non-Arab guerrillas in Iraq. Others seemed convinced that the graffiti had an American origin. I don't think the latter is likely, since most American troops in Iraq don't know Arabic at all, and the ones who do know it know it better than this.

Veteran AP journalist and long time bureau chief in Baghdad, Steven R. Hurst, reviews the tenure of outgoing US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. It is a keen examination of the issues, though I'd have added Khalilzad's roll in the crafting of the constitution, in pulling the Sunni Arabs into the electoral system with unfulfilled promises they could then tinker with the constitution, and in unseated Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafar in favor of Nuri al-Maliki (both of them from the Shiite fundamentalist Da'wa Party). Khalilzad to his credit tried to reach out to the Sunni Arabs, but seemed ultimately unable to convince the Shiites and Kurds to make significant concessions to them. What he did not realize was that American military and diplomatic might, having been put largely at the service of the Shiites and Kurds, made it unnecessary for the latter ever to compromise with the Sunni Arabs. He was interfering with his own efforts just by being there.

Even the intrepid Patrick Cockburn of the Independent can't go most places in center-north Iraq. Where he can go, he finds the notion that things are just fine outside Baghdad and al-Anbar Province to be a tragic myth.

Hacking the IED network in Iraq.

Kanaan Makiya, an intellectual architect of the Iraq War, admits it is a disaster but insists he has nothing to apologize for. Makiya is still peddling the Neoconservative myth (as an ex-Trotskyite, he is a genuine Neoconservative) that everything would have been all right if the US hadn't occupied Iraq after conquering it. How likely was that? Makiya, after having tried to convince us all that Ahmad Chalabi is a really great guy and not a fraud, now wants to convince us of other things. Why should we agree to be convinced by someone so wrong about so much? Couldn't he please work out his intellectual theories in ways that don't get more US troops killed?

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Reality-Based Legislation: House Dems Demand end of US War in Iraq in 08

The Democrats in Congress passed a supplemental funding bill for the Iraq War that included a demand that troops be withdrawn by August of 2008.

Contrary to what John McCain alleged, the bill does not micromanage the conduct of the war. It declines to continue funding it after a date certain. Congress has the right in the Constitution to control the purse strings, and no president can fight a war that Congress declines to fund (except by engaging in criminal embezzlement, as with Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra).

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly says that Congress has the right


' To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years . . . '


The Founding Fathers did not want even so much as a standing army, much less a standing war. It was the clear intent of the Constitution that any funding for any military effort be strictly limited in time. The idea that Bush could take the country to war for 4 years and never face any Congressional scrutiny or limits on funding is wholly antithetical to the US constitution.

What Pelosi and the Democrats did is not only constitutionally permitted, it is required. That is why McCain and other opponents of the legislation are attempting to muddy the waters by claiming that it micromanages the war. If it did so, the legislature really would be treading on a prerogative of the president. But the Congress hasn't said that the military should attack Ramadi on October 8. What it is saying, it has the right and duty to say.

The pro-war forces keep pretending that the November 2006 elections never happened, and that they haven't lost both houses of Congress and that the American public doesn't want an end to the war. The pretence is often weirdly allowed to stand by the corporate media. But here in Realityland, aka the blogosphere, we don't have to play those games.

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Iraqi Vice Premier Badly Wounded in Attack
Iranians Take British troops Captive


A Salafi Jihadi operative infiltrated the entourage of Iraqi Vice Premier Abdul Salam al-Zawba'i and detonated a belt bomb in his house on Friday, seriously injuring al-Zawba'i and hurting 17 other persons (some reports say it left 6 of his associates dead). Al-Zawba'i has been part of a recruitment effort to get Sunni Arab tribespeople to fight the Salafi Jihadis (fundamentalist radicals now referred to in the US press as "al-Qaeda," though in fact they have not pledged fealty to Usamah Bin Laden). Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports, however, that the assassin was in fact from al-Zawba'i's' tribe.

