My National Public Radio interview on All Things Considered for Saturday, September 6, 2003, about my correspondence with the late Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman, is now available on the Web. Scroll down and click on the 3rd clip, "A Reservist's Last Letters Home."



http://www.npr.org/rundowns/

rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=current.

*Two American soldiers were wounded Wednesday at al-Anbar University in Ramadi by a suicide bomber. On Thursday, a British bomb-disposal expert was killed at Mosul in an ambush.



*I see a real and alarming change in tone in the usually optimistic al-Zaman newspaper, whose owner, Saad al-Bazzaz, is a member of Adnan Pachachi's Iraqi Independent Democrats Movement. It leads on Saturday with an article that says that the past two weeks have witnessed a collapse of security in Baghdad of a sort not seen since the fall of the previous regime on April 9, with large numbers of assassination attempts against prominent technocrats, bureaucrats, and businessmen, including quietists who had no association with the Baath. That is, they are not targets of reprisal killings--it is something more random and more sinister than that. It is in this context that al-Zaman reports the wounding of three worshippers at a Sunni mosque in the Shaab Township section of Baghdad. Someone seems to be trying to provoke Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq of the sort that routinely occurs in Pakistan. (Radical Sunni groups linked to al-Qaeda are behind it in Pakistan, though it also has local roots).



Likewise, Ghassan Yahya, the son of a past Iraqi Prime Minister, Tahir Yahya (1967-1968), was assassinated on leaving his office in the Al'ab Township. His father was one of the last prime ministers to serve before the Baath coup of 1968.



Arabic http://217.205.164.249/azzaman/

http/display.asp?fname=/azzaman/articles/

2003/09/09-05/999.htm.



*Shaikh Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji preached at the Imam `Ali Mosque on Friday, where slain Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim had been preaching, and called for nonviolent noncooperation with the US "occupation." He also called for Najaf's Shiites to support the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. (He is local leader of the Najaf office of SCIRI). Lots of Badr Corps fighters were positioned around the shrine, carrying AK-47s (something that makes the US very nervous). SCIRI has been a fickle ally of the US, but Baqir al-Hakim's assassination appears to have convinced it that the Americans should be made to leave very quickly. SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has called for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from the country. But he has so far been cooperating with the US by serving on the Interim Governing Council. If al-Qubanji was speaking for Abdul Aziz (who appears to have declined to preach this Friday for fear of being assassinated), then SCIRI may be on the verge of breaking with the Bremer administration. One nightmare scenario for the US would be to have SCIRI and Muqtada al-Sadr make a pragmatic alliance against the US. Both have called for non-violent noncooperation even as both are continuing to build up militias.



See Tarek al-Issawi's fine AP report at

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity

/news/breaking_news/6703003.htm.



*Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite radical in his 20s, preached a fiery sermon at the Kufa Mosque on Friday. He condemned the assassination of Baqir al-Hakim as the work of persons who believe in the maxim, "Kill a Shiite, go to heaven." (This is a reference to radical Sunnis of the al-Qaeda sort). But then he went on to say a long list of others bear some of the blame, including "atheist Baathists, renegades from Islam, as well as Jews and their followers from among the Americans and the British who compete with one another in persecuting us." He added, "They wish to purge our (Shiite) leadership, one by one." Al-Sadr's armed "Mahdi Army" militia guarded the mosque, and Muqtada has begun opening offices for the militia. The Marines have tried to disarm the militia in Najaf during the past two days, but backed down when hundreds of people gathered in protest. (-AFP via al-Zaman).



*For excellent background on Iraqi Shiites and this branch of the religion more generally, see Roy Mottahedeh's "Keeping the Shiites Straight" at

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/

RINVol6No2/Keeping%20the%20Shi'ites

%20Straight.htm.



*The Sunni radical organization Hizb al-Tahrir (Liberation Party), also called "Khilafah" or "Caliphate Party," has surfaced in a big way in Baghdad. Founded by a Palestinian as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood at Jerusalem in 1953, they are a mainly expatriate party now, and have special strength in Britain. There, they attract thousands of alienated young British Muslims of South Asian extraction, teaching them that democracy is wrong and that they are not really British. In Baghdad they are distributing leaflets at mosques attacking the American-appointed governing council and calling for opposition to it. They are also calling for Sunni-Shiite unity against the US.



For this party see

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0309/

03090215DS.asp



*Quote of the day, from retired US Marine General Anthony Zinni: "There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together . . . We're in danger of failing . . . My contemporaries, our feelings and sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice . . . I ask you, is it happening again?" I've been told in Washington that if you want to know what the Pentagon brass really thinks, listen to Zinni. On this evidence, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith aren't the most popular men in the Pentagon right about now.

