Iraq Profiled

Analysis,Elections What We Wernt Told

2005-03-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

What They’re Not Telling You About the “Election”
By: Dahr Jamail on: 01.02.2005

After a day which left 50 people dead in Iraq, both civilians and soldiers, the death toll was hailed as a figure that was “lower than expected.” Thus…acceptable, by Bush Administration/corporate media standards. After all, only of them was an American, the rest were Iraqis civilians and British soldiers.

The gamble of using the polling day in Iraq to justify the ongoing failed occupation of Iraq has apparently paid off, if you watch only mainstream media.

“Higher than expected turnout,” US mainstream television media blared, some citing a figure of 72%, others 60%.

What they didn’t tell you was that this figure was provided by Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI) before the polls had even closed.

When asked about the accuracy of the estimate of voter turnout during a press conference, Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying that a closer estimate was lower than his initial estimate and would be more like 60% of registered voters.

The IECI spokesman said his previous figure of 72% was “only guessing” and “was just an estimate,” which was based on “very rough, word-of mouth estimates gathered informally from the field. It will take some time for the IECI to issue accurate figures on turnout.”

Referencing both figures, Ayar then added, “Percentages and numbers come only after counting and will be announced when it's over ... It's too soon to say that those were the official numbers.”

But this isn’t the most important misrepresentation the mainstream media committed.

What they also didn’t tell you was that of those who voted, whether they be 35% or even 60% of registered voters, were not voting in support of an ongoing US occupation of their country.

In fact, they were voting for precisely the opposite reason. Every Iraqi I have spoken with who voted explained that they believe the National Assembly which will be formed soon will signal an end to the occupation.

And they expect the call for a withdrawing of foreign forces in their country to come sooner rather than later.

This causes one to view the footage of cheering, jubilant Iraqis in a different light now, doesn’t it?

But then, most folks in the US watching CNN, FOX, or any of the major networks won’t see it that way. Instead, they will hear what Mr. Bush said, “The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East,” and take it as fact because most of the major media outlets aren’t scratching beneath film clips of joyous Iraqi voters over here in the land of daily chaos and violence, no jobs, no electricity, little running water and no gasoline (for the Iraqis anyhow).

And Bush is portrayed by the media as the bringer of democracy to Iraq by the simple fact that this so-called election took place, botched as it may have been. Appearances suggest that the majority Shia in Iraq now finally get their proportional representation in a “government.” Looks good on paper.

But as you continue reading, the seemingly altruistic reasons for this election as portrayed by the Bush Administration and trumpeted by most mainstream media are anything but.

And Iraqis who voted are hearing other trumpets that are blaring an end to the occupation.

Now the question remains, what happens when the National Assembly is formed and over 100,000 US soldiers remain on the ground in Iraq with the Bush Administration continuing in its refusal to provide a timetable for their removal?

What happens when Iraqis see that while there are already four permanent US military bases in their country, rather than beginning to disassemble them, more bases are being constructed, as they are, by Cheney’s old company Halliburton, right now?

Antonia Juhasz, a Foreign Policy in Focus scholar, authored a piece just before the “election” that sheds light on a topic that has lost attention amidst the recent fanfare concerning the polls in Iraq.

Oil.

I think it’s worth including much of her story here, as it fits well with today’s topic of things most folks aren’t being told by the bringers of democracy to the heart of the Middle East.

On Dec. 22, 2004, Iraqi Finance Minister Abdel Mahdi told a handful of reporters and industry insiders at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi explained: "So I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies."

In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it into American corporate hands.
According to the finance minister, foreigners would gain access both to "downstream" and "maybe even upstream" oil investment. This means foreigners can sell Iraqi oil and own it under the ground — the very thing for which many argue the U.S. went to war in the first place.

As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report explained back in 1992, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the Middle East region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil."
While few in the American media other than Emad Mckay of Inter Press Service reported on — or even attended — Mahdi’s press conference, the announcement was made with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson at Mahdi's side. It was intended to send a message — but to whom?

It turns out that Abdel Mahdi is running in the Jan. 30 elections on the ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the leading Shiite political party. While announcing the selling-off of the resource which provides 95 percent of all Iraqi revenue may not garner Mahdi many Iraqi votes, but it will unquestionably win him tremendous support from the U.S. government and U.S. corporations.

Mahdi's SCIR is far and away the front-runner in the upcoming elections, particularly as it becomes increasingly less possible for Sunnis to vote because the regions where they live are spiraling into deadly chaos. If Bush were to suggest to Iraq’s Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that elections should be called off, Mahdi and the SCIR's ultimate chances of victory will likely decline.

I’ll add that the list of political parties Mahdi’s SCIR belongs to, The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), includes the Iraqi National Council, which is led by an old friend of the Bush Administration who provided the faulty information they needed to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq, none other than Ahmed Chalabi.

It should also be noted that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi also fed the Bush Administration cooked information used to justify the invasion, but he heads a different Shia list which will most likely be getting nearly as many votes as the UIA list.

And The UIA has the blessing of Iranian born revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani issued a fatwa which instructed his huge number of followers to vote in the election, or they would risk going to hell.

Thus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal with the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings in Iraq.

Regardless of what happens in the elections, for at least the next year during which the newly elected National Assembly writes a constitution and Iraqis vote for a new government, the Bush administration is going to control the largest pot of money available in Iraq (the $24 billion in U.S. taxpayer money allocated for the reconstruction), the largest military and the rules governing Iraq's economy. Both the money and the rules will, in turn, be overseen by U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals who sit in every Iraqi ministry with five-year terms and sweeping authority over contracts and regulations. However, the one thing which the administration has not been unable to confer upon itself is guaranteed access to Iraqi oil — that is, until now.

And there is so much more they are not telling you. Just like the Iraqis who voted, believing they did so to bring an end to the occupation of their country.
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Analysis,Making Sense of the Election

2005-03-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

January 31, 2005 Kelebdooni Anti-Allawi group

I think the apparent Shia-Sunni difference in voting trend is being misrepresented. Both the mainstream media along with the occupations' divisive plans and the so-called not-so-well-informed progressives unfortunately, will continue to misrepresent it in those terms. We need to be aware of playing into "their" hands.

It is easier and more natural to interpret voting trends in geographical and political rather than sectarian terms. I need to explain this by examples.

Turnout was extremely low in central areas altogether plus Basra marginally. It is easy to think of the almost total boycott of Ramadi & Sallahuddin provinces in Sunni terms alone, but this would be inaccurate.

Towns like Balad and Dijail (Shia) were not any different in total boycott from neighboring Samarra and Al-Dur (Sunni). There are towns that are predominantly Shia within the so-called Sunni triangle that behaved just like their Sunni neighbors.

Mosul and Kirkuk behaved similarly within their mostly Arab and Turkomen areas. Baquba is almost 50-50 with Kurdish minority. Again, Buhriz town (Shia) behaved like neighboring Baquba city itself (Sunni).

Baghdad has a small overall majority of Shia actually. Most areas are well integrated with a majority of this or that, apart from Sadr city that is clearly Shia. There were very slight differences in behavior in almost all areas. Moving furthest south to Basra (50-50), we observe similarity but to a lesser degree.

Consider that those areas contain about 60% of the population. With very little math, it can be seen that it must also include within it a large proportion of Shia and Kurds, as the Arab Sunnis cannot be more than 30% of the population by the most optimistic estimates.

Take Baghdad. Break the population (approx) down into 50% Shia, 40% Sunni, 10% Kurds & others. Did you get a turnout of 60%? Reliable accounts from the media and personal sources suggest 20% for Baghdad at most. What can we conclude from this?

The occupation acted to dismantle all forms of political structure deliberately to install its own alternatives. It continues to thwart voices of civil groups (unions, professionals, academics) apart from those pre-prepared collaborator expatriates who came in on the US tanks. After banning the Baath party, they refused room to other expatriate parties that opposed the invasion, as well as some indigenous national-platform movements formed after the invasion.

The occupation is promoting the idea that Iraq is a collection of sects and ethnic groups, and denies a national unifying theme to further its aims of control.

To get back to our point, the resistance is strongest in Baghdad and the more-developed central areas of Iraq, and other major urban centers like Basra and Amara in the south and Duhok in the Kurdish north.

It is weakest still in rural areas of the south and Kurdish north (mainly rural), where other forces are at work more prominently, where archaic feudal, tribal and reactionary religious forces are being bolstered incessantly.

Counter influences in the south include the strong sectarian influence of the Sistani school, which although is anti-occupation; it nevertheless gives higher priority to sectarian rather than national interests.

There is also the influence of SCIRI and Dawa parties that are closely linked to Iran and using Sistani's influence for their objectives. The Kurdish north has been under the influence of the two reactionary feudal parties since 1991, which has been time enough thanks to US backing for practically total separation of the region from the rest of Iraq.

It is naturally a complex scene, as any country would be under such circumstances.

You cannot begin to understand it by reading the western media, even most of the anti-war advocates that are still influenced by the strong prevailing current of unavoidable oversimplification and deliberate misrepresentation.

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Analysis,Election Will Change The World

2005-03-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

This Election Will Change the World. But Not in the Way the Americans Imagined
By: Robert Fisk on: 31.01.2005

Shias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election tomorrow that will bring them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators of the Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under threat.

America has insisted on these elections - which will produce a largely Shia parliament representing Iraq's largest religious community - because they are supposed to provide an exit strategy for embattled US forces, but they seem set to change the geopolitical map of the Arab world in ways the Americans could never have imagined. For George Bush and Tony Blair this is the law of unintended consequences writ large.

Amid curfews, frontier closures and country-wide travel restrictions, voting in Iraq will begin tomorrow under the threat of Osama bin Laden's ruling that the poll represents an "apostasy". Voting started among expatriate Iraqis yesterday in Britain, the US, Sweden, Syria and other countries, but the turnout was much smaller than expected.

The Americans have talked up the possibility of massive bloodshed tomorrow and US intelligence authorities have warned embassy staff in Baghdad that insurgents may have been "saving up" suicide bombers for mass attacks on polling stations.

But outside Iraq, Arab leaders are talking of a Shia "Crescent" that will run from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon via Syria, whose Alawite leadership forms a branch of Shia Islam. The underdogs of the Middle East, repressed under the Ottomans, the British and then the pro-Western dictators of the region, will be a new and potent political force.

While Shia political parties in Iraq have promised that they will not demand an Islamic republic - their speeches suggest that they have no desire to recreate the Iranian revolution in their country - their inevitable victory in an election that Iraq's Sunnis will largely boycott mean that this country will become the first Arab nation to be led by Shias.

On the surface, this may not be apparent; Iyad Allawi, the former CIA agent and current Shia "interim" Prime Minister, is widely tipped as the only viable choice for the next prime minister - but the kings and emirs of the Gulf are facing the prospect with trepidation.

In Bahrain, a Sunni monarchy rules over a Shia majority that staged a mini-insurrection in the 1990s. Saudi Arabia has long treated its Shia minority with suspicion and repression.

In the Arab world, they say that God favoured the Shia with oil. Shias live above the richest oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and upon some of the Kuwaiti oil fields. Apart from Mosul, Iraqi Shias live almost exclusively amid their own country's massive oil fields. Iran's oil wealth is controlled by the country's overwhelming Shia majority.

What does all this presage for the Sunni potentates of the Arabian peninsula? Iraq's new national assembly and the next interim government it selects will empower Shias throughout the region, inviting them to question why they too cannot be given a fair share of their country's decision-making.

The Americans originally feared that parliamentary elections in Iraq would create a Shia Islamic republic and made inevitable - and unnecessary - warnings to Iran not to interfere in Iraq. But now they are far more frightened that without elections the 60 per cent Shia community would join the Sunni insurgency.

Tomorrow's poll is thus, for the Americans, a means to an end, a way of claiming that - while Iraq may not have become the stable, liberal democracy they claimed they would create - it has started its journey on the way to Western-style freedom and that American forces can leave.

Few in Iraq believe that these elections will end the insurgency, let alone bring peace and stability. By holding the poll now - when the Shias, who are not fighting the Americans, are voting while the Sunnis, who are fighting the Americans, are not -the elections can only sharpen the divisions between the country's two largest communities.

While Washington had clearly not envisaged the results of its invasion in this way, its demand for "democracy" is now moving the tectonic plates of the Middle East in a new and uncertain direction. The Arab states outside the Shia "Crescent" fear Shia political power even more than they are frightened by genuine democracy.

No wonder, then, King Abdullah of Jordan is warning that this could destabilise the Gulf and pose a "challenge" to the United States. This may also account for the tolerant attitude of Jordan towards the insurgency, many of whose leaders freely cross the border with Iraq.

The American claim that they move secretly from Syria into Iraq appears largely false; the men who run the rebellion against US rule in Iraq are not likely to smuggle themselves across the Syrian-Iraqi desert when they can travel "legally" across the Jordanian border.

Tomorrow's election may be bloody. It may well produce a parliament so top-heavy with Shia candidates that the Americans will be tempted to "top up" the Sunni assembly members by choosing some of their own, who will inevitably be accused of collaboration. But it will establish Shia power in Iraq - and in the wider Arab world - for the first time since the great split between Sunnis and Shias that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
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Analysis,Moral Cowards

2005-03-21T08:37:00.000-08:00

The war on Iraq has made moral cowards of us all
By: Scott Ritter on: 30.01.2005

More than 100,000 Iraqis have died—and where is our shame and rage?

The full scale of the human cost already paid for the war on Iraq is only now becoming clear. Last week's estimate by investigators, using credible methodology, that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians—most of them women and children—have died since the US-led invasion is a profound moral indictment of our countries. The US and British governments quickly moved to cast doubt on the Lancet medical journal findings, citing other studies.

These mainly media-based reports put the number of Iraqi civilian deaths at about 15,000—although the basis for such an endorsement is unclear, since neither the US nor the UK admits to collecting data on Iraqi civilian casualties. Civilian deaths have always been a tragic reality of modern war.

But the conflict in Iraq was supposed to be different—US and British forces were dispatched to liberate the Iraqi people, not impose their own tyranny of violence.

Reading accounts of the US-led invasion, one is struck by the constant, almost casual, reference to civilian deaths. Soldiers and marines speak of destroying hundreds, if not thousands of vehicles that turned out to be crammed with civilians. US marines acknowledged in the aftermath of the early, bloody battle for Nassiriya that their artillery and air power had pounded civilian areas in a blind effort to suppress insurgents thought to be holed up in the city. The infamous "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad produced hundreds of deaths, as did the 3rd Infantry Division's "Thunder Run", an armoured thrust in Baghdad that slaughtered everyone in its path.

It is true that, with only a few exceptions, civilians who died as a result of ground combat were not deliberately targeted, but were caught up in the machinery of modern warfare. But when the same claim is made about civilians killed in aerial attacks (the Lancet study estimates that most of civilian deaths were the result of air attacks), the comparison quickly fails apart.

Helicopter engagements apart, most aerial bombardment is deliberate and pre-planned. US and British military officials like to brag about the accuracy of the "precision" munitions used in these strikes, claiming this makes the kind of modern warfare practiced by the coalition in Iraq the most humanitarian in history.

But there is nothing humanitarian about explosives once they detonate near civilians, or about a bomb guided to the wrong target.

Dozens of civilians were killed during the vain effort to eliminate Saddam Hussein with "pinpoint" air strikes, and hundreds have perished in the campaign to eliminate alleged terrorist targets in Falluja. A "smart bomb" is only as good as the data used to direct it. And the abysmal quality of the intelligence used has made the smartest of bombs just as dumb and indiscriminate as those, for example, dropped during the second world war.

The fact that most bombing missions in Iraq today are pre-planned, with targets allegedly carefuily vetted, further indicts those who wage this war in the name of freedom.

If these targets are so precise, then those selecting them cannot escape the fact that they are deliberately targeting innocent civilians at the same time as they seek to destroy their intended foe. Some would dismiss these civilians as "collateral damage". But we must keep in mind that the British and US governments made a deliberate decision to enter into a conflict of their choosing, not one that was thrust upon them.

We invaded Iraq to free Iraqis from a dictator who, by some accounts, oversaw the killing of about 300,000 of his subjects—although no one has been able to verify more than a small fraction of the figure. If it is correct, it took Saddam decades to reach such a horrific statistic. The US and UK have, it seems, reached a third of that total in just 18 months.

Meanwhile, the latest scandal over missing nuclear-related high explosives in Iraq (traced and controlled under the UN inspections regime) only underscores the utter deceitfulness of the Bush-Blair argument for the war.

Having claimed the uncertainty surrounding Iraq's WMD capability constituted a threat that could not go unchallenged in a post-9/11 world, one would have expected the two leaders to insist on a military course of action that brought under immediate coalition control any aspect of potential WMD capability, especially relating to any possible nuclear threat. That the US military did not have a dedicated force to locate and neutralise these explosives underscores the fact that both Bush and Blair knew that there was no threat from Iraq, nuclear or otherwise.

Of course, the US and Britain have a history of turning a blind eye to Iraqi suffering when it suits their political purposes. During the 1990s, hundreds of thousands are estimated by the UN to have died as a result of sanctions.

Throughout that time, the US and the UK maintained the fiction that this was the fault of Saddam Hussein, who refused to give up his WMD. We now know that Saddam had disarmed and those deaths were the responsibility of the US and Britain, which refused to lift sanctions.

There are many culpable individuals and organisations history will hold to account for the war—from deceitful politicians and journalists to acquiescent military professionals and silent citizens of the world's democracies.

As the evidence has piled up confirming what I and others had reported—that Iraq was already disarmed by the late 1990s—my personal vote for one of the most culpable individuals would go to Hans Blix, who headed the UN weapons inspection team in the run-up to war. He had the power if not to prevent, at least to forestall a war with Iraq.

Blix knew that Iraq was disarmed, but in his mealy-mouthed testimony to the UN Security Council helped provide fodder for war. His failure to stand up to the lies used by Bush and Blair to sell the Iraq war must brand him a moral and intellectual coward.

But we all are moral cowards when it comes to Iraq. Our collective inability to summon the requisite shame and rage when confronted by an estimate of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians in the prosecution of an illegal and unjust war not only condemns us, but adds credibility to those who oppose us.

The fact that a criminal such as Osama bin Laden can broadcast a videotape on the eve of the US presidential election in which his message is viewed by many around the world as a sober argument in support of his cause is the harshest indictment of the failure of the US and Britain to implement sound policy in the aftermath of 9/11.

The death of 3,000 civilians on that horrible day represented a tragedy of huge proportions. Our continued indifference to a war that has slaughtered so many Iraqi civilians, and will continue to kill more, is in many ways an even greater tragedy : not only in terms of scale, but also because these deaths were inflicted by our own hand in the course of an action that has no defence.
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Analysis,False Casualty Figures

2005-03-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

False Casualty Figures.Jan2005
K.C.Moore

From the Pentagon as of January 14th 2005,figures have been released at some 1361 U.S personnel killed and just over 10,000 wounded from the Iraq war and occupation.Is this a true reflection of the actual casualties or a manipulation of the figures ? The Iraq war from its inception was domestically and internationally unpopular especially as it went specifically against the will of the United Nations regarding pre-emptive war on the grounds of so called WMDs.The first casualty of war is always the truth.The war itself was instigated by the Neoconservatives in the U.S and it is they who control the Pentagon and military administration,Mr Rumsfield and Mr Wolfowitz themselves have control of the information flow out of Iraq, that will be inclusive of casualty figures released by Centcom.Is it in their interest to manipulate casualty flows ? In my opinion, most definately,purely on the reasons that the higher the casualties the greater the resolve of Americas domestic population, starting to not only question the Iraq invasion but also the occupation and the reasons why America is still in Iraq,a hardening of public opinion against occupation and grounds to call the troops home.The greater the casualties the louder the voices will become to withdraw.This will in effect forclose on the PNAC doctrine of pre-emptive wars around the world,which is the Neocons dream.Much is at stake for them.The true casualty figures will only be known by those at the Pentagon and a few selected personnel.Gauging previous articles and statements made from various individulas and organisations since March 2003,casualty figures can be pieced together to give a truer reflection on what the real cost in servicemans lives are.

In November 2003 a Surgeon at the Ramstein medical base in Germany stated that it had received 9,500 casualties from Iraq needing surgery including over 3000 amputations.In the same month a chief administrator at Baghdad airport stated that it had shipped out around 22,000 injured servicemen and women.In April 2004 the Veterans association stated that it had received 26,633 disability claims from servicemen returning from Iraq.Two months later on the Mcglochlin political show aired by CNN,discussion was on a casualty figure centred around 27,000.That in its own confirms the other statistics given above.From various blogs and articles from surgeons,doctors and medical staff,it seems they were dealing with around 50 casualties a day,somewhere in the region of 1,500 a month.Now here is where i have to start speculating and piece the information together as Sherlock Holmes would do.Since April 2004 Najaf exploded in violence twice and the same can be said for Fallujah each incident taking approximately a month to contain.Both Najaf and Fallujah caused extensive resistance not only too those areas but extended out to other areas in Iraq,so that from that, there would be an increase in casualties,i would put it at double the average,around 3,000 each for these 4 months totaling 12,000 casualties.From April 2004 to today January 2005 is ten months,using the template average of 1,500 casualties per month is 15,000 and adding a further 1,500 casualties per month for those four explosive months in Najaf and Fallujah gives a further 6,000.Therefore that leaves a total of 21,000 casualties from April 2004 to date,add that to the Veterans association figures of 26,633 casualties pre April 2004 giving a total of 48,000 casualties.Using a rough guide of 1 soldier killed for every 8 wounded gives a figure of 6,000 killed.

In my opinion the true casualty figures of Iraq is around 6,000 servicemen killed and 48,000 wounded.Totaling 54,000.If my figures are accurate then the pentagon is only reporting,making public 20% of the casualties.Many people will state this can not be possible.They cannot hide that ammount. Vietnam was a good reflection initially 6,000 Kia were reported later that rose to 58,000 and later a further 40,000 were deemed missing in action.So if Vietnam is anything to judge,then most certainly casualty figures are manipulated for public consumption.

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Analysis,Anxiety in U.S Ruling Circles

2005-03-21T07:50:00.000-08:00

Growing anxiety in US ruling circles over Iraq debacle
By: Patrick Martin on: 14.01.2005

Voicing the growing concern within the US ruling elite that the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq are leading to disaster, the New York Times published a lengthy editorial Wednesday calling for the postponement of the January 30 elections in order to prevent the political collapse of the occupied country.

Headlined “Facing Facts About Iraq’s Election,” the editorial argued that holding an election under the present conditions, with the Sunni minority in the north and west of the country effectively excluded from the balloting, would be a recipe for “a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that would create instability throughout the Middle East and give terrorists a new, ungoverned region that they could use as a base of operations.”

The newspaper, which supported the Bush administration’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq, while criticizing its handling of the occupation, argued that postponing the elections by two or three months should not be viewed as a surrender to the Iraqi insurgents—which both the Bush administration and the Times describe as “terrorists”—if it succeeds in bringing a section of the Muslim clergy and the tribal elders of the Sunni-populated region into a new US-backed Iraqi government.

The Times noted that many officials of the interim regime in Baghdad have “shown some interest in putting off the voting if there is a chance of winning more Sunni participation, and others are said to be leaning that way in private.” The principal obstacle, the editorial complained, was Bush himself, and his inflexibility about the January 30 deadline, even as the security situation in the Sunni Triangle deteriorates.

This editorial is only the most prominent in what has become a groundswell of commentaries and warnings from within the American political and media establishment about the danger that the US occupation regime in Iraq could disintegrate into uncontrollable violence in a matter of weeks.

Last Thursday, at a luncheon sponsored by the New America Foundation, which is aligned with the right wing of the Democratic Party and The New Republic magazine, two former national security advisers, Republican Brent Scowcroft and Democrat Zbigniew Brzezinski, made dire warnings about the prospects for Iraq and the overall recklessness of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

Scowcroft told his audience of prominent journalists and foreign policy experts, drawn from various Washington think tanks, that the Bush administration’s unilateralism and arrogance were alienating former allies in Europe and the Middle East. US foreign policy was failing to address the implications of the globalization of the world economy, he said, which made it impossible for a single power, even one like the United States with unchallenged military superiority, to simply dictate to the world.

Iraq was the focal point of conflict, he said, adding, “With Iraq, we clearly have a tiger by the tail. And the elections are turning out to be less about a promising transformation, and it has great potential for deepening the conflict. Indeed we may be seeing an incipient civil war at the present time.”

Given Scowcroft’s close friendship with the elder Bush (he co-wrote his presidential foreign policy memoir), this warning of the danger of civil war was extraordinary. The former national security adviser for both Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush opposed the decision to go to war with Iraq on tactical grounds. He has become increasingly vocal about the danger that the US failure in Iraq is undermining the worldwide role of US imperialism. Last month he was removed from his unpaid government position, as chairman of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, when Bush declined to reappoint him for his second term.

Brzezinski, a Democrat and former national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, gave a far more strident warning about the potential consequences of the Iraq adventure. A hard-line hawk during the Cold War, the Polish-born Brzezinski is the author of a recent volume on global strategy, The Grand Chessboard, which advocated the American seizure of a dominant position on the Eurasian land-mass in order to prevent the rise of any potential rival. While this might appear to dovetail with the Bush doctrine of preventive war and the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq, Brzezinski has emerged as one of the most trenchant establishment critics of Bush foreign policy, arguing from the standpoint of US imperialism’s longer-term interests.

Citing the description of the Iraq war by Rumsfeld as a “war of choice,” Brzezinski said it is “already a serious moral setback to the United States: a moral setback both in how we start, how it was justified, and because of some of the egregious incidents that have accompanied this proceeding.... The United States has never been involved in an intervention in its entire history like it is today. It is also a military setback.”

He emphasized the escalating costs of the war: “While our ultimate objectives are very ambitious, we will never achieve democracy and stability without being willing to commit 500,000 troops, spend $200 billion a year, probably have a draft, and have some form of war compensation. As a society, we are not prepared to do that.”

“The Soviet Union could have won the war in Afghanistan too had it been prepared to do its equivalent of what I just mentioned,” Brzezinski continued. “But even the Soviet Union was not prepared to do that because there comes a point in the life of a nation when such sacrifices are not justified ... and only time will tell if the United States is facing a moment of wisdom, or is resigned to cultural decay.”

The Bush administration now faces potentially crippling challenges in recovering both international legitimacy and domestic unity, he said, and the government had little credibility either at home or abroad: “Today no one will believe us if we declare that we are convinced Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons without any overriding evidence to sustain our position.”

He cited public opinion polls showing overwhelming hostility to US policies around the world, pointing to one in particular, in which respondents expressed disappointment that Iraq had not provided more effective resistance to the US invasion. “What was that question’s meaning?” he asked. “What was the question that was posed? The question that really was posed is ‘aren’t you sorry that more Americans were not killed?’ That is some measure of the depth of the animus to our policies.”

The Bush administration’s strategy in fighting terrorism was a failure, Brzezinski said: “The global war on terrorism lumps all terrorists together, lumps all Islamic terrorists together and pits them as enemies against us. Strategy is not about uniting your enemies and dividing your friends. It’s the opposite.”

The significance of these criticisms can be demonstrated by the audience assembled to hear them, including leading journalists like David Sanger of the New York Times, Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times, Howard Fineman of Newsweek, James Fallows of Atlantic Monthly, Dana Priest of the Washington Post and Judy Woodruff of CNN, as well as representatives of Businessweek, UPI, Knight-Ridder, US News & World Report and other publications.

Within days, Sanger was in print with a commentary in the Times headlined, “Hot Topic: How the US Might Disengage in Iraq.” He cited widespread discussion in Washington, among Republican and Democratic congressmen, the military brass, and even Bush administration officials over using the January 30 election as an occasion for beginning to draw down US troop strength in Iraq.

Sanger cited both Scowcroft’s criticism of Bush on January 6, and Bush’s reply, in which he rejected the concerns about the election leading to civil war and declared, “I think elections will be such an incredibly hopeful experience for the Iraqi people.” The Times writer continued: “But the president’s optimism is in sharp contrast, some administration insiders say, to some conversations in the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon and Congress. For the first time, there are questions about whether it is politically possible to wait until the Iraqi forces are adequately trained before pressure to start bringing back American troops becomes overwhelming.”

These commentaries in no way signify that the Bush administration is about to begin troop withdrawals from Iraq. On the contrary, the onslaught of insurgent attacks in the days before and after the January 30 vote could well compel the Pentagon to dispatch more troops to shore up the crumbling US position.

Rather, these discussions reveal the deep divisions within the ruling elite—largely papered over during the election campaign in order to avoid giving the American people any say in the matter—over how best to deal with the debacle in Iraq.

While Brzezinski, Scowcroft, the New York Times and others counsel cutting one’s losses, such a course would constitute a public admission by Bush that his foreign policy had failed, and would lead, sooner rather than later, to the effective collapse of his administration.

The Bush White House will hardly acquiesce in this fate. It is bent on a further reckless throw of the dice, either increasing US troop strength in Iraq, using even more devastating and violent methods, or provoking a new conflict with another potential antagonist, such as Syria or Iran.

The all-out pro-war faction in the media has rushed to bolster the administration. Washington Post foreign policy columnist David Ignatius warned of the “growing discussion, among impatient Republicans on Capitol Hill and senior military officers, about whether America needs to look for a quicker exit strategy from a war that is going badly.”

The Post editorial page, among the most fervent supporters of the war in the media establishment, published a statement demanding that the Iraq elections take place as scheduled January 30.

The implications of the all-out war position were spelled out in Ignatius’s column, which calls for removing all restraints on US military action in the Sunni-populated regions where insurgent activity is most widespread. “Insurgents must wake up each morning afraid that they will die,” he wrote. “This sort of dirty war isn’t one I would like to see American forces fighting; it’s one for Iraqi special forces. It will be a brutal fight, but it’s the same one authorities in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria must fight every day against jihadists there. Somehow, the psychology of intimidation in Iraq has to be reversed, so that it’s the insurgents who fear for their lives.”

Thus goes the logic of Bush’s war. The initial pretext, long discredited and forgotten, was Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda (which has been immeasurably strengthened by the US conquest of Iraq). Then the public was told that Washington was bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq. But, as Ignatius spells out, the US occupation requires the same brutal methods as those employed by the military dictatorships and absolute monarchies which serve as Washington’s allies in the rest of the Arab world.
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Analysis,Iraq Elections What If ?

2005-03-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

This election could plunge Iraq further into the abyss
By: Seumas Milne on: 13.01.2005

They are routinely described by the BBC as Iraq's first free and democratic elections - sometimes for half a century, sometimes in the country's history. During his lightning stopover in Baghdad last month, Tony Blair insisted that whatever you had thought of the war, no one could now avoid taking sides in what had become a simple "battle between democracy and terror" in Iraq. And even if enthusiasm for the elections scheduled for January 30 is usually tempered by an admission that they are bound in practice to prove "imperfect", there is a widespread view in the occupying countries that they offer the best chance to begin to lift the country out of its current misery.

We have, of course, been here before. Every landmark since the US and British invasion nearly two years ago has been claimed as a turning point for the occupation, the moment when support for the resistance would start to recede and a new, showcase Iraq emerge from the blood-drenched devastation. And no doubt for those who thought Iraqis would welcome their invaders with flowers, that they wouldn't resist foreign occupation, that Saddam Hussein's capture would take the wind out of the fighters' sails, that last June's handover of sovereignty would be seen as genuine and that the punitive destruction of Falluja would break the back of the insurgency - for them, this month's planned ballot will surely seem to be the crucial event that must at last deliver legitimacy to the puppet regime holed up in Baghdad's infamous green zone.

But, in reality, the elections are likely at best to be irrelevant, at worst to plunge Iraq deeper into the abyss. Both common sense and first principles dictate that no election in a country invaded and controlled by foreign troops can conceivably be regarded as free and fair. The poll due on January 30 is part of a process imposed by Bush's proconsul Paul Bremer, transparently designed to entrench US plans for Iraq and the wider Middle East; all the main politicians and parties taking part owe their position and physical survival to US protection and power; and voting will take place in a country under martial law, where a full-scale guerrilla war is raging and whose heartlands are under daily bombardment.

Falluja, a city of 350,000 people, has been razed to the ground in the past couple of months and its people expelled to refugee camps, where they have less chance to vote (even if they wanted to) than Iraqi refugees living in Britain. The US-appointed government has cracked down on the recalcitrant press and expelled the independent al-Jazeera TV station, while the hands of any future administration have been tied by a US-imposed neoliberal economic programme.

Add to that the fact that major political groups and politicians are boycotting the elections (including the popular Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr) as illegitimate under occupation - while security is so bad in four of the country's provinces (accounting for more than half the population) that both the US ground forces commander and US-installed prime minister Ayad Allawi said this week it would be too dangerous for many people to vote. And just as intimidation is expected to enforce a boycott in some Sunni-dominated areas, pro-regime militias are expected to dragoon Shia voters to the polls in parts of the south. Without election observers, the scope for fraud is clearly extensive. Most candidates' names on party lists have been withheld - giving new meaning to the term "secret ballot" - while voter registration forms are being widely traded for dollars.

But most crucially of all, whatever the turnout and relative votes for the different lists, the result cannot and will not reflect the popular will over the most important issue facing the country: the occupation. Opinion polls show most Iraqis want foreign troops to leave now. But none of those with a chance of being elected - all compromised by their links to the current administration - supports such a demand. Without foreign troops, they would fear for their own skins.

None of this should come as much of a shock. We are familiar with "managed" elections the world over. And phoney polls under foreign occupation have a long pedigree. Take the US client regime in South Vietnam, where fraudulent but contested elections were held from the 1950s to the 1970s, including at the height of the American war. Just as in Iraq, newspapers were suppressed and parties staged boycotts or were banned, while polling was often suspended in Vietcong-controlled areas - or alternatively the government won a miraculously high vote. Then there were Iraq's own rigged elections under the British-installed regime before 1958: as in Iraq today, thousands of prisoners were held without trial, newspapers and parties were banned and torture was rampant.

The credibility of Iraq's January 30 poll is so flagrantly in doubt, it is no wonder that there is pressure both from within the US administration and prominent Iraqi politicians for a postponement. The danger is that the election won't simply lack credibility, but could actually intensify Iraq's crisis by fuelling sectarian divisions. The combination of the effective truce with Sadr's Mahdi army while the US military concentrates its fire on the Sunni-based resistance, lack of Shia support for Fallujans during November's onslaught and the commitment to the elections by the governing Shia parties has strained relations to the limit. There are increasing fears among Iraqis that the US is deliberately fostering sectarian tension to divide and rule - or even open the way to the de facto partition of the country. When the New York Times's Thomas Friedman argues that "we have to have a proper election in Iraq so we can have a proper civil war" and Charles Krauthammer suggests in the Washington Post that we should "see Iraqi factionalisation as a useful tool", it's hardly surprising such ideas flourish.

The US-British occupation has failed to deliver Iraqis' most basic needs and security, let alone their freedom. The resistance, dismissed as "dead-enders" and "remnants" after the fall of the Saddam regime, has mushroomed to the point where Iraqi intelligence puts it at 200,000-strong, a senior US military officer has told Newsweek "we are losing" and the Pentagon is reaching into the sewer of its history for the "Salvador option": the use of local paramilitary death squads to wage a dirty war against the guerrillas.

Britain's small band of occupation cheerleaders, who comprehensively lost the argument about the war, are now taking refuge in self-righteous denunciations of the Iraqi resistance, the very forces they helped bring into being by supporting the unprovoked invasion of an independent state.