A vice premier is a high officer of state in Iraq, and this assassination attempt underlines that no one in that country is safe from the ongoing violence.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards took 15 British sailors captive on Friday, claiming that their skiffs had strayed into Iranian waters. There is speculation that the Iranian action is related to Saturday's expected vote at the United Nations Security Council on imposing sanctions on Iran because it declines to halt its uranium enrichment attempts.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq on Friday, including the discovery of four bodies in Mosul and a bombing in East Baghdad (Sadr City) that left 7 dead and 20 wounded, according to al-Zaman.

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Friday, March 23, 2007

4 US GIs Killed
House Dems set to Pass '08 Withdrawal Language
Shiite on Shiite Violence in Basra


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to have put together a winning bill by both authorizing additional funding for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (something antiwar Democrats oppose) and by specifying a withdrawal date of 2008 (something the antiwar representatives very much want). The danger for her was that the antiwar left would peel away and she might not have the votes to pass the bill, which Republicans will vote against in the main. But most close observers of the Hill on Thursday were convinced that Pelosi would win this one.

The Senate Appropriations Committee seems set, a little unexpectedly, to report out a similar bill with the withdrawal language in it. Because of the Senate's provisions for filibuster and consensual decision-making, however, it seems very unlikely that the language will survive when it goes to the whole Senate.

Bush has promised to veto any bill sent him with the withdrawal language in it.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a surprise visit to Baghdad Thursday, holding a joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. As the PM was speaking, the auditorium was shaken by a katyusha rocket that landed only 50 yards away. Al-Maliki apparently has nerves of steel and did not even flinch, but Ban Ki-moon ducked at the sound of the blast. Al-Maliki had been in the midst of asserting that the security situation in Iraq was improving.

Reuters reports political violence in Iraq. Guerrillas killed three US troops on Wednesday, it was announced, and another on Thursday.

44 persons were killed or found dead around Iraq on Thursday, according to the wire services, including 25 bodies that showed up in the streets of Baghdad.

There was a prison riot in Basra, with inmates revolting on the grounds that they had been held 2-4 years without trial.

Clashes broke out in Basra between the Sadr Movement and the Islamic Virtue Party or Fadhila. The violence left 7 persons wounded, and city authorities imposed a curfew. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Mahdi Army militiamen burned down the major HQ of the Islamic Virtue Party after having invaded the offices of the electricity administration and having expelled its employees and imprisoned the manager. The two parties were said to be vying over control of a building that the British authorities had been using but which they had recently abandoned. The attack on the electricity administration offices came about, it was alleged, because the director had disciplined an electricity worker from the Mahdi Army. Some observers say that this conflict presages what is likely to happen in Basra when the British leave.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmud al-Mashhadani, has compared the Mahdi Army to al-Qaeda in Iraq as among the most dangerous threats to Iraqi security. The Sadrist members of parliament vehemently rejected this characterization. MP Qusay Abdul Wahhab said that the Mahdi Army is just the Iraqi Resistance, that it has been dormant for several months, and that the real threat to Iraq comes from radical Sunni Arabs who excommunicate all Muslims who do not think like them (especially Shiites, whom they target for killing).

US troops found caches of chlorine and nitric acid in guerrilla storehouses in the Ghazaliya district of Baghdad on Thursday, raising the specter that the guerrillas are increasingly turning to chemical weapons. They have conducted several attacks using chlorine gas.

The US is attempting to avert a potentially disastrous Turkish military intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turks accuse Kurdistan of harboring 3600 guerrillas of the radical Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), who, it says, are committing acts of terrorism in eastern Anatolia and then slipping back over the border into Iraq. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is threatening hot pursuit by Turkish troops across that border. Such an incursion could set off the tinderbox that is northern Iraq.

Prince Hassan of Jordan supports Turkey in this regard. He warns against an ethno-religious breakup of Iraq, saying it will lead to the Balkanization of the entire Middle East.

Total's CEO has been detained in connection with a bribery charge related to Total's interest in Iranian petroleum.