*As President Bush went to the United Nations for a new resolution in Iraq, his representatives immediately met again with the Indian Foreign Secretary* Kanwal Sibal about the possibility of India providing a division, nearly 20,000 men. The last such request was rebuffed by the Indians on the grounds that there would have to be a UN resolution authorizing such an international force. I.e., India would only put its troops under a UN command, not under a US one. Now Sibal is upping the ante, saying that India would only send troops when US civil administrator Paul Bremer has relinquished sovereignty to an Iraqi government. I don't know if Bush can get the Indians aboard at all, and whether this new demand is a form of bargaining or sincere or another way to get out of doing it. Certainly, the move would be extremely unpopular with the Indian public. If India does not cooperate, the US will punish it with new, strict riders on military purchases. And, the Bush policy of a new relationship with India, announced only two years ago, will probably fall by the wayside. Whether that will be to the benefit of Pakistan and China remains to be seen.

[*Kanwal Sibel is "the Foreign Secretary and the top bureaucrat from India's Ministry of External Affairs ( MEA is the acronym )"; the Foreign *Minister* is Yaswant Singh--an elected member of parliament who serves in the cabinet, not a civil service type. Thanks to Sam Iyer for drawing my attention to the slip of the keyboard.]

See:



http://www.indianexpress.com/

full_story.php?content_id=30965. and:



http://www.financialexpress.com/

fe_full_story.php?content_id=41389.





*France and Germany are rejecting the draft of the new US proposed security council resolution on Iraq on the grounds that it does not speed up or facilitate the turn-over of sovereignty to the Iraqis, which Jacques Chirac identified as an urgent goal. This position is likely an opening gambit in a diplomatic game that will probably result in some sort of new resolution, though it seems likely that Bush will have to eat a lot of crow and let French firms into sectors previously reserved for Halliburton if he is to get what he wants. (-Al-Sharq al-Awsat). All of a sudden the taunts and insults Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz directed at France and Germany don't look like such a great idea. In real diplomacy you don't gratuitously insult allies you might need in the future. I saw Wolfowitz on television claiming that things hadn't gone so badly in Iraq since May 1, and I was flabbergasted. It is one thing to put the best face on a difficult situation. It is another to be a polyanna. It reminded me powerfully of Gen. Westmoreland's line in Vietnam, that victory was around the corner and casualties were exaggerated. It is never a good sign when Defense Department officials begin looking solely on the bright side of life (apologies to Monty Python and the Life of Brian).



*As many as ten gunmen opened fire Thursday on the Shiite leader Sayyed Ali al-Waadi al-Musawi, who serves as the Baghdad agent of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, as he was walking toward the Shrine of Imam Musa al-Kazim in the suburb of Kazimiya. The gunmen also took fire, and one was wounded, because their van was found dumped in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiya with blood in it. Al-Musawi denounced the US for the continuing lack of security in Iraq. But it seems clear that an organized group of Sunnis is trying to kill off major Shiite leaders. As you know, I think these assassinations and assassination attempts are the work of Sunni Arab nationalists who are trying to deprive the Americans of allies. See

http://www.brunei-online.com/

bb/fri/sep5w29.htm



*Bremer denounced any attempt to create militias that would substitute for the security providing functions of the Coalition, and three days ago US troops intervened to disarm members of the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Army of the Promised One. A spokesman in al-Sadr's office denounced the US suppression of the militia as an attempt deliberately to create turmoil and instability in Iraq. US troops had disarmed some members of the Jaysh Mahdi in Najaf, a city that is apparently bristling with such militias right now. The spokesman said that the US backed off on Wednesday when hundreds of Shiites demonstrated around the home of Muqtada. His followers had clearly put barriers around the house that would prevent a car from getting close; presumably they fear he might be the next victim of a truck bomb. Bremer admitted that the US did use some paramilitary forces in Iraq, such as paying tribesmen to guard the oil pipelines. ( - al-Sharq al-Awsat)



*A fierce struggle is being waged in Najaf about who will now preach at the Imam Ali mosque, given the death of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. The Sadrists are trying to get control of the shrine, while others want the post to go to a member of the al-Hakim family, according to an excellent report from Borzou Daragahi. See

http://www.post-gazette.com

/pg/03248/218294.stm



*The governor of Falluja, Taha Hamid al-Budaywi, has reversed himself on the prospect of having Turkish troops in his province. On August 26, he had rejected such a notion, on the grounds that local Arabs were still resentful of the excesses of Ottoman rule in the region, and would not accept the Turks. He said on Thursday that he had been deluged with messages from his constituents contradicting him. He said he now thought that the Turkish troops, who would be Sunni Muslims, would be preferable to virtually any other foreign force. Falluja has been the site of repeated attacks on US troops, and appears to have both strong Arab nationalist currents and a strong Sunni Islamist tendency. (At one point recently a home-made bomb being constructed in a mosque went off prematurely, killing 10 conspirators). Al-Budaywi's initial comment may have reflected both Sunni Islamist dislike of Turkey's secular government and the Arab nationalists' resentment of the former Ottoman hegemony. But of course there is a moderate Muslim government in power in Ankara, much to the chagrin of strict Kemalist secularists, which al-Budaywi may not have known, and which may make the Falluja Islamists more hopeful about the Turks. Or, the people of Falluja may just be so tired of the American army that they think almost anything would be preferable. The real problem with Turkish troops in Iraq is that the Iraqi Kurds won't like it at all, and the Turks may find a way to interfere in Iraqi Kurdistan, where there are local politicians they would like to see dead. The Americans are negotiating with the Turks in Istanbul, and apparently are insisting that the Turks serve rather to the south of Kurdistan. (AFP/al-Sharq al-Awsat).