They would do better to remind their friends that there can be no democracy without genuine sovereignty and self-determination. The only way to hold free and fair elections in Iraq - and draw the sting of mass resistance - is for the aggressor states to withdraw their forces and let the Iraqis run their own affairs.
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Analysis,Battle For Hearts and Minds is Lost

2005-03-21T06:49:00.000-08:00

US admits the war for ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq is now lost
By: Neil Mackay on: 05.12.2004

THE Pentagon has admitted that the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq have increased support for al-Qaeda, made ordinary Muslims hate the US and caused a global backlash against America because of the “self-serving hypocrisy” of George W Bush’s administration over the Middle East.
The mea culpa is contained in a shockingly frank “strategic communications” report, written this autumn by the Defence Science Board for Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld.

On “the war of ideas or the struggle for hearts and minds”, the report says, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended”.

“American direct intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of, and support for, radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single digits in some Arab societies.”

Referring to the repeated mantra from the White House that those who oppose the US in the Middle East “hate our freedoms”, the report says: “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedoms’, but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing support, for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states.

“Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypo crisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronising … in the eyes of Muslims, the American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination.”

The way America has handled itself since September 11 has played straight into the hands of al-Qaeda, the report adds. “American actions have elevated the authority of the jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims.” The result is that al-Qaeda has gone from being a marginal movement to having support across the entire Muslim world.

“Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic,” the report goes on, adding that to the Arab world the war is “no more than an extension of American domestic politics”. The US has zero credibility among Muslims which means that “whatever Americans do and say only serves … the enemy”.

The report says that the US is now engaged in a “global and generational struggle of ideas” which it is rapidly losing. In order to reverse the trend, the US must make “strategic communication” – which includes the dissemination of propaganda and the running of military psychological operations – an integral part of national security. The document says that “Presidential leadership” is needed in this “ideas war” and warns against “arrogance, opportunism and double standards”.

“We face a war on terrorism,” the report says, “intensified conflict with Islam, and insurgency in Iraq. Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America’s tarnished credibility and ways the US pursues its goals. There is a consensus that America’s power to persuade is in a state of crisis.” More than 90% of the populations of some Muslims countries, such as Saudi Arabia, are opposed to US policies.

“The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe,” the report adds, “weakened support for the war on terrorism and undermined US credibility worldwide.” This, in turn, poses an increased threat to US national security.

America’s “image problem”, the report authors suggest, is “linked to perceptions of the US as arrogant, hypocritical and self-indulgent”. The White House “has paid little attention” to the problems.

The report calls for a huge boost in spending on propaganda efforts as war policies “will not succeed unless they are communicated to global domestic audiences in ways that are credible”.

American rhetoric which equates the war on terror as a cold-war-style battle against “totalitarian evil” is also slapped down by the report. Muslims see what is happening as a “history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration … a renewal of the Muslim world …(which) has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents – of which radical fighters are only a small part”.

Rather than supporting tyranny, most Muslim want to overthrow tyrannical regimes like Saudi Arabia. “The US finds itself in the strategically awkward – and potentially dangerous – situation of being the long-standing prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the US, these regimes could not survive,” the report says.

“Thus the US has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle … US policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself … Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims.

“There is no yearning-to- be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim societies … The perception of intimate US support of tyr-annies in the Muslim world is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy.”

The report says that, in terms of the “information war”, “at this moment it is the enemy that has the advantage”. The US propaganda drive has to focus on “separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical- militant Islamist-Jihadist”.

According to the report, “the official take on the target audience the Muslim world has been gloriously simple” and divided the Middle East into “good” and “bad Muslims”.

“Americans are convinced that the US is a benevolent ‘superpower’ that elevates values emphasising freedom … deep down we assume that everyone should naturally support our policies. Yet the world of Islam – by overwhelming majorities at this time – sees things differently. Muslims see American policies as inimical to their values, American rhetoric about freedom and democracy as hypocritical and American actions as deeply threatening.

“In two years the jihadi message – that strongly attacks American values – is being accepted by more moderate and non-violent Muslims. This in turn implies that negative opinion of the US has not yet bottomed out

Equally important, the report says, is “to renew European attitudes towards America” which have also been severely damaged since September 11, 2001. As “al-Qaeda constantly outflanks the US in the war of information”, American has to adopt more sophisticated propaganda techniques, such as targeting secularists in the Muslim world – including writers, artists and singers – and getting US private sector media and marketing professionals involved in disseminating messages to Muslims with a pro-US “brand”.

The Pentagon report also calls for the establishment of a national security adviser for strategic communications, and a massive boost in funding for the “information war” to boost US government TV and radio stations broadcasting in the Middle East.

The importance of the need to quickly establish a propaganda advantage is underscored by a document attached to the Pentagon report from Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, dated May.

It says: “Our military expeditions to Afghanistan and Iraq are unlikely to be the last such excursion in the global war on terrorism.”
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Analysis,Crushing Fallujah

2005-03-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

The Crushing of Fallujah
By: James Petras on: 22.11.2004

11/19/04 "Counterpunch" — I am reading William Shirer's Berlin Diary, a journalist's account of Nazi political propaganda during the 1930's, as I watch the US 'news' reports of the violent assault on Fallujah. The US mass media 'reports', the style, content and especially the language echo their Nazi predecessor of 70 years ago to an uncanny degree. Coincidence? Of course! In both instances we have imperialist armies conquering countries, leveling cities and slaughtering civilians--and the mass media, private in form, state appendages in practice, disseminate the most outrageous lies, in defense and praise of the conquering 'storm troopers'--call them SS or Marines. Both in Nazi Germany and contemporary US, we are told by the mass media that the invading armies are "freeing the country" of "foreign fighters", "armed terrorists", who are preventing "the people" from going about their everyday lives. Yet we know that of the 1,000 prisoners there are only 4 foreigners (3 Iranians and 1 Arab); Iraqi hospitals report less than 10% of foreign fighters. In other words over 90% of the fighters are Iraqis--most of who were born, educated, and raised families in the cities in which they are fighting.

Like the Nazi media, the major US radio and TV networks only report what they call "military casualties"--failing to report the civilians killed since the war started and the thousands of women and children killed and wounded since the assault of Fallujah began. Like in Nazi Germany, the US mass media feature unconfirmed reports by the US military of the bloody murders, beheadings and kidnapping "by the foreign terrorists". The unconditional support of Nazi/US mass media of the killing fields is best captured in their reports of the massive bombing of densely populated city districts. For the US network NBC, the dropping of 500-pound bombs in the city of Fallujah is described as targeting an "insurgent tunnel network in the city". And the houses, markets, stores--the mothers and children above those tunnels--vaporized into "pink mist". Their existence never acknowledged by the leading reporters and broadcasters.

Almost the entire population of non-Kurdish Iraq is opposed to the US military and its puppet regime--yet the media refer to the patriots defending their country from the imperial invaders as--'insurgents' minimizing the significance of a nation-wide patriotic liberation movement. One of the most surreal euphemisms is the constant reference to the 'coalition forces'--meaning the US colonial conquerors and the mercenaries and satraps that they direct and control.

The terror bombing of homes, hospitals and religious buildings by hundreds of airplanes and helicopter gunships are described by the media as 'securing the city for free elections'.

'Freeing the city of insurgents' includes the systematic murder of friends, neighbors and relatives of every Iraqi living in the city of Fallujah.

'Surrounding the insurgents' means cutting off water, electricity, medical aid for 200,000 civilians in the city and putting tens of thousands who fled under threat of a typhoid epidemic. 'Pacifying the city' involves turning it to absolute desolate poisoned rubble.

Why do Washington and the mass media resort to gross, systematic lying and euphemisms? Basically to reinforce mass support at home for mass murder in Iraq. The mass media fabricates a web of lies to secure a gloss of legitimacy for totalitarian methods in order that the US armed forces continue to destroy cities with impunity. The technique perfected by Goebbels in Germany and practiced in the US is to repeat lies and euphemism until they become accepted 'truths', and embedded in everyday language. The mass media by effectively routinizing a common language implicates the listeners. The tactical concerns of the Generals, the commanders directing the slaughter (pacification), and the soldiers murdering civilians are explained (and consumed by the millions listening and watching) by the unchallenged authorities to the compliant journalists and famous news anchors. The unity of purpose between the agents of mass murder and everyday US public is established via 'news reports': The soldiers 'paint the names' of their wives and sweethearts on the tanks and armored vehicles which destroy Iraqi families and turn Fallujah into ruins. Returning soldiers from Iraq are 'interviewed' who want to return to 'be with their platoon' and 'wipe out the terrorists'. Not all of US combat forces experienced the joys of shooting civilians. Medical studies report that one out of five returning soldiers are suffering from severe psychological trauma, no doubt from witnessing or participation in the mass killing of civilians. The family of one returned soldier, who recently committed suicide, reported that he constantly referred to his killing an unarmed child in the streets of Iraq--calling himself a 'murderer'. Aside from these notable exceptions, the mass propaganda media practice several techniques, which assuage the 'conscience' of US soldiers and civilians. One technique is 'role reversal' to attribute the crimes of the invading force to the victims: It is not the soldiers who cause destruction of cities and murder, but the Iraqi families who 'protect the terrorists' and "bring upon themselves the savage bombardment". The second technique is to only report US casualties from 'terrorist bombs'--to omit any mention of thousands of Iraqi civilian killed by US bombs and artillery. Both Nazi and US propaganda glorify the 'heroism', 'success' of their elite forces (the SS and the Marines)--in killing 'terrorists' or 'insurgents'--every dead civilian is counted as a 'suspected terrorist sympathizer'.

The US and German military have declared every civilian building a 'storehouse' or 'hiding place' for 'terrorists'--hence the absolutely total disregard of all the Geneva laws of warfare. The US and Nazi practice of 'total war' in which whole communities, neighborhoods and entire cities are collectively guilty of shielding 'wanted terrorists'--is of course the standard operating military procedure of the Israeli government.

The US publicizes the cruel and unusual punishment of Iraqi 'suspects' (any male between 14-60 years) taken prisoner: photos appear in Time and Newsweek of barefoot, blindfolded and bound young men led from their homes and pushed into trucks to be taken to 'exploitation centers' for interrogation. For many in the US public these pictures are part of the success story--they are told these are the 'terrorists' who would blow up American homes. For the majority who voted for Bush, the mass propaganda media has taught them to believe that the extermination of scores of thousands of Iraqi citizens is in their best interests: they can sleep sound, as long as 'our boys' kill them 'over there'.

Above all the mass propaganda media has done everything possible to deny Iraqi national consciousness. Everyday in every way the reference is to religious loyalties, ethnic identities, past political labels, 'tribal' and family clans. The purpose is to divide and conquer, and to present the world with a 'chaotic' Iraq in which the only coherent, stable force is the US colonial regime. The purpose of the savage colonial assaults and the political labeling is to destroy the idea of the Iraqi nation--and in its place to substitute a series of mini-entities run by imperial satraps obedient to Washington.

Sunday morning: November 14 .Today Fallujah is being raped and razed,captured
Wounded prisoners are shot in the mosques .In New York the mega malls are crowded with shoppers .

Sunday afternoon: the Marines have blocked food ,water,and medicine from entering Fallujah..Throughout the US millions of men sit in front of the television watching football.

Shirer reported that while the Nazis invaded and ravaged Belgium and bombed Rotterdam.,in Berlin the cafes were full,the symphony played and people walked their dogs in the park on sunny Sunday afternoons

Sunday night November 14, 2004, I turn on the television to 60 Minutes and watch a replay of Mike Wallace's 'interviews' with Yasser Arafat. Like all US mass media 'stars', he ignores the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Sharon's murder of thousands of Palestinians, the military occupation of Palestine and the wanton destruction of Jenin and Gaza City. Wallace accuses Arafat of being a liar, a terrorist, of being corrupt and devious. Thirty million US households watch this ugly spectacle of a self-righteous Zionist apologist flaunting the 'Western ideals', which are so useful in razing cities, bombing hospitals and exterminating a nation.

Yes, there are differences between Shirer's account of Nazi propaganda in defense of the conquest of Europe and the US media's apology for the invasion of Iraq and Israel's slaughter of the Palestinians: One is committed in the name of the Fuehrer and the Fatherland, the other in the name of God and Democracy. Go tell that to the bloated corpses gnawed by dogs in the ruins of Fallujah.
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Analysis,Fallujah Resistance Persistent

2005-03-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

November 12, 2004
FALLOUJA, Iraq — The mosque had been taken, but the fire kept coming.

"We've got chunks of territory, but these guys insurgents are all over the place," Marine Lt. Brandon Turner said Thursday as he stood amid shattered glass and concrete under the green dome of the Khulafah Rashid mosque, his fellow Marines resting on a plush red carpet.

"They just keep coming at us."

There is no real pattern to the fighting in Fallouja — a fierce, chaotic battle that continued to rage Thursday, house to house, street to street. But if there is any accepted truth so far, it is this: The insurgents are not going away easily.

And that truth has a corollary: The Marines are doing all they can to draw the guerrillas out and kill them.

"The enemy is right where we want him. He's coming to us," said Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, which has experienced perhaps the toughest fight of all the units penetrating the city. "And we're killing him."

Many of the 3,000 to 5,000 insurgents estimated to have been in Fallouja before the invasion are believed to have fled this Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad. But those who have remained are tenacious, even though Marines say they have killed hundreds of them.

Guerrilla snipers crouch in buildings and amid the rubble. Small squads of insurgents rush Marine positions. Dozens of rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, have struck tanks and other military vehicles. A pickup with six men carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers was spotted near one mosque.

Several snipers on rooftops halted the advance of a platoon of Marines heading out on foot Wednesday to attack insurgents in a mosque where they had been firing on U.S. troops.

"They seem to be communicating with each other," said 1st Sgt. Jose Andrade of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, as he crouched on a main street, taking cover. "It makes it harder to get at them."

Marines on the streets are constant targets. Troops accustomed to getting around on foot are being transported in tracked amphibious vehicles whenever possible. But street patrols inevitably must be done on foot, with no lapse of concentration.

"The enemy just pops out of anywhere and fires off rounds and RPGs," said Cpl. Adam Golden, 21. "We're just looking to get him when he pops out."

Marines have advanced through more than half of Fallouja. But no one here believed Thursday that the city was close to being under control.

"We've still got to impose security," said Lt. Col. Michael Ramos, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment.

U.S. forces are doing all they can to force the guerrillas into the open.

Army psychological operations teams have been broadcasting Arabic-language tapes excoriating fighters in the most explicit terms.

"Liars and cowards, you are nothing but dogs!" goes the text of one tape, the dog reference especially insulting in the Arab world. "You have no honor! You hide behind women and children!"

The idea is not to offend most Iraqis, said Army Spc. Jose Rincon, 24, who is heading one of the psychological operations teams. "We just want to get the terrorists angry enough to fight."

On occasion, guerrillas put up fights for buildings, as was the case when Marines attacked a former Iraqi national guard headquarters. The troops called in tanks and flattened the place.

More frequently, though, key buildings — such as Fallouja's City Hall and various mosques associated with the resistance — have been taken without major battles.

Then, once the Marines are ensconced, the insurgents arrive in waves.

"Getting in here wasn't so hard," Gunnery Sgt. James Cully said of the municipal compound seized largely without a fight Wednesday. "But since we got here the firing hasn't stopped."

Gun battles resounded Thursday around the City Hall complex, which was filled with abandoned and wrecked office equipment. The deep thud of the Marines' heavy weapons matched the distinctive crackle of Kalashnikov assault rifle fire. Mortar rounds and exploding rockets shook the buildings.

From rooftops, plumes of smoke rose into the air — the result of U.S. artillery and airstrikes, or possibly mortar shells and rockets from insurgents. Flares and illumination rounds lighted up the night sky. Marines demolished buildings as guerrillas scrambled amid the ruins and through alleyways. Roof-to-roof gun battles raged.

"The enemy is like camel spiders," said Lance Cpl. Rajai Hakki, an Alpha Company interpreter. "You try to squash 'em and they crawl to the next spot."

Sometimes, insurgent tactics can be more complex. On the morning of the invasion, a squad of 30 guerrillas drew Marines into an intersection, then opened fire with AK-47s and grenades. Three Marines were hurt.

"They pretty much set us up," said Marine Lance Cpl. Craig Winthrow, who escaped uninjured when a grenade exploded a few feet from him.

In that instance, several guerrillas were killed in the initial engagement. Others were wiped out by C-130 gunships that prowled the skies looking for fleeing fighters.

Mosques being used as military positions by insurgents have come under attack from Marines. The troops usually enter the facilities on the heels of U.S.-allied Iraqi forces after the guerrillas are flushed out. Laser-guided bombs have felled at least two minarets in which snipers were holed up. Marines have found extensive weapons caches and anti-American propaganda in several mosques.

"We have a lot of mosques in our AO area of operations, and to the best of my knowledge in only one instance did we not receive fire from a mosque," said Capt. Matt Nodine, judge advocate for the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. "These mosques have lost the protections of the Geneva Convention. We are not here to destroy mosques. But the terrorists are using them and we will go after them."

At the majestic Khulafah Rashid mosque, on the highway that divides the northern and southern portions of Fallouja, Marines attacked after taking sniper fire from one of the facility's two minarets. That minaret now lies crumbled after being struck by a 500-pound laser-guided bomb from a U.S. aircraft.

The U.S.-led attacks on mosques have also served to halt the announcements from mosque loudspeakers urging people to resist the Americans. The taped recordings castigating the "infidels" could be heard throughout the first days of the invasion, infuriating Marines.

In one mosque, Iraqi troops fighting with the Marines discovered what might be the body of Abdullah Janabi, a cleric who was considered a guerrilla leader in Fallouja, said Lt. Col. Michael Ramos, commander of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.

Ramos said the identity had yet to be confirmed, but the body appeared to be Janabi, who was a member of the town's de facto governing council during the insurgency. Iraqi military officials declined to comment on Janabi's possible death.

There was no confirmed sign of two other high-value targets: Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant leader said to be operating from Fallouja; and Omar Hadid, an Iraqi extremist said to be allied with Zarqawi. U.S. commanders speculate that both may have fled the city in the face of the U.S.-Iraqi onslaught.

Few civilians appeared to have remained in Fallouja, which will probably stay a war zone for some days more.

Once noncombatant residents begin trickling back in, the tableau of destroyed buildings, burned-out cars, battered mosques and piles of rubble will probably make their city all but unrecognizable.

U.S. officials say tens of millions of dollars have been set aside for the rebuilding of Fallouja. Thousands of newly trained Iraqi police and armed forces are said to be ready to be brought into town once a semblance of order has been restored.

Whether the people of Fallouja will accept the U.S.-designed plan remains to be seen. American officials cite as a model Najaf, where an August offensive against Shiite Muslim guerrillas destroyed much of the Old City. A massive rebuilding plan is underway, and Iraqi police have maintained order.

In Najaf, however, the guerrillas were known to be unpopular with a conservative, business-oriented population. The Shiites of Najaf, long suppressed under President Saddam Hussein, welcomed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in spring 2003.

The Sunnis of Fallouja have never embraced the U.S. military presence.

Clashes between U.S. forces and the citizens of Fallouja began almost immediately after Hussein was toppled. U.S. troops shot more than a dozen people dead here in spring 2003 clashes after Army positions came under fire, U.S. officials said. Many in Fallouja called it a massacre. For months after the fall of Hussein, not a shot was fired at U.S. forces in Najaf.

For now, it's difficult to gauge the sentiment of Fallouja residents because there are so few around. The dearth of civilians has been a plus for the Marines.

"We have got to take advantage of this period when the civilians are not present to kill as many enemy as we can," said Ramos, the lieutenant colonel. "We have to keep pressing this against the enemy before the civilians return."

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Analysis,Resistance Over Fallujah Builds

2005-03-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

November 9, 2004
Resistance Over Fallujah Builds in Baghdad
by Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD - The anger building up in Baghdad over the imminent attack on Fallujah is a warning that U.S. forces could start more than they can handle.

The sharp increase in attacks on U.S. and allied forces has been only the most violent form of rising hostility. But it is not an extremist few that are becoming more and more strongly opposed to the occupation and now a U.S. assault on Fallujah.

What Iraqi people are saying could be even more worrying to the occupation forces than the attacks.

"The Fallujans should fight for their city," says Mahmoud Shakir, 80, former commander of the Iraqi police in Baghdad. "They are not terrorists, and there has been no proof of foreign fighters in Fallujah. And if there are Arabs there, they are more accepted than the Americans and coalition forces. In the name of liberty, they must fight."

Shakir was deeply concerned what the results of the siege might be. "It will end in a disaster," he said at his son's home at Ramadan breakfast. "Fallujah will be completely destroyed, and the people will be killed because they are asking for independence and to be rid of the Americans."

Ali al-Mishidani, who returned to Iraq after the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein, said at the crowded al-Khulifa'a mosque in Baghdad that "the Americans did something good by getting rid of Saddam Hussein. I believe there are terrorists there who are killing Fallujans and the Americans. But there are also Fallujans there who are fighting for their houses and their honor, and it is their right to do this."

His views are mild compared to those of many others in Baghdad.

"The people of Fallujah have the right to fight for their city, because if the Americans are invading their city they have to defend it," said Nisan al-Samarra'i, a 55-year-old trader in the Karrada district of Baghdad.

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Al-Samarra'i said the bombings in Samarra were not related to the U.S. aggression in Fallujah. "I believe that the fighting in Samarra is because so many people in Samarra have been killed by the occupiers," he said. "Their families are fighting against them now because their sons have been killed by the Americans."

Like many others in Baghdad, he does not believe members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group are working inside Fallujah. Al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian suspected to have links with al-Qaeda and to be involved in several beheadings and suicide bomb attacks in Iraq.

"There are accusations that al-Zarqawi is there, but nobody can prove this," he said. "Some say there are Arabs there fighting – and if that is true, it is their right to help their brothers in Fallujah to defend their city."

Hamad Abdulla Raziz, an unemployed electrician doing odd jobs at a hotel in central Baghdad, said the U.S.-led coalition fails to see that "we are having now to fight for our liberation against them."

Many people in Baghdad express concern that the U.S. military operations in Fallujah are already leading to increasing violence around the country.

Ibrahim Mikhail, who drives his car as a taxi now because he is afraid to join the Iraqi police force, believes that if the U.S. military would stay in their bases there would be less violence.

"Why can't the U.S. Army leave our cities," he said. "If their tanks will stay off our streets and the soldiers will stop raiding our homes, people would stop attacking them, especially Fallujans."

U.S. forces say al-Zarqawi is in Fallujah, "but Fallujans and now more people in Baghdad view the Americans as terrorists," he said.

"An American attack on Fallujah will be a disaster," said Haydr Raid, a 22-year-old college student at Baghdad University. "To try to rescue the people of Fallujah from the Arab mujahedin, it is okay then to kill the civilians with the fighters?" he asked. "The Americans won't let men out of the city who want out, so they will kill them with the fighters? Is this justice?"

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Analysis,Saddams Soldiers Reinforce Insurgents

2005-03-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

Saddam's soldiers reinforce insurgent ranks
By: Mark Huband, Security Correspondent, in London on: 03.11.2004

The military skills of Islamist insurgents in Iraq are being improved by soldiers from the former regime who are joining with foreign fighters in the war against occupying troops, according to the security chief overseeing civilian contractors.

“You have people who know what they are doing,” said Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former British army officer who now heads Aegis Defence Services, which coordinates the activities of private contractors and security companies involved in Iraqi reconstruction projects.

“The Ba'athists are growing their beards and moving alongside the Zarqawi types,” he said, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His group, which announced last week it had created an alliance with al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for numerous kidnappings and the beheading of hostages.

In his first interview since the UK-based company won the $293m security contract in June, Mr Spicer said: “The biggest problem that will continue to trouble us will be the linking together of Islamists with al-Qaeda, and the fact that Iraq will be a magnet for attacks on UK and US forces. The future Osama bin Ladens are being trained in Iraq.”

The intensity of the current fighting between US forces and insurgents in Fallujah presumed to be loyal to Mr Zarqawi, as well as to other groups, has focused attention away from areas of Iraq that are relatively stable, Mr Spicer said.

“There is an understandable view that Iraq is like that all over, when actually it's not. Setting the situation in Fallujah aside, it's still possible to operate,” he said, after a week-long journey by road from the southern coast to the Kurdish area of northern Iraq.

Aegis's main role is to gather intelligence on the security situation from the multinational forces and other informers, and distribute it to the private security companies protecting civilian contractors. The company was formed in 2001 and has rapidly expanded to employ 600 people, most of them in Iraq. The kidnapping and killing of foreign contractors by insurgents is the biggest challenge facing the private security companies Aegis is contracted to co-ordinate. “You have three different types of insurgent and they are not all quite working together,” said Mr Spicer. Since US action forced the capitulation of the Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr's followers in Najaf, Iraqi Sunnis, foreign fighters grouped around Mr Zarqawi and former Ba'athists have led the insurgency, he said.

“There is a danger from extreme Ba'athists becoming Islamist. There are [former Iraqi] soldiers who don't need much training. They are doing the roadside bombing. But they are also doing conventional military operations,” he said.
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Analysis,100,000 Civilians Estimated Killed

2005-03-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

100,000 civilians have died from Iraq War and aftermath: Lancet

PARIS (AFP) - Around 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), more than half of them from violence, according to an estimate to be published on Friday by the British medical weekly The Lancet.

The research, based on interviews among Iraqi households and an extrapolation of the data, was led by experts from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, in the US state of Maryland.

"Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq," the authors said.

"Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths."

Their figure is based on data from 988 households from 33 randomly-selected neighbourhoods in Iraq.

Families were asked to give the number of deaths since January 2002, the date and cause and, if a violent death was involved, the circumstances.

The mortality rates for the 14.6 months before the invasion were then compared with those for the 17.8 months after it, and a nationwide estimate was then extrapolated.

The 988 households, comprising 7,868 residents, were visited between September 8 and 20 2004. Five of the households refused to be interviewed.

In the period before the invasion, the interviewed households had 275 births and 46 deaths, most of them caused by heart attack, stroke and chronic illness. Only one occurred from violence.

In the period afterwards, there were 366 births and 142 deaths, 73 of them — 51 percent — from violence. Heart attack, stroke, neonatal death and infectious disease were the other significant causes.

Twenty-one of the deaths occurred among children younger than a year old.

The sample used for the study is small by the standards of epidemiology, the discipline of using statistics to estimate the prevalence of mortality or sickness.

The authors themselves acknowledge that the sampling strategy "might not have captured the overall mortality experience in Iraq."

And, they say, it is possible that "many of the Iraqis" reported to have been killed by the US forces could have been combattants.

Of 61 killings attributed to the US forces by the interviewees, 28 involved men aged 15-60, 28 were children younger than 15, four were women and one was a man.

The study was led by Les Roberts of the school's Center for International Emergency Disaster Studies and included two specialists in community medicine at the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.

Fifty-two of the 73 reported deaths from violence occurred in a cluster around the Sunni bastion of Fallujah, where US forces have waged fierce battles with rebels.

If Fallujah is stripped out of the calculations, the overall estimate for the civilian tally nationwide comes to just under 100,000, at 98,000.

If it is included, the death toll would rise around 200,000, although the researchers stress that there is "substantial... uncertainty" in making a projection of that kind.

"Our results need further verification and should lead to changes to reduce non-combatant deaths from air strikes," the authors add.

The study will be published online Friday by the London-based Lancet.

Its editor, Richard Horton, acknowledged in a commentary that "certain limitations were inevitable and need to be acknowledged right away," but said that despite these flaws, the data and the analysis had been approved in a fast-track peer assessment by other experts in the field.

In the circumstances of warfare, scientific data is rare and precious but analysis is invariably hedged with uncertainties, he said.
Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths

By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer

LONDON - A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months after the U.S. invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war.

There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Wednesday, 1,081 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

The scientists who wrote the report concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision," because the quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study. The interviewers were Iraqi, most of them doctors.

Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study is being published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal.

The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and air strikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote in the British-based journal.

"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," they said.

The report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way. The Lancet routinely publishes papers on the Web before they appear in print, particularly if it considers the findings of urgent public health interest.

Those reports then appear later in the print issue of the journal. The journal's spokesmen said they were uncertain which print issue the Iraqi report would appear in and said it was too late to make Friday's issue, and possibly too late for the Nov. 5 edition.

Les Roberts, the lead researcher from Johns Hopkins, said the article's timing was up to him.

"I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election," Roberts told The Asocciated Press. "My motive in doing that was not to skew the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq.

"I was opposed to the war and I still think that the war was a bad idea, but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives," Roberts said. "As an American, I am really, really sorry to be reporting this."

Richard Peto, an expert on study methods who was not involved with the research, said the approach the scientists took is a reasonable one to investigate the Iraq death toll.

However, it's possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq, said Peto, a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

To conduct the survey, investigators visited 33 neighborhoods spread evenly across the country in September, randomly selecting clusters of 30 households to sample. Of the 988 households visited, 808, consisting of 7,868 people, agreed to participate in the survey. At each one they asked how many people lived in the home and how many births and deaths there had been since January 2002.

The scientists then compared death rates in the 15 months before the invasion with those that occurred during the 18 months after the attack and adjusted those numbers to account for the different time periods.

Even though the sample size appears small, this type of survey is considered accurate and acceptable by scientists and was used to calculate war deaths in Kosovo in the late 1990s.

The investigators worked in teams of three. Five of the six Iraqi interviewers were doctors and all six were fluent in English and Arabic.

In the households reporting deaths, the person who died had to be living there at the time of the death and for more than two months before to be counted. In an attempt at firmer confirmation, the interviewers asked for death certificates in 78 households and were provided them 63 times.

There were 46 deaths in the surveyed households before the war. After the invasion, there were 142 deaths. That is an increase from 5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 12.3 per 1,000 people per year — more than double.

However, more than a third of the post-invasion deaths were reported in one cluster of households in the city Falluja, where fighting has been most intense recently. Because the fighting was so severe there, the numbers from that location may have exaggerated the overall picture.

When the researchers recalculated the effect of the war without the statistics from Falluja, the deaths end up at 7.9 per 1,000 people per year — still 1.5 times higher than before the war.

Even with Falluja factored out, the survey "indicates that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is more likely than not about 100,000 people, and may be much higher," the report said.

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces — with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Violent deaths — defined as those brought about by the intentional act of others — were reported in 15 of the 33 clusters. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, the researchers said.

Twelve of the 73 violent deaths were not attributed to coalition forces. The researchers said 28 children were killed by coalition forces in the survey households. Infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.

The researchers estimated the nationwide death toll due to the conflict by multiplying the difference between the two death rates by the estimated population of Iraq — 24.4 million at the start of the war. The result was then multiplied by 18 months, the average period between the invasion and the survey interviews.

"We estimate that there were 98,000 extra deaths during the postwar period in the 97 percent of Iraq represented by all the clusters except Falluja," the researchers said in the journal.

"This isn't about individual soldiers doing bad things. This appears to be a problem with the approach to occupation in Iraq," Roberts said.

The researchers called for further confirmation by an independent body such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the World Health Organization.

The study was funded by the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University and by the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, Switzerland, a research project based at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

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Analysis,Chaos inside The Triangle of Death

2005-03-17T09:11:00.000-08:00

Chaos Inside The Triangle Of Death
By: Sundayherald.com on: 24.10.2004

Secret Report: Military reports passed to the Sunday Herald show the full scale of the chaos and danger which awaits Scottish troops in Iraq
By Westminster Editor James Cusick

In two suicide bombings in Ramadi and Samarra yesterday, 14 Iraqi security officers were killed. A bomb blast killed 10 and wounded 50 at a police base west of Baghdad and a suicide bomber left four Iraqi national guards dead at a checkpoint near Samarra.
Dominating the media attention in the US was the capture of a senior militant said to be associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He had been taken in a pre-dawn raid on Fallujah. The insurgents’ response was said to have been a roadside bomb in Baghdad, which left five US soldiers injured after their armoured vehicle caught fire on the road between the airport and central Baghdad, said to be the most dangerous stretch of road in the world.

Inside the supposedly safe “green zone” in central Baghdad – now carrying the Orwellian label of the “international zone” – mortar bombs exploded.

Yet this is only the reported war of occupation. Underneath is the daily carnage that soldiers from the Black Watch will fall into in the next week or so. Whether or not the regiment’s redeployment will have them operating in an area southwest of Baghdad or helping control exits and entries around Fallujah as US forces mount a full-scale offensive, their duties inside the Sunni triangle will see the level of danger they face accelerate daily.

The Sunday Herald has been given access to detailed intelligence information focusing on a recent three-day period inside Iraq. The overall picture the intelligence paints is a divided, war-torn country, nowhere near being ready to hold free and fair democratic elections in January.

The intelligence also challenges the claims of US military commanders, in Iraq and the Pentagon, that clearing up the insurgency “stronghold” of Fallujah will improve the prospect of legitimate elections. The military problems facing the coalition and limited Iraqi forces go well beyond Fallujah, as the intelligence graphically highlights.

Abbreviations abound in all military reports. Their shorthand looks emotionless, dispassionate. In gathered intelligence for one 48-hour period, OIR (operational incident reports) for the whole of Iraq include 14 bombings, seven other bombs found, 30 attacks involving small-arms fire, 37 attacks on coalition convoys and patrols, 10 RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) or hand-grenade attacks and 34 other ‘‘indirect fire’’ attacks.

The list of attacks stretches across seven A4 pages and, ominously, begins with attacks on a convoy southwest of Baghdad (where the Black Watch are headed). There are mortar attacks on a camp at Abu Naji, attacks on Al-Thawra, on patrols north of Nasaf, Camp Baha ruia and Camp Rustaniyah near Baghdad, RPG attacks on a military supply route near Mahmudiyah, an attack at Al-Rasheed, a mortar and RPG attack on the government centre at Ramadi, a mortar attack on an observation tower, explosive devices found at Baquba, more RPG and mortar attacks, IED (improvised explosive device) attacks at Baq ubah, another IED attack on a convoy near Muhmudiyah, another convoy attack south-east of Habbaniyah, an attack on the MAF (military airfield) near Mosul, a rocket attack in Samarra, a mortar attack at Balad, other attacks at Hawija, more at Samarra, an RPG attack on an OP (observation post) near Kirkuk, an IED attack on a patrol near Baghdad, another RPG attack; the “incidents” recorded go on and on. This is over a mere 48 hours.

The “threat assessment” is evaluated dispassionately: “The direct threat against our operations is three-tiered: (1) convoy attacks; (2) working site attack from VBIED vehicle-bound improvised explosive device, in civilian terms a car bomb, mortars, rockets and mines in roads; and (3) kidnapping and hostage attack.” The large number of private security companies operating across Iraq are advised to recognise the “additional threat” posed in certain areas, where “caution and planning” are advised. The areas include Al-Amarah, Baghdad, Al-Hillah, An Najaf, Karbala, Baquba, Ad Diwaniyah, An Nasiryah, Al-Mahmudiyah, Al-Tuji, As Samawah and Safwana.

One military analyst questioned the focus on Fallujah, given the problems that existed elsewhere. ‘‘The sheer scale of the number of insurgency groups now in Iraq, and how they have operated so far, indicates that many of the insurgency groups will have already split into smaller cells and simply moved their operations out of Fallujah into other parts of Iraq. Fallujah will be a political prize, and when recaptured will be hailed a crucial step towards democracy. The reality? The insurgency groups will already be preparing their responses elsewhere in Iraq.’’

For those following on behind the Black Watch – who have been promised by both Tony Blair and defence secretary Geoff Hoon that they will be “home for Christmas” – the job facing the coalition will not have eased. Last week the chief of the defence staff, General Sir Michael Walker, indicated that when the current contingent of British troops leaves, others will be ready to replace them. The Royal Scots Guards are already on standby to leave their current base in Cyprus and go to Iraq.

Blair told the Commons last week: “It is perfectly possible that the Black Watch will be replaced if it is necessary. But we are talking down the line here.” But as both the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence expect the security situation to deteriorate as January app roaches, “if it is necessary” might as well read “as we know it will”.

