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There was talk, over the past few days, that the national assembly would meet today, for its second session. Didn't happen. Since Saturday, top politicians have been saying, the next assembly session will definitely take place, Tuesday, during which, they say, the posts of assembly leader, his deputies, president of the republic and, very likely, the two vice presidents, will be selected.

A Shi'a woman MP was cited on television Friday, as naming the likely holders of the top posts in government and the state. I didn't have a pen, to write down her name or of the politicians she reportedly named -- but one of the interesting names was Ahmad Chalabi, as deputy prime minister. Two names she was cited as mentioning for the post of speaker of the assembly, were current president Ghazi il-Yawer and Shaykh Fawwaz al-Jarba, who's an assembly member from the winning United Iraqi Alliance and, possibly, a member of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Both are Sunni Arabs. Chalabi's Mu'tamar newspaper, in addition to naming Jarba as a top candidate for that post, names INC member Mudhar Showket and the Iraqi Islamic Party's Haachim al-Hasani, who's current minister of minerals and industry. Both are also Sunni Arab.

Chalabi's name has also been circulating as one of the top three candidates for one of the two vice-presidential posts, the others being Finance Minister Adil abdil-Mehdi and Dr. Nadeem al-Jaabiri, about whom I know nothing. My uncle said many of the Jaabiris were deported by Saddam, that they are a good family, and that Dr. Jaabiri is with the UIA. All three are Shi'a Arabs, and returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam.

Presumptive prime minister Ibrahim al-Ja'fari has refused to name a date for when the formation of the government would be announced. The UIA has been publicly holding Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List responsible for causing the delay in the formation of the government. The UIA's Abbas al-Bayyati, for example, said his list has been kept waiting for an answer from Allawi's list, in regards to joining the government.

Hsayn Sha'lan, of Allawi's list, expressed surprise: "We responded within 48 hours – in writing. They were the ones who took time – one and a half months – and then they came to us."

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Sunday announced his main condition for joining the government -- assurances from the mainly Shi'a and Kurdish lists that the government would not be influenced by clerics.

The Thee Qar Brigade of the special maghaaweer police (commandoes) announced, Saturday, the capture of 130 or 131 suspected terrorists in a camp near Jaruf Sakhar, in Babil Province, halfway between Baghdad and Kerbela. The force said they seized documents telling of plots to assassinate and attack visitors to Kerbela, this week, on the occasion of the marking of 40 days after the slaying of Husayn, in 680. Police said they surrounded the terrorist base, at which they found more than five tons of TNT, 624 rifles, 193 missiles, 56 loaded Katyusha rockets, 130 mortar rounds and three car bombs, ready to be detonated. Locals said they were "happy," having been "imprisoned" by the terrorists, who said they belonged to Ansaar el-Sunna.

A senior police officer, appearing on television news Saturday, with his face blurred over, said some of the terrorists have started turning themselves in, "asking for forgiveness." He said that they were "sending people to say they wanted to return to the ranks of the Iraqis." Asked to give names, he said he couldn't. Shown on television were two of 35 people captured by the officer's unit who had crossed the Iraq border illegally. Another source said that 53 suspected terrorists who arrived from Afghanistan had been captured. One Afghani, Muhammad Shereen, spoke in Arabic. Another Afghani, with Oriental features, spoke in another language.

Two terrorists blew themselves up in Anbar province, Saturday, when their car was surrounded by members of the police's commando unit (maghaaweer).

I called my two doctor uncles, Saturday afternoon, to ask about how I could get precise figures on the number of people killed in the Hilla massacre (I've heard everything from 100 killed, to more than 175), and also to ask their advice about going to Kurdistan. In addition to answering my questions, they told me that a roadside bomb had blown up that day, down the road from their hospital, in A'dhamiyyeh. One uncle said it was 50 meters from the hospital, maybe targeting a newspaper office. The other said, it happens all the time. In the news, the target was said to be the Turkish embassy, which the uncle I live with says is about half a kilometer from the hospital. One of the doctor uncles also said there are 10,000 terrorists in Iraq from Muslim countries.

As for the Hilla massacre, one uncle said the number killed was 135, plus 150 injured. He said I should call the director of Hilla's Morjaan General Hospital, to verify. His brother suggested the health ministry's statistics division. I've yet to do either. The uncle I'm staying with, said he knows the deputy health minister, and would get in touch with him. As for going to Kurdistan, one doctor uncle advised against it – that the highways are dangerous and there's a 10 percent risk of something happening. I countered, one in a million. He stuck to 10 percent. His brother said, if I'm going with Kurds from the area, who know a safe way, then it's okay.

Easter passed peacefully, today. Services were held at churches across Iraq. One service shown on television, was at Baghdad's Church of the Virgin Mary, which was, along with a half a dozen other churches in Iraq, bombed last year. This church was full, as was another, shown in another television report. Christmas services were not held, last year, for fear of attacks.

For Thursday's "Arba'een" (40), to mark the 40th day after the death of Husayn, people have started walking towards Kerbela – from throughout Iraq - I don't think the authorities are permitting foreigners into the country for the occasion. Police have been saying they are taking special measures, around Kerbela and Najaf, to ensure the safety of pilgrims/visitors, in preparation for the big day. A woman making her way to Kerbela on foot, expressed her pleasure to a TV correspondent, this evening, "When did the police and army ever say, Hellah-aw-marHaba?" (Welcome and hello). As a result of this week's trek to Kerbela, the market was light, Sunday, according to a cousin, especially northern Baghdad's Jemeeleh district, the main distribution point for imported products.

Mortar round kills 22-year-old soldier from Minnesota in Baghdad

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 25, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Travis R. Bruce, 22, of Byron, Minn., died March 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an enemy mortar round detonated near his guard position. Bruce was assigned to the Army's 170th Military Police Company, 504th Military Police Battalion, Fort Lewis, Wash.

Neocons May Get the Last Laugh

By Max Boot
Los Angeles Times, March 03, 2005

In 2003, more than a month before the invasion of Iraq, I wrote in the Weekly Standard that the forthcoming fall of Baghdad "may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history - events like the storming of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall - after which everything is different. If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if), it may mark the moment when the powerful antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and began to transform the region for the better."

At the time, this kind of talk was dismissed by pretty much everyone not employed by the White House as neocon nuttiness. Democracy in the Middle East? Introduced by way of Iraq? You've got to be kidding! The only real debate in sophisticated circles was whether those who talked of democracy were simply naive fools or whether their risible rhetoric was meant to hide some sinister motive.

Well, who's the simpleton now? Those who dreamed of spreading democracy to the Arabs or those who denied that it could ever happen? Of course, the outcome is far from clear, and even in Iraq democracy is hardly well established. Yet some pretty extraordinary things have been happening in the last few weeks.

The most extraordinary event of all, of course, is Iraq's Jan. 30 election, when 8 million voters cast ballots despite insurgent bombs and bullets. Weeks earlier, Palestinian voters had trooped to the polls to elect a successor to Yasser Arafat. They chose Mahmoud Abbas, who proclaims his desire (sincerely or not) to end the armed struggle against Israel. Then, on Feb. 10, Saudi Arabia held its first-ever municipal elections. Only men could vote, but this was still a crack in the hitherto absolute authority of the royal family.

Now, in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak has suddenly pledged to hold a multi-candidate election for president this fall. Will he allow a genuine contest? That opposition leader Ayman Nour remains in jail is hardly encouraging. But something significant has happened when the pharaoh feels the need to proclaim, "Egypt needs more freedom and democracy."

Bashar Assad, the Syrian strongman, is also feeling the heat. The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a Feb. 14 bombing widely blamed on Syria has stirred worldwide outrage. Rivals from across the Lebanese political spectrum have united to demand the end of Syrian occupation. France and the United States, normally as divided as Lebanese Christians and Muslims, have joined to support a U.N. resolution calling for Syrian withdrawal. Washington already had made palpable its anger over Syrian backing of terrorism inside Iraq by passing the Syrian Accountability Act of 2003, which imposes sanctions on Damascus.

Assad is trying to deflect this growing backlash through token steps such as removing some troops from Lebanon and handing over Saddam Hussein's half brother along with 29 other Baathists to Iraqi custody. But the people of Lebanon will be satisfied with nothing less than true independence. If they succeed, the Baathist regime in Damascus, which has mulcted its richer neighbor for decades, could be a goner.

This week, tens of thousands of anti-Syrian demonstrators in Beirut forced the resignation of the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami. Many are already starting to compare the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon to the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

It would be the height of hubris to claim that all these developments are due to U.S. action alone. Pressure has been building up in the Middle East pressure cooker for decades; the long-suffering people of the region do not need any outside prompting to list a long litany of grievances against their dysfunctional governments. But it was the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent democratic elections there that blew the lid off the region.

"It's strange for me to say it," says Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who would never be mistaken for a Bush backer, "but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq."

"Now with the new Bush administration," confirms former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, "we feel a stronger determination in liberating Lebanon and in promoting democracy in the Middle East."

Maybe, just maybe, those neocons weren't so nutty after all.

Team picture

Since the beginning of the Muslim month MuHarram, Shi'as have been holding "qraayaat" (readings), in memory of Husayn. That's not Saddam Husayn, but Husayn, the grandson of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. That Husayn, Shi'as hold, was the rightful successor to Muhammad, and, in his effort to claim the throne, he was slain on the plains of Kufa, which became Kerbela. This was in the year 680, and his death, and abandonment, by followers, was the founding moment of Shi'ism, a tragedy, marked to this day.

My uncle's wife had a qraayeh, 11 days ago. Some 60 people attended, but not me. I wanted to listen in -- maybe even watch -- by hiding in the dining room, or at the top of the stairs – but, no – I was denied. It's women, only -- I offered to wear a wig, but.... My uncle had a qraayeh scheduled, for the end of the month, at which he promised to show me all the Rahims, some 100, in all. I suggested bringing a photographer. He liked the idea. A couple of days ago, he told me that after the Mosul massacre, he decided to call the whole thing off. The one in Mosul, he said, targeted people doing the same thing he was going to do -- he'd also have a tent and a large gathering, including some prominent people. In addition to the concentration of people – and Shi'i people, to boot -- being a good target, he also worried that a lot of people would be turned away, or discouraged, by the tight security on our street, with the Jordanian embassy, a few houses away.

A couple of days ago, I found out that my uncle hired a photographer to come to the house, Friday, to take pictures of the whole brood -- he's got four children; each child's got seven wives; each wife has seven kids; each kid has seven kids. Kids, kids, wives, guys – how many…ploom-ploom…did I pass, on my way to St. Ives? Actually, there are 21, in all – blackjack! – although, his son's wife just had another bun, popped in the oven, and, come next fall, the new baby's gonna burn the hand. So, yesterday morning, my uncle and I listed my "generation's"…kids – that is, his mother's grandkids – to see who "the blackjack kid" was. My grandmother -- En'neh, we called her -- passed away, a week before Saddam invaded Kuwait – oh, she so wanted to see the end of Saddam. Among my "generation" (of grandkids), I'm number nine, out of 26.

We all got dressed up. I'd gone to the barber's, had my beard trimmed, into a goatee. The photographer came. All the women, went uncovered -- my aunt had asked, what she should do, in the presence of "a stranger" -- the photographer. My uncle asked me to issue a fetwa. I asked her, what she wanted, and who the pictures would be for. I offered, for her grandkids, and that they ought to see all of her. She laughed -- that that would be, what I'd want. Ultimately, I said, it was her choice. My uncle had prepared a list of combinations, among the five nuclear families, and me – all together, each nuclear family, each family's kids, all the men, all the women, all the grandkids, all the boys, all the girls, grandparents with the grandkids, etc., etc. I brought out my digital camera, and clicked along, capturing the..."behind the scenes" -- the prepartions and positionings. Half way through, the photographer ran out of film – he'd brought one roll – thought he was just taking a couple of pictures – for one grand family portrait. I filled in the rest, and, when we finished the indoor shots -- in the living room -- everybody filtered out. I went on, and took some more in the garden, with the sea of little white-and-yellow flowers providing a foreground for the pictures of the grownups, on the patio, and a background for the children, on the grass. Then, we went back to my room, and looked at the pictures on the computer – some 70 of them. We had a good time. Before the shooting, they'd had a carp "mazgoofed," and most of the brood, made it, for lunch. It was a lovely day. I suggested we do it, every week. "That's what we call, a cheap thrill," I told my uncle.

Outside, the moon is full. Is it full, where you are?

Al-Ja’afari Premier Credentials Questioned

Growing Shia calls for their prime ministerial nominee to be replaced by a more moderate candidate.

By Kamran al-Karadaghi in London
Iraq Crisis Report, No. 118
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
23-Mar-05

Ibrahim Al-Ja’afari is under pressure from leading Shia to withdraw as their candidate for post of premier because of his slowing progress on forming a new government and concerns over his Islamist orientation.

Al-Ja’afari, the candidate of the Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, UIA, is apparently struggling to deal with Kurdish demands for greater autonomy and a general resistance to the possible imposition of Islamic law, after more than a month of negotiations on the formation of a new government.

For the moment, the Kurdish delegation to the government talks have put all negotiations on hold while its members participate in the week-long New Year festival of Naroz, which began on March 21.

The Elaph web site - a reliable London-based Arabic news service - quoted sources close to the negotiations as confirming that influential UIA members are calling for the Islamist Al-Ja’afari to be replaced as prime ministerial candidate due to his failure to reach an agreement with the Kurds and other groups on a new government.

In another development, a spokesman for the Shia Political Council, SPC - which is part of the UIA - said that the UIA’s choice of an Islamist candidate for the post of prime minister had raised fears among all the groups in the alliance.

The SPC spokesman, council secretary Hussein Al-Musawi, warned that the UIA might fall apart if Al-Ja’afari, leader of the Al-Da’wa Islamic party, remained its favoured candidate.

Al-Musawi said that the council’s proposal – that the UIA elect a new candidate by secret ballot – had been rejected.

The SPC, an umbrella organisation representing some 20 parties and groups, claims it has mustered the support of almost 50 of the UIA’s 140 members elected to the 275-strong National Assembly.

Al-Musawi told the US-funded Arabic Radio Sawa that several groups are considering withdrawing from the UIA. He identified these as the SPC, the National Bloc - which is close to the young Shia firebrand clergyman Moqtada Al-Sadr - and the Sunni bloc.

Leading council member Dr Ahmad Chalabi - who heads the Iraqi National Congress, INC - had been one of four potential candidates for the post of premier, but he and two other contestants withdrew in favour of Al-Ja’afari. They later said that their decision had been dictated by their desire to preserve unity within the UIA.

But Kurdish sources confirmed that a week ago Ayatollah Hussein Al-Sadr, a leading Shia clergy and a member of The Iraqi List, hosted a meeting at his Baghdad house between the leader of the grouping Ayad Allawi and Chalabi.

Many press reports suggested that Chalabi was now considering linking up with Allawi and the Kurds to propose their own candidate for premier. This move coincides with reports leaked by the Kurds to the media indicating that they too are not happy with the UIA’s choice of candidate.

To strengthen his position within the UIA, Al-Ja’afari is now trying to persuade Allawi to take part in the cabinet. However, Allawi refused the offer - saying that his political programme and that of the Shia alliance were incompatible.

The Kurds insist that a new government should be formed by consensus with the participation of Allawi’s group and some Sunni Arab factions which did not take part in the elections.

If Al-Ja’afari withdraws, the contest will be between the three other original UIA candidates - Chalabi, SCIRI’s Adel Abdul Mahdi (the outgoing finance minister) and scientist Hussein Al-Shahristani, a close ally of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But it will also revive Allawi’s hopes.

Significantly, the Americans - who many observers feel favour Allawi - have until now refrained from interfering in the controversy.

Privately, Kurdish leaders would prefer either the secularist Allawi, or the moderate Islamist Abdul Mahdi for the top job. They have been working with the duo in exile for years and feel more comfortable with them than with the more liberal but unpredictable Chalabi.

However, Al-Ja’afari is still officially the UIA candidate and might well stay that way. The National Assembly’s next meeting is scheduled for March 26, and there are still contradicting reports regarding a possible announcement about the new government on that day.

Ordinary Iraqis cannot agree on who is responsible for the delay. Many pro-UIA Iraqis blame the Kurds - accusing them of putting their ethnic interests above those of the Iraqi people. Other Iraqi Arabs, while they may not necessarily agree with the Kurdish position, welcome the fact that it appears to have weakened the Shia hardliners’ demands for Sharia law.

Last week, a well-known Iraqi Arab commentator, Adnan Hussein, delighted the Kurds with his column in the Saudi-funded and London-based Asharq Al-Awsat daily newspaper. The title of his commentary - “Thank you to the Kurds” – speaks for itself.

He said that the Kurds deserve praise from all Iraqis for “vigorously defending a democratic future for Iraq and their tough stance against the dark forces of sectarianism who offer the Iraqi people no option … but to fall under a religious-sectarian autocracy modelled on the Islamic republic in Iran or the Taleban in Afghanistan”.

Kamran Al-Karadaghi is IWPR’s Iraq Editorial Advisor in London.

This Institute for War and Peace Reporting article is also available in Kurdish and Arabic. The author of the article, Kamran Karadaghi, is, arguably, the premier Iraqi journalist.

Sit a spell

A little after seven, Tuesday evening, my uncle went out, for a couple of errands. I wanted to join him, but his car was already fully booked. He returned, happy. He told me he'd parked his car in front of a pharmacy, on the main street of Baghdad's Mansour district, and let off his two grandsons. He got out of the car, and stood on the sidewalk, outside the pharmacy, surveying the scene, with a sideways glance. He started hearing a commotion – people calling out, "Hello" – in English -- and waving. He looked around, wondering if the calls were directed at him. He saw three men sitting at a restaurant's sidewalk table, smiling and gesturing, to invite people to join them – "It'fadh'dheloo." They were eating gyros sandwiches. Then he saw what the fuss was about – eight American soldiers had just passed by, on foot. It'd been, maybe, 18 months, since he saw American soldiers on foot patrol. Drivers and passengers from the congested street, waved and smiled at the soldiers. The armed men, weren't bunched together, they weren't walking in fear, or tense, my uncle felt – they were relaxed. One of the soldiers, took pictures of the scene with his digital camera. When my uncle's grandsons emerged from the pharmacy, they saw the action, looked down the sidewalk, and thought the soldiers were Iraqi national guard. My uncle corrected them – Americans are much bigger.

Soon, my cousin's husband got home. He said he was standing outside his money-change shop, on the cross street, around noon, when five American soldiers walked by. He said the soldiers greeted people, "Hi" -- "They wouldn't have done that, before." The first six, seven months of liberation, many have told me, American soldiers spent a lot of time with Iraqis on the streets, hanging out in their shops, playing with children, getting invited to food and drink. One cousin's neighbor, in Baghdad's Haarthiyyeh district -- a former Ba'thi teacher -- invited six soldiers into her house, in June '03, and served them lunch and tea. A pizza place down the street from the money-changer's, al-Furdaan, did a brisk business – "You know, Americans love pizza," my cousin explained -- "they couldn't keep up," and the soldiers filled up the place and sat on the outside benches. Since then, they've been ordering pizza, to go, he said. "In the beginning," my cousin said, "they used to come into the place [his shop], stand around for 15 minutes – we had fun with them." When the bombings started, in the summer of '03, people grew fearful, and soldiers started telling children to stay away, for their own safety.

These foot patrols, I've heard, may have been taking place in Baghdad's Sadir City (Thawra), for a few months.

Subject: At long last Iraq joins Kurdistan

From: Al-dhahir, A. (Alaaddin)
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 11:41:54 +0100

Just the other day I was accidentally watching al-Arabiya program "min Iraq." Ahmad Chalabi partially listed the Kurdish demands to join the new cabinet. Below are what I remember he said:

1. The Kurds should have 25% of oil revenues. This demand is based on their score in the election results.

2.The Kurdish regional government should have the right to give concessions/contracts to international companies/governments on natural resources (oil etc) without having to go back to the central government. This implicitly means the Kurds will pocket the income from these agreements.

3. The Iraqi army will not be allowed to enter "Kurdistan" without the permission from the Kurdish parliament.

4. The Iraqi government must pay all the expenses for the Peshmerga.

5. The Kurds must have the presidency, deputy prime-minister, at least 2 important ministries in addition to an appropriate number of cabinet posts.

6. If the Kurdish ministers resign, then the entire cabinet must resign.

7. Prime-ministerial decisions should be made only with the agreement of the Kurdish deputy-prime minister.

8. And of course, the federal scheme.

Chalabi did not list the rest of the Kurdish demands for lack of time and because he considered them less controversial. I presume one of these demands is the annexation of Kirkuk, parts of Mosul and Diyala provinces.

When I heard these "demands" I could not help but exclaim: At long last Iraq joins Kurdistan. But before I comment on these demands I want to make two points. The first is about the Kurdish intransigence. In any negotiation one starts with a negotiating position but must be willing to concede on some points to get an agreement. However, all the "Kurdish demands listed above" are impossible. Under any negotiation, they will be termed "non-starters." The second is about some Iraqi Arabs who formed committees to support the Kurdish right to self-determination. Indeed they go on Sat TV's and websites to make these points. One of those Piled High and Deep (Ph.D.) even said that borders "are not sacred, just a line on a map." Try to apply this to the world and see what will happen!! The most important fact missing in such a proposal is this: Iraq will disappear if the Kurds secede. Not only the region will be mired in endless wars to divide natural resources, water, arid land and borders but Iran will grab the south, Syria and Jordan will grab the west and the "most-beloved" Kurdistan will be part of Turkey. To those "altruistic" guys I say this: you are not idealists, YOU ARE IDIOTS. Furthermore, you are free to do what you like with what you had inherited from your parents (maal al-Khallifook) but not with Iraq. This wonderful country is a trust we pass from one generation to another.

Now back to the Kurdish demands.

Will the percentages of the election results be the same if the other 8 million Iraqis had voted in the elections? Will the Kurds accept 11% share of oil revenues if in the next election the Kurdish parties score this percentage in it? Is this how financial resources are divided in the US (among Democratic and Republican voters), UK, Germany and France? Will the Kurds spend part of the 25% on Kurds living in Baghdad, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriya and Basrah? Will they reduce my tax burden (as well as for many Europeans) by paying the expenses for the 200,000 Kurdish welfare beneficiaries who voted for them in Europe?

I have a better but no less ridiculous system of distributing the oil wealth. Let us divide it equally and give a share to each Iraqi, e.g. $1000 dollar per head. A family of five will receive for instance $5000. We will then ask Iraqis to find ways to finance: the defense of the country (hire mercenaries), police, the education system, the health system, judicial system, civil status offices, property registration office (Tappu), passport office, citizenship office (necessary to get $1000 per Iraqi) and the office which will take care of such oil-money distribution. So you get my point!!

The 2nd Kurdish demand will not only make the central government a scare-crow (khiraa3at Kuhdhra) but will make the economic disparities between Iraqi regions even greater. I.e. having a Bangladesh next to a Dubai.

As for the 3rd demand, I have this cynical comment: It must be amended to give the right to one Kurdish leader to invite the Iraqi army to support him against another Kurdish rival while giving the latter the right to invite the Iranian army to his support (remember 1996 and before).

I have no problem with the 4th demand provided that: a) the Peshmerga becomes part of the Iraqi army, b) sever all party contacts and loyalties to the Kurdish parties/leaderships, c) protect Iraqi borders instead of being smugglers and looters (7aamiha 7aaramiha) as they are now. But I doubt that this is what the Kurdish leaders have in mind!

As a matter of principle, I am opposed to posts being distributed along ethnic or denominational lines. But if the Kurds will feel part of Iraq by having these posts, give them all the posts they want. However, their candidate for the presidency not only propagates an ideology that calls for secession from Iraq but he threatens with secession every time he does get what he wants.

Most curiously is their demand of 2 important ministries while claiming 25% of all "central" things. I know of no more than 5 important ministries: foreign, defense, interior, exterior and finance. How does this rhyme with 24.5% of the election results? This is no way of building a new Iraq. This is a new way to fracture Iraq even more.

The 6th and 7th Kurdish demands make the cabinet and prime minister a hostage to Kurdish blackmail. I dealt with the federacy issue in a long article (most of you received it) last year and there is no need to repeat my views here.

Did you notice lately the Kurdish regional cabinet made Nawrooz holiday 8 days long and hence prolong the anxiety of Iraqis about the formation of a new cabinet? This is their way of getting their demands and I have one advice: Reject their demands outright and call their bluff for what it is: a bluff. If they decide to secede they will face the music: Turkish, Iranian, Arab, Muslim and even American. The only ally they will have is Ariel Sharon and with a friend like him who needs enemies!! The US cannot afford to have a 2nd Israel in the region. But even if the Kurdish leaders succeed in having a Kurdish state, its borders and air space will be closed. The water supplies will be cut off. They will have no access to export oil, not even a pack of cigarettes. As Henry Kissinger would have told them: "It is the geography, stupid."

Alaaddin al-Dhahir

In other news

I decided not to go to Basra, today. A good friend, here from abroad, invited me to join her in Basra, where she runs an office that's active in democracy and women's issues. Yasmine arrived in the country about a week ago, and called me a few days ago, saying she was going to be in Baghdad, Friday, and that I could join her to Basra, from here. Before then, she was going to Slaymanee, in Kurdistan, before heading here. I very much want to go to Basra -- I wanna go everywhere, see everything. I asked my uncle, for his opinion. I also told him about an invitation I have, to go to Kurdistan – about which more, in a minute. My uncle encouraged me to go to Basra -- that it's an important city, for me as a journalist -- there's lots to see – big city, an educated and aware populace, Shatt il-Arab, the nearby port, the Marshes, palm orchards -- and it's very safe. I haven't been to Basra, probably since I was seven or eight. My uncle's semi-condition, though – well, more like a strong preference -- was that I go by plane, and he thought Yasmine would be going by plane, too, as it's a long way from Baghdad to Basra – about eight-hour drive, the length of which, locals think, is too cumbersome -- not to mention, Yasmine's Slaymanee to Baghdad leg, which is another six hours' drive or so. This evening, Yasmine called, again, and said she'd stop in Mansour to pick me up, at ten, this morning, if I decided to go. The last-evening notice, caught me by surprise -- plus, I wanted to have the disks to restart my computer, before heading out of town. The disks, sent from Cleveland to Jordan, haven't reached me or my uncle in Baghdad, and I don't know when they will.

I asked Yasmine about the safety of the road to Basra. She said, "We just made the trip, a couple days ago" -- the "we," probably includes her guard and driver -- two relatives – whom I met in Baghdad, last summer, when Yasmine took me to the palace. I wasn't ready to decide. Yasmine said she'd call back, in a couple of hours. I asked my uncle, again. He was worried about the road – said if the trip wasn't essential, why take the risk. Either route there, he added – the eastern, via Koot and Amara, or the usual one, via Hilla, Diwaniyyeh and Nasiriyyeh – is not safe – the former, is quite safe, once you get past Koot. He said he, himself, would like to go to Kerbela, but it's not a safe bet – and he's from here. He'd like to take me to Kerbela, too. I called two other uncles in town. Both advised against it. They said the same thing -- that if it's not essential, why risk it. One said, no need to leave Baghdad – plus, it's a long trip, which would exposes me to more chances for danger – more opportunities, for the bad guys. I can't contradict them – "disobey" them. In addition, there's a big difference, between me and Yasmine. She's pretty bold and courageous – certainly, more than me; she has two locals with her; and she looks and sounds a lot more local than I – she's veiled, darker-skinned and left Iraq, as an adult. I hope I've still got a chance to make it to Basra – Yasmine said she'll be around, for another two months.

The invitation to Kurdistan, is from another friend, who's about to return to the country – actually, I've posted a few of his e-mails – his name is Layth. Layth has some good friends in Kurdistan, and he joins them, every now and then, for a little rest and relaxation – in the mountains. He invited me, last year, too, but…I don't remember, now, why I didn't go – oh, it was probably because I hadn't succeeded in obtaining an Iraqi ID, and we – well, I can't really include myself – I rarely worry – but family were worried I might get kidnapped, along the way. Before coming to Iraq, this time, I got an Iraqi passport – "don't leave home without it." Layth wrote me, a week ago, and said I should join him, this time around – two invitations, at once – out of the blue – the road not traveled – in Iraq. Again, I'd love to. My uncle thought, Basra would be more worthwhile – for me as a journalist. His wife and one of their daughters said Kurdistan -- with its natural beauty -- would be more relaxing. Plus, Basra is probably, already super-hot.

In other, other news, it's gone nippy, tonight. There was a decent, sporadic breeze, this morning, but still warm. After noon, I went to my cousin's husband's money-change shop, to print something. It was hot. I also wanted to buy a few things – for the houses, here. After I checked in, with my cousin's husband, I went to a store nearby that sells everything – sort of like the Chinese, or Korean, stores in American cities. I got a small lamp for my uncle's poorly lit study, which is my bedroom, and a roll of tape. I also wanted small spoons and pot-holders. They didn't have the latter, and their spoons, were too fancy and expensive – one of my cousins, on the property, needs some everyday teaspoons. Actually, the whole store, is over-priced. I asked one of the boys who helped me at the store, if there was another store in the area, where I could find these kitchen items. He suggested "Seyyid il-As'aar" (Mr. Prices), pointing down 14 Ramadhan Street. They've got a funny system here, where to purchase…I suppose, higher-priced items – maybe it's the ones, behind the counter, or…set up high, out of easy reach, etc.: you first take a receipt from the man behind the counter, where he keeps your item; then you pay the cashier – in this case, by the front door; the cashier stamps your receipt, which you take, back to the section of the store with your item; and then it's yours. They write the items and prices on the receipt, which is carbon-copied. The guy with your item, takes one of the sheets, and tears the sheet he hands back to you. When you reach the door, to leave, a man sitting on a stool, looks in your plastic bag, compares its contents with what's on the receipt, which, of course, must be ripped. I made it, through that little, smiling gauntlet – all men, of course.