*Guerrillas near Tikrit set off a roadside bomb that wounded four US soldiers in a passing convoy. Later they fired mortar rounds at US positions in Tikrit, but the US military responded forcefully and chased them off. For now. Meanwhile, the US military revealed that a shoulder-held ground to air missile was fired at a plane at Baghdad Airport on Saturday, and that six such attempts to shoot down a plane there had been made this summer! The Saturday attempt resulted in no casualties (-al-Zaman/CNN). Although the road into Baghdad from Jordan is crawling with thieves and lots of people have been robbed on it, it sounds to me preferable to trying to land at the airport right about now.



*Of course, I am delighted that Colin Powell has finally been authorized to engage in serious negotiations with UN Security Council members about a new resolution that might allow the internationalization of the military coalition in Iraq. The UNSC seems to be asking for the ability to train Iraqi police and is pressing the Interim Governing Council to set a date for democratic elections. While it is true that internationalizing will not solve all the problems, it will help at the margins by giving the enterprise much more political legitimacy. Virtually no one outside the US and the UK thinks that the US has any legitimate business in Iraq, and all the Arab League and most global South countries have told the US they would not cooperate without a UN resolution. Right now, the US is on its last legs in Iraq. If things go on deteriorating at this rate until March, when the bulk of US forces will rotate out with no obvious replacements, the situation could become dire.



*A wonderful piece of local journalism about the US military reservists that has many national and international implications has been written by Bill Burke for the Virginian- Pilot. The details about how 50,000 of the 180,000 or so reservists are small businessmen, about how many employers do not make up the difference between military pay and the reservists' regular salaries, the stories about home mortgages forfeited and childrens' college funds depleted, are touching and horrifying. See:



http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories

/story.cfm?story=58989&ran=119530.



*Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, 52, brother of slain leader Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, has been selected to head the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (-al-Zaman). Abdul Aziz was born in Najaf in 1950. In his youth he was active in the al-Da`wa Party. He followed his brother into exile in Tehran (his brother went in 1980) as a result of Baathist persecution. He became deputy head of SCIRI, and headed its paramilitary Badr Corps, which has now been reactivated in Najaf and elsewhere. Unlike his brother, Abdul Aziz is not an Object of Emulation or a widely popular writer on religious law who is followed by large numbers of laypersons. Given his demand on Monday that the US withdraw immediately from Iraq, it remains to be seen whether he will continue as a member of the US-appointed Interim Governing Council. His brother Baqir had argued that only by cooperating with the US could Shiites remain in the political game and avoid having their rights denied them as happened all through the 20th century.



*The ex-Muslim Brotherhood Islamist thinker Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whose legal rulings or fatwas on the World Wide Web are enormously popular, said yesterday in Cairo that the American-appointed Interim Governing Council in Iraq is totally without legitimacy or validity. At a news conference in Cairo, it was also revealed that jurisprudents at al-Azhar Seminary, the most prestigious in the Sunni Muslim world, have been under enormous pressure from Egypt's secret police to calling for non-cooperation with the IGC and to rescind earlier fatwas to that effect. The US can pressure Hosni Mubarak's regime to twist people's arms, but the fact is that public opinion in the Arab world and probably in Iraq simply does not recognize the American-appointed IGC as legitimate. Only when there is an elected Iraqi government will there be hope for a change of opinion. (Al-Zaman).



*My posting on the internationalization of the Coalition forces in Iraq:





Many thanks to . . . for perceptive questions about the possible internationalization of the military forces in Iraq. I entirely agree with him that it is hardly a panacea.



For the US to suddenly withdraw from Iraq (unlikely in any case) would probably Lebanonize the country, and it seems to me it would also be a dereliction of duty. The US invaded and it disbanded the Iraqi army, so now it has the responsibility to try to put things back together again.



When I said that the US can't go it alone, I meant that literally. It does not have the needed men and resources. The current US troop strength of 139,000 or so in Iraq is a temporary arrangement. The numbers are bucked up by reservists, and by the decision to keep the troops there for a fully year rather than the more normal 6-month rotation. For reservists in particular, a year abroad is an extreme privation; some of them have small businesses to run, after all, or are foregoing normal salaries for military pay. Many are losing their homes or using up savings. When the year ends in March, they will go home, and there are not a lot of replacements for them; there are certainly not 140,000 men under arms who can be moved into Iraq fresh in March, if present troop strength levels in other key regions are to be maintained. Creating two new US divisions for Iraq would take 5 years and cost $30 billion, so expanding the US military is no solution in the short term.



