IRAN-VOICES STRUGGLING TO BE HEARD
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/31368.pdf
THE IRANIAN PEOPLE have a long and sophisticated tradition of expressing their views and their feelings, whether through art, literature, film, news media or the political process. Today the courageous voices of the Iranian people are being stifled as they call for their rights, beliefs and needs to be respected. In response, the non-elected elements of the Iranian Government hierarchy are rebuffing these calls and attempting to extinguish the voices. Recent experience shows an upswing in repression by the regime, but also a determined resilience by the Iranian people as they struggle to define their own future and exercise all their human rights. For every voice that is silenced, more call out for freedom.DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION NUMBER 11140Bureau of Democracy, Human Ritghts, and Laborwith the Bureau of Public AffairsApril 2004Cover: Picture of political prisoner's hand with the word "Freedom" written on it. AP Photo
45 Zahra's death was first deemed natural by Iranian officials, but international outrage, spurred in Canada by Zahra's son, Stephen, helped to bring about an official Iranian investigation into the incident.
The investigation clearly implicated the involvement of government
officials in the death of Kazemi. A junior official in the Ministry of Information has been arrested, but as of publication the trial had not begun. There remain widespread suspicions, voiced inside and outside Iran, that the arrest of this junior official could be part of a cover-up aimed at protecting higher-level government officials. Reporters Without Borders also has expressed concern about the slow pace of the impending trial and the prosecutors' lack of access to materials
concerning the case. "Unfortunately, Mrs. Zahra Kazemi's death was caused by the heedless disregard for Iranian law. When there are individuals or groups who consider themselves above the law, incidents such as this will occur. In the case that we will present, in addition to asking for the punishment of the murderer, in view of the public's knowledge of what happened, I will try to ensure that there will not be another Zahra Kazemi."- Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Attorney representing the Kazemi familyIran's Novel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, holds a pair of scales during her first press conference
in Tehran after having won the Nobel Peace Prize, October 15, 2003. EPA PhotoA VOICE EXTINGUISHED- Zahra Kazemi"They have broken my nose and my thumb...and they have broken my toes, too." - Zahra Kazemi, as reported in the Washington Post On June 23, 2003, outside the notorious
Evin Prison in Tehran, police took the Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi into custody under suspicion
of espionage. Some three weeks later she died in a Tehran hospital from head injuries suffered from a violent beating, most likely at the hands of her jailers. The circumstances of her death are unclear, but the story that unfolds is one that illustrates the grave human rights situation that exists in Iran today. Although Zahra Kazemi was never charged with a crime, she would spend 77 hours in a police interrogation that included serious physical abuse. According
to a subsequent Iranian investigation, Zahra began complaining of headaches and bleeding from the nose three days after her detention; she then fell into a coma and was transferred to a hospital where she eventually died. Almost two weeks after Zahra had first been detained, her mother,
Ezzet Kazemi, was summoned to Evin Prison and notified that her daughter had suffered a "brain stroke" and was now in a coma. After Zahra died from her injuries, it was agreed by Ezzet and Iranian officials
in the presence of the Canadian ambassador that Zahra's body be repatriated to Canada. But the body did not make it to Canada. Iranian officials pressured Ezzet to change her decision, and Zahra was eventually buried in Shiraz, Iran, thereby preventing an independent
autopsy.On Monday, August 25, 2003, Iran's criminal court finally admitted
that Kasemi's death was "intentional
murder" by two interrogators
from the intelligence service during her custody in the Evin prison in Tehran. EPA Photo
6 7
VOICES PERSECUTED- The Baha'i Faith The Constitution of Iran establishes Islam as the official religion, specifically that of the Ja'fari (Twelver) Shi'ism doctrine. While the Constitution also recognizes other Islamic denominations, as well as Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, followers of minority religions can be subject to harassment, intimidation and discrimination. The freedom to practice a religion not recognized by the Constitution is actively restricted by the Iranian Government, both in law and in practice. Members of unrecognized minority faiths are subject to varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education and housing. The Baha'is are not recognized as a legitimate religious minority in Iran and, in fact, Iran's Association for Press Freedom spokesman Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, IAPF head Mohsen Kadivar and Human Rights attorney Sayf Zadeh attend a protest gathering of Iranian journalists on August 8, 2003 at the office of IAPF in Tehran. EPA PhotoVOICES SUPPRESSED- Attacks on the Free PressThe independent media in Iran is under constant attack. According to Reporters Without Borders, at least ten journalists were in Iranian prisons at the end of 2003. There is a clear pattern of interference and harassment of the press by government officials with dozens of reporters, editors and publishers arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, harsh physical punishments, excessive fines and suspensions
of journalistic privileges. A number of cases illustrate the types of abuses prevalent in Iran today:v As many as 85 newspapers, including 41 dailies, have been closed since the passage of the 1995 Press Law that established a supervisory board and court that has authority to impose various penalties, including closure and suspension of operating privileges.v In December 2002, Ali-Reza Jabari, a translator and freelance contributor to several independent newspapers, was arrested in his Tehran office by plainclothes policemen and taken to his home for an immediate search of the residence. Jabari was sentenced
to three years in prison and 253 lashes. Before his arrest, Jabari was quoted in a Persian-language newspaper in Canada expressing critical opinions of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.v Taghi Rahmani, a journalist for Omid-e-Zangan, has been imprisoned since June 14, 2003, and has been subjected to extensive periods of time in solitary confinement. According to a Human Rights Watch report released in January 2004, Rahmani has yet to be charged with a crime.v Reza Alijani, editor in chief of Iran-e-Farda, was jailed in June 2003 but has not been charged with a crime. Much of his imprisonment has been spent incommunicado.v Hoda Saber, managing editor of Iran-e-Farda, was arrested in June 2003 but has also been held without charge since his arrest, much of it incommunicado.
8 9
the Baha'i community is periodic arrest and release with charges still pending, so that the Baha'is are subject to re-arrest at any time.v Reports suggest explicit government policies exist to harass and disenfranchise members of the Baha'i faith. One policy issued by the Iranian Ministry of Justice in 2001 directed government officials to restrict the educational opportunities of Baha'is by expelling them from public and private universities and purposely
enrolling members of the Baha'i faith in ideologically stringent schools.v In response to being denied admittance to both public and private universities, members of the Baha'i faith have organized their own educational system. However, the Iranian Government
has used harassment and intimidation to discourage its operation, including raids in 1998 of more than 500 Baha'i homes and offices affiliated with the Baha'i educational system. These raids included the arrest of numerous faculty and staff.v Through discrimination in the employment market and outright
seizure of private property, the economic well-being of the Baha'is is in serious peril.VOICES OF DEMOCRACY- The Political Struggle"Our dream country is one where human rights are respected, where people aren't sent to prison and tortured for their ideas, for their writing, for their work. That's our dream country."- Supporter of imprisoned student leader Amir Fakhravar, anonymously interviewed for a PBS Frontline report. The political situation in Iran is a story of two drastically different
worlds occupying the same reality. Throughout Iran there is now widespread alienation from the corrupt, oppressive policies of the government that have consistently failed to address the Iranian people's yearning for liberty and an accountable, democratic system of government that will pursue policies that improve their daily lives. were defined by the government as a political "sect" with suspicion of counterrevolutionary intentions. But according to a report published jointly by the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Baha'i International Community, the tenets of the Baha'i faith require its members to be obedient to their government and to avoid partisan politics, subversive activities and all forms of violence. Still this community
has been the target of systematic mistreatment by the Iranian Government since 1979 and is denied a majority of the basic human rights afforded others within the society, including other religious minorities.v According to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the U.S., more than 200 members of the Baha'i faith have been killed in Iran since 1979, with 15 additional missing and presumed