Iraqi Christians are being forced to flee their country by the violence and because they are sometimes targeted by Sunni Arab guerrillas who wrongly associate them with the West. This article estimates them at 5% of the Iraqi population, which is probably incorrect. There were 800,000 or so of them before the war, but my understanding is that they may be down to 500,000 now, which would make them 2 percent of the population. Likewise, it strikes me as highly unlikely that 40% of Iraqis fleeing the country are Christian. The vast majority of Iraqi expatriates (some 800,000) in Jordan are Sunni Arabs, e.g.

There is so little safe water in Iraq that this summer a major cholera epidemic could break out, the UN is warning.

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Truck Bombing of Kurdish HQ in Mosul Kills or Injures 45

A recent report on the readiness of Iraqi troops. says that the Iraqi military won't be ready to 'stand up' any time soon, according to the General Accounting Office. A third of Iraqi troops are on leave at any one time. Many troops on the books who draw a salary don't really exist and are just a scam. And, the Iraqi troops are deeply dependent on the US for the simplest logistics.

Reuters reports political violence for Wednesday. Among the major operations:


' MOSUL - Five people were killed and 40 were wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his truck at the headquarters of a Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday during the celebration of the spring festival of Nawruz, police said. . .'

MOSUL - Police said that they found the bodies of seven people shot dead on Tuesday in different districts of the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. . .

DIWANIYA - A policeman was killed and eight wounded, including four civilians, when clashes erupted between police and gunmen on Tuesday in several districts of Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. . . '


The southern Diwaniya Province is a stronghold the the Sadr Movement, though the police seem to be dominated by the Badr Corps paramilitary of the rival Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

The Sadr Movement and its paramilitary, the Mahdi Army, has never been very unified. Both were leant a certain unity by loyalty to the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. With the latter in hiding, the movement is predictably splintering. It is not at all clear that a splintered Mahdi Army is less dangerous than a disciplined one, as this article makes clear.

The increasing hostility of the Sadr Movement to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and toward his new security plan, may help explain why al-Maliki went to the mat to secure the release of Sheikh Ahmad al-Shibani, an aide to Muqtada who was arrested in 2004. Al-Shibani was found innocent of the charges against him by a tribunal, but was kept in US custody anyway. Although the press keeps saying that al-Maliki will get street credibility because of the release, I can't actually believe that getting one Sadrist out of jail, who had been held illegally by the US for over a year, would make much impact on attitudes.

Meanwhile, questions have arisen about a raid by US troops on a Husayniya or Shiite mourning center. The Mahdi Army is claiming that US troops broke up a peaceful religious meeting and killed worshippers. The US military is investigating. One has a sinking feeling that whatever the investigation reveals, the Shiites of that Baghdad district aren't going to be dissuaded from the "Americans invade religious building and kill innocent worshippers" sotry.

Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, from the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, said Wednesday that Iraq should be talking to the insurgents and trying to cut a deal with them. Although the Iraqi government sometimes maintains that it is on the verge of getting Sunni tribesmen in Western Iraq to attack foreign fundamentalist Salafi vigilantes in Iraq, that seems to me quite a stretch.

Al-Hashimi also called for electoral reform and for new elections. The Sunni Arabs are frustrated by Shiite dominance of the new government and Shiite refusal to even think about negotiating with the Sunni Baathists and Salafi fundamentalists who are blowing their people up. I can't imagine that anyone in Iraq is really ready to go to the polls for national elections again so soon. It is true that in a genuine parliamentary system, Nuri al-Maliki's government might well fall as a result of a vote of no confidence, and that would lead to new elections. Iraq, however, is only going through the motions when it comes to democracy, and the top politicians cut deals with one another and rule by fiat.