Intelligence analysts monitoring the deterioration have already identified key trends in how the insurgency keeps the pressure on. One trend concerns VBIED attacks in Baghdad. The intelligence reports again dispassionately spell out a forecast carnage involving casualties from car bombs. The report reads: “With few exceptions, attacks have occurred in pairs, with the second VBIED apparently being held back briefly to fully exploit the success of the first.” The focus of the attacks is identified as the Iraqi national guard, the Iraqi police force and checkpoints. These attacks “take place for the most part during mid-morning, while attacks on convoys and patrols are generally during mid-afternoon. It is likely that mass-casualty-producing targets are searched for until early afternoon. If the opportunity does not present itself by early afternoon, VBIED drivers are guided to the next element that comes along.”

One rumoured location for the Black Watch is the town of Iskandariya, southwest of Baghdad. Contrary to reports that the Scottish regiment will be “back-filling” in a region less dangerous than inside Baghdad itself, Iskandariya suffered the fourth highest death toll from a car bomb attack since the post-war occupation began last year. In February 53 people were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside a police station in the town. Higher casualty totals from car bombs have been recorded only in Baquba, Mosul and Basra.

Iskandariya is not a peace camp. US Marines operating there, and now heading for the all-out assault on Fallujah, regularly experience high-level mortar fire from the banks of the Euphrates. The US base has been regularly hit. Insurgents in the area use the Euphrates to their advantage. Ambushes are staged from across the water, the river used as an escape route after roadside bombs have been planted. One recent US Marines report points to an “increasing level of insurgent attacks” and to the increasing “sophistication” of the attacks.

In the intelligence assessments seen by the Sunday Herald, warnings are given on new forms of enemy attacks being uncovered, including a “daisy chain” of linked mortars that can be spread across a highway. As one security source in Iraq put it: “There are no rules of engagement, whether they be US or British, that will limit casualties if a troop convoy is hit by this kind of attack.”

Other improvised explosive devices lis ted in the intelligence warnings include explosives hidden inside dead dogs, Coca-Cola cans, oil drums, discarded metal meal boxes and explosives hidden in street lamp-posts. In the Sadr City part of Baghdad, the Iraqi authorities ordered posters of the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to be torn down. Some workers lost limbs to explosive devices hidden behind the posters.

Intelligence analysts have recently concluded that, while “high-value targets are becoming more difficult and there is less opportunity, softer targets are expected to become the main focus, with mass casualties being the primary objective to inspire fear and dominate the media.” The implication is that areas of Iraq where insurgency activity is lower than in central Baghdad could explode in a renewed effort to spread fear.

Earlier this month the threat from surface-to-air missiles was raised inside Baghdad. A threat warning was issued to Iraqi ministries and to hotels in the city. Documents identify an increasing “threat to the lives of senior Iraqi officials within the Iraqi interim government, the ministry of justice and the ministry of power and electricity."

Following the increasing number of car bombings and assaults inside the international zone, private security firms were ordered to urgently review all their procedures. One simple warning was issued by one security firm to its personnel: “do not walk alone after dark”. That kind of advice is meaningless when the scale of attacks is evidently increasing as the January elections approach.

In Mosul last week mortar shells were fired at the entourage of prime minister Iyad Allawi . Asked about the attack, he suggested he was expecting to face an assassination attempt. He said: “ I was surprised that this did not happen at the beginning of my visit, but only at the end.” The attack missed Allawi, but another attack killed a member of his National Accord Party in Samarra on Wednesday.

The Black Watch are heading north to assist the overall coalition. But while the focus might be Fallujah and the planned US-led assault, intelligence assessments from inside Iraq point to increasing problems elsewhere. There may a promise to have these British troops back home by Christmas, but for those who follow there is no guarantee that the same promise will not be needed for Christmas 2005, or even the Christmas after that.
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Analysis,Interview With Iraqi Resistance Leader

2005-03-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

In an exceptional scoop for the Arab media, the Newspaper AL MAJD got the honor to undertake a field interview from the heart of Baghdad, with one of the principal leaders of the Ba’ath Party and the heroes of Iraqi Resistance.
The Ba’ath Party is in a very good health and leads the most honorable and most dignified battle of the Arab Nation under the supervision of Comrade Izzat al Duri, elected president of the Party after its late secret Congress in Lebanon.
The Ba’athist position is clear : No negotiations with the US under the Occupation, the only dialogue between them and us are the dialogue of arms and resistance.
There is a large national, patriotic, and Progressive Front, which is participating with the Ba’ath in the Resistance Battle, which provide them with the necessary means.
The so-called Sunni Triangle is a term invented by the enemy to sow division in amongst Iraqi people; Resistance is in every province of Iraq.

Today it is no secret – but it’s cancelled in Western media – that the role of leadership is played by the fighters of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party (Iraqi branch) in organizing the heroic Iraqi Resistance. For this very reason, the following interview with the member of the Rashid party branch in Baghdad bears an exceptional importance. This comrade preferred not to reveal his identity for understandable security reason, and agreed to speak to AL MAJD for the outstanding role and clear support the Newspaper played in supporting the Ba’ath and Iraqi Resistance in its historic battle with the aggressive Occupation and its puppets tools.

And here is the full text of this most important interview :

Could you give us an idea about the actual situation of the Party in Iraq?

First of all we have to confess that the Battle was cruel due to its impact and its results, not only on Ba’athists but also on Iraqis and all Arabs, given the enemy materialistic and military possibilities. I don’t say that this was a surprise to us; in fact we had many plans for our action during and after the aggression. One most important plan was the popular Resistance, which has proved to be successful and able to invest the battlefield and has produced the fastest Resistance in History.

Here I am not going to divulge a secret when saying that we proceeded to reformulate the organizational corp of our party from anew in every Iraqi town, and here, allow me to stress, in all Iraqi town, thus allowing the Party to play its vanguard and leadership role in the heroic Iraqi Resistance and do whatever possible to defeat the enemy and his stooges and projects.

The enemies know very well that many areas in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq are now under the total control of the Ba’ath and Iraqi Resistance Combatants. What happened in the Mujahida City of Sammara is a striking proof to what I am telling you.

Yes we lost lots of members who joined the Party, when it was in the Government, and this occurred in two ways: First we asked some of our known comrades to disappear from the front lines to safeguard their lives, and second, some new comers with little experience in the Party, joined other political movements in the hope of some kind of benefits and protection or both.

But here let me assure our brothers in the Arab Nation that our Party is in good health and today with its members, it leads one of the most dignified and most honorable battles of the Nation in its contemporary history.

''How did you cope with the "De-Ba’athification bill'
imposed by the Occupation and its stooges''?

I say and History will be a witness on my words, that the Iraqi Society is, now uprooting those who adopted the “DeBa’athification bill” immediately after the occupation, and the Ba’ath stayed strong, immune and hard to crack to all enemy's attempts.

Every body should know that the Ba’ath is not a contingency in Iraq, it is not a weed, its a party which has deep roots in Iraq; we are very proud to assert that the Ba’ath is the clearest and most evident political organization which unified Iraqis in all their differences. The party was able through its thought, principles, positions and politics to put the interest of the Nation and the Country as the top priority. That is why the enemy and his stooges are trying the uppermost to ignite division in Iraq.

Those who conceived and adopted the "De-Ba’athification Bill" are the ones who today ask to withdraw it and call to contain Ba’athists into the new political era under the hospices of the occupier and its tools. We would like here to confirm that the Ba’athists and with them the heroic Resistance themselves will uproot the Occupation and its stooges, and this is the resolution, and only resolution with the clear help of our people and our Nation.

''Some media have talked about negotiations between the Ba’ath
and the US Administration concerning the future of Iraq.
What do you say about that?''
What ever the media say about this doesn't concern us at all. I do think these are US wishful thinking used for election purposes.

The only dialogue, which exists today between the Occupation and us, is the dialogue of arms and resistance. Any negotiations with the US administration will not be possible under the Occupation.

This is clear for us. These are evident and precise directives we got from the Comrade Party Secretary General Saddam Hussein and members of the Party leadership before their imprisonment. So far there is nothing on the ground, which pushes us to change this strategy.

Here I would like to warn our Arab brethren and their political parties and the media to ignore these CIA invented and wishful rumors concerning the so-called negotiations which being used by the US Administration to deform the Ba’ath position and to confuse its image in front of the Arabs.

Today many of the Iraq Ba’ath leadership members
including the Party secretary General Saddam Hussein,
are in the custody of the Occupation.

How much this affected the structure of the Party and its course?
What happened to the Comrade leader and other Comrades in the leadership was not of a surprise for us. That is why we planned for every possibility: imprisonment or martyrdom. Based on these premises, the different field leadership in all the provinces of Iraq has played their role in the Battle, and today they act, every one, according to the directives taken from the very start.

The Party organized in many towns of Iraq extraordinary sessions where elected leaderships are responsible for daily actions. Defining the Party politics and strategy, falls within the competence of the Party leadership, which is headed and supervised by Comrade Izzat al Duri.

What I would like to stress here that not a single one of us was duped concerning the nature of the Battle, its results or its agenda. Today and after a year and a half of the occupation, the world all over knows that the Evil US Administration and its allies are the ones who were taken for a ride concerning their appreciation of the long-term battle results.

Some reproach the Iraqi Resistance her lacking of a political agenda,
which determines its tactical and strategic objectives.

What are your feelings about that?

All the honest people in the whole wide world know that the Iraqi Resistance has been misunderstood, even by those who are very close. Unfortunately the good intentioned people started to parrot the enemy camp propaganda, which tries to represent the Resistance as a bunch of incoherent gangs or a group of angry Iraqi people.

To answer this question, we would like to refer those who repeat this kind of allegations, to the frequently published statements of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party, which assess the political changes in and outside Iraq. The Ba’ath and the Resistance Policies and Strategies Programme published in September 2003 could be a good tool to answer these questions which are not innocent at all, and which aim to hurt the Ba’ath and the Resistance, thus giving the Occupation and its stooges false justifications.

The Ba’ath and the Resistance have a clear tactical and strategic vision on how to combat, or how to expel the Occupation from the land of Iraq, God willing! This vision gushes forth from the Ba’ath vision and its view for the political life and the national pluralism in liberated Iraq.

A year and half after the birth of the Iraqi Resistance,
some componentsof its identity remain still ambiguous for observers outside Iraq.
Could you give us an idea about the components of the Iraqi Resistance?

It not out of bravado or out of pretension to say that the Iraqi Resistance is the legitimate daughter of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party, and the principal element of this heroic Resistance is composed of Ba’ath militants and Iraqi Army elements, Republican Guards, Security services, Saddam's Fidayyins and Alquds army. All these components as everyone knows refer to one political leadership, i.e. that of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party. This is what our people knows, and this what the enemy of our people knows too. And because we don't want to occupy the whole scene, let's say there are other currents and organizations, which entered the Resistance battlefield through the gateway of the Ba’ath. Yes there are national, Islamic and progressive forces, which fight with us in the great Liberation Battle. For these groups, we provide arms and training, funding, protection and data. We acted and we still do and from the very first day of the aggression to widen the circle of the popular and frontal participation in the Resistance field. A large national and unified Front exists fighting a sacred Battle for the freedom and the independence of Iraq.

''Why don't you declare responsibilities
for the military operations against occupying forces?''
We realized from the very beginning that this kind of political information could perturb the Resistance and facilitate the enemy effort to penetrate it. Thus our clear decision was not to waste time in this media game. Our objective is to get the enemy to endure the most losses possible and to hurt him in the objective to free the Land from the filth of Occupation. A year and a half later, it shows for the others and us that our position was correct. This has added more confusion into the ranks of the enemy, and deprived him from getting the data in spite all the powerful intelligence in his possession.

And here we would like to warn our extended family in the Arab world, no to give any credits to the lies and propaganda the enemy uses specially these terms and appellations which are mere creations of his sick imagination and ill mentality he is dwelling in.

This is an opportunity for us to say in a loud voice that the heroic Resistance, which covers all the land of Iraq, is an Iraqi resistance in the patriotic, national and human sense. It has no other outside identities. Trying to refer the Resistance to one side or the other is a plan to hurt Iraq, its people, and its crystal clear militant history.

''How do you consider your relationship with the Mahdi army?
Do you have any kind of cooperation with them?''
We do make a difference between those who combat the Occupier and those who cooperate with him. Every one knows that a large number of the Mahdi Army fight the Occupation for patriotic reasons.

We safeguard the kind of relationship we have with all the elements of the National and Islamic movement in Iraq to prevent the enemy from getting any intelligence about our wide Front.

Why the Resistance was linked to the "Sunni triangle"?
The "Sunni triangle" is a term invented by the enemy and its stooges to plant a wedge between the children of a unified people. The towns such as Fallujah, Ramadi, Sammara and others came to the limelight because the Media had access to what was happening inside them. In fact the Resistance is everywhere in Iraq from Zakho in the extreme north to Fao in the extreme south, from west to east.

The Resistance is in Basrah, Nasiriyah, Amara, Diwanya, Hilla, Najaf, Baaquba, Mosul, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Karbala, Samawah, Arbil, Sulaymaniah, exactly as it is in Baghdad and al Anbar.

The Party has taken a negative attitude towards Shia organizations in Najaf,

how can you justify such positions?

The attitude of the Party concerning these organizations is not linked because they are Shia, but because they put sectarianism before the Land. Many times they have facilitated a way out for the enemy each time he was trapped by the Resistance.

Few of these organizations and not all of them have given cover for the enemy criminal actions against our people. The Ba’ath will never hesitate to reveal those who cooperated with the enemy; whatever is their position or their status.

We have confirmed information that from a patriotic point of view, these obscure organizations, are trying to execute agendas imposed by external parties aiming at dividing Iraq and ignite a civil strife amongst its children.

Our position was clear and radical towards those, who we think that they still have time to come back to the fold of the Country and the Land.
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Analysis.Scott Ritter Talks

2005-03-17T07:07:00.000-08:00

Scott Ritter: If you had seen what I have seen
By: Scott Ritter on: 15.10.2004

It appears that the last vestiges of perceived legitimacy regarding the decision of President George Bush and Tony Blair to invade Iraq have been eliminated with the release this week of the Iraq Survey Group's final report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The report's author, Charles Duelfer, underscored the finality of what the world had come to accept in the 18 months since the invasion of Iraq - that there were no stockpiles of WMD, or programmes to produce WMD. Despite public statements made before the war by Bush, Blair and officials and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic to the contrary, the ISG report concludes that all of Iraq's WMD stockpiles had been destroyed in 1991, and WMD programmes and facilities dismantled by 1996.

Duelfer's report does speak of Saddam Hussein's "intent" to acquire WMD once economic sanctions were lifted and UN inspections ended (although this conclusion is acknowledged to be derived from fragmentary and speculative sources). This judgement has been seized by Bush and Blair as they scramble to re-justify their respective decisions to wage war. "The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the UN oil-for-food programme to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions," Bush said. "He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons programme once the world looked away." Blair, for his part, has apologised for relying on faulty intelligence, but not for his decision to go to war. The mantra from both camps remains that the world is a safer place with Saddam behind bars.

But is it? When one examines the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq today, it seems hard to draw any conclusion that postulates a scenario built around the notion of an improved environment of stability and security. Indeed, many Iraqis hold that life under Saddam was a better option than the life they are facing under an increasingly violent and destabilising US-led occupation. The ultimate condemnation of the failure and futility of the US-UK effort in Iraq is that if Saddam were released from his prison cell and participated in the elections scheduled for next January, there is a good chance he would emerge as the popular choice. But while democratic freedom of expression was a desired outcome of the decision to remove Saddam from power, the crux of the pre-war arguments and the ones being reconfigured by those in favour of the invasion centre on the need to improve international peace and security. Has Saddam's removal accomplished this?

To answer this question, you have to postulate a world today that includes an Iraq led by Saddam. How this world would deal with him would be determined by decisions made by the US, Britain and the international community in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. One of the key historical questions being asked is what if Hans Blix (who gives his own view, right) had been given the three additional months he had requested in order to complete his programme of inspection? Two issues arise from this scenario: would Blix have been able to assemble enough data to ascertain conclusively, in as definitive a fashion as the Duelfer ISG report, a finding that Saddam's Iraq was free of WMD, and thus posed no immediate threat; and would the main supporters of military engagement with Iraq, the US and Britain, have been willing to accept such a finding?

The answer to the first point is that Blix and his team of inspectors were saddled with a complicated list of "cluster issues", ironically assembled by Duelfer during his tenure as head of the UN weapons inspectors, that would have needed to be rectified for any finding of compliance to be made. These "clusters" postulated the need for Iraq to prove the negative, something that is virtually impossible to do. We now know that Iraq's WMD were destroyed in 1991. The problem wasn't the weapons, but verification of Iraq's declarations. The standards of verification set by Duelfer-Blix were impossible for Iraq to meet, thus making closure on the "cluster" issues also an unattainable goal. This situation answers the second point as well. Since the inspection process was pre-programmed to fail, there would be no way the US or the UK would accept any finding of compliance from the UN weapons inspectors. The inspection process was rigged to create uncertainty regarding Iraq's WMD, which was used by the US and the UK to bolster their case for war.

It appears that there was no way short of war to create an environment where a finding of Iraq's compliance with its obligation to disarm could be embraced by the US and British governments. The main reason for this was that the issue wasn't WMD per se, but Saddam. The true goal wasn't disarmament, but regime change. This, of course, clashed with the principles of international law set forth in the Security Council resolutions, voted on by the US and UK, and to which Saddam was ostensibly held to account. Economic sanctions, put in place by the UN in 1990 after Saddam's invasion of Iraq and continued in 1991, linked to Saddam's obligation to disarm, were designed to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council's requirements. Saddam did disarm, but since two members of that Security Council - the US and the UK - were implementing unilateral policies of regime change as opposed to disarmament, this compliance could never be recognised. Sadly, when one speaks of threats to international peace and security, history will show that it was the US and Britain that consistently operated outside the spirit and letter of international law in their approach towards dealing with Saddam.

This blatant disregard for international law on the part of the world's two greatest democracies serves as the foundation of any analysis of the question: would the world be better off with or without Saddam in power? To buy into the notion that the world is better off without Saddam, one would have to conclude that the framework of international law that held the world together since the end of the Second World War - the UN Charter - is antiquated and no longer viable in a post-9/11 world. Tragically, we can see the fallacy of that argument unfold on a daily basis, as the horrific ramifications of American and British unilateralism unfold across the globe. If there ever was a case to be made for a unified standard of law governing the interaction of nations, it is in how we as a global community prosecute the war on terror. Those who embrace unilateral pre-emptive strikes in the name of democracy and freedom have produced results that pervert the concept of democracy while bringing about the horrific tyranny of fear and oppression at the hands of those who posture as liberators.

If Saddam were in power today, it would only have been because the US and Britain had altered course and joined the global community in recognising the pre-eminence of international law, and the necessity of all nations to operate in accordance with that law. The irony is that had the US and Britain taken this path, and an unrepentant Saddam chosen to defy the international community by acting on the intent he is alleged to have harboured, then he would have been removed from power by a true international coalition united in its legitimate defence of international law. But this is not the case. Saddam is gone, and the world is far worse for it - not because his regime posed no threat, perceived or otherwise, but because the threat to international peace and security resulting from the decisions made by Bush and Blair to invade Iraq in violation of international law make any threat emanating from an Iraq ruled by Saddam pale in comparison.

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Analysis,New Strategy After the Najaf Battle

2005-03-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

The New US Strategy After the Battle of Najaf
By Michael Schwartz*
Iraq News Net
September 28, 2004

Since the end of the battle of Najaf, things have become a jumbled mass of new violent outbreaks and conflicting pronouncements by all sides of the Iraqi conflict. Hidden in this confusion is an entirely new American military-political strategy that promises to wreak further havoc in the cities of Iraq, while shifting dramatically the equation of forces. If the U.S. succeeds, it will set the stage for a massive military offensive just after the November elections, one which may be magnitudes more brutal than anything we have seen so far. If the U.S. fails, it could generate the sort of high profile set-back that ruins Bush's electoral chances and/or leads to yet another major change in U.S. political-military strategy.

Who Won in Najaf?

The short answer is Ali al-Sistani, who re-established himself as the pre-eminent Iraqi leader by resolving the crisis without the destruction of the Imam Ali Shrine or the slaughter of the Al Mahdi soldiers occupying it. But al-Sistani is having trouble consolidating this pre-eminence, because the U.S. has not delivered the reconstruction aid that it guaranteed; and al-Sistani cannot restore an orderly existence without such outside help. Moreover, since al-Sistani's strategy rests upon asking the Shia to forego immediate demands in the expectation of achieving political domination in the January election, the sustained violence elsewhere is a threat to the elections and therefore to his credibility.

Did Muqtada al Sadr win or lose in Najaf? Before al-Sistani intervened, the Sadrists were faced with a tough choice. They could have fought to the death: this would have been a great political victory that would rally support inside and outside the country and made the Sadrists the primary force within the Iraqi resistance, even while it meant sacrificing the lives of their most dedicated and experienced activists. Or they could have withdrawn from the Shrine: this would have shattered their credibility as revolutionaries, and left them disarmed and discredited.

It looked like they were going to be martyrs, but al-Sistani snatched away their victory while saving their lives. This preserved (and perhaps even strengthened) their organization; but their political primacy was pre-empted by al-Sistani.

Did the U.S .win or lose in Najaf? The U.S. lost in two ways. It further alienated the Iraqis, so that neither the U.S. nor its client administration have any credibility on the street. It also lost the opportunity for a smashing military victory that might have won the November election for Bush and intimidated Shia militants enough to keep them quiet while the U.S. developed and implemented a new program for the Shia areas of the country.

But the U.S. also won two things from al-Sistani's intervention. First, it was relieved of a terrible choice: either withdrawing without dislodging al Sadr (which would have been a monumental victory for al Sadr and would have led to liberated areas throughout the South of Iraq); or smashing the shrine and creating Islam-wide outrage that could have led to an immediate insurrection throughout the country. So the U.S. lived to try another strategy, which they would not have had the chance to do if al-Sistani had not intervened.

Second, al-Sistani's pre-emption provided a template for the new strategy that the U.S. adopted soon afterward. His truce-making provided an orderly process by which the Iraqi police (trained and controlled by the U.S.) took official control of old Najaf. Their authority is guaranteed by the legitimacy of al-Sistani, and therefore they have not had to face a challenge by militant Sadrists or other insurgents (though the police themselves may not remain loyal to the U.S., a process we have seen elsewhere already). For the U.S., this created the vision of parallel developments in other cities: an alliance with "moderates" that legitimated the Iraqi police while effectively removing the militants from the public life of the city.

The New U.S. Strategy.

The new U.S. strategy, then, is targeted at the cities where the guerrillas and their clerical leadership dominate, notably Falluja, Samarra, Tal Afar, and Sadr City (though there are several others which have not been in the news lately). The U.S. method is to negotiate with the clerics, offering extensive reconstruction aid in exchange for calling off the insurgency and perhaps delivering the guerrilla fighters over to the U.S. (They call this negotiating with the moderates to split with the militants.)

If they can get an agreement, then the U.S. marches into town and arrests at least some of the guerrillas, using informants to determine whom to target. If the guerrillas resist arrest, the U.S. annihilates them and the areas they take refuge in. If they melt into the population, then the Iraqi police and National Guard take up stations within the city to enforce the rule of a re-established local government. American troops outside the city maintain the capacity to intervene against any effort to challenge the police or National Guard.

To force an agreement, the U.S. threatens both economic and military attacks on the city as a whole. Part of the plan is to use brutal air power that can annihilate buildings or whole city blocks in an effort to convince residents and leaders that the cost of resistance is simply too high. The underlying assumption is that the "moderates" will eventually choose to negotiate rather than see their city destroyed. As one marine officer in Falluja told Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chadrasekaran, the goal is "to split the city, to get the good people of the city on one side and the terrorists on the other." ( link)

The new plan is designed to achieve two goals. First, the U.S. hopes to drastically reduce the number of attacks on U.S. convoys and bases outside the cities. These attacks are planned within the cities, the weapons used are stockpiled there, and the guerrillas are protected from detection by their civilian identities as members of local communities. By demobilizing, arresting, or killing the guerillas, the new plan holds the potential to drastically reduce the direct attacks on U.S. forces.

Second, by replacing guerrillas with police as the source of law and order within the city, the U.S. hopes to obtain control over local public life, including establishing pro-American political leadership, instead of the current clerical leadership hostile to the U.S. presence. This will permit U.S. control of the electoral process in January and guarantee a legislature compliant with American policy.

There is considerable urgency in this venture because the current U.S. strategy in Iraq centers around the elections that are scheduled for January. Al-Sistani has made clear that he will not wait beyond January for elections (he has already agreed to wait six months beyond his own original deadline) and any further delay might provoke him into much more forceful protest than he has embraced so far. But elections that exclude the areas currently under insurgent control will produce yet another government with no legitimacy (including a possible boycott by al-Sistani himself). Nor can the U.S. let these cities be part of the election without reconquering them, since they would then send revolutionary representatives to demand that the Legislature call for U.S. withdrawal, a demand that would be supported by upwards of 90% of the population. (Recent polls conducted by the Occupation report less than 10% support for a continuing U.S. presence.)

Thus, the U.S. must quickly (within four months) re-establish its control of these liberated areas, and this control must be peaceful enough to allow for the semblance of fair elections. This is why the moderates are central to the new U.S. strategy. Occupation by American troops is counterproductive — it generates stronger and more determined resistance among the population. (Permanently pacifying even a single city against this sort of resistance requires tens of thousands of U.S. troops patrolling all the neighborhoods — far beyond the numerical capability of U.S. forces.) The Iraqi Police and National Guard are notorious for surrendering or defecting to guerrillas, but the U.S. hopes that they will be able to maintain order if respected local leadership silences the guerrillas and validates their presence, as al-Sistani has done in Najaf.

Is the New U.S. plan working?

There has been enough coverage of four cities to get a sense of what is happening and what the prognosis might be for the new American strategy. Falluja. The U.S. met with the clerical leadership in Falluja (the first official acceptance of their civic leadership), offering many millions of dollars of reconstruction money to repair the infrastructure that had been virtually demolished in the April attacks — on the condition that (1) the guerrillas were disowned and disarmed, (2) the U.S. was allowed to mount patrols within the city, and (3) the clerics pledged loyalty to the central government. There were no negotiations to speak of, because the clerics rejected all three conditions.

Immediately after the collapse of the non-negotiations, the U.S. initiated almost daily bombing of various neighborhoods in Falluja. The cover story has been that they are bombing "safe houses" used by terrorists associated with Abu Musab al Zarqawi (and that no other people are present during the attacks), but hospitals daily report that the vast majority of the casualties are civilians. It is clear to everyone but the American public that the attacks are designed to convince the people of Falluja to abandon their support of the rebellion. To add a further element of threat to the equation, U.S. has repeatedly announced that it would soon re-invade the city; and during the second week of September even announced on loudspeakers that the residents of certain areas should evacuate because of a pending attack. This was a bluff; American military officials admitted to U.S. reporters that they are waiting until after the November elections in the U.S.

We can expect that the bombing will continue until November, followed by a full scale assault on the city, one which might be far more brutal than the previous attacks on Falluja and Najaf (unless, of course, the strategy changes again in the meantime). In the meantime, there are ongoing overtures for new negotiations, but without either side changing its position.

Sadr City. The Allawi administration and clerics from Sadr City (all of whom were aligned with Muqtada al Sadr) negotiated a tentative agreement that would have banned U.S. troops from mounting patrols inside the huge Shia slum in the Northeast corner of Baghdad; while the Sadrists would not mount attacks on U.S. bases or convoys outside Sadr City. (This was a considerable concession by the Sadrists, since their strategy for expelling the Americans from Iraq depends on mounting constant attacks on U.S. bases and convoys to strain U.S. resources.) In addition, the Allawi administration promised to begin a variety of reconstruction projects inside Sadr City, marking the first time that any serious effort would be made to repair the damage of 18 months of war.

The U.S. command vetoed the agreement. While it would have achieved one of their goals (reducing guerrilla attacks on U.S. bases and convoys), they (correctly) saw that it would frustrate their second goal because it would leave unhindered the political control of Sadr City by the Mahdi Army and its clerical allies. (The U.S. military explained the rejection by saying the deal would allow the Al Mahdi militia to reconstitute itself after its "devastating defeat" in Najaf, but all the evidence indicates that the Najaf battle did not weaken the Sadrists in Baghdad at all.)

The day after this rejection, the U.S. renewed patrols and battles inside Sadr City, attempting to create enough havoc and destruction to drive the moderates back to the bargaining table. They soon discovered, however, that these patrols were taking heavy casualties without driving a wedge between the clerical leadership and the guerrillas. (In Najaf, the long siege generated real anger at the Sadrists, who were not residents of Najaf; many residents saw them as interlopers who brought the American onslaught upon the city. In Sadr city, the guerrillas are family members and respected neighbors who had been keeping crime down and the Americans out for months. Hence, American attacks tended to consolidate support for the Al Mahdi, who were seen as preventing the Americans from taking control and generally oppressing the community by forcibly entering houses, terrorizing residents and indiscriminately detaining men, women, and even children.)

After two weeks of battles and bombings, the U.S. temporarily withdrew back to its bases, leaving control of Sadr City to the guerrillas and their clerical leadership. It currently appears that they have opted for a bombing campaign like the one in Falluja; though so far the bombings have been occasional rather than consistent. The fact that American reporters can access Sadr City and report the carnage might be one deterrent.

Samarra. Soon after the end of the battle of Najaf, the American troops closed a key bridge into Samarra, thereby instituting an economic blockade that effectively cut off all normal commerce. This led to instant hardship around the city and had the hoped-for impact: a group of clerics negotiated a deal in which the bridge was re-opened in exchange for a guarantee that U.S. troops could enter the city without being attacked. This was the first success of the new strategy, and a U.S. patrol entered the town unmolested on September 2. At city hall they stopped to announce and introduce a new U.S.-sponsored city government.

The next day, the guerrillas denounced the agreement and a section of the local clerical leadership allied with the guerrillas announced the formation of a new insurgent government modeled after, and formally allied with, the Falluja government. (This is a new threat to the U.S., because coordination across liberated areas has been absent and would be a huge tool against the Occupation.)

With two competing governments, the situation is unsettled. American troops have been guarding city hall (apparently they do not trust Iraqi police to perform this work with guerrillas still active), and they have been fired upon at least once,. So far, however, there have been no reports of a major battle initiated by either side. The resolution of this standoff could well determine tactics that both sides use in other cities.

Tal Afar. The U.S. chose this city as a location for confronting the guerrillas, despite its atypicality. The residents are largely Turkmen and mostly Shia, and it lies on the border with Syria, which makes it a hub for trade and for smuggling goods and insurgents. Before the U.S. attack in early September, it been a "no-go" location for American troops for only about a month, and so the nature and support of the insurgency is hard to discern. Most significantly, while it is clear that many Shia Turkmen support the guerrillas, the U.S. army insists (and some independent observers agree) that (many, if not all) the insurgents are Sunni Arabs. If this is true, it would constitute an unprecedented alliance between ethnicities within Iraq, one that presages a more resourceful and unified insurgency in the coming months.

There were some brief negotiations with the Turkmen leadership in the city, but no formal deals were offered. The U.S. then initiated a massive bombing campaign much more ferocious than in any other locality (except perhaps Najaf at the height of the siege). Though even public health and hospital officials denounced the bombing and reported hundreds of civilian casualties, the American military claimed that all dead and wounded were insurgents, including a large number of women and children. (One reporter quoted an informant telling American soldiers that everyone in a particular community was an insurgent, so this could be the technical cover for their absurd claims.) The blanket bombing, combined with an American warning to evacuate, led to upwards of 50,000 mainly Turkmen refugees fleeing the city of 350,000(some unconfirmed accounts reported an incredible 250,000 refugees).

Following the bombing, the U.S. sent as many as 2,000 troops into the city, encountered strong resistance and fought a battle for five days before the guerrillas melted away. The U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies moved unhindered around the city for several days, while outside protests against the invasion mounted.

The key protest emanated from the Turkish government, which denounced the U.S., saying that virtually all the casualties were innocent Turkmen civilians; and that no attacks on American troops had ever been mounted by the Turkmen who were the targets of most of the violence. President Gul of Turkey threatened to withdraw from the "Coalition of the Willing" if the invading force did not leave Tal Afar and restore the refugees to their homes.

Perhaps this protest had some effect, because the U.S. troops did withdraw and announcements were made inviting the refugees to return. But this could also represent a planned strategy, since the newly pacified city was placed under the control of Iraqi police and National Guard.

There have been credible reports ( link ) that this campaign represents a new form of ethnic cleansing, in which U.S. troops evacuated Tal Afar to facilitate the resettlement and domination of the city by Kurds. These reports claim that the police the U.S. left in charge are "pesh merga," Kurdish militiamen committed to Kurdish domination of the northwestern area of the country. Tal Afar, as a border town sitting on major commercial routes, would be a major asset if it became a part of the Kurdish autonomous region within the country or an independent Kurdish republic.

It is premature to conclude that the Tal Afar campaign represents the most successful application of the new American strategy, without waiting for the ultimate reaction of the Turkmen minority in the city. Certainly their experience with the attack dissipated whatever sympathy they might have had for the Americans, and it thus laid the foundation for an even more determined rebellion as soon as they regain their equilibrium; but they might also have been beaten into submission, a result that appears to be the main American goal.

What is the Prognosis?

The campaign in Tal Afar would appear to be the poster child for the new strategy, but Tal Afar is neither Shia nor Sunni; even if the Turkmen acquiesce to the new regime, their capitulation would not signal that a similar result could be expected in other localities.

More promising for the American strategy is Samarra, a typical Sunni city with a strong insurgency. The initial willingness of some clerics to negotiate when pressured by economic sanctions suggests that the U.S. could possibly identify and work with a compliant local leadership in other cities controlled by insurgents. The outcome is, of course, undetermined, and if the resistance succeeds in isolating or eliminating the newly appointed leadership and/or making a continued U.S. presence untenable, then this U.S. strategy will fall into the long list of failed efforts to pacify the resistance. At present, however, this represents the best prospect for the Occupation to reassert its authority somewhere.

Falluja and Sadr City are both more typical than Samarra and less promising for the Americans. The initial effort to identify and work with some local leaders has failed, leading the Americans to terror tactics against the local population. These have not worked in the past in either location, and there is no sign of this latest iteration working. It seems apparent that the U.S. will wait until after the American elections to activate a more aggressive and more destructive second phase, aimed at terrorizing the population into submission.

Perhaps the greatest success of the new strategy thus far is a negative one. The havoc and destruction wreaked by the terror bombing and invasion of Tal Afar generated a strong reaction from Turkey, a ripple of outrage in Iraq and the Middle East; and no protest at all in Europe and the United States. The less severe, but still brutal, attacks in Sadr City and Falluja have generated almost no complaints or declarations of solidarity. This is a stark contrast to the April battle in Falluja, which generated world-wide denunciations, and the siege of Najaf, which threatened to mobilize the international Shia community.

What the U.S. may have gained, therefore, is the apathy of the world to escalating violence against Iraqi civilians. This, more than the success or failure of these individual campaigns, may lay a foundation for the massive offensives that the U.S. military appears to be preparing for the period just after the American elections in November. The world is fully aware of the ability of the U.S. Air Force to completely level even a very large city, using 2,000 pound bombs delivered in great numbers by carrier-based aircraft. The calibrated increases in the destructiveness of U.S. air attacks over the past few months appears to have numbed local and international outrage, a condition that allows for further escalation and magnitudes more casualties.