I was sailing solo. I'd been dropped off by my uncle's handyman, who went on to Kadhumiyyeh, to deliver a letter. He'd be back, in about 45 minutes -- that was my guess – he said, half an hour. On the way to Seyyid il-As'aar, I stopped at a computer store, to check my "mouse" and a set of earphones -- one of the "ears" had gotten broken off by one of my uncle's 11 grandkids, and the mouse…must've gotten yanked too hard – by one of the kids -- and it'd been…sniffling, ever since. I'd become friendly with two of the workers at the store, as I went back and forth, to check my Mac. They've also got a reliable supply of the 25-hour Uruk internet access cards – there are also 10-hour cards. Uruk is the biggest internet service provider, here. For my mouse and ears, though, there was no hope. That surprises me a bit – they're very resourceful, here.

Next, was a little corner store – they're all pretty little, in fact -- where I bought a container of cappuccino mix and a carton of cranberry juice – I'd suggested the latter to my aunt, who's started another diet – I think she's been on diets, pretty steadily, for 20 years. I left the groceries at the store, and went on. The little cappuccino mix, cost almost three dollars – pretty expensive, for here. At Mr. Prices, a man at the door took my bag with the light and tape. Kitchen items were downstairs. I noticed a few couples, with more women, unveiled – also, along the way – always travel in packs of two, three or four – never alone – not even on Sunday. I guess that should be, "Never on Sunday." I found the spoons – plenty of spoons – not the perfect size, or kind – but I got two sets -- and I was shown to the potholders – there are plenty of boys, and men, to show you around -- and what prices! Why it's…Mister Prices! I got a much cheaper lamp, too – and it's more practical – the kind with the flexible neck. The first one I bought, was a funky one, with a yellow star-shaped shell for a shade, which I didn't think was suitable, for my uncle. I just went over, to feel the shade, and I punctured it, with my thumb, as I squeezed the rubbery-spongy-shelly surface.

All right -- I'm gonna wrap up this great adventure. I don't know if you people can handle any more of this excitement – "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE EXCITEMENT!" Back I went, towards the money-change shop, picking up the drinks, along the way. Oh – at Seyyid il-As'aar, they had a holding station and a cashier downstairs – between which, I went back and forth, to deposit, pay and collect my things. I assume, they've got the same set-up upstairs, where there was clothing, and maybe it was the towels that were upstairs, too.

All right – I'm going to stop, here. I imagine you've had your fill, with my thrills. Adios, amigos.

P.S. I thought of returning the first lamp – there are returns, here, although I don't know how extensive they are, nor what the policies and conditions – terms -- are. One of my cousin's boys, got a motorized scooter, a couple of days ago, and something was wrong with it – might've even broke -- and he came back, yesterday, with a silver one, instead of the yellow one. My lamp with the yellow star-shaped shade, I decided to offer as one of the choices to my uncle – he chose the one with the flexible neck – it's blue -- they also had it in red and, I think, white. Then I thought – hey, maybe my aunt would like the funky one, in the house, or I could use it, by my bedside, which is where it sits.

Stay tuned for more excitement, after these messages!

The Plight of Iraqi Christians

By Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*
Middle East Media Research Institute
Inquiry and Analysis - Iraq
No. 213
March 22, 2005


Introduction

The kidnapping of Archbishop Basil Georges Casmoussa on January 17, 2005 in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and his subsequent release the following day, highlighted the plight of Iraqi Christians, like other Iraqi communities, facing threats from Islamist terrorists bent on plunging Iraq into ethnic conflict.


Deep Roots and Current Violence

The Iraqi daily Al-Mada recently carried a report about the ruins of what is believed to be the oldest Eastern Christian church, discovered in 1976 by an archeological team in the desert west of the holy Shi'ite city of Karbala. The church, known as Al-Qusair Church, was built in the 5th century, 120 years before the appearance of Islam and almost two centuries before the spread of Islam in what is known today as Iraq.

The church (53x13 feet) had fifteen arched doors. Inside archeologists found remnants of an altar and gammadion crosses. There were two small cemeteries, one within the church walls intended for the priests and one outside the walls for other church members.

During the Saddam regime, the eastern side of the church was converted into a training target for an artillery unit of the Iraqi army. A number of unexploded shells have been found within the church's perimeter. After the fall of Saddam, the tombs were desecrated by looters, who hoped to find gold buried with the dead. The Iraqi Department of Antiquities has recognized the historical significance of the church, and restoration and preservation are being considered.(1)


The Iraqi Christians

Iraqi Christians represent three percent of the Iraqi population (which is estimated at 26 million).(2) The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Christians belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church - the Iraqi branch of Roman Catholicism. Chaldean Catholics are also known as "Assyrians." The patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church has clarified that "Assyrian" is an ethnic identity and "Chaldean" is a religious one.(3) There are other churches in Iraq, including the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Nestorian and Armenian. However, the distinction between these churches is not really understood by most Iraqi Muslims, who look upon all Christians as "People of the Book," as they are referred to in the Koran.

Under the secular Ba'th regime, the Christians in Iraq, who presented no threat to Saddam, enjoyed considerable religious freedom. In an interview with the Arabic-language London daily Al-Hayat, the Latin Patriarch in Iraq, Jan Suleiman, said that whenever Saddam Hussein was approached regarding a problem affecting the Christian education system in Iraq, he would intervene to resolve it.(4)


Violence Against Individuals

The high level of violence in Iraq has affected every sector of the Iraqi population, and Christians are no exception. Christians, however, have been specifically targeted by Islamists, who either accuse them of collaborating with the "invading crusading army" or label them infidels. As Islamist pressures mounted in Iraq, following its occupation, Christian businesses were destroyed, Christian university students were harassed and Christian women were forced to wear the veil.(5)


Suspected of Collaboration

Most Christian children attend Christian schools, where the teaching of a foreign language, primarily English, is a high priority in the curriculum. It is therefore understandable that the multinational forces have tapped the Christian community for office and translation work. However, the Christians are concerned that a prolonged occupation of Iraq by the multinational forces under the command of the United States will only heighten the accusations that they are collaborating with an occupation "originating from a Christian country."(6)

Recently, the unidentified "Brigades for the Liquidation of Christian Agents and Spies" has threatened to liquidate those working with the multinational forces and to "pursue them in their homes and churches." In placards posted in Christian areas, the Brigades wrote:

"The Christian minority enjoys peace and security in the land of the Muslim and in our country in particular. Its members have held senior positions in the State. But their malevolence toward Muslims became evident when the occupier entered our country. He found great support among them in the form of translators and agents who acted as informers against Muslims. Their churches receive evangelist groups. They spread moral corruption and pornography in our streets. Muslims have been arrested, women raped and houses destroyed as a result of Christians being agents of the occupiers."(7)


Violence Against Churches

In August 2004, five churches, one in Baghdad and four in Mosul, were hit in one day, in a coordinated attack that killed 12 people. In October, five churches in Baghdad were hit on the first day of the Muslim month of Ramadan. In November, eight people were killed in two church bombings.(8) The August attack on churches was followed on September 10 by mortar attacks against the Assyrian town in Bakhdeda (also referred to as Qarqosh) in the Ninevah Governorate in northern Iraq.(9)


The Destruction of Businesses

With the public sector and the military all but closed to them, Christians have focused on the services sector of the economy and retail business. Because of Islamic restrictions on alcohol consumption, Iraqi governments have limited the liquor retail business to Christians, who, in turn, have been meeting an obviously high demand for alcoholic beverages among a large segment of the Iraqi Muslim population. In fact, a considerable amount of money under the "Oil for Food Program" was used by the Saddam regime for the import of the most expensive brands of alcoholic beverages for Saddam Hussein, his sons, and the high echelons of the secular Ba'th ruling party. At one time, the Coalition Provisional Authority was contemplating a public auction of high quality vintage wine and champagne found in the cellars of the palaces of Saddam, his sons, and their cronies.

Shortly after the fall of Saddam, Islamists, who took control of the streets of many Iraqi cities, began to target Christian owners of liquor stores. They first ordered the owners to close their businesses; if the owners failed to comply, the Islamists gutted the stores and often killed the owners. An example is liquor merchant Bashir Toma Alias, who was shot in the head in the center of a bazaar in Basra while on his way home to celebrate Christmas.(10)

Writing about the "deplorable attack against Chaldean Christians in Iraq," the Chaldean New Agency wrote on October 7, 2004:

"Not only did those heinous crimes result in the loss of innocent lives, but worse, they have created tremendous hardships for those Chaldean families whose very livelihood were attacked. With a lack of alternative jobs, many of them are currently living off the charitable contributions of the local Chaldean churches."(11)

The report goes on to warn that unless these "Islamic terrorists" are brought to justice, "Iraqi Chaldeans will continue to be an easy target for such criminals who are bent on imposing their distorted version of Islam by force."(12) It was reported that in the southern city of Basra, the second largest city in Iraq, armed Shi'ite groups with names such as "The Revenge of Allah," "Hizbullah," and "The Organization of Islamic Doctrines," roam the streets to mete out "Islamic punishment" on traders and users of alcohol, as well as on prostitutes. Four hundred Christian stores were closed. According to Faysal Abdullah, the head of the Organization of Islamic Doctrines, Islam "rewards those who seek martyrdom and who were designated by Allah to uproot vice."(13)

Often the police stand idly by in the face of crimes committed in their presence because they are afraid of the armed Islamists or because they sympathize with their aims.

The Christians complain that after they were driven out of the liquor business by Islamist groups, Muslims have taken over the business and continue to sell liquor publicly.(14)

The Islamists have also targeted barber shops run by Christians because the Islamists object to haircuts and to shaving.(15)


Harassment of Students

Christian students at Iraqi universities are also subjected to harassment and often to violence. At the University of Mosul, the second largest university in Iraq, 1,500 Christian students recently decided to suspend their studies because of threats to their lives by Islamists who have taken control of the university.(16) Because many of these students traveled to campus in buses from outside the city, they were afraid that their transportation would be bombed if they persisted in attending the university.(17)

A survey among Christian students carried out by the Iraqi daily Al-Mada has found similar sentiments among Christian students attending other institutions of higher learning in Iraq. They do not understand why they are being victimized. Anna Mirfit Boutrus, a 22-year-old student at the Technological University of Baghdad, expressed her distress:

"Why do the terrorists want to prevent us from performing our religious rites? Why do they bomb our churches? Why do they want to kill us.... What have we done to them? We are citizens of this land. This is our country. We will not give it up and we will not replace it with another."(18)

For female Christian students, there is incessant pressure to wear the veil or put their lives in jeopardy.(19)


Christmas Celebrations

Christians celebrated Christmas in their homes, for fear of attacks. Most churches avoided the traditional midnight Mass or large gatherings of church goers.(20) Indeed, the churches called upon their parishioners to avoid coming to churches on Christmas out of concern for their safety.(21) Asked to comment on the situation on the eve of Christmas, Patriarch Emanuel III, the Patriarch of Babylon, responded:

"As leaders of the Christian communities in Iraq, we are pained by what has happened to our country. There is destruction of our people, resources, buildings and churches. We grieve the tragic death of many of our children and the injuries and psychological shocks suffered by others. Many of our citizens were subject to humiliating kidnapping, thefts, and expulsion."(22)

Sister Warda of the Daughters of Mary Convent commented that the cancellation of Christmas celebrations must be viewed in perspective. She said: "We cannot celebrate in isolation of what our relatives and brothers are subjected to in our wounded country."(23)


Conversion to Islam

Chaldeans also complain about pressures to convert to Islam. When a parent converts to Islam all minors in the family are forcefully converted regardless of the wishes of the other parent.(24)


Leaving the Country

The plight of Iraqi Christians is part of a rapidly deteriorating situation that is forcing Christians throughout the Middle East to seek refuge in the West. A recent article by Majid Aziza in the Iraqi daily Al-Zaman, a newspaper with a long-standing liberal pedigree, highlights the plight of Christians in the Arab and Muslim world:

"Christian natives of Arab countries are escaping their countries of origin. Statistics show that a large number of them have emigrated to countries which offer them and their children greater security, such as the United States, Canada, Australia and some European countries. The reason is the harassment to which they are subjected in countries they have inhabited for thousands of years. Sometimes the harassment originates from the regime; at other times it comes from extremist groups."


Saddam and the Iraqi Christians

On the one hand, Saddam Hussein supported Christian education; on the other, he forced Christians out of their villages in the north as part of the Arabization of Kirkuk and its environs. Many other Christians opted to leave their villages in the north because of the unsettled conflict between the Kurds and Saddam's regime. Now harassment by Islamists is forcing these transplants to return to the villages of their ancestors in the north. In the words of one person who plans to relocate: "Some of the Muslims consider us infidels. We are being targeted. They will eat us alive."(25) For Christians who have left Iraq, Syria remains the preferred country for temporary residence for two reasons: first, no visa is required and second, it provides security at a low cost of living.(26) Jordan is another country populated by a large number of Iraqi Christians.


Voting in the Elections

In a meeting with a Christian delegation, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani denounced the attacks on the churches and called upon Christians to participate in the elections to ensure maximum participation.(27) Al-Sistani has also been quoted as saying that he would have no objection for a Christian to be elected president of Iraq if he met the appropriate qualifications.(28)

There were no fewer than eight Christian parties that competed in the January 30 elections. The Christians were determined to vote because they believed an elected government would provide them with a measure of security they now lacked. They also counted on massive participation of Iraqi Christians in the Diaspora to vote for their parties.(29) The low rate of participation in the elections of Iraqis in exile must have been disappointing to the Christians.

In the elections, one Christian party, the National Rafidain, received approximately 37,000 votes, entitling it to one seat in the 275-seat assembly.

The low turnout of the Christian voters was involuntary. Many of the Christians live in Sunni provinces, particularly in Ninevah and Salahudin in the so-called Sunni triangle. Tens of thousands of Christians who intended to vote discovered on election day that the Independent Elections Committee did not provide ballot boxes in these two provinces because of security concerns. Christians complained that tens of thousands of their community were in essence disenfranchised, particularly in the city of Mosul, for no fault of their own. Many others may have sought the security of their homes rather than risk violence while going out to vote.(30)

*Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is Senior Analyst of MEMRI's Middle East Economic Studies Program.

Endotes:
(1) Al-Mada (Baghdad), December 30, 2004.
(2) Al-Zaman (Baghdad), September 22, 2004.
(3) Jonathan Eric Lewis, "Iraqi Assyrians: Barometer of Pluralism," The Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 10 (Summer 2003).
(4) Interview with Arfan Rashid, Al-Hayat (London), October 4, 2004.
(5) See MEMRI's Inquiry and Analysis No. 190, "Islamist Pressures in Iraq," September 29, 2004. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=iraq&ID=IA19004
(6) The Iraqi daily Al-Zaman (September 22, 2003) quoted a Chaldean woman named Sanaa as claiming that she was repeatedly accused by Muslims of being a cousin of the Americans.
(7) www.elaph.com, October 21, 2004.
(8) Reuters, December 25, 2004.
(9) Assyrian International News Agency, September 13, 2004.
(10) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 31, 2004.
(11) www.chaldeansonline.net/chaldeanews/attack.html
(12) Loc. Cit.
(13) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 31, 2004.
(14) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 31, 2004.
(15) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 12, 2004.
(16) Al-Zaman (Baghdad), October 21, 2004.
(17) Al-Zaman (Baghdad), September 14, 2004.
(18) Al-Mada (Baghdad) January 2, 2005.
(19) Al-Zaman (Baghdad), December 24, 2004.
(20) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), December 26, 2004.
(21) Al-Mada (Baghdad), January 2, 2005.
(22) Al-Sabah (Baghdad), December 25, 2004.
(23) Ibid.
(24) www.chaldeansonline.net/chaldeanews/attack_ar.html
(25) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 12, 2004.
(26) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), August 17, 2004.
(27) Al-Sabah (Baghdad), October 30, 2004.
(28) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), November 17, 2004.
(29) Al-Hayat (Lebanon), December 11, 2004.
(30) Al-Mada (Baghdad), February 6, 2005.

News of the day

The national assembly did not meet today, and it probably won't meet Saturday, either, according to Fu'ad Ma'soom, who ruled out the possibility of the government being formed, by Sunday. Discussions, the Kurdish leader said, are ongoing, with Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List. Ibrahim Ja'fari, the presumptive prime minister, assured the public that the government would be formed, by the end of the month, while others predicted the announcement would come, the middle of next week, which begins, Sunday. Ja'fari, who's a medical doctor, conceded that the formation of the government has taken a long time, but said the reason was the desire to make sure that there is national unity, inclusive of all, and that "it's born well, and not weak."

Ja'fari -- speaking at a press conference after meeting with a top-level U.S. Congressional delegation that included Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and other famous faces, including Markey or Downey -- also cautioned Iraq's neighbors, in an unusually hard tone, against interference in Iraq, and called for Jordan to issue "a clear apology, commensurate with the size of the crime" (Hilla massacre) and "a complete and transparent investigation" of the affair.

Sixty-six katyusha rockets were seized in a raid near the Babil Tire Factory, between Hilla and Najaf. I did not see, if the raid was conducted by Iraqi forces, the multi-national forces, or a combination, thereof.

Rafidayn Bank security guards were able to prevent the kidnapping of an Iraqi contractor, and captured the kidnappers. This seems an unusual occurrence, and could be another indication that citizens and security men are taking a more active role in preventing crime and terrorism – and combating it, as well. The item didn't say the location of the bank, but it's quite likely the main branch, in Baghdad.

Kut police announced the capture of a gang of car thieves and brigands. Kut is the largest city of WaaSit province, southeast of Baghdad.

Two bomb-squadsmen died in the process of defusing a bomb in the Iskaan district of Baghdad, which is just northwest of Mansour, where I am.

Civil defense authorities in the southeastern province Maysaan announced that three bombs were defused in the Mejraawi mosque in Awaasheh.

Kurdistan Democratic Party's Kurdistan TV announced the capture of 108 suspected terrorists in Mosul. The news surprised me, because I didn't hear elsewhere of a large capture, today. Iraqiyyeh television's scrawl said the number captured in Mosul, today, was 13, the same number given in Hurra-Iraq's evening newscast. Also on Kurdistan TV's scrawl was a news item about South Korea's nuclear weapons program – either that it was resisting joining the six-way talks, or that China didn't see progress from "South Korea." Hurra-Iraq added, to its report about the captures in Mosul, that provincial police asked Mosul hotels to report of the presence of foreigners to the interior ministry. Now, on the midnight news, the news presenter said that 71 terrorists were captured in Mosul, while the scrawl at the base of the screen continued to say the number was 13.

20-year-old Buckeye Marine is killed, Monday, in Anbar

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 22, 2005

DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Kevin S. Smith, 20, of Springfield, Ohio, died March 21 as a result of hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

At least 45 Arabs among the 85 terrorists killed yesterday

The AP article I posted, a couple of hours ago, about the 80 terrorists killed at a training camp yesterday, failed to mention, that at least 45 of the terrorists killed, were foreign Arabs. That, according to this evening's Iraq newscast on al-Hurra. The attack on the training camp, the news report said, was carried out last night by 240 members of the special Iraqi police commandoes, supported by the U.S. military. The intense clashes reportedly lasted 17 hours, and 12 Iraqi police commandoes died in the fight. The group training in the camp called itself The Islamic Army, and among those killed were Algerian, Saudi and Syrian nationals. The raid landed passports and identity cards, and ended in Iraqi control of the camp, near the town of Hilweh, between Tikrit and Lake Therther.

Tawfeeq il-Yasiri, a former military officer and leader of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, said the presence of the terrorist training camp was attributable to the weakness of the government authority, its security forces and a security plan. Yasiri said that the security forces succeeded in the raid because of "the development of citizens' awareness, their understanding of their important role and involvement," and that there was "a qualitative development in the security forces' operations, which will be more and larger in the future."

At the beginning of Hurra's Iraq newscast, it gave the total number of killed at the terrorist training camp, as 82. By the end of the seven p.m. newshour, the number was given as 85.

28-year-old soldier from Norfolk is killed in Baghdad

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 21, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pfc. Lee A. Lewis, Jr 28, of Norfolk, Va., died Mar. 18 in Sadr City, Iraq, when his patrol was attacked by enemy small arms fire. Lewis was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

20-year-old soldier from Fort Worth is shot dead in Iraq

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 22, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Francisco G. Martinez, 20, of Fort Worth, Texas, died March 20 in Tamin, Iraq, as a result of enemy small arms fire. Martinez was assigned to 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Hovey, Korea.

Iraq Says 80 Rebels Killed in Clash
Insurgent Death Toll Is Largest in Single Battle

By QASIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
March 23, 2005
Updated: 06:58 AM EST

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A raid by U.S. and Iraqi forces on a suspected rebel training camp left 80 militants dead, the single biggest one-day death toll for rebels in months and the latest in a series of blows to the country's insurgency, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

Politicians helping shape a post-election government expected within days said negotiators are considering naming a Sunni Arab as defense minister in a move aimed at bringing Sunni Arabs into the political process — and perhaps deflate the insurgency they lead.

The U.S. military announced late Tuesday that its air and ground forces backed Iraqi commandos during a noontime raid on a suspected guerrilla training camp near Lake Tharthar in central Iraq. Seven commandos died in fighting, the U.S. military said, but it didn't give a death toll for rebels.

Iraqi officials said Wednesday 80 rebels died in the clash — the largest number of rebels killed in a single battle since the U.S. Marine-led November attack on the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah that left more than 1,000 dead. On Sunday, U.S. forces killed 26 assailants after they were ambushed south of Baghdad.

Also Wednesday, a mortar shell or rocket landed on an elementary school in western Baghdad, killing at least one child and injuring three others, according to a police official who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution by attackers.

Kids fled the schoolhouse, abandoning backpacks and books on desks littered with glass shards. One teacher wept outside as parents rushed to collect their children.

On the political front, Abbas Hassan Mousa al-Bayati, a top member of the United Iraqi Alliance, said negotiators from his Shiite-dominated bloc and a Kurdish coalition could tap a Sunni Arab to head the ministry of defense, which oversees the Iraqi army battling the insurgency.

"The defense ministry will go to a Sunni Arab because we do not want Arab Sunnis to feel that they are marginalized," al-Bayati told The Associated Press. "They will be given one of the four major posts because we want them to feel that they are part of the political formula."

Sunni Arabs, dominant under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, largely stayed away from the Jan. 30 balloting amid calls for them to boycott and threats against voters by the Sunni-led rebellion.

Political leaders have in the past announced plans on filling cabinet positions, only to reverse themselves later.

Al-Bayati said his group and the Kurdish coalition, which together won 215 seats in the new 275 seat National Assembly, were expected to name a president on Saturday, the next step toward forming a new government. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is expected to fill the post.

Fuad Masoum, a member of the Kurdish negotiating team, said no definitive decisions on divvying up the 32-member Cabinet have been made. He declined to confirm that a Sunni Arab will be named defense minister, but said that it was one option under consideration.

Handing the post to a Sunni Arab could help undermine support for the insurgency, while assuaging Sunni fears that the Shiites will dominate all aspect's of the country's upcoming government.

The army chief of staff could be a Shiite, al-Bayati said.
He added that his bloc was pressing for a Shiite to head the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police — Iraq's other main security force — and that a Kurd could become foreign minister.

Amid the political wrangling, top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had been scheduled to talk with Talabani on Wednesday. But the meeting was canceled due to "security concerns," said Meithemn Faisal, an official from al-Sistani's offices in Baghdad.

Kurds are thought to number between 15 to 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, with Sunni Arabs roughly equivalent. Shiite Arabs make up 60 percent of the population.

Citizen Sistani

The Najaf provincial council has put in a request to the Iraqi National Assembly to grant Ayatollah Ali i-Sistani, Iraqi citizenship. Sistani, a native of Iran who has lived in Iraq for some 45 years (a council official said, more than 55 years), is the highest religious authority in Iraq, the Shi'a equivalent of pope. In addition to Sistani, the council asked the assembly to confer citizenship on two other top religious authorities – each, called a marji', meaning source (for "emulation"). The others are Basheer a-Najafi, a Pakistani, and IsHaaq el-Fayyaadh, an Afghani – both have lived in Iraq the past 35 years. Shi'as from around the world have been coming to Najaf for more than 1000 years, first as a pilgrimage point, for the grave of Imam Ali, Muhammad's cousin, son-in-law and fourth successor, then, also, to study in its seminaries, which for centuries were the best in Shi'ism. In Saddam's times, and after the 1979 Iranian revolution, Najaf was eclipsed as the center for learning by Qum, in Iran. Iraqis, and those supporting the moderate strain of Shi'ism, hope that Najaf regains its former status and influence.

The council's deputy head, Khalid i-Nu'mani, said the council decided unanimously to submit the memorandum to the national assembly, requesting "that the matter be one of the first issues discussed by the elected national assembly," which convened two days after the March 14 request. Nu'mani said one of the main reasons for the request was "that it's a civilized matter, and not political, as there are many developed countries that grant their citizenships to creative and intellectual individuals. If we compared what Sayyid Sistani and the other sources have presented, through the statements they issued and through their leadership of the masses, they were more concerned for the unity of Iraq and Iraqis than others." Nu'mani said that Sistani, who hails from Seestan province, bordering Afghanistan, has lived in Iraq more than 55 years, and that most countries grant citizenship after five years of residence. He said that "the issue concerns Najafis and Iraqis, all, and that's why it's a duty to give back something for what they have presented to us, even if it were something for convenience, and we know that they aren't in need of it, but we are honored by them." The request came, he said, from a group of jurists, and the council approved it, unanimouosly.

It's too bad the assembly didn't do it, when it first met, but I expect this will be one of its first acts – a popular call. On the 16th, Sistani representative Ahmed i-Saafi welcomed the council's request, calling it "part of the faithfulness of Iraqis to these sources and their active and effective role, and concern for the unity of Iraq and Iraqis." Saafi added, "Many civilized countries have granted creative people in the fields of thought, politics and religion their countries' citizenship, as part of their devotion and appreciation to them, and the decision of the provincial council comes from this category." There is not the custom in Iraq, and maybe not a formal process, for gaining citizenship, other than by birth or through patrilineal descent.

The Hilla massacre

SUNNI GROUP CONDEMNS BOMBING

Authorities warn that death toll may rise after worst-yet insurgent attack.

By Yaseen Madhloom in Hillah
IWPR'S IRAQI CRISIS REPORT, No. 115
March 04, 2005

A leading Sunni group has strongly condemned a car bombing in Hillah that claimed at least 125 lives in the deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In a statement, the Muslim Scholars' Association called for an end to all attacks targeting Iraqi civilians.

"The association announces that terrorist acts targeting innocent Iraqis should be forbidden, no matter who is behind the attacks and what the pretext is," said the group, which led a boycott of Iraq's elections.

The association also extended its deepest sympathies to the families of those killed in the February 28 suicide bombing. A further 150 people were wounded in the attack.

Police say the bomber detonated a car loaded with explosives outside a government office where police recruits were waiting to receive their physical examination in Hillah, a city 100 kilometres south of Baghdad. A busy market nearby was also hit, adding to the number of casualties.

A group calling itself the al-Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on an Islamist website, Reuters news agency reported. The authenticity of the claim could not be verified.

Police arrested several suspects in connection with the bombing.

"The bomber had his hand tied to the steering wheel and remains of the Holy Koran were found near him," said Captain Salam Muhsin, a spokesman for the Babil provincial police department.

Hundreds of people protested in the streets of Hillah a day after the attack, blaming police for what they said were too-lax security measures and demanding more protection.

"The poor work by policemen in the governorate is the reason why this infiltration happened," said Imad Kadhim, a Hillah resident who witnessed the bombing.

Kadhim said police had closed off all major roads and were confident this was enough to deter attacks. But the suicide bomber came in along a secondary road.

Dr Mahmood Abduradha told IWPR that people in Hillah were overwhelmed by the extent of the damage. Many of the bodies could not be identified because the remains were badly burned or dismembered.

"The corpses were collected, loaded into trucks and moved to hospitals," he said.

Hillah's health department used loudspeakers mounted on cars and in mosques to urge people to donate blood. Medical teams from the nearby cities of Najaf, Karbala and Diwaniyah rushed to the city to help, and the Iraq Red Crescent Organisation sent emergency aid and equipment.

Health authorities in Hillah warned that the death toll could rise further, as many of the injured remained in a critical condition.

Yaseen Madhloom is an IWPR trainee journalist in Iraq.

This Institute for War and Peace Reporting article is available in Kurdish and Arabic, too.

Demo in the mornin', demo in the evenin', demo at suppertime….

All right – hop on a plane, ride a boat, pick up and drive – there's a demonstration this morning, at eleven, outside the Jordanian embassy in Vienna – that's Austria, for the geographically challenged. This demonstration follows protests against Jordan in Washington and London on Tuesday, as well as one the same day outside the Saudi embassy in London. Iraqis, and in particular Shi'as, are angry at Arabs for their support of terrorism in Iraq. What flipped Iraqis' collective switch was the "wedding celebration" in Jordan, 10 days ago, for the unwed "martyr" who reportedly carried out the February 28 suicide bombing in Hilla that killed 125-175 people. Sources vary, on the numbers killed and wounded – I ought to call Hilla hospitals, to get that pinned down.