dead. As of this time, there are reportedly four Baha'is in prison for practicing their faith, with sentences ranging from four years to life in prison.v The government has continued to keep a small number of Baha'is arbitrarily imprisoned, some at risk of execution, at any given time. Another policy employed to harass and intimidate Farzad Khosein, expatriate violinist and composer and member of the Baha'i faith, left Iran with his family to avoid religious persecution. AP Photo
10 11
8,200 submissions for candidacy, including those of more than 80 reformists currently holding Majlis seats, effectively limiting
the democratic alternatives available to Iranian voters. Despite threats of an election boycott, resignations by some reformist officials and the urgent passage of a law barring undocumented
disqualifications,
the Guardian Council only reinstated
a fraction of the disqualified candidates. Conservative candidates did not face a reformist opponent for 132 of 290 seats. The decision of the Guardian Council to silence reformist voices in Parliament was accompanied by the culmination of a four-year campaign against the reformist press. On the eve of the elections, Chief Prosecutor Mortazavi
added the last two reformist newspapers to a list of dozens that his "Press Court" had ordered closed since 2000. In addition, the hard-line judiciary sealed an office belonging to a leading reformist party on the night before the election. In today's Iran, the political aspirations of the public for a greater role in charting the direction of their society are only tolerated when they coincide with the wishes of entrenched conservative interests."Through these massive disqualifications, they (hard-liners) want only their own thinking to control the next parliament. This will be no more an election, but an appointment of the next parliament
by hard-liners."- Mohsen Mirdamadi, Member of Parliament Ebrahim Yazdi, head of Iran's Liberal Freedom Movement, addresses a reformist meeting January 12, 2004. He was one of more than 2,000 candidates nationwide eliminated by Iranian hardliners from running in parliamentary elections February 20. EPA PhotoIn June 1997 and again in 2001, a decisive election victory ushered President Mohammed Khatami into office under the auspices of a reformist agenda. The realization of this reform movement has been actively stifled by hard-line elements within the government, most specifically by the non-elected Guardian Council, a board of clerical leaders and legal scholars. Reformist and dissident voices within the government and society have been repressed and harassed by government
and quasi-government factions under the influence of the hard-line clerics. The Guardian Council has the ability to review and block legislation passed by the Majlis, or parliament. In August 2002, the Guardian Council vetoed two bills passed by the Majlis seeking to enhance the powers of President Khatami. Various paramilitary forces, such as the so-called Basijis, gangs of men known as the Ansar-
e Hezbollah (Helpers of the Party of God), and most recently a "morality force" formed in July 2002, have been employed as tools of repression within Iranian society. These vigilante groups use intimidation,
threats and physical abuse to quell dissent and harass journalists, demonstrators and members of the public who voice opinions that are seen as threatening to the power of the religious elite. Eventually, the reformist movement's inability to realize its agenda contributed to the erosion of the Iranian people's confidence in the government institutions.On February 20, 2004, elections were held for the 290-seat Parliament
in Iran. In a move to diminish pro-reformist re-election chances,
the Guardian Council disqualified approximately one-third of the Wives of dissident reformists protesting against the closed trial of 15 prominent political dissidents outside the court building in Tehran, January 2002. AP Photo/ Hasan Sarbakhshian
12 13
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi praised Iran's new child custody law and termed it a great victory for women after more than two decades of resistance. AP Photoof dissident opinions and democracy promotion. She has courageously
fought for equitable and just treatment for women in Iranian society, and she has also helped to organize efforts to publicize and alleviate the harsh conditions of "street children" in Iran."Any person who pursues human rights in Iran must live with fear from birth to death, but I have learned to overcome my fear." - Shirin Ebadi Ebadi has shown a noble and inspiring disregard for her own well-being by representing individuals or the families of people who have suffered from violence and repression in Iran. In 2000, she was arrested and accused of distributing a videotape that implicated prominent hard-line leaders of instigating attacks against advocates of reform. She received a suspended sentence and a professional ban. She was then detained after attending a conference in Berlin on the Iranian reform movement.Ebadi provided legal representation for highly politicized and sensitive
cases, like the case of Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad, one of the students killed during the 1999 Tehran University
protests by vigilante groups operating under the influence of hard-line clerics. She also served as the attorney for the family of Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, prominent political activists who were stabbed to death in 1998 by "rogue" elements within the Intelligence Ministry. Shirin Ebadi's designation as the recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize recognizes the struggle of Iranian citizens to have a voice in determining their own future."In Iran, the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy." - U.S. President George W. BushNovember 6, 2003A VOICE OF HOPE- Shirin Ebadi"Shirin Ebadi has been a courageous human rights advocate in Iran for many years, and we couldn't be more excited that she has received this extraordinary honor. The Nobel Committee has sent a powerful message to the Iranian Government that serious human
rights violations must end. We hope they hear that message."- Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch"As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran and far beyond." - The Norwegian Nobel Committee Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003 for her life-long campaign to protect vulnerable and persecuted groups within Iranian society. Since being forced from her position as the president of the city court of Tehran, she has used her legal expertise to promote and protect some of the most basic and necessary human
rights. Most specifically, she has provided legal representation to many activists who are the targets of government harassment because
14
The intersections of Tehran were jammed with cars honking their
horns in support of the demonstrations. Iranian Government offi cials
reported approximately 4,000 protestors arrested and demonstrations
planned for the following month were banned. No reliable sources
were available on the number of injured, but there were numerous
reports of violent clashes between students and paramilitary groups in
the streets of Tehran.
Youth represents the future of Iran. Yet the regime's vision of the
future clashes with the dreams of young Iranians, who have the most
to gain or lose. Their continued support for reform through whatever
peaceful means available sends a clear message. They will make their
voices heard.
A family on a moped hold up the Iranian fl ag as tens of thousands of people
gather during a rally outside Tehran University, July 1999. AP Photo
"The United States supports the Iranian people's
aspirations to live in freedom, enjoy their God-
given rights, and determine their own destiny."
U.S. President George W. Bush
February 24, 2004
VOICES OF THE FUTURE- The Aspirations of Youth
"We want more freedom... For 25 years we have lived without
any freedom. We want social freedom, economic freedom and
political freedom."
- Mahmoud, protestor quoted in New York Times
Throughout modern history, young people have played a promi-
nent role in the call for democracy. Iran is no different. Students have
mobilized to demand greater freedoms and to support reform ef-
forts by the Khatami Government, the Majlis and individuals willing
to speak the truth. A free media, a fair electoral system and public
debate typically serve as the outlets to express the desires and disap-
pointments of the civic minded. These outlets have been systemati-
cally shut, leaving large student demonstrations in the streets as the
only way to voice frustration and anger in Iran.
In June 2003, a large protest began in Tehran involving university
students in response to a rumor alleging the possible privatization
of the university system and the introduction of a tuition system.
The protests grew as nightly gatherings spread off campus and the
tone of the protests became more political as the students and sym-
pathetic neighbors began to use the public gathering as a forum to
decry the current political situation and demand democratic reforms. An Iranian student chants
slogans at a gathering mark-
ing the annual Student
Day at Tehran University,
December 7, 2003. About
1,500 pro-reform students
rallied, saying freedom was
the biggest demand of Irani-
ans 25 years after the Islamic
revolution that had promised
it. AP Photo
16
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What About Iran?