The actions of the Iraqi people — both insurgents and civilians — may constrain this strategy before it reaches the point of blanket bombing and wholesale destruction. But even the most ferocious Iraqi resistance may not be sufficient to deter the coming November offensive. The Iraqis need and deserve the support of the international community; the best (and least destructive) deterrent against this impending onslaught would be the threat of uncontrollable world wide protest should the U.S. attempt to level either Falluja or Sadr City.
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Analysis,The Dynamics of al-Sadrs Uprising

2005-03-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

It is inconceivable that a small devil is followed by a larger one. The mistake is not the departure of Saddam but what came after him in terms of despotism and terrorism… I will remain in Najaf until the last drop of my blood has been spilled.[1] – Moqtada Al-Sadr

We are really good at combat operations, killing and breaking things. But if all I am doing is this, I will make more enemies than I kill.[2] – Major General Pete Chiarelli, US Army, 1st Cavalry

For almost three weeks, Iraq was once again embroiled in a bloody confrontation between the forces of Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and US-occupation troops supported by Iraqi government forces. Hundreds of Iraqis died, and scores of US troops were killed in pitched battles fought in Najaf, Kufa, Nasiriya, Basra and Sadr City across several weeks. Tanks, helicopters, jet fighters, and AC-130 gunships were once again deployed – this time not against an “axis of evil” regime or al-Qaeda affiliated “terrorists,” but against a lightly-armed faction representing impoverished members of mainstream Iraqi society.

Over the past weeks, Najaf, a city of 600,000, has been deprived of electricity, water and medical services.[3] Thousands of shrines and graves in its revered cemetery were destroyed or damaged. Much of the historic old city that surrounds Imam Ali’s mosque and dates back 1,300 years has been reduced to rubble. Earlier, the US military told tens of thousands of Najaf residents that their homes were a “military zone” and ordered them to leave.[4]

The fact that US military might is still being deployed so heavily against Iraqi urban centers 16 months after the removal of Saddam Hussein illustrates that the US has failed to win the war or secure the peace. The recent crisis is another manifestation of the power vacuum in Iraq and the clear result of US-led attempts to impose successive illegitimate governments on the Iraqi people.

The recent fighting in Iraq can be seen as the second round of a conflict which flared up last April with the closure of the Al-Sadr–affiliated Al-Hawza newspaper on charges of incitement, and the arrest of an Al-Sadr aide on charges related to the assassination of pro-US Shiite cleric, Abdel Maguid al-Kho’i. On April 5, 2004, Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) spokesman Dan Senor publicly revealed that an Iraqi judge had issued an arrest warrant for Moqtada Al-Sadr in connection with the murder of al-Kho’i. The same day, Al-Sadr declared that peaceful protests had become useless, urging his followers to “terrorize” their enemy. The consequent fighting in April took the lives of hundreds of Iraqis and tens of US soldiers.

The more recent confrontation was triggered when Iraqi policemen and US troops arrested Sheikh Mithal al-Hasnawi, Al-Sadr’s representative in Karbala, on July 31, 2004. On August 3, US and Iraqi government forces surrounded Al-Sadr’s home. The resulting exchange involved heavy gunfire, mortar shelling and grenade blasts. Simultaneously, British troops moved against Al-Sadr’s followers in Basra, arresting four. After an August 5 deadline set by Al-Sadr loyalists for their release elapsed, Basra militiamen declared holy war on British forces.

Over the next few weeks, the conflict centered mostly around Najaf, where Mahdi Army fighters sought refuge in the Imam Ali mosque. Despite attempts to secure a peaceful resolution to the conflict, it was clear that both US and Iraqi officials were adamant about resolving the conflict militarily. The Governor of Najaf, Adnan al-Zurufi said “There is no compromise or room for another truce,” and US officials reiterated that the battle with Moqtada Al-Sadr was “one battle we really do feel we can win.”[5]

Rationale Behind the Violence

The current uprising poses a grave challenge to the fledgling Allawi-led interim government, which has yet to establish popular legitimacy or provide a solution to Iraq ’s burgeoning problems. In recent weeks, Allawi has shown himself capable of using excessive violence – as Saddam had – to quell any domestic challenge to his authority. The consistent use of military power (as opposed to peaceful containment or constructive engagement) against domestic challengers by the new Iraqi government and its US benefactors is the result of their common perception that increasingly large areas of Iraq are steadily being lost to the insurgents. In fact, US forces have de facto “abdicated power in Fallujah, been chased out of Ramadi and Samarra, and are struggling to maintain control of Baqubah, Tikrit and Mosul.”[6] In fact, the tactical agreements reached with the insurgents over the past few months in Fallujah, Najaf, and elsewhere in Iraq reflect a recognition by the US that the insurgencies are not carried out by bandits or isolated remnants of the old regime, and are too deeply rooted in the Iraqi population to be defeated militarily.[7]

Nevertheless, the ongoing US-Allawi campaign against the Mahdi Army is intended not only to quell Al-Sadr’s uprising, but also to send a message to other insurgents that their activities will not be tolerated by the new Iraqi government. This explains why US airplanes have been simultaneously attacking both Najaf and Fallujah – hotbeds of both Shiite and Sunni resistance respectively.

The impasse that Allawi currently finds himself in was illustrated during the UN-sponsored three-day national conference to select a national assembly, when angry protesters and delegates threatened to withdraw, demanding an end to US attacks on Najaf and the Imam Ali Mosque. As Allawi flexed his muscles in Najaf, the conference building, located in central Baghdad, was hit by several mortar rounds, even though the conference was held in siege-like conditions in the heavily fortified Green Zone, and a curfew had been imposed in surrounding areas.[8] If anything, recent events illustrated the extent to which Allawi’s interim government is domestically isolated and dependent upon Washington for its continued existence.

The Iraqi dilemma is further compounded by the fact that the Allawi government is incapable of providing security or services to the Iraqi people, at a time when Moqtada Al-Sadr has been able to skillfully present himself as the defender of the unemployed, poverty-stricken masses, who suffer under the heavy hand of a puppet government supported by an alien power.

Quietist Sistani vs. Militant Activist Al-Sadr

In many ways, Al-Sadr’s uprising is a manifestation of the Iraqis’ quest for an end to the occupation and their desire to rid their country of a US-proxy government. But the conflict is also part and parcel of a larger domestic Shiite struggle for power and legitimacy amidst chaos. The two main trends vying for power among Iraq ’s Shiites are the “quietist” school lead by Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ali al-Sistani, and a “militant-activist” school lead by Moqtada Al-Sadr. Al-Sadr’s recent actions can be understood as a challenge to the quietist ayatollahs for their apparent collaboration with the occupation through their notable silence throughout the crisis.

In recent months, Al-Sadr has experienced a marked growth in his status among mainstream Iraqis. His skillful manipulation of Arab media and his fiery sermons demanding Iraqi freedom and independence have boosted the young cleric’s standing, leading to his emergence as Iraq’s only recognizable national symbol of defiance against the massive US military presence that remains in Iraq despite the alleged “hand-over of sovereignty.”

Al-Sadr has shown himself to be a shrewd politician, capable of channeling the anger of millions of impoverished and disenfranchised Iraqis. A poll conducted by Iraq’s Center for Research and Strategic Studies in Baghdad last spring indicated that Al-Sadr was second only to Iraq’s venerated Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in public support.[9] Allawi, who was not yet prime minister, trailed far behind in the poll.

Al-Sadr commands a great deal of respect due to his family’s revered status among Iraq ’s Shiite community. His father, Grand Ayatollah Mohamed Sadiq Al-Sadr, was an iconic symbol of Shiite resistance, and eventually martyrdom, when he was killed by Iraqi secret services in February 1999, along with two of Al-Sadr’s elder brothers. The elder Al-Sadr, who constantly criticized Saddam Hussein in every Friday sermon, was killed for his defiance of the Iraqi dictator. Baathist authorities prohibited mourners from taking part in his funeral, and government forces used automatic weapons and armored vehicles to break up demonstrations. Mohamed Al-Sadr’s popularity was made apparent with Saddam’s ouster, when a Shiite slum of 2 million was renamed Sadr City by clerics living there. Al-Sadr’s uncle, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Mohamed Baqir Al-Sadr, was also executed by Iraqi authorities in April 1980 for his explicit support for Iran ’s Ayatollah Khomeini.

The courage of Al-Sadr’s father and uncle has thus conferred considerable legitimacy on him as the surviving son of a heroic family.[10] Al-Sadr is also known to be currently raising the six children of his slain brothers, further adding to his appeal among the Shiites.[11] By constantly highlighting his readiness to die, Al-Sadr is emphasizing his family’s long history of confrontation and playing upon the deepest cultural aspects of the Shiite sect of Islam. Shiites have always looked to the martyrdom of Al-Husayn, Prophet Mohamed’s grandson who died fighting the vastly superior forces of the tyrannical Ummayid Caliph Yazid, as the ultimate manifestation of victimization and sacrifice in the quest for justice.

With every confrontation, Al-Sadr has incrementally increased his power base in Iraq through successful brinksmanship and a remarkable ability to challenge the occupation and its stooges and yet live to fight another day. By holing up inside the Imam Ali Mosque and promising to fight until the last drop of his blood, Al-Sadr has put himself in what many analyst believe is a classic “win-win scenario.”[12] If US and Iraqi forces decide to conduct a final bloody assault on the Imam Ali Mosque, popular passions will be inflamed, and would likely spark off a wholesale Shiite uprising in response. If Al-Sadr is killed while fighting in that Shiite holy site, he will immediately become a martyr, drawing thousands of Shiites to his cause. Alternatively, if American and Iraqi forces pull back from a final assault on Najaf and seek another truce with him, he will be seen as a popular hero who stood up to the mightiest power on earth

Conclusions

Almost a year and a half after the removal of Saddam, Iraq is nowhere closer to freedom or democracy. It is increasingly perceived by ordinary Iraqis and Muslims around the world as an artificial creation of the Bush administration. This is due to the fact that Iraq is facing an unparalleled situation where occupying powers tirelessly speak about “sovereignty” and a “transfer of power” while they maintain more than 150,000 foreign troops on Iraqi soil.

Among Washington’s justifications for the continuing presence of foreign troops in Iraq and its constant targeting of insurgents is the need to stabilize the country.[13] US planners and decision makers, however, fail to recognize that the continued presence of foreign troops is the major cause for instability in Iraq . More seriously, the presence of US troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan is a major threat to Iran – a US-designated “axis of evil” state whose nuclear program has been the cause of much antagonism from the Bush administration. Some analysts suggest that Iran has shown signs of increasing its support for Shiite insurgents in Najaf, in an attempt to counterbalance threats to its national security.[14] Recently, Hazem Shalan al-Khuzaei, Iraq ’s interim defense minister in the US-appointed cabinet, accused Iran of being Iraq ’s “No.1 enemy.” If tensions remain high in the region, the fighting in Iraq could turn into an even bloodier proxy war involving the United States , Syria , and Iran.

Over two decades ago, while Shiite fundamentalism emanating from Iran was considered the biggest threat to Western civilization, hundreds of Sunni Muslim “radicals” were being armed by the United States to wage jihad against the Soviet Union . The operating assumption at the time was that the Wahhabi brand of Sunni radicalism was innately conservative and therefore a natural ally of the US against the radical Shiites.[15] After September 11, the operating assumption was that the US should work to build bridges with the Shiites, since they could serve as a significant bulwark against Sunni “radicals” influenced by the Wahhabi-Hanbali school of thought.[16] But for all intents and purposes, the US military campaign in Iraq against both Sunnis and Shiites has antagonized members of both sects and united insurgents across Iraq against a common enemy.
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Soldiers Letters,Yes I have Killed Innocents

2005-03-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

Yes I've Killed Innocents - Interview With A Disappeared Soldier
by Jay Shaft

A soldier with a heavy heart and a real tragic choice confronting him contacted me and told me a story of his horror in Iraq and how he would not go back again. He said he would not really be AWOL right away by the legal terms, but would instead be classified as non-reporting for duty or refusing to comply with an officer’s orders on the official duty reporting rosters and duty logs. If he does not comply within a certain time frame he is then AWOL. This is the same thing that shows up on George W. Bush’s military records, which were obtained by CBS and Dan Rather recently.

This is in his true words and it gives his reasons for not wanting to go back for a second time to serve in a combat zone of Iraq. He is a reservist who has been extended at least three times under stop loss measures to maintain troop deployment levels. He was not ever given a choice or a contract renewal option, and has no legal recourse or way out. He was one week from getting out of the Standing Ready Reserves when he was reactivated and sent to Iraq in 2003.

This interview was actually supposed to be released on Septemberr, 14, 2004, which was when this soldier told me he was obligated to report back for a second mobilization to Iraq. This is his true words and his reasons for not wanting to go back for a second time to serve in a combat zone of Iraq. The soldier has asked to be called Disappearing Soldier for reasons he will very clearly explain in this candid and very moving interview.

The open unstructured discussion sessions and the structured interviews were conducted during the last week of August with the final part of the interview being completed on September 5th, 2004. I was hospitalized with a life threatening illness on September, 6 and was just released to home health care on Setptemberr, 17. I therefore was unable to get publish it any sooner.

Note of Explanation

This is going on record right now before anything can ever be supposed or asked about my character or the character and veracity of these interviews and the soldiers involved. I want to be completely on the record from the beginning and get the facts established.

I do not know any identities of the soldiers I interview. This will be explained below. I am unable to reveal or endanger any soldier if I really am unable to do it.

As part of the some rules and agreements I have made to get these interviews, I must abide by these certain obligations to actually be able to protect the soldier’s identity. Each interview, or set of interviews with an individual soldier is done on a one time use, pre-paid card style cell phone which has a limited amount of minutes and then it is of no use. That phone is then destroyed so as to prevent any phone records from being subpoenaed or traced back to anyone or any organization that might have helped arrange these interviews.

I am not aware of this soldier’s identity or that of any recently interviewed soldier’s identity. The knowledge of the line unit or actual company or platoon they were attached to is also unknown to me. I do not know the unit of any soldier but do have a general idea of the parent Brigade or Division.

That is to know if certain battle field or counter insurgency activity details are really a correct picture of a whole unit or one man’s view. It also ties in along with specific losses and casualty claims, verifying if they are correct along with the dates of actions being in line with the story as it was told to me. This is in cases of extensive detailing of heavy loss of life or limb due to bad Intel or equipment for instance.

These Reserve and Guard troops are going to Iraq without proper combat training. Many troops do not have one single day of actual situational security force training, which is killing soldiers at a horrendously stunning rate. I am hearing horror stories and nightmares beyond even my belief or experiences to this point.

A soldier calls me on a prearranged number, and we go about doing an interview at their discretion and only talking about what they choose to discuss. There is a set of questions I try to ask after a loose conversation that can last for an hour or more. I do a more structured style interview if they can make it that far emotionally.

I don’t rearrange things to fit a way I want it to sound. I never change a soldier’s wording or the way he phrases his responses. I put the questions and responses in exactly the order they occurred. Now no one can cast any doubt or accuse me of holding out or skewing my facts or fabricating my own story. I am being right up front and open, that’s all folks.

The Interviews

The following is the free form/interview sessions it they took place with the days noted when there was a break or a day or two in between contact. Some personal details and other small details have been changed or excluded to protect this man’s identity.

On 30 June 2004 the Army announced plans to order 5,600 Soldier in the Individual Ready Reserve to active duty for possible deployment with the next Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom rotations. Those Soldiers called up will have 30 days from the date the orders were issued to take care of personal business before having to report to a mobilization site, officials said. The orders call for 18 months of active duty, but that could be extended for a total of 24 months if needed, they said. The IRR call-up does not impact retired Soldiers, contrary to several civilian media reports.

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August, 29 - First Interview

Interviewer: First off let me get you to tell me a little of your background and what your recent history with the military has been.

DS: Well I have to just be careful of what I say about home, and how old I am, and that kind of thing. You will go back and really look it over? Clean it up if I slip or it looks like it was a mistake to say?

Interviewer: Yes. That’s the deal. I don’t know who you are right now, so be careful if you don’t want to tell me or give too much away. I made you go through the routine you did so we would be able to keep you safe, and I am going to have to admit I want to be safe too. I can’t be in real trouble for not knowing a damn thing. I have to be able to talk to someone else.

DS: Right. I know, but I’m still nervous, you sure they can’t tap your phone or trace it?

Interviewer: No! I just got it this morning; I didn’t even know the number until about 30 minutes before the call you got. You are as safe as I can make it. I don’t know how else to do it.

DS: Sure. Next item then. I need to keep moving this forward. I hate just throwing around an idea and it’s already been done.

Interviewer: Your recent history with the Army?

DS: I was just called back for my second tour in a combat zone of Iraq. Well, I’m pretty sure it will be in a combat zone or area where there has been heavy fighting. The whole country is gone to a daily incursion or bombing, some kind of attack, a complete loss of what little control we had. I can’t see it getting better.

Interviewer: You already did a year in Iraq? Were you Reserves or National Guard?

DS: Technically in the Reserves, but by a very fine line they drew on my papers. I was sort of Standing Ready Reserves, um, but I can’t go too much into that. Uh, I will answer the next one now.

Yes, I was just in Iraq for a year. Over a year, and there was an extension of my duty twice in that time. No wife or kids, my parents are, uh, um, um, gee, well no that’s off limits. NO! They are not in this interview; it might get them somehow involved. I explain them later maybe.

Interviewer: Okay, sure it’s your interview, keep going.

DS: Back to this. Deep thought here, gee, um, all pretty much to the first year I did. Yes, good for a point to how I am now about to probably go and do what I thought about.

They just called me back! AGAIN! TWO TIMES! I have to go to combat and kill people again? I have to watch the soldiers around me die and get blown up again? I know that I can’t do it! OH! Why me or anyone else?

Interviewer: So are you going to report back? I really am not trying to encourage you to go AWOL or not report but I will not say that I would try to stop you. I think that it might take some courage that many would never understand or want to understand for that matter.

DS: You wouldn’t be able to stop me, you wouldn’t be able to make me do it either, no you don’t have a thing to do with it. You are just lucky to hear me talk about it. I could hang up and you would always wonder, and it would kill you to want to know what that guy did. But you haven’t tried to get me to pull some big time press publicity stunt; glory seeking, camera time crap, and you don’t want me to tell you too much. Keep it like that and we’ll keep talking until the last day before I’ve got to make up my mind.

Interviewer: Fair enough. From what you have heard, how many soldiers do you think have gone AWOL or not reported when they were ordered to? Any rough idea or number?

DS: I really don’t know for sure. The rumors go around and you really don’t know what’s true after a while. I know that I have heard of over 300 of the ready freddies, that’s the IRR (Individual Ready Reserves) who did not show up at the active duty base where we do our ship outs and mobilizations from. I know they were saying some of the Individual Ready Reserve reporting stations had as much as 50-60% of the soldiers who did not report by the date on the call up notification papers. I really can’t tell you if that’s true, but watch the press and the Military reaction when they don’t report and see the feathers fly when it hits the fan.

Just wait till the end of September and see how much more this is in the news. It won’t be a story that anyone can hide, but they’ll try the hardest to drown it out or leave it out.

I can only be vague about that because I was ready to revert to IRR but I never got a chance to get that far. I just don’t know enough of how it works; they changed it all by executive order after 9/11 anyway. Bush made it easy to just slip us right in to a base and onto an airplane. I did over 8 months of airport security after 9/11, and then settled back to my life in school, then Iraq came up.

Interviewer: Without being specific, where would you go if you didn’t report?

DS: Canada, or maybe somewhere in the south, I’m not telling you, it’s sounding silly now but I have to think it out. It’s silly now that I think about it, but some guys did it and they hid out right here in the US. No more on that, uh, enough of that. Um, heck, why even leave, it’s probably going to be crazy with so many people to find in the next month or two. They won’t know where to start or who to look for.

Interviewer: So you think you’ll be in a big group of soldiers not even going back at all?

DS: Yes, there’s no doubt. No doubt at all in my mind or anyone else in the Reserves or Guard who got a double tap this time. We made it back alive and unhurt physically, but with all this burden of stop loss, and extensions, and pay loss or no pay for six months. We did our Vietnam and they can stick it up their, um, backsides. Uh, Iraq, um, no um, way, that is one that you got me going back to that you are really, um fu… um oh crap.

Interviewer: You don’t use profanity at all or you stop yourself right before you say it. Why? Just curious because the guys I talked with so far almost didn’t notice after being to war.

DS: I am devoutly religious and I do not swear if I can help it. In Iraq I did, and I have tried to atone for that. I asked that God take the language of war and killing from my tongue and he did. I still slip but it’s a lot less now over a few months time back home. I started to heal up and then I got the notice and it ripped it all back open. I had a scab on an open wound. I keep putting a band-aid on it and they tear it off and let me bleed.

(He then openly weeps and cries for several minutes and asked that I remove some very violent and vulgar swearing. He did use some words that showed me he had just been in a war and in some form of bloody combat on a daily basis.)

Interviewer: Are you okay? You want a break?

DS: No, but I think people might wonder about this soldier who doesn’t swear and uses such correct grammar and tries to be so proper. I don’t want to be the mean assed killer who didn’t and couldn’t give a fuck!

(He then lost control and screamed the next part over the phone.)

Okay! Okay! There! Is that real enough! It hurts! Ah! It hurts! Fuck yeah it hurts! Jesus forgives me for that, but this is my pain! I came back, I want to stay here damn you! Fuck you! You can’t send me back to that place! I killed people you stupid fucker! Do you know that? Do you? Do the people who send us to Iraq know how that feels? Does Bush? Does Rumsfeld or his dumb fucks in the pentagon? I killed people who were there at the wrong time! Fuck the war! I have to live with this now! I killed innocent people! Do you know that! Fuck the Iraqis that were trying to kill us! They were fighting us! I did the only thing I could! Yeah it’s easier to live with that, but it’s still fucking death!

(This was left in at his request, but the interview was stopped till he could better control himself. We both needed a break after this. The interview was resumed after he called me back after about an hour.)

DS: Sorry, I couldn’t help myself, uh, I lost it. My God is there for me, um, this is hard, it God’s will, but it’s hard. I will explain that as we go through this but I don’t want to identify my specific denomination, except as Christian based, but NOT the type of Jerry Falwell holy roller Iraq is a heathen nation stuff they keep showing on Christian Television Network and on those cable channels. I worship the God of love and caring and kindness.

Interviewer: Okay go on with that, I want to hear about how a religious man, or one who believes in God, goes to war.

DS: My faith believes in the sanctity and sacredness of all human life, and any living creature is God’s creature who he loves unconditionally, no questions or rules. All people are sacred be they Christian. Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Taoist, Pagan, Satanist, Atheist, or anything you choose to accept as religion or worship. It does not matter what you are as long as you are a human being. You have a life and it is sacred and beloved by God and that is all that I care about. It is of the same value as mine even though I am an American and you might be an Iraqi who is not like me.

Interviewer: Wow. Okay I was not ready for that. What did the war do to you with that kind of belief system?

DS: Destroyed it and made me a part of the carnage and not just a part of it but a willing tool and a participant. It made me take another human life, after acts of rebellion made me go in the Army. It made my parents mad, um yeah, and uh, it hurt them. I also wanted to get away from the homestead and um, not go back ever again. I was too poor to make it another way into college.

Interviewer: Do you think you might have killed any civilians accidentally? If you don’t want to answer that we’ll end it for the day.

DS: No, I’ll answer that. That’s why I don’t want to go back to Iraq. I won’t go back if I do what I am planning

I won’t do it I tell you! No! I won’t go back again!

I won't go back! I killed people! I won’t go back!

(Breaks down crying)

Yes! Oh God, Yes! Oh God Forgive Me! Yes, I’ve killed innocent people. I will live with that forever. Oh God forgive me, grant me mercy, please forgive me.

(At this point he cries, and prays, and asks me to pray with him. He really was in total agony over his recent tour of duty, this was a raw wound just reopened by his second recall.)

God, I’ve killed, and it will never be all right, no matter how much I pray about it. I’m a man of faith and I know that God has forgiven me, but I can’t go back and do it again. No! I won’t do it. It’s a SIN! And I won’t believe that it’s right! It’s wrong to put us in this position. Its murder to needlessly kill innocent civilians who keep getting caught in the crossfire.

Not only is that murder and a war crime, it’s a crime against God’s word! Thou shalt not kill, blessed are the peacemakers, and beat your swords into plowshares.

What’s George Bush making us do? Making us commit murder by sending us to Iraq! We are murdering these innocents! God please forgive the American soldier! I ask again. What’s George Bush making us do? Kill for his stupid holy oil war!

Interviewer: What about the civilians in the line of fire. How is trying not to shoot them coming into play or is there even time to think in the middle of a battle or attack?

DS: AH! You just have to hear it? I told you to ask me the hard questions, and we really getting into some hard stuff. This is really bad, you are going to hear some things none of us will even tell each other. We won’t talk about this after action. Our after action reports and the paperwork get done, but we will not talk it over even doing the hump stuff writing it up.

I tried a few times, but it is something you can get the heck beat out of you for. Not to go there now. It’s just not what one of us wants to talk about after it’s over. We might still be shaking and have a buddies blood on our face or hands. You just jam it down and keep moving to stay alive.

It’s a sin! A sin if you kill an innocent child, or because you turned your back your friend got shot, or your sergeant got killed because you pulled back after you saw a woman on the street. I missed a shot because a woman and a kid stepped out down the road from a full on firefight. We were taking heavy fire for over an hour and then a break came up.

A bunch of people started running around and crossing the road. I saw a bunch of insurgents, yeah you can tell some because they wear some scarves and face masks, or ski masks or something to cover their faces. You see them down the street setting up for another RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) attack and you start shooting. I aimed at this one guy with a rifle mounted round (RPG shell that can be fired from an AK-47 style rifle) and then a woman and kid ran out there right in front of him.

I had to hold my fire for a second, and a shell came in on us and my sergeant got frag hits and part of the explosion blew his face off. I could have shot that fucker but I held back just for a second. I had him clean, dead shot, no way I miss, he was dead. Now my sarge is dead and I am still alive. I wake up and see his blood splattering on the wall behind me.

I had a choice and I would not have shot a kid or a woman. But I didn’t shoot the fucker aiming at my people, and my sarge died, I got hit, and one of our new kids lost an arm.

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! No more! I did that! It’s my fault! Now you ask me why I won’t go back? Why? You want to go for me? Uh, oh my God I didn’t want to do that. I’m going to stop making myself hurt and feel any worse.

That is what this war keeps doing to the soldiers, um, uh, those who can still have feelings. The reservists and guardsman are stuck doing this again and again and we got to go back now. The men and women of our country are going to have their own years of therapy and nightmares and the suicides and alcoholics or pill heads. We’ll pay for this for long years down the road.

Uh, I have to stop now. I’ll call you tomorrow or the next day, um, whenever I feel ready.

Interviewer: Okay, get some rest.

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August, 30 - Second Interview

Interviewer: Let’s get to a subject that should start us out on a safer area. How far did you get in school? Also how long were you in the Army?

DS: I did three years in the Army on Active Duty and then of course I was on my deferred Reserve duty while I went to college. I made it through two years of college and received a degree for my troubles. I was in my junior year of university when all Iraq broke loose and the Bush hit the fan.

I had a week left on my Standing Reserve papers, and then I would have been back to an IRR list. I was still kind of Reserve that was on ready call mobile orders, but I just couldn’t figure out what the rules they were going by. So close and I thought I made it, and they wouldn’t have been able to do a thing to me. Well, the same tale of woe as the thousands of others who had it happen to them. Now you are in a Reserve or Guard unit ready for deployment and you have a few weeks or maybe a month and a half if you’re lucky to get it all together.

Yes sir, gear up, mount up, and ship out, no warning and only about eight days of any type of training for combat/hazardous conditions. To say we get trained to do security patrols or do IED removal or anything that an active duty soldier is highly trained for is a joke. It’s not true at all.

Not true America! Do you hear me? We are going to keep dying because of this!

Let me get into this question because it was the main reason my friend put me in contact with you. We have zilch for real training before we get to Iraq, and the newer units have nothing at all. NONE! Check the casualty rates for the new units or those who rotated in after the beginning of this year.

Interviewer: Okay this is what I want to get into really deeply. The families are exposing this who have lost loved ones in Iraq, they have been giving me shocking details in my recent interviews. Some soldiers, ones who were severely wounded have also spoken up about this. Let me just let you go at this. It’s your time, tell me what you want to get out there.

DS: You’ll just let me tell it like it is? No censorship? You said you wanted this for an interview, but I thought it was an angle to just get close enough to trick me into something else. You really are going to do this for us soldiers aren’t you? You really want the truth to help us serving soldiers? Wow, I get it now; I see why you take your time, uh, yeah, and do this the way you do it.

Interviewer: This stuff is killing men and women and costing children and families their mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, sons, daughters, and dearly loved ones. I have spoken to the soldiers, and also to the families. I have to tell you it is not a neutral issue for me now after all the pain and sorrow I have seen and heard. I have to admit a personal interest and ties that other journalists would run from and the story would not come out because of it. It is something you have to live and breathe or it’s just not real.

DS: So you really will tell it like I tell you? All right, game on my man. You got it straight from me about how some of what I’ve seen has been killing us in large numbers. I can only report what I’ve seen and what other soldiers and people have told me.

First off about our choice of whether or not many Reserves and Guard really want to be over in Iraq. Not really many at all, I would say a very small and dwindling portion. That’s right now and over the last few months, well, uh, gee, let’s really say since the extensions of duty started keeping us in Iraq.

That has been the real big factor in making us really scream and holler. Make a soldier stay another three months or longer after he knew he was supposed to go home, watch a bunch of the extended soldiers die right after they announce the extensions and extended rotations, and a real wake up started.

Uh, well, say you were just plugging along and knowing you were going home for good, or keeping your eyes shut and making it your only reality, get that? Still feel good about being in the military? What is that going to do real fast when they give you 90 more hot days under fire in the desert, uh, in country, like my top said? You got no out, no choice, and now you are that much more on the ball to die? Uh, what would that do to you, and your morale and your family’s, what would you do?

What would you think when it happened? If you haven’t been there you have no right to ask me to think like that or to deal with it. Then when we finally get back home get put right back on call up orders for an 18 month to two year tour of duty all over again.

Let’s be real clear about this, 5 by for us grunts and mud eaters. Let’s say this as clear as you can. This is George W. AWOL Bush’s war. HIS! HE MADE US GO! He alone had the power to invade Iraq. Congress did not have any way to stop it even if they had wanted to try.

His war our soldiers dead! So many people in Iraq dead! Fuck Bush! Sorry for that, but fuck Bush. He killed my friends, yeah the Iraqis shot them, but he killed them. He did!

Oh, um, da.., uh. Shit, I keep swearing but I try to keep it clean. I made my mind up not to but I can make it better later when I pray. Yes I know that’s silly for you to hear, but my soul is so dirty right now, I am trying to wash it clean. My mind can’t keep believing I asked God to take it away and he did. I fell away from my faith for so long and then it came back so hard. God shook me awake and saved me.

Interviewer: Wait, tell me about the suicide attempt. Can you go into that?

DS: AH! Um, my man you kick me in the balls when you keep that stuff up. I know, I know, we talked it over before this twice. Okay it’s going to be real quick and not a big deal.

I got back home and the second day I tried to eat my gun. I almost did it and it was really an act of God. It was a miracle to be here now. The trigger spring had froze shut because I was gone over a year. My own gun we are talking about. I just went in the case and pulled out my 9 and put it in my mouth and tried to blow my brains out. I heard a snap and I actually felt the bullet and thought I was dead. I fell over and laid there on my floor.

Well then I must have passed out or blacked out. I woke up and was still alive and breathing. The trigger broke because I pulled it so hard and it cut the mess out of my hand. It slice half my finger open to the bone. I must have tried to pull the trigger and just locked down on it in fear and broke it loose. That’s how much I wanted to stop the pain. It hurt that bad and it was close for me to not just go get another pistol out and try again. I had to do it quick because when I stopped to clean up I could not do it or think it again.

No more of that. God saved me for a reason. I won’t dirty and ruin my new life by going against his word and killing or letting others kill around me. Not with my life almost taken three times. No it was not to be. That is all on that, it still puts chills in me.

Interviewer: Okay, I had to ask you. Thanks for being honest. Now back to what you had been saying about Bush making the war happen. What were you explaining?

DS: Yeah the push to go blow up Iraq and kill off almost a thousand troops. That is Bush’s fault. He went and made this war happen. He had the only control over it and he did this. PERIOD! HE DID IT!

That’s something Bush took by Executive Order that he wrote and Congress just sat back and let go into law. It can’t be taken back now. No it’s way too late, we are at over 980 or more dead and uncounted thousands torn into pieces, hurt, disabled, um, gee, um they’ll be crippled, no arms, no legs, brain damage, without insurance.

Who can be made to be accountable? This is the blood of our heroes and our best and bravest, um, oh God, help them, please give them guidance, healing, comfort, rest. Um, this is too much, no, um, not any more for now.

I got to stop now for a minute to get my mind clear. I keep losing my breath, it um, it is real bad, it really hurts. You kind of need to direct this, um, I am really out there on this, uh, I did all right I think. Did I go too far or was that okay? I mean you said this was my words and my story.

Interviewer: Yeah, you are doing more than okay. You are doing a fantastic job, just tell me and we can stop. I don’t know what’s going to come out till you get to it and feel that it needs to be out there and exposed. It’s your show, all yours, this is the time you can tell it like it is.

Anytime you say stop it is over. You need a break we take one for however long you need. You decide to quit and not go on that is also fine. It is your call all the way. If you decide later to tell me to not write this up and publish it, it is never mentioned again. End of story, never happened, because it’s your story, I just help you put it in words.

DS: Okay, break time for five. Stop the tape and just talk to me like a person.

(Interview resumes in about 15 minutes time, after the soldier has had time to talk about a completely different topic besides war and death. He said it’s okay to put it in the interview as a contrast. The talk was about puppies and kittens, little farm animals and how they smell when you are a kid. Being on a farm and the animals and the hayloft and a lot of kid stuff. That is the innocent human side of this man I spoke to. I found he had great depth and intelligence.)

Interviewer: Let me ask or state something here, I’m not sure if you can answer this but you will have run into this situation possibly. There were many units that came back before the extensions came into effect, but many of them or the soldiers in them are up a second time. These were active duty units and they might be on the third tour if you count Afghanistan and various post 9/11 security deployments.

Have you heard an uproar or grumbling or anything like the stop-lossed or extended Reserves-Guard forces have experienced after the fallout of the last several months of high casualties and heavy fighting?

DS: Yeah, they have had some real problems with almost being forced to re-enlist or extend their contracts, go for more stateside duty, or um, other attempts to keep them in service and on the duty roster or to maintain troop levels. I have some knowledge of this from being around an active duty brigade in Iraq. I hear it from being near a huge military base that has deployed troops in Iraq and more going every day, that’s after returning stateside anyway.

Well, um, let’s see, uh, gee, I don’t want to really get the guys I heard it from sent back again or put on even worse duty, so it’s just going to be hearsay or rumors from my end. I know some stuff is going to come out in the next few weeks with some orders or papers, almost iron clad, that will force active duty soldiers to extend contracts or go to a unit deploying to Iraq. Some threats are being made and it will get in the news, mark my words, it will be exposed, they will not stand down in the active ranks, not on this stuff.

I can’t really say more than that, I won’t say stuff I really don’t see myself or know was said to a man I trust. Rumors run through this army like dysentery so I won’t make up any or further some that might not be valid. I said things that will be proven in the near future. Check the media; check the failure to report figures by the end of September. It will be there and they will have to make it a news event.

Interviewer: You want to say anything else today?

DS: No, I’m done. This might be it for me. I have a few more things in mind, and I’ll call. If I don’t this is good enough. I had my say; I will stand by what I believe is right.

Interviewer: Thank you, if you call again we’ll finish with whatever you want to say, if not it will stand as is.