Outside the gates of Georgetown University, some 25 Iraqi men shouted, "Shame, Shame," as, inside the school, the king of Jordan was awarded an honorary doctorate. The protesters called on Jordan to halt the financing of terrorism, the sermons inciting it by the state-controlled clergy and the activities of Saddam loyalists in the kingdom. Carrying a large picture of the king, with one side of his face, that of terrorist kingpin Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the demonstrators also called on Jordan to turn over all the members of Saddam's regime and those financing the terrorism against Iraqis.

A Jordanian official approached the demonstrators and asked them to write down their demands and sign their names, and he would relay them to the authorities. He also asked them to give him the picture. One protester reacted, "They kill Iraqis – that's okay – but we show a picture, half-Zarqawi, and they get irritated." Several Jordanian students engaged the Iraqis, as well, and the opposing sides shouted at each other, across the Georgetown street.

In London, some 100 people gathered and shouted, across the street from the Jordanian embassy, and they directed their anger at all Arab leaders. A woman shouted at the television camera, "Shame on all the Arab governments who didn't condemn this crime. One person in Qatar gets killed, and nobody stays quiet, but 150, and they don't say anything.... Our blood is not cheap." Another woman cried out, "God willing, your day will come – one after another." A third implored, "I ask the respected king of Jordan – if an Iraqi bombed himself and killed 100 Jordanians, what would be the feelings of the Jordanian people?" She continued, "If he's really a king, a hero and from Ahlil-Bayt [the House of Muhammad], he shouldn't be hiding -- he should come out, and speak."

Among the protesters, who were segregated by sex, were many pictures of Zarqawi and King Abdallah, side by side, images of the bodies and remains of the massacre in Hilla, and pictures of the king, with the word "Sectarian," in large red letters, across the face. One sign said, "Your day will come." Another: "No more free oil." A banner, in Arabic: "Get your hands off our country." Al-Hurra reported that a Sunni source told the station that the demonstration was organized by a sect-based group. The Hurra reporter concluded with the words, "Is this message going to reach Arab rulers?"

In Baghdad's Mustansiriyyeh University, tens of students, teachers and politicians reportedly marched through the school, Tuesday, demanding that neighboring countries stop the terrorism against Iraqis.

Roadside bomb kills 21-year-old Kentucky soldier

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 21, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Jonathan A. Hughes, 21, of Lebanon, Ky., died March 19 in Iraq when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV. Hughes was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 623rd Field Artillery Regiment, Campbellsville, Ky.

Roberto Alomar -- between Baghdad and Sydney

From: ayad rahim
Sent: Sunday, 20 March 2005 9:51 AM
To: ammar hindi
Subject: Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Roberto Alomar retires after 17-year major league career

ayad rahim has sent you a news article

Personal message:

I know you said, at one point, that he was the best player in the game.

Speaking of which, do you remember the thing he did, that you said you hadnt seen anybody else do?

Lots of love, to all.

Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Roberto Alomar retires after 17-year major league career
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-alomarretires&prov=ap&type=lgns

* * *

Subject: RE: Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Roberto Alomar retires after 17-year major league career
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:20:28 +1100

No I do not remember!!!!!!! What was it that he did that nobody else did? I am so far removed from baseball……

He was the smartest and always studied the game which was what I liked the most about him. He was talent and brains.

Where are u?

* * *

Subject: RE: Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Roberto Alomar retires after 17-year major league career
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 19:30:49 -0500

Hey -- I'm in Mansour, staying with an uncle. What's going on with you? I've been here, since two days befroe the elections, and I'm staying, another month -- almost -- four weeks. I got to vote, here -- went to five voting centers.

Hey -- while I've got you, maybe you can ask Olga a question. Does she know a Katya Waakeem? She's an anchor on Hurra TV, from Washington, and she's just a knockout -- I'd like to meet here. Or if she knows anybody else who works there, or might know anybody?

How are you all doing? What's going on?

The thing about Robbie, had to do with something he did on defense. I can't remember what it was -- some kind of decoy, or some move he made, to get ready for a defensive play -- I can't remember what it was, but you -- or I -- said we'd never seen anybody do that. I think it was you. It involved a play in the outfield, I think -- a ball that went to the outfield. After that, I used to keep saying that to people, but didn't have the punch line.

Oh, speaking of baseball, they've started up a league over here, in 14 cities -- I thin, mostly, college students. There've been a couple of reports done on it, in the press.

All right -- it'd be nice, to hear from you, what's news with you.

Lots of love, to you, Olga and the boys, if they remember me -- and even if they don't. I'm sure Reema doesn't. Love to her, too.

Adios.

* * *

Subject: RE: Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Roberto Alomar retires after 17-year major league career
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:59:43 +1100

Hi Ayad

Still in Sydney and enjoying it. Did manage to get my vote in here in Sydney and was interviewed by a Japanese reporter. I was very excited and took the Kids and Olga along with me to witness it.

What I hear from Baghdad changes day by day (most of the news I get from my brother). Whenever there is a lull in the violence I get excited only to be disappointed few days later. Overall I get the impression that things are getting better. However we have a long way to go. What do you think?

I do remember the Alomar play now. He ran to the outfield as if it was a short fly ball to prevent the runner from advancing. The memories of the 95 series and the series with Yankees that year are still very much fresh.

Olga does not know anyone at the Hura. The are all new people.

Are you working for anyone or just free lancing?

Ammar

* * *

Subject: RE: Yahoo! Sports - MLB - Roberto Alomar retires after 17-year major league career
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:34:40 -0500

Wow -- that's awesome, that you remembered the play. I always talk about that -- that he did something that nobody else has ever done -- well, that's overstating it -- but I don't know what it was. I'm laughing. That's awesome, though, although, it doesn't sound as great, in an e-mail, as it probably was, in person. Well, he's gone -- as they say, he now belongs to the ages.

I think things are going very good. I know that sounds funny, to people far away, but -- if you look at where the country has been, how shattered and sick it is -- its people, and the infrastructure -- and you can include all kinds of things in the infrastructure -- from water, electricity and sewage, to education and economy, you-name-it. It's really doing well. Business is booming, people have disposable income out the wazoo, although, they don't do shit -- laziest people on the planet, probably, but...they can really improve -- lot of growth potential, as they say. Well -- could go on and on, but i think things are going well. They mean well, as do the Americans, and they're very impatient -- although, again, they've gotta learn to take responsbility -- well, I think you know what it's about.

I'm free-lancing -- I've gotta produce some articles, to make some money, now. When I go back, I'll do some speaking, and...we'll see -- I've gotta put all of this, into a book.

All right -- love to all.

Oh -- you said the Hurra people are new -- does Olga know where they brought them from?

That's cool -- about your voting. Hey -- can I put that, on my blog? Including the part about Alomar?

All right -- see you.

Breaking News

BUSH OFFERS RETIREES OPTION OF SERVING IN IRAQ

Social Security Participants Given Wide Choice of Iraqi Cities to Patrol

After receiving only muted support for his sweeping proposals to overhaul Social Security, President George W. Bush attempted to sweeten the pot today, offering all retirees the opportunity to serve in Iraq.

With most insiders calling the president's proposal for individual investment accounts dead on arrival in Congress, the White House hopes that Mr. Bush's offer of guaranteed military service to all retired Americans will find more favor.

Speaking at a rally in Detroit today, the president told his audience, "In the year 2054, the Social Security trust fund will be bankrupt, but the war in Iraq will be alive and well."

Under his new plan, the president said, upon reaching the age of 59 every participant in the Social Security program would be offered the opportunity to begin basic training for what Mr. Bush called "the adventure of their lives."

According to the president, retirees would be "totally free to choose" which Iraqi city they would like to patrol from a list of twenty cities including Baghdad, Tikrit, Fallujah, and oil-rich Kirkuk.

Mr. Bush added that the average retiree serving in Iraq would earn approximately $1500 a month, which would be boosted to $1800 if the retiree should somehow stumble across weapons of mass destruction.

In Washington, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he was "intrigued" by the notion of spending his retirement years in Iraq but that he had decided to run the World Bank instead.

Elsewhere, antiwar protesters across Europe marked the second anniversary of President Bush ignoring antiwar protesters across Europe.

That's the March 20, 2005, Borowitz Report.

Saudis in Iraq

Today's newspapers relay a report from Reuters news agency that there are 1,500 Saudi terrorists in Iraq. Mansour Njaydaan, "a former extremist who fought in Iraq," is quoted as saying, "There are tens of Saudis in prisons, either because they wanted to go to Iraq, were captured as they tried, or because they were collecting money for people going to Iraq." According to the articles, Reuters reported that the Saudis found other routes into Iraq, most of them via Syria, and that the recent successes of the Saudi security forces against Qa'ida terrorists may have prompted more of the militants to go to Iraq. Njaydaan relayed that a prominent Saudi security officer recently mentioned that there may be 1,500 Saudis in Iraq.

Qa'ida expert Faaris Hazzam affirmed that 2,500 Saudis have gone to Iraq since the toppling of Saddam, two years ago, and that maybe 400 of them have been killed there. Hazzam added, "Every day, there is, in northern or southern Saudia, a family receiving mourners." Saudi officials, the reports continued, have tried to contain knowledge of the number of terrorists who may have infiltrated the Iraq borders, and they indicate that the numbers are much less.

Saudi attorney Mihsin al-Awaji said that most of the Saudis in Iraq have "a one-way ticket" and will most likely die there. Those who return, he continued, bring back with them the ideas of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "We are extremely worried about the issue of those who may return after the end of the war in Iraq, with the new ideology that's worse than that which came form Afghanistan."

Old new item, about a much older (news) "item"

Gilgamesh tomb believed found

BBC News World Edition (web-site includes pictures)
Tuesday, 29 April, 2003, 07:57 GMT 08:57 UK

Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history.

The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name.

Gilgamesh was believed to be two-thirds god, one-third human

Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King.

"I don't want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic," Jorg Fassbinder, of the Bavarian department of Historical Monuments in Munich, told the BBC World Service's Science in Action programme.

Magnetic

In the book - actually a set of inscribed clay tablets - Gilgamesh was described as having been buried under the Euphrates, in a tomb apparently constructed when the waters of the ancient river parted following his death.

"We found just outside the city an area in the middle of the former Euphrates river¿ the remains of such a building which could be interpreted as a burial," Mr Fassbinder said.

He said the amazing discovery of the ancient city under the Iraqi desert had been made possible by modern technology.

Who can compare with him in kingliness? Who can say, like Gilgamesh, I am king?

-- The Epic Of Gilgamesh

"By differences in magnetisation in the soil, you can look into the ground," Mr Fassbinder added.

"The difference between mudbricks and sediments in the Euphrates river gives a very detailed structure."

This creates a magnetogram, which is then digitally mapped, effectively giving a town plan of Uruk.

'Venice in the desert'

"The most surprising thing was that we found structures already described by Gilgamesh," Mr Fassbinder stated.

"We covered more than 100 hectares. We have found garden structures and field structures as described in the epic, and we found Babylonian houses."

But he said the most astonishing find was an incredibly sophisticated system of canals.

Iraq has long been the site of some of the most important historical finds

"Very clearly, we can see in the canals some structures showing that flooding destroyed some houses, which means it was a highly developed system.

"[It was] like Venice in the desert."

The latest on the Jordan-Iraq rift

In the first official Jordanian semi-apology to Iraq, Prime Minister Faysel al-Faayiz called the February 28 suicide bombing in Hilla that killed at 130-175 Iraqis, a "cowardly crime" that doesn't represent the Jordanian people. He said that Jordanians and Iraqis were "twins," "one people," joined by a common history and customs. The most important thing, he said, was to condemn these "condemnable acts" and work to keep good relations.

In Algiers for the Arab League summit, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zaybari, today greeted Jordan's foreign minister, Hani il-Mulqi, with the traditional exchange of kisses. Iraq is also represented at the summit by Interim President Ghazi il-Yawer, who arrived last night, and was to deliver Iraq's address, today. Jordan's King Abdallah II stayed away. Jordan is also at odds with Syria, over Lebanon.

King Abdallah yesterday asked his country's charge d'affaires, Deemiy Haddad, to return to Iraq. He was called back, "for consultations," Sunday, in the wake of demonstrations in Iraq against Jordan, for celebrations held there for the Jordanian who reportedly carried out the suicide bombing. Jordanian officials have said that Haddad was pulled out of the country, for his own safety. Haddad lived in the embassy, a few doors from where I'm staying, and Iraqi Shi'a have been demonstrating outside the embassy for more than a week, and may have fired gunshots towards the embassy. Other embassy employees weren't withdrawn, Jordanian officials said, because they did not live in the embassy, and were not at risk.

Iraq pulled its ambassador from Jordan, Atta Abdil-Wahhab, a couple of hours after Jordan's move, and in protest over he leniency with which Jordan dealt with terrorists crossing into Iraq.

Jordanian officials are calling for the problem over the Hilla perpetrator to be resolved diplomatically. Government spokeswoman Asmaa' Khidhir said yesterday that "the problem has gotten bigger than it merits," and that the charge d'affaires was recalled because embassy business was at a halt. Jordanian officials explained that the trouble was over "a clear misunderstanding regarding what news agencies related."

The Arab summit started, this afternoon – its opening session was being broadcast, live, on local television. For many Iraqis, the question is, will Iraq press the issue of terrorist recruitment, incitement and border-crossing from neighboring countries, in particular, from Syria and Jordan. Regarding the possibility of Iraq seeking a resolution on the issue from the summit, Musawi dismissed it as only "a playing card to be used to pressure" other members, but that such resolutions in the past, such as at the recent meeting in Iran of interior ministers, were "just ink on paper."

One Iraqi told a television interviewer yesterday that "an apology from Jordan wasn't enough, even from the king…. There should be compensation, from his pocket." A bus driver said, "All the Arabs must leave – all the problems come from the Arabs."

Pre-Saddam foreign minister Adnan Pachachi said, "I condemn severely the contemptible crimes" in Hilla and Mosul and "the mourning gatherings that were held in some parts of Jordan." He cautioned that Iraq's "relations are with the government," and that if there were suspicions of transgressions, "we must employ diplomatic means" to address those.

Asked about Iraq's ability to assuage public anger at Jordan, political analyst Saadiq il-Musawi said that "all the political forces couldn't stand before this popular sentiment." Jordanians' political positions, he said, "aren't convincing to Iraqis -- diplomatic means are no good."

Musawi saw "two faces" from Jordan towards Iraq. Publicly, he said, Jordan disavows any connection with the terrorists and condemns them. Jordan's intelligence services, on the other hand, knew about Raa'id al-Banna's movements to and from Iraq, via Syria, Musawi continued, and statements from the king and political forces in Jordan, including warnings against "a Shi'a crescent."

Two Jordanian university students were reportedly killed in Hilla, Sunday. Musawi said, Monday night, "I don't think Iraqis would do that – but people who are trying to provoke sedition," such as "Saddam hands."

The demonstration we passed, Sunday, in Baghdad's Mansour district turns out not to have been a direct protest against Jordan, but an indirect one -- supporting Ahmad Chalabi, who's come under attack from Jordanian officials and personalities. Chalabi accused Jordan of worsening relations with Iraq, by King Abdallah's warnings against "a Shi'a crescent" and by Jordanians' expressions of fear that Iraq's seminaries are Iran-leaning. The organ of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has a front-page article on the support he's drawing – most likely, from residents of Baghdad's Kadhimiyya district, from which the Chalabis hail. I haven't read the article, but the headline reads, "The Jordanian government is treating the Hilla crime with its customary arrogance." The subheading: "Iraqi citizens: the king is implementing his father's saying 'I'll make in every Iraqi house a [female] mourner." The king reportedly said these words a year or two after his second-cousin, King Faysel II, of Iraq, was slain, in 1958. King Hussein visited Baghdad 42 times during the eight-year war, and Saddam honored the king with the first shot at Iran. Iraqis view the king's participation in the war, as well as gifts and decades of free and low-fare oil, believing that Saddam bought the king, and Iraqi treasure built Jordan. The article today includes a photograph of demonstrators, holding up pictures of Chalabi and a banner reading, "Dr. Ahmad Chalabi, a patriotic political symbol; the Jordanian government should stop defamation and give him his stolen right in the Petra case." Chalabi was sentenced in absentia in 1992 to 22 years for embezzlement in the Jordan-based bank. Chalabi denies the charge, and says it was drive by Saddam, against whom he worked. The banner is signed "the people of Kadhumiyyeh." My cousin's husband told me today that a worker from a-Thawra (Sadir City), speaking about the demonstration, said, passionately, "Nobody talks about Ahmad Chalabi. He's spending money from his own pocket to build Sadir City." A year ago, when Muqtada a-Sadir was fighting the Americans, this person was livid against America.

In response to Jordanian accusations that the demonstrators have been generated by Chalabi and Iran, Jwaad Maliki, Ibrahim al-Ja'fari's deputy, said that "nobody directed the demonstrators," but that they came as a spontaneous reaction by Iraqis to the statements from Jordanians, "from the king, on down," speaking of the dangers of Iraqi Shi'as.

Roadside bomb kills Tennesse Army sergeant in Kirkuk

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 21, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sgt. Paul W. Thomason, III, 37, of Talbot, Tenn., died Mar. 20 in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Thomason was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 2nd Squadron, 278th Regimental Combat Team, Greeneville, Tenn.

A Nobel for Sistani

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The New York Times
March 20, 2005

As we approach the season of the Nobel Peace Prize, I would like to nominate the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for this year's medal. I'm serious.

If there is a decent outcome in Iraq, President Bush will deserve, and receive, real credit for creating the conditions for democratization there, by daring to topple Saddam Hussein. But we tend to talk about Iraq as if it is all about us and what we do. If some kind of democracy takes root there, it will also be due in large measure to the instincts and directives of the dominant Iraqi Shiite communal leader, Ayatollah Sistani. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that there had to be a direct national election in Iraq, rejecting the original goofy U.S. proposal for regional caucuses. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that the elections not be postponed in the face of the Baathist-fascist insurgency. And it was Mr. Sistani who ordered Shiites not to retaliate for the Sunni Baathist and jihadist attempts to drag them into a civil war by attacking Shiite mosques and massacring Shiite civilians.

In many ways, Mr. Sistani has played the role for President George W. Bush that Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev played for his father, President George H. W. Bush. It was Mr. Mandela's instincts and leadership - in keeping the transition to black rule in South Africa nonviolent - that helped the Bush I administration and its allies bring that process in for a soft landing. And it was Mr. Gorbachev's insistence that the dismantling of the Soviet Empire, and particularly East Germany, be nonviolent that brought the Soviet Union in for a soft landing. In international relations, as in sports, it is often better to be lucky than good. And having the luck to have history deal you a Mandela, a Gorbachev or a Sistani as your partner at a key historical juncture - as opposed to a Yasir Arafat or a Robert Mugabe - can make all the difference between U.S. policy looking brilliant and U.S. policy looking futile.

Mr. Sistani has also contributed three critical elements to the democracy movement in the wider Arab world. First, he built his legitimacy around not just his religious-scholarly credentials but around a politics focused on developing Iraq for Iraqis. To put it another way, says the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen, "Sistani did not build his politics on negating someone else." Saddam Hussein built his politics around negating America, Iran and Israel. Arafat built his whole life around negating Zionism - rarely, if ever, speaking about Palestinian economic development or education. The politics of negation has a deep and rich history in the Middle East, because so many leaders there are illegitimate and need to negate someone to justify their rule. What Mr. Sistani, the late Lebanese Sunni leader Rafik Hariri and the new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all have in common is that they rose to power by focusing on a positive agenda for their own people, not negating another.

The second thing that Mr. Sistani did was put the people and their aspirations at the center of Iraqi politics, not some narrow elite or self-appointed clergy (see: Iran), which is what the Iraqi election was all about. In doing so he has helped to legitimize "people power" in a region where it was unheard of. In Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine - where Hamas recently said it would take part in parliamentary elections - the ballot box and popular support, not just the gun, are showing signs of becoming real sources of legitimacy. Both Hezbollah and Hamas will have to prove - with turnout, not terrorism - that they are entitled to a larger slice of power.

Third, and maybe most important, Mr. Sistani brings to Arab politics a legitimate, pragmatic interpretation of Islam, one that says Islam should inform politics and the constitution, but clerics should not rule.

The process of democratizing the Arab world is going to be long and bumpy. But the chances for success are immeasurably improved when we have partners from within the region who are legitimate, but have progressive instincts. That is Mr. Sistani. Lady Luck has shined on us by keeping alive this 75-year-old ayatollah, who resides in a small house in a narrow alley in Najaf and almost never goes out the door. How someone with his instincts and wisdom could have emerged from the train wreck that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, I will never know. All I have to say is: May he live to be 120 - and give that man a Nobel Prize.

No'rooz Pay'rooz-be

That's Happy New Year, in Kurdish. Actually, "no'rooz" means "new day." It's celebrated on the 21st of March, every year, by Kurds and Persians – has been for two, three thousand years. Actually, for some, it could start on the 20th, depending on the equinox. No'rooz traces its lineage to Zoroastrianism, and the practice of lighting fires in hilltops still goes on – was, last night, as bonfires dotted the hillsides and countrysides of Kurdistan. Fireworks, too – last night, in Slaymanee. The scenes from Kurdistan were very joyous, with picnics, barbeques, music, dancing, brightly colored clothing and singing of patriotic songs.

In addition to the birth of life, the occasion also celebrates the Kurdish legend of Kawa al-Haddad, the smith who slew the tyrant who sucked children's blood. As a Kurdish storyteller and folk scholar told it, the occasion is a celebration of the victory of nature and the victory of humanity, truth and justice over tyranny and the symbols of evil. A celebrant told the TV interviewer, "Maybe this is our message to our Arab brothers – that we're a people who live in the northeastern corner of the Arab world. Remember us, in our tragedies, and remember us in our joys."

Arabs celebrate No'rooz, too. It's an official holiday, here – has been, for years – I don't know, how many. On our front porch, this afternoon, my aunt and her three daughters brought out boiled eggs, yogurt, cream, white cheese, figs, sesame-crunch, romaine lettuce, candy, cake and zerdeh, a yellow dessert that's delicious -- I've gotta find out, what's in it -- it's probably pretty basic, with tumeric, for coloring. My mom makes it, in America, so...she can tell me. The kids all joined in, and they lit yellow candles. The two-year-old brought out a huge spring onion. In the morning, I saw the boiled eggs on the stove, and grabbed two, not knowing they were being saved for a special occasion. It was hot, this morning, and I breakfasted on the front porch, where we've got an overflow of little, tall yellow, white and orange flowers, the shape of sunflowers or ones that look like daisies. Tonight, I saw my first cockroach, a sure sign that summer is here.

For more information on No'rooz, you can do a search -- there are various spellings, of course, or read the Wickpedia entry I found, below, or go to its web-page, for all the links.

Norouz (also spelled Norooz, Noruz, Nav-roze, Navroz, Naw-Rúz or Nowrouz and in Persian نوروز) is the traditional Iranian festival of the New Year which starts at the exact moment of the vernal equinox, commencing the start of the spring. The name comes from Persian no=new + rooz=day; meaning "new day".

Norouz with its uniquely Iranian characteristics has been celebrated for at least 3,000 years and is deeply rooted in the rituals and traditions of the Zoroastrian religion. Today the festival of Norouz is not only celebrated in Iran, but also in many lands that historically have been within the Persian sphere of cultural influence (i.e., lands which were parts of pre-Islamic Persia).

Iranians consider the Norouz as their greatest celebration of the year. Even with Islam, and the Ismaili Muslims, the festival of Norouz continues to be by far the most important celebration of the year in Iran.

When is Norouz?

Unlike many calendrical holidays, Norouz is determined by a natural event, the vernal equinox.

Norouz corresponds to the precise time of the vernal equinox, when the sun passes through the celestial equator as it traverses the ecliptic. The exact time differs every year, but it is almost always on March 20 or March 21 of the Gregorian calendar, and it is always known to an accuracy of seconds many years in advance. In 2005, Norouz will be on Sunday March 20 at 12:33:00 PM GMT

The exact second the sun passes through this celestial intersection marks the start of astronomical spring, the new Persian year, and Norouz celebrations.

Preparation

Preparing for Norouz starts in Esfand, the last month of winter in the Persian solar calendar. Iranians start preparing for the Norouz by doing a major spring-cleaning of their houses, buying new clothes to wear for the new year and buying lots of flowers for the Norouz (in particular the hyacinth and the tulip are popular and conspicuous).

Chahar Shanbe Soori

This section is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Norouz&action=edit).

The Haft Seen (In Persian: هفت سین)

A major tradition of Norouz is setting the "Haft Seen" (the seven 'S', seven items starting with letter S or "seen" (س) in Persian alphabet), which is seven specific items on a table symbolically corresponding to the seven creations and the seven holy immortals protecting them. Today they are changed and modified but some have kept their symbolism. Every family tries to set up as beautiful a Haft Seen table as they can, as it is not only of special spiritual meaning to them, but also is noticed by visitors to their house during Norouzi visitations and is a reflection of their good taste.

The Haft Seen are seven of these, though there isn't consensus as to which seven:

• sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish (symbolising rebirth)
• samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ (symbolising affluence)
• senjed - the dried fruit of the jujube tree (love)
• seer - garlic (medicine)
• seeb - apples, (beauty and health)
• somaq - sumac berries (the colour of the sunrise)
• serkeh - vinegar (age and patience)
• sonbol - the fragrant hyacinth flower (the coming of spring)
• sekkeh - coins (prosperity and wealth)

Other items on the table may include:

• pastries
• lit candles (enlightenment and happiness)
• a mirror
• painted eggs, perhaps one for each member of the family (fertility)
• a bowl with two goldfish (life, and the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving)
• a bowl of water with an orange in it (the earth floating in space)
• rose water for its magical cleansing powers
• the national colours, for a patriotic touch
• a book of poetry by Hafez or a holy book (the Qur'an for Muslims)

Celebrating

During the Norouz holidays Iranians are expected to pay house visits to one another (mostly limited to families, friends and neighbours) in the form of short house visits and the other side will also pay you a visit during the holidays before the 13th day of the spring. Typically, on the first day of Norouz, family members gather around the table, with the Haft Seen on the table or set next to it, and await the exact moment of the arrival of the spring. At that time gifts are exchanged. Later in the day, on the very first day, the first house visits are paid to the most senior family members. Typically, the youngers visit the elders first, and the elders return their visit later. The visits naturally have to be relatively short, otherwise one will not be able to visit everybody on their list. Every family announces in advance to their relatives and friends which days of the holidays are their reception days. A typical visit is around 30 minutes, where you often run into other visiting relatives and friends who happen to be paying a visit to the same house at that time. Because of the house visits, you make sure you have a sufficient supply of pastry, cookies, fresh and dried fruits and special nuts on hand, as you typically serve your visitors with these items plus tea or syrup.

Sizdah Bedar

The thirteenth day of the New Year festival is called Sizdah Bedar (meaning "thirteen outdoors"). People go out in the nature in groups and spend all day outdoors in the nature in form of family picnics. It is a day of festivity in the nature, where children play and music and dancing is abundant. On this day, people throw their sabzeh away in the nature as a symbolic act of making the nature greener, and to dispose of the bad luck that the sprouts are said to have been collecting from the household.

Links

• The Festival of Noe-Rooz (http://www.art-arena.com/noerooz.htm)
• Norooz (http://www.neda.net/norooz/)
• What is Norouz? (http://www.payvand.com/ny/massoume.html)

First National Assembly meeting -- take two

I posted, the day after the first National Assembly meeting, the first part of my account of the day's proceedings. Here, is the second and last installment.

First of all, I missed the opening remarks of the session, delivered by the session's emcee and head of the interim parliamentary bureau, who told the assembly members, "On you, the Iraqi people hang their hopes for progress and building a constitutional, democratic, federal, united Iraq, so that citizens may enjoy a free and dignified life." Later, after Fouad Ma'soum's speech, the presenter thanked Ma'soum for his service, as head of the just-terminated interim parliament.

The U.N. Secretary General's representative, Ashraf Qaadhi, began by thanking the assembly "for inviting me on this important, historic, national occasion." Qaadhi, reading his speech in Arabic, is from Pakistan, so the Arabic was accented – much lighter than the rough Iraqi dialect. I wondered if he wrote the speech in Arabic, if he knew the meanings of the words he uttered, and whether the words on paper were in Arabic script or Latin – it was probably in Arabic, like the Qur'an, which he's probably read. He congratulated the assembled members and the Iraqi people, "who carried out truly democratic elections." Qaadhi noted the "great historic opportunity" before Iraqis to open up and choose what kind of government and order they wanted – in terms of the role of religion, the position of women in society, and minorities. He called a democratic Iraq "a message to the world for freedom and democracy, as a successful experiment…. Either all will win, or all will lose." Qaadhi reiterated that "the United Nations will always stand by your side in your efforts to establish the bases of democracy, in accordance with Resolution 1546," and added that the United Nations "is willing to put before you all its expertise and resources," asking Iraqis to make use of them.

During the few minutes we were without electricity, I missed Ghazi il-Yawer's speech. In the papers, the outgoing president is reported to have said that Iraqis "deserve the heroism gained from the respect of others." Yawer described "this phase as the last in the transitional stage, and it's the most important," adding that "the mission sitting on our shoulders is great and grave, the first of which is the writing of the constitution." He emphasized the need for all to take part in that process, to ensure the rights of all. "Those who participate and those who don't will be accountable before God and the Iraqi people for the sound and solid foundations…. There's no winner or loser. Instead, we will all win, or we will all lose."

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi started by pointing out that "for three-plus decades, we've had two goals – to depose the regime, and to hold free elections for the peaceful transfer of power. Congratulations to our people, for the victory…at the dawn of freedom." Allawi saluted Iraqis, "who defied terrorism and death when they headed to the ballot boxes and took part in the elections." He noted "Iraq's march has been a long one, full of sacrifices, but today, we've arrived at the beginning of the road."