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, April 11, 2004; Page B07


Americans can be forgiven for asking of Iraqi Shiites the famous and ill-advised question Sigmund Freud asked about women: What do they want? A year ago this weekend Shiite crowds cheered as U.S. troops drove into Baghdad and toppled statues of Saddam Hussein. This springtime, Shiite gangs in southern Iraq are shooting at their liberators.



That is only part of what would intrigue Dr. Freud. The Shiites are just as justified in asking his question of the Bush administration, which has shown a psychological unwillingness to accept two major policy corollaries of its swift military victory in Baghdad.

The defeat of the Baathists changed much in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. But Washington has not used that victory and the year that has passed to seek a change in relations with -- or regional strategy toward -- Iran. The administration has chosen not to choose when it comes to the nation that is Iraq's most important and most dangerous neighbor, a major supporter of international terrorism and the only country ruled by a Shiite majority.

Change on Iran should have been the first clear policy corollary of regime change in Iraq. But there was either no point or no way to accommodate Tehran's large stakes in post-Saddam Iraq, U.S. policymakers concluded. Neither was it possible to prevent Iran's ruling Shiite clerics from influencing events and attitudes in the large Shiite population centers in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

Instead the administration left U.S. policy on Iran in a steadily deepening limbo: Once a member of the "axis of evil," Iran became the embarrassing, unaddressed missing link in the Bush administration's bold ambitions to transform Iraq and to becalm the world's most volatile and treacherous region. Iran slipped into the "too hard" file.

That is understandable, if unforgivable. No one has a sure-fire policy for dealing with the theocratic state founded on the ruins of the Persian empire. France, Germany and Britain have proved this in trying to talk the ayatollahs out of developing nuclear weapons. Despite clear and repeated Iranian lying to them, the Europeans persevere.

"In the end, we may wind up only slowing them down -- hopefully significantly -- in what they intended to do all along," a European participant in this effort told me recently. "But given the lack of any other workable option, this is worth doing."

U.S.-Iranian discussions on cooperating (or at least on not crossing wires) in Iraq would have been difficult to arrange and carry out. It would not have been as simple as the indirect but useful dialogue American diplomats had with the Iranians on post-Taliban Afghanistan, where Iranian interests and opportunities are substantially less than in Iraq.

But any serious effort in that direction was smothered in its crib by familiar hardliner vs. softliner debates within the administration -- and the less-remarked-on but equally crucial absence of a clear U.S. diplomatic strategy for consolidating and converting American battlefield prowess into sustainable political gains abroad. It is difficult to fit Iran into a strategy if there is no strategy to begin with.

Instead, policy has consisted of occasional growls from senior Pentagon officials warning Iran (and its quasi-surrogate Syria) to halt infiltration into Iraq, followed quickly by public assurances from the State Department that the growls do not represent threats of military action. Even Freud could not explain the Rumsfeldian-Powellian Syndrome that afflicts Bush foreign policy.

The effects of indecision on Iran could have been minimized if the administration had embraced the second corollary of changing regimes and establishing a parliamentary democracy in Iraq: Representatives of the Shiite majority had to become the most important consistent political partners for the United States in the first phases of constructing a new Iraq.

But the Coalition Provisional Authority leadership in Baghdad -- which was deeply suspicious of Tehran -- failed to convince Iraq's Shiites that their bottomless insecurities (stirred greatly by the betrayal of their 1991 anti-Saddam uprising by the first Bush administration) and political aspirations were understood in Washington. This left room for the bloody rabble rousing of Moqtada Sadr and the self-protective mysticism of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to cast doubts on American intentions and commitment.

Washington and the CPA have been running behind the growing radicalization of Iraq's Shiites over the past three months. Iran's ayatollahs and their agents may well have played a role in that deterioration and the current upheaval. It is impossible to know at this point.

One thing is clear: Washington did not enunciate or pursue an Iran policy that would have prevented Tehran from doing its worst or would have encouraged it to do its best. That is the price of limbo.

jimhoagland@washpost.com


? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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IRAN, HEZBOLLAH AID CRAZED CLERIC

By NILES LATHEM and URI DAN
April 11, 2004 -- EXCLUSIVE
Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah are secretly providing outlawed Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr with money, training and logistical support for his violent campaign against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, The Post has learned.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials said last night there is evidence that Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the security services loyal to Iran's hard-line religious leader Ayatollah al Khameini, have funneled as much as $80 million into Shiite charities established by al-Sadr's influential family that have been diverted to fund his fanatic al-Mahdi militia.
Intelligence sources also said operatives from the Lebanese Hezbollah, a Shiite terror group created by Iran, have trained 800 to 1,200 al-Mahdi fighters in guerrilla warfare and terrorist techniques at three camps in Iran near the Iraq border.
Al-Sadr's group is also believed to have been recently provided with 800 satellite phones and new radio broadcasting equipment by diplomats at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, sources told The Post.
Al-Sadr's fanatics, drawn from poor Shiite urban slums in Iraq, have been battling U.S. forces throughout the week and took control of the cities of Kufa, Kut and most of Najaf.
Bush administration officials said the strength of al-Sadr's rag-tag al-Mahdi militia took U.S. military commanders by surprise and that intelligence detailing active support from Iran and Hezbollah for his violent uprising has been a simmering issue within the administration.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview with WNIS-AM Tuesday that al-Sadr "is reputed to have connections with Iran."
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Iraq: What Will Be Iran's Role In The Future?
By Golnaz Esfandiari





Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran has frequently stressed its desire for good ties with Iraq. Iran was one of the first countries in the region last year to recognize the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. But not everyone fully believes Tehran's public pronouncements. The United States, for one, has accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's internal affairs. What are Iran's intentions in Iraq and what role will the country play in Iraq's future?