There are probably not enough coalition troops to provide order in Iraq, a country of 25 million. The US National Security Council estimated last spring that, based on our experience in the Balkans, some 500,000 peace enforcers would be needed for post-war Iraq. There are about 160,000 presently.



If the US can get a division each (15,000 - 20,000 men) from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Turkey, it could at least replace many of the reservists it will lose in March. I do not know whether the US has enough carrots to offer them to pull this off, but it is trying.



The real hope is that Iraqi military and civil police forces can be trained and put in place. But it is estimated that it will take two years to train 18,000 new policemen. How long it will take to stand up a new Iraqi army I do not know, but it won't happen tomorrow.



All this is without reference to the $4 bn. a month it costs the US to keep the troops in Iraq, and without reference to the $30 bn. a year it costs to run the Iraqi government, or the $60 - $100 bn. in reconstruction costs the country is facing. Because of sabotage of oil pipelines, Iraq is pumping less than a million barrels a day, so the United States is going to have to pick up a lot of the tab. But Bush has, by deep tax cuts on the wealthy, put the country $450 bn. in debt this year not counting Iraq, and it is unclear where all this extra money is going to come from.



The US has no choice but to internationalize the Iraq endeavor, either militarily or financially. Whether internationalization will succeed better than unilateralism or be better for Iraqis has yet to be seen. But I don't see what other option Bush has.



In support of Dr. . . 's cautions: The Bulgarians who took over Karbala last week have received rocket propelled grenade fire four times. And this is in the supposedly "calm" south! So internationalization will not in and of itself result in less resistance to foreign presence or more security.



The upshot is that the US needs the rest of the world now in Iraq because the US is a lot weaker, economically and militarily, than Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz thought it was, and because the Sunni Arab Iraqi resistance is a great deal stronger than they had imagined; and because the latter can effectively turn off the oil spigots and starve the American administration of Iraq of money. I do not know if the Sunni Arab resistance can be defeated or coopted in the medium term. I do know that the US cannot accomplish that goal unilaterally.

*Guerrillas in southern Iraq set off a roadside bomb as a US convoy went by on Monday, killing two US soldiers and wounding a third. Another US soldier was killed, and one wounded, on Tuesday in a helicopter accident.



*Another car bomb went off in Baghdad on Tuesday, outside the HQ of the Iraqi police cooperating with the US, killing one policeman and wounding 13 others.



*Some 500,000 Iraqis came out on Tuesday for the funeral of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. As I mentioned, his brother Abdul Aziz angrily called on US troops immediately to exit from Iraq so that Iraqis could attend to their own security. It is quite remarkable to hear this from someone serving in the American-appointed Interim Governing Council. This is what radicals like Muqtada al-Sadr had been saying! Some in the crowds chanted against the US, blaming it for failing to provide security.



*The Badr Corps militia, about 10,000 - 15,000 strong, which has surreptitiously retained its weaponry, is now patrolling in Najaf and has sworn revenge on "al-Qaeda" and on "the Baath." Crowds in Najaf chanted for slain Shiite leader Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim's nephew, Ammar, "Revenge, revenge, O Ammar!" according to AFP. The worrisome thing is that al-Qaeda and the Baath are both largely Sunni organizations, and there is danger of random reprisals against Sunnis. The same source says 5,000 marched in Basra, including supporters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and members of the al-Da`wa Party. (The small crowd is an index of al-Hakim's relative lack of popularity in Basra). See also



http://web.mid-day.com/news/

world/2003/september/62887.htm



*I don't usually cover what is in the major US newspapers because those are easily googled. But it is worth noting that reports out Tuesday indicate that the US simply cannot maintain its current troop level of 140,000 in Iraq beyond next spring, and that it would take 5 years and billions to raise two new divisions of the US military. Likewise the LA Times brought into sharp question the idea that very much of the violence in Iraq is being committed by outsiders, saying most is homegrown. I think it appeals to the US to blame al-Qaeda for it because it is embarrassing to admit that millions of Iraqis hate the US presence, which they see as an occupation, and that thousands of them are willing to take direct action against it. I think the Bush team is just going to have to bite the bullet and bring in the United Nations. This would mean that the French and Russians would get some of the oil business that Cheney wanted to throw to Halliburton, but, well, you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Even with economic inducements, which the Bush administration has been chintzy about offering, it will be hard to convince other governments that they ought to send their young men into what looks increasingly like a quagmire.