He continued: "We are at the beginnings of a new era of freedom, democracy and the rule of the people." Allawi thanked the Kurds for offering their land from which to fight Saddam, and "for giving up so much." He noted the steps ahead -- setting up democratic institutions, the branches of government and constitutional procedures that "protect the weak against the strong." In looking ahead, Allawi also touched on respecting the opinions of others, building law, and moving the economy from state-run to free-market.

Looking back, Allawi said "it's been our honor to participate in leading this country, in the shadow of very difficult circumstances, almost impossible, to accomplish a number of achievements, among them building security forces able to confront terrorism and Saddam forces." On the economic front, he listed reduced unemployment, the stability of the dinar, improved salaries and international debt forgiveness. Externally, Iraq, he said, "as a peaceful, democratic and federal state," has returned strong, to the regional, European and international stages, noting the importance of the international conference held in Sharm il-Shaykh, last year, to support Iraq.

Allawi thanked the multi-national forces for liberating Iraq and securing order, listing the participating countries. He saluted the United Nations, and called on it "to increase its presence in Iraq." Finally, Allawi expressed pride in the role he has played, and looked forward to playing.

Abdil-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the winning United Iraqi Alliance, began by chanting the traditional words of praise to God and "peace upon Muhammad and the progeny of Muhammad." "And the progeny of Muhammad" is a distinctively Shi'a phrase, a reference to the prophet's grandchildren, Hasan and Husayn, and their descendants, who are viewed by Shi'as as the rightful heirs to Muhammad as the caliphs of the Islamic nation. Therein, lies the defining distinction of Shi'ism. Hakim's "call" was met with a response from the audience, with the words "wa aali-Muhammad" sung back, with a crescendo and pause on the "aa" in "aali." This Shi'i chant was likely unprecedented, in Iraqi politics and wider public life.

Dressed in a religious shaykh's brown robes and turban, Hakim praised and thanked God for "favoring us with being of this great people, who carried the banner of Islam and sacrificed for right, justice and dignity." Noting the eight decades of suppression, he thanked God for granting "this country courageous women, men and elders," saluting their bravery on "achieving victory in the great elections battle." Hakim thanked "God for the opportunity to represent these people."

Hakim then turned to the recent massacres in Hilla and Mosul and "the cheapening of Iraqi blood," describing the perpetrators as possessing "the resentment of the buried." He "condemned severely" the celebration in Jordan of the Hilla suicide bomber, and called on Jordan and the neighboring countries to take steps to stop the recruitment of terrorists and their crossing the borders into Iraq.

Hakim urged the next Iraqi government to take the terrorists out by "their roots" and to "hasten the trial of Saddam, his regime's members and their remains." He also called on the government to pursue bureaucratic corruption and "the people's stolen funds." Hakim also called for a constitution that ensured human rights, respected Iraq's Islamic identity, treated Iraqis equally and ended the role of the multi-national forces in Iraq.

Hakim thanked God for the seminary authorities, and, especially, Ayatollah Ali il-Sistani. He paid tribute to his elder brother Mhammad Baqir al-Hakim, "the martyr of the mihrab [prayer niche]," the victims of Halabcha, "the martyrs of the elections" and those of the [March 1991] Sha'baniyyeh and Marshes uprisings. Hakim closed by stressing the importance of national accord and asking Jordan to stop terrorists.

Jalal Talabani, the leader of the second-place Kurdish list, began by thanking the American, British, Australian, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Ukrainian, South Korean and other foreign forces who helped liberate Iraqis from Saddam. The leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, wearing a grey suit, began assuming the role of the leader of Iraq, as he's expected to be the president of the republic, which would make him the first Kurd to occupy that post. Sometimes speaking in colloquial Iraqi, Talabani stressed national unity and paid special attention to "the absence of our Sunni Arab brothers" from the national assembly, calling on members "to avoid that absence,…so that the same mistake is not repeated that was committed in the establishment of the state, when the Shi'a and Kurds were absent, and the constitution came full of omissions and flaws, and Iraq continued suffering from wars throughout its regions."

Talabani said that "today's session convenes in an air of freedom with few counterparts in the East, with the participation of all nationalities." Noting the "blending of the Saddamiyyeh with the Zarqawiyyeh," Talabani recommended studying the subject of terrorism and uprooting it by a comprehensive plan. He added, "I'm sorry to say that the regional media" are describing the terrorists as "resistance." He closed with, "Let's continue the democratic march."

The ad-hoc chairman of the first assembly session, its eldest member, Shaykh Dhaari il-Fayyadh, praised and thanked Ayatollah Sistani, "the man of peace and democracy," for maintaining "peace in the country" and for bringing about the elections. Fayyadh, wearing the traditional brown tribal robes and headdress, thanked "anybody who helped and supported" Iraqis, mentioning the national guard and the electoral commission. He called for a government to fulfill people's aspirations, provide basic services, and serve the families of the martyrs.

The session concluded with Judge MidHat SaaliH Mahmood, head of the high court, administering the oath of office. He asked members to stand and raise their right hand. He read the oath, phrase by phrase, and members repeated each phrase. I wish I had the words. The concluding line: "As God is my witness." Some members voiced objections that the oath should then be administered in Kurdish. This part of the proceedings, was the first, not translated into Kurdish. The emcee said that the judge didn't speak Kurdish. Some suggestions were offered from the members. After a couple of minutes, the issue apparently died. Fayyadh adjourned the session and said an announcement would be made, soon, as to when the next session would be held, for the choice of leaders of the national assembly.

Commentators on al-Hurra television remarked on the multiplicity of languages, representing the mixture of Iraqi society, and the departing prime minister's detailing his government's accomplishments. Some commentators and citizens interviewed in the street have expressed disappointment that the assembly didn't accomplish anything substantive, the least of which would have been the choice of assembly leader, and could have included the selection of president and vice presidents of the republic. Some commentators said the fact that the assembly leader wasn't chosen was proof that there were still wide disputes between the main protagonists. Some believed, that for the sake of transparency, necessary for a better-functioning democracy, all the discussions and negotiations should take place "under the dome of the parliament." Others are proud and pleased with this first display of representative democracy, and hope that the government will meet their needs.

Hoosier lawyer makes good

Law alum helped shape Iraq’s interim constitution

By John R. Hughey

Feisal Istrabadi, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations and a principal author of Iraq’s interim constitution, is optimistic that Iraq’s challenges in reintroducing constitutional law are possible to overcome.

Istrabadi, a 1988 graduate of the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, outlined details of Iraq’s interim constitution during a Feb. 28 lecture on the Bloomington campus. His lecture included an historical sketch on Iraq’s first constitution drafted in 1925 and his opinions on what issues must be addressed in drafting the official constitution.

“Iraq was never Minnesota. The constitution was never fully abided by,” he said, noting that Iraq previously succeeded in creating a rule of law structure, at least until the 1958 coup d’ etat that created constitutional instability. Since, Iraq has been ruled under provisional constitutions.

By 1968, when the Baath Party came into power, there had been a cataclysmic erosion of the concept of constitutionalism, according to Istrabadi. The nation’s lack of a permanent document has led to a widespread misunderstanding of rule of law. The lack of understanding, according to Istrabadi, encompasses Iraq’s intellectuals, many of whom were charged by the previous government to draft provisional constitutions.

“By 2003, you had former deans, former professors of law at the University of Baghdad proposing constitutions for Iraq which would say something like: ‘The right of the accused to a public trial shall not be abridged, unless otherwise ordered by the judge,’” said Istrabadi, prompting laughter from the law school faculty and students in attendance.

He encountered similar flaws in Iraq’s legal system during his work with authorities in creating Iraq’s Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), the nation’s interim constitution. It was written after the March 2003 Iraqi liberation and ratified by ruling authorities in March 2004.

Istrabadi, author of the TAL’s chapter on Fundamental Rights, said the document succeeds in its task of re-establishing constitutional law in Iraq, serving as the official ruling document until the permanent constitution is ratified. Istrabadi is particularly impressed with the document’s protections of religion, freedom of speech and rights for women. The TAL addresses other “substantial issues,” including recognizing the Kurdish language and the mandate for an official constitution to be drafted by August.

“We have a very large set of problems in Iraq. I in no way mean to paint a rosy picture. But I will submit to you, given our history in the last 35 years, the very fact that we are talking about what it means to have a constitution...suggests amazing progress. I am very optimistic,” Istrabadi concluded.

Web-site found for statement on Ba'ath Party as a terrorist group

I came across a link to the statement I posted seven days ago by United Iraqi Alliance spokesman Entifadh Qanbar, in which he concluded, "the time has come for the United States and all other democratic countries to list the Baath party as a terrorist organization." Qanbar spoke to the United States Helsinki Commission/Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, in its March 9 hearing, "The Russian-Syrian Connection: Thwarting Democracy in the Middle East and the Greater OSCE Region."

Rupture with Jordan, updated

I just made several corrections and additions to my post about the first official rupture in relations between Iraq and Jordan, over the celebration nine days ago in Jordan for "the martry" who reportedly carried out the suicide bombing in Hilla, February 28, in which at least 130, and possibly more than 160 people died.

The abject bankruptcy of a colonial occupation

Imad Khadduri
Published 17/3/2005

Even before the invasion and occupation of Iraq, I had publicly stated my unequivocal conviction that "rivers of blood" will flow in Iraq, to the consternation of several American radio stations that curtailed the interview claiming I was threatening the sensitivities of the American listeners.

Back in August of 2002 Vice President Dick Cheney cited the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami (who is not Iraqi) predicting that after "liberation" the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans. When an American soldier was shown on television raising the American flag, just a few days after the invasion, on a building in Um Qasr port south of Basra, I turned to my friends and predicted that that gesture by itself will cost hundreds of dead American soldiers.

Unlike Ajami and Cheney, and for that matter their "Iraqi" chorus of Chalabi, Allawi, and their ilk, I am more attuned with the dignity, and the indignities, of my people.

The US has not won this war.

A report by the US Army official historian (Maj. Isaiah Wilson, published in WorldTribune.com on March 7, 2005) claims that the US military lost its dominance in Iraq shortly after its invasion in 2003.

"In the two to three months of ambiguous transition, US forces slowly lost the momentum and the initiative gained over an off-balanced enemy," the report said. "The United States, its army and its coalition of the willing have been playing catch-up ever since."

The failure to stabilize Iraq in 2003 was primarily due to the "failure of army planners to understand or accept the prospect that Iraqis would resist the US forces after the fall of the Saddam regime".

Pointedly, the Iraqi resistance (and here I exclude the five percent Salafis and the "terrorist" acts of foreign intelligence agencies, near and far) has also aimed at the Achilles heel of the neoconservative construct for occupying Iraq. More than 215 successful attacks on the Iraqi oil pipeline infrastructure have occurred over a period of one year and a half, and will continue unabated until the departure of the occupiers. And despite the illicit grab of the large income from the oil sector by Bremer's irregular monetary policies, Iraqi oil is not covering the US occupation costs, as wished by its planners, but is, instead, augmenting the tailspin dive of the US economy.

In a typically "managerial" attitude of waging a war, stripped from any moral considerations, the defeat in Iraq is forcing top Pentagon planners to rethink several key assumptions about the use of military power and has called into question the vision set out nearly four years ago that the armed forces can win wars and keep the peace with small numbers of fast-moving, lightly armed troops. The Pentagon, instead, became bogged down in an old-fashioned, costly and drawn-out war of occupation. As one senior Pentagon official was quoted as saying by the LA Times on March 11, 2005, "there are smarter, more efficient ways to do regime change and occupation.... One of those ways is to rely much more on our friends and allies to do the back-end work." This is the ultimate abject bankruptcy of a colonial occupation.

The above relates to the "totality" of the US defeat in attempting to occupy Iraq. What will unfurl on the ground is more probably several devastating attacks on large concentrations of occupiers' locations that will hasten their decision to withdraw from Iraq. The attack on the Jizani US military camp near Mosul on December 21, 2004 and the attack on the foreign mercenaries' al-Sadeer hotel on March 9, 2005 are but miniscule examples of that.

When it was becoming clear, by July-August 2003, that the resistance was spreading, several radio stations again called to ask for an opinion on what course of action is best for the Americans. My response, even then, was for the withdrawal of the occupation forces, adding that when wounded, the saliva applied by licking and cleaning the wound is the best medicine. In other words, the Iraqi people can best take care of their tragedy by themselves, once the American occupation is ended and the Iraqis are left to tend to their own affairs. The recent determination and dignity of the election turnout (and not its legitimacy), whether participating in or boycotting it, is a vindication of that. My faith in the Iraqi people and their core capability to surmount our present predicament, according to our own traditions, culture and history, is deep and wide. The Iraqi people will prevail.

Dr. Imad Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission for nearly 30 years, from 1968 until 1998. He was able to escape from Iraq in late 1998 with his family. He recently published his autobiography: Iraq's Nuclear Mirage: Memoirs and Delusions

Correction; tribes

Two weeks ago, in talking about the security situation, and the televised confessions of captured terrorists in Iraq, I relayed some things from my cousin's friend, whom I said was a Dulyam, from Anbar. I was wrong. He's not a Dulyam, isn't even a Sunni. He's from the vast Timimi tribe – from its Shi'i branch. However, in addition to himself being a soldier in the Amn (Security services), his brother was an agent in the Mukhabarat (Intelligence, which, in Arab countries, are responsible for terrorism).

A note about tribes. Belonging to a tribe, doesn't mean you live in a tent, wear traditional robes and do some ceremonial war dance. Most Arabs belong to one tribe or another, although most also don’t know which it is, so far removed are they from those attachments, because they've been urbanized for generations. However, though they may live in cities, drive cars, wear modern (Western) clothes, watch TV, live in modern homes, with all the appliances, use computers, work in office, have college degrees, etc., the tribe of origin is something that's taken into consideration, when judging another person, or making associations of one kind or another, especially in business or marriage -- and, now, politics. With the urbanization of Iraq in the middle of the 20th century, those tribal ties began to fade a bit and mean less, but the Ba'ath regime, from its ascent to power in 1968, tried to uproot people's allegiances to any side except the party and the state. They did this, through violence, fear and a widespread network of informants, in every nook and cranny of society. As a result, people began fearing and mistrusting each other, especially "strangers" – that is, people not related to them – although, it wasn't uncommon for a person to be betrayed by a relative or intimate. As a result, people retreated, more and more, to the most basic of ties – family, clan and tribe -- to protect themselves from the state and its network of spies and informants.

This has played itself out, in contemporary Iraqi politics, in the trust people place in politicians and the associations politicians enter into, with each other. So, a person's tribe of origin, something that, decades ago, went unmentioned, is, now, part of doing business.

A view of Ibrahim al-Ja'fari, the prospective prime minister of Iraq

Warren Marik is a retired CIA case officer who is currently in Iraq observing the formation of the new government and sent these observations to the list.

What Makes Jafari Run?

With the Iraqi political process currently in gridlock, Baghdadis--with increasing irritation--are asking exactly this question. It has been roughly one month since Ahmad Chalabi dropped out of the race to be the United Iraqi Alliance list nominee for prime minister, leaving Dawa chief, Ibrahim Jafari, as the unopposed candidate. Chalabi dropped out of the race fearing that an internal secret ballot to determine the UIA nominee would fatally divide the Alliance. Jafari's embarrassing failure to form a government during this long month, however, is again bringing the unity of the UIA into question. The disgruntlement of the factions within the UIA is growing every day that the UIA is not in power. The pleas of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani for unity will not be heeded forever, many Baghdadis say.

So, after a month of failure in spite of the support of the UIA majority in the assembly, what does make Jafari continue to run?

First, Jafari is Iran's man. He can dress casually, American-style, at the first assembly session; he can live in the Green Zone; and he can travel with his American security guards, but Iraqis know he is Iran's man. Iraqis today have an inordinate fear of Iran's supposed ability to intrigue and manipulate to its own advantage. Baghdadis pass around convoluted conspiracy theories to explain why, for example, Iran actually allowed Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, Iran's Iraqi ally as head of the Shia political organization, SCIRI, to be assassinated rather than believe Iran was simply inept. Jafari, dependent on Iranian material support, is part of that mind-set, and it is doubtful that the Iranian ambassador is encouraging him now to quit and take a few weeks off at a Caspian Sea resort.

Second, Jafari's strongest ally in the UIA is Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the current head of SCIRI and brother of the assassinated Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim. Abd al-Aziz is the person most responsible for Jafari being the UIA nominee for prime minister. Abd al-Aziz undoubtedly thought he was playing a clever game when he unceremoniously dumped the initial SCIRI candidate for the UIA prime minister nomination, Adil Abd al-Mahdi. By this move, Abd al-Aziz was able to obtain generous political concessions for SCIRI from its rival, Dawa, in any Jafari-led government and, at the same time, Abd al-Aziz would also win points with the Iranians for being a team player. Also, Abd al-Aziz has not been sitting easily on the SCIRI throne since the death of his brother. By dropping Abd al-Mahdi, who was not popular with SCIRI's second tier of leadership, Abd al-Aziz was able to strengthen his own position within SCIRI. Abd al-Aziz has a strong stake in a Jafari government and will not advise Jafari to throw in the towel without considerable outside pressure.

And, third, the prime ministership gives Jafari a once-in-a-lifetime chance to jump-start Dawa into a position of national influence. Although Dawa may be first in the hearts of the Iranians (followed closely by SCIRI), it is not first in the hearts of Shia Iraqis. Dawa did poorly in the provincial elections compared with SCIRI, and if Dawa had not joined the UIA national list, Jafari would be a forgotten figure. But he made a tactically smart move for his organization and himself by joining the list and giving SCIRI generous concessions in return for the UIA nomination for prime minister. He will not give up this chance easily in spite of his strategic incompetence in forming a government.

Iraq's political gridlock is a serious problem for the United States as well as Iraq. The Bush administration's man, Ayad Allawi, has no hope of forming a government, and the administration seems stunned to the point of inaction. The corruption of Allawi's administration should make him a political pariah for years to come. But, like it or not, the U.S. signed for Iraq's transition from dictatorship to democracy. The United States will be responsible for what happens. If the administration does nothing and says nothing, the Kurds, who have the good sense to worry now about the outcomes a Jafari government will bring, will eventually bargain for the best possible terms for themselves and come to an agreement.

The Bush administration will then be seen to have allowed a friend (at the very least) of Iran, who belonged to a terrorist organization, and who has a very limited following in Iraq to become Iraq's powerful prime minister under rules formulated by the United States--at the cost of more than 1,500 U.S. combat deaths.

Warren Marik
Information for Democracy
Baghdad, Iraq

I received the above, dated March 19, from Dr. Laurie Mylroie's e-newsletter "Iraq News," and from the press office of Dr. Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.

We've got a break

It's happened. Jordan and Iraq have taken a first, diplomatic step in response to the outrage expressed by Iraqis since the celebration in Jordan, a week ago, for the February 28 car bomb in Hilla that killed 130 people. The suicide-bombing was reportedly carried out by a Jordanian, and his family held "a wedding celebration" for the unwed "martyr."

Sunday, Jordan recalled its charge d'affaires from Baghdad, "for consultations." A couple of hours later, Iraq recalled its ambassador from Amman, "in protest over its leniency with teh perpetrators of terrorism."

Abdil-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the winning United Iraqi Alliance list, called on the Jordanian government to investigate the crime and the family that celebrated the suicide bombing.

Al-Sayyid SaaliH al-Gallaab, a member of Jordan's house of delegates, angrily blamed Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi and Iran for exploiting and pushing Iraqis against Jordan. Gallab said there were "a lot of clarifications" regarding the suicide bombing, and he cited Banna's father, who, after initially expressing joy over his son's "martyrdom," denied that his son was involved, saying that he died in Mosul, and not in Hilla.

Speaking on al-Hurra's world news program this evening, Gallab, a former information minister, explained that Jordan's charge d'affaires was not recalled, but returned to Jordan to deliver a message from Hakim to King Abdallah II and the Jordanian government. Gallab said, "We trust Hakim," who he said was from a respectable, well-known family. Gallab noted that Jordan's ambassador met with Hakim.

Gallab, noting that there were half a million Iraqis in Jordan, said that the anti-Jordan demonstrators did not represent Iraqis. Gallab said that Chalabi "could easily have financed the demonstrators," using some of the $500 million Gallab accused Chalabi of stealing from Jordan. "You can't pull that one, over on us," he said.

Gallab said that "nobody from Jordan had infiltrated the borders, which the Americans monitored with planes and photography." The problem, instead, came from Iraq's open borders with Syria and Iran, he said. "If Iraq asks for an apology for each act," Gallab went on, "they'll be asking for an apology from every country."

Gallab said that Jordan's relations with Iraq "would get better, no doubt," and that the Jordanian government was "with the Iraqi government produced by the elections, as we were with the previous government."

It will be interesting to see what is said in the Arab League summit in Algiers, due to start, Tuesday, and how the affair is dealt with there. Jordan's King Abdallah is staying away from the summit – some believe, to avoid the accusations Jordan's head is certain to face from Iraqi representatives who must assuage their compatriots' pent-up frustrations and rage, at not only Jordan, but all Arabs. Jordan is also at odds with Syria, over Lebanon.

Hilla residents took to the streets, Sunday. Home-made Jordanian flags were burned, and pictures of a pig with King Abdallah's head attached to the body, were hoisted. Demonstration leaders called for an international condemnation of Jordan and for the Iraqi national assembly to form a committee of lawyers to take the case to an international court.

The protesters held Arab states responsible for the terrorism and their silence towards terrorists acts against Iraqis. One protest leader demanded that relations be cut with whoever supports terrorism, adding, "from whichever country sends terrorists, Arab or not." Another asked assembly members to be "as brave as the voters." A man shouted angrily, "Where are the elections? What kind of elections?"

Chalabi's Al-Mu'tamar reported, Sunday, that Hilla residents were forming a committee of tribal leaders, who, if the government did not yield a satisfactory result, would head to Jordan and demand retribution directly from Banna's family.

According to Adnan Pachachi's Al-Nahdhah, Saturday's Jordanian papers reported that Friday sermons in Jordan dealt with the topic of "blind terrorism." Preachers reportedly called the perpetrators cowards, whom the Islamic faith considers "criminals deserving the torture of God in the hereafter," as well as punishment in the world. Preachers also reportedly described terrorists as "psychologically ill," and condemned the killings in Iraq. The newspaper also reported that the Jordanian government has condemned "all terrorist operations," and said that the likes of bin Ladin-ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi do not represent the kingdom – not government and not people.

In Baghdad, Sunday afternoon, on our way home from a wake, my cousin noticed a march on Mansour's 14 Ramadhan Street, most likely, having left the embassy.

For a week, Iraqis have been demanding, variously, the expulsion of the Jordanian ambassador, the closure of the Jordanian embassy, the severing of relations, the closure of the border, cutting economic ties, stopping the supply of oil to Jordan, and compensation from the Jordanian government and/or the Banna family for the families of those killed and for the wounded in the bombing.

Updated: March 21, 2:26 pm

Roadside bomb kills 23-year-old New York soldier, north of Baghdad

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 10, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Matthew A. Koch, 23, of West Henrietta, N.Y. died Mar. 9 in Taji, Iraq, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Koch was assigned to the 70th Engineer Battalion, Fort Riley, Kan.

President's Radio Address

March 19, 2005

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On this day two years ago, we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to disarm a brutal regime, free its people, and defend the world from a grave danger.

Before coalition forces arrived, Iraq was ruled by a dictatorship that murdered its own citizens, threatened its neighbors, and defied the world. We knew of Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew of his long history of pursuing, even using, weapons of mass destruction, and we know that September the 11th requires our country to think differently. We must, and we will, confront threats to America before they fully materialize.

Now, because we acted, Iraq's government is no longer a threat to the world or its own people. Today the Iraqi people are taking charge of their own destiny. In January, over eight million Iraqis defied the car bombers and assassins to vote in free elections. This week, Iraq's Transitional National Assembly convened for the first time. These elected leaders broadly represent Iraq's people and include more than 85 women. They will now draft a new constitution for a free and democratic Iraq. In October, that document will be presented to the Iraqi people in a national referendum. Another election is planned for December to choose a permanent constitutional government.

Free governments reflect the culture of the citizens they serve, and that is happening in Iraq. Today, Iraqis can take pride in building a government that answers to its people and honors their country's unique heritage. Millions of Americans saw that pride in an Iraqi woman named Safia Taleb al-Suhail who sat in the gallery during the State of the Union address. Eleven years ago, Saddam Hussein's thugs murdered her father. Today, Safia's nation is free, and Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell. Safia expressed the gratitude of the Iraqi nation when she embraced the mom of Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood who was killed in the assault on Fallujah.

To all the brave members of our Armed Forces who have taken part in this historic mission, and to your families, I express the heartfelt thanks of the American people. I know that nothing can end the pain of the families who have lost loved ones in this struggle, but they can know that their sacrifice has added to America's security and the freedom of the world.

Iraq's progress toward political freedom has opened a new phase of our work there. We are focusing our efforts on training the Iraqi security forces. As they become more self-reliant and take on greater security responsibilities, America and its coalition partners will increasingly assume a supporting role. In the end, Iraqis must be able to defend their own country, and we will help that proud, new nation secure its liberty. And then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned.

Today we're seeing hopeful signs across the broader Middle East. The victory of freedom in Iraq is strengthening a new ally in the war on terror, and inspiring democratic reformers from Beirut to Tehran. Today, women can vote in Afghanistan, Palestinians are breaking the old patterns of violence, and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are rising up to demand their sovereignty and democratic rights. These are landmark events in the history of freedom. Only the fire of liberty can purge the ideologies of murder by offering hope to those who yearn to live free.

The experience of recent years has taught us an important lesson: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. Because of our actions, freedom is taking root in Iraq, and the American people are more secure.

Thank you for listening.

A special beer and another odd name

Two weeks ago, my uncle and his wife took me out to lunch at the Hunt Club. It was undergoing renovation. To the side of the front entrance, a tent housed an impromptu carpentry workshop, where nearly 10 workers were crafting new tables. The main hall, used mostly for weddings, has been torn up, and new tiles were being placed.

In the foyer, there were plaques on the wall, listing the officers of the club. On at least the plaque for 1983-84, one of the names was Watban Ibrahim Hasan, Saddam's half-brother, who was captured, 23 months ago.

We went upstairs, to one of the club's dining rooms. Upstairs, a divider to a room overlooking the back garden was open. That section, my uncle said, used to belong exclusively to Uday and Qusay, Saddam's sons, for their wild private parties, which are often described as drunken debaucheries. There were people seated at the tables there.

We were shown to a table in the central dining area. There were some 25 people in the dining room, including one woman, veiled, sitting with two men, smoking cigarettes, red Amstel beer cans and a bottle of whiskey on the table, being emptied -- by the men. I'd noted the lack of other women, to my aunt. My uncle asked me if I wanted a beer. In addition to Amstel, they had something called Eyvis, or some-such name –- made in Cyprus, my uncle thought. I asked the waiter if they were cold -- that was a problem, last summer. I chose the Amstel. When my tall red can arrived, my uncle said it looked tempting, so he asked for a non-alcoholic beer. Our waiter called to another waiter, "beereh Islamiyyeh." When it arrived, it was a stout green bottle, produced in Iran, made of malt, the essence of apple and carbonated water. It was bottled in Urmiyeh. I know this border town from the 1992 anti-Saddam conference in Salahuddine. Many people who couldn’t make it into Iraqi Kurdistan through Turkey, flew to Urmiyeh, and from there, overland, into Iraq. Iraqis throughout the nineties, continued to use this route. The Islamic beer -– a little subtler than sparkling apple juice -- tasted better than the Amstel. Apparently, it's not the only brand.

I recognized one of the waiters, as he passed by, but I couldn't place him. Then, I remembered -– he was one of the servers at the wake I attended, in the Bunniyyeh mosque, last summer. My uncle told me that Yusif, a Christian, was head of the "boyaat" at the club. Before New Year's one night, my uncle related, eight of Yusif's co-workers were heading home, when their van was stopped in Dora, the southern Baghdad district where they lived, and all eight were killed -- all were Christian; my uncle knew the names of two of them -– Ameer and Hitler.

KURDS REMEMBER "RED SECURITY" HELL

Fourteen years on from the Kurdish uprising, one of the Baath regime's most notorious torture centres is open to the public.

By Rebaz Mahmood in Sulaimaniyah
IRAQI CRISIS REPORT, No. 116 Part 2
March 11, 2005

Hiwa Jamal and five of his friends are on a T-55 tank - but they are holding flowers, not weapons of war. Smiling, the students hold the narcissus blooms up to the foreground of a photograph that is being taken.

The tank is part of an exhibition at the site once known as Amna Surak, or Red Security, because its external walls were painted red - a macabre reflection of the suffering inside, where Kurds were being tortured and murdered in their thousands.

In commemoration of the March 7, 1991 Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime, the Red Security building in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah is now a museum where visitors can learn about the history of this region's fight for autonomy.

Fourteen years ago, nobody would have dared come close to this building, and it was said that even the birds didn't dare land here. But now Saddam's regime is gone and students are on the front terrace, singing their national anthem, waving the Kurdish flag and distributing bouquets of flowers.

Red Security consists of six buildings. One of them was the administrative block and the others hold cells - the average size of which was just under two metres square.

In the office of the security manager who would issue orders for the arrest and torture of Kurds, there now hang large cages containing around 70 doves. "These birds are symbols of the peace that the Kurds wanted," said Sarwar Abdullah, a museum guide.

The total number of those arrested, tortured and killed is unknown, but Abdullah estimates that 700 Kurds were executed here in 1989 and 1990 alone. Those who spent their last days in these cells were targeted because of their involvement with the Kurdish opposition party or the peshmerga militia.