The following item was somehow thrown up at google news from an old data base via the Gulf Daily News and was erroneously marked breaking news for Thursday morning. The item is actually very old, and I apologize to readers for this error-- which, however, was not my own. Early in the morning on Thursday, before dawn, some 200 Sunni Arab guerrillas in Muqdadiya (Diyala Province) stormed a jail and freed 33 prisoners, many of them guerrillas. I can't think of another recent operation that involved a company-sized fighting force. Thirty persons died in the fighting. One wire service reported, "Insurgents battled Iraqi and US reinforcements, set fire to the police station, courthouse and 20 police vehicles before making their escape." If they accomplished all that after US reinforcements arrived, imagine what they could have accomplished if no US and Iraqi troops had come out to confront them.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Dems in Congress seek Withdrawal
Saudis intrigue against al-Maliki


The Democrats are gearing up to try to pass an appropriations measure for Iraq that also specifies that US troops must come home by fall, 2008. A similar effort in the Senate failed when one Democratic Senator defected to the Republican side over the withdrawal issue. In the House of Representatives, the Democrats have the votes to pass the measure only if almost all Democrats vote for it. Nancy Pelosi has had to attempt to muster votes from left-leading Democrats for whom the language does not go far enough in ending the war quickly.

Sunni Arab guerrillas killed two US soldiers in south Baghdad with a roadside bomb on Tuesday.

Police found 32 bodies in the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday, most of them in Sunni districts. The talk of Shiite death squad activity having been quelled by the US surge seems premature.

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


'BAGHDAD - Four mortar bombs killed at least seven people and wounded 20 in Abu Dsheer, a mostly Shi'ite area in southern Baghdad . . .

BAGHDAD - A car bomb near a police station killed at least five people and wounded 17 in central Baghdad, police said. . .

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed three people and wounded seven near a bridge in Karrada district in central Baghdad . . .

BAGHDAD - A car bomb near a mosque killed a man and wounded three others in al-Ubaidi district in eastern Baghdad . . .


Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq have turned to new tactics to fight the security plan, including deploying chlorine gas and chemically-laced dirty bombs.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Saudi Arabia and Jordan invited Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, for consultations in hopes of detaching him from his alliance with the fundamentalist Shiite parties. Al-Zaman says that its sources in Riyadh say that the Saudi royal family increasingly sees Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Shiite Islamic Call (Da'wa) Party as an obstacle to any movement toward peace and reconciliation. Al-Maliki was prominent in the Debaathification Commission that was punitive toward Sunni Arabs, and has during the past year had a tacit alliance with the Sadr Movement and its Mahdi Army militia, which many Sunnis believe comprises death squads that kill Sunni Arabs in the dark of night.

Many Iraqi police are not only not standing up as the US stands down (what Bush promised) but rather are themselves padded 'ghosts.'

Paul Reynolds of the BBC looks at what is at stake in Iraq for that country's major neighbors.

Chris Lindborg writes in Foreign Policy in Focus on what has happened to the Atlantic alliance because of Iraq.

Strategic Insights has published an important set of papers on the Iraq Crisis. Abbas Kadhim's paper on Shiite responses to the Baker Hamilton Commission report is essential.

The UNHCR is planning a conference on humanitarian relief in Iraq. About 2 million Iraqis have been displaced abroad, and nearly that many have been internally displaced. Inside the country, nearly a quarter of the population is dependent on food aid. Iraq's population is estimated at about 26 million. This report adds:

' Approximately 70 per cent of the population lacks access to adequate water supplies, while 80 per cent does not have effective sanitation. Almost a quarter of children are chronically malnourished, and the unemployment rate hovers at over 50 per cent. '

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Bush's Top Ten Mistakes in Iraq during the Past 4 Years

10. Refusing to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when his incompetence and maliciousness became apparent in the growing guerrilla war and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

9. Declining to intervene in the collapsed economy or help put Iraqi state industries back on a good footing, on the grounds that the "market" would magically produce prosperity effortlessly.

8. Invading and destroying the Sunni Arab city of Fallujah in November, 2004, thus pushing the Sunni Arabs into the arms of the insurgency in protest and ensuring that they would boycott the January, 2005, parliamentary elections, a boycott that excluded them from power and from a significant voice in crafting the new constitution, which they then rejected.

7. Suddenly announcing that the US would "kill or capture" young nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in spring, 2004, throwing the country into massive turmoil for months.