*AFP says that unknown persons set fire to banners outside the Great Saddam Mosque in Tikrit that had expressed condolences on Ayatollah al-Hakim's death. This action is, again, likely to be the work of Saddam loyalists or Sunni Arab nationalists who saw al-Hakim as a collaborationist. By the way, I don't use the phrase "Saddam loyalist" to refer to "dead-enders." I think Sunni Arab nationalism and antipathy to the US presence is a widespread movement and that it likely has a vigorous future before it even if Saddam is killed.



*Abdel Salam al-Kubaisi [Kobeissi], leader of the Council of Sunni Clergymen, has accused some Shiites according to AFP "of launching an "ethnic cleansing" campaign in Najaf and the other holy city of Karbala [saying that the Shiites] "have taken over the al-Hamza mosque, our only one in Najaf, and the Hassan bin Ali mosque, our only one in Karbala." Kubaisi admitted that he had earlier had some contact with Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr, but said that Muqtada had changed after his early June visit to Iran. On his return, Muqtada promoted usurpation of Sunni religious properties by Shiites. (Muqtada's followers in Basra invaded the offices overseeing Sunni properties in that city, stealing the records, presumably to facilitate stealing the properties). Al-Kubaisi blamed Iran for discouraging Sunni-Shiite socializing, and for urging that Sunnis be excluded from Shiite ceremonies honoring the Imams, at buildings called Husayniyyas. He praised the moderate stances of Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. (Sistani has issued a fatwa forbidding the usurpation of Sunni property). Al-Kubaisi said that Sunnis have responded calmly to these provocations, not out of cowardice, but out of a sense that now is the time to preserve calm. He bitterly denounced Muqtada al-Sadr for implying that Sunni Muslims were behind the Najaf mosque bombing, and said that he couldn't rule out the possibility that the Sadrists themselves committed it. Al-Kubaisi had earlier been accused of funneling large amounts of money from Saudi Arabia to Muqtada al-Sadr. If this charge were ever true, the relationship appears to have broken down after Muqtada's visit to Iran in June. Al-Zaman carries the AFP story, but puts an incredibly positive and optimistic spin on it, leading with al-Kubaisi's belief that the Najaf bombing will not provoke a religious civil war in Iraq, because of the moderate character of the clerical leadership of the two communities. I looked the original up, and could hardly believe it was the same article. Al-Bazzaz, the owner of al-Zaman, is close to several figures in the American-appointed Interim Governing Council.



Al-Zaman did report al-Kubaisi's bitter reproach of the Interim Governing Council for appointing Shiites to head the Ministry of Pious Endowments (which oversees mosques), and to oversee the country's seminaries. He said the two men chosen lacked the credentials for these tasks. Earlier in the summer, I was told by a US observer in the region that al-Kubaisi was being considered as minister of Pious Endowments, but I think this appointment would have been seen as a slap in the face by the majority Shiites. So some of this speech may be pique.





Arabic: http://217.205.164.249/azzaman/

http/display.asp?fname=/azzaman/articles

/2003/09/09-02/998.htm





*My op-ed at the Daily Star, though it will be familiar to regular readers of this Web Log:





http://www.dailystar.com.lb/

opinion/02_09_03_b.asp



*Helena Cobban has more comments today on my posting about the build up to the Iraq war. As far as I can tell, the difference between us is that I am not a complete pacifist. I prefer peace, and think every effort should be made to maintain it. But I also do believe in collective security (remember that I am an idiosyncratic Baha'i). So I think the UN Security Council has the authority to authorize military intervention in places like Bosnia and Afghanistan. The UNSC has a clear duty to authorize such intervention where a state has committed aggression on another. I personally think it also ought to intervene to stop ongoing or incipient genocides of the sort Saddam was waging against the Marsh Arabs. Saddam was a serial aggressor on a mass scale inside and outside his country, and probably responsible for hundreds of thousands murdered. He was in material breach of large numbers of UNSC resolutions. I think the Iraq war could have been justified on grounds of international law, and if the US had gotten a Security Council Resolution I would have actively supported the endeavor. I don't think the war was essentially wrong; I think it was procedurally wrong. And, the unilateralism that undermined the moral authority of the US in Iraq also left it bereft of needed international resources for establishing security and for rebuilding. It is turning into a disaster because it wasn't done right. For the record, I lived in Beirut off and on between fall of 1975 and spring of 1979, and saw lots of death and destruction, and have a fair idea what war is. I don't like it. For one thing, mortar shells going off nearby make you nervous and give you a headache even when they don't maim or kill you. But war isn't always unjustified or always a bad thing in the big picture. D-Day was a blessing for the people of Europe, and for the world.



http://justworldnews.org/archives/000292.html.