For the students, a tour of the torture rooms, cells and morgue of Red Security brings shock and sadness.

This week, the young people got an added sense of immediacy as survivors of this dreaded prison joined the anniversary commemoration to share stories of their time spent as captives here.

"In a four by seven metre room, there could be a hundred people at any one time. We sometimes slept standing up," said Tariq Ghafoor, who was held there for nearly a year before being exchanged for Baathi intelligence officers held by the Kurds in January 1991.

Women had a separate jail block, measuring seven by five metres and designed to house 50 inmates. But by 1988 it held more than 200.

"I'll never forget when my aunt Gule, an older woman, was shot dead with her son on the terrace of this building," Ghafoor told the young people around him.

Kamran Aziz, who was held here from January to October 1990, told the students, "Although I was released 15 years ago, I visit this building once a month." As he spoke of the first day of his imprisonment, some of the students began to cry quietly.

Hansa Jamal, a secondary school student, said, "I was born after the uprising. But I am now crying for those men, women, boys and girls who were tortured, shot and executed here."

The museum also includes a section dedicated to the Anfal campaign, an ethnic cleansing campaign which the Baath regime waged against the Kurds from 1987 to the autumn of 1988, in which 182,000 Kurds were killed and around 5,000 villages were destroyed. To represent the loss of life, the walls of a large hall are covered in 182,000 pieces of mirror glass, lit with thousands of tiny lights.

There are many grisly reminders of the horrors perpetrated in Kurdistan. One photo on display shows two people in military uniform carrying a headless body. They smile as they make victory signs to the camera. "These are intelligence agents and the body is a peshmerga who was beheaded," said Abdullah, the museum guide.

Exhibits also remember the chemical bombardments of towns like Halabja, in which up to 5,000 civilians, mostly women and children, died.

"This is a fragment of one of the chemical projectiles that was used in Halabja. And this is also an unexploded napalm bomb that was used against another Kurdish area," said Abdullah. These are just some of the many weapons in the arsenal used against the Kurds on display.

Visiting this museum now you can still feel the fear and misery that must have filled it years ago, especially in the torture centre where ceiling hooks remain. A statue shows visitors how detainees' hands were tied behind their backs and then attached to the hooks. They remained this way, naked, for hours at a time.

Karwan Qadir, a students' union activist who helped organise the visit to the Red Security museum, told IWPR, "We are constantly bringing students and the new generation here, so they will understand their past and know what we have achieved today."

Rebaz Mahmood is an IWPR trainee in Sulaimaniyah.

This Institute for War and Peace Reporting article should also be available in Kurdish and Arabic.

Iraqi political satire

Sakhir.net, a site with takeoffs using pictures, articles and poetry -- in Arabic. You can see the pictures. There's one, with bags of ground coffee with pictures of bin Ladan and Annan on them. "Binn," is a word for ground coffee.

From Holland to Baghdad

From: Al-dhahir, A. (Alaaddin)
Subject: Iraq visis/Amman
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:47:33 +0100

Hello Ayad:
In the past few weeks I have been receiving the same warnings from family (the latest is below) and now Liesbeth is worried too. Every day there is something. How is it now? I also need to know how to book a flight from Amman to Baghdad as there is no connection from here.

Take care.

Alaa
-----------------------a message from my brother------------------

hi my dear ala:
we look forward to see y but the situation is too dangerous the most dangerouse thing is the kidnapping for ransome and in any time they bloked the hole area and y cant see anyone y want like y did in the past ther is many bloks a y have take a date we telling y that becuase it is a bad situetion a if y want to come y will be wellcomed a afterall it is up to y .
we all fine, say hi to liz
bay
karim

* * *

Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2005 3:50 PM

Hello, Alaa,

I don't like to tell you not to come, but.... I hated it, when people told me not to, and I couldn't stand it -- I just wanted to be here. So, I'm mostly, in the house. I go out, with family -- in the car, and, with somebody, walk on the street, but...it's very limited. Nothing like before. I've been to an internet cafe once, to check out "wireless" connection, but.... Actually, I went to another one, for the same purpose. But, family is very protective....

It's tough.

With my family, they just won't let me go out -- certainly, not on my own, and, even with people -- only the essentials. I'm sure you know, what I mean -- what it's like. And, it sounds like, in your area, it's tougher -- being watched more. I don't know. It's tough.

Okay, Habibi -- lots of love, and let me know...what happens.

As far as planes, from Amman, there's the Urduniyya, for about $500-550, and the Iraqiyya, for $420, something like that. You can call Jordanian, and they'll hook you up with whoever you have to talk to, deal with. Maybe, Iraqiyya, too. I had my uncle, in Amman, buy me the ticket. Nothing on their web-site, of course. Jordanian's got their schedule on their web-site. There are also planes from Damascus, Beirut and UAE -- cheaper, from the latter.

All right -- see you.

And, oh -- can I put your e-mail, with your brother's -- with or without name -- on the post? I mean, blog?

All right -- lots of love,

* * *

From: Al-dhahir, A. (Alaaddin)
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 10:13:54 +0100

Thanks dear Ayad. My sister and her husband called Saturday and after a long conversation they convinced me not to come. They were afraid of kidnapping. They feared that their kids might be kidnapped to extract money from me. My two brothers were already against the trip and I once more lost (4 to 1). And yes I hates it 'cause I just want to be there.

I was first under the impression that my sister had not yet recovered from the shock of a suicide bomber about 10 ago (near the oil ministry). She was bringing her youngest daughter to school and the SOB exploded his car about 200 meters ahead of them. She kept asking her daughter "are we still alive?" After the call I came to the conclusion that I just could not put them under more emotional strain by my presence there. I just can't assess from here the kidnapping's risks. But I ain't going to be sitting at home when I am in Baghdad (even though I urge you to stay with your relatives all the time as you don't know Baghdad as they or I know it). Nor do I know how to sit tight while watching the Kurdish leaders blackmail their way into secession from Iraq. The very least I will make my voice heard.

Salaam and take very good care of yourself.

Alaaddin

* * *

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:41:34 -0500

Alaa -- I've been thinking about you, the last 24 hours, or so, and, also, after I wrote you my last e-mail. First of all, as I'm sure you know, you can make it to Baghdad, and to your family's home, no problem. The question is, as I'm sure you know, how much you'll be able to get around -- freely -- I mean, you can get in a car, and drive around -- that isn't a problem -- but, coming and going a lot, having a lot of people come over. The other part, and it's related to the last, is whether news of your arrival -- your presence -- gets around. Although, now, I'm thining, you're only staying for a couple of weeks, and it takes kidnappers, a couple of weeks to track somebody, etc.

Well, I thought of you, the last 24 hours, because, yesterday, I was prevented from going out, and I got so pissed off. I think there's a lot of overprotection -- to much, really. I think, they take the rare exception -- the bad news -- and make it the rule. Well, that's the way it is, with my family, which, of course -- with tribal duty, etc. -- doesn't want anything to happen to me -- no way.

If you're reading the blog, you'll now, that today, I made my first solo outing -- on foot. No problem. Again, though, if it's repeated, if I develop a pattern, then...could be trouble.

All right -- see you, and thanks for the permission.

Bye.

* * *

Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:47:13 -0500

Hi, Alaa,

I'm reading your earlier e-mail, after I read your later one -- I'm way behind, on e-mailing.

It's tough, I know, with the family, and I'm really sorry, that you're not making it -- I know you want to, as I so badly wanted to.

Deep sigh.

All right -- till next time.

* * *

From: Al-dhahir, A. (Alaaddin)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:53:42 +0100

I agree with you fully. I feel they exaggerate the situation but what can I do if they tell me I will put them in danger. Fear is not something you can measure (like 1 gallon/25 miles) nor it is rational especially when a suicide bomber just misses you. I even thought of going to a hotel as a way of expressing my anger with my family but knowing their reaction they will feel hugely insulted and even more worried if they cannot have a say on my movement. They know I will not stay home. But even staying home with them they tell me will make their kids subject to kidnapping. My sister tells me this happened to a boy living nearby and the same happened to a family member living near my brother (the latter happened last year and in spite of 30000000 kidnappings since, my brother keeps telling me this as if it is today's CNN breaking news).

On the other hand I have to be cautious from my side here. These terrorists are placing car/suicidal bombs, mines, explosive devices with little care for innocent human lives. So what if something happens to you because I or others encourage you to move freely.

When I sat down, I thought there is no need to fuel their fear and worries. They have enough to deal with without my presence. I may come around mid-June. But I haven't told them this yet.

Salam,
Alaaddin

* * *

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:37:00 -0500

I agree with you, Alaa, and I thought about that, too, as far as putting my family in danger, by coming. I talked with them about it -- before coming, and when I was here, and things happened -- but they seem to say, it's okay. Still, they keep a lock on me. Except the last couple of days, when I've sort of flown the coop.

All right -- see you.

Political discussion, this evening in London

Political agreement & the delay in the meeting of the newly elected Iraqi National Assembly

@ Dar Islam @ 7:30 Saturday 19/3/2005

Shaykh Husain Alasadi

Dr Sherzad Talabani

Dr Nabil Yasin


رابطة الشباب المسلم

الندوة السياسية

(التوافق السياسي واسباب تاخر انعقاد الجمعية الوطنية)

ضيوف الندوة:

سماحة الشيخ حسين الاسدي

د. شيرزاد طالباني

د. نبيل ياسين

Saturday 7:30pm 19/03/2005

الساعة السابعة والنصف مساءاً

المكان: قاعة مؤسسة دار الاسلام

We're still a ways off

Jalal Talabani said, yesterday, that the national assembly would next meet, on the 25th or 26th of March. That's next Friday or Saturday. Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, is the top candidate for president of the republic.

A member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the top vote-getting list in the assembly, said that the assembly would meet, next Thursday or Saturday. That makes more sense, as Friday is the sabbath.

People are getting impatient, and upset, at the lack of output from the government -- and...the lack of a government. They want them to get on with it, and start producing some results.

The hold-up is negotiations over the formation of the government and the commitment to federalism. The dispute over that commitment, and the issues involved, get at a deep cultural clash between Arabs and Kurds, and their understanding of their positions and treatment in the history and definition of Iraq -- about which more, I hope, soon.

The two main parties in the negotiations are the UIA and the United Kurdistan Coalition, which came in second in the national assembly elections, and which nominated Talabani for the ceremonial post. According to Abdul-Jaleel al-Fayli, a member of the Kurdish list, the Kurds want three of the top ministerial posts -- traditionally, prime minister, interior, defense, foreign, finance, justice. Fayli said Hoshyar Zeybari should retain his post as foreign minister, "as he's done a very good job, representing Iraq, and not just Kurdistan." In addition, Fayli suggested, "oil and finanace," and "possibly other ministries."

Ibrahim al-Ja'fari, the nominee of UIA for prime minister, was quoted in Al-Mu'tamar's Thursday edition as saying that the government will be formed, "completely, in the next two weeks." The "complete," refers to a full slate of government posts, from assembly speaker and assistants to the president, two vice presidents and the entire government cabinet. The assembly was required to choose an assembly speaker, within three days of convening. Next, it was to choose a president of the republic and vice presidents, by a two-thirds vote. Doing that, however, would have eliminated any further blocking power the Kurdish list has, as the choice of prime minister and government cabinet, can then be approved by a simple majority of the assembly members.

UIA has 140 to 151 of the 275 assembly seats, while the Kurdish list has 75-77 seats. Two-thirds, or 184, elect the presidential troika, while 138 are required for a vote of confidence in the government.

Ja'fari said disputes with the Kurdish list have been settled, to fall back on the interim constitution (Transitional Administrative Law). He added that "all sectors of the country must be assured a role in the political process." Other UIA members have said the disputes are down to secondary issues.

Members of UIA have been appearing on news and discussion program, making it clear that they want to include in the government members of all communities in the country, including those who didn't receive their fair share of the assembly seats, a reference to Sunni Arabs. Dr. Ali a-Dabbagh, a UIA member, said that UIA was willing "to give Sunni Arabs -- those who didn't take part -- some of the ministries."

A newly formed committee, to negotiate on behalf of Sunni Arabs, is reportedly seeking one-third of the ministries, for Sunni Arabs.

The Kurdistani list, which finished second, has been outspoken, insisting that more parties, especially Sunni Arabs, be included in the government. They've often mentioned Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List, and negotiations have been expanded, to include Allawi's list and Ghazi il-Yawer's Iraqis list. Previously, Allawi had said he would only join the government, as prime minister. Otherwise, he wanted to lead the opposition, within the assembly. He was also reportedly insistent, that he receive the portfolio, for security affairs, and to have declined the offer of defense minister. Dabbagh said that UIA wanted Allawi in the government, but that "Allawi didn't want to."

36-year-old staff sergeant from Michigan is killed in Baghdad

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 17, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Ricky A. Kieffer, 36, of Ovid, Mich., died Mar. 15 in Baghdad, Iraq, when enemy forces using small arms fire attacked his unit. Kieffer was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 182nd Field Artillery Regiment (Multiple Launch Rocket System), Detroit, Mich.

Breaking News

Elsewhere, an attorney for Saddam Hussein said that the former Iraqi dictator wanted to be tried by a jury of Robert Blake's peers.

From the March 17, 2005, (Andy) Borowitz Report.

Presspasses -- the whole story

I didn't realize that I posted something, yesterday, about my attempt to cover the demonstration outside the Jordanian embassy. I wanted to send something, but the electricity went off, at midnight, before I could send my final, edited version. So, today, I picked up the writing, and editing. Here it is -- ready for bed.

I was detained by the Iraqi security forces, yesterday. I was headed towards the Jordanian embassy, down the road, after one of my cousin's boys told me there was another demonstration, there. Since Sunday, people have been gathering in front of the embassy, and across southern Iraq, to protest the massacre, three weeks ago, of 130 people in Hilla, but, more so – and this was the tipping point – in the wake of "the wedding celebration" in Jordan, one week ago, for the unwed "martyr" who reportedly carried out the bombing.

Our street was swarming with special Iraqi police, the commandoes who often wear black ski masks. Most were in police white and light-blue police uniforms, with black bullet-proof vests on the outside. The rest were dressed in camouflage, with red berets. As I walked down the street, and started crossing the median strip, I heard somebody call out, "Ya weled" (Hey, boy). I didn't think it was for me. The call persisted, and when I realized it was directed at me, I stopped. A uniformed officer came close and asked me, "Where are you going?" I said, "I want to go see the demonstration." He said I couldn't go there, and started searching me. I said I was a journalist. Before he got to my back pant-pockets, I told him I had a camera there. He took it out, asked if that's what it really was. I assured him, it was. He took the camera and escorted me back the way I came, to a police pickup truck. On both sides of the median strip, were parked more than a dozen of the blue-and-white police pickups, along with a few camouflaged ones. At the pickup, I told the men that I was a journalist – that that's what I did, see things, write about them, and send them off. They asked me for my press pass – I had none. "How could that be?" I tried to explain. The camera was handed to a man in civvies, who asked me to get in the pickup. I didn't understand why, and wouldn't, exactly. The others pressed me, insisting I get completely in the back seat. I didn't, keeping one foot, out.

Meanwhile, the man with my camera, went away, towards the mass of camouflage-dressed officers near the embassy. The soldiers in and around the pickup asked me if I had any weapon. I said I did, and pulled from my right pant-pocket a palm-sized rubber machine gun. Before heading out to the demonstration, I was at my cousin's house, using their computer. I saw the little machine gun on the couch – it belonged to their nine-year-old boy. As I was leaving, my cousin's wife asked me to be careful, so I picked up the machine gun, "to protect me."

I'd first headed for the demo, five, ten minutes before. I saw the yellow, red, green and black flags and white banners, up ahead. A couple of houses from home, I stopped, and decided I'd be better off if I had somebody with me – to give me a little protection, a local cushion. I went back to the house, and up the stairs, to my cousin's. She discouraged me and her husband from going. He said he might join me, later. He'd been sleeping, on the couch, with his four-year-old, cast on foot, lying on top of him. I left. Before I reached the front gate, I saw another cousin's husband. I asked him to join me. He said he was wearing shorts. I told him, I was, too -- I'd changed. He urged me not to go, that it was dangerous. I asked him what the danger was. He said there could be shooting. I didn't buy that, and asked, by whom, and said I was going to stay far away. I asked him what I should or shouldn't do. He said, "Just keep far away."

The soldiers laughed at my machine gun. I told them it was to protect me. They passed it around. Somebody asked me, "Are you making fun?" I responded, "No – you're making fun." It was fairly light-going, between us. They were amused by my wanting to go watch the demo. They asked if I was Iraqi or foreign. I told them, "Iraqi from abroad." I told them I was staying with my uncle's, down the road and said, "It was a free country." They laughed at that – one of the men repeated, laughing, "Free country." New concept, of course. One of them said it was dangerous. I rebutted, "It was a peaceful demonstration, wasn't it?" The guy in the front seat of the pickup said to somebody, "They were going at it with bricks." I asked him, from behind, if the demonstrators were throwing bricks at the embassy. He affirmed, with a yes or a nod. I asked the soldier in the driver's seat if they'd burned the [Jordanian] flag. He said they had. I asked him if the demonstrators had really entered the embassy, the other day, and taken the flag down. He said, "Nobody entered the embassy – you can't. What are we doing here?" I asked how long the demonstrators had been there. Somebody said, "Since noon," meaning "afternoon." It was about three o'clock, so I guessed, they'd been going, for a couple of hours. I asked, how many there were. Somebody said, a lot. So much for trying to get some information.

In answering their questions, about my work, and trying to make a case for my being allowed forward, I showed them the little notepad I had in my shirt pocket and said I gathered information. One of the soldiers said, "Ahah, he gathers information," a word used for what intelligence officers do. An officer standing outside said, maybe he's from the other side. I asked him what that meant. As to seeing the demonstration, one of them said, "You can see it from here." That wasn't enough for me. From afar – maybe 50 yards -- there seemed to be hundreds of people demonstrating. They were making a lot of noise. A couple of the black flags said, "Ya Husayn," for the seminal Shi'a martyr/saint slain in 680. I saw pictures of what looked like a pig, and I assumed the face pasted on to its body was King Abdallah's. I wanted to ask one of the soldiers, but…resisted. At one point, one of the soldiers said the Americans were going to shoot. I didn't see any Americans. We were surrounded by some 100 Iraqi police, some in camouflage and red berets.

Every now and then, one of the four or five guys in and around the pickup would ask me to get in the back of the car. I was in and out of the pickup, my legs never fully in, and, bit by bit, making my way out – standing by the back or driver's door, or, off, to the side, a bit. At one point, I tapped one of the guys on the back of the neck -- he scowled at me. When another asked me if I had a weapon, I pulled out my little pen: "That's my weapon." One of the officers said it looks like a bullet. The guy standing in the back of the pickup, or atop the cab, asked to look at it. I reached up from the back seat, and handed it back to him. He later asked me, my name. The guy who took my camera, returned. I asked him for the camera. He said the mukhabarat officer would give it to me, after asking me some questions. I didn't like the sound of that – sounded ominous. While I was standing outside the pickup, a soldier approached the man in civvies, asking for a pen, I gave the first, mine. At one point, the oldest of my cousins' kids came by, to see me – some of them had been watching, from in front of the house. I was sitting in the pickup, and the soldiers sent the teenager back.

After the man in civvies went away, and came back, I asked him, again, for my camera. He asked me to get in the car, and he'd take me, to get it – he got in the driver's seat. I was partly in the car, but I wasn't going to get, all the way in. I asked him where they wanted to take me. They said they weren't going to do anything to me, just take me to get my camera. The one to might right, tugged at my arm. I told him not to pull me. Others followed, telling him the same. I argued with the driver – that I didn't have to get in the car, that he'd taken my camera, and he ought to bring it back to me. He asked me, again, to get in the car, and he'd take me, to get it, pointing down the road, across the median strip. Another soldier replied, "There's no difference." I said, "If there's no difference, then get the camera for me. You took the camera from me -- it's my right, that you return it." The driver kept insisting I get in the car. I told him, I didn't want to do battle with him, but that I didn't have to get in the car, and it was my right to have my camera returned to me. The man standing in the back of the pickup suggested leaving me there, and I follow the pickup. That became the plan. I looked up at the man in the back of the pickup, and said, "Aasht-eedek" (Long live your hands, meaning well done, bless you). He replied, "Oo eedek" (And your hands). The situation, which wasn't really that tense, was defused. My lips had gone quite dry, though.

I walked, accompanied by one of the soldiers. The pickup truck made its way across the median strip, and then turned left. I asked my companion, "What's the story, why was it so dangerous?" He said, it's better, I don't ask anything. I asked him his name. He replied, "Doesn't concern you." When we stopped – the pickup, stuck behind a few others -- I asked the soldier, if the embassy was the building right across from us, or the one, to its right. I don’t think he said anything. We were, now, directly across from a mass of some 50 demonstrators, marching from right to left, and chanting. I asked my companion what they were chanting. He responded, "Listen, and you'll hear what they're saying." I could only make out the first word, which I can't remember, now. They carried a large yellow flag, and posters of Abdil-Aziz al-Hakim and of a pair of white-haired clerics. The group included girls, in brown and black cloaks. One white banner concluded with the words "Islamic culture." There was definitely an Islamist flavor to the demo. By that time, the troops surrounding the demonstrators were more numerous.

The first group headed back, and another, similarly sized group, was making its way past. I'd been told, that my camera was going to be brought to me. I took out my notepad, and started taking notes of the scene. I leaned on one of the concrete blocks. The next group included a sizable contingency of women, in black cloaks. There were also a couple of men in robes – tribal and clerical. Among the group, were hoisted Iraqi, red, yellow and green flags. Along the way, I had a little exchange with one of the soldiers, in which I told him I was responsible for myself, and he said, no, they were here to protect me. A senior officer with a good-sized paunch and a red beret came over, and said he'd give me my camera, "But I plead with you, to leave the area." He was polite. I said, that was fine. I walked back. Guards in a watchtower in front of one of the houses, asked me if they'd returned my camera. We had a little laugh. They told me, there were far more demonstrators, before.

I got back to my cousin's, and started writing this up. I took a break, to watch some television, and returned to the writing, last night – but got so carried away with the writing, that I didn't send it off, before the electricity cut off, at midnight. In the meantime, within an hour or two after I left the demo, the scene had pretty much cleared, with almost all of the soldiers/police, gone. I called my uncle, to tell him he could return from a wake he attended – he hadn't been allowed into the area, at its peak. A cousin's husband said that they [the authorities, police] must have made a deal with the demonstrators – that, maybe, the embassy was going to be closed, if the demonstrators stopped shooting at the embassy. I didn't know about any shooting. He said, they were passing by, at night, and shooting at the embassy.

Hurra's Iraq news, yesterday evening, reported that hundreds of people demonstrated before the embassy, and that, in addition to demanding the embassy be closed, protesters called for trade relations to be severed, too. A protest leader also asked for all the regime henchmen who've found sanctuary in Jordan, to be handed over to Iraq. The demonstrators reportedly handed a protest telegram to the charge d'affaires. An older protester wondered how killing other Muslims, women, children and seniors was jihad, and couldn't understand the level of spite that caused people to kill, in this way.

Presspasses

I was detained today by the Iraqi security forces. I was headed towards the Jordanian embassy, down the road, after one of my cousin's boys told me there was another demonstration, there. For five days, people have been gathering in front of the embassy, and across southern Iraq, to protest the massacre, three weeks ago, of 130 people in Hilla, but, more so – and this was the tipping point – in the wake of "the wedding celebration" last week in Jordan, for the unwed "martyr" who reportedly carried out the bombing. Our street was swarming with special Iraqi police, the commandoes who often wear black ski masks. As I walked down the street, and started crossing the median strip, I heard somebody call out, "Ya weled" (Hey, boy). I didn't think it was for me. The call persisted, and when I realized it was directed at me, I stopped. A uniformed officer came close and asked me, "Where are you going?" I said, "I want to go see the demonstration." He said I couldn't go there, and started searching me. Before he got to my back pocket, I told him I had a camera there. He took it out, asked if that's what it really was. I assured him, it was. He took the camera and escorted me back the way I came, to a pickup truck. I told him, and the others, that I was a journalist - that that's what I did, see things, write them up, and send them back. They asked me for my press pass – I had none. "How could that be?" I tried to explain. The camera was handed to a man in civvies, who kept it, and asked me to get in the backseat of the pickup. I resisted. They persisted, insisting I get completely in the back seat. I didn't.

Meanwhile, the man with my camera, went away, towards the mass of uniformed officers near the embassy. The soldiers in and around the pickup asked me if I had any weapon. I said I did, and pulled from my right pant-pocket a palm-sized rubber machine gun. Before heading for the demonstration, I was in my cousin's house, using their computer. I saw the little machine gun on the couch – it belonged to their nine-year-old boy. As I was leaving, my cousin's wife asked me to be careful, so I picked up the machine gun, "to protect me."

I'd first headed for the demo, five, ten minutes before. A couple of houses from home, I saw the yellow, red, green and black flags and white banners, ahead, and, also, a dozen or so of the blue-and-white police pickups, on both sides of the street, along with a few camouflaged ones. I decided I'd be better off if I had somebody with me – to give me a little protection, a local cushion. I went back to the house, and up the stairs, to my cousin's. She discouraged me and her husband from going. He said he might join me, later. It seemed he was asleep, on the couch, and his son, of the broken foot, was on top of him. I headed out. Before I reached the front gate, I saw another cousin's husband. I asked him if he wanted to join me. He said he was wearing shorts. I told him, I was, too - I'd changed. He urged me not to go, that it was dangerous. I asked him what the danger was. He said there could be shooting. I wasn't persuaded, and asked, by whom, and said I was going to stay far away. I asked him what I should or shouldn't do. He said, "Just keep far away."

The soldiers laughed at my machine gun. I told them it was to protect me. They passed it around. Somebody asked me, "Are you making fun?" I responded, "No – you're making fun." It was fairly light-going, between us. They were amused by my wanting to go watch the demo. I said, "It was a free country." They laughed at that – one of the men repeated, laughing, "Free country." New concept, I guess. One of them said it was dangerous. I rebutted, "It was a peaceful demonstration, wasn't it?" The guy in the front seat of the pickup said, "They were going at it, with bricks." I asked him if the demonstrators were throwing bricks at the embassy. He affirmed, with a yes or a nod. At one point, somebody said the Americans were going to shoot. I didn't see any Americans. We were surrounded by the Iraqi police, some with red berets. There were, maybe, a hundred of them.

From afar – maybe 50 yards -- there seemed to be hundreds of people demonstrating. They were making a lot of noise. A couple of the black flags said, "Ya Husayn." I asked the soldier in the driver's seat if they'd burned the [Jordanian] flag. He said they had. I asked him if the demonstrators had really entered the embassy, the other day, and taken the flag down. He said, "Nobody entered the embassy – you can't. What are we doing here?" I asked how long the demonstrators had been there. Somebody said, "since noon," which means, sometime in the afternoon. It was, now, about three o'clock, so I guessed, a couple of hours. I asked, how many there were. Somebody said, a lot. So much for trying to get some information.

In answering their questions, about my work, and trying to make a case for my going forward, I showed them the little notepad I had in my shirt pocket and said I gathered information. One of the soldiers said, "Ahah, he gathers information," a word used for what intelligence officers do. An officer standing outside said, maybe he's from the other side. I asked him what that meant. Once, when I asked for my camera, the reply came, I'd get it, after the mukhabarat officer asked me some questions. I didn't like the sound of that -- sounded ominous.

Every now and then, one of them would ask me to get in the back of the car. I was in and out of the pickup, my legs never fully in, and, bit by bit, making my way out – standing by the back or driver's door, or, off, to the side, a bit. At one point, I tapped one of the guys on the back of the neck -- he scowled at me. When another asked me if I had a weapon, I pulled out my little pen, "that's my weapon." One of the officers said it looks like a bullet. The guy standing in the back of the pickup, or atop the cab, asked to look at it. I reached up, and handed it back to him. The guy who took my camera, had returned. I asked him for the camera. He said the mukhabarat officer would bring it to me. He insisted I sit in the back of the pickup. I wouldn't put my feet in. While I was out of the pickup, somebody approached the man in civvies, asking for a pen, I gave the first, mine.

When the man in civvies came back, I asked for my camera, again. He asked me to get in the car, that he'd take me, to get it – he got in the driver's seat. I was partly in the car, but I wasn't going to get, all the way in. I asked him where they wanted to take me. They said they weren't going to do anything to me, just take me to get my camera. The one to might right, tugged at my arm. I told him not to pull me. Others followed, telling him the same. I argued with the driver – that I didn't have to get in the car, that he'd taken my camera, and he ought to bring it back to me. He asked me, again, to get in the car, and he'd take me, to get it, pointing down the road, across the median strip. Another soldier replied, "There's no difference." I said, "If there's no difference, then get the camera for me. You took the camera from me -- it's my right, that you return it." The driver kept insisting I get in the car. I told him, I didn't want to fight with him, but that I didn't have to get in the car, and it was my right to have myt camera returned to me. The man standing in the back of the pickup suggested leaving me there. He, or another, suggested I follow the pickup. That became the plan. I looked up at the man in the back of the pickup, and said, "Aasht-eedek" (Long live your hands). He replied, "Oo eedek" (And yours). The situation was defused.

I walked, accompanied by one of the soldiers. The pickup truck made its way across the median strip, and then turned left, on the other side. I asked my companion, "What's the story, why was it so dangerous?" He said, it's better, I don't ask anything. I asked him his name. He replied, "Doesn't concern you." When we stopped – the pickup, stuck behind a few others -- I asked the soldier, if the embassy was the building right across from us, or the one, to its right. I don’t think he said anything.