Prague, 8 April 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Iran did not mourn the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 at the hands of a U.S.-led military offensive. Iran is the only country against which Iraq has used chemical weapons.

Iraq's invasion of Iran in the 1980s sparked a near decade-long war that cost millions of lives.

Since the fall of Saddam a year ago, the Iranian government has frequently expressed its readiness to participate in rebuilding Iraq. But U.S. officials repeatedly accuse Iran of interfering in Iraq's affairs.

Speaking yesterday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "We know the Iranians have been meddling [in Iraq] and it is unhelpful to have neighboring countries meddling in the affairs of Iraq, and I think the Iraqi people are not going to want to be dominated by a neighboring country, any neighboring country. No country wants to be dominated by its neighbors."

Analysts have widely differing views on Iran's intentions in Iraq.

Davoud Hermidas Bavand is a professor of international law in Tehran. Bavand sees Iran's influence as largely positive.

"Iran's intention is developing a neighborly relationship with Iraq in different areas in economic and commercial term as well as in political context," Bavand said.

Bavand added that the two countries should settle several open issues relating to the war, such as compensation and border issues.

Michael Rubin, a resident fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, a Washington policy institute, recently returned from eight months in Iraq. He sees things differently.

"I believe the Iranians have bad intentions with regard to Iraq," Rubin said. "Of course, Iran wanted to see Saddam Hussein gone, but they don't want to see a stable democratic country on their border all the more so because if the clerics in Iraq have freedom of speech then [they] can challenge the religious legitimacy not just the political legitimacy of the Iranian hierarchy."

Other observers say Iran does not have a consistent policy toward Iraq. Various groups are said to have different agendas, while the government has pursued closer ties in some specific policy areas.

Alireza Nourizadeh is a London-based journalist and the director of the Center for Arab-Iranian Studies (CAIS). Nourizadeh said, indeed, different factions in Iran have different aims.

"We have to consider the different factions with their own agendas in Iraq -- for instance the so-called conservatives. They do not want to see a secular state in Iraq. The reformers, of course, want the Iraqi experience to end with success because they believe that if there is a democratic government in Iraq at the end of the day it's going to help their status in Iran and it's going to help them to have more influence in the power struggle," Nourizadeh said.

Some observers say Iran is playing a double game in Iraq, being helpful in some areas while causing problems in others. Bavand, however, said ultimately a stable and peaceful Iraq is in Iran's interest.

"That's possible, but I do not think it's the general policy of the government as a whole. There is no doubt in Iran there are different factions which assume different positions regarding Afghanistan and possibly in Iraq, but if we take into consideration the general position or a strategy of a country, I do believe Iran has no choice but to adapt a positive view toward the socio-political situation in Iraq and work out for the better relationship with the future government of Iraq," Bavand said.

The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority -- which heads Iraq's interim government -- appears wary of expanding religious ties between Iraq and Iran. Iran is a Shi'a Muslim state -- the same sect of Islam shared by around 60 percent of Iraq's population. The next government in Baghdad will most probably be controlled by Shi'as.

Added to that, the U.S. is now struggling to contain a deadly Shi'a insurgency in parts of the capital Baghdad, as well as in the south and east of the country.

Some reports have gone so far as to accuse Iran of actively supporting the leader of the insurgency, Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr is a follower of Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, a conservative cleric based in Iranian religious center of Qom. Al-Sadr visited Iran in June and was received by Iran's influential former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The belief that al-Sadr is supported by Iran is shared by many people within and outside of Iraq -- but so far no hard evidence about such support has been made public.

Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute said that, in his personal opinion, Sadr receives more than spiritual support from Iran.

"On 5 April, when the problems broke out with regard to Muqtada al-Sadr and the coalition forces in Iraq, it was Ayatollah al-Haeri who issued threats to the American presence in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr doesn't have a lot of grassroots support. He's got some supporters, but I just came back from eight months in Iraq. I watched as Muqtada al-Sadr chartered buses, gave [people] hot meals and such. That takes money, as does Muqtada al-Sadr's radio station and such like this, and they're getting that money through Iran."

The Iranian government has been careful in its comments on the insurgency. While keeping its distance from al-Sadr, Iran expressed strong "regret" [5 April] over the deaths and injuries caused by clashes between al-Sadr's militants and coalition forces.

Some observers point out that Iran has closer ties with one of al-Sadr's rivals, Abdul al-Aziz al-Hakim, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

One clear area of mutual benefit is in economic and commercial relations. In recent months, Iraqi dignitaries have made several officials visits to Tehran. Both sides have talked about future plans such as the building of a cross-border oil pipeline.

Nourizadeh said better economic ties are strongly in Iran's interest.

"I think if the Iranians pursue a policy of supporting the new government, if they stop intervening in Iraq's internal affairs, then I'm sure we're going to have very good relations and then Iranians can use their influence in order to bring stability to Iraq and prosperity to Iraq's people and they can participate in rebuilding Iraq," Nourizadeh said.
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http://www.rferl.org/reports/iraq-report/default.asp#sadr
AL-SADR A LONGSTANDING THREAT TO COALITION, IRAQI STABILITY. Power-hungry cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's actions over the past year have been nothing short of schizophrenic, for lack of a better term. After being linked to the assassination of Ayatollah al-Khoi, which some media characterized as a "power struggle" and alternatively, as the "settling of an old score" between the two men, al-Sadr established his Imam Al-Mahdi Army in July to "maintain peace and security in Iraq and protect the leaders and religious authorities [at the Hawzah Al-Ilmiyah Shi'ite seminary] in Al-Najaf and elsewhere."

Al-Sadr frequently referred to himself as an "enemy" of the U.S. but maintained for several months that his army would not resist the U.S. presence in Iraq, contending, "It is only to maintain security." He claimed that the army would not be armed, and would not be funded, but later statements by him and his followers contended that Iraqis would donate money to the army, and will bring their own guns. As recently as one month ago, Shaykh Hasan al-Zarkani, the chief of al-Sadr's Information Office and an aide to the cleric claimed in a statement to London's "Al-Hayat" that the Al-Mahdi Army was not an armed militia, the daily reported on 11 March. "We are an ideological army, not armed militias," he said. "All we have are no more than small guns that do not constitute an army. We have no financial resources, manpower, training camps, or any facilities to build an army."