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

September, 15 - Final Interview

On September 5th he called one last time. I was completely taken by surprise because I had not expected to be contacted again. After the first few days of not hearing anything I was pretty sure he was done, he had said a whole lot for a man of his strong convictions. One further note was that the phone was to be turned off and deactivated the next day. He called while I was fighting Hurricane Francis down in Florida.

Interviewer: Yeah, CFTM, this is Jay Shaft. Who is this?

DS: Hey, I had to call back once more time. I said I would. It’s safe, it’s all right to talk. I am almost ready to go on a vacation tomorrow. I told you I might call you back.

Interviewer: Oh, man, are you serious? Are you safe and can you talk freely? Nobody is there with you making you call or anything?

DS: Relax and take it easy. You are way too paranoid, what a pain in the ass. I’m fine and no one is with me now. It’s okay to talk to me. You do want to talk to me still right?

Interviewer: Yeah, oh yeah, I just didn’t expect to ever hear from you again. I waited a few days and then I figured you wouldn’t call. Damn man I was turning the phone off tomorrow and ditching it. Oh damn, I almost missed out on this one.

DS: Well I am not going to be long. I really have made my mind up. I will not be there when my name gets called. Put me down as disappeared soldier, hey I like that, that works, Disappeared Soldier. That will be me and hundreds more that I know will not show up. Failure to report for an assigned duty or emergency call up order. Fine, but I won’t be in Iraq, and no one will die because I killed them, or didn’t try to kill them. I won’t have to make the choice to fire my weapon into a crowd. I won’t be there to do something that is wrong.

Just watch what happens right before the election. Watch what happens. You’ll see. Just call me gone. The disappeared soldier signing out. Hah Hah!

Bye bye, friend, stay safe yourself while you do this stuff. Thanks for this one, it did me good, and you watch your butt man. You keep fighting for us and telling the world our story. We can’t do it, we won’t fight this war, and we won’t do it for these sorry leaders we have. You never really knew me, but this might let everyone out there know who I really am.

I was proud when I was a Soldier defending this country. Nothing I did in Iraq had anything to do with that. My duty was not to be over there then first time, and it won’t ever be again. Nope, not me.

Be safe all you soldiers going and coming, I love you. Be safe and get peace Iraq, I love you too.

Bye Jay.

Interviewer: Bye, I don’t know what to say but be safe. God speed what ever you choose to do. I pray for your safety and you can get those folks that help to get you if it is needed. I can’t really say anything else, this is the most overwhelming interview I have ever done.

Thanks, I hope I can call you friend one day. You are a hero of a sort that is not easy to understand. Maybe the right people will understand and get the point you were trying to get across. There is nothing nice or pure about this war anymore. I have to go I am really sick. I need to go to the hospital real soon.

DS: Oh, okay, well I hope you are okay. You all right?

Interviewer: I hope so, I have a really nasty infection in my leg. No problems because I will hold off on putting this out for about two weeks.

DS: Okay, got to go. Bye. Peace. Get better.

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

Published Monday, September 20th, 2004

Jay Shaft is a freelance writer, and the editor for the independent news group Coalition For Free Thought In Media.

He has conducted many interviews with soldiers who have served in Iraq, in which service members exposed the issues of the military's failure to provide proper equipment and training to USA troops, and he has been on the forefront of investigating the price that soldiers are paying as a result.

He has also published many letters and interviews from parents speaking out against the death or injury of their children serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Contact Jay Shaft: coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia@yahoo.com.

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Article.Interview with a Dissapeared Soldier

2005-03-16T10:46:00.000-08:00

Analysis,Classic Guerilla War Forming

2005-03-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Classic guerrilla war forming in Iraq
By: Brad Knickerbocker on: 20.09.2004

War is never by the books. Adversaries learn and adapt. The political climate shifts on both sides. Loyalties and alliances couple and decouple. The civilian populace - caught in the crossfire - often remains passive just to survive.

To many experts, the conflict in Iraq has entered a new phase that resembles a classic guerrilla war with US forces now involved in counterinsurgency. And despite the lack of ideological cohesion among insurgent groups, history suggests that it could take as long as a decade to defeat them.

"Guerrilla warfare is the most underrated and the most successful form of warfare in human history," says Ivan Eland, a specialist on national security at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. "It is a defensive type of war against a foreign invader. If the guerrillas don't lose, they win. The objective is to wait out your opponent until he goes home."

From the Filipino insurrection during the Spanish-American War to Vietnam to El Salvador, American troops have had plenty of experience in fighting home-grown enemies that look nothing like a conventional army. As have France in Algeria, Britain in Malaysia and Northern Ireland, Israel in the occupied territories.

Though "counterinsurgency" calls up memories of Vietnam, there may be as many differences as similarities.

Different from Vietnam

Iraqi insurgents have no means of deploying battalion-size forces, as North Vietnam and the Viet Cong did with help from the former Soviet Union. Iraq won't become a proxy conflict between superpowers, as the Vietnam War was. There is a heavy criminal dimension to the violence in Iraq, just as there has been in Algeria, Colombia, and Chechnya. And there is unlikely to be a negotiated resolution as long as Iraq is seen as part of the broader war on terrorism.

Still, Iraqi insurgents have the advantage of terrain - not jungles but an urban setting. They appear to have at least the passive support of many Iraqis. It's often difficult to tell the fighters from innocent civilians. And they try to force American forces to overreact, causing civilian casualties and consequent outrage.

"No two insurgencies are alike," says retired Army Col. Dan Smith of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. "Except that they are violent affairs in which noncombatants tend to suffer most and national infrastructure tends to be destroyed."

Since early April, when the health ministry in Baghdad began keeping figures, some 3,200 civilians (not including Iraqi police or insurgents) have been killed - some in terrorist attacks, some by the US-led coalition. On average, insurgents now are attacking US forces 87 times a day. More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped, and some 30 of those killed. Attacks on oil pipelines are occurring nearly every day now.

Four insurgencies

In fact, Iraq at the moment has four simultaneous insurgencies: Sunni tribalists, former Saddam regime loyalists, fighters loyal to anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and foreign jihadists.

"Most importantly, the insurgents haven't made much effort to develop a coherent political program or identify a leadership," says Professor Steven Metz of the US Army War College. "I see this as their most serious weakness."

Still, they do have a common enemy: those they see as foreign occupiers, not liberators.

Within the US military, much of the debate over how to deal with insurgencies revolves around one assertion: "No more Vietnams."

Army Lt. Col. Robert Cassidy, who has served in Iraq and is now stationed in Germany, notes that the US military "has had a host of successful experiences in counterguerrilla war, including some distinct successes with certain aspects of the Vietnam War."

But, he writes in a recent issue of the Army journal Parameters, "Because the experience was perceived as anathema to the mainstream American military, hard lessons learned there about fighting guerrillas were neither embedded nor preserved in the US Army's institutional memory."

How to win: the hard lessons

"Unconventional war" in fact has been studied, trained for, and practiced for more than 40 years. But fighting guerrillas doesn't necessarily allow for the best use of the largest, most technologically advanced armed force in human history. Nor does it always address the real basis for defeating an insurgency, which rests more on political, cultural, and economic factors. Other militarily dominant countries have learned this as well.

"In many aspects, the French counterinsurgency effort typified the frustrations faced by modern powers in a classic unconventional conflict," states a US Marine Corps training document. "Like the US in Vietnam, the French in Algeria were unable to transform military successes (of which there were many) into a political victory."

Challenges for US forces

Defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute sees two basic defects in the US-led counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq today.

"First, policymakers wrongly assume that Sunni Arabs can be induced to join in a democratic government where they are assured of permanent minority status," says Dr. Thompson, who supported the US invasion of Iraq. "Second, policymakers insist on viewing violence through the prism of the war on global terrorism, which obscures the sources of conflict and requirements for victory." Thompson's controversial answer would be to partition Iraq into three countries: Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab, and Kurd.

That US military planners did not adequately plan for an organized Iraqi resistance that would become an insurgency reflects a way of thinking that has often afflicted governments and militaries, says RAND Corp. analyst Bruce Hoffman, who spent a month this year in Baghdad advising the Coalition Provisional Authority on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.

Problem unleashed

What this amounts to, writes Dr. Hoffman in a recent RAND paper, is "the failure not only to recognize the incipient conditions for insurgency, but also to ignore its nascent manifestations and arrest its growth before it is able to gain initial traction and in turn momentum."

With the insurgency apparently gaining traction and momentum, such criticisms now are coming from prominent Republicans in Congress. "The lack of planning is apparent," Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana said last week. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) Nebraska, a decorated infantry squad leader in Vietnam, says the recently announced shifting of reconstruction funds to security is "an acknowledgment that we are in deep trouble."

Classified British documents, reported in the Daily Telegraph newspaper over the weekend, warned a year before the invasion of Iraq that even if a democratic government could be created there, "it would require the US and others to commit to nation-building for many years" and that this would "entail a substantial international security force."

What a few can do

Even if the insurgents dwindle to a handful of terrorists, their impact on security and stability in Iraq could far outweigh their numbers. RAND's Hoffman points out that just 20-30 members of the Baader Meinhof Gang terrorized the former West Germany for two decades; 50-75 Red Brigadists did the same in Italy; and some 200-400 IRA gunmen and bombers required the prolonged deployment of tens of thousands of British troops in Northern Ireland.

Is it possible to prevail over the Iraqi insurgency?

First, says John Pike of the group GlobalSecurity.org, enemy combatants must be killed, captured, or demoralized faster than new ones can be recruited, and the majority of the population must come to see the insurgency as illegitimate and its defeat as inevitable.

It's a tough job, one that's likely to take years - as long as 10 years, says Dr. Metz at the Army War College. And the outcome is by no means assured.

"The government must appear to be legitimate, inevitable, and effective at providing security and services," says Mr. Pike. "As long as Iran does not stir the pot, these objectives could be approached by the end of this decade, with luck."
Source The Christian Science Monitor link

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Analysis.U.S Media Coverups War Crimes

2005-03-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

US media covers up American war crimes in Iraq
By: Barry Grey on: 17.09.2004

Every day, US military forces in Iraq are attacking civilian populations in a calculated effort to drown a growing popular insurgency in blood. But one would hardly know the dimensions or brutality of the atrocities being carried out in the name of the American people from the sparse and sanitized coverage provided by the major press and broadcast outlets that purport to disseminate “the news.”

The US media—owned and controlled by a handful of huge corporate conglomerates—play an indispensable role in the mass murder of Iraqi men, women and children. Together with the Bush administration and the two major parties of US imperialism—the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate John Kerry, no less than their Republican rivals—the media are complicit in a crime against humanity of immense proportions, one that dwarfs any crimes committed by the various political leaders who have been targeted for destruction by the American ruling elite in recent years: from Panama’s Noriega, to Serbia’s Milosevic, to Saddam Hussein himself.

One can stare at the 24-hour cable news networks from sunup to sundown and get no sense of the carnage in towns and cities from Baghdad, to Fallujah, to Ramadi, to Hilla in the south and Tal Afar in the north that is left in the wake of US rockets, bombs, tank shells and sniper rounds. The evening news reports of the major networks provide at most a fleeting image of the death and destruction, inevitably hedged with absurd avowals from the US military that “precision” attacks were carried out against “terrorist” and “anti-Iraqi” targets.

As for the press, one day’s front-page report of US helicopter attacks on unarmed civilians or air strikes against urban centers is eclipsed the next day by the latest hurricane threat or new poll numbers on the upcoming election—an election in which no discussion of the legitimacy of the US subjugation of Iraq or the real war aims behind the bogus ones used to promote the war is permitted.

No country’s media is more cowardly, or more artful in churning out the official line and excluding any serious criticism or analysis, than that of the USA. It would be absurd to hold up the British media as a model of conscientious and objective reporting, but even there, articles occasionally appear that provide some insight into the reality of the situation in Iraq.

The Guardian newspaper, for example, on Tuesday carried an eyewitness account on its front page of the American helicopter attack on unarmed Iraqis that occurred Sunday in central Baghdad. Thirteen Iraqis were killed and dozens were wounded when US copters repeatedly fired rockets into a crowd that had gathered around a disabled American armored vehicle on Haifa Street, near the Green Zone that houses the US and British embassies and the offices of Washington’s puppet government.

For the benefit of our readers around the world, and especially in the US, we give here some excerpts from the chilling and tragic account provided by Guardian columnist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was himself wounded while covering the US assault.

Abdul-Ahad describes at least four separate rocket strikes by American helicopters against the unarmed Iraqis—documenting that the helicopters returned several times to fire on those seeking to remove the dead and wounded from the first missile strike.

“When I was 50 m away I heard a couple of explosions and another cloud of dust rose across the street from where the first column of smoke was still climbing,” he writes. “People started running towards me in waves. A man wearing an orange overall was sweeping the street while others were running. A couple of helicopters in the sky overhead turned away.”

He runs for cover, and then: “A few seconds later, I heard people screaming and shouting—something must have happened—and I headed towards the sounds, still crouching behind a wall. Two newswire photographers were running in the opposite direction and we exchanged eye contact.

“About 20 m ahead of me, I could see the American Bradley armoured vehicle, a huge monster with fire rising from within. It stood alone, its doors open, burning. I stopped, took a couple of photos and crossed the street towards a bunch of people. Some were lying in the street, others stood around them. The helicopters were still buzzing, but further off now.”

The reporter continues: “I felt uneasy and exposed in the middle of the street, but lots of civilians were around me. A dozen men formed a circle around five injured people, all of whom were screaming and wailing.”

Abdul-Ahad’s belief that the presence of so many unarmed civilians afforded protection from a further US strike was shattered in short order. “I had been standing there taking pictures for two or three minutes when we heard the helicopters coming back. Everyone started running, and I didn’t look back to see what was happening to the injured men. We were all rushing towards the same place: a fence, a block of buildings and a prefab concrete cube used as a cigarette stall.

“I had just reached the corner of the cube when I heard two explosions. I felt hot air blast my face and something burning on my head. I crawled to the cube and hid behind it. Six of us were squeezed into a space less than two metres wide. Blood started dripping on my camera but all that I could think about was how to keep the lens clean. A man in his 40s next to me was crying. He wasn’t injured, he was just crying.

“I was so scared I just wanted to squeeze myself against the wall. The helicopters wheeled overhead, and I realised that they were firing directly at us.”

The helicopters moved away, and the reporter went back onto the street to record the carnage and help the wounded and dying. Then: “More kids ventured into the street, looking with curiosity at the dead and injured. Then someone shouted ‘Helicopters!’ and we ran. I turned and saw two small helicopters, black and evil. Frightened, I ran back to my shelter where I heard two more big explosions.... I reached a building entrance when someone grabbed my arm and took me inside. ‘There’s an injured man. Take pictures—show the world the American democracy,’ he said.”

It is hardly necessary to point out that no major US media outlet has taken note of the Guardian’s damning account of Sunday’s bloodletting in the center of Baghdad. Most US newspapers on Tuesday relegated to their inside pages news reports of yet another round of US air and artillery attacks on Fallujah, carried out Monday.

The Iraqi Health Ministry said 20 were killed and 39 wounded in the strikes. Aljazeera reported that those killed included the driver of an ambulance and six passengers, whose vehicle was struck by a jet-fired missile near the northern gate of the city. “Every time we send out an ambulance, it gets targeted,” the director of the Fallujah hospital told the Arab newspaper.

Aljazeera also reported that US missiles destroyed three homes in the city’s al-Shurta neighborhood, American shells hit a market place, and US tanks fired on homes in the al-Jughaivi neighborhood near the city’s northern gate.

The Washington Post, in a page-19 article, noted the attacks on Fallujah neighborhoods and the ambulance fatalities, but reported without comment the official US line that the attacks were directed against a “suspected hideout” of associates of Abu Musab Zarqawi. It printed the Goebbels-like handout from the US military: “Based on the analysis of these intelligence reports, Iraqi Security Forces and multi-national forces effectively and accurately targeted these terrorists while protecting the lives of innocent civilians.”

The New York Times ran a front-page commentary focused not on the death and suffering being inflicted on the Iraqi people, but rather on the danger that the US military’s bloodletting against insurgent towns could backfire. It warned of the “classic dilemma faced by governments battling guerrilla movements: ease up, and the insurgency may grow; crack down, and risk losing the support of the population.”

This description is itself a cynical deception, as the Times well knows. The very fact that the US feels obliged to step up the slaughter and target civilian populations testifies to the fact that Washington and its stooge government are hated and despised by the Iraqi masses. Talk of a risk of “losing the support of the population” is an attempt to maintain the myth that the anti-US resistance is the work of a small minority of Baathist “hard-liners” and foreign terrorists, and the equally absurd claim that the US is in Iraq to establish “democracy.”

In reality, the US media’s disinformation operation is among the most striking and significant expressions of the collapse of American democracy.
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Article.One Mans Resistance

2005-03-16T10:05:00.000-08:00

'There is no greater shame than to see your country occupied'

Early one morning this week, when the police have yet to set up too many checkpoints, Abu Mujahed will strap a mortar underneath a car, drive to a friend's in central Baghdad and bury the weapon in his garden. In the evening he will return with the rest of his group, sleep for a few hours and then take the weapon from its hiding place. He will calculate the range using the American military's own maps and satellite pictures - bought in a bazaar - and fire a few rounds at a military base or the US Embassy or at the Iraqi Prime Minister's office. Then Abu Mujahed will shower, change and, by 10am, be at his desk in one of the major ministries.

Last week he sat in a Baghdad hotel speaking to The Observer. A chubby man in his thirties with a shaven head, a brown sports shirt, slacks and a belt with a cheap fake-branded buckle, he gave a chilling account of his life fighting 'the occupation'. He talked for more than three hours and revealed:

· How his resistance group, comprising self-taught Sunni Muslim Iraqis, is almost completely independent, choosing targets and timings themselves, but occasionally receiving broad strategic directions from a religious 'sheikh' most of them have never met.

· How it is funded by Iraqis in Europe, including the UK, and from wealthy sympathisers in Saudi Arabia.

· How it has rejected any alliance with al-Qaeda affiliated 'foreign fighters' and Shia militia.

· How it receives intelligence from 'friends' within the coalition forces.

· How it runs a counter-intelligence operation that has resulted in the execution of two suspected spies in recent weeks.

· How it is learning increasingly sophisticated techniques and plans to detonate big bombs in Baghdad soon.

He also spoke about the difficulties of continuing security operations against them and admitted that many Iraqis do not support their actions. Much of Abu Mujahed's account is corroborated by various independent sources.

Intelligence experts in Iraq talk of three main types of insurgent. There is the Mahdi Army of Shia Muslims who follow the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and have led recent resistance to coalition forces in northern Baghdad, the central shrine city of Najaf, and Basra, the southern port under British control. There is also 'al-Qaeda' - non-Iraqi militants who have come to Iraq to wage jihad. And finally the 'former regime loyalists', who are said to want the return of Saddam Hussein or, if that is impossible, his Baath party.

Abu Mujahed, worryingly for the analysts, fits into none of these easy categories. For a start, he was pro-American before the invasion. 'The only way to breathe under the old regime was to watch American films and listen to their music,' he said. He had been a Bon Jovi fan.

'It gave me a glimpse of a better life. When I heard that the Americans were coming to liberate Iraq I was very happy. I felt that I would be able to live well, travel and have freedom. I wanted to do more sport, get new appliances and a new car and develop my life. I thought the US would come here and our lives would be changed through 180 degrees.'

He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.

'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.

Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'

He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.'

Nothing had been planned in advance. There has been speculation, and especially among American officials, that Saddam's henchmen had planned a 'guerrilla war' if defeated. But Abu Mujahed, who described himself as 'a Muslim but not religious', and the others in his group were not working to any plan. Everything they did was improvised. And each of his seven-man group had a different motive: 'One man was fighting for his nation, another for a principle, another for his faith.'

Significantly, his group contains several former soldiers, angry at the controversial demobilisation of the Iraqi military by the coalition last year. Others, like Abu Mujahed, have salaried government jobs. The cell is not part of any broader organisation and does not have a name, he said. 'We are just local people ... There is a sheikh who co-ordinates some of the various groups but I do not know who he is.'

To start with, the group lacked armaments and know-how. 'We made some careful inquiries. Some people gave us weapons, others sold us stuff they had looted,' he said. The group also sought out experts, often former military officers, who gave impromtu tutorials in bomb-making and communications .

The group's first operation - in June last year - was an attempted ambush of three US soldiers in Adhamiya. It was a fiasco. 'We were so confused and scared we opened fire at random,' Abu Mujahed said. 'They took cover and we ran away.'

Their next try was more successful. The lead vehicle of an American military convoy ran over an anti-tank mine the group had laid in a road. 'We think we killed the driver,' he said. 'We found the mine in a house that had been used by the military during the war. The Americans were not expecting that sort of device.'

Over the next months the group varied the tactics. 'One day we try and snipe them, the next we use an IED Improvised Explosive Device, the next a mine. We never get any orders from anybody. We are just told: "Today you should do something," but it is up to us to decide what and when.'

Black soldiers are a particular target. 'To have Negroes occupying us is a particular humiliation,' Abu Mujahed said, echoing the profound racism prevalent in much of the Middle East. 'Sometimes we aborted a mission because there were no Negroes.'

In contrast to many militants, who have killed hundreds of Iraqis in the last year, Abu Mujahed said his group was careful not to kill locals. 'We are now planning to use bigger bombs in central Baghdad. But it is hard because there are so many civilians.' Support for the militants is far from universal. They are not attracting new recruits and finances are tight, he admitted.

'We used to be able to use banks and bank transfers. Now it is harder,' Abu Mujahed said. 'Often sympathisers buy cars in Saudi Arabia or Jordan and we get them driven to Baghdad or Basra and we sell them. A supporter in the UK has recently sent an Opel pick-up. But most of our money comes from local people who support what we do but can't fight themselves.'

Tactics depend on resources. The price of rocket-propelled grenades has gone up recently as supplies dried up during August's heavy fighting between Americans and the Mahdi Army in Najaf. The missiles now cost 25,000 Iraqi dinars (around £10) in markets in Sadr City, the northern Shia Muslim-dominated area of Baghdad - 10 times the immediate post-war price. The group is restricted to one attack every few days.

There are also spies. He boasted of information from 'friends within the coalition' and said that his group have executed two suspected informers within Adhamiya. One was killed less than three weeks ago, after being under surveillance for a month. 'He had a wife and child but I did not feel bad. He was a fox. He was made to kneel and shot in the head.' Other suspected spies have been threatened and fled Baghdad.

Western intelligence analysts worry that various resistance elements might combine. But Abu Mujahed dismissed the Mahdi Army as 'thugs and traitors who ... welcomed the Americans to Iraq with flowers and then went looting' and said that relations with Islamic militants coming from overseas are worse.

'Some have no allegiance to any group, others have so much money they must come from al-Qaeda. It is impossible to work with them. They are bloody people, far too irrational. They do not care if they kill innocent Iraqi people. They are terrorists.'

Last week US military casualties in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, most killed since the end of the war by the actions of men like Abu Mujahed. The former engineering student said he does not know how many his group has killed: 'It is impossible to say what has been hit. I could boast of killing maybe 25, but to be honest we don't know,' he said. 'Maybe only five or six.'

'I know the soldiers have no choice about coming here and all have a family and friends,' he added. His justification for the struggle was an inconsistent mix of political and economic grievances and wounded pride: 'We are under occupation. They bomb the mosques, they kill a huge number of people. There is no greater shame than to see your country being occupied.'

He dismissed the interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, as 'the Americans' Barbie doll' but then says that if everyone had 'full bellies' no one would fight.

'Iraqis' top priority is to provide a good living for their families. I take home less than 250,000 ID (£100) a month and I have four children. I have to pay the rent, doctor's bills, my wife needs something, my house needs something. And a kilo of chicken costs 2,500 ID.'

'The US or the UK are not my enemy. I know that any individual US or UK citizen is very good, but we will keep fighting the occupying forces. We have no choice.'

And with that he left. The Observer was told not to contact him again.
Jason Burke.The Observer link

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Analysis,One Mans Resistance

2005-03-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

Analysis.Hiding the Bodies

2005-03-16T09:48:00.000-08:00

Hiding the bodies
by Jeff Horwitz
Sept. 8, 2004

During August, Iraqi insurgents proved themselves more capable of inflicting casualties on American troops than ever before. Sixty-six American soldiers were killed and more than 1,100 were wounded, according to information released by the Department of Defense. But even with extensive coverage of the intense conflict in Najaf last month, the U.S. media was relatively quiet about the cost of battle to U.S. soldiers.

That cost has been steadily rising for months, says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank in Washington specializing in military and international security issues. "The amount of combat that U.S. soldiers are seeing is going up, but the amount of combat the American public is seeing is going down," he says. "Iraq has almost turned into the forgotten war — it's just faded into the background."

The news on Tuesday of crossing the 1,000 marker for U.S. fatalities in Iraq has brought the conflict back into the headlines, at least temporarily. But since the transfer of power to Ayad Allawi's interim Iraqi government in June, deaths and casualties have risen every month: August was the bloodiest month in the conflict so far. A week into September, the situation looks no calmer; at least 14 soldiers have died in the last three days.

The steady rise in U.S. casualties can't be helpful to Bush's reelection campaign — which continues to stick to its message that the overall situation in Iraq is improving — and could have an impact on the homestretch of the election. To that end, Pike believes that Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense is being "economical with the truth" in order to downplay the increasing casualties. "The numbers they release are the smallest possible numbers that cover the most restricted possible definition," he says. "And they are being released as late as possible."

Salon reached Pike by phone on Tuesday at his office in Washington.

What is Global Security's assessment of the rate of U.S. casualties in Iraq during August?

By our calculation, it was the bloodiest month of the war. And as for why, well, the short answer is that we just don't know. CENTCOM presumably has a much better idea, but Secretary Rumsfeld only addressed it in very general terms on Tuesday. It appears that a significant chunk of the casualties were from the siege in Najaf, where the enemy were firing mortar rounds at our troops, who were out in the open. The theory is that the shrapnel from those mortar rounds would produce a lot of wounds, but relatively fewer fatalities.

I think that this substantial increase in the number of battle injuries is really indicative of how intense the siege of Najaf was.

The media was largely focused on Najaf, but wasn't the fighting more widespread?

Well, things have since cooled down in Najaf, but yes, they've been heating up pretty good in other locations. Now Sadr City is looking bad. And the Marines in Fallujah are really hurting again. They had a bad day Tuesday in Fallujah with another suicide car bomb.

What do you think the impact will be of the news that more than 1,000 American soldiers have now died in Iraq?

I think it will refocus public attention on the costs of the war, and I hope it will refocus public attention on what can be done over the longer run to reduce this cost to Americans. Because the war has really receded in the mass media. The amount of coverage of the war has gone way down in the last several months.

The amount of combat that the soldiers are seeing is going up, but the amount of combat the American public is seeing is going down. Iraq has almost turned into the forgotten war - it's just faded into the background.

Your new report predicts an even worse month for casualties in September.

Yes, there's been an upward trend in American deaths in Iraq for each of the last three months; each one's been worse that the previous one. And it looks like September's going to be worse that August. The battle injuries were really bad last month, and it may get worse before it gets better.

We're projecting what the number of fatalities for the month of September will be based on what we've seen to date. And as of today, the 7th, we've already had 23 deaths this month. If the rest of the month looks like the first week, then it looks like we'll have as many as 100 dead this month, making it the second worst month of the war.

What's your view of how the Bush administration is currently handling the situation in Iraq?

Well, of course the administration is going to try to highlight the good news that is coming out of Iraq. The good news is that they are starting to spend reconstruction money, that they are equipping Iraqi forces, and that those Iraqi forces are standing up. More and more Iraqi troops are fighting for their own country so that we don't have to do it for them.

But are they being forthright about the rate of U.S. casualties?

I think if you look at the information being released, you can see all types of information not being covered. The Army gives out casualty evacuation numbers; the Marine Corps does not. And there's very little information being given out on combat stress casualties. The Army gives out information on how many psychiatric evaluations they've had from the war theater, but some significant multiple of that number must be in the combat stress care system in the theater. But they'd only evacuate somebody due to combat stress if all else failed. So we're getting an extremely incomplete portrait of what the human cost to American soldiers has been.

Why has it been so difficult to get good numbers?

Because they're not releasing clear numbers. They can choose what information they release and what information they withhold. And I think it would be in their interest to minimize the amount of information they are releasing, because otherwise it would be bad for troop morale, it would be bad for morale with the troops' families - and it would be bad for the morale of the American people.

It might also be bad, of course, for the president's reelection efforts. I've gotten some e-mail from people who support the president's reelection who accused me of drawing attention to this number in order to hurt the president's chances. They felt I came up with the wrong answer.

But I think that the Department of Defense is being economical with the truth. The numbers they release are the smallest possible numbers that cover the most restricted possible definition, and they are being released as late as possible. So I think they're telling us the truth, but I think they are very far from telling us the whole truth.

While a high number of U.S. casualties occurred in Najaf in August, the Pentagon news releases suggest that there were significant casualties in other regions as well. What does that tell us?

It's hard to assess. The problem that you've got with al Anbar (the region including the notorious Sunni Triangle) is that it's Marine territory, and the Marines aren't going to tell you squat. The Army is a fountain of data compared to the Marines. And if you look at an Army death announcement, they'll tell you what unit the deceased was associated with, where it happened, when it happened, and how it happened. The Marine death announcement is that a Marine attached to "First Mar. Div" was killed as a result of enemy action in al Anbar province. Period. That's all they're going to tell you. That one of their Marines got killed. And that's it. And if you look at the evacuation numbers, the evacuation numbers are just for Army. The Marines won't release anything like that.

What else do you see that's wrong with the U.S. military's system of accounting for casualties?

No one's really bothered to ask whether U.S. soldiers have died after they are evacuated. No one's ever asked that question, or at least, no one's ever gotten a straight answer for that question.

I talked to another reporter who covers the Marines earlier today, and he said that the Marines just won't talk about it. They just will not answer the question. "No comment" is all they'll say. When asked why they're not releasing medical evacuation numbers, they say "because we're not."

How did you come up with your report?

Basically, we compile the information that the Defense Department releases. Their news releases announce the name of somebody who has been killed or died in Iraq. Central Command or the Marines will put out a news release when someone has died, but before they have been named. The Washington headquarters service at the Pentagon puts out monthly summary statistics. We compile those. The Army surgeon general puts out statistics on medical evacuees, and we compile those.

We are simply attempting to compile in one place all of the numbers and information that the military is putting out. We can see all of the different places where their numbers don't quite fit together. We can see all of the different places where one agency is giving out one set of numbers, and another agency is giving out a different set of numbers with a different definition. The picture they present is incomplete, and at times, difficult to reconcile.

There are a dozen deaths from April that still need to be cleared up.

The presidential election is two months away. How much is partisanship a factor here?

What, are you suggesting that there's politics in Washington?

War is an inherently political undertaking, and politicians are the ones responsible for managing that undertaking. And they have to take into account what the American people will think of their stewardship of that responsibility. And I think the fact that we're coming up on one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in living memory has certainly sharpened everyone's focus on this.
Source.Salon link

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Analysis,al Sadr a Voice of Resistance

2005-03-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

08/28/04 "ICH" — Immediately after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US and its allies embarked on a long colonial tradition of divide and rule. The creation of the “Iraqi Governing Council” on ethnic and sectarian divisions is a good example. Iraqis know this very well. The current “Iraqi Interim Government” is a gang of expatriate criminals and quislings. This division is the US prelude to instigate civil war between Iraqis and justify US Occupation of Iraq.

The Iraqi people did not “welcome” the occupying forces. It was a carefully staged lie. Iraqis bitterly resent the occupation forces. After the fall of Baghdad and the emergence of the nature of the Occupation, opposition and resistance to US forces was instant.

The Iraqi resistance groups varied, some are former soldiers and unemployed professionals and workers but others are religious leaders with local and family influence. They spread throughout the country. Although, these groups are not centrally linked, almost all of them shared an enthusiastic devotion to Islam and an enthusiastic rejection of the US-British Occupation of Iraq. The rise of Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr is a good example.

Contrary to Western liberals and pundits, Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr is not a “marginal leader”. Muqtada was born and lives in Iraq, and has large following among Iraqis. Muqtada draws on the respect and legacy of his family. Muqtada’s father, Imam Muhammad Sadiq Al-Sadr who was loved and respected for his opposition to the regime of Saddam Hussein was assassinated with his two other sons in Najaf in 1999. Muqtada is also the son-in-law of Imam Muhammad Bakir Al-Sadr. Imam Bakir Al-Sadr was executed in 1980 for his opposition to Saddam’s regime. The family is well respected among Iraqis and Muslims worldwide. It is important to remember that Sayyid Muqtada did not live in exile during Saddam’s regime.

Unlike Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Muqtada Al-Sadr is not controlled by outside forces, such as Iran. Sistani is an Iranian citizen and draws much of his support from Iran. Sistani has good following in Najaf, but very little support in the rest of Iraq. Ayatollah Sistani is like Ayatollah Khomeini who lived in Najaf for many years, and remained unknown to Iraqis until his departure to Iran in 1979. Sistani is promoted by the Occupation authority because of his quietness to the Occupation. He is like a small UN, that is why the US like him. His departure to London, escorted by Ahmad Chalabi, before the US attack on Najaf shows his real concern for Iraqis. His “illness” couldn’t come at a better moment. Bush and Blair must be dancing to the tune of his silence. At least he will show them how peace can be achieved without blood when he returns to Iraq.

The dismantling of the Iraqi state by the US Occupation forced Al-Sadr movement to organise and fill the power vacuum. The movement of young urban and dedicated grassroots Iraqis began providing social and health services and security for neighbourhoods. In a report issued in September 2003, the Belgium-based International Crisis Group credits Al-Sadr's movement for keeping the peace in poor Shiite sections of Baghdad after the fall of Saddam’s regime. ”Within weeks of the regime's collapse, Al-Sadr's representatives claimed to have employed 50,000 volunteers in east Baghdad to provide refuse collection, hospital meals and traffic control,” the report says.

Western media continues using the distorted and misleading terms of calling Muqtada Al-Sadr, “radical cleric”, and Iraqis who are resisting the occupation “militia men”. The media should report honestly instead and show the ugly picture of US violence in Iraq. The sickening lies perpetuated by The New York Times and The Washington Post are shameful.

The allegation that Muqtada Al-Sadr is supported by Iran is unfounded and untrue. Iran and Iraq are neighbours, and shared cultural and religious ties. The people of both countries welcome good relations.

Muqtada call to armed resistance against the US Occupation after he has exhausted the peaceful methods of democratic elections, and protested against the US violence and undermining of democratic means. The US Occupation Authority provoked Al-Sadr movement by closing the Al-Hawza, the movement newspaper, which sparked a wave of peaceful demonstrations and distribution of anti-Occupation information. The US forces violently attacked Al-Sadr followers and arrested many of them, including Al-Sadr communications officer. Thousands of innocent people were killed as a result of US violence. The Mahdi Army is the movement-armed resistance fighting the Occupation forces.

Muqtada was the first to denounce the Occupation and acknowledge publicly that the Americans were in Iraq to stay and rob the country of its wealth. Muqtada is also the first to announce that the Americans and their allies must be expelled by force from Iraq. Muqtada, like all Iraqis, has a legitimate right under international law to denounce and resist the Occupation. More than 800% of Iraqis view Muqtada Al-Sadr favourably and his popularity is rising, thanks to American terrorism.

The Occupation forces and their quislings tried to co-opt Muqtada Al-Sadr, but he refused to support the appointed thugs and the US Occupation. Muqtada said that there could be no ordinary politics under Occupation. He said Iraq must be free of all Occupation and of the authority of collaborators with the Occupation.