6. Replying to Baathist guerrilla provocations with harsh search and destroy missions that humiliated and angered ever more Sunni Arab clans, driving them to support or join the budding guerrilla movement.

5. Putting vengeful Shiites in charge of a Debaathification Commission that fired tens of thousands of mostly Sunni Arab state employees simply for having belonged to the Baath Party, leaving large numbers of Sunnis penniless and without hope of employment.

4. Dissolving the Iraqi Army in May, 2003, and sending 400,000 men home, unemployed, resentful and heavily armed.

3. Allowing widespread looting after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003, on the grounds that "stuff happens," "democracy is messy," and "how many vases can they have?"-- and thus signalling that there would be no serious attempt to provide law and order in American Iraq.

2. Plotting to install corrupt financier, notorious liar, and shady operator Ahmad Chalabi as the soft dictator of Iraq, and refusing to plan for a post-war administration of the country because that might forestall Chalabi's coronation.

1. Invading Iraq.

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Iraqi Public Wants US Troops Out within a Year
Sunni Parliamentarian Accused of Links to Bombers


A poll of Iraqis commission by USA Today and several other news organizations revealed that:


"In all, 83% of Shiites and 97% of Sunni Arabs oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq; 75% of Kurds support them. By more than 3 to 1, Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making the security situation worse."


They want the US out, but only 35% want the troops to leave immediately. The time frame for most of the others is six months to a year. There are hardly any Iraqis who want US troops in their country past August, 2008. I.e., the Iraqis would have voted for the Democrats' plan, which the Republicans shot down in the Senate.

In other results, 40% of Shiites want a theocracy governed by Islamic law and 58% of Sunnis want rule by strongman. Even among Kurds, 34% reject democracy. There may not be a majority for democracy any more.

Nearly half of Shiites and Kurds expect either a soft or a hard partition on ethnic and religious lines.

The USA Today et al. poll results are available here in pdf format.

A poll by the British Opinion Research Business organization gave strikingly different results on some issues.

One difference is that the USA Today et al. poll explicitly includes over-samples from al-Anbar Province, Kirkuk, Sadr City and Basra. Someone expert in polls should explain the divergence and why different methods were chosen and were thought appropriate.

Reuters reports that on Tuesday:

KIRKUK - Two car bombs and four roadside devices killed at least 12 people and wounded 39 in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, police Brigadier Sarhat Qader said.

BAGHDAD - A bomb in a plastic bag inside a Shi'ite mosque killed four people and wounded 25 others in central Baghdad, police said.

SAMARRA - Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint, killing a policeman and wounding three others in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.'


In addition, the mayor of the southern Shiite city of Wasit was kidnapped and killed.

The Iraqi government alleges that it found explosives residue in the automobile of Dhafir al-Ani, a Sunni member of parliament from the Iraqi Accord Front. He denies links to guerrilla bomb makers and alleges that the Shiite government of Iraq is attempting to frame him.

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March 19, 2003: Bush's Address on Iraq

What struck me in looking again at Bush's address to the American public late on March 19, 2003, is how obviously mendacious it was. That dishonest and propagandistic character is even more apparent with the passage of time. The accusation that Iraq was planning to attack anyone in 2003, that US cities were in danger from it, was monstrous in its mirroring of Bush intentions toward the Iraqi people. Which innocents have had to dig out of rubble? And, at a time when Bush rushed to war, engaging in dirty tricks in hopes of getting a Baath provocation that would serve as casus belli, and not letting the weapons inspectors even finish their jobs, to say he was "reluctant"! It is impossible to reread this text without images from the destruction of Fallujah, from Abu Ghraib, from Najaf, flashing through one's mind. It is America's nadir, the most Goebbels-like Big Lie in modern American history.

Bush said,






My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.

More than 35 countries are giving crucial support, from the use of naval and air bases, to help with intelligence and logistics, to the deployment of combat units. Every nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honor of serving in our common defense.

To all of the men and women of the United States armed forces now in the Middle East, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you.

That trust is well placed.

The enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military.

In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality. Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women, and children as shields for his own military; a final atrocity against his people.