Last October, al-Sadr declared that he had established an Islamic state in Iraq. He claimed to have established ministries of Awqaf (religious endowments), culture, finance, foreign affairs, information, interior, justice, and the "ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice," Al-Jazeera reported on 11 October. His followers subsequently took over two buildings in Al-Najaf for al-Sadr's Interior Ministry and Foreign Ministry. Three days later, he told reporters that his government had found "credibility and support" abroad.

A self-described enemy of the United States, the cleric appeared to appeal for better relations between his group and the U.S. in November, when he called on the coalition to "allow me to attend your meetings, seminars, camps, and churches. I am looking forward to this, and I have amicable feelings toward you. The Iraqis only want good for the Americans. Iraq's only enemy is destructive Saddam and his followers," (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 7 November 2003).

More recently, al-Sadr has rejected any role for the United Nations in Iraq. He contended during a Friday-prayer sermon on 23 January that the United Nations is no more qualified than Iraqi religious authorities when it comes to running elections in Iraq, Al-Manar television reported the same day, and called on the religious establishment to oversee national elections there. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

SHI'ITE LEADERS DIVIDED OVER RECENT VIOLENCE. Iraqi Shi'ite leaders have taken a variety of positions in recent days over the evolving confrontation between al-Sadr supporters and coalition forces. Sadr al-Din al-Qabbanji, an official of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said on 5 April that the religious authorities, the Al-Hawzah Shi'ite seminary, and the Iraqi Governing Council reject a confrontation with the occupation forces. "SCIRI's official stand is that it does not approve of the escalation against the occupation troops. At the same time, SCIRI condemns the occupation troops' provocative actions," al-Qabbanji said.

Iraqi Governing Council member and Iraqi National Accord head Iyad Allawi said on 6 April that al-Sadr's actions were harming the country. "There is a radical force trying to harm the country, and this force has become known to all, it includes Muqtada al-Sadr and the group around him," KUNA quoted Allawi as saying. "We call on Muqtada to remain calm to avoid bloodshed, given that he belongs to an honorable family which offered martyrs," Allawi said, in a reference to al-Sadr's father Iraqi Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and Muqtada's two brothers who were allegedly murdered in 1999 at the hands of the Hussein regime. Allawi told Al-Arabiyah television one day earlier that the Governing Council had discussed Iraq unrest at length and reached decisions that would "greatly mitigate" the current tension in Iraq. He did not say what those decisions were however.

Meanwhile, Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi issued a statement on his website (http://www.almodarresi.com) on 4 April blaming the coalition for the surge in violence. "We have repeatedly warned the occupation troops against delaying the elections and against the attempts to impose ready-made laws on Iraq," he said. Muhammad al-Musawi of the Islamic Action Organization in Al-Najaf told Al-Jazeera on 4 April that his group demanded that al-Sadr not be harmed and that all coalition forces withdraw from Al-Najaf. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

TERRORIST LINKED TO AL-QAEDA PURPORTEDLY THREATENS COALITION FORCES. Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist linked to Al-Qaeda who is suspected of carrying out attacks against coalition forces in Iraq, on 5 April vowed more attacks on coalition targets, AFP reported on 6 April.

An unnamed expert reportedly told AFP that the voice on the audiotape is identical to the voice on three previous recordings attributed to al-Zarqawi. The recording appeared on an Islamist website (http://www.hostnow.biz/iraq4u/realahl.rm) and al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the 17 March bombing of the Mount Lebanon hotel in Baghdad (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 19 March 2004).

Al-Zarqawi criticized Iraqi Shi'a Muslims in the audiotape, calling them the "Trojan horse used by the enemies of the nation" to take over the country, AFP reported. He also criticized Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's recent call for calm in Iraq, saying al-Sistani is the "imam of atheism." "The Shi'ite are the allies of the Jews and Americans. They are helping kill Muslims," he said. The United States has not confirmed whether the voice on the audiotape is al-Zarqawi's. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

CPA HEAD NAMES DEFENSE MINISTER, INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR. CPA head Bremer on 4 April announced the appointment of a new Iraqi defense minister and director of intelligence in a press conference broadcast live from Baghdad on Arab and international television stations. Iraqi Trade Minister Ali Abd al-Amir Allawi will now serve as defense minister, while Major General Muhammad al-Shahwani will serve as director of intelligence. Bremer also announced the establishment of the Defense Ministry, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, and the Ministerial Committee for National Security.

Iraqi Governing Council President for the month of April Mas'ud Barzani also addressed the media, saying that the new Defense Ministry differs from the Saddam Hussein-era one in that its only task is to defend the country. Meanwhile, washingtonpost.com reported on 3 April that U.S. Major General David Petraeus who led the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq until the division returned to the United States last month, will now oversee the organization and training of all Iraqi military and security forces as head of the Office of Military Cooperation.

New Iraqi Defense Minister Allawi told the same press conference on 4 April that the civil administration of the military establishment will help build democratic institutions in Iraq. He vowed to uphold the rule of law and the constitution in Iraq. "The Iraqi Army will not be a means to threaten or blackmail neighboring countries," he added. Meanwhile, Director of Intelligence al-Shahwani said that his service, unlike the Hussein regime's security apparatus, will not have the power to arrest citizens. Al-Shahwani said he personally suffered at the hands of Hussein's intelligence service, which he said chased him for 19 years and tried to kill him 12 times. He also said that the Hussein regime was responsible for executing his three sons. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

IRAQIS CONTINUE PREPARATIONS FOR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL. Salem Chalabi, the coordinator of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal established in December to try former members of the Hussein regime, told nytimes.com about the March trip by 10 Iraqi judges and prosecutors to The Hague (see "RFE/RL Iraq Report," 26 March 2004), the website reported on 7 April. Chalabi said that the Iraqi delegation discussed issues including security for staff and witnesses, modern court equipment, the handling of evidence, and an effective defense for those on trial, the website reported.

Court officials interviewed by nytimes.com said that the Iraqi delegation was cautioned on the experiences of Hague tribunals, such as the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is defending himself in the proceedings. The website reports that Milosevic regularly holds the floor for long periods of time during his cross-examination of witnesses, and frequently makes statements encouraging nationalist Serbs while speaking. Chalabi said that Iraqi law, however, prohibits any non-lawyer from defending themselves in court. Hussein is not a lawyer.