By the time we got to that point, there was a group of about 50, marching to the left and chanting. I asked my companion what they were chanting. He responded, "Listen, to what they're saying." I could only make out the first word, which I can't remember, now. They carried a large yellow flag, and posters of Abdil-Azeez al-Hakim and of a pair of white-haired clerics. The group included girls, in brown and black cloaks. One white banner concluded with the words "Islamic culture." There was definitely an Islamist flavor to the demo. By that time, the troops surrounding the demonstrators were more numerous. I asked my companion what The first group headed back, and another, similarly sized group, was making its way past. I'd been told, that my camera was going to be brought to me. I took out my notepad, and started taking notes of the scene. I leaned on one of the concrete blocks. The next group included a sizable contingency of women, in black cloaks. There were also a couple of men in robes – tribal and clerical. Among the group, were hoisted Iraqi, red, yellow and green flags. An older man with a paunch and red beret came over, and said he'd give me my camera, "But I ask you, to leave the area." I said, that was fine.

Hurra's Iraq news, this evening, reported that hundreds of people demonstrated before the embassy, that, in addition to demanding the embassy be closed, protesters called for trade relations to be severed, too. One protest leader also asked for all the regime henchmen who've found sanctuary in Jordan, to be handed over to Iraq. They were reported to have handed a protest telegram to the charge d'affaires. One protester wondered how killing other Muslims, women, children and seniors was jihad, and was perplexed at the level of spite that caused people to kill, in this way.

Jordan's king, on Iraq

On the eve of a visit by King Abdullah II of Jordan to Washington, the editors of the Middle East Quarterly are pleased to provide a special preview of the Spring 2005 issue featuring an interview with the Jordanian monarch. In it, he describes his concerns about Iran and Iraq, explains his strategy to counter radical Islam, and outlines his hopes for Arab-Israeli peace.

King Abdullah II: "Iraq is the Battleground - the West against Iran."

Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2005

King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein, descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, is the fourth ruler of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the great-grandson of his namesake, the kingdom's founder. Born on January 30, 1962, to King Hussein's second wife, the British-born Princess Muna, he is the eldest of Hussein's sons and was proclaimed crown prince at birth. When Abdullah was three years old, however, Hussein transferred that title to his own younger brother, Hassan. After his early schooling in Amman, Abdullah was educated in private schools in England and the United States and then, in 1980, embarked on a military career, attending Britain's Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. For the next nineteen years, he rose through the ranks of the Jordanian army, eventually serving as commander of the Royal Jordanian Special Forces and as special operations commander. Along the way, he took classes at Oxford and Georgetown universities and further military training at Fort Knox and the Royal Staff College at Camberley, United Kingdom. In 1998, he assumed the rank of major general, which he held when he was proclaimed crown prince by his father on January 24, 1999. Abdullah assumed the throne when his father died on February 7, 1999. Abdullah and his wife, Queen Rania, have two sons and two daughters. On January 11, 2005, Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, interviewed King Abdullah II at his private office in a secluded compound outside of Amman.

The section of the interview, dealing with Iraq:

Iraq and "The Shi'ite Crescent"

MEQ: On Iraq, you warned that a Shi‘ite-led Iraq might develop a special relationship with Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Lebanese Hezbollah to create a "crescent … that will be very destabilizing for the Gulf countries and for the whole region."[2] Please explain.

Abdullah: The Hashemites are from ‘Ahl Al Bayt [family of the Prophet] and do not have a problem with Shi‘ites. We are as close to them as we are to the Sunnis. But, there are many people in Iraq—including Shi‘ites—who have their own concerns about Iran.

We keep saying that the core problem in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian one, but for the first time, my fear is that if things do not quickly settle in Iraq into an inclusive process that brings stability and security, then the Israeli-Palestinian issue may no longer be the core problem. In that situation, the core problem is going to be based around Iraq, and it's going to be a terrible conflict within Islam—a Shi‘ite-Sunni conflict—which would be devastating for this part of the world. The so-called issue of "the crescent" was taken out of context and blown out of proportion. My concern is political, not religious, revolving around Iran, Iran's political involvement inside Iraq, its relation with Syria and Hezbollah, and the strengthening of this political-strategic alliance. This would create a scenario where you have these four [Iran, Iran-influenced Iraq, Syria, and Hezbollah] who have a strategic objective that could create a major conflict. I don't have any problem with Shi‘ites. I have a real problem with certain Iranian factions' political influence inside Iraq. Our argument to the United States is that a capable, independent, secure Iraq is the best way of containing Iran. There's one reason why 1980 happened—the war between Iraq and Iran. The Iranians realize that the way to have success against the West is by them succeeding in Iraq. So Iraq is the battleground, the West against Iran.

MEQ: What advice would you give the Bush administration on the development of the Iraqi army?

Abdullah: I don't think Iraq should be a launching pad for an offensive against Iran. If you have a stable, capable Iraq defending itself, and you have the Iranians and other outsiders losing any strategic capability inside Iraq, you've won. But there are those in the U.S. administration who do not really understand the Iraqi mentality. They believe, for example, that Iraq should only have a police force. In Iraq, if you send the police into a situation, everybody throws rocks at them, but the minute the army walks in, the people are out with tea and cookies. Disbanding of the Iraqi armed forces and the security service was a major mistake at the beginning of the process. On de-Baathification, I've been saying to the president: identify the core element of the Baath Party, the ones that you're concerned with, and then let the rest of Iraqi society off the hook. He [President Bush] understood what we were talking about, but we felt that every time we came and he asked what should we [the U.S. government] do, I had to argue those same points over again, knowing that he had sent his messages to members of his administration to implement this policy, but it hadn't been taken up.

At the moment, they're trying to build the capacity of the army, but they're in such a rush. They want to piecemeal people in, bring them in [for training] for six weeks and take them back. Really, that's not how to train counterterrorist forces.

Here in Jordan, because many [Iraqi special forces personnel] have come through our Special Operations Command for training, we could identify the best people that were in training and have them come back as instructors. The next course that we have is actually going to be trained by the Iraqi cadre that we initially had in the first two, three courses. We want to adapt that capability to the army.

Then, there will be the issue of the Iraqi air force. Two or three years from now, somebody's going to say they need an air force, and you're going to have to start from scratch with fighter pilots. Instead, let's identify the young majors, captains, and even some lieutenants you think are good and bring them into the training. They have Mirages. We have Mirages. There are ways for us to help. But the typical argument that we get is that instead of spending a year training, we should do it in six weeks.

Let's do everything as we've said, but on top of that, let's get a long-term plan in place. For example, I have a suggestion to put an Iraqi armored company inside of a Jordanian battalion or an Iraqi battalion inside a Jordanian brigade and have them go through our one-year training cycle. We're downsizing our armed forces and will have these fine American tanks. We'll give them the equipment, and we'll train them inside of our brigades and our divisions, and then at the end of a training cycle they can go back to Iraq as a united, well-trained force.

MEQ: You have warned that the United States would have to draw some red lines for the Persian Gulf, defining what would constitute acceptable behavior. What do you mean?

Abdullah: If what we are hearing from many Iraqis is correct, and Iran starts to influence Shi‘ites inside of Iraq, then that immediately creates problems inside Gulf countries. The U.S. administration will have to realize where it is going to draw the red lines because it's not just the political crescent that I was concerned about, but also the stabilization of the Gulf countries. So, again, the battleground is Iraq. That is where the red line has to be drawn.

MEQ: The Iranian acquisition of nuclear capability would change the equation. What is the best response to this?

Abdullah: You have to deal with Iran with a united front. When we went to Iran about a year and a half ago, the Iranians were under tremendous pressure. They felt that they had gotten themselves into a very tight corner, and that's why they said, "Please, we want to reach out to the United States; we have our Al-Qaeda prisoners that we want to hand over; we want to talk about weapons of mass destruction; and we want to have some sort of a common understanding on the issue of Iraq, the unity of Iraq." But the minute the Europeans had prime ministers knocking on Iran's door, the Iranians felt the pressure was off. How do you address the nuclear issue now, given the way Europe is, with France's and Germany's relationship with the United States? How do you get a united front to deal with Iran? You need a unified front. But even so, that doesn't mean we should be letting the Iranians off the hook with what they're trying to do in Iraq.

[2] Interview on Chris Matthews Show, MSNBC, Dec. 12, 2004.

Almost whole

The phone lines for our homes are back up – came back, early this afternoon – which means I can work from home – well, the homes of my cousins who live on the same property. Lines in our area have been down, since the three straight days of rain.

Last night, I found out that an uncle's wife had arrived in Baghdad from Jordan, the night before, which meant that, with her, would come the disks for me to restart my i-Book. That would make me whole. At last! I reached the uncle today, but, alas, the package from Cleveland hadn't made it to Jordan, in time for his wife. So, one down, a couple more to go. Almost there.

Update: it turns out, the cousin who lives upstairs – their line still isn't up, and, in our house, only one, of the four phones, is working – the one in my room. The cousin's husband, played with the line, in front of the house, but...to no avail.

Well – the sun was up, today, for the fourth or fifth straight day, and the weather was gorgeous, again.

My installment plan

I'm working on my super-duper, super-long, way-over-detailed account of yesterday's opening session of the ELECTED national assembly -- I think I forgot to say that, yesterday -- well, not forgot to say it, but didn't emphasize it, enough. I'm still in the middle of writing up my account. I'll post some of it, now, and...the rest...later.

Now -- details.

The night before, I had an elaborate dream about the proceedings. The main thing I remember, now, was that there was a band, to the right of the stage – "the National Assembly Band," I called it – which tooted its horns, for each person introduced -- a la, a college football game. Afterwards – that is, after the session, but within my dream -- I asked my well-connected cousin whose idea that was, and I offered a couple of candidates, such as the CIA or the State Department. She had an answer, and we commiserated over the cheapening of the affair. The words from the Iraqis, with the remembrances of Halabcha, were poignant, and would have sufficed.

Now, the rest of the story.

There was little advance notice, of the assembly's meeting, or that it would be broadcast. Nothing on the previous night's news, about what time it would take place, or whether, and where, it would be broadcast. I was sure it would be, and that was reinforced, a week ago, by Nazar Hayder, an "Iraqi media representative" in Washington, who said that the interim constitution required all assembly sessions be recorded and public. That reminded me of Marc Reuel Gerecht's suggestion, that there be an Iraqi C-Span, for airing, across the Arab world. I kept asking others about the time and broadcast of the session, but nobody had a clue. The general attitude has been, let them go on with it, and their business, and let's hope they do well, by us. Some did speculate, it might be, first thing in the morning -- nine or ten o'clock.

In any case, I made sure I'd be up, yesterday morning. My uncle, who's always up before dawn, said that Iraqiyya would broadcast the session, which was to begin at noon. He said we should start watching, at eleven, for any possible pre-session events -- and I did. Iraqiyya started showing scenes from the national assembly, at 11:05 – members arriving, greeting each other -- and said that the session was late, in starting -- that it was to start, at eleven. To begin with, the camera stayed at long-range, showing the stage and the auditorium seats, in the foreground, so I couldn't make out, any individuals. The announcers mentioned the arrival of Ayad Allawi, Fouad Ma'soum and Ghazi il-Yawer.

There was tight security, throughout the city. The main Jamhurriya, Sinnek and Shuhedaa' bridges, across the Tigris, were reportedly closed, the Ahraar Bridge was open on one side, and roads into Haarthiyyeh, which abuts the Green Zone, were closed off. In the Green Zone, is the Convention Center, where the assembly was meeting, rather than in the national council building, which was looted, after the fall of Saddam.

Tall white curtains enclosed the stage and the seating area. In the center of the stage, was a black-clothed table, bracketed by two podiums. Flower displays sat on the table, and across the front of the stage. There were four upright flags posted to the left of the table, and, to the right, one large flag, flanked by two smaller ones. Above the table, was a large, square white screen, with a black-and-white shaded map of Iraq within a circle at its center. Above the map, the words from the Qur'an "Wa Amarhum Shura Baynahum" (And He commanded them to be counselors among them). Below the circled map, were the Arabic words al-Jem'iyyeh al-Wataniyeh (The National Assembly), and below them, in Kurdish – as best, I could make out, Komehleh-i Neeshtemaani.

I turned to Hurra television, whose coverage is superior to Iraqiyya's. The lovable, huggable teddy-bearish Saalim Mashkoor, who hosts the station's Iraq discussion program "Hadeeth il-Nahrayn" (The talk of the Two Rivers), was at the helm, in the station's Washington studio. My uncle and I love him -- I'd suggested starting a fan club for him. I explained to my uncle – like for Marilyn Monroe. Speaking of which, I want to start an exclusive fan club for one of the station's news anchors, Katya Waakeem. Oh, mama, is she hot! Maybe it's me -- I've got the hots for her.

Hurra's director of Iraq affairs, Ali abdil-Ameer, said the elected politicians "had lost the country and the people, during the month since election results. Why didn't they convene, earlier?" He said they had, ahead of them, "a short period of time and major challenges." Hurra, as usual, in programming on Iraq, had the words, "Iraq decides 2005," at the base of the screen, and on the wall of the set.

At their Baghdad studio – I presume, in the Convention Center – Emad al-Khafaji emphasized that this was "an elected" assembly. He said that the U.N. General Secretary's representative, Ashraf Qaadhi, was seated between Abdil-Aziz al-Hakim and Yawer. Sixty-two members of the diplomatic corps, including the United States' Ambassador John Negroponte, were on hand, at one side of the auditorium. In the front row, he said, were Sharif Ali bin Husayn, the heir to the throne, and Adnan Pachachi and Naseer Chadirchi, both elder Sunni Arab politicians. While Khafaji was speaking, I heard a couple of explosions. He said that he heard three explosions and that they felt one of them shake the studio. Still, he said, although the day felt like election day, like "the wedding celebration" that was, there wasn’t a curfew, from the day before, as there was, for the elections, and that "traffic was pretty normal – slowed down, by security measures, but people, still going to work. They weren't staying away from work, because of the national assembly. So far, today, nothing's happened," he said, an indication that security personnel were "showing a greater ability to control things." This, despite terrorist forces trying to dampen people's joy – "trying to turn it, in another direction." There was another explosion. These were all, supposedly, mortar rounds. The place of the meeting, Khafaji added, was surrounded by troops. The newspapers reported, today, that terrorists who fired mortar rounds from Ghazali Cemetery were captured in the Haifa Street area. One mortar, a newspaper reported, fell in Tigris.

The affair kicked off, at about 11:30. A man, standing at the left podium, at the corner of which was a small flag, introduced each speaker -- I found out, later, that the bespectacled man was the head of the assembly's bureau, but I didn't get his name. We had a couple of electricity cut-offs, during the proceedings, and I lost a few minutes, as I ran back and forth, to make the switches, from the national grid, to our neighbor's generator, which, itself, cut off, for a few minutes, during which I reverted to my cousin's generator, which didn't work – long story. The proceedings began with a recitation from the Qur'an, sung by Dr. Dhiyaa' a-Shakarchi, during which Dr. Ibrahim a-Ja'fari, the putative prime minister of the next government, arrived, greeting several of those, seated in the front row.

The master of ceremonies said Shaykh Dhaari il-Fayyadh would chair the proceedings, as he was the oldest member of the assembly. None of the four papers I have, notes his age, nor did the TV stations I watched. The selection of the oldest member, one paper said, was stipulated in the interim constitution. Seated behind the table, Fayyadh began, by calling for people to rise, for a reading of the Faat'Ha, the first verse of the Qur'an, which is read for the souls of the dead – in this case, those killed by Saddam and his successors in butchery. Fayyadh, in a traditional tribal brown robe and black headdress, listed several names, including the two Sadirs, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, and "in the Anfal in the north of Iraq." He corrected himself, "Kurdistan." People from the audience, and to the side, called out, Halabcha. Fayyadh replied, "I mentioned Kurdistan."

Fouad Ma'soum, the leader of the interim national assembly, was next. After saying the Basmallah (In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate), the silver-haired Ma'soum, dressed in a light-grey suit, said a few sentences in Kurdish – I caught "Anfal" and "Halabcha." Switching back to Arabic, he welcomed, in his capacity as the head of the assembly that "was terminating at this moment," the assembly members who "were directly elected by the people of Iraq, without interference."

Ma'soum said that the assembly's chief mission would be to prepare a constitution, "in which all those who didn't participate in the elections should take part." In speaking about the goodness of democracy -- and the absolute evil of dictatorship -- Ma'soum said that "the powers of this assembly will be complete, like in any other democratic country in the world," despite its limited term and duties, adding that the assembly was establishing "the foundations of democracy, marked by transparency." Back in Kurdish, I picked up Anfal and Daar-Bendikhan, the latter, a town wiped out by Saddam. In Arabic, Ma'soum then congratulated the members for gaining the trust of the people, he saluted the martyrs and extended thanks to all those who helped the Iraqi people to rid themselves of Saddam.

21-year-old Arizona soldier dies in Ramadi, when road collapses beneath his vehicle

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 14, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Nicholas E. Wilson, 21, of Glendale, Ariz., died Mar. 11, in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, while conducting a roving patrol when his military vehicle rolled into a water-filled ditch after the shoulder of the road he was on collapsed. Wilson was assigned to 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Casey, Korea.

This Was Not Looting
How did Saddam's best weapons plants get plundered?

By Christopher Hitchens
Slate magazine
Posted Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at 5:29 AM PT

Once again, a major story gets top billing in a mainstream paper—and is printed upside down. "Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says." This was how the New York Times led its front page on Sunday. According to the supporting story, Dr. Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, says that after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, "looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms."

As printed, the implication of the story was not dissimilar from the Al-Qaqaa disclosures, which featured so much in the closing days of the presidential election last fall. In that case, a huge stock of conventional high-explosives had been allowed to go missing and was presumably in the hands of those who were massacring Iraqi civilians and killing coalition troops. At least one comment from the Bush campaign surrogate appeared to blame this negligence on the troops themselves. Followed to one possible conclusion, the implication was clear: The invasion of Iraq had made the world a more dangerous place by randomly scattering all sorts of weaponry, including mass-destruction weaponry, to destinations unknown.

It was eye-rubbing to read of the scale of this potential new nightmare. There in cold print was the Al Hatteen "munitions production plant that international inspectors called a complete potential nuclear weapons laboratory." And what of the Al Adwan facility, which "produced equipment used for uranium enrichment, necessary to make some kinds of nuclear weapons"? The overall pattern of the plundered sites was summarized thus, by reporters James Glanz and William J. Broad:

The kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs.

My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction? And there can hardly be a comedy-club third-rater or MoveOn.org activist in the entire country who hasn't stated with sarcastic certainty that the whole WMD fuss was a way of lying the American people into war. So now what? Maybe we should have taken Saddam's propaganda seriously, when his newspaper proudly described Iraq's physicists as "our nuclear mujahideen."

My second question is: What's all this about "looting"? The word is used throughout the long report, but here's what it's used to describe. "In four weeks from mid-April to mid-May of 2003 … teams with flatbed trucks and other heavy equipment moved systematically from site to site. … 'The first wave came for the machines,' Dr Araji said. 'The second wave, cables and cranes.' " Perhaps hedging the bet, the Times authors at this point refer to "organized looting."

But obviously, what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation. The participants were not panicked or greedy civilians helping themselves—which is the customary definition of a "looter," especially in wartime. They were mechanized and mobile and under orders, and acting in a concerted fashion. Thus, if the story is factually correct—which we have no reason at all to doubt—then Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.

Before the war began, several of the administration's critics argued that an intervention would be too dangerous, either because Saddam Hussein would actually unleash his arsenal of WMD, or because he would divert it to third parties. That case at least had the merit of being serious (though I would want to argue that a regime capable of doing either thing was a regime that urgently needed to be removed). Since then, however, the scene has dissolved into one long taunt and jeer: "There were no WMD in Iraq. Liar, liar, pants on fire."

The U.N. inspectors, who are solemnly quoted by Glanz and Broad as having "monitored" the alarming developments at Al Hatteen and elsewhere, don't come out looking too professional, either. If by scanning satellite pictures now they can tell us that potentially thermonuclear stuff is on the loose, how come they couldn't come up with this important data when they were supposedly "on the ground"?

Even in the worst interpretation, it seems unlikely that the material is more dangerous now than it was two years ago. Some of the elements—centrifuges, for example, and chemical mixtures—require stable and controlled conditions for effectiveness. They can't simply be transferred to some kitchen or tent. They are less risky than they were in early 2003, in other words. If they went to a neighboring state, though … Some chemical vats have apparently turned up on a scrap heap in Jordan, even if this does argue more for a panicky concealment than a plan of transfer. But anyway, this only returns us to the main point: If Saddam's people could have made such a transfer after his fall, then they could have made it much more easily during his reign. (We know, for example, that the Baathists were discussing the acquisition of long-range missiles from North Korea as late as March 2003, and at that time, the nuclear Wal-Mart of the A.Q. Khan network was still in business. Iraq would have had plenty to trade in this WMD underworld.)

Supporters of the overdue disarmament and liberation of Iraq, all the same, can't be complacent about this story. It seems flabbergasting that any of these sites were unsecured after the occupation, let alone for so long. Did the CIA yet again lack "human intelligence" as well as every other kind? The Bush administration staked the reputation of the United States on the matter. It won't do to say that "mistakes were made."

Subject: progress

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 02:11:00 +0300

Hi Ayad,

Iraqi politics is definitely a case of continuous education and evolution. In the past it was the Kurds who were stabbed in the back, by the Shah, by Kissinger (USA) and by the Iraqis over and over. Yet, this time its them holding the dagger. It looks like they have dealt Mr. Jaafari a nasty blow, at least temporarily. Lets, wait and see what develops next.

Funnily enough, G. Yawer the guy who cheated on his election results or at least gained from the "grade curve" is now "leading" the Sunni delegation to ensure that all posts go to Sunnis-Shammar. Again, progress in the right direction. We have gone from Al Majid to Al Yawer, by all means an upgrade!

This "elections" project is becoming more and more important. What's your traveling schedule.

Regards
Layth

Monday, came the announcement of a new committee, formed to represent the interests of Sunni Arabs, in negotiations with Kurds and Shi'as. The committee is made up of Ghazi il-Yawer, the current president of the republic and expected speaker of the national assembly; Adnan il-Pachachi, leader of the Independent Democratic Gathering and foreign minister before the Ba'ath Party took over, in 1968; Taariq al-Hashimi, of the Iraqi Islamic Party; an unnamed college professor; and an unnamed "luminary" in the former army, who, Yawer's announcement said, "had an honorable record, whose hands were not soaked in blood, who was tortured and detained for long periods in the former regime's prisons, and who's a well-known and very well-liked personage." It added, "We hate the nationalist and sectarian retrenchment, but the conditions now and realities of this stage, unfortunately, pulled us to these terms."

On Al-Hurra-Iraq's nightly discussion program "Bil-Iraqi" (In Iraqi), political analyst Saadiq al-Musawi said, Monday, that the Sunni Arab committee is asking for one-third of government ministries to be held by Sunni Arabs, and that this sector of Iraqi society was the only one, lacking any collective representation.

Technical difficulties

I'm having a hard time, posting things -- well, to begin with, getting on-line. First of all, at home, we're still waiting for the phone lines to come back up. Second, the Jordanian embassy, three, four doors away, has been the object of a lot of attention, lately, as Iraqis have been demonstrating there, the past several days, to protest the celebration in Jordan, three days ago, of the man who allegedly blew himself up, February 28, in the center of Hilla, killing more than 130 people and injuring 80 more. Yesterday, Raa'id al-Banna's family denied that Banna was involved in the Hilla bombing, and said that he died in Mosul, instead. So, as a result -- and, also, because I had a hard time sleeping, the night before -- I couldn't get out of the house, yesterday -- at least, not in the afternoon -- as the national guard and police blocked off the street, either because of the reported takeover of the embassy by Iraqis, holding a sit-in, or to protect the embassy from Iraqi attackers.

Today, after watching the live broadcast of the first session of the national assembly, I asked a cousin for a ride to the money-change shop where his sister's husband works -- I've been using their computer and wireless connection, to post things, the past few days. However, the car could only get as far as the next corner. An Iraqi soldier, posted with his unit, told us that if we left the area, by car, we wouldn't be able to drive back. The soldier said people from Hilla were on their way, now -- that is, to the embassy. I had reached my wit's end, and told my cousin, I'd walk, the rest of the way. I didn't produce anything, yesterday, when I had material to post, on the developing feud between Iraq and Jordan and the Arabs, and I was frustrated and moping. As I was searching for a solution, yesterday afternoon, I discovered that a cousin, nearby, had an active phone line, but that the computer they'd ordered, wouldn't be ready for another day or two. I then found a substitute laptop, that an uncle had left in the house, but...it was missing the charger, it had a note in it, that it shouldn't be run on the battery, and by that time, it had gotten too late, to go out and buy one, let alone, make it to the cousin's -- she'd advised me to postpone the trip, till this morning. In fact, my uncle had to be dropped off, at a nearby corner, and walk the one block, home, while his car was taken back, to his daughter's. So, today, I wasn't going to be held back, anymore -- I'd had enough of the overprotection -- I was itching...under the control.

I made the walk -- no problem, and made a couple of posts -- although, I don't know how you PC'ers and Microsofters put up with it. Now that I've made my first solo trek in Baghdad -- this time around -- I can just imagine, that my mother is going to get in touch with my uncle, and force him to keep me, in. Thank goodness, his phone's not working, but...there are other ways. Woe, the officious (and overbearing) ways of the tribe.

So, bear with me, if you would.

Halabcha

First half of The New Yorker article:

THE GREAT TERROR

by JEFFREY GOLDBERG
REPORTER AT LARGE

In northern Iraq, there is new evidence of Saddam Hussein's genocidal war on the Kurds—and of his possible ties to Al Qaeda.
Issue of 2002-03-25

In the late morning of March 16, 1988, an Iraqi Air Force helicopter appeared over the city of Halabja, which is about fifteen miles from the border with Iran. The Iran-Iraq War was then in its eighth year, and Halabja was near the front lines. At the time, the city was home to roughly eighty thousand Kurds, who were well accustomed to the proximity of violence to ordinary life. Like most of Iraqi Kurdistan, Halabja was in perpetual revolt against the regime of Saddam Hussein, and its inhabitants were supporters of the peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters whose name means "those who face death."

A young woman named Nasreen Abdel Qadir Muhammad was outside her family's house, preparing food, when she saw the helicopter. The Iranians and the peshmerga had just attacked Iraqi military outposts around Halabja, forcing Saddam's soldiers to retreat. Iranian Revolutionary Guards then infiltrated the city, and the residents assumed that an Iraqi counterattack was imminent. Nasreen and her family expected to spend yet another day in their cellar, which was crude and dark but solid enough to withstand artillery shelling, and even napalm.

"At about ten o'clock, maybe closer to ten-thirty, I saw the helicopter," Nasreen told me. "It was not attacking, though. There were men inside it, taking pictures. One had a regular camera, and the other held what looked like a video camera. They were coming very close. Then they went away."

Nasreen thought that the sight was strange, but she was preoccupied with lunch; she and her sister Rangeen were preparing rice, bread, and beans for the thirty or forty relatives who were taking shelter in the cellar. Rangeen was fifteen at the time. Nasreen was just sixteen, but her father had married her off several months earlier, to a cousin, a thirty-year-old physician's assistant named Bakhtiar Abdul Aziz. Halabja is a conservative place, and many more women wear the veil than in the more cosmopolitan Kurdish cities to the northwest and the Arab cities to the south.

The bombardment began shortly before eleven. The Iraqi Army, positioned on the main road from the nearby town of Sayid Sadiq, fired artillery shells into Halabja, and the Air Force began dropping what is thought to have been napalm on the town, especially the northern area. Nasreen and Rangeen rushed to the cellar. Nasreen prayed that Bakhtiar, who was then outside the city, would find shelter.

The attack had ebbed by about two o'clock, and Nasreen made her way carefully upstairs to the kitchen, to get the food for the family. "At the end of the bombing, the sound changed," she said. "It wasn't so loud. It was like pieces of metal just dropping without exploding. We didn't know why it was so quiet."

A short distance away, in a neighborhood still called the Julakan, or Jewish quarter, even though Halabja's Jews left for Israel in the nineteen-fifties, a middle-aged man named Muhammad came up from his own cellar and saw an unusual sight: "A helicopter had come back to the town, and the soldiers were throwing white pieces of paper out the side." In retrospect, he understood that they were measuring wind speed and direction. Nearby, a man named Awat Omer, who was twenty at the time, was overwhelmed by a smell of garlic and apples.

Nasreen gathered the food quickly, but she, too, noticed a series of odd smells carried into the house by the wind. "At first, it smelled bad, like garbage," she said. "And then it was a good smell, like sweet apples. Then like eggs." Before she went downstairs, she happened to check on a caged partridge that her father kept in the house. "The bird was dying," she said. "It was on its side." She looked out the window. "It was very quiet, but the animals were dying. The sheep and goats were dying." Nasreen ran to the cellar. "I told everybody there was something wrong. There was something wrong with the air."

The people in the cellar were panicked. They had fled downstairs to escape the bombardment, and it was difficult to abandon their shelter. Only splinters of light penetrated the basement, but the dark provided a strange comfort. "We wanted to stay in hiding, even though we were getting sick," Nasreen said. She felt a sharp pain in her eyes, like stabbing needles. "My sister came close to my face and said, 'Your eyes are very red.' Then the children started throwing up. They kept throwing up. They were in so much pain, and crying so much. They were crying all the time. My mother was crying. Then the old people started throwing up."