The indiscriminate attacks on Kut, Samara, Hilla, and Fallujah and other cities in Iraq show the brutality of a racist and fascist force eager to enforce its corrupt rules on the people of Iraq. The destruction of Iraqi cities and infrastructure is reminiscent of that of Genghis Khan in the Middle Ages. Water and electricity have been cut off in Iraq for a week, leaving the remaining civilians there in dire straits. Is this the freedom and democracy the US is selling? The Occupation brought only miseries to Iraqis.

The attack on Najaf, the holiest city in Iraq, was designed to silence the majority of Iraqis, and legitimise an unelected group of thugs and criminals picked up by the US to serve its interests in Iraq against the interests of the Iraqi People. It is an attack on human civilisation by the forces of evil.

Najaf is visited by Muslims from all over the world. It is in Najaf where Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib, the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammad, was buried. The Imam Ali shrine is the most sacred place in Iraq. For more than a week, US forces have besieged and attacked Najaf with bombs and shells. The Americans should be ashamed of their fascist government.

The Americans are not in Iraq to promote democracy. The US is the enemy of democracy and democratic movements in the Developing World. You only need to look around you to see how brutally the US attacking democracy. There are plenty of examples. Democracy means the people (Iraqis or South Americans) managing their own affairs and wealth. Democracy means independence and sovereignty. Iraqis do not need the type of democracy the US promoted by the power of tanks and cluster bombs. The US is not a good example to emulate; the US is a failed experiment.

Finally, the recent sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq are not the product of deep-seated cultural differences. They are the product of Western imperialism and colonialism in the Middle East. The only path for peaceful world is for the US to follow the path of civilised nations and stop acting violently and unjustly. The only path to peace is to end the occupation of Iraq. Iraqis must be free from US tyranny.
Source.ICH link

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Analysis,Unifying Factor Across Iraq

2005-03-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

A unifying factor across Iraq
By: Pepe Escobar on: 17.08.2004

"I advise the dictatorial, agent government to resign ... Iraqi people demand the resignation of the government ... they US replaced Saddam with a government worse than him."''- Muqtada al-Sadr, August 13

Imagine a Muslim army about to bomb the Vatican with the help of a few Christian mercenaries while the Pope is away, recovering from an angioplasty in London and silent about the whole drama. This is roughly what is happening in Najaf, Iraq, where the forces of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the United States stand eyeball to eyeball pending a "final showdown".

First, let's take a look at where the main players currently stand. Contrary to widespread media perception, Muqtada is not a punk: he is probably one of the most popular figures in the complex Iraqi political spectrum, certainly at the grassroot Shi'ite level. During the first American siege of Najaf four months ago, his popularity was reported to be above 90%. The second-most popular figure in the country now may be Shi'ite religious eminence Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, although he positions himself as apolitical. As for the American-imposed Prime Minister (over a virtual parliament) Iyad Allawi, his popularity would be somewhere in single-digit territory. He essentially represents no Iraqis.

Pierre-Jean Luizard, a researcher at the elite French think-tank CNRS and a Middle East specialist, believes that Muqtada may have been forced by events to occupy this crucial historic role and may not even be fully aware of the awesome implications; but today he offers to most Iraqis "the image of being the only one capable of unifying the country beyond communal divisions". No wonder that Muqtada has widely become an icon of Muslim resistance.

It's never enough to emphasize the crucial significance and the complex patterns of mythology, history and tradition embodied by the golden-domed Imam Ali Shrine in "Shi'ite Vatican" Najaf, around which the present fighting is centered. Besides the Shrine of Imam Ali, there are graves of other prophets of Allah - Prophet Adam and Prophet Noah. Abraham the patriarch and his son Isaac once bought land in Najaf in what is now called the Valley of Peace - none other than the gigantic Wadi al-Salaam, the world's largest cemetery, where a few hundred of Muqtada's Mehdi Army fighters are holed up fighting the Americans. Or, in many Muslim hearts and minds, where a Shi'ite resistance is fighting infidel troops.

Get Muqtada
Former American proconsul in Iraq, L Paul Bremer, went after Muqtada al-Sadr in the months before the US handed over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 28. He failed miserably - and enhanced Muqtada's status as a resistance hero. Now it's Allawi's offensive - or "Saddam without a moustache", as he is widely known in the streets of Baghdad and the resistance-controlled Sunni triangle. It's still the George W Bush administration's same flawed strategy in action (no politics, no diplomacy, just "smoke them out"). But now the whole scheme is sub-contracted.

Inside Iraq, Sunni and Shi'ite alike are condemning the siege of Najaf as a "bloodbath". There have been huge demonstrations against it in the Muslim world - totally in synch with the Iraqi Committee of Ulemas, which has ruled that no Iraqis may collaborate with the occupier in operations that risk the lives of Muslims. Arab leaders, as expected, have turned their attention to the Olympic Games on television.

According to the London-based al-Hayat newspaper, Shi'ite masses are flocking to Najaf, where they have already formed a human shield around the shrine. Fallujah - the resistance capital in the Sunni triangle - sent a huge convoy of aid to Najaf. Sunni clerics and tribal leaders met with Shi'ite clerics to express their solidarity.

The political fallout of Sistani's thunderous silence and non-condemnation of the American siege may be earth-shaking - further undercutting his own moral authority, not to mention crucial Iraqi nationalist credentials. Some Shi'ites risk saying that Sistani should resign - a concept that is nevertheless totally alien to the Marja'iyya - the top-level Shi'ite religious body. Sistani's loss, though, is to other ayatollahs' gain.

The ayatollah power struggle
Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah is from Najaf, although he's been living in Lebanon since the mid-1960s. He's an independent, not very close either with the ayatollahs in Tehran or the Hezbollah in Lebanon. But he's very popular with the Dawa Party in Iraq - at least with the majority faction that is not cooperating with the Americans. Through a fatwa (ruling), Fadlallah has publicly instigated the resistance to throw out the Americans by all means necessary - this is exactly what millions of Shi'ites were expecting from Sistani himself. Interviewed by the pan-Arab alJazeera television station, Fadlallah articulated what's in the minds of many Muslims: their biggest threat is the United States; Saddam was a US agent; and the Najaf drama was provoked by - who else - the occupier.

An even more crucial figure, Grand Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri, based in the holy city of Qom, in Iran, has also issued his own fatwa: it essentially says that no Iraqi, Sunni or Shi'ite, may fight another Muslim on behalf of Allawi's regime. Al-Haeri is one of the five great Najaf ayatollahs - and the most engaged politically. He's close to the line of the late leader of the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, and says on the record that he will only go back to Iraq after the American occupation has ended. Meanwhile, he's clearly occupying political terrain vacated by Sistani.

Sistani may be forced by the whole crisis to be more emphatic - something that is totally against his instincts and education. Luizard from the French CNRS has just returned from Qom. He says popular rumors had it that Sistani was leaving Najaf for London just as the Americans intensified the siege of Najaf: "People were saying that Sistani's illness was very convenient, his excuse for not taking a stand." The whole thing smacks of history repeating itself - as farce. Luizard points out that in 1924, the British needed a constituent assembly to legitimize their occupation, while Shi'ite religious leaders had issued their anti-occupation fatwas. Today, the Americans play the same game: "They need a parliament, even non-elected, to legitimize the institutional edifice they erected." Luizard was impressed by how both Iranians and Iraqis are carefully scrutinizing Sistani's every move on this matter.

Muqtada's win-win scenario
A measure of the effect of the various fatwas issued by the ayatollahs is that by last Saturday, no fewer than 4,000 Iraqi security forces in Najaf were reported to have defected to Muqtada's Mehdi Army. Officials at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense admitted, for example, that "more than 100 Iraqi national guardsmen and a battalion of Iraqi soldiers chose to quit rather than attack fellow Iraqis".

The media really do not know what is happening on the ground. The only journalists sort of covering Najaf are embedded with the Pentagon. It's easy to identify another US design as it fits a common pattern. The siege of Najaf was planned months ago. The Pentagon would not want unembedded, "unreliable" media - Arab and Western - covering the full extent of what Iraqis are describing as a "bloodbath".

AlJazeera has been expelled from Baghdad by the Allawi regime - but it keeps breaking news from Najaf via stringers' reports and amateur videos. Everyone else was also ordered out of Najaf practically at gunpoint by Allawi's government. Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, has condemned "the totally unacceptable imposition of an information blackout," it says. "The presence of journalists on the spot is indispensable as the worst atrocities are always committed in the absence of witnesses."

But Muqtada keeps popping up on alJazeera. He revealed, for instance, how he had asked interim Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim Jaafari - the leader of a minor faction of the Shi'ite Dawa Party - to resign. Jaafari, who is one of the least unpopular members of Allawi's government, said "no" - for now. But he also clearly wants the Americans out of Najaf. "I call for multinational forces to leave Najaf and for only Iraqi forces to remain there."

Muqtada reveals his progress as a canny political operator when he declares on alJazeera that "Najaf has triumphed over imperialism and imperial hubris". Many merchants in Najaf may blame Muqtada because their business - depending on religious pilgrimage - has come to a halt. And some clerics in Iran - though not the top ayatollahs - may be keeping their distance from Muqtada and the Mehdi Army. But the ayatollahs recognize that the scene is set: if any harm is done to the Imam Ali Shrine, the ripples would be felt across Iraq and the whole Muslim world.

Muqtada remains on the political offensive. He and his array of spokesmen are calling for a United Nations investigation into the American siege of Najaf, as well as a UN force capable of taking control of the city. He's in a win-win situation. Whatever happens to him, says Luizard, "He at least will have achieved the religious legitimacy he didn't have, as well as prevented the involvement of the whole Shi'ite community."

Not bad for someone who is already the epitome of an Iraqi nationalist and popular leader fighting the Bush administration's colonial adventure. This is the way an occupation ends: with a Shi'ite jihad charging it of being "worse than Saddam".
Source Asia Times link

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Analysis,Survey of Armed Groups in Iraq

2005-03-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

A survey of armed groups in Iraq
By: Compiled by Kathleen Ridolfo on: 25.07.2004

Ansar Al-Islam (Supporters of Islam)
This is an extremist Kurdish group purportedly linked to Al-Qaeda. It is an offshoot of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam, a.k.a. Islamic Brigade) and has been engaged in fighting with the PUK since September 2001. Led by Mullah Krekar (a.k.a. Najm al-Din Faraj Ahmad), the military commander of Ansar al-Islam who is under house arrest in Norway. Krekar is the former military commander for the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan; he trained in Afghanistan. Krekar has denied any links to Osama bin Laden (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 29 August 2003) but bin Laden sent his greeting to the group in an audiotaped message in October 2003 (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 20 October 2003).

The group has been linked to the 19 August bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. Reports began surfacing in September 2003 that the group had split (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 4 and 15 September 2003). There were widespread reports that the leadership changed in late 2003 and is now headed by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i (a.k.a. Warba Holiri al-Kurdi) who reportedly said in September that the group would change its name — but declined to announce the name, London's "Al-Hayat" reported on 5 September 2003 (see Ansar Al-Sunnah below).

Reportedly linked to the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG), led by Mullah Ali Bapir. Al-Shafi'i criticized the KIG in September 2003 for aiding U.S. forces in their attempt to crack down on Ansar militiamen. Al-Shafi'i added that other mujahedin groups inside Iraq had agreed to join up with Ansar Al-Islam.

The group claimed responsibility for the 1 February 2004 simultaneous attacks on Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) offices in Irbil, and the 17 March 2004 bombing of the Mount Lebanon Hotel in Baghdad. The group also claims to have participated in the April 2004 clashes against coalition forces in Al-Fallujah. The U.S. State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organization in March (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 26 March 2004).

Ansar Al-Sunnah Army

Group formed in autumn 2003 by members of Ansar Al-Islam and other radical elements. Described itself in a statement to London-based "Al-Quds al-Arabi" published on 4 November 2003 as: "A group of mujahedin, people with knowledge, political shrewdness, and military expertise as well as those who have long experience and history in administering the Islamic ideological conflict against the infidels, brought several groups and various jihadist factions together." In a 21 February statement published in London's "Al-Quds al-Arabi," the group claims members from the ranks of clerics, tribal sheikhs, and the former Iraqi military. It claims to have fighters throughout Iraq "implementing a practical nonimported program, based on a clear view of the arena and the instructions of the true shari'a Islamic law." Claimed responsibility for the February 2004 simultaneous bombings of PUK and KDP headquarters in Irbil, the 14 October 2003 bombing of the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, the 20 November 2003 bombing of the PUK office in Kirkuk, as well as numerous mortar attacks on coalition forces. Reportedly headed by Abu Abdallah al-Hasan bin Mahmud. Posts monthly lists of its attacks on coalition forces at http://www.ansar-sonnah.8m.com

Ansar Al-Sunnah purportedly posted a statement to the Global Islamic Media Center website on 22 March 2004 denying any link to the National Front for the Liberation of Iraq. The latter claimed that a number of groups had joined its umbrella organization for armed groups. Ansar Al-Sunnah said in its statement that it also doubted other Islamist groups in Iraq, namely Ansar Al-Islam and Muhammad's Army support the National Front for the Liberation of Iraq, because it has made statements that appear contradictory to Islamic law.

Other groups that fall under the Ansar Al-Sunnah umbrella include the Al-Shahid Aziz Taha Squad, Al-Tawhid Batallion, Sa'd bin Abi Waqqas Group, Asad Al-Islam Brigade, the Hanifah Al-Nu'man Brigades, the Abdallah bin al-Zubayr Squad, the Mu'ad ibn Jabal Unit, and the Yasin al-Bahr regiment.

Faylaq Badr (Badr Corps)

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)'s armed wing. Hadi al-Amiri is the Faylaq Badr's secretary-general. The corps was reportedly founded in 1983, just one year after Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim established SCIRI. The corps was organized into units that included an infantry, armored, artillery, antiaircraft, and commando units, according to the SCIRI website (http://www.sciri.btinternet.co.uk). SCIRI, supported and funded by Iran, used former Iraqi military officers and commanders to train its fighters and claimed to have some 10,000 militiamen inside Iraq on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) ordered all militias, except for the Kurdish peshmerga, to disband in spring 2003, but the militia remains armed by all accounts. SCIRI head and Iraqi Governing Council member Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, who took over the leadership following al-Hakim's assassination in August 2003, said that the Faylaq Badr would disarm and change its focus (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 21 September 2003). However, al-Hakim insisted that Badr could play a contributing role to the security of Iraq in November (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 20 November 2003). Media reports have since indicated that the Faylaq Badr is actively working with the Iraqi Interior Ministry to "track down terrorist elements" attempting to enter the country (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 27 March 2004). Meanwhile, U.S. military and civilian leaders in Iraq continue to call for the group to disband and join the regular Iraqi army (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 13 March 20004).

Shahid Al-Sadr Force.

The armed wing of the Al-Da'wah party, this group is highly secretive and its membership is unknown. It is not thought to be currently militarily active. The force was established in 1979. Many militiamen were based in the southern Iraqi marshes, as well as in Iraqi Kurdistan and neighboring Iran, after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein declared in March 1980 that membership in Al-Da'wah was punishable by death. Hussein led a massive crackdown on Al-Da'wah activists in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Al-Da'wah claims to have lost 77,000 members in fighting against the Hussein regime. Some 40,000 Shi'ites were deported by the Ba'athist regime beginning in the 1970s after being labeled "Iranians."

Islamic Movement of Kurdistan.

Established in the mid-1980s and now led by Mullah Ali Abd al-Aziz Halabji, this group set up a governing body in the Halabja region of northern Iraq in 1998, but reportedly does not impose strict Islamic law. Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Rahim, a member of the group's consultative council, told London-based "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" in an interview published on 5 August 2003 that the movement's leader was unjustly arrested by U.S. forces in Halabjah. He claimed that Mullah Abd al-Aziz is a member of the former Iraqi opposition who has since called for "means other than weapons" to further the movement's agenda. Asked about reports of links to Ansar Al-Islam, Abd al-Rahim said, "The Ansar Al-Islam group members were not happy with our new nonviolent policy. They are vehemently opposed to the stand of Abd al-Aziz on cooperation with the provincial Kurdistan government and the movement's participation in municipal elections." Asked whether the movement will disarm its fighters, he said, "Every party in the world should reconsider its stands and policies every now and then, and this applies to us.... We believe that our priorities at this current stage are limited to preaching and guidance. And I assure you that we have no training or other camps. All our activities are now confined to party organizational affairs." Has received aid from Iran, the United States (after 1998), and possibly Saudi Arabia.

Kurdistan Islamic Group.

Established by Ali Bapir in May 2001. Bapir is a former member of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan. The group reportedly receives funding from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. It has been linked to Ansar Al-Islam but released a statement on 11 October 2003 in "Komal" denying that any such links existed. Bapir was interviewed in "Komal" in January 2003. He said: "Our policy is that we enter into fraternity and cooperation with all Islamic groups. We seek such fraternal relations with Islamic parties and organizations, Islamist figures, and groups that follow a Salafi tradition or a Sufi or a scientific tradition. In the Islamic Group, we believe that the group must be open-minded and seek fraternity with all those who call or act for Islam. If we see a mistake, we will try to correct it through dialogue and by creating a fraternal atmosphere."

Sa'd bin Abi Waqqas.

A group affiliated with Ansar Al-Sunnah. It tends to attack coalition vehicles in Baghdad.

Al-Mujahidin Brigades.

Al-Taff is a reference to the battle in which Imam al-Husayn was killed. The group reportedly sent a videotape to Al-Jazeera television, broadcast on 10 May 2004, claiming that all those working for Arab and foreign companies in Al-Basrah, and specifically for Kuwaiti companies, would be targeted for kidnappings and killings.

Hizballah (Party of God).

Shi'ite group not related to Lebanese Hizbollah. Appears to have only a few hundred followers.

Imam Al-Mahdi Army.

Armed group of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Jama'ah al-Sadr al-Thani (Al-Sadr Group II). The size of his "army" is estimated to range between 6,000 and 10,000 men, and the cleric claims that both Sunnis and Shi'a have joined his movement from all over Iraq. Most are young, disenfranchised Shi'ites who have no previous experience and are simply attracted by the cleric's charisma and firebrand style of preaching. Al-Sadr is the son of the late Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was gunned down, presumably by Saddam Hussein's men, along with Muqtada's two brothers, in 1999. It was recently reported in the Arab press that criminal elements and pro-regime fighters have joined al-Sadr's militia. The "army" is named after the 12th Shi'ite imam, Mahdi. Shi'ites await his return on judgment day.

Usbat Al-Huda (The daughter of Guidance).

This group also issued a statement in the above-mentioned Usbat Al-Huda videotape. The group of women fighters pledges loyalty to Muqtada al-Sadr and threatens suicide attacks against the U.S. forces in Iraq.

Resistance Front.

This group is opposed to the U.S.-led occupation and all laws, agreements, decisions, treaties, flags, and slogans resulting from it, according to a 9 May 2004 statement read on the Voice of Mujahedin Radio. The group also reportedly objects to the role of UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, but does not object to a role by the United Nations in preparing for general nationwide elections in Iraq. Claims the U.S. killed hundreds of Iraqis detained in the country.

Iraqi Organization of Liberation.

London's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" reported on 4 May 2004 that this is a phony group. The report says the group had offered $2 million to whoever kills or arrests an Iraqi Governing Council member or a member of the interim government. The group also reportedly offered $5 million to anyone who kills high-profile Iraqi leaders Mas'ud Barzani, Ahmad Chalabi, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, Jalal Talabani, or Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum. The group also reportedly promised to send the perpetrator of the above-mentioned acts abroad with his family.

Kata'ib Al-Zilzal Al-Mujahidah (Jihadist Earthquake Brigades).

No information available.

Kata'ib Salah Al-Din (Salah Al-Din Brigades).

This group has claimed responsibility for attacks on at least seven Iraqi policemen in late January and early February 2004. Operates in the Al-Ramadi area.

Kata'ib Al-Mujahidin (Mujahidin Brigades).

Operating in Kirkuk, this group held its first conference in late February. Threatened Iraqi police, Iraqi Civil Defense Forces, the Iraqi Army, and Kurdish parties of the dire consequences of hunting down the mujahedin and impeding their actions. Group has also threatened to target security checkpoints and to kill collaborators.

Jama'at Al-Tawhid wa Al-Jihad (Unification and Jihad Group).

Reportedly led by fugitive Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi. Often posts statements by al-Zarqawi on jihadist websites.

Jaysh Al-Mahdi (Imam Al-Mahdi Army).

Armed wing of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's "Al-Sadr II Group." Estimated to have at least 6,000 members.

Jund Al-Sham. (God's Wrath).

An anticoalition Shi'ite group based in Al-Basrah. Fought British troops in late March 2004.

Tha'r Allah (Vengeance Detachments).

An armed group operating in Baghdad and Tikrit. Claimed in a 1 November 2003 statement that it was hunting down and killing supporters of the Saddam Hussein regime, specifically those who worked in the security and intelligence services "who are still free and who are doing as they like in all areas of Iraq." Membership reportedly comes from "all the factions" of Iraqi people and the "sons of the mass graves." Criticized the coalition and Iraqi Governing Council for not bringing former regime members to justice. "Everybody was busy with the spoils and forgot that there are thousands of criminals and killers who were behind the assassination of Ayatollah al-Hakim...and Aqilah al-Hashimi, member of the Governing Council."

Mafariz Al-Intiqam (Martyrs Brigades of the Hamas Movement).

Reportedly not active in Iraq, though at least one leaflet attributed to the group circulated in the Iraqi capital in April and May 2004. The leaflet sent greetings to the Iraqis from "your faithful mujahedin brothers" in Palestine, London's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" reported on 1 May. The leaflet said in part: "Be informed that our martyrdom-seeking brigades will return the favors unspecified to the sons of this dear country and that, God willing, victory is our ally."

Sarkhi Hassani.

A Shi'ite cleric who claims to have an armed group. The number of members is unknown.

Mujahedin Allahu Akbar (God is Great Fighters).

This group distributed leaflets in Al-Fallujah in early March 2004 claiming that suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi was killed in the northern Iraqi mountains near Al-Sulaymaniyah during a U.S. raid in the area last year, AP reported on 4 March. While the leaflet did not provide the specific date for the alleged U.S. raid or for al-Zarqawi's purported death, it is presumably referring to the March bombings of an Ansar Al-Islam stronghold in northern Iraq just days into Operation Iraqi Freedom (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 25 March 2003). The leaflets further claimed that a letter held by coalition officials in Iraq and purportedly written by al-Zarqawi (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 12 February 2004) is a fake.

Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party.

This group supports former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The Political and Publishing Information Organ of the party Issued a statement published in Amman's "Al-Majd" on 3 May 2004 warning the coalition against adopting regional and tribal security formulas based on assimilating and employing military commanders from the "disbanded" Iraqi Army to lead segments of the "new army." The statement warns that any former Iraqi officer that works with the coalition places himself on the list of legitimate targets for the Iraqi resistance. Also claims to have issued a death sentence on Iraqi Governing Council members to be carried out even if they resign after 30 June 2004 for being "traitors of the nation and the people."

Fedayeen Saddam (Saddam's Martyrs).

A paramilitary group founded by Saddam Hussein's son Uday in 1995. Uday briefly lost control of the organization to his younger brother, Qusay, after he transferred vast amounts of weapons to the Fedayeen without the knowledge of their father. The punishment did not last long, however, and control was soon passed back to Uday. The Fedayeen operated completely outside the law under Hussein's regime. A prewar estimate by globalsecurity.org set its membership at 18,000-40,000 troops, including a notorious death squad known to have publicly beheaded female family members of those opposed to the regime. The Fedayeen vowed to avenge the deaths of Uday and Qusay at the hands of coalition forces and are suspected of joining up with a number of Iraqi militant groups to launch attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces in recent months. French journalist Alexandre Jordanov said that he was taken hostage by Fedayeen Saddam militiamen (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 April 2004).

Al-Qiyadah Al-Amah li Jaysh Al-Iraq (General Command of the Iraqi Army).

This group is led by Major General "Qaysar Jasim Hamid Ajjaj al-Qaysi," who hails from Al-Miqdadiyah and is a 1963 graduate of the Military College. He is also reportedly a leader in the National Salvation Movement.

London-based "Al-Zaman" reported on 16 February 2004 that the group has declared itself the nucleus of an Iraqi army. The group claims to have reorganized the Iraqi army that served under Saddam Hussein and works to defend the Iraqi peoples' rights and the country's unity. It supports human rights, democracy, and free elections, and calls for strong relations with the Arab states.

Islamic Jihad Brigades of Muhammad's Army.

An apparent umbrella organization for the following groups: The Abdallah bin Iyad Brigade; the Al-Husayn Brigade; the Al-Abbas Brigade, the Bani-Hashim Moon; the Abdallah bin Jahsh bin Rikab Al-Asadi Brigade; the Al-Walid bin Al-Mughirah Brigade; the Umar Al-Faruq Brigade; the Al-Mahdi Al-Muntazar Brigade; and the Ja'far Al-Tayyar Brigade.

This group claimed responsibility for the 19 August bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad and for shelling coalition positions, including the Republican Palace compound where the CPA is headquartered. Wants the coalition to withdraw from Iraq and leave the fate of the country to Iraqis. Has accused the coalition of trying to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shi'a.

It also issued a videotaped message in late August to Beirut's LBC satellite television warning all Islamic and neighboring countries against interfering in Iraq's internal affairs. "The Islamic Jihad Brigades of Muhammad's Army has decided to send you a warning through the destruction of your embassies in Iraq if you send any military or civilian forces to loot the resources of our great country," the speaker in the videotape said. The group also vowed to avenge for the 29 August 2003 assassination of Shi'ite Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. The speaker in the videotape also outlined "instructions" of the group's higher command, led by a person identified only as Abu Islam (father of Islam). The instructions assigned responsibilities to two Islamic militant groups: The Al-Husayn Brigade was assigned the task of protecting the Al-Hawzah Shi'ite seminary in Al-Najaf as well as the holy shrines in that city and in Karbala. The Al-Walid bin Mughirah Brigade was assigned "the honor" of destroying embassies of coalition forces in Iraq. The statement refers to the U.S. as the "Disunited States of America" and the "enemy of God and humanity."

It also claimed in a February 2004 leaflet that it will set up governing councils and hold elections once the coalition withdraws from Iraq. Also threatened to kill any looters in Al-Fallujah and said Iraqis cooperating with the coalition should leave Iraq or face arrest by the group.

Eighteen resistance groups signed a joint statement published in London's "Quds Press" on 2 May 2004 calling on U.S. forces to withdraw from Al-Fallujah within 48 hours or face attack by force. The statement claimed to have killed 3,000 occupation forces in April and to have destroyed 30 planes, dozens of tanks, and other military vehicles. The statement also claimed that the coalition is attempting to hide its losses from the media, contending that some 25,000 coalition troops have been killed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The statement also criticized the Iraqi Governing Council and threatened to punish its members, singling out Ahmad Chalabi and Muwaffaq al-Rubay'i. The signatories to the statement were: The Patriotic Army for the Liberation of Iraq; The God is Great Forces; The forces of Muhammad, Messenger of God (Sunni Arab fighters); the Asad Allah Forces; the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Battalions; The Salafi Mujahedin Group Battalions; the Battalions of the Clans of the Iraqi People; the Iraqi Islamic Army; the Ajnad Al-Islam Group Battalions; the Victorious Sect Army; the Ansar Al-Sunnah Army; Al-Qari'ah Organization Battalions; the Free Men of Iraq Army; the Abd Al-Qadir Al-Kilani Army; the Victor Salah Al-Din Battalions; the Black Banners Army; the Ababil Army; and the Martyr Ahmad Yasin Brigades.

On 28 February 2004, London's "Al-Hayat" reported that the Salah Al-Din Brigades and the Jihadist Earthquake Brigades had issued leaflets in Al-Ramadi and pasted the leaflets to the city's mosque claiming responsibility for killing two Iraqi informers and threatening to kill anyone who provided U.S. forces with information on resistance groups way out of the current situation," "Kommersant-Daily" reported on 29 May.

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Analysis,Resistance is Growing

2005-03-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

The new government has a few cards in its hands, but the resistance to the occupation is growing by Patrick Cockburn
22 June 2004

'Our soldiers call them the League of Frightened Gentlemen," said an American officer pointing derisively towards the buildings in the so-called green zone in Baghdad, housing the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority which has ruled Iraq for over a year.

It is a miserable record. Isolated behind the concrete walls of the green zone, Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, presided over a sort of Washington-on-Tigris, visibly out of touch with the political realities of Iraq and absorbed in its own bureaucratic civil wars.

The ease of the American victory in the war last year led to a rush of blood to the head. "They were drunk with victory," a Kurdish ally of the US told me. Saddam Hussein lost the war so swiftly because he had almost no base in Iraq. Mr Bremer behaved as if the Iraqi leader had a host of loyal followers. The CPA disbanded the Iraqi army and persecuted former members of the Baath Party. Several million Iraqis had a reason for supporting the armed resistance.

Iraqi politics revolve around relations between the three main communities in the country: the Shia Arabs (about 60 per cent of the population), Sunni Arabs (20 per cent) and Kurds (20 per cent). The CPA began by alienating the Sunni, the main support for Saddam Hussein's regime, and by this spring had infuriated the Shiites, the majority of Iraqis, who want an election so they can, at last, take power.

In just over a week, the CPA will disappear, supposedly handing over power to an interim Iraqi government. Few will regret its passing. After 30 June, Iraq will once again have a sovereign government with Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni businessman and tribal leader from northern Iraq, as the President, and Iyad Allawi, a former Baath party member, Shiite and long- term exile as the Prime Minister.

Most of the changes will be cosmetic. The new Iraqi government will have only limited power. The chances that it will succeed are very limited. In a situation dominated by security, or rather the lack of it, the interim government does not have an effective armed force. It will have to rely on the 138,000 American troops, and soldiers from a few assorted foreign allies such as Britain, Poland and Ukraine. It must also depend largely on the US for money, because Iraqi oil exports have been hit by sabotage.

The priority of the White House in the run-up up to the US presidential elections in November is to stop bad news from Iraq leading the nightly television news or dominating the front pages of the newspapers. The main instrument to achieve this is to pretend that an independent Iraq is being created which can fight its own wars.

The problem is that this picture simply is not true. The base of the new government is very small. Its leading figures are former exiles. They have not been elected. They do not have the legitimacy necessary to establish security forces capable of re-establishing order.

Mr Allawi will certainly try. He wants to rebuild an Iraqi army and security force by persuading senior officers from Saddam Hussein's army to reconstitute their units. He says he will centralise control of the armed forces so they are no longer auxiliaries for the US army, and direct them against the insurgents. On paper, the plan sounds convincing. Iraqis, in general, are desperate for more security which they see deteriorating every day. But, in contrast with a year ago, Iraqis these days see the US army as part of the problem rather than the solution. The CPA's own poll shows that 55 per cent of Iraqis want US troops to leave immediately. A similar number say that the behaviour of US prison guards at Abu Ghraib prison is typical of American soldiers in the rest of the country.

The interim government will have popular Iraqi support to the extent that it opposes the US. It won some points when it demanded the return of Saddam Hussein's old Republican Palace which is to be used by the new American embassy and its 1,000 employees. Even Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, says he will support the new government if it tries to end the occupation. But Mr Allawi's government cannot ride two horses heading in different directions for long. At the end of the day, he relies on the US for soldiers and money and must do what Washington wants.

The new government has a few cards in its hands. Part of the Sunni Arab community may support it if it starts to rebuild the army. Arab states like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are more sympathetic than they were to the Iraqi Governing Council. So, too, are the vastly influential Arab satellite channels.

But the resistance to the occupation is also getting stronger. During the uprisings in April, the US found its political position in Iraq was so weak it dare not use its undoubted military strength for fear of provoking a general rebellion. The insurgents now have their own capital in Fallujah just 30 miles from Baghdad. Even the road to the airport is unsafe with almost daily ambushes. Americans can only appear in the streets of Baghdad inside armoured convoys.

The task for Mr Allawi's government will surely prove too great. "The policy of the US government is one of retreat, and a retreat under fire is notoriously difficult to conduct," said one Iraqi minister. The White House wants to win the presidential election by showing that it has Iraq under control, but its many enemies here in Iraq intend to prove the opposite. A bloody summer is likely to be followed by an even bloodier autumn.
Source.Independant link

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Analysis,Who Killed Nick Berg ?

2005-03-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

Who killed Nick Berg?
By: The Sydney Morning Herald on: 28.05.2004

Conspiracy theories about how the kidnapped American died in Iraq are flying around the world. Richard Neville explores the explanations.

Iraq in flames, Washington an object of disgust. What to do? At this pivotal moment, CNN and Fox News are tipped off to a clip of an American citizen being beheaded. The victim is a 26-year-old idealist from Pennsylvania, Nick Berg. Despite the perpetrators being masked, the vile deed is deemed the work of al-Qaeda.

The clip was first "discovered" on an Islamic website in Malaysia. Its Arabic title reads "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American". al-Zarqawi is a 38-year-old Jordanian militant who fled to Iraq in 2001 after reportedly losing a leg in a US missile strike. al-Zarqawi's face is widely known and he credits himself with the deed, so why a mask?

The timing of the video was brilliant for the West. Media pundits judged the crime a deeper evil than the systemic torture of innocent Iraqis. But some people sensed a rat. But if it was not al-Qaeda, who? Surely not Uncle Sam. That's too dark, even for the CIA.

While this video shows a human body having its head chopped off, it does not necessarily portray an act of murder. Berg's headless body was found dumped on a Baghdad roadside on Saturday, May 8.

Three days later, the "live beheading" clip was uploaded from London to the Malaysian website http://www.al-ansar.biz. The statement in the video is signed with al-Zarqawi's name, dated May 11. After Fox News and CNN had downloaded the video, it disappeared from the site.

As no autopsy is available, little is known about the state of the body. No time of death, no forensic analysis. On April 6, a month before the discovery of the corpse, Berg had been released from custody. But whose custody?

Dan Senor, adviser to the US Presidential Envoy in Iraq, has said Berg was never held by the Americans. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the Coalition's deputy head of operations, claimed he was in the custody of Iraqi police from March 24 to April 6. However, the Iraqi police chief, Major-General Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi, told Associated Press "the Iraqi police never arrested the slain American".

Berg's family are certain his jailers were the US military. His father, Michael, had been told so by the FBI. He has produced an email from a US consular official in Baghdad, Beth Payne, confirming that his son was in the hands of the US. (Later, another official said this was an error.) On April 5 in the Philadelphia office of the US Supreme Court, the Berg family had launched an action against the US military for false imprisonment. The following day, Berg was released.

The issue of custody is significant; in his final moments on screen Berg is wearing an orange jumpsuit of the kind familiar from Guantanamo Bay. The official reasons for Berg's arrest were "lack of documentation" and "suspicious activities". He carried sensitive electronic equipment for which he lacked documents. In custody, he was visited three times by the FBI. Such interviews are bound to have been recorded but no transcripts have been produced.

After his release, Berg travelled to Baghdad and the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel. A fellow hotel guest told Newsday that Berg recounted how Iraqi police had quickly handed him to US authorities in Mosul and that he had been held the entire time in a jail where his guards were US soldiers.

Berg was in Baghdad to win contracts for his family firm, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, a provider of communications facilities. He often "worked at night on a tower in the neighbourhood of Abu Ghraib", according to The New York Times.

The family last heard from him on April 9, when he said he was planning to leave Iraq via Kuwait as soon as it was safe. Berg was last seen walking with his bags the following day, apparently hoping to find his way through the turmoil engulfing the city and make it to the border.

On March 7, 2004, two weeks before his arrest in Mosul, an "enemies list" had been posted on a conservative website, Free Republic.com. The list was compiled from signatories to an anti-war petition, and its implied purpose was to encourage readers to harass those it named.