Chalabi said that U.S. advisers have suggested that the Iraqi tribunal follow the model of the Sierra Leone court rather than The Hague, which the U.S. does not support. In Sierra Leone, only 15 to 20 defendants were marked for trial. "The U.S. government was suggesting trying the top 20 cases, and Iraqis are talking of hundreds, even thousands, Chalabi said. "I rather think it will be closer to 200 people, a good portion of which can be dealt with through plea-bargaining," he added. He characterized the visit as useful, telling nytimes.com that the visit to the Yugoslav tribunal showed Iraqi judges that much work remains to be done in their preparations to try former regime members. "Seeing the software and the monitors recording testimony in the courtrooms was an extremely powerful message for our judges," he said.

Iraqi judges have already received some support from the U.S. in recent weeks however. A team from the U.S. Justice Department is already in Iraq, and Reuters reported on 6 April that the Bush administration said in a report to Congress on the same day that it would dispatch a special "war crimes" adviser to Iraqi soon. The report added that the administration has begun planning for the tribunal by establishing an evidence storage facility at a former Iraqi army base. Five deputy U.S. marshals have also been sent to Baghdad to help launch investigations into the crimes of former regime members. The administration also plans to develop a computerized system to store and track documents, and will train Iraqi judges and investigators, Reuters reported. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

DIRECTOR OF DE-BA'ATHIFICATION COMMISSION DISCUSSES ITS WORK. Mithal al-Alusi, the director of the Iraqi De-Ba'athification Commission, told the website Ilaf (http://www.elaph.com) in an interview posted on 25 March that the commission is examining the requests of a number of former Ba'ath Party members to be reinstated in their former government positions. Al-Alusi said that some 60,000 Ba'athists were affected by the coalition's de-Ba'athification project.

The director said that the commission, headed by Iraqi National Congress chief and Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, is made up of 10 Iraqi political parties. The commission is divided into six departments: the legal department, the information department, the educational and cultural department, the secretariat, the financial control department, and the follow-up department. The information department has control of around 1 million files related to Ba'ath Party membership. The documents are used to determine the identity of individuals that occupied the four highest echelons in the party. The Coalition Provisional Authority banned anyone in those positions from holding a job in the new Iraqi government, unless that person received a special dispensation.

Meanwhile, the financial control department is tracking Iraqi funds seized by the former regime and Ba'ath Party members, he said. The educational and cultural department is addressing the "cultural and educational heritage and the harmful deformation of the educational process" in Iraqi curricula. The department is also reportedly researching and studying the heritage of the Ba'ath Party, al-Alusi said.

The legal department's Appeals Section examines appeals submitted by former Ba'athists at or below the "Group Leadership" level who were dismissed from their jobs with pension. "This examination will take into consideration the special humanitarian case [of the appellant], as well as the needs of ministries for some qualified people," he said. Iraqis submitting appeals that held positions in the "Section Leadership" of the Ba'ath Party or higher [i.e. "Branch Leadership" and "Country Leadership"] would not be considered, he added.

Asked about the dismissed individuals, al-Alusi said: "the members on the level of Group Leadership and above...number around 60,000 individuals. Before the commission began its administrative and executive work, around 30,000 people had been dismissed. The commission is now in the process of examining the remaining number...80 percent of this number of people have the right to appeal. This means that we are eventually talking about a small number of those people who are being dismissed completely from sensitive posts in the administrative body of the state." "The new state is in dire need of new blood...it is also in dire need of patriotic professional Iraqis...to lead the administrative body," al-Alusi said. (Kathleen Ridolfo)


REGIONAL NEWS
JORDANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER WARNS IRAQ COULD ERUPT INTO CIVIL WAR. Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said on 7 April that Iraq could be heading toward a civil war, dpa reported. "The situation is very dangerous and the political process there appears to be sliding towards a civil war," Muasher said in Amman. "The dismantling of the [former] Iraqi army and the civil administration has given rise to a security vacuum and we are now witnessing the results," he added. Muasher said that Jordan has tried to caution the United States on the subtleties of Iraqi public opinion. "We have always told the Americans that the Shi'ites' silence does not mean that they are satisfied. It is because they are awaiting the elections to seize power," he said. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

TEHRAN DISCOURAGES TRAVEL TO IRAQ. The Iranian Interior Ministry issued a statement on 6 April urging Iranians not to visit Iraq in light of the current unrest there, IRNA reported. An Iranian pilgrim from Bushehr was shot in Al-Kufah on 4 April, and two other Iranians were wounded. On 6 April in Karbala, meanwhile, Hussein Akbari, the head of the local Iranian Hajj and Pilgrimage Office, announced that office's reopening, IRNA reported. The office was closed after bombings in early March. Explaining his office's function, Akbari said, "All Iranian pilgrimage agencies wishing to sign contracts with Iraqi hotels and transportation companies must organize their activities under the supervision of this office." He said his office will help Iranian pilgrims with any problems they might have in Iraq. "We control the fares that the pilgrims are charged, the quality of services rendered to them and their room and boarding, their food quality, and the other affairs they encounter during their pilgrimage," Akbari added. The office is located at the Baqer Hotel in Karbala. (Bill Samii)

PURPORTED FORMER IRANIAN INTELLIGENCE AGENT SAYS IRAN ENTRENCHED IN IRAQ. A purported former Iranian intelligence officer told London's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" in an interview published on 3 April that Iran has established a strong security presence in Iraq in all areas from the north to south.

The officer, identified as "Hajj Sayidi," said that Iranian agents entered Iraq through the northern protected Kurdish areas in their hundreds. Iran later took advantage of Iraq's postwar porous borders by sending its best agents disguised as students and clerics, while others apparently traveled with Iraqi Shi'ite militiamen. He further claimed that the Quds [Jerusalem] Corps of the Iranian regime was responsible for the August assassination of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Sayidi added that Iranian agents planned on assassinating Iraqi religious leaders Ali al-Sistani and Muhammad Ishaq Fayadh.

Moreover, Sayidi claimed that Iranian intelligence agents have established 18 offices purporting to be charitable foundations in Baghdad, Al-Basrah, Karbala, Al-Kufah, Al-Najaf, and Al-Nasiriyah. The offices recruit spies as they distribute money and aid. He added that the Iranian intelligence apparatus has an extensive plan to turn Iraq into a second Iran. Part of the plan entails recruiting thousands of Shi'ite youths who would mobilize their relatives and acquaintances to vote for the candidates selected by Iranian intelligence. Sayidi claimed that the monthly allocation for Iranian public and secret security offices in Iraq totals more than $70 million. (Kathleen Ridolfo)


THE UN AND IRAQ
UN ADVISER ARRIVES IN IRAQ. United Nations special adviser Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Iraq on 4 April at the invitation of the Iraqi Governing Council to help plan for the 30 June transfer of power and national elections, expected by the end of the year, the UN News Center (http://www.un.org/news) reported on 4 April. Brahimi met with a number of Iraqi Governing Council members and NGO leaders in his first three days of meetings.