Chemical weapons had been dropped on Halabja by the Iraqi Air Force, which understood that any underground shelter would become a gas chamber. "My uncle said we should go outside," Nasreen said. "We knew there were chemicals in the air. We were getting red eyes, and some of us had liquid coming out of them. We decided to run." Nasreen and her relatives stepped outside gingerly. "Our cow was lying on its side," she recalled. "It was breathing very fast, as if it had been running. The leaves were falling off the trees, even though it was spring. The partridge was dead. There were smoke clouds around, clinging to the ground. The gas was heavier than the air, and it was finding the wells and going down the wells."

The family judged the direction of the wind, and decided to run the opposite way. Running proved difficult. "The children couldn't walk, they were so sick," Nasreen said. "They were exhausted from throwing up. We carried them in our arms."

Across the city, other families were making similar decisions. Nouri Hama Ali, who lived in the northern part of town, decided to lead his family in the direction of Anab, a collective settlement on the outskirts of Halabja that housed Kurds displaced when the Iraqi Army destroyed their villages. "On the road to Anab, many of the women and children began to die," Nouri told me. "The chemical clouds were on the ground. They were heavy. We could see them." People were dying all around, he said. When a child could not go on, the parents, becoming hysterical with fear, abandoned him. "Many children were left on the ground, by the side of the road. Old people as well. They were running, then they would stop breathing and die."

Nasreen's family did not move quickly. "We wanted to wash ourselves off and find water to drink," she said. "We wanted to wash the faces of the children who were vomiting. The children were crying for water. There was powder on the ground, white. We couldn't decide whether to drink the water or not, but some people drank the water from the well they were so thirsty."

They ran in a panic through the city, Nasreen recalled, in the direction of Anab. The bombardment continued intermittently, Air Force planes circling overhead. "People were showing different symptoms. One person touched some of the powder, and her skin started bubbling."

A truck came by, driven by a neighbor. People threw themselves aboard. "We saw people lying frozen on the ground," Nasreen told me. "There was a small baby on the ground, away from her mother. I thought they were both sleeping. But she had dropped the baby and then died. And I think the baby tried to crawl away, but it died, too. It looked like everyone was sleeping."

At that moment, Nasreen believed that she and her family would make it to high ground and live. Then the truck stopped. "The driver said he couldn't go on, and he wandered away. He left his wife in the back of the truck. He told us to flee if we could. The chemicals affected his brain, because why else would someone abandon his family?"

As heavy clouds of gas smothered the city, people became sick and confused. Awat Omer was trapped in his cellar with his family; he said that his brother began laughing uncontrollably and then stripped off his clothes, and soon afterward he died. As night fell, the family's children grew sicker—too sick to move.

Nasreen's husband could not be found, and she began to think that all was lost. She led the children who were able to walk up the road.

In another neighborhood, Muhammad Ahmed Fattah, who was twenty, was overwhelmed by an oddly sweet odor of sulfur, and he, too, realized that he must evacuate his family; there were about a hundred and sixty people wedged into the cellar. "I saw the bomb drop," Muhammad told me. "It was about thirty metres from the house. I shut the door to the cellar. There was shouting and crying in the cellar, and then people became short of breath." One of the first to be stricken by the gas was Muhammad's brother Salah. "His eyes were pink," Muhammad recalled. "There was something coming out of his eyes. He was so thirsty he was demanding water." Others in the basement began suffering tremors.

March 16th was supposed to be Muhammad's wedding day. "Every preparation was done," he said. His fiancée, a woman named Bahar Jamal, was among the first in the cellar to die. "She was crying very hard," Muhammad recalled. "I tried to calm her down. I told her it was just the usual artillery shells, but it didn't smell the usual way weapons smelled. She was smart, she knew what was happening. She died on the stairs. Her father tried to help her, but it was too late."

Death came quickly to others as well. A woman named Hamida Mahmoud tried to save her two-year-old daughter by allowing her to nurse from her breast. Hamida thought that the baby wouldn't breathe in the gas if she was nursing, Muhammad said, adding, "The baby's name was Dashneh. She nursed for a long time. Her mother died while she was nursing. But she kept nursing." By the time Muhammad decided to go outside, most of the people in the basement were unconscious; many were dead, including his parents and three of his siblings.

Nasreen said that on the road to Anab all was confusion. She and the children were running toward the hills, but they were going blind. "The children were crying, 'We can't see! My eyes are bleeding!' " In the chaos, the family got separated. Nasreen's mother and father were both lost. Nasreen and several of her cousins and siblings inadvertently led the younger children in a circle, back into the city. Someone—she doesn't know who—led them away from the city again and up a hill, to a small mosque, where they sought shelter. "But we didn't stay in the mosque, because we thought it would be a target," Nasreen said. They went to a small house nearby, and Nasreen scrambled to find food and water for the children. By then, it was night, and she was exhausted.

Bakhtiar, Nasreen's husband, was frantic. Outside the city when the attacks started, he had spent much of the day searching for his wife and the rest of his family. He had acquired from a clinic two syringes of atropine, a drug that helps to counter the effects of nerve agents. He injected himself with one of the syringes, and set out to find Nasreen. He had no hope. "My plan was to bury her," he said. "At least I should bury my new wife."

After hours of searching, Bakhtiar met some neighbors, who remembered seeing Nasreen and the children moving toward the mosque on the hill. "I called out the name Nasreen," he said. "I heard crying, and I went inside the house. When I got there, I found that Nasreen was alive but blind. Everybody was blind."

Nasreen had lost her sight about an hour or two before Bakhtiar found her. She had been searching the house for food, so that she could feed the children, when her eyesight failed. "I found some milk and I felt my way to them and then I found their mouths and gave them milk," she said.

Bakhtiar organized the children. "I wanted to bring them to the well. I washed their heads. I took them two by two and washed their heads. Some of them couldn't come. They couldn't control their muscles."

Bakhtiar still had one syringe of atropine, but he did not inject his wife; she was not the worst off in the group. "There was a woman named Asme, who was my neighbor," Bakhtiar recalled. "She was not able to breathe. She was yelling and she was running into a wall, crashing her head into a wall. I gave the atropine to this woman." Asme died soon afterward. "I could have used it for Nasreen," Bakhtiar said. "I could have."

After the Iraqi bombardment subsided, the Iranians managed to retake Halabja, and they evacuated many of the sick, including Nasreen and the others in her family, to hospitals in Tehran.

Nasreen was blind for twenty days. "I was thinking the whole time, Where is my family? But I was blind. I couldn't do anything. I asked my husband about my mother, but he said he didn't know anything. He was looking in hospitals, he said. He was avoiding the question."

The Iranian Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the Red Cross, began compiling books of photographs, pictures of the dead in Halabja. "The Red Crescent has an album of the people who were buried in Iran," Nasreen said. "And we found my mother in one of the albums." Her father, she discovered, was alive but permanently blinded. Five of her siblings, including Rangeen, had died.

Nasreen would live, the doctors said, but she kept a secret from Bakhtiar: "When I was in the hospital, I started menstruating. It wouldn't stop. I kept bleeding. We don't talk about this in our society, but eventually a lot of women in the hospital confessed they were also menstruating and couldn't stop." Doctors gave her drugs that stopped the bleeding, but they told her that she would be unable to bear children.

Nasreen stayed in Iran for several months, but eventually she and Bakhtiar returned to Kurdistan. She didn't believe the doctors who told her that she would be infertile, and in 1991 she gave birth to a boy. "We named him Arazoo," she said. Arazoo means hope in Kurdish. "He was healthy at first, but he had a hole in his heart. He died at the age of three months."

I met Nasreen last month in Erbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is thirty now, a pretty woman with brown eyes and high cheekbones, but her face is expressionless. She doesn't seek pity; she would, however, like a doctor to help her with a cough that she's had ever since the attack, fourteen years ago. Like many of Saddam Hussein's victims, she tells her story without emotion.

During my visit to Kurdistan, I talked with more than a hundred victims of Saddam's campaign against the Kurds. Saddam has been persecuting the Kurds ever since he took power, more than twenty years ago. Several old women whose husbands were killed by Saddam's security services expressed a kind of animal hatred toward him, but most people, like Nasreen, told stories of horrific cruelty with a dispassion and a precision that underscored their credibility. Credibility is important to the Kurds; after all this time, they still feel that the world does not believe their story.

A week after I met Nasreen, I visited a small village called Goktapa, situated in a green valley that is ringed by snow-covered mountains. Goktapa came under poison-gas attack six weeks after Halabja. The village consists of low mud-brick houses along dirt paths. In Goktapa, an old man named Ahmed Raza Sharif told me that on the day of the attack on Goktapa, May 3, 1988, he was in the fields outside the village. He saw the shells explode and smelled the sweet-apple odor as poison filled the air. His son, Osman Ahmed, who was sixteen at the time, was near the village mosque when he was felled by the gas. He crawled down a hill and died among the reeds on the banks of the Lesser Zab, the river that flows by the village. His father knew that he was dead, but he couldn't reach the body. As many as a hundred and fifty people died in the attack; the survivors fled before the advancing Iraqi Army, which levelled the village. Ahmed Raza Sharif did not return for three years. When he did, he said, he immediately began searching for his son's body. He found it still lying in the reeds. "I recognized his body right away," he said.

The summer sun in Iraq is blisteringly hot, and a corpse would be unidentifiable three years after death. I tried to find a gentle way to express my doubts, but my translator made it clear to Sharif that I didn't believe him.

We were standing in the mud yard of another old man, Ibrahim Abdul Rahman. Twenty or thirty people, a dozen boys among them, had gathered. Some of them seemed upset that I appeared to doubt the story, but Ahmed hushed them. "It's true, he lost all the flesh on his body," he said. "He was just a skeleton. But the clothes were his, and they were still on the skeleton, a belt and a shirt. In the pocket of his shirt I found the key to our tractor. That's where he always kept the key."

Some of the men still seemed concerned that I would leave Goktapa doubting their truthfulness. Ibrahim, the man in whose yard we were standing, called out a series of orders to the boys gathered around us. They dispersed, to houses and storerooms, returning moments later holding jagged pieces of metal, the remnants of the bombs that poisoned Goktapa. Ceremoniously, the boys dropped the pieces of metal at my feet. "Here are the mercies of Uncle Saddam," Ibrahim said.

2. THE AFTERMATH

The story of Halabja did not end the night the Iraqi Air Force planes returned to their bases. The Iranians invited the foreign press to record the devastation. Photographs of the victims, supine, bleached of color, littering the gutters and alleys of the town, horrified the world. Saddam Hussein's attacks on his own citizens mark the only time since the Holocaust that poison gas has been used to exterminate women and children.

Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who led the campaigns against the Kurds in the late eighties, was heard on a tape captured by rebels, and later obtained by Human Rights Watch, addressing members of Iraq's ruling Baath Party on the subject of the Kurds. "I will kill them all with chemical weapons!" he said. "Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."

Attempts by Congress in 1988 to impose sanctions on Iraq were stifled by the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and the story of Saddam's surviving victims might have vanished completely had it not been for the reporting of people like Randal and the work of a British documentary filmmaker named Gwynne Roberts, who, after hearing stories about a sudden spike in the incidence of birth defects and cancers, not only in Halabja but also in other parts of Kurdistan, had made some disturbing films on the subject. However, no Western government or United Nations agency took up the cause.

In 1998, Roberts brought an Englishwoman named Christine Gosden to Kurdistan. Gosden is a medical geneticist and a professor at the medical school of the University of Liverpool. She spent three weeks in the hospitals in Kurdistan, and came away determined to help the Kurds. To the best of my knowledge, Gosden is the only Western scientist who has even begun making a systematic study of what took place in northern Iraq.

Gosden told me that her father was a high-ranking officer in the Royal Air Force, and that as a child she lived in Germany, near Bergen-Belsen. "It's tremendously influential in your early years to live near a concentration camp," she said. In Kurdistan, she heard echoes of the German campaign to destroy the Jews. "The Iraqi government was using chemistry to reduce the population of Kurds," she said. "The Holocaust is still having its effect. The Jews are fewer in number now than they were in 1939. That's not natural. Now, if you take out two hundred thousand men and boys from Kurdistan"—an estimate of the number of Kurds who were gassed or otherwise murdered in the campaign, most of whom were men and boys—"you've affected the population structure. There are a lot of widows who are not having children."

Richard Butler, an Australian diplomat who chaired the United Nations weapons-inspection team in Iraq, describes Gosden as "a classic English, old-school-tie kind of person." Butler has tracked her research since she began studying the attacks, four years ago, and finds it credible. "Occasionally, people say that this is Christine's obsession, but obsession is not a bad thing," he added.

Before I went to Kurdistan, in January, I spent a day in London with Gosden. We gossiped a bit, and she scolded me for having visited a Washington shopping mall without appropriate protective equipment. Whenever she goes to a mall, she brings along a polyurethane bag "big enough to step into" and a bottle of bleach. "I can detoxify myself immediately," she said.

Gosden believes it is quite possible that the countries of the West will soon experience chemical- and biological-weapons attacks far more serious and of greater lasting effect than the anthrax incidents of last autumn and the nerve-agent attack on the Tokyo subway system several years ago—that what happened in Kurdistan was only the beginning. "For Saddam's scientists, the Kurds were a test population," she said. "They were the human guinea pigs. It was a way of identifying the most effective chemical agents for use on civilian populations, and the most effective means of delivery."

The charge is supported by others. An Iraqi defector, Khidhir Hamza, who is the former director of Saddam's nuclear-weapons program, told me earlier this year that before the attack on Halabja military doctors had mapped the city, and that afterward they entered it wearing protective clothing, in order to study the dispersal of the dead. "These were field tests, an experiment on a town," Hamza told me. He said that he had direct knowledge of the Army's procedures that day in Halabja. "The doctors were given sheets with grids on them, and they had to answer questions such as 'How far are the dead from the cannisters?' "

Gosden said that she cannot understand why the West has not been more eager to investigate the chemical attacks in Kurdistan. "It seems a matter of enlightened self-interest that the West would want to study the long-term effects of chemical weapons on civilians, on the DNA," she told me. "I've seen Europe's worst cancers, but, believe me, I have never seen cancers like the ones I saw in Kurdistan."

According to an ongoing survey conducted by a team of Kurdish physicians and organized by Gosden and a small advocacy group called the Washington Kurdish Institute, more than two hundred towns and villages across Kurdistan were attacked by poison gas—far more than was previously thought—in the course of seventeen months. The number of victims is unknown, but doctors I met in Kurdistan believe that up to ten per cent of the population of northern Iraq—nearly four million people—has been exposed to chemical weapons. "Saddam Hussein poisoned northern Iraq," Gosden said when I left for Halabja. "The questions, then, are what to do? And what comes next?"

3. HALABJA'S DOCTORS

The Kurdish people, it is often said, make up the largest stateless nation in the world. They have been widely despised by their neighbors for centuries. There are roughly twenty-five million Kurds, most of them spread across four countries in southwestern Asia: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The Kurds are neither Arab, Persian, nor Turkish; they are a distinct ethnic group, with their own culture and language. Most Kurds are Muslim (the most famous Muslim hero of all, Saladin, who defeated the Crusaders, was of Kurdish origin), but there are Jewish and Christian Kurds, and also followers of the Yezidi religion, which has its roots in Sufism and Zoroastrianism. The Kurds are experienced mountain fighters, who tend toward stubbornness and have frequent bouts of destructive infighting.

After centuries of domination by foreign powers, the Kurds had their best chance at independence after the First World War, when President Woodrow Wilson promised the Kurds, along with other groups left drifting and exposed by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a large measure of autonomy. But the machinations of the great powers, who were becoming interested in Kurdistan's vast oil deposits, in Mosul and Kirkuk, quickly did the Kurds out of a state.

In the nineteen-seventies, the Iraqi Kurds allied themselves with the Shah of Iran in a territorial dispute with Iraq. America, the Shah's patron, once again became the Kurds' patron, too, supplying them with arms for a revolt against Baghdad. But a secret deal between the Iraqis and the Shah, arranged in 1975 by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, cut off the Kurds and brought about their instant collapse; for the Kurds, it was an ugly betrayal.

The Kurdish safe haven, in northern Iraq, was born of another American betrayal. In 1991, after the United States helped drive Iraq out of Kuwait, President George Bush ignored an uprising that he himself had stoked, and Kurds and Shiites in Iraq were slaughtered by the thousands. Thousands more fled the country, the Kurds going to Turkey, and almost immediately creating a humanitarian disaster. The Bush Administration, faced with a televised catastrophe, declared northern Iraq a no-fly zone and thus a safe haven, a tactic that allowed the refugees to return home. And so, under the protective shield of the United States and British Air Forces, the unplanned Kurdish experiment in self-government began. Although the Kurdish safe haven is only a virtual state, it is an incipient democracy, a home of progressive Islamic thought and pro-American feeling.

Today, Iraqi Kurdistan is split between two dominant parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Massoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, whose General Secretary is Jalal Talabani. The two parties have had an often angry relationship, and in the mid-nineties they fought a war that left about a thousand soldiers dead. The parties, realizing that they could not rule together, decided to rule apart, dividing Kurdistan into two zones. The internal political divisions have not aided the Kurds' cause, but neighboring states also have fomented disunity, fearing that a unified Kurdish population would agitate for independence.

Turkey, with a Kurdish population of between fifteen and twenty million, has repressed the Kurds in the eastern part of the country, politically and militarily, on and off since the founding of the modern Turkish state. In 1924, the government of Atatürk restricted the use of the Kurdish language (a law not lifted until 1991) and expressions of Kurdish culture; to this day, the Kurds are referred to in nationalist circles as "mountain Turks."

Turkey is not eager to see Kurds anywhere draw attention to themselves, which is why the authorities in Ankara refused to let me cross the border into Iraqi Kurdistan. Iran, whose Kurdish population numbers between six and eight million, was not helpful, either, and my only option for gaining entrance to Kurdistan was through its third neighbor, Syria. The Kurdistan Democratic Party arranged for me to be met in Damascus and taken to the eastern desert city of El Qamishli. From there, I was driven in a Land Cruiser to the banks of the Tigris River, where a small wooden boat, with a crew of one and an outboard motor, was waiting. The engine spluttered; when I learned that the forward lines of the Iraqi Army were two miles downstream, I began to paddle, too. On the other side of the river were representatives of the Kurdish Democratic Party and the peshmerga, the Kurdish guerrillas, who wore pantaloons and turbans and were armed with AK-47s.

"Welcome to Kurdistan" read a sign at the water's edge greeting visitors to a country that does not exist.

Halabja is a couple of hundred miles from the Syrian border, and I spent a week crossing northern Iraq, making stops in the cities of Dahuk and Erbil on the way. I was handed over to representatives of the Patriotic Union, which controls Halabja, at a demilitarized zone west of the town of Koysinjaq. From there, it was a two-hour drive over steep mountains to Sulaimaniya, a city of six hundred and fifty thousand, which is the cultural capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. In Sulaimaniya, I met Fouad Baban, one of Kurdistan's leading physicians, who promised to guide me through the scientific and political thickets of Halabja.

Baban, a pulmonary and cardiac specialist who has survived three terms in Iraqi prisons, is sixty years old, and a man of impish good humor. He is the Kurdistan coördinator of the Halabja Medical Institute, which was founded by Gosden, Michael Amitay, the executive director of the Washington Kurdish Institute, and a coalition of Kurdish doctors; for the doctors, it is an act of bravery to be publicly associated with a project whose scientific findings could be used as evidence if Saddam Hussein faced a war-crimes tribunal. Saddam's agents are everywhere in the Kurdish zone, and his tanks sit forty miles from Baban's office.

Soon after I arrived in Sulaimaniya, Baban and I headed out in his Toyota Camry for Halabja. On a rough road, we crossed the plains of Sharazoor, a region of black earth and honey-colored wheat ringed by jagged, snow-topped mountains. We were not travelling alone. The Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, is widely reported to have placed a bounty on the heads of Western journalists caught in Kurdistan (either ten thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars, depending on the source of the information). The areas around the border with Iran are filled with Tehran's spies, and members of Ansar al-Islam, an Islamist terror group, were said to be decapitating people in the Halabja area. So the Kurds had laid on a rather elaborate security detail. A Land Cruiser carrying peshmerga guerrillas led the way, and we were followed by another Land Cruiser, on whose bed was mounted an anti-aircraft weapon manned by six peshmerga, some of whom wore black balaclavas. We were just south of the American- and British-enforced no-fly zone. I had been told that, at the beginning of the safe-haven experiment, the Americans had warned Saddam's forces to stay away; a threat from the air, though unlikely, was, I deduced, not out of the question.

"It seems very important to know the immediate and long-term effects of chemical and biological weapons," Baban said, beginning my tutorial. "Here is a civilian population exposed to chemical and possibly biological weapons, and people are developing many varieties of cancers and congenital abnormalities. The Americans are vulnerable to these weapons—they are cheap, and terrorists possess them. So, after the anthrax attacks in the States, I think it is urgent for scientific research to be done here."

Experts now believe that Halabja and other places in Kurdistan were struck by a combination of mustard gas and nerve agents, including sarin (the agent used in the Tokyo subway attack) and VX, a potent nerve agent. Baban's suggestion that biological weapons may also have been used surprised me. One possible biological weapon that Baban mentioned was aflatoxin, which causes long-term liver damage.

A colleague of Baban's, a surgeon who practices in Dahuk, in northwestern Kurdistan, and who is a member of the Halabja Medical Institute team, told me more about the institute's survey, which was conducted in the Dahuk region in 1999. The surveyors began, he said, by asking elementary questions; eleven years after the attacks, they did not even know which villages had been attacked.

"The team went to almost every village," the surgeon said. "At first, we thought that the Dahuk governorate was the least affected. We knew of only two villages that were hit by the attacks. But we came up with twenty-nine in total. This is eleven years after the fact."

The surgeon is professorial in appearance, but he is deeply angry. He doubles as a pediatric surgeon, because there are no pediatric surgeons in Kurdistan. He has performed more than a hundred operations for cleft palate on children born since 1988. Most of the agents believed to have been dropped on Halabja have short half-lives, but, as Baban told me, "physicians are unsure how long these toxins will affect the population. How can we know agent half-life if we don't know the agent?" He added, "If we knew the toxins that were used, we could follow them and see actions on spermatogenesis and ovogenesis."

Increased rates of infertility, he said, are having a profound effect on Kurdish society, which places great importance on large families. "You have men divorcing their wives because they could not give birth, and then marrying again, and then their second wives can't give birth, either," he said. "Still, they don't blame their own problem with spermatogenesis."

Baban told me that the initial results of the Halabja Medical Institute-sponsored survey show abnormally high rates of many diseases. He said that he compared rates of colon cancer in Halabja with those in the city of Chamchamal, which was not attacked with chemical weapons. "We are seeing rates of colon cancer five times higher in Halabja than in Chamchamal," he said.

There are other anomalies as well, Baban said. The rate of miscarriage in Halabja, according to initial survey results, is fourteen times the rate of miscarriage in Chamchamal; rates of infertility among men and women in the affected population are many times higher than normal. "We're finding Hiroshima levels of sterility," he said.

Then, there is the suspicion about snakes. "Have you heard about the snakes?" he asked as we drove. I told him that I had heard rumors. "We don't know if a genetic mutation in the snakes has made them more toxic," Baban went on, "or if the birds that eat the snakes were killed off in the attacks, but there seem to be more snakebites, of greater toxicity, in Halabja now than before." (I asked Richard Spertzel, a scientist and a former member of the United Nations Special Commission inspections team, if this was possible. Yes, he said, but such a rise in snakebites was more likely due to "environmental imbalances" than to mutations.)

My conversation with Baban was suddenly interrupted by our guerrilla escorts, who stopped the car and asked me to join them in one of the Land Cruisers; we veered off across a wheat field, without explanation. I was later told that we had been passing a mountain area that had recently had problems with Islamic terrorists.

We arrived in Halabja half an hour later. As you enter the city, you see a small statue modelled on the most famous photographic image of the Halabja massacre: an old man, prone and lifeless, shielding his dead grandson with his body.

A torpor seems to afflict Halabja; even its bazaar is listless and somewhat empty, in marked contrast to those of other Kurdish cities, which are well stocked with imported goods (history and circumstance have made the Kurds enthusiastic smugglers) and are full of noise and activity. "Everyone here is sick," a Halabja doctor told me. "The people who aren't sick are depressed." He practices at the Martyrs' Hospital, which is situated on the outskirts of the city. The hospital has no heat and little advanced equipment; like the city itself, it is in a dilapidated state.

The doctor is a thin, jumpy man in a tweed jacket, and he smokes without pause. He and Baban took me on a tour of the hospital. Afterward, we sat in a bare office, and a woman was wheeled in. She looked seventy but said that she was fifty; doctors told me she suffers from lung scarring so serious that only a lung transplant could help, but there are no transplant centers in Kurdistan. The woman, whose name is Jayran Muhammad, lost eight relatives during the attack. Her voice was almost inaudible. "I was disturbed psychologically for a long time," she told me as Baban translated. "I believed my children were alive." Baban told me that her lungs would fail soon, that she could barely breathe. "She is waiting to die," he said. I met another woman, Chia Hammassat, who was eight at the time of the attacks and has been blind ever since. Her mother, she said, died of colon cancer several years ago, and her brother suffers from chronic shortness of breath. "There is no hope to correct my vision," she said, her voice flat. "I was married, but I couldn't fulfill the responsibilities of a wife because I'm blind. My husband left me."

Baban said that in Halabja "there are more abnormal births than normal ones," and other Kurdish doctors told me that they regularly see children born with neural-tube defects and undescended testes and without anal openings. They are seeing—and they showed me—children born with six or seven toes on each foot, children whose fingers and toes are fused, and children who suffer from leukemia and liver cancer.

I met Sarkar, a shy and intelligent boy with a harelip, a cleft palate, and a growth on his spine. Sarkar had a brother born with the same set of malformations, the doctor told me, but the brother choked to death, while still a baby, on a grain of rice.

Meanwhile, more victims had gathered in the hallway; the people of Halabja do not often have a chance to tell their stories to foreigners. Some of them wanted to know if I was a surgeon, who had come to repair their children's deformities, and they were disappointed to learn that I was a journalist. The doctor and I soon left the hospital for a walk through the northern neighborhoods of Halabja, which were hardest hit in the attack. We were trailed by peshmerga carrying AK-47s. The doctor smoked as we talked, and I teased him about his habit. "Smoking has some good effect on the lungs," he said, without irony. "In the attacks, there was less effect on smokers. Their lungs were better equipped for the mustard gas, maybe."

We walked through the alleyways of the Jewish quarter, past a former synagogue in which eighty or so Halabjans died during the attack. Underfed cows wandered the paths. The doctor showed me several cellars where clusters of people had died. We knocked on the gate of one house, and were let in by an old woman with a wide smile and few teeth. In the Kurdish tradition, she immediately invited us for lunch.

She told us the recent history of the house. "Everyone who was in this house died," she said. "The whole family. We heard there were one hundred people." She led us to the cellar, which was damp and close. Rusted yellow cans of vegetable ghee littered the floor. The room seemed too small to hold a hundred people, but the doctor said that the estimate sounded accurate. I asked him if cellars like this one had ever been decontaminated. He smiled. "Nothing in Kurdistan has been decontaminated," he said.

4. AL—ANFAL

The chemical attacks on Halabja and Goktapa and perhaps two hundred other villages and towns were only a small part of the cataclysm that Saddam's cousin, the man known as Ali Chemical, arranged for the Kurds. The Kurds say that about two hundred thousand were killed. (Human Rights Watch, which in the early nineties published "Iraq's Crime of Genocide," a definitive study of the attacks, gives a figure of between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand.)

The campaign against the Kurds was dubbed al-Anfal by Saddam, after a chapter in the Koran that allows conquering Muslim armies to seize the spoils of their foes. It reads, in part, "Against them"—your enemies—"make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly."

The Anfal campaign was not an end in itself, like the Holocaust, but a means to an end—an instance of a policy that Samantha Power, who runs the Carr Center for Human Rights, at Harvard, calls "instrumental genocide." Power has just published " 'A Problem from Hell,' " a study of American responses to genocide. "There are regimes that set out to murder every citizen of a race," she said. "Saddam achieved what he had to do without exterminating every last Kurd." What he had to do, Power and others say, was to break the Kurds' morale and convince them that a desire for independence was foolish.

Most of the Kurds who were murdered in the Anfal were not killed by poison gas; rather, the genocide was carried out, in large part, in the traditional manner, with roundups at night, mass executions, and anonymous burials. The bodies of most of the victims of the Anfal—mainly men and boys—have never been found.

One day, I met one of the thousands of Kurdish women known as Anfal widows: Salma Aziz Baban. She lives outside Chamchamal, in a settlement made up almost entirely of displaced families, in cinder-block houses. Her house was nearly empty—no furniture, no heat, just a ragged carpet. We sat on the carpet as she told me about her family. She comes from the Kirkuk region, and in 1987 her village was uprooted by the Army, and the inhabitants, with thousands of other Kurds, were forced into a collective town. Then, one night in April of 1988, soldiers went into the village and seized the men and older boys. Baban's husband and her three oldest sons were put on trucks. The mothers of the village began to plead with the soldiers. "We were screaming, 'Do what you want to us, do what you want!' " Baban told me. "They were so scared, my sons. My sons were crying." She tried to bring them coats for the journey. "It was raining. I wanted them to have coats. I begged the soldiers to let me give them bread. They took them without coats." Baban remembered that a high-ranking Iraqi officer named Bareq orchestrated the separation; according to "Iraq's Crime of Genocide," the Human Rights Watch report, the man in charge of this phase was a brigadier general named Bareq Abdullah al-Haj Hunta.