*Fourteen US soldiers were wounded over the weekend. Several fell victim to attacks in the Sunni Arab triangle on Sunday. The WP now reports that the US military often does not release news of wounded soldiers unless one among the group has been killed. This practice has the effect of playing down the number of wounded, which is climbing toward 1200 since May 1.



http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030901160059.zes8a3mp.html



*Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, brother of the slain Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, has demanded that US troops leave Iraq. He said that the occupation must end. He was in Najaf eulogizing his brother, who had been the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Abdul Aziz was deputy leader, and also heads the paramilitary Badr Corps. He agreed in late June to accept a seat on the American-appointed Interim Governing Council. But SCIRI had said in early June that it would not have anything to do with an appointed body, and had demanded some sort of elections for the council. They eventually backed off this demand on pragmatic grounds. SCIRI has also long argued that US troops should leave Iraq as soon as the war was over. Baqir al-Hakim had threatened last spring that the Badr Corps would begin firing on US troops if they tried to "occupy" the country. Apparently they had been convinced that the troops were needed for security. Now that rationale has been challenged, and Abdul Aziz is back to arguing for immediate withdrawal. If SCIRI breaks with the US over the Najaf bombing, it will be a major blow to the Bremer administration. Another IGC member, Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum, has suspended his membership in the council in protest against the lack of security.



*Iranian hardline paramilitary troops burned the US and British flags in downtown Tehran on Monday in protest of the assassination of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. The Iranians are blaming Western interests and "Zionists" for the bombing. Official political discourse in Iran is downright weird and the most absurd things are routinely asserted. There are lots of smart, savvy Iranians who know better, but the paramilitary have the guns.



*The Interim Governing Council appointed a cabinet at long last. These appointments should have been made a month ago, but of course the IGC members wrangled about the relative representation of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and minorities. Some troubling aspects of the new cabinet: 1) Ayad Allawi, a former Baathist army officer who worked with the CIA in the 1990s and who serves on the IGC as a representative of the former officers, succeeded in throwing the Ministry of Interior to one of his people. The specter of someone who had been high in the Baath Party in the 1980s now running Interior (which is more like the US Department of Justice) is rather unpleasant. Then Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum got his son the post of petroleum minister. It would be nepotism, except that Bahr al-Ulum just suspended his membership in the IGC in protest at the lack of security and the Najaf bombing. The cabinet lacks a prime minister (apparently because the members of the IGC couldn't stand being outshone) and so has no central executive but the IGC itself. American advisers are at the elbows of each minister, and the Americans can veto any policy with which they disagree.



*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has implicity criticized the US and Britain for failing to provide security in Iraq, saying that it is their responsibility to do so. The statement was distributed by his office in Qom, Iran.



*Saddam issued a videotape saying he wasn't behind the bombing in Najaf. This statement is sort of odd. He has been calling on Iraqis to rise up against the Americans and anyone who cooperates with them. He was certainly happy about the death of his old nemesis, al-Hakim. It seems to me that he is protesting too much, and that this statement hopes to throw dust in the eyes of Iraqi Shiites about the real perpetrator. Saddam called on the Shiite clergy to declare jihad against the US, and they laughed at him. He has the satisfaction, perhaps, of having hit back at them and then of having denied it all. Some proportion of Iraqis will believe him.



*The militia of radical young Shiite clergyman Muqtada al-Sadr in Basra set up a traffic checkpoint in front of their offices and were checking any cars that went by as of Sunday. In response to the Najaf bombing, a lot of Shiite informal militiamen have begun patrolling. The British announced Monday that they had disarmed 100 members of the militia, disallowing it from taking on quasi-governmental authority. The problem of growing private militias has not been solved by the Coalition forces.



*For Lisa Pollack's sensitive and moving article about the late Navy Reserve Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman, see her Baltimore Sun article today. All Things Considered will also have a segment on Kylan this coming weekend, on NPR. For all of you who are as touched as I am by Kylan's words, please honor them by not attempting to interview his family, all of whom are deeply grieving.



http://www.sunspot.net/features/

bal-to.writings02sep02,0,2731898.story?

coll=bal-features-headlines





Mon Sep 01, 08:14:55 AM



*A band of 8 Iraqi guerrillas fired rocket propelled grenades at a US convoy west of Kirkuk on Saturday, wounding two U.S. soldiers. The soldiers in the convoy fired back, killing six and wounding two of the Saddam loyalists. A new report says that one in seven of wounded US troops die. This is a good rate compared to past wars. Unless you are the seventh, I suppose.



*Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis came out to mourn Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim on Sunday in Baghdad and Karbala, with huge processions. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (who is in hiding again) condemned the Najaf bombing that killed Ayatollah al-Hakim as the work of "those who do not want Iraq to be rebuilt or to see security restored to this wounded land, and who are attempting to sow the seeds of discord and civil disturbance among its children." The bombing was also condemned by "The Islamic Movement in Kurdistan," the "Islamic Party," and "The Bloc of Sunni Clerics," all Sunni Muslim organizations, two of them fundamentalist. Sunnis may be afraid of reprisals.



Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, brother of the deceased, said that Baqir had been "the leader of all Iraqis, Sunni and Shiite, Kurd and Turkmen, and his death is a loss for all." He added, "The Occupation forces that have occupied the country by force are responsible for security and for all the blood spilled in Najaf and Baghdad and Mosul and throughout Iraq." (This is one of America's key allies and a member of the US-appointed Interim Governing Council speaking, folks. He is clearly almost at the end of his tether with the Bremer administration of his country.) (-al-Zaman)



Arabic URL: http://217.205.164.249/azzaman/

http/display.asp?fname=/azzaman/articles/

2003/08/08-31/999.htm



*Najaf police have been joined by militiamen of the Badr Corps in patrolling Najaf, according to the city's police chief. The Badr Corps was built up by Ayatollah al-Hakim in Iran as a terrorist arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and its members used to slip into Iraq from Iran to strike at Baath targets. They received training from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They are 10,000 to 15,000 strong and have slipped back into Iraq since the end of the war. They are supposed to have been disarmed by the CPA, but in fact they are still armed. Paul "Jerry" Bremer stepped in to cancel an election in Najaf a couple of months ago for fear that a pro-Iranian candidate would become ensconced as mayor. And now, nevertheless, the Badr Corps is patrolling Najaf streets. Even if the US succeeds in creating a new security force, it is likely that it will draw on paramilitaries like the Badr Corps for its recruits. The upside is that they might have pretty good intelligence resources locally. The downside is that they certainly like Iran better than they like the US. All this demonstrates how weak the US is in Iraq. Henry Kissinger says that "diplomacy is a game you play with the pieces on the board." So too is domestic Iraqi politics. I think the Pentagon forgot this key principle, and Bremer in particular seemed to think when he came in that he could just rule by fiat. See

Arabic URL: http://217.205.164.249/azzaman

/http/display.asp?fname=/

azzaman/articles/2003/08/08-31/997.htm



*Saudi Arabia has reacted angrily to the arrest of two Saudis in Najaf and the charge that they were involved with the bombing and with al-Qaeda. The Saudis say that these charges, made by the Najaf police, are baseless and rest on no evidence. The govenor of Najaf denied the rumors that Najaf police had detained 19 suspects, including two Saudis. (CNN continued to claim all day Sunday that two Pakistanis were arrested, which is apparently just untrue). He said that less than 5 suspects had been detained, and all of them were Iraqi nationals. Apparently two of them said that they were "Salafis" (a reformist, puritanical sect of Sunnism that wants to go back to the practices of the elders (salaf) of Islam at the time of the Prophet Muhammad). The local Shiite Najafis interpret Salafism as a form of Wahhabism, and Wahhabis are generally Saudis, and so on. So, Saudi Arabia has every right to protest against being slandered like this. So, I would say, does Pakistan. In fact, CNN should please tell us where they got that misinformation, which the wire services never reported. Be suspicious of "news" coming out of a place like Najaf immediately after an incident like that. Between chaos and special interests promoting their pet theories, all kinds of wild things get said. The Cable News companies in the US should excercise more journalistic integrity and some restraint about all this. How will the US public ever be convinced that no Saudis, Pakistanis, Wahhabis or al-Qaeda members have been implicated when it has been shouted 24 hours a day all weekend?



Arabic URL: http://www.daralhayat.com/

arab_news/gulf_news/08-2003/

20030831-01P01-01.txt/story.html



*My response to Amir Taheri's fingering of Iran as a possible suspect in the Najaf bombing:



Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim had been classmates with Supreme Jurisprudent Ali

Khamenei and they were from all accounts good friends. Although al-Hakim

was cooperating with the US in a pragmatic way, he was among the few

prominent Iraqi clergymen who supported Khomeini's doctrine of the rule of

the clerics (wilayat al-faqih). SCIRI has a two-stage theory of the

future of Iraq, with a parliamentary, pluralistic government as the first

stage but with a Shiite-dominated Islamic Republic as the second, in the

more distant future. Al-Hakim therefore held the hope and promise for the

Khomeinists in Iran that they might eventually see an Iraq made in their

image.



Al-Hakim was among the few firm friends the hardliners in Tehran had in

Iraq. It is absolutely bizarre and frankly absurd to suggest, as Taheri

does, that Iran could have been behind the Friday Najaf bombing.

Actually, if you read Taheri beside the response of Khamenei, who blames

"Zionists," there is a nice symmetry of feverish conspiracy-mongering that

flies in the face of common sense.



It is all right to challenge common sense when there is good forensic

evidence for doing so. But here, to my knowledge, there is not. Taheri

and Khamenei, by floating these charges, are simply promoting a

previously-held policy.