Berg's father was on that list, as was the family firm, Prometheus. This information may well have triggered the arrest of Berg in Iraq.

Berg's politics are not clear. His father, Michael, has described his son as a "staunch supporter" of US President George Bush. Friends said Nick believed he could help rebuild Iraq "one radio tower at a time". According to The New York Times, he was attracted to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam - healing the world through social action.

The first few seconds of the video shows Berg sitting on a white plastic chair in an orange jumpsuit. He speaks directly to the camera in a relaxed way: "My name is Nick Berg . . . I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in Philadelphia." His white chair is identical to those in the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, but such chairs are probably common in Iraq. It is highly likely that this segment is edited from the interrogation of Berg during his 13 days of custody.

In the next scene, Berg is sitting on the floor with five masked figures standing behind him. We do not see the figures enter. Berg looks lifeless, though his body appears to make slight movements. A man reads a lengthy Arabic statement in a passionless monotone. He is identified as "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi", a Jordanian associate of Osama bin Laden who is tied to dozens of terrorist acts.

Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by no means a reliable source, claims that al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last month has claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the bombing of Falluja.

Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi was fitted with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet the tape shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice have been quoted as saying the voice does not sound like his.

Among the many curiosities raised on the web about the fanatical five are:

They are well-fed, fidgety, and reveal glimpses of white skin. Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian).

An aside in Russian had been translated as "do it quickly".

One character wears wears bulky white tennis shoes.

The man on the far left stands in the familiar "at ease" military posture.

The men's scarves are worn and tied by people who "haven't a clue", says conspiracy theorist Hector Carreon, like actors in Hollywood movies.

There is even a voice at the end that seems to ask in English, "How will it be done?"

None of this proves a grand conspiracy, but it does raise questions. In the final segment of the tape, Berg is thrown to the ground, but doesn't move. During the decapitation, starting at the front of the throat, there is little sign of blood. The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds female, and is obviously dubbed.

Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the Asia Times, "I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds . . . if it the video was genuine".

Simpson agrees with other experts who find it highly probable that Berg had died before his decapitation.

But there is still the problem of Berg's slight body movements while sitting on the floor, before the beheading. According to a blogger (internet diarist), Nick Possum, "this footage was subsequently modified frame by frame to make Berg's body move very occasionally". Apparently, this can be achieved with "commonly available software". www.brushtail.com.au/nick-berg-hypothesis.html

Possum believes "the available evidence surrounding the case suggests that it was a 'black operation' by US psychological warfare specialists . . . to provide the media with a moral relativity argument to counter the adverse publicity over torture at Abu Ghraib". The use of FBI footage in the opening sequence, if confirmed, suggests the involvement of high-level US Government operatives.

I do not know who killed Nick Berg, or how he died. But there's something fishy about this video.

In the end, the question is: who killed Nick Berg, and why?
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Analysis,The Truth About Ahmed Chalabi

2005-03-15T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Truth About Ahmed Chalabi
Why the US Turned Against Their Former Golden Boy -- He was Preparing a Coup! What He Did as a Catspaw for Tehran: How He Nearly Bankrupted Jordan; the Billions He Stands to Make Out of the New Iraq
By ANDREW COCKBURN

In dawn raids today, American troops surrounded Ahmed Chalabi's headquarters and home in Baghdad, put a gun to his head, arrested two of his aides, and seized documents. Only five months ago, Chalabi was a guest of honor sitting right behind Laura Bush at the State of the Union. What brought about this astonishing fall from grace of the man who helped provide the faked intelligence that justified last year's war?

The answer lies in Chalabi's reaction to his gradual loss of US support in recent months and the realisation that he will be excluded from the post June 30 Iraqi "government" being crafted by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

Lashing out against his exclusion from power, he has in effect been laying the groundwork for a coup, assembling a Shia political coalition with the express aim of destabilising the "Brahimi" government even before it takes office. "He has been mobilising forces to make sure the UN initiative fails," one well connected Iraqi political observer, who knows Chalabi well, told me today. "He has been tellling these people that Brahimi is part of a Sunni conspiracy against the Shia."

This scheme is by no means wholly outlandish. Chalabi has recruited significant Shia support, including Ayatollah Mohammed Bahr al Uloom, a leading member of the Governing Council and two other lesser known Council members. Significantly, his support also includes a faction of the Dawa Party that has been excluded from the political process by the occupation authority and which also supports rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Other recently recruited allies include Iraqi Hezbollah. All are joined in a Chalabi dominated Supreme Shia Council, similar to a sectarian Lebanese model. "Sooner rather than later," the Iraqi observer, a close student of Shia politics, points out, "Moqtada al Sadr is going to be killed. That willl leave tens, hundreds of thousands of his supporters looking for a new leader. If Ahmed plays the role of victim, he can take on that role. His dream has always been to be a sectarian Shia leader."

Given the imminence of the announcement of the post June 30 arrrangement, the stakes are very high for the US. The occupation command in Baghdad well understands that Chalabi has the resources and skills to wreck the all-important arrangements for the official handover of power. "People realise that Ahmed is a gambler, prepared to bring it all down," I was told today, "and this raid may not be at all to his detriment."

US disenchantment with the man who has received $27 million of taxpeyers' money in recent years has been gathering pace in recent months. "You can piss on Chalabi" President Bush remarked to Jordan's King Abdullah some months ago. "Ahmed is on good terms with many people," a senior Iraqi politician told me waspishly, "and on bad terms with a great many more."

Meanwhile the star of the octogenarian politician Adnan Pachachi, foreign minister forty years ago in the revolutionary government of General Abdul Karim Qassim, and now a hot tip for post June 30 president, is rising fast. Chalabi despises Pachachi as a tiresome old codger with no place in today's Iraq. "He should go home and play bridge," he snaps at mention of the rival's name. Pachachi indulgently dismisses Chalabi as "articulate, but not wise -- I've told him to his face, 'Ahmed, you're too clever by half.'"

Distrust him as they may however, Iraqis suspect that Chalabi will be a looming presence in Iraq for years to come. Since he returned to Baghdad just over a year ago he has succeeded in building a financial powerbase both in business and key sectors of the fledgling Iraqi administration. His prescient seizure of Saddam's intelligence files a year ago has equipped him with a useful tool to intimidate opponents. In politics, despite his apparent lack of general appeal, he has been carving out a role as the Ian Paisley of the Iraqi Shia, fomenting sectarian assertiveness and brokering deals. At the same time, he has maintained his foreign alliances, not merely with the neo-conservatives in the Pentagon and right wing Washington think tanks, who are still insisting that he should have been installed in power in Baghdad by the US a year ago, but also in Tehran. Chalabi's connections to the most hardline elements in Iran, particularly the intelligence officers of the Revolutionary Guards, are longstanding and still flourish today.

Chalabi's fusion of business and politics is very much in the family tradition. Until the 1958 military coup swept away the monarchy that had ruled Iraq under British direction since the 1920s, the Chalabis were probably the richest family in the country. The founder of the family fortunes, Ahmed's great grandfather, had been the tax "farmer" (ie he collected taxes at a profit) of Kadimiah, a town near Baghdad. The Iraqi historian Hanna Batatu describes him as "a very harsh man, (who) kept a bodyguard of armed slaves and had a special prison at his disposal. When he died the people of Kadimiah heaved a sigh of relief." His son flourished in the good graces of the British, while the next in line, Ahmed's father, prospered by bailing out the racing debts of a powerful member of the royal family, earning high political office thereby, and leveraging that position into lucrative business arrangements. Ahmed's uncle meanwhile rose to be the most powerful banker in the country. As Batatu notes: "..by translating economic power into political influence, and political influence into economic power, the Chalabis climbed from one level of wealth to another."

However, when the 1958 revolution swept their Iraqi wealth away, the Chalabis quickly put down roots in Lebanon. Ahmed and his brothers married into powerful families in the Lebanese shia community. "They become so Lebanese that they started pronouncing their name Shalabi instead of Chalabi," remarks another former Iraqi exile. "Lebanese don't pronounce a hard Ch sound." Initially, Chalabi himself seemed destined for an academic career. No one has ever denied he is extremely smart, as well as intellectually competitive. "When he was at primary school," recalls one of his innumerable cousins, "if he got nine marks in a test and someone else got ten, he would tear up the papers and run around in a tantrum."

By 1970 he had graduated from MIT, collected a PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago and returned to teach at the renowned American University of Beirut, where he attracted attention as "a walking encyclopedia." In 1977 he moved to Jordan and founded the Petra Bank. A decade later, Petra had grown to be the second largest bank in the country, with links to other Chalabi family banks and investment companies in Beirut, Geneva and Washington. The bank introduced Visa cards to Jordan, along with ATMs and other innovative technology. Ahmed himself was one of the most influential businessmen in the country, esteemed by local entrepreneurs for his readiness to issue credit, and enjoying close links to powerful members of the royal family. As long as no outsider got to look at the books, everything was fine.

On August 2, 1989, however the Jordanian banking authorities took over Petra on the grounds that when all Jordanian banks were told to deposit 30% of their foreign exchange with the central bank, Petra had failed to come up with the money. Ahmed left the country two weeks later, announcing that he was going "on holiday", although rumors persist in the middle east that he had crossed the Syrian border in the trunk of his friend Tamara Daghistani's car. Meanwhile his brothers' banks in Geneva and Beirut had already gone under.

In April, 1992, Chalabi was tried in his absence (along with 47 associates), found guilty, and sentenced to 22 years jail on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft, misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation. However, because the trial had been in front of a military court under Jordan's martial law, international law prevented his extradition.

For anyone who asks, Chalabi has always had a ready explanation for Petra's collapse, one that his daughter Tamara was still loyally repeating in the Wall Street Journal as recently as last August: "Petra Bank was seized and destroyed by those in the Jordanian establishment who'd become willing to do Saddam Hussein's bidding. That Jordan has branded my father as an 'asset diverter' would be comic, were it not for what it says about that kingdom's servile complicity with Saddam." Saddam, according to this version, got his Jordanian lackeys to move against Petra because Ahmed Chalabi posed a threat to the Iraqi leader. The bank was basically in fine shape and would have survived if the government hadn't intervened and panicked bank customers. The prosecution, conviction and sentencing of Ahmed Chalabi was an act of political spite.

Chalabi's claim that he was framed reduces Jordanian officials to choleric fury. "The collapse was due to Chalabi's mismanagement of the bank and the misuse of its assets," responded one senior banking official, when I relayed Chalabi's excuse of injured innocence. "He ran it as his private piggy bank."

There may be a particle of truth in this -- the prime minister at the time of the takeover was known for his deep and profitable relationship with Saddam, and Chalabi was indeed a critic of the Iraqi dictator -- but it is also beside the point. Behind all the bluster--"Petra was solvent and growing," he insisted in an e-mail to me--the numbers laid out in the (pre-Enron) Arthur Andersen "Petra Bank balance sheet--August 2 1989" speak for themselves, as do other reports, mostly in Arabic and rarely examined by outsiders, from liquidators and other investigators.

The Arthur Andersen audit was commissioned after the Jordanian central bank, ignorant of the real and disastrous situation inside Petra, accepted full responsibility for the bank's debts and deposits. The accountants' confidential report, delivered in January 1990 and as thick as a phone directory, showed that Petra was rotten to the core in large part because of "transactions with parties related to the former management of the Bank (ie the Lebanese and Swiss banks managed by Chalabi's brothers, which had already gone broke.) Overall, instead of the $40 million or so net balance depicted in Chalabi's version of the books, Petra had a deficit of over $215 million, which the accountants indicated had "the potential" to grow to $350 million.

This was a total catastrophe for the cash-strapped desert kingdom, especially as the government had committed itself to paying off the depositors. "For two years, all the aid we got from Saudi Arabia and other arab countries," recalls a former Jordanian diplomat, "went into settling the Petra mess." Despite this, Chalabi actually boasted to me in a recent email that "after the takeover, all depositors were paid in full," a statement of amazing chutzpah, given that he skipped town and left others to clean up the mess and pay the bills. A seventeen page summary of the investigation by the military prosecutor's office, dated April 30 1990, lists various "fictitious accounts", ie money that Petra claimed to have in accounts with other banks that did not in fact exist. These included the $7 million allegedly held on December 31, 1988, in Bankers Trust, New York, or the $21 million that was supposed to be in Wardley Ltd, but wasn't, or the 19,196,404 Deutschmarks that was supposed to be deposited with Socofi, the Chalabi bank in Geneva. Overall, at that date, the "fictitious" figure came to $72 million and counting. Elsewhere, money had been diverted to private Chalabi accounts, or had evaporated in bad loans to other Chalabi- owned companies, such as the $15 million that disappeared with the Rimal company, or the roughly $14 million that had been spent on "personal expenses" for Dr. Chalabi and various members of his family.

Among the non-performing loans of the Petra subsidiary in Washington was $12 million owed by Abdul Huda Farouki. He had pledged his $1,7 million house in Maclean, Virginia as security, but as liquidators moved to seize it, he produced a letter from his friend Ahmed claiming that Petra had released him from that obligation before the crash.

In September 2000, just over eight years after Ahmed Chalabi's conviction in Jordan, his brothers Jawad and Hazem were convicted and sentenced (in absentia) by a Geneva court for creating fake documents. The statute of limitations had run out on other charges.

"Ahmed thought he would never be tried and convicted," one former associate recalls. "I remember him saying 'they don't dare sentence me, I've got members of the royal family on the payroll.'"

"The simple fact is that the bank was insolvent when we took it over" insists former Central Bank governor Dr. Said Nabulsi. "I can't see why so many people can't understand that." They look at the figures and then go away and write things like this." Gloomily, he dipped into a pile of clippings on his desk and held up a recent full page article in the Financial Times headlined "Man with a Mission" extolling Chalabi's current activities in Baghdad. Tossing it aside, he rifled through further tributes to Chalabi, who still has a jail cell awaiting him in Jordan.

Jordanian investigators, aided by sleuths from the Kroll detective agency, looked long and hard for where all the money had gone -- one estimate puts the total losses of the Chalabi family empire at nearly $1.5 billion. "We followed some of the cash as far as the British Virgin Islands" says one, lamenting that the ironclad bank secrecy laws prevented them following the trail any further.

Chalabi took partial revenge on his Jordanian tormentors by fomenting a December 1991 "60 Minutes" story accusing King Hussein of colluding with Saddam, but by now he was immersed in politics carving out a leading role in the anti-Saddam Iraqi opposition. "Ahmed once said to me 'I built up an empire of 44 companies around the world with my brain,'" recalls an associate from that period. "He said 'that was very difficult. Politics is very easy.' He believes that politics is about money, that politics is a business."

Shaking the dust of Amman from his heels, Chalabi soon scented new opportunities in Washington. "The United States is prepared to allocate substantial sums for the Iraqi opposition," he confided to an opposition activist soon after the 1991 war. "We should go for that money." Before long, he had secured CIA funding for a new opposition group: the Iraqi National Congress (INC) The INC was in theory an umbrella organisation with a collective leadership, but Chalabi, those who have worked with him agree, is not a team player. "He always has to be in charge," one powerful Iraqi politician told me in Baghdad. " I remember a meeting in London where Hani Fekaki (one of the founders of the Baath party who later fled into exile and opposition) told Chalabi: "Ahmed, in your heart, there is a little Saddam."

The spooks found much to like in the dynamic ex-banker. They liked his talents as an organiser, and they especially liked the fact that he had no power base inside or outside Iraq. Hence, as Frank Anderson, then head of the CIA's operations directorate's near east division, once told me , Chalabi "was not a threat to anybody. He was acceptable as an office manager. So his weakness was a benefit."

Another benefit was his money. One former covert operator happily recalled the inaugural meeting of the Iraqi National Congress in Vienna, Austria in June 1992, which was wholly, if secretly, funded by the CIA: "There wasn't a single person there who didn't believe he was paying for it all out of money he had embezzled from the Petra Bank!" (I asked one investigator who had spent years probing the Petra wreckage if anyone from the US government had ever queried him on the true facts of the fraud. "No", not once," he answered, adding that journalists had also steered clear of the ugly truths about Chalabi's banking career.)

"He doesn't want colleagues, only employees," says one former INC associate sadly. "And he prefers to bring in outsiders who can't work independently of him." As example, this Iraqi opposition veteran cites INC official Zaab Sethna, an American of Pakistani origin, and Francis Brooke, Chalabi's Washington lobbyist. During last year's war, Brooke, a fundamentalist Christian, told Harper's Magazine that he would support the elimination of Saddam, "the human Satan," even if every single Iraqi were killed in the process.

Other key aides who have stuck by him over the years include Nabil Mousawi, a former Leeds pizzeria manager who first attracted Chalabi's notice when he volunteered to work the copy machine at the INC's inaugural meeting. Entifadh Qamber, now the INC spokesman in Baghdad, has been similarly loyal. Known for his verbal and physical aggressiveness, Qamber once punched out an elderly Iraqi critic live on television.

Aras Karem, a Shi'ite Kurd who has supervised Chalabi's security and military operations since 1992, is probably the most formidable member of this inner circle,. Once pegged by the CIA as an Iranian agent (the agency consequently had several of his relatives jailed without charge for years in the US) Aras played a major role in managing the production of useful defectors in pre-war days, and still today supervises the INC's "Intelligence Collection Program." His direct contacts with U.S. defense intelligence make him perhaps the only member of Chalabi's coterie to have any kind of an independent base.

It took a few years for the CIA high command at Langley to grasp the fact that their "office manager" was not so easy to control. Funded by the agency, Chalabi ensconced himself in the segment of northern Iraq that was controlled by the Kurds, together with a small staff and recruited an armed militia. In March 1995 he concocted an elaborate scheme to bribe tribal leaders in and around the northern city of Mosul into rebelling against Saddam. "That's the way Lebanese politics works--through bribery and corruption," says Bob Baer, who, as CIA station chief in northern Iraq at the time, supported the plan. "People forget that Ahmed's really a Levantine, he learned business and politics in Beirut."

In the event, the plan fizzled. The tribal leaders pocketed Chalabi's money and stayed home. His friends in Iranian intelligence, whom he was hosting in Kurdistan, had promised a simultaneous offensive in southern Iraq, but they stayed home too. A military offensive by Chalabi's small militia and some Kurdish allies petered out after a couple of days.

Back in Washington, the CIA was furious that Chalabi had acted without orders, and spitefully leaked the news that he was on their payroll, causing a furor in northern Iraq. The following year, a quarrel between the two main Kurdish parties led to an appeal by one side to Saddam for help. As Iraqi forces entered the Kurdish city of Irbil, they hunted down and massacred INC supporters who had been left in the city. Those who managed to escape were eventually brought to the US.

Discarded by his old patrons at the agency, Chalabi found new allies among the right wing neo-conservatives, for whom the destruction of Saddam and the co-option of Iraq in a reordered Middle East emerged as a major objective in the mid-1990s. "Of course they liked him," says yet another of long list of veterans of the Iraqi opposition who now, in Baghdad, nervously entreat interviewers not to quote them by name. "He is the quintessential anti-Arab, anti-anything that the Arab world believes in." Chalabi's willingness, unique among Arab politicians, to seek Israeli support -- further bolstered his position on Capitol Hill.

Lately, Chalabi watchers have been interested to note familiar faces from the Petra era popping up in Baghdad in the wake of Ahmed's return in the wake of the American tanks a year ago. Ali Saraf, for example, formerly head of the foreign exchange department is working with Chalabi, and there are rumors that Taj Hajjar, former proprietor of a Malaysian shrimp farm (Jordanian banking investigators sigh nostalgically at mention of the shrimp farm, into which so much Petra money vanished) has been in town.

One frequent visitor from Washington has been Chalabi's old friend Abdul Huda Farouki, who owed Petra $12 million at the time of the collapse.

Last year Farouki's newly founded security firm Erinys won a plum $80 million contract to guard Iraqi oil installations, employing members of Chalabi's private militia for the purpose, as well as the son of a close Chalabi confidante as chief executive and his nephew Salem Chalabi as firm's counsel. Erinys' sister concern Nour USA meanwhile garnered $327 million deal to equip the new Iraqi army, (at least one Kuwaiti businessman anxious to get an army contract was told by an American official at the CPA that he would have to go through Ahmed Chalabi) but outraged protests from the losing bidders, coupled with the odor of the Chalabi connection, eventually forced cancellation of the deal.

Loss of the Nour contract may be an embarrassment, but the sums at stake in that enterprise are dwarfed by the rewards to be reaped by anyone with the right connections from Iraq's $16 billlion annual oil exports. It is an area in which Chalabi has not been idle. Last November, for example, he demonstrated his influence and connections by orchestrating the removal of Mohammed Jibouri, executive director of the state oil marketing agency (SOMO), a key position that controls Iraq's oil sales. Jibouri's offense had been to inform the giant oil trading firm Glencore that it could not trade Iraqi oil due to its behavior while trading oil with the former regime. Within days, the official had been placed on an enforced year's leave of absence and ordered to vacate both his office and his apartment in the oil ministry complex.

"Chalabi was absolutely responsible for getting rid of Jibouri," says a well connected oil trader. "Now Nabil (Mousawi, Chalabi's proxy on the Governing Council) travels with the minister to Opec conferences and is trying to make oil deals."

"I asked Ibrahim Bahr Uloom (the oil minister) why he was taking Mousawi to Opec," says an old friend of Uloom. "He said, 'Ahmed forced me.'" Several well placed oil industry sources have confirmed to me that Mousawi has approached at least two international oil companies with offers to represent them in Iraq (the offers were rebuffed) and has himself been trading Iraqi oil.

"Believe me, no," said Mousawi when I asked him about these offers.

"Not that I would not do it if I was not connected to the Governing Council (but) it's quite difficult to carry on both sides...There'll be a lot of money to be made (in Iraq) for many years to come." He also denied that he has been trading oil, and insisted that Jibouri was dismissed after an investigation by the finance committee of the Iraqi Governing Council (Chairman: A. Chalabi) for giving contracts to firms who had flouted sanctions, rather than the other way round. Chalabi on the other hand denied to me that the Governing Council, let alone he himself, had anything to do with the matter.

Chalabi also told me flatly that he is not presently engaged in any private business dealings in Iraq. Many in the region have a different impression, including oil traders using unofficial ports that have sprung up down the Shatt al-Arab from Basra.

Oil minister Ibrahim Bahr Uloom is considered a close ally of Chalabi's, but he is only one of a number of key officials widely regarded by Iraqis to be in the INC chief's pocket. Finance minister Kamil Gailani, formerly a waiter in the Sinjan restaurant in downtown Amman, is viewed as another Chalabi acolyte, as is the head of the central bank and the bosses of the two leading commercial banks. Nephew Salem Chalabi, who has nworked closely with free market fundamentalist fanatics from the CPA on framing crucial occupation edicts, is now overseeing preparations for the trial of Saddam Hussein.

These connections, together with Chalabi's own chairmanship of the Governing Council's finance committee, facilitate such maneuvers as Gailani's current efforts to recruit a western law firm to advise on renegotiating Iraq's overseas debt. British and American lawyers mulling a bid for the contract are in no doubt that it is Chalabi who will be supervising the renegotiation, nor are they unaware of the moneymaking potential of the process. Some officials in Washington are no less perturbed by his efforts to get what one calls "his grubby little hands" on pools of cash secretly stashed abroad by Saddam Hussein. "That money belongs to the Iraqi people," says the official, "not Ahmed Chalabi. (Chalabi is also recruiting law firms to investigate the UN oil-for -food scandal, which, like Saddam's intelligence files, should provide him with a trove of useful information.)

This is not the first time that Chalabi's sources of finance have attracted attention in Washington. In 2002, US State Department auditors probing what had happened to a US subsidy of Chalabi's INC queried the lack of accounting for the large sums spent on an "Intelligence Collection Program." Chalabi refused a more precise accounting on the grounds that his agents' lives were at stake. But according to one former Chalabi associate, at least some of the intelligence money had actually been spent in Iran, which would have been a good reason for keeping the accounts a little fuzzy. This former associate recalls, that, in the late '90s, "Ahmed opened an INC office in Tehran, spending the Americans' money, and he joked to me that 'the Americans are breaching their embargo on Iran.'"

At the time, Chalabi let it be known just who his friends were in Tehran. "When I met him in December 1997 he said he had tremendous connections with Iranian intelligence," recalls Scott Ritter, the former high profile UN weapons inspector. "He said that some of his best intelligence came from the Iranians and offered to set up a meeting for me with the head of Iranian intelligence."

Had Ritter made the trip (the CIA refused him permission), he would have been dealing with Chalabi's chums in Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence, a faction which regarded Saddam Hussein with a venomous hatred spawned both by the bloody war of the 1980s and the Iraqi dictator's continuing support of the terrorist Mojaheddin Khalq group. They had a clear interest in fomenting American paranoia about Saddam, which makes them the most likely authors of at least one carefully crafted piece of forged intelligence regarding Saddam's nuclear program -- an operation in which a Chalabi-sponsored defector played a central role.

Early in 1995, an "Action Team" of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency descended on the offices of the Iraqi nuclear program in Baghdad. They had with them a 20 page document that apparently originated from inside "Group 4," the department that had been responsible for designing the Iraqi bomb. The stationary, page numbering, and stamps all appeared authentic, according to one senior member of the Iraqi bomb team. "It was a 'progress report,'" he recalls, "about 20 pages, on the work in Group 4 departments on the results of their continued work after 1991. It referred to results of experiments on the casting of the hemispheres (ie the bomb core of enriched uranium) with some crude diagrams." As evidence that Iraq was successfully pursuing a nuclear bomb in defiance of sanctions and the inspectors, it was damning.

The document was almost faultless, but not quite. The scientists noticed that some of the technical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. "Most notable," says one scientist, "was the use of the term 'dome'--'Qubba' in Iranian, instead of 'hemisphere'--'Nisuf Kura' in Arabic." In other words, the document had to have been originally written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.

Tom Killeen, of the Iraq Nuclear Verification Office at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, confirms this account of the incident. "After a thorough investigation the documents were determined not to be authentic and the matter was closed."

Asked how the IAEA obtained the document in the first place, Killeen replied "Khidir Hamza." Hamza was the former member of the Iraqi weapons team who briefly headed the bomb design group before being relegated to a sinecure posting (his effectiveness as a nuclear engineer was limited by his pathological fear of radioactivity and consequent refusal to enter any building where experiments were underway.) In 1994 he made his way to Ahmed Chalabi's headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan, and eventually arrived in Washington. where he carved out a career based on an imaginative claim to have been "Saddam's Bombmaker."

As late as the summer of 2002 Hamza was being escorted by Chalabi's Washington representative Francis Brooke to the Pentagon to brief Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on details of Saddam's allegedly burgeoning nuclear weapons program. There is no indication that he himself ever visited Iran. Asked by e-mail whether he had been receiving intelligence from the Iranians, Chalabi, despite his 1997 assertion to Scott Ritter, rejects the charge as "an absolute falsehood." Judging by his frequent visits to Iran, and the warm manner in which his underlings discuss the ayatollahs' regime, Chalabi links with Tehran are still strong. No less important are his ties with the neocon gang in Washington, who still maintain that the big mistake of the occupation was not putting Ahmed in charge right away, Simultaneously, his championship of Shi'ite groups in Iraq becomes ever more assertive -- his newspaper has recently been campaigning against Adnan Pachachi for allegedly excluding Moqtada al-Sadr from the Governing Council!

One well connected Iraqi told me recently, "he will play the Shia extremist card for all it is worth. He's quite prepared to break Iraq apart if it serves his purpose. He's really dangerous now."
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Analysis Disaster for Blair.

2005-03-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

Disaster for Blair as Iraq torture claims widen
By: Brian Brady, Westminister editor on: 10.05.2004

THE British government was warned by Red Cross officials in February that coalition troops were abusing and even killing Iraqi captives, it emerged last night.

Downing Street has been dragged into the deepening crisis after admitting ministers were shown a copy of the Red Cross report detailing abuses so that action could be taken.

The revelation prompted immediate opposition demands that Tony Blair explain what he and senior government colleagues knew and what steps they took to stop the abuse of captives.

Last night, there was further severe embarrassment for the British military after it emerged a second regiment was apparently involved in the mistreatment of prisoners and that soldiers could face prosecution for sexual assault.

It was reported that as many as three members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were under investigation by military police after officers were shown photographs of Iraqi captives being forced to commit homosexual acts.

And in another development, the Ministry of Defence admitted that British military personnel were stationed at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, the scene of the most sadistic abuses by US soldiers, for several months earlier this year.

It has already been suggested that much of the degrading treatment meted out to Iraqis was devised by the British as an interrogation tool.

The news that UK troops were based at Abu Ghraib raises further disturbing questions about what the British military knew of the abuse going on there. A Downing Street spokesman last night confirmed that the Red Cross drew their attention to allegations of abuse earlier in the year.

The spokesman said: "The International Committee of the Red Cross showed the government a copy of the report in February to enable the government to comment and take action on this."

He said the Red Cross informed the government because parts of the report concerned areas of British responsibility. He refused to reveal what action was taken.

A leaked copy of the report, confirmed as genuine by the agency, described prisoners kept naked in total darkness in empty cells at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison - under US-control - and male prisoners forced to parade around in women’s underwear. Coalition forces also fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers, killing some of them. In another episode, nine men were arrested in Basra and beaten severely, leading to one death, it added.

New claims of abuse perpetrated by British soldiers continue to emerge. The alleged incidents involving the Fusiliers are said to have come to light when a soldier deposited his film following his return from Iraq. It is not known whether the man was responsible for taking the photographs.

The images, now held by the MoD, are described as similar to those of American troops abusing Iraqi prisoners, which caused outrage last week. Some are said to show prisoners being forced to commit sex acts on each other.

The MoD confirmed that the inquiry had been completed and the files passed Army Prosecuting Authority, which will decided on whether to proceed with charges.

Military police are already investigating numerous allegations of mistreatment of prisoners by members of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment. The unit has suffered more than a week of terrible publicity after the Daily Mirror published pictures which it claimed showed soldiers beating and urinating on an Iraqi prisoner.

Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that British forces may have known of, and may even have helped devise, ‘interrogation’ techniques used by the US military. An MoD spokesman confirmed that three British military staff were based at Abu-Ghraid, but insisted they were unaware of abuse or the US investigation that began in January. The three interrogators interviewed a small number of prisoners with a view to "gathering information" that could help the coalition.

He said their work was consistent with the Geneva Convention and the responsibility for guarding the prisoners remained with the US.

The spokesman said the interrogators arrived at the prison after the abuse was discovered and after investigations began into the allegations. One left the prison in March while the others remained until April.

Opposition politicians insisted the stream of allegations and revelations made it essential that the government give a full account of what it knew. Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram said last night: "These new revelations show that it is now imperative that Hoon or the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw himself come before the House of Commons on Monday to explain when he was first informed of the abuses in Abu Ghraib."

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said later: "It is important that we get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. The government must make clear what it knew and when. These allegations have done enormous damage and it is important to reassure both the Iraqi people and Muslims from this country that if additional allegations are true they will be dealt with swiftly and firmly."

Meanwhile, Scotland on Sunday can reveal that Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is thrashing out a deal with US and Iraqi leaders to allow the vast majority of inmates in British-controlled prisons to come under Iraqi control when power is transferred on June 30.

Coalition forces are currently holding 8,000 prisoners in 14 separate jails around Iraq under the terms of the Geneva Convention, which dictates the conditions of prisoners of war (PoWs).

British military chiefs are desperate to hand over the responsibility to Iraqi police as soon as possible.

Senior ministerial source said last night: "We accept this situation has caused our forces great difficulty and it is in all our interests to see that this responsibility is removed from their roster.

"We have prisoners of war, security detainees and criminal detainees, but there is no reason why the vast majority of these cannot be guarded by local officials. I would expect that within a month of the handover we would only have a handful of the most hardened detainees still in our custody.

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Analysis,Withdrawal on the Cards ?

2005-03-15T08:11:00.000-08:00

Analysis: Withdrawal on the cards?
By: Paul Reynolds, BBC News, May 3 on: 04.05.2004

Events in Iraq have been spinning out of control - and out of control of the spinners - so fast on so many fronts that the W word - withdrawal - is now being mentioned.
Charles Heyman, senior defence analyst for Jane's Consultancy Group, wrote in the London Times on Monday:
"It begins to look as though there is going to be a rather messy political solution to the whole affair, possibly brokered by the United Nations. Expect to see an agreement where both sides can claim some sort of a victory, followed by a rather hasty withdrawal of coalition troops at some stage in the next six months."

It is certainly true that on three fronts the coalition is not doing too well:
On the military, the insurgency has clearly spread from the few "former regime elements" and "foreign fighters" whom coalition spokesmen regularly blame.
And the ability of the coalition to impose its own solutions has slipped away.
The bizarre situation in Falluja is a prime example of this.
The sight of former Republican Guard General Jasim Saleh appearing on the scene in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes and his old uniform to negotiate a security role for himself could hardly have contradicted the coalition's original aim of driving out the fighters from Falluja more vividly.
And what has happened to Moqtada Sadr, the fiery young Muslim leader, who, we were told, was going to be brought to justice on a murder charge? Not much, it seems.

The propaganda war could not have gone worse with the publication of the photos of prisoner abuse.
Whatever the origin of some of these photos, the damage has been done on the street.
The pictures highlight the problem that the coalition, having failed to make the case for going to war over the elusive weapons issue, is now failing to make its second case - the moral argument that it can bring the rule of law to a land without law.

The third problem is political.
There is now only May and June to go before the handover of "sovereignty" to an interim government.
Yet this government will have no power. It will be able to make no new laws or change any law previously decreed by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
It will also have very limited powers over the occupation troops, to be renamed the multi-national force.
So will it be able to command the loyalty of Iraqis to a sufficient degree to bring the insurgency under control?

Against the gloomy predictions, one has to say that the will of the soon-to-be-appointed Iraqi Interim Government and that of the United States and the UK to see this through should not be underestimated.
And there is always a risk that the herd instinct of journalists and commentators often predicts one thing while events produce another.
Christopher Hitchens, the gadfly journalist who has been one of the war's great supporters, writes acerbically of his fellow hacks in Slate magazine:
"It's now fairly obvious that those who cover Iraq have placed their bets on a fiasco or 'quagmire'."
He is still hoping for an eventual settlement in Iraq, which might go democracy's way:

"There are vast numbers of Iraqis - as we know from the leaflets distributed in Najaf, and the blogs from Baghdad, and from the hundreds of thousands who are exercising their right of return to the country - who do not wish to live under the rule of demented mullahs. The pulse and heart rate of the society have barely had a chance to register."

The problem is that a year after the invasion, there are still no plans for an election before the end of this year and therefore the "chance to register" for all those moderates is still not available.
The whole was based on the belief that, as in Germany and Japan after the war, resistance would collapse and that the task of building institutions could therefore be given time.
It is instructive, for example, that even at this stage in Iraq, the drawing up of voting lists is only just being examined.
Time, as it turned out, has not been on the coalition's side and the race between chaos and stability is still on.

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Analysis.Washington Unleashes Bloodbath

2005-03-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

Washington unleashes bloodbath in Iraq
By: wsws.org, Editorial Board

With thousands of troops massed outside the besieged cities of Fallujah in central Iraq and Najaf in the south, the Bush administration has unleashed a bloodbath against the Iraqi people.

In Fallujah, US forces on Tuesday escalated their attack, with AC-130 gunships firing cannon rounds into crowded residential areas. The city was also pounded by fire from helicopter gunships, jet fighters, tanks and machine guns.

In one instance, tank fire was used to topple the minaret of a local mosque. Marines reportedly closed the last entrance to Fallujah, barring any more of the residents who had fled earlier fighting from returning to their homes. The action was seen by observers as the prelude to the renewal of a full-scale assault on the city of 300,000, which has been a center of resistance to the US occupation.