I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable, and free country will require our sustained commitment.

We come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization, and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.

I know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.

Millions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.

For your sacrifice, you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.

Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

We will meet that threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.

Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.

My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others. And we will prevail.

May God bless our country and all who defend her.

PRESIDENT BUSH

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Monday, March 19, 2007

Renewed US Anti-War Protests Sunday;
Gates: Surge is to Buy Time for Reconciliation;
Al-Maliki Cabinet Shuffle Postponed


Thousands of antiwar demonstrators came out again on Sunday. Some cities , such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Minneapolis, had especially vigorous protests.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed on Sunday that the surge of US troops into Iraq and the new security plan are designed to give the Iraqi government time to seek national reconciliation.

That is a worthy goal, but if it is the reason for the escalation in the number of US troops in Iraq, then that lays an especially heavy burden on the al-Maliki government to accelerate efforts at national reconciliation.

I don't see any particular evidence that it is doing so. Nor can I see any signs that the government is able to act at faster than a glacial pace. It had long ago been announced that al-Maliki would reshuffle his cabinet. But now it appears that this step, intended to streamline the government and punish cabinet ministers linked to sectarian violence, will be substantially postponed and implemented gradually. Al-Maliki, having just lost a member of his coalition-- the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila-- 15 seats), appears to have thought better of just firing large numbers of ministers from parties whose support he needs.

But now he has gone back to playing consensual politics negotiated with excruciating slowness. If it takes him months to so much as decide who his minister of health is, when is he going to be up to the challenge of finding a way to make peace with the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement (which he dismisses as Saddamis and 'excommunicators'-- i.e. hard line Sunnis who say Shiites are not Muslims).

General Petraeus, in the meantime, is signalling that his own patience is not infinite, and that if he can't see a genuine improvement in the security situation by June, he would have an obligation to his own troops to say so. It is so refreshing to hear that kind of language from the Pentagon after all those years of Donald Rumsfeld's despicable disregard for the welfare of the troops he was supposed to be leading (asked why he didn't get US forces more armored vehicles, Rumsfeld had said that you go to war with the army you have; the manufacturer of the armor spoke up and said that his factory could provide more such armor quickly, but that Rumsfeld had not requested it do so). One problem: It will be hard to tell which security effects are temporary, as a result of the US surge, and which would survive a US drawdown.

Sawt al-Iraq writes in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will reshuffle his cabinet in three stages, beginning with the ministries in charge of services. Some reports are saying that the changes have been put off until July. Mufid al-Jaza'iri, a member of parliament, said that al-Maliki is having a dispute with parliamentary blocs over whether he should also change the ministers at the ministries concerned with security. Especially contentious is the request of the (Sunni fundamentalist) Iraqi Accord Front that they be allowed to change their minister, who represtents them as head of the ministry of defense. The Iraqi Accord Front also wishes to relinquish the ministry of culture for one of the service ministries.

The Sadr Movement had earlier given al-Maliki carte blanche to replace current cabinet ministers from their bloc with others of his choosing. Their relations with al-Maliki have now turned frosty, however, and they are insisting that they should be the ones to suggest alternative appointments.

Maysun al-Damluji of the Iraqi National List said that her party is urging that women be added to the cabinet in the course of the shuffle.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Iyad Allawi, the ex-Baathist former appointed prime minister of Iraq, conducted talks in Cairo with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Sunday. He expressed his hope that Arab states would push Iraqi interests at the upcoming Riyadh summit. Allawi said that reconciliation in Iraq would require concessions from all parties and joint action for national interests. Mubarak is said to have emphasized the need for Iraqis to prefer their national interests as citizens to their sectarian interests.

Reuters reports political violence on Sunday, including several bombings, some deadly, in Baghdad.

The conference on the Iraqi reconstruction is upcoming in Istanbul.

Check out the video, Hometown Baghdad at Salon.com.

Anthony Arnove at Tomdispatch.com on the commemoration of the fourth anniversary of "Shock and Awe."
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