After the men were taken away, the women and children were herded onto trucks. They were given little water or food, and were crammed so tightly into the vehicles that they had to defecate where they stood. Baban, her three daughters, and her six-year-old son were taken to the Topzawa Army base and then to the prison of Nugra Salman, the Pit of Salman, which Human Rights Watch in 1995 described this way: "It was an old building, dating back to the days of the Iraqi monarchy and perhaps earlier. It had been abandoned for years, used by Arab nomads to shelter their herds. The bare walls were scrawled with the diaries of political prisoners. On the door of one cell, a guard had daubed 'Khomeini eats shit.' Over the main gate, someone else had written, 'Welcome to Hell.' "

"We arrived at midnight," Baban told me. "They put us in a very big room, with more than two thousand people, women and children, and they closed the door. Then the starvation started."

The prisoners were given almost nothing to eat, and a single standpipe spat out brackish water for drinking. People began to die from hunger and illness. When someone died, the Iraqi guards would demand that the body be passed through a window in the main door. "The bodies couldn't stay in the hall," Baban told me. In the first days at Nugra Salman, "thirty people died, maybe more." Her six-year-old son, Rebwar, fell ill. "He had diarrhea," she said. "He was very sick. He knew he was dying. There was no medicine or doctor. He started to cry so much." Baban's son died on her lap. "I was screaming and crying," she said. "My daughters were crying. We gave them the body. It was passed outside, and the soldiers took it."

Soon after Baban's son died, she pulled herself up and went to the window, to see if the soldiers had taken her son to be buried. "There were twenty dogs outside the prison. A big black dog was the leader," she said. The soldiers had dumped the bodies of the dead outside the prison, in a field. "I looked outside and saw the legs and hands of my son in the mouths of the dogs. The dogs were eating my son." She stopped talking for a moment. "Then I lost my mind."

She described herself as catatonic; her daughters scraped around for food and water. They kept her alive, she said, until she could function again. "This was during Ramadan. We were kept in Nugra Salman for a few more months."

In September, when the war with Iran was over, Saddam issued a general amnesty to the Kurds, the people he believed had betrayed him by siding with Tehran. The women, children, and elderly in Nugra Salman were freed. But, in most cases, they could not go home; the Iraqi Army had bulldozed some four thousand villages, Baban's among them. She was finally resettled in the Chamchamal district.

In the days after her release, she tried to learn the fate of her husband and three older sons. But the men who disappeared in the Anfal roundups have never been found. It is said that they were killed and then buried in mass graves in the desert along the Kuwaiti border, but little is actually known. A great number of Anfal widows, I was told, still believe that their sons and husbands and brothers are locked away in Saddam's jails. "We are thinking they are alive," Baban said, referring to her husband and sons. "Twenty-four hours a day, we are thinking maybe they are alive. If they are alive, they are being tortured, I know it."

Baban said that she has not slept well since her sons were taken from her. "We are thinking, Please let us know they are dead, I will sleep in peace," she said. "My head is filled with terrible thoughts. The day I die is the day I will not remember that the dogs ate my son."

Before I left, Baban asked me to write down the names of her three older sons. They are Sherzad, who would be forty now; Rizgar, who would be thirty-one; and Muhammad, who would be thirty. She asked me to find her sons, or to ask President Bush to find them. "One would be sufficient," she said. "If just one comes back, that would be enough."

The article's concluding sentence:

When I talked about Saddam's past with the medical geneticist Christine Gosden, she said, "Please understand, the Kurds were for practice."

National assembly convenes

The newly elected national assembly just concluded its first meeting, about 75 minutes ago. The largely ceremonial two-hour session concluded with the taking of the oath of office for the 275 elected members, and featured speeches by the outgoing prime minister and president, as well as the expected next president. I will type up my notes, and post them, ASAP. For now, I want to send this summary, now.

What distinguished the session, was that, for the first time in Iraq's history, all speeches and announcements (except the oath of office) were made in Arabic and Kurdish (some, summarized in English, too), and that the outgoing leader of the current government, Dr. Ayad Allawi, in, essentially, peacefully handing over the reins of power, spoke about the accomplishments of his government. Another first, was Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, in beginning his speech with religious greetings, included the words "the followers of Muhammad," a reference to the Shi'a imams, which was followed by the response from some of the assembled, in the same. Hakim also pointedly cited the recent massacres in Hilla and Mosul, and called on the governments of Jordan and neighboring countries to stop the recruitment of terrorists and their crossing the borders and killing Iraqis.

Most speakers honored the dead of Halabcha, the bombing of which, with chemical weapons, began, 17 years ago, today, as well as the rebels of the March 1991 uprising, and those who perished and suffered under the 35-year dictatorship of Saddam Hsayn. Several of the speakers, most notably, Allawi and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, thanked the multi-national forces, naming the United States, Britain and a dozen other countries, for liberating Iraq, and also those who made the elections and this meeting possible, especially, Ayatollah Ali il-Sistani and the Iraqi police, national guard and electoral commission.

The session was carried live by, among others, Al-Hurra, al-Iraqiyya, al-Furat, al-Arabiyya, Diyar and Sumeriyyeh, and was followed, preceded and interspersed with in-studio commentary and man-on-the-street reactions.

What to do with the Ba'ath Party

Hearing: The Russian-Syrian Connection: Thwarting Democracy in the Middle East and the Greater OSCE Region

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Entifadh K. Qanbar
Special Envoy and Spokesperson
United Iraqi Alliance
March 09, 2005

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman. It is a great honor for me to appear before this Commission with such a distinguished group of witnesses. I would like to thank you and the members of the United States Helsinki Commission for giving me this opportunity during my visit here to Washington from Baghdad. I will make a short presentation and then I will welcome your questions.

Mr. Chairman, two weeks ago, on February 23rd, the Iraqi people watched as Al-Iraqiya, the main Iraqi television channel, broadcast a startling interview with the commander of a terrorist group who had recently been captured inside Iraq. A bearded man dressed in a gray jacket and shirt introduced himself, "My name is Anas Ahmed Al-Essa. I live in Aleppo. I am from Syria," he said.

A voice off-camera asked him, “What is your job?”

"I am a lieutenant in intelligence."

"Which intelligence?" asked the voice.

"Syrian intelligence,” he replied.

Lt. Al-Essa then went on to detail how he recruited and commanded a terrorist group inside Iraq in order to “cause chaos” as he said. "We received all our instructions from Syrian intelligence," he stated. He went on to describe how weapons and explosives came to the group from Syria and how he was required to send reports of their attacks back to a colonel in Syrian intelligence.

Lt. Al-Essa and his group, which included 8 Syrians, 12 Egyptians, 10 Sudanese and a number of Iraqis, were arrested the day before the Iraqi elections. They were carrying guns, explosives, and maps of the voting centers.

Iraqi television has broadcast a number of other interviews with captured Iraqi terrorists who confirmed that they received training in Syria before being sent back to Iraq to kill Iraqis and Americans. Several of the captured terrorists stated that they had practiced beheadings on animals in Syria so that they would be able to use the technique on human beings in Iraq. One terrorist said that a member of his network needed to have completed 10 beheadings in order to be promoted to "amir" or group leader.

Mr. Chairman, these televised interviews confirm what we have known for a long time: that Syria is the logistical, financial and training base for the terrorists in Iraq. The leaders of the Iraqi terror campaign are high-ranking Baathist officials from Saddam Hussein’s regime and all of them take refuge in Syria. One of the key leaders of the anti-Iraq forces, Mohammed Younis Al-Ahmed, is known to travel back and forth across the Syrian border into northern Iraq. We know from interrogations of senior Baathist prisoners that even Saddam’s murderous sons Uday and Qusay had been sheltered in Syria before they returned to Iraq to take part in the fight against the Coalition forces. Just last month, General Hassan Zeidan Al Lahaimy, a former commander of the Iraqi Army Third Corps under Saddam, was arrested crossing the border from Syria with a large amount of cash. He is a high-ranking Baathist and one of the leaders of the terror campaign. And of course we know that Syria recently handed over Saddam’s half-brother Sabawi and a number of other senior Baathists who had been sheltering there.

The Baathists in Iraq, directed from Syria, have made great strides in penetrating the military, police and security services established by the interim government of Ayad Allawi. Statistics show that as Baathists and members of Saddam's security forces were integrated into the new Iraqi armed forces by Allawi, attacks against Iraqis and Coalition forces have steadily risen as have US and Iraqi casualties. The only way to win the war on terror in Iraq is to cut off the Baathists' support from Syria and expel them from the Iraqi government and specifically from the security, police and Army. Terrorism in Iraq is led by the Baath Party and not by Al-Qaeda or Abu Musab Zarqawi. Foreign fighters are minority of the terrorists.

Mr. Chairman, the Baath party in Iraq and Syria is a racist, fascist organization that takes its inspiration directly from the genocidal ideologies of 1930's Europe. Baathism has no place in a democratic Iraq because the Baathists do not respect democracy. Their goal is power at all costs. The Iraqi people lived under the Baathist tyranny for 35 years and they know this well. That is why de-Baathification is overwhelmingly popular in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, the time has come for the United States and all other democratic countries to list the Baath party as a terrorist organization.

Thank you.

What I missed...and continue to miss

While I was here, at the money-changer's store, yesterday, preparing my post, back home, a couple of doors from my uncle's house, there was a large demonstration, outside the Jordanian embassy. The night before, television news showed a reception/celebration in SulT, Jordan, for the local man who blew himself up, two weeks ago in Hilla, killing more than 130 people and injuring another 100. Raa'id ManSoor Ahmed al-Banna's father said they believed he'd killed 300 people, most of them, Americans. They celebrated "the martyr," with a "wedding party," as he was unmarried. Al-Hurra-Iraq had at least three reports on the subject, in its Saturday evening Iraq-news hour. A large banner celebrating "the martyr," hung across the street in SulT, near the religious house where visitors were received. Banna's father, ManSoor Ahmed al-Banna, said when he got the phone call about his son's death, from a man with an Iraqi accent, he didn't believe it, as he thought his son, an attorney, was working in Saudi Arabia. He took the news, he said, with "great sadness and joy."

Iraqis are outraged, and are demanding action -- not only against Jordan, but against other Arab countries, too. My uncle said the demonstrators numbered over a thousand. From the pictures on television, last night, they appeared to be 100, maybe 200. A few of them were stomping on a fire on the ground. The television reporters didn’t say it was a Jordanian flag, but others told me it was -- it could only be that, or a picture of Jordan's king. There were chants of derision against King Abdullah, who's been outspoken in warning against Shi'a ascendance to power – not only in Iraq, but forming "a Shi'a crescent," from Iran, the Gulf, Iraq to Lebanon. The burning of the flag, if it occurred, must be a first – Arabs, openly and freely, burning an Arab country's flag. People are calling for the expulsion of the Jordanian ambassador and/or economic sanctions.

In December, Mithal Aloosi, head of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation, led a demonstration of 100 people outside, protesting that country's and Syria's support for terrorism in Iraq. The demonstration was held, either at the Iranian or Syrian embassy -- the information's on my computer, but.... When my computer's back up, I'll...detail.

The same day as the "wedding celebration," interim prime minister Ayad Allawi met with Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder. It was reported that they discussed forgiving the remaining 20 percent of Iraq's Saddam-era debt to Germany and other support for Iraq. The reports of the meeting said that its location was not disclosed. Yesterday, it was revealed that the Allawi-Schroeder meeting was in Jordan. One caller to a television program, last night, wondered if Allawi was there, to congratulate Banna.

In the Hurra reports on Banna's celebration, a Jordanian university professor spoke of Arabs' not understanding Iraqis' anger at them. A member of the Jordanian parliament, RooHi ShaHHaaltoogh, spoke of the "culture of heroism and jihad" prevalent among Arabs, and the appearance of the word "martyrdom" in the Qur'an 100 times, which religious leaders, he said, had to define, more clearly.

Iraqis, decrying the recruitment of terrorists in Jordan, spoke of wanting to see, from their "Arab brothers," "messages of peace and not messages of violence." Tariq Harb, a legal expert in Baghdad, said that the Iraqi government, and the victims of terrorism, could pursue those who assisted and contributed to the crimes, in court.

On al-Iraqiyya's "Special Encounter" last night, Allawi -- asked whether neighboring countries should apologize -- said that it wasn't a matter of an apology, but that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

Sudan's charge d'affaires in Baghdad, Meer Ghani Abkar, apologized to the Iraqi government and people, for the actions of Sudanese terrorists in Iraq. A number of Sudanese, along with Syrian, Saudi and Pakistani, nationals have been shown on television, over the past few weeks, confessing to terrorist acts in Iraq. The Sudanese apology, which came first in a press statement, and last night, by Abkar, on television, is believed to be the first of its kind – that is, from an Arab official, to other Arabs. Abkar said that the Sudanese terrorists don't represent the Sudanese people and government, which "disowns them and their vile deeds." He said that justice should be meted out to them, and that good relations between the countries and peoples should not be affected. The statement said there are 4000-4500 Sudanese accounted for in Iraq, and that they have been hurt by the images Iraqis hold of Sudanese. The statement also said there are 600 Iraqis in Sudan, being "treated well and with respect."

Meanwhile, in Iraq, across the religious and political spectrums, leaders have been condemning the most recent massacre, in which more than 30 people were killed in Mosul, when a suicide bomber walked into a wake at the Shaheedayn Masjid, a Shi'a mosque, followed by two mortar rounds, into the overflow tent. The wake was for a just-deceased college professor.

A few minutes ago, my cousin's husband came back to the office, and said there's another demonstration at the Jordanian embassy. He was trying to get home, but the street was closed off. He couldn't get close enough, to judge numbers, but said there were a lot of people. He saw the banners held aloft, as many were, yesterday. Yesterday, there was also a school bus, which protestors sat atop and shouted from, as it rode to and from the scene. Some speculated, that the demonstrators, yesterday, were from Hilla. Today's demonstration is, no doubt, getting in the way of a "reading" my aunt is holding, on the occasion of Husayn's martyrdom, in 680. She was expecting 60 people, but our road is, apparently, closed now, for the demonstration. I wanted to listen to the ladies' gathering, which is led by a mullaayeh, a professional reader. My aunt had suggested hiding me in the living room or dining room, away from the gaze of visitors, and, more importantly, the mullaayeh, who would be scandalized, by the presence of a man. I thought of sitting at the top of the stairs. Today, though, my aunt said, it was out of the question.

All in the family

From: Layth
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 00:27:42 +0300

I heard today that the young FARIS AL YAWER the brother of GHAZI and now Ambassador to the UAE is the most likely candidate to become Iraq new DEFENCE MINISTER.

The elder Yawer -- who's not really the elder (of the tribe) -- is said to be the leading candidate for "speaker of the house." He is, now, interim president of the republic, a postion that will probably be occupied by Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

White Arabism

Chibli Mallat
bitterlemons-international.org
March 3, 2005

In the past two years, the "Iraqi earthquake" (a phrase coined by Jihad Zein, a leading Lebanese columnist) occasioned by the collapse of the most dictatorial system in the Arab world is slowly confirming a new era in the region, where the forces of democracy are emerging as the dominant ideological appeal in each and every Arab country. With fits and starts the system! is shaking, within Iraq itself, then in Palestine, now in Lebanon and Egypt.

The stakes following Rafiq Hariri's assassination go far beyond Lebanon and Syria, where they are bound to change the political scene. As underlined in Lebanon by such diverse writers as Samir Kassir, a strong voice against the Syrian leadership, and Talal Salman, the respected editor of the pan-Arab daily al-Safir, and echoed in a column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, it is the whole Arab political system that is shaking to the core. The absence of a single Arab president or king at the funeral of a man whom every Arab leader knew personally is telling. While it may be superficially explained by the estrangement of Hariri from his nemesis, President Emile Lahoud, Arab leaders were mostly apprehensive about the question of their legitimacy: would they risk going down with the Lebanese government and president if they showed up, like French President Jacques Chirac, on the side of an angry family?

For the past 20 years, so-called Arab civil society has been slowly denting the status quo. Initially, questions were defensive and focused on human rights, while participants in human rights gatherings were incapable of mustering the courage needed to name those leaders responsible for all kinds of violations, even the more egregious ones like Saddam Hussein. In part this was understandable, and the level of repression meted out against dissidents was uniquely high: scores of dissenters were brutally assassinated, thrown in jail and tortured, while the usual "higher national interest" was put forward and was reinforced by the brutality of Israeli repression of Palestinian dissent and the inexorable shrinking of Palestinian land over half a century.

As time passed, however, the connection between brutality at home and the inability to stand up to anti-Israel rhetoric became increasingly apparent: from the condemnation of the Arab record in general, typified in the UNDP reports since 2002, particulars of repression were getting linked to people responsible at the helm in every single Arab country. Local Arab democrats are still hesitant to accuse the emirs and kings in the Gulf, but the taboos have fallen in the Levant and North Africa: Zein al-Abidin, Mubarak, Lahoud and Asad are being openly challenged to leave the presidency, and the perceived weakness of the hardliners in Israel, leading to the withdrawal from settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, will accelerate the trend of decoupling Arab domestic reform from the Israel "higher interest" fig leaf.

The Arab nationalism that has prevailed since the Nasser revolution is increasingly being dubbed "black Arabism" by those of us who do not want to abandon their yearning for closer integration between societies separated by arguably artificial colonial borders. Black Arabism, in this perception, is characteristically fascist, and is epitomized by the Baath systems in Iraq and Syria. Against it is put forward the need for "White Arabism", which harks back to such figures as Saad Zaghlul in Egypt, Kamel Chadirchi in Iraq, and Kamal Jumblatt in Lebanon. At the core of the message is democratic, non-violent change at the top in these countries, with Arabism read as a liberal call that unifies people irrespective of their religion or sect: in Egypt, Copts and Muslims; in Lebanon, the various communities that form the country; in Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunnis.

The example of Iraq, where Arabism is not capable of giving Kurds their due of equal citizenship, is particularly telling of the more advanced thought needed to accommodate every citizen, hence the surge of the concept of federalism as a further trait of White Arabism. Only federalism can allow forms of Arab identity to be preserved while Kurds are treated as equal both on the individual level and as a collective community.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of White Arabism will be a review of the Palestine-Israel crisis in the light of new parameters, guided mostly by visions of federalism and where human rights are no longer acting passively, but as an offshoot of democracy. While the establishment of a Palestinian state appears inevitable in the short to medium future, White Arabism may have far more to offer to both Jews and Arabs in Palestine-Israel.

Chibli Mallat is European Union Jean Monnet Law Professor in Beirut, and lawyer in Belgium for the victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Mallat is to speak at a conference on human rights at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University law school, next month.

Light…and lightning

I'm back. Because of three straight days of rain, phone lines are dead, and, so, I cannot "connect," from home. I wrote most of the following, Friday afternoon.

The electricity has been outstanding, the last couple of days. Yesterday, it was on for three hours, then off for three hours, and so on – all day. What's good about that, is the consistency, the predictability – the ability of people to know what's coming, and to be able to plan, which isn't often. That's what causes a problem – when people don't know what to expect. The electricity goes on for two hours, off for four – or, on for one, off for two – or vice versa. The problem is, it frequently changes, from day to day. Sometimes, too, it changes, within the same day. What sometimes occurs, too, is the electricity cuts off, in the middle of the hour – doesn't complete its full course – if there was, even, a full course. Sometimes, when it goes off, during the hour, it might come back, in a few minutes – people attribute this, to a technical or programming glitch -- in the system, or its operation -- that gets quickly repaired.

Even better, yesterday, when the electricity came on at nine, last night, it stayed on, till eight, this morning. So, I got to work, for some seven straight hours, till I just packed it in, before four a.m. Now, Friday afternoon, the electricity's been on, for two and a half hours, after going off for one (from two to three), after being on, from eight in the morning. Before that, it was on for 11 straight hours. When I saw my uncle, around noon, he said that it'd been a year since we had 12 straight hours, and, "In-shaa'-allah [God willing], it'll be on, till eight, tonight." My cousin's husband said, "The terrorists will be really ticked off now, that people are happy; they'll want to wreck that."

It's also been drizzling steadily for three days. My cousin who lives upstairs – their phone line goes dead, when the line's outside box is wet. I thought, maybe they could cover it, to keep it dry. Her husband doesn't know where it is, exactly. After the rain stops, it dries, in an hour or two. Today, though, after raining, almost nonstop, from yesterday evening, all three lines on the property are dead. Another cousin's wife just told me that it's the main box, in the street, that's probably wet. A little sun, she said, and it'll dry. She and her husband said that when repairmen come, to fix it, they leave the box open, and it soaks up water, whenever it rains. It's also impossible to get things repaired, they said. My cousin, brushing the forefingers of his right hand against each other, said, "You've gotta give 'em money."

In the middle of the night, too, satellite television reception was interrupted. There's been some rare thunder, and a few bolts of lightning, too – not the kind where you see the trails, on the horizon, but hazy, shadowy lights, way off, in the distance – maybe clouded over. The rain also got in the way of Friday lunch – the main "weekend" meal. The cousin who lives upstairs – her family was going to go to her in-laws', for a fish dinner. They were going to buy a fresh fish, in a nearby shop, and have the place grill it for them, against an open fire – "mazgoof," it's called. The name comes from "Mosgovi" -- from Moscow. Why, I haven't a clue. It's an Iraqi specialty, though. The fish – carp, is said to be the best -- is split in half, lengthwise, salted, and impaled into sticks in the ground, facing a wood fire. My cousin's husband just told me, that it's also done another way -- in some restaurants, in a "tannoor," a brick-and-clay oven usually used for baking wide flat bread – you can find 'em, in some Indian restaurants.

At four o'clock, exactly, we heard a big explosion, that shook the windows. I was sitting in the family room, with my uncle, who was asleep on the couch, and his wife. As soon as we heard the explosion, she gripped the chair, called out, "That was very close," said some words of beseechment to God, got up, yelling her daughter's name, and went back, towards the stairs, to check on the daughter and her family – they live upstairs. My uncle said they always strike, at "zero," or at the bottom of the hour. I asked, why. I don't think he said anything about that. Immediately after the explosion, a police siren went off. My uncle said it must have been one of the companies based on our street, that was targeted.

In less than 10 minutes, helicopters were circling overhead and racing past – here, they call these little helicopters, from which a person can look out, an open door, "flies." The male cousin on the property, came into our house, said "Land Cruisers" nearby were targeted by armed men. We thought, it might be the two contiguous houses nearby, to our left, rented by a Western company. A couple of days ago, as we neared home, on the other side of the median strip, guards stopped traffic, to let the company's three cars, enter their property's front gate. My uncle said, then, that even that – referring to the inconvenience – makes me happy, so long as we don't have Saddam.

After a few minutes passed, I went to the front gate, where the husband from upstairs, along with four of the cousins' boys, were already gathered. Everybody was gripped with excitement. One of the boys, in his early teens, ran towards me, "It's a red Daewoo; it had three masked men in it!" "Did you see them?" "No, but that's what people said." There were mixed reports, as to whether it was a drive-by shooting, with an RPG, or a roadside bomb, triggered from a waiting car. One thing, everybody agreed on, was that it was a three-car convoy – of Jims, they call them – SUVs, of some kind – hit on the side street, that little damage was done to the cars – pockmarks, scratches and two back tires blown from the lead car -- and that Americans were aboard. The father to three of the boys said it was a black car. He said that only American officials use those cars. The sirens, he or somebody else said, came from the convoy – that they pulled them out, as soon as they were hit.

There were, now, security men – Iraqi police, guards to the embassies and companies, and who-knows-what-else – scattered up and down the street. With all the activity, we expected the perpetrators to be caught. The shooting -- or bombing -- the others said, happened on the side street. The husband who lives upstairs, said as soon as he heard the explosion, he looked out the window, and saw the three-car convoy heading past our street, and the siren, emanating from the convoy. The front car, its two back tires disabled, was swiveling, he said.

After another 10 minutes, American humvees came by. I pumped my fist high, yelled at them, "Go, get 'em!" I'd been rooting on the helicopters, too – we all expected, that they were chasing the car with the perpetrators. The humvees stopped in front of our house – five of them. Out of the last, came two men. A short, stocky man came around, and stood to my left; he had the name-tag Martinez on his right chest, and something yellow in his year – I thought, to absorb noise. To my right, came a taller, thinner man, with soft features – I thought he might be a woman – I couldn't tell, behind his chinstrap and the helmet covering his hair. He said he was from Chico. He's been here for three or four months, would stay on, with his unit, for another three or four. I was surprised at the length of his stay – not a full year, or 15 months. He said the unit needed medics. I asked him if that's what he did, in Chico. He said, no. "So, you're a medic-in-training." He laughed. They asked me if I had any leads. I told them what I'd heard. They said that the Jims must have been Suburbans, and that not only American officials used those – lots used them. I told them my story – from Cleveland, left here, when I was nine. "So, why are you here?" "I'm visiting my cousins," I said, pointing back towards the houses, "plus, I'm a journalist – I'm gonna go, write this up, and send it." The Chico man laughed, "So, you can make a few bucks now." "I doubt it – I'm just gonna describe the scene – I've got a blog."

After the Americans pulled out, to settle, farther down the street, I asked the father of the three boys, how he knew the people in the convoy that was hit were Americans. He said, "They were dressed like them," pointing back towards the street and the soldiers outside.

Later, on the front porch, my uncle was sitting with four, sometimes five, of his grandchildren, telling them about World War II – the oldest, in his mid-teens, had a school assignment. My uncle said he told the boys about the family driver, Hajji Mehdi, who said to my uncle, when he was four or five (which would make it 1939 or 1940), with his wisp of hair hanging down over his forehead, that he looked like Hitler – the driver was a big fan. The boys were telling my uncle about the flooded streets they'd driven through. My uncle's son, I later learned, had dropped off his son, at a tutor's, half an hour before the explosion – "God protected," he and his wife said – that they hadn't driven past the scene, with their son, at the time of the hit.

Update: It's, now, Saturday night, past midnight. The electricity's still pretty good – fairly steady – although I haven't kept track. My main impediment – to sending anything – has been the phone lines. They're still down, in all three homes – make that four – on the property – in three separated houses -- two of the families, share a phone line, and they're in two detached houses. Moreover, today, Saturday, I wanted to go to an internet café, but the male cousin on the property was out, getting a cell phone for his mother, and he was threatened – in a subtle – well, I guess it's not too subtle a way – over an old business deal. He was told that they should agree – over some rental property, or the rent on a property – I don't know the details – and if they didn't, "Well, we don’t want anybody to get hurt." The person – a high-school classmate of my cousin, I think – mentioned my uncle, too – that he wanted to talk with him. So, that sort of put the kibosh, on any outing. At least, for today. The cousin's husband who lives upstairs – who has a money-change shop – they have a wireless connection, at work, and he's going to let me use their connection, after they close shop, tomorrow afternoon. So, that's when I'll send this.

As to my cousin, and the not-too-veiled threat, his father told him that, until all these former regime elements are rounded up, we – family members – will remain targeted – eyes will remain on us. He said he's going to settle it – probably, by splitting the difference (over the money) – in a week to 10 days. That is, if he's not able to persuade them to do the right thing, and take their complaint to court. In the meantime, he's been telling me – that is my uncle has – that, we should minimize our outings – to only the essential ones – more reason, he says, to get the wireless connection, at home. Finally, my uncle said, it's been his conviction, since the fall of the regime, that if any of us is ever followed, we should do what the person he knows whose brother was kidnapped, did when he, himself, was followed: told his driver to "hit the gas." He said, if it's your time to become a martyr, then it's your time. Better that, than to be disgraced and humiliated. I wanna talk with him about that – but this, was not the time. My cousin, when it came time to take his son somewhere, didn't do it – leaving it to his wife.

As to the phone lines...who knows. First, my uncle said, it could take a month, before they're up. He said, it's been a year, since they've had a interruption in phone service. Under Saddam, it could come and go, at anytime, and nobody bothered doing anything. This afternoon, on our way back from the barber's and, then, the gas station, we saw a crew of men, working in the ground, at a nearby corner -- my uncle said, "In-shaa-Allah, they'll fix it, in a couple of days."

The weather, since the three days of rain, has been gorgeous, again -- the sun has been in full bloom, the last two days, and temperatures, have been in the sixties.

A last update. The strike on the convoy, it appears, was a roadside bomb. I'm in the money-change shop, and the cousin's husband who works here, told me he passed by the spot, this morning, and saw a hole, one meter wide, at the right edge of the median strip.

Good thoughts, from Cleveland

Subj: hey babe
Date: 3/6/2005 7:13:23 AM Eastern Standard Time

been reading Instapundit.com (love it) with links on all the developments in Lebanon - especially the comment by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on gaining inspiration from the voting in Iraq. Made me think about you and hope you are doing well.... Drop a kwik line and let me know what's up.

M

Road-side bomb in Ramadi kills four soldiers

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

Mar 08, 2005

DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of four soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died on Mar. 4 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq when an improvised explosive device detonated near their patrol. The four soldiers were assigned to the 1st Infantry Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Carson, Colo.

The soldiers are:

Capt. Sean Grimes, 31, of Southfield, Mich.

Sgt. 1st Class Donald W. Eacho, 38, of Black Creek, Wis.

Cpl. Stephen M. McGowan, 26, of Newark, Del.

Spc. Wade Michael Twyman, 27, of Vista, Calif.

On Ayad Allawi's chances

Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:39 PM

Hello, Layth,

.... So, you still think Ayad has a chance, huh? Some people are pissed off at him, for holding up the process (of forming a government).

All right -- see you.

* * *

Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:16:41 +0300

Ayad : Its un-Iraqi to give up power, look at our history of the last 100 years!

* * *

Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 09:02:03 -0500

Yup -- good point. I'll tell you -- my uncle, is pissed at him. Thinks he's another Saddam, wants to run the country, for 20 years.

Ayad

Posted by: ayad / 1:44 AM