Brahimi hopes to gauge the opinions of all sectors of society on the question of the transition, the form of a transitional administration, how to proceed, and what kind of body should be formed to receive power on 1 July," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said according to the UN News Center on 7 April. Fawzi added that there is consensus on the 30 June date for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis. "What we don't know yet is what body would be acceptable to Iraqis and how it should be selected," he noted.

Shaykh Abd al-Mahdi al-Karbala'i, a representative of Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said on 4 April that the religious authority in Al-Najaf would not take part in any meetings or consultations with the UN team "unless there is a UN Security Council resolution that would not give legitimacy to [the interim constitution] and would leave the matter for the Iraqi people, through their representatives in the [future] national assembly, to choose the mechanism to endorse the permanent constitution and valid laws in the country." According to "The Washington Post" on 4 April, the United States is relying on Brahimi to help design and, perhaps more importantly, legitimize a plan that would facilitate a smooth transfer of power in Iraq. (Kathleen Ridolfo)


EUROPE, THE U.S., AND IRAQ
SPAIN THREATENED BY AL-QAEDA. The Spanish newspaper ABC reported on 5 April that purported Al-Qaeda terrorists in Europe sent a communique to the newspaper on that day threatening to "declare war" on Spain if it does not withdraw its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, AFP reported on 5 April. The letter warned that Spain would face "hellish consequences if its troops were not withdrawn. "We are announcing the canceling of the truce with effect from midday Sunday 4 April," the communique said. It cautioned that Spain should stop helping "enemies of the Muslim community -- the United States and its allies," adding, "this is our last warning." The letter was reportedly signed by Abu Dujana al-Afghani, a self-described member of Al-Qaeda in Europe.

A man identifying himself as al-Afghani and speaking in Arabic with a Moroccan accent was seen on a videotape found outside a Madrid mosque two days after the 11 March Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people, international media reported on 6 April. Al-Afghani said in that videotape that the 11 March bombings were revenge for Spain's military cooperation with the United States, nytimes.com reported. The Spanish government reportedly gave "a certain credibility" to the authenticity of the communique, nytimes.com quoted Ricardo Ibanez, an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying.

The communique was faxed to ABC hours before five terror suspects blew themselves up in an apartment south of Madrid, in an effort to avoid police capture, cbsnews.com reported on 5 April. Spanish authorities said that the suicide blast killed two of the alleged ringleaders of last month's Madrid train bombings, including one known as "the Tunisian," and three other terror suspects. Two or three suspects may have escaped before the blast, according to cbsnews.com. Spanish police are holding more than 15 suspects in connection to the train bombing, according to international media reports.

The cbsnews.com website also reported on 5 April that an unnamed French private investigator has said that Spanish police believe that Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist with links to Al-Qaeda, coordinated the Madrid attacks. Al-Zarqawi is wanted by the United States for the assassination of USAID employee Lawrence Foley in Amman last year, as well as for coordinating a number of terrorist attacks in Iraq. (Kathleen Ridolfo)

COALITION REMAINS WILLING -- FOR THE TIME BEING. Coalition forces have remained committed to keeping troops in Iraq this week despite the surge in violence, according to international media reports.

This week's violence has left coalition allies in a number of southern Iraqi cities in a difficult position, as a number of states committed troops under the condition that they serve only in a peacekeeping or humanitarian capacity. However, many of these countries' troops were thrust into combat roles when coalition bases in central and southern Iraq were targeted in attacks this week by Iraqi insurgents. The insurgents also battled coalition and Iraqi forces while attempting to take over government buildings and police stations in various cities.

Coalition forces in south-central Iraq sustained few casualties in comparison to those sustained by U.S. forces in the Iraqi capital and surrounding areas, but it is likely that those deaths will affect public opinion in their home countries. On 4 April, one Salvadoran soldier was killed when militants attacked a coalition camp in Al-Najaf. Twelve of his compatriots were wounded in the same incident.

A Bulgarian patrol was attacked in Karbala on 6 April just minutes before militants struck the Bulgarian base Camp Kilo in Karbala. Three Bulgarian soldiers were lightly wounded in the first incident, while no casualties were reported in the second incident. In a third incident, a Bulgarian driver was shot dead near Al-Nasiriyah. Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolay Svinarov said on 7 April that Bulgarian soldiers who wish to return home may do so. He also demanded that U.S. and U.K. forces be sent to Karbala to assist in stabilizing the situation. International media reported on 8 April that Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army now controls the city.

One Ukrainian soldier was also killed this week and five others were wounded as the Ukrainian contingent lost control of Al-Kut to Iraqi insurgents. But Ukraine is not considering pulling its peacekeeping contingent out of Iraq, Foreign Ministry spokesman Markiyan Lubkivskyy told ITAR-TASS on 7 April. Meanwhile, Hungarian Defense Minister Ferenc Juhasz said on 7 April that Hungarian troops will not be withdrawn from Iraq because the current threats have not impeded their ability to carry out their mission there, Hungarian media reported. However, Juhasz called for a UN resolution that would pave the way for additional troops to be sent to Iraq, saying that an additional 100,000 troops are needed to restore order.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on 6 April that Italian troops will remain in Iraq. "It is quite unthinkable that we should run away from a mission that we started and that needs to be carried through to the end," Berlusconi said. "We would be leaving the country in chaos," RAI Television quoted him as saying. Eleven Italians troops were reportedly wounded in fighting in Al-Nasiriyah on 7 April.

South Korea apparently remains committed to sending some 3,500 troops to Iraq in the coming weeks, despite the fact that militants loyal to al-Sadr held two South Korean aid workers captive on 5-6 April. "There is no change at all in the principle of our troop dispatch," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said on 7 April.

Meanwhile, Japanese Self-Defense Forces holed themselves up at their camp in Samawah this week in an effort to avoid being caught up in the violence. Japan committed troops to Iraq to carry out humanitarian operations and has gone to great lengths -- even placing television ads on Arab satellite channels ? to inform Iraqis that the Japanese contingency is not in Iraq to police the country.