*The excellent Australian program AM reports a secret United Nations document that details a rise in the number and sophistication of attacks on US troops in the Sunni Arab triangle. Former military intelligence official Pat Lang reacted in an AM interview: "Well if you read down through the body of the rest of that report, they list all these incidents. And if you brought them out on a map, and I believe there were actually a couple of diagrams in that report that showed the distribution, you've got these attacks all over the area from just south of Baghdad all the way up to Mosul and pretty far over in the west beyond Fallujah – this is you know, about a third of the country, that's a bad thing, you know. I mean, it shows that this is not going away at all, in fact it's getting worse. When American authorities say they don't want any more troops there, that gives me pause because you need to saturate the country with troops in order to put a stop to this."



The same report says a soldier at the al-Rasheed Hotel sent them an email that is scathing about the civilian Bremer administration. He said that the civil administrators are chasing skirts and "hooking up with nice-looking gals from US and Iraq," and that they worry about "running out of Coke and Diet Coke to go with their steak and crab leg dinner." Meanwhile, the soldiers "look like hobo's and live like pigs". AM paraphrases, "Those within the Mr Bremer's authority have created a sterile ivory castle that distorts their view of the country." The message signs off, "there's no Iraqi representation at the levels making decisions on Iraq's future. The message we are sending is pretty confusing to the Iraqis. Their provisional government even has to come to Saddam's old palace for meetings. Go figure." See

http://www.abc.net.au/am/

content/2003/s936044.htm



*Joshua Micah Marshall notes in his Talking Points Memo for Monday that John Kerry has been accused of "waffling" on Iraq because he supported the war but has criticized the outcome. Marshall points out that an evolving position shows a flexibility that might be preferable to Bush's rigidity. I also sympathize with Kerry, because I declined to oppose the war. I felt that a) Saddam was a genocidal monster, and getting rid of him would benefit the Iraqis, and b) the 'dual containment' of Iraq and Iran as a policy was a fatal dead end that had just put the US in the position of denying needed medicine to Iraqi children (actually Saddam manipulated the system to rob the children and give to the Baath officials, but the US got blamed). Even the 'no-fly' zone for the Kurds probably couldn't have been kept up indefinitely, and if the US ever withdrew, Saddam would have massacred the Kurds all over again.



But I disagreed almost completely with the *way* the war was carried out:



1) The weapons of mass destruction issue was over-hyped; we all knew we were in no imminent danger from Iraq.

2) The manufacturing of links between Saddam and al-Qaeda was painful to watch, because so obviously false.

3) The spiteful unilateralism that cast aside old allies and the UN Security Council left the US isolated and wholly responsible for Iraq, which no one country could hope to run and rebuild on its own.

4) The small military force Rumsfeld sent into the country and the unconcern with post-war security created a security disaster that is still with us.



The war could have been waged without doing any of these, much less all of them. At that point where Bush tossed aside the Security Council, he lost much of my support. It was tepid in the first place; I wasn't exactly for the war, I was just unable to bring myself to march [against it because I knew doing so would de facto keep Saddam in power].*



Well, maybe if I were in politics I'd get shot down for this complex position, too. It would be a shame if Kerry loses on these grounds. I'm not sure it matters, though. I fear we may have gotten to the point in this country where a northerner Democrat can't win a presidential election, anyway. It has been 40 years, after all.

See:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/



Mr. Marshall was kind enough to mention "Informed Comment" on his Sunday posting, for which thanks. He said the format was a bit jumbled sometimes. Clearly, he has been out of college so long he has forgotten what professors' minds are like. :-) Actually, the jumbled character probably comes from my making notes on the articles I'm reading in various Arabic and Persian newspapers, as I feverishly go through them for an hour before I go to bed. (The time given for the postings is set forward several hours). I don't know how I'm going to keep this up when classes start (Tuesday), but I'll still try to communicate essentials.



*For the interview Robert Siegel did with me on Friday about the Najaf bombing, see http://www.npr.org/rundowns/

rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=29-Aug-2003.

It can be listened to with RealAudio or MediaPlayer.



*Helena Cobban took umbrage at my saying originally "march to keep Saddam in power" because she felt it was a slur against anti-war protesters, implying that that was their goal. I wasn't, however, talking about other people; I was talking about my own ethical stance. I knew for a fact that Saddam was not going to be overthrown by internal forces and that he was committing virtual genocide against people like the Marsh Arabs. For me, marching against the war would have been done in knowledge that it would result in Saddam staying in power. She wants me to apologize. I'm always glad to apologize. I don't see what it costs you to say you are sorry about hurting someone's feelings inadvertently. But I didn't mean, in my own mind, what she read me to mean, in the first place. I think an anti-war position was ethically defensible; it just wasn't the position I was comfortable with. I think it mattered, too, whether you actually knew and interacted with Iraqi Shiites and Kurds very much. See

http://justworldnews.org/archives/000291.html.

Note: I will appear on the Lehrer News Hour on PBS on Monday 9/1, at 6 pm or 7 pm in most markets. Sorry for the last minute notice; it is how these things are done.