One Marine commander referred to the city—comparable in size to Birmingham, Alabama or Newark, New Jersey—as a “huge rats’ nest.”

In Najaf, Pentagon officials claimed Tuesday that US occupation forces killed scores of members of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Missile-firing helicopter gunships were called in to mow down some 60 militiamen, according to US officials. Local hospital staff, however, reported that the casualties included unarmed civilians. It was also reported that US troops had seized a major hospital and were denying access or supplies to those seeking to treat wounded Iraqis.

In the aftermath of the clash, throngs of Najaf residents carried the coffins of seven of the slain fighters through the streets, vowing to resist any attempt by US forces to take control of the city.

“We’re going to drive this guy into the dirt,” a commanding officer of the US 1st Armored Division said of Sadr.

What is being prepared is a wave of mass killing aimed at terrorizing the Iraqi people into accepting the continued occupation of their country by the US military. Lacking anywhere near the forces necessary to police a country of 25 million people, Washington is determined to make an example out of Fallujah and Sadr’s movement, much in the same fashion that the Nazi occupiers of World War II Europe leveled the Czech town of Lidice and razed the Warsaw ghetto.

Given the sadism and backwardness of the occupant of the White House, who is said to be making the ultimate decisions on the two sieges, the looming assaults are no doubt also driven by a thirst for revenge. Since the beginning of April, 122 US troops have lost their lives in combat. During the same period, ten times as many Iraqis have been killed, many of them women and children.

Laying siege to cities, attacking hospitals and mosques, denying medical care, food and other essential services to entire civilian populations and imprisoning close to 20,000 Iraqis without charges or hearings are all war crimes, and they are being carried out in the name of the American people.

The original pretexts advanced for invading and occupying Iraq—from weapons of mass destruction to supposed ties between Baghdad and Al Qaeda—have long since been proven lies. Now, the claim that Washington is seeking to bring “freedom” and “democracy” in Iraq is being exposed as a fraud as the full horror of Washington’s dirty colonialist war becomes increasingly evident.

While millions of Americans oppose this war and watch with revulsion as the killing escalates, the onslaught against the Iraqi people enjoys the full support of the US establishment and both of its political parties. That the bloodletting in Iraq is the consensus policy of the entire ruling elite was made clear by editorials appearing in two influential dailies this week.

In an editorial entitled “The Fallujah Stakes,” the Wall Street Journal on Monday gave vent to the thirst for blood that predominates among the right-wing Republican layers that are politically closest to the Bush administration. These elements are increasingly agitated over what they see as a retreat from the administration’s unilateralist policy in Iraq. This has intensified since Bush’s announcement that he will allow United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to effectively select the personnel for the so-called interim government that is to be installed on July 1.

The Journal, which in response to the first Persian Gulf war coined the infamous slogan, “Force works,” wants to see blood soon and in great quantities. The newspaper warned Monday that the Bush administration must not “shrink from the military campaign that is inevitable.” It continued:

“Sooner or later the Baath remnants, jihadists and criminals who have used Fallujah as a sanctuary have to be killed. They can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, because for them a peaceful transition to Iraqi control after June 30 means defeat...Sooner or later the insurgents have to be defeated, and at the point of a gun, not by diplomacy. If we’re not prepared to do that, Mr. Bush might as well order the troops home now.”

The day before, the New York Times published an editorial entitled “A Stronger Force in Iraq” that corresponded in large measure to the positions taken by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. It called upon the Bush administration to confront “unpleasant realities,” including the prospect that an additional 50,000 troops or more will have to be sent to occupy Iraq, and that the occupation will continue well past 2006. It complained that the Bush White House was denying “our forces and the Iraqi people the protection that adequate troop strength would provide.”

The editorial concluded: “We may, in the end, find that the task Mr. Bush has laid out for the brave men and women in the military and the brave Iraqi citizens who are struggling to create a better future is simply impossible to achieve. But we have not reached that point. This is not the moment for retreat and it certainly is not the moment for half measures.” (Emphasis added).

The meaning of this last sentence—written in the context of the sieges mounted by the US military against Fallujah and Najaf—is unmistakable. No “half measures” means unleashing the full force of the US military against a popular uprising that cannot be crushed without massive civilian casualties.

Both the Bush administration’s most fervent right-wing backers and its supposed political opponents in what passes for the liberal establishment have come together to employ the same lies to justify the slaughter in Iraq. They both claim that the US occupation forces are in Iraq as armed missionaries of “freedom” and “democracy.”

For the Wall Street Journal, the transition to “Iraqi control” is possible only through the slaying of those Iraqis who are resisting foreign occupation. For the Times, “security” for the Iraqis is to be achieved through a massive escalation of a US occupation that has already claimed the lives of well over 10,000 civilians.

This killing of Iraqis and the pointless sacrifice of hundreds of young American soldiers’ lives is being carried out not for any of the preposterous reasons—freedom, democracy, security—put forward by the war’s defenders. Rather, US imperialism has decided to conquer and occupy an entire country and suppress its people in order to seize control of its vast oil resources and assert its hegemony over one of the world’s most strategically vital regions.

In the run-up to what US officials and the American media describe as “handing over sovereignty” to the Iraqi people scheduled for June 30, the cynicism of the US colonial project is undeniable. In an interview with Reuters news agency Monday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell made clear that the so-called “sovereignty” of a new group of hand-picked Iraqi officials will not extend beyond their desks.

“It’s sovereignty, but (some) of that sovereignty they are going to allow us to exercise on their behalf and with their permission,” said Powell. “It is not as if we are seizing anything away from them.”

There will be nothing to seize. The US military will continue to occupy the country, exercising powers amounting to martial law. And Washington will resist any attempts by the new body to pass laws or amend those decreed by the occupation authority. All political and economic decisions will be made by the incoming US ambassador, John Negroponte, who will be backed by an embassy staff approaching 4,000—the largest anywhere in the world—and will exercise the authority of a colonial viceroy.

That the US occupation is an expedition devoted to looting rather than liberation was spelled out last month in a revealing interview by the American official first placed in charge in Iraq. Retired General Jay Garner told BBC reporter Greg Palast that the US administration had drawn up detailed plans for the privatization of the Iraqi economy and its oil wealth as early as 2001. Garner was removed from his post, he said, because his call for early elections cut across US plans to implement by decree this economic program of plunder and seizure. Nothing could more clearly testify to the fact that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have nothing to do with “democracy,” and everything to do with transferring the country’s wealth into the hands of the US oil monopolies, banks and corporations.

Part of the plan, Garner added, was to establish Iraq as a US military base for operations throughout the Middle East. He said Iraq would serve much the same function as the Philippines did in projecting US naval power in the Pacific after the crushing of nationalist guerrillas in that country at the end of the 1898 Spanish-American War.

“I think it is a bad analogy, but we should look right now at Iraq as our coaling station in the Middle East, where we have some presence there and it gives us a ... strategic advantage there,” said Garner.

These words, from the horse’s mouth, provide indisputable confirmation that this war marks the resurgence of brutal and unabashed colonialism.

The cynicism and hypocrisy of the US ruling elite and its political servants have no limit. One need only recall that Ronald Reagan in the 1980s hailed the CIA-funded Afghan mujaheddin who fought against Soviet military occupation as “freedom fighters” and the modern equivalent of America’s founding fathers. Yet those who fight today against the American military occupation of Iraq are branded criminals.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis are resisting—with undeniable popular support—the overwhelming military superiority of the occupation forces. While they are routinely described by US officials and the media as “terrorists,” “thugs,” and “extremists,” they have every right to fight for an end to the illegal occupation and colonial conquest of their country.

The demand must be raised with redoubled strength in the US itself for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq and the payment of war reparations to the Iraqi people. Those responsible for dragging the American people into this war based on lies are guilty of war crimes and should be subjected to criminal prosecution.

The “liberal” argument that the US occupation must continue because without American troops Iraq would descend into civil war is as old as colonialism itself, and merits only contempt. The worst alternative in Iraq would be the “success” of this imperialist project. It would entail the permanent occupation of Iraq and endless bloodletting, while paving the way for new and even more catastrophic wars.

The Democratic and Republican parties are united in their determination to exclude from the elections any debate over the continuation of the US occupation. For both Kerry and Bush, the antiwar sentiments of tens of millions of Americans are illegitimate and must be suppressed.

The struggle against war cannot be waged on the basis of the facile politics of “anybody but Bush.” It requires the building of a new and independent mass political movement of American working people fighting to unite their struggles with those of working people internationally.

The Socialist Equality Party is intervening in the 2004 elections to lay the foundations for the building of a mass socialist party of the working class. Only our candidates are demanding an immediate end to the criminal war in Iraq. We call on all those who oppose this war to support the SEP campaign.

Help place our presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Bill Van Auken and Jim Lawrence, on as many state ballots as possible. Come forward to place SEP candidates for Congress on the ballot in your state and locality. Strike a blow against militarism and imperialist war by actively backing the SEP election campaign.
Source.link

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Analysis,What if U.S Fails in Iraq

2005-03-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

'We need a Plan B, and I'm not sure we yet have a Plan B'
By Carol Lochhead,San Francisco Chronicle.

President Bush warned the nation Tuesday night of the "unthinkable" consequences of failure in Iraq. But amid escalating violence and a crackdown by U.S. forces, Washington analysts expressed rising concern about the chances of success.

"I think we run a serious risk of disaster in Iraq if what we find on June 30 is a turnover of sovereignty to some kind of governing body that lacks legitimacy," said Bathsheba Crocker, co-director of the post-conflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I don't yet know what the plan is for avoiding that kind of disaster. ... We need a Plan B, and I'm not sure we yet have a Plan B."

The list of problems is long and widely discussed in Washington. It includes:
-- The need for an estimated $70 billion in new funding, which Bush did not mention.
-- The need for more U.S. troops and troops from France, Germany and other big powers reluctant to lend aid.
-- The U.S. public relations failure inside Iraq.
-- The failure to train and equip Iraqi security forces.
-- The slow progress on reconstruction and the lack of private investment to jump-start the economy and suck support from the insurgency.

"The risks are far higher than the president suggested," said Anthony Cordesman, a senior military strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We really do face a much more challenging struggle than we heard (Tuesday) night," Cordesman said, referring to Bush's news conference.

Most of the problems stem from two broad, early failures, an array of analysts say: the inability to provide security, beginning with the looting after the invasion more than a year ago, and the lack of international political, financial and troop support.

Few analysts are prepared to declare failure, but the recent violence proves that a political vacuum has opened in Iraq in the year since coalition forces toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Some political entity that carries credibility and authority inside Iraq is needed to fill that vacuum, they say. It cannot be filled by military force alone.

If the Iraqi moderates on whom Bush rests his hopes of bringing peace and freedom to the country do not step in, extremists have proven they will.

The most serious current threat is the radical young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. But observers said many local militias besides Sadr's have stepped in with security, offering safety to ordinary Iraqis that U.S. forces have been unable to provide in many regions.

Analysts point to widespread evidence of sophisticated psychological warfare aimed at isolating the United States and creating public pressure for a withdrawal, notably hostage-taking of civilians from countries allied with the United States and the mutilation and burning of bodies.

"We need more troops, we need a lot more troops than what Gen. (John) Abizaid is requesting, everybody knows it and everybody knew it a long time ago, even before the recent uprising," said an observer who asked not to be identified but who has recently traveled in Iraq.

Events are moving quickly, and the administration already has missed many opportunities to win the battle for popular opinion, analysts said.

People in the Middle East "draw clear parallels between occupations and intifadas," the Arab word for uprising, said Jon Alterman, director of Middle East studies for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently back from Iraq. "And now there are two intifadas — one in Palestine and the Fallujah intifada in Iraq."

Bush insists that the June 30 date to transfer political sovereignty from the United States to Iraqis remain, warning that to miss the deadline would be seen by the majority of Iraqis as a betrayal and would fuel the insurgency.

Many observers, including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, agree, despite the lack of any credible Iraqi political body to assume sovereignty until elections planned later in the year.

Larry Diamond, a democracy specialist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who recently traveled in Iraq, said Iraqis "are really looking to that date with intense national expectation. If we were to alter that date for the handover of power, I think there would be a very bad reaction throughout the country."

After the abandonment of a series of U.S. efforts, plans for a political transition to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30 now rest almost solely in the hands of U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, as Bush conceded Tuesday.
Brahimi offered Bush rare good news Wednesday, saying he is confident a caretaker government can be set up then.

There are other positive signs, and analysts point especially to what they say is the desire among a majority of Iraqis for peace and stability.

"I think this is something that actually we can take heart in," Diamond said. "The majority of Iraqis do not want a violent blow up now. They want to get back their sovereignty and have elections."
Yet the task facing Brahimi is herculean; the violence alone is preventing his small team from visiting many parts of the country.

"The inability to provide security is the pervasive failure of Americans more than anything else," Alterman said. "When I talk to Iraqis, they say the old regime, at least they provided security. When you're terrified to go out at night, when you don't want to leave your house, it has a horribly corrosive effect ... Iraqis transfer all the blame for this to Americans, and what this creates is the opportunity for a wide range of militias to do what the U.S. can't do."

Lack of security is severely hampering a reconstruction effort that Cordesman said is in deep trouble. He said 20 percent of the $18 billion in reconstruction contracts will be spent on security.

Cordesman also said the administration will have to make an enormous new budget request.

"Virtually everyone in Washington knows this, and it will be for the military budget alone a minimum of $50 billion, and if you add aid and external costs, probably $70 billion."

Administration supporters contend that things are not as bad as they appear and warn that the worst thing the United States can do now is abandon Iraqis.

"What we had underestimated going in was the Iraqi fear of betrayal, which was provoked by our abandonment of them in 1991," said Michael Rubin, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who just returned from eight months in the country. "The vast majority of Iraqis who generally aspire to democracy and freedom are waiting to see if we're going to stick to our guns before they stick their neck out."
Source San Francisco Chronicle.

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Analysis,Insurgents Display New Sophistication

2005-03-15T07:24:00.000-08:00

Insurgents Display New Sophistication
By: Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, Apr 14 on: 16.04.2004

Insurgents fighting the U.S.-led occupation force have sharply increased the sophistication, coordination and aggressiveness of their tactics over the past week, Army officers and soldiers involved in combat here said.

Most dramatically, as several thousand U.S. troops pushed south this week from the Baghdad area to this new base in central Iraq, one highway bridge on their planned route was destroyed and two others were so heavily damaged that they could not be used by heavy Army trucks and armored vehicles.

Those attacks on convoy routes, which U.S. forces were using for the first time, revealed a previously unseen degree of coordination among insurgent groups, said Army Col. Dana J.H. Pittard, the commander of a brigade-size task force now assembling for possible combat operations against the forces of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr in or near the holy city of Najaf.

"The dropping of the bridges was very interesting, because it showed a regional or even a national level of organization," Pittard said in an interview. He said insurgents appeared to be sending information southward, communicating about routes being taken by U.S. forces and then getting sufficient amounts of explosives to key bridges ahead of the convoys.

With occupation forces battling Sadr's Shiite militiamen south and east of Baghdad and Sunni Muslim insurgents to the north and west, the timing of the Iraqis' tactical development is nearly as troubling for U.S. forces as its effect. But the explanation for the change is not yet clear, military commanders said.

Here in southern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Shiite, U.S. officers say the best guess is that former soldiers who served under President Saddam Hussein have decided to lend their expertise and coordinating abilities to the untrained Shiite militiamen.

"It's a combination of Saddam loyalists and Shiite militias," Maj. Gen. John R. Batiste, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, said in a brief interview here at FOB Duke, where he was reviewing combat preparations.

Batiste said the influence of former Iraqi Republican Guard officers was especially apparent in the fighting in the Sunni town of Fallujah, where, he said, many veteran officers made their homes. "You could staff a division with the Iraqi officers living there," he said.

Maj. Kreg Schnell, Pittard's intelligence chief, agreed with Batiste's assessment. "There's been a marriage of convenience between Sadr's militia and Saddam loyalists," he said.

What officers here say they are not seeing is a sharp increase in the number of foreign guerrillas involved in the fighting. That element, said Pittard, is tiny — perhaps "about 2 percent."

One of Pittard's combat engineers noted that several hundred pounds of explosive material and a fair degree of expertise were required to destroy a span on a major highway bridge. Several Army convoys moving south to this base — the task force commanded by Pittard includes elements of the 1st Infantry Division, 2nd Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Division — were delayed by more than 12 hours by the operations against the bridges, which Pittard called "irritating" but not a major problem.
The bridge demolitions are not the only evidence of the insurgents' increasing sophistication.

"When we first got here, it was just IEDs," the roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices, "and mortars," said Sgt. James Amyett, a scout with the 1st Infantry Division who arrived in Iraq just over a month ago. "Then all of a sudden, it's full-scale ambushes."

He was speaking in the predawn hours Tuesday while his convoy recovered from a roadside attack just west of the Euphrates River that began with a bomb and was followed by bursts of red tracer fire from a machine gun and several volleys of rocket-propelled grenades. One U.S. soldier was mortally wounded in the attack; another soldier and a civilian contractor were less seriously injured.

In a separate ambush east of Najaf, a group of fighters suspected to be part of Sadr's militia let a group of six U.S. armored vehicles pass their position, then placed obstacles across the highway behind them, cutting off their line of retreat. The armored vehicles were forced to move forward across a bridge. While they were on the bridge approaching a police checkpoint, Iraqi fighters, some of them wearing police uniforms, began firing on them. No U.S. troops were hurt in the incident.

In another departure being studied by U.S. military intelligence, groups of fighters launched synchronized attacks Friday on several U.S. and Iraqi installations in Baqubah, a provincial capital north of Baghdad. By simultaneously striking U.S. troops at the police station, the provincial governors' office and a U.S. military office, the insurgents displayed not only a considerable amount of planning and positioning but also a level of aggressiveness far beyond the roadside bombings and firing of rocket-propelled grenades that occur daily in Iraq.

"This ain't just 15-year-old kids with RPGs," said a combat engineer in the 1st Infantry Division.

The new assertiveness of the anti-U.S. fighters was displayed further later that day on the outskirts of Baqubah, where dozens of RPG-toting fighters confronted a platoon of four Bradley Fighting Vehicles, according to a 1st Infantry Division after-action report. "The platoon was literally surrounded by the enemy," the report said. One U.S. soldier and about 20 Iraqis were killed in the encounter, the report said.

"More and more, they're starting to stand and shoot," said Sgt. Maj. John Fourhman, the top enlisted soldier in the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade. "Before, they just ran."

In addition, Iraqi fighters have begun dynamiting highway overpasses in Baghdad. Though they did not destroy the spans, they succeeded in slowing traffic, depriving U.S. supply convoys of their best defense against ambushes — speed. It is far easier to use roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades against a truck mired in traffic than it is to hit one moving at 60 mph.

The evolution of the insurgents' tactics is particularly surprising, military analysts say, because many such moves had been expected but did not occur during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last spring.

Attacks on bridges were widely expected within the Army because it was clear that the U.S. troops heading for Baghdad would have to cross the Euphrates. Also, while much of the Iraqi military, including its armored units and air force, was believed to have deteriorated badly after a decade of crippling economic sanctions, Iraqi military engineers, who would have overseen the destruction of bridges, were judged to be extremely competent. As it happened, not one bridge was detonated to block the path of the invasion force.
Source Washington Post link

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Analysis.One Year On from Liberation to Jihad

2005-03-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

On April 9, 2002, Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdaus Square in Baghdad was still enveloped, like a Christo installation, waiting to be unveiled in an official ceremony. On April 9, 2003, the statue was toppled by the US Army, and later replaced by a faceless figure symbolizing "liberation". On April 9, 2004, the faceless statue is plastered with photographs of "outlaw" Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

One year after the "fall" of Baghdad, the old colonial maxim "divide and rule" does not apply anymore. For the occupiers, this is the ultimate nightmare: Sunni and Shi'ite, united (almost) as one. From Kirkuk in the north to Karbala in the south, from Fallujah to Nasiriyah, from Ramadi to Baghdad, Iraq is in turmoil - and this is not the work of "Saddam Fedayeen", "remnants of the Ba'ath Party" or "foreign terrorists". This is the beginning of the end: the serious possibility that the Shi'ites - 60 percent or so of the invaded and "liberated" Iraqi population - will be tempted actively to lead the multifaceted Iraqi resistance.

It's ironic that it took one year after its supposed US-sponsored liberation for the resistance to qualify Fallujah as liberated - before the city of almost 500,000 came under siege by the marines this past Monday. There's no food or water coming in. By blocking the highway connecting Baghdad, Amman and Damascus, the Americans have strangulated practically all trade between Iraq and its neighbors Jordan and Syria. The city is totally sealed off from the rest of the world. AlJazeera has the only media crew in town. Reporter Ahmad Mansur says: "Everybody walking in the streets is now becoming an American target." Mosques are broadcasting calls to jihad.

An Apache helicopter fired three missiles into a compound housing the Abdul Aziz al-Samarrai mosque in Fallujah during afternoon prayers. The mosque itself was not hit - but dozens of people were. Homes are being turned into makeshift hospitals. Whatever the spin from the Pentagon, this is the word of mouth in the Iraqi street, soon to spread like wildfire all over the Muslim world: the Americans now are bombing mosques. Fallujah is the new Gaza. Fallujah residents are to be subjected to ferocious Israeli-style search-and-destroy raids for the men with rocket-propelled grenades who first attacked the four American mercenaries from Blackwater Security Consulting, whose corpses were later mutilated and hanged by an angry mob. Iraqis in the Sunni triangle believe that the Americans received their "rules of engagement" from Ariel Sharon's army in Israel.

Meanwhile, in the Shi'ite belt, the holy city of Kufa, the power base of the clerical al-Sadr family, in whose mosque "outlaw" Muqtada al-Sadr took refuge, became the first Iraqi city to spin completely out of US control. Asia Times Online has confirmed that Muqtada is now in the holy city of Najaf, in his office in an alley near the Imam Ali shrine, protected by hundreds of armed members of his Mahdi Army. The Iraqi police have totally vanished. The Spanish garrison outside of town describes the situation as "high tension". The Mahdi Army now in effect controls the shrine, as well as central Najaf. A constant stream of Muqtada's followers comes from Baghdad. In his most recent statement, he says: "I'm prepared to have my own blood shed for what is holy to me," and calls on Sunnis and Shi'ites alike to fight the Americans.

Proconsul L Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has already amplified Muqtada's cult-hero status, and may soon create a martyr by having a warrant for his arrest issued. Muqtada's black-clad Mahdi Army may have only several thousand members, but he commands support of at least 30 percent of an estimated 15 million Iraqi Shi'ites: some serious Arab analysts even talk of 50 percent. And just as his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, became a martyr to Saddam in 1999, Muqtada well appreciates the benefits of becoming a martyr to the US occupation.

Cross-confessional intifada

For all purposes, an intifada is now going on. Local sources tell Asia Times Online there are pro-Muqtada posters all over Anbar - the richest, predominantly Sunni, Iraqi province. Ramadi - where marines have been under fierce attack - is in Anbar. Only a war of national liberation is the motive capable of explaining these posters. The concept - penned by the Pentagon - of a Shi'ite Mahdi Army fighting the marines in Sunni Anbar is positively ludicrous. This regional resistance is conducted by former officers of the Iraqi army, as tribal sheikhs in the Sunni triangle told this correspondent last year.

Sunnis and Shi'ites are united in Baghdad, under the same nationalist impulse. Sheikh Raed al-Kazami, Muqtada's man in the Shi'ite-majority Kazimiya neighborhood, is not very far from the truth when he says: "All of Iraq is behind Muqtada al-Sadr; we are but one body, one people." On the other side of the Tigris, Sunni-majority Adhamiya is now aligned with Kazimiya, as well as Fallujah, Ramadi and even Mosul, against the "American invaders". The popular justification is always the same: this is now a jihad, regardless of whether one is Sunni or Shi'ite. People will fight in their neighborhoods, even if they don't join the Mahdi Army.

Asia Times Online has learned that in an unprecedented move, 150 powerful Sunni tribal leaders and emissaries personally delivered a support message to Muqtada's key aides in the 2-million-plus slum of Sadr City, the former Saddam City: "We are all behind Muqtada al-Sadr, we are by his side because he awakened the Iraqi people to liberate the country from the infidel invaders." The message also said: "We are but one Muslim nation - no one can separate us, be it in Iraq or Palestine."

Washington was busy predicting a civil war among Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. The White House, the Pentagon and the CPA even had the perfectly manufactured culprit: Jordanian Mussab al-Zarqawi, the new Osama bin Laden. What they bought themselves instead is the ultimate occupier nightmare: Sunni and Shi'ite united. Muqtada may be a cross between two-thirds Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran and one-third Che Guevara (without the romantic charisma). But he finds enormous echo in Iraq when he compares Bremer to Saddam (in Sadr City, US-trained Iraqi soldiers first fired on peaceful demonstrators, followed by the US Army with tanks, Apaches and jets firing at random on homes, shops and even ambulances; according to local hospitals, dozens of civilians were killed and many more were injured). Muqtada also finds enormous echo in the Arab world when he aligns himself with Hamas - predominantly Sunni - and Hezbollah - predominantly Shi'ite.

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld swears Washington has nothing to do with the arrest warrant against Muqtada: this is "Iraqi justice" in action. Wrong. The Iraqi Jurists Association published a statement on Wednesday saying that the arrest warrant is "illegal and based on a lie ... The arrest warrant is illegal and incorrect, as the occupation forces issued it in disregard for sovereignty of Iraq's justice system." The Iraqi minister of justice, Abdel-Rahim Al-Shibly, also says he had not been aware of the arrest warrant.

The Bremer - Muqtada - Sistani triangle

The CPA will never persuade Iraqis - Sunni or Shi'ite - that the violent repression against Muqtada and the Mahdi Army is capable of safeguarding the "handover of sovereignty" on June 30. Apart from Humvees, tanks and Apaches, Bremer sent the new Iraqi army - using ski masks, so they would not be recognized later by the neighbors - to fire on the urban poor of Sadr City, the same Saddam City "liberated" by the marines a year ago. After this performance, the CPA's credibility, already low, is now less than zero: the average Iraqi portrays it as a dictatorship exactly like Saddam's - intolerant of a critical press and fully repressing peaceful protests.

Former counter-terrorism expert Bremer may have been foolish to use such tactics. Or he may have been very clever - employing a typical Sharon move: a provocation leading to anger and protests, which cries for a crackdown to restore "order". He may have wanted to trigger a move to cripple the growing influence of the army of Sadrists. Muqtada and his followers would have every chance of getting a great number of seats if elections for a Iraqi parliament are really held next January.

Muqtada is indeed a radical upstart compared with the religious Shi'ite first among equals, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But Sistani prefers to carefully mold the United Nations to his wishes, rather than confronting the CPA - which he loathes in silence and seclusion. But as many Shi'ite religious leaders have told this correspondent, Sistani just has to say the word (or issue a fatwa). If he says the word, the occupation is finished.

One thing is absolutely certain: there is no possible US military solution to smash the resistance. Harith al-Dari, secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Scholars Association - one of the country's highest religious authorities - goes straight to the point: "They insist on enforcing a military solution as if they are facing an enemy in a battleground, not isolated civilians."

If Bremer behaved like a fool, he only has one card left to play. He badly needs Sistani's help to reign in Muqtada. But Sistani does not even admit receiving a deferential visit from Bremer in person. Supposing this would happen, there would be a heavy political price to pay: plenty of US concessions and a total review of the US-imposed Iraqi constitution. For the moment, Sistani has voiced "solidarity" with Muqtada, and is still preaching "negotiations", while Dawa - the oldest Shi'ite political party - has distanced itself from the Muqtada uprising.

Hell and Blackwater

The four Americans killed in Fallujah were not simply "civilians". Three were Navy Seals (sea, air, land special forces) and one was Delta Force, working on contract for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and employees of Blackwater Security Consulting - one among dozens of so-called "private" companies performing shady operations in Iraq and other parts of the world Washington prefers be attributed to "civilians": a US$100-billion-a-year market. There may be as many as 10,000 "civilian" security contractors in Iraq at the moment. Blackwater is a paramilitary operation: it trains soldiers in counter-terrorism and urban combat, and profits from rent-a-soldier schemes (using former Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy Seals). Blackwater's corporate leaders are proud to manage the largest and most professional private army in the world, with around 400 armed commandos in Iraq alone. Some of them compose the Praetorian Guard of Bremer himself.

Additionally, there may be up to 3,000 CIA agents in Iraq at the moment. As far as the Iraqi resistance is concerned, "security" contractors, Seals, Delta Force or CIA are not civilians but legitimate military-related targets.

Anybody who has traveled in the Sunni triangle knows how the US occupation is universally loathed. Fallujah residents told this correspondent last year that the Americans themselves triggered the birth of the resistance only two weeks after the fall of Baghdad, when their troops entrenched in a Fallujah school opened indiscriminate fire against an angry crowd, killing at least 17 people, including women and children.

The Pentagon and the White House could not possibly admit there's a war of national resistance going on - but that's what it is: the spirit of the resistance is a mix of Iraqi nationalism and Arab pride, and has absolutely nothing to do with Saddam. Even before the crackdown on Fallujah and against Muqtada's followers, different groups had united under an official denomination: the Patriotic Front for the Liberation of Iraq.

The US response in Fallujah - "deliberate, precise and overwhelming", according to General Mark Kimmitt - won't deter the resistance. In Fallujah, they call themselves the Resistance Brigades of Fallujah, and have even issued a communique taking credit for the killing of the American contractors. The Brigades include the Brigades of the Martyr Ahmad Yasin, the Brigades of Ali ibn Abi Talib the Lion of God and Conqueror, and the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.

'Free Iraq'

Bremer has declared war on local populations: this is an enormous mistake. The Bush administration's "war on terror" has led to thousands more civilian victims in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the United States on September 11, 2001. This is never debated in the US mainstream media - where as a rule an American life is deemed to be superior to any other. On every front, the "war on terror" is not leading to an end of terrorism, but to a never-ending war.

The administration of President George W Bush is busy selling the concept of a June 30 handover of "sovereignty" to an Iraqi administration. Even before the current Operation Bloodshed, Iraqis - avid consumers of political intrigue - knew full well what's behind it. They know the CPA has confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4 billion of reconstruction funds will be administered by the US Embassy in Iraq - the largest in the world, capable of housing 3,000 people. These funds - supposed to last for five years - will be spent on Iraq's crucial infrastructure: oil, water, electricity, communications, police and the judiciary. What Bremer's CPA is in fact saying is that any Iraqi government simply won't be able to decide how the country will be rebuilt.

Iraqis also know that 14 US military bases are already under construction, enough to accommodate the (for the moment) 110,000 American soldiers who will stay in Iraq until at least 2007. No sovereign Iraqi government has approved the construction of these bases. Kimmitt - the No 2 Pentagon man in Iraq, and the one who launched total war on Fallujah - said the bases are "a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East". A ring of US military bases throughout what the Pentagon calls the Greater Middle East is a key element of the neo-conservative-driven strategy to control world energy resources as the way to control the destiny of America's economic rivals - the European Union and Northeast Asia.

Iraqis also know about another Bremer executive order - according to which even with an interim Iraqi government the Iraqi army will be controlled by top US commander Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez. And they know they will also have to live with an Iraqi version of Condoleezza Rice - a Bremer-appointed national security adviser with a five-year mandate.

Muqtada may be an Islamic fundamentalist. But his intifada is popular because the base consists of legions of Iraq's urban poor and unemployed - roughly 70 percent of the total working-age population. And the motive is plain and simple: this is part of a national resistance against a colonial enterprise. No institution created by the US invasion - especially the CPA - has any political legitimacy, any moral legitimacy, or any kind of popular support. Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and one of the leading American experts on Iraq, is adamant: "The United States has managed to create a failed state, similar to Somalia and Haiti, in Iraq."

So this is the Bush administration-sponsored "free Iraq" people identify not only in the Sunni triangle but in the Shi'ite south: an occupying power maybe not formally occupying the country any more, but installed in 14 military bases and able to exercise full control on security, the economy and the whole infrastructure. In plain English: a US colony. This is the reason the mob in Fallujah rejoiced in the burning of those American bodies. This is the reason Sunnis and Shi'ites have for now united in anger. And this is the reason the "liberation" has finally turned into a jihad.
Source Asia Times link

INDEX.....HOME.....NEWSOUT

Analysis Index.

2005-03-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

What They Didnt Tell You about THe Iraq Elections.Feb2005.......READ

Making Sense of the Elections.Feb2005.An Analysis from an Anti-Allawi Group...READ

The Election Will Change The World,But Not in the Way America Imagines.Jan2005.An Analysis by Robert Fisk.........READ

The War has made Moral Cowards of us all.Jan2005.Written by Scott Ritter Ex.U.N Weapons Inspector.......READ

False Casualty Figures.Jan2005.A Very Interesting Analysis on the U.S Casualty Figures being Released by The Pentagon out of Iraq......READ

Growing Anxiety in U.S Ruling Circles Over Iraq Debacle.Jan2005......READ

Election Could Plunge Iraq Further Into The Abyss.Jan2005.......READ

Battle For Hearts and Minds is Lost.Dec2004.......READ

Crushing Fallujah.Nov2004.An Analysis of Events and Reasons....READ

Fallujah Resistance Persistant and Resiliant.Nov2004.Soldiers and ING Talk about the Fight inside Fallujah.....READ

Resistance Over Fallujah Builds in Baghdad.Nov2004.Dahr Jamails Analysis from the Situation inside Baghdad......READ

Saddams Soldiers Reinforce The Insurgent Ranks.Oct2004.Looks at the Training and Techniques Ex Soldiers are giving to those who are resisting Occupation.....READ

100,000 Civilians Estimated Killed in Iraq War and Occupation.Oct2004....READ

Chaos Inside The Triangle of Death.Oct2004.A Report on what the Blackwatch may have to encounter when moving closer to Baghdad......READ

An Interview with an Iraqi Resistance Leader.Oct2004.....READ

If You Had Seen What I Have.Oct2004.Scott Ritter Talks,Regarding Events....READ

A New Strategy After the Najaf Battle.Oct2004.A look at the Options Open to the U.S In Iraq......READ

The Dynamics of The al-Sadr Mahdi Army Uprising.Sep2004.......READ

Classic Guerilla War Forming.Sept2004.Analysis of events happening on the ground in Iraq.........READ

U.S Media Coverups War Crimes in Iraq.Sep2004.......READ

One Mans Resistance,Why I Turned Against America.Sep2004.An Iraqi States why he joined the resistance......READ

Hiding The Bodies.Sep2004.Reviewing U.S Casualties in Iraq and Manipulation of Figures.......READ

al-Sadr a Voice of Resistance.Aug2004.A View on the Person and the Shia Mahdi Army.....READ

A unifying Factor across Iraq.Aug2004.Regarding Muqtada al Sadr,the Shia and Iraq.......READ

A Survey of Armed Groups in Iraq.Jul2004.A detailed look at who is fighting and why in Iraq.....READ

Resistance is Growing.June2004.From the Independant.......READ

Who Killed Nick Berg.May2004.An Analysis looking at many possibilities and motives....READ

The Truth about Ahmed Chalabi.Indepth Analysis on Chalabi,Past,Present and Future......READ

Disaster for Blair as Torture Scandal Widens.May2004.......READ

Withdrawal on the Cards ? May2004.BBC Analysis on Iraq.......READ

One Year On From Liberation To Jihad.Apr2004.An Analysis of events within this period....READ

Insurgents Display New Sophistication.Apr2004.An Article from the Washington Post writing about the Coordination of the Resistance inside Iraq....READ

What if the U.S Fails in Iraq.Apr2004.Discusses Failure and an Alternative U.S Policy....READ

Washington Unleashes Bloodbath in Iraq.Apr2004.Anakysis on the Use of Military Force in Iraq.....READ