Norway appears for the time being to be one of the few coalition partners adamant about withdrawing its contingent from Iraq. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen said on 6 April that he expects Norway to withdraw its forces from Iraq within a few months. Petersen made his comments after meeting with UN officials in New York, Oslo's NRK reported. Petersen reportedly told UN officials that his country's forces would be better placed among NATO operations in Afghanistan and Kosova. Norway has about 150 soldiers in Iraq. Kazakhstan's Defense Minister said on 7 April that the country will not keep its peacekeepers in Iraq after their mandate expires at the end of May. Meanwhile, incoming Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has vowed to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq unless the UN takes over there. Spain currently has some 1,300 troops stationed in Iraq. (Kathleen Ridolfo)


Compiled by Kathleen Ridolfo.
------------------------------------------------------
UK struggles to be heard in Iraq
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
As Tony Blair prepares to fly to Washington for his meeting with President Bush shortly, questions have arisen as to whether Britain has an adequate say in the decisions being taken in Iraq.
The former foreign secretary Lord Hurd said that Britain was "involved in the consequences and I think we should be involved in the taking of those decisions".
He referred in particular to the decisions to attack Falluja and to act against the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.
He recommended sending a senior British envoy to Baghdad to put Britain's case and suggested the recently retired Nato Secretary General Lord Robertson.
Implicit in what Lord Hurd said was a belief that Britain would somehow act as restraining influence on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) which is under the control of the US Administrator Paul Bremer.
British representation in the CPA was somewhat weakened with the departure of Sir Jeremy Greenstock at the end of March.
He was a former British UN ambassador and had a great deal of diplomatic clout having impressed the Americans with his handling of negotiations over UN resolutions on Iraq.
But he kept to his contract under which he stayed for six months and did not extend it until the 30 June handover.
Instead he gave way to his deputy David Richmond, who, although a respected and experienced Iraq hand and an Arabic speaker, does not quite carry the same political weight.
Decision making
The other senior British official in Iraq is Patrick Nixon, who is the representative in Basra.
He, too, is a veteran Arabist who came out of early retirement to take on the job until June.
He is an independent and sceptically-minded diplomat and it is hard to see him approving actions which would lead to serious confrontations. But how much influence he has with Mr Bremer is not known.
The New York Times quoted British officials in London recently as saying that Sir Jeremy had complained to London that Mr Bremer had controlled decision-making "with minimal input from Iraqis and other voices, including Sir Jeremy's".
The officials were quoted as saying that "while they are sympathetic with the daunting management task that Americans have undertaken, they also believe that the Coalition Provisional Authority under Mr. Bremer has become too 'politicized', meaning that events are orchestrated and information controlled with the American political agenda uppermost in mind".
The British unease might be more about tactical than strategic decisions
Publicly however, British ministers are not criticising the decisions in Iraq.
Both the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon were supportive in BBC interviews, though Mr Straw did stress the need for a political as well as military strategy.
There is a political strategy which should see formal sovereignty handed over to an interim Iraqi government on 30 June.
There are doubts however as to whether this government will have much power since the US military will stay on under a four star American general.
The British government appears fully signed up to this political process and Sir Jeremy himself has been praising it over recent weeks in briefings for the media in London.
The British unease therefore might be more about tactical than strategic decisions.
A problem arises however when a tactical decision has a major impact on the wider picture as has happened over the last few days.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3616793.stm
Published: 2004/04/10 16:59:14 GMT
? BBC MMIV

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FLASHBACK: May 27, 2002
Graham: We Had Same Info as Bush
by David Freddoso
Posted Apr 9, 2004
[Editor's note: This article orginally appeared on the cover of the May 27, 2002, issue of HUMAN EVENTS.]
Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HUMAN EVENTS May 21 that his committee had received all the same terrorism intelligence prior to September 11 as the Bush administration.
"Yes, we had seen all the information," said Graham. "But we didn't see it on a single piece of paper, the way the President did."
Graham added that threats of hijacking in an August 6 memo to President Bush were based on very old intelligence that the committee had seen earlier. "The particular report that was in the President's Daily Briefing that day was about three years old," Graham said. "It was not a contemporary piece of information."
Graham's comments contradicted combative statements made recently by the Democratic congressional leadership, and confirmed White House assertions that the only specific threats of al Qaeda hijackings known to the President before September 11 came from a memo dating back to the Clinton Administration.
'Not Surprised'
A leak to CBS News of some pre-September-11 warnings given to the President in August occasioned fierce political attacks on Bush beginning May 15--even though the basic content of the leaks had long been known. As early as September 18, CNN had already reported that administration officials admitted to being aware of vague threats against U.S. targets before September 11. Also, a publicly available 1995 government report had even warned that terrorists could use airplanes in suicide attacks.
Still, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) both made public statements attempting to stoke a scandal on the supposition that Bush withheld vital intelligence from Congress both before and after September 11. Both Democrats strongly implied that Bush sat on information that could possibly have been used to prevent the terrorist attacks of September 11.
"I'm gravely concerned that the President received a warning in August about the threat of hijackers by Osama bin Laden and his organization," said Daschle. "Why was it not provided to us, and why was it not shared with the general public for the last eight months?"
Daschle also asserted that Congress did not have the same information as the White House--implying that the White House alone was to blame for not acting on the information. "I think it is important to emphasize we did not have identical information," he said in a May 16 news conference, in clear contradiction with Graham's statements to HUMAN EVENTS.
On May 22, Daschle again accused Bush of hoarding information, even trying to blame him for the FBI's intelligence failure of September 11. "There is an increasing pattern that I find in this administration that reflects an unwillingness to share information not only with us but within their own administration," he told reporters.
Gephardt also implied that the administration was blameworthy for its handling of the intelligence reports. "The reports are disturbing that we are finding this out now," he said. Invoking language of the Watergate era, he continued, "I think what we have to do now is to find out what the President, what the White House knew about the events leading up to 9-11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time." Gephardt also stated that Congress had not received the same intelligence as the White House.
Asked by HUMAN EVENTS on May 22 whether Sen. Graham's statement changed his view, Gephardt responded with a simple "No" before retreating into the House chamber. Again, the following day, Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for Gephardt, declined to comment for the record on Graham's statement.
Other Democrats sensed a political opportunity and went on the attack. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) addressed the Senate waving a copy of the New York Post with a characteristically large and sensational headline, "Bush Knew." "The President knew what?" she asked.
Others, including Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D.-N.Y.) and Rep. Robert Wexler (D.-Fla.) strongly denounced the President's conduct in public spoken or written statements.
But as early as May 16, it had already emerged that most of the information in Bush's August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing--an official intelligence document--had in fact been given to the congressional committees in the form of the Senior Executive Intelligence Digest (SEID), a more widely published classified document.
"Mr. Gephardt said that we didn't have information," said Rep. Porter Goss (R.-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on May 16. "In fact we do have it. And it's just apparently that Mr. Gephardt didn't know about it."
At that point, Democrats claimed that Bush's intelligence report had information warning of possible hijackings by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, and that Congress did not receive that particular information.
But the Democrats' criticism appeared to be further undercut by Graham's confirmation to HUMAN EVENTS that the committee did have the same intelligence. Administration officials had earlier said the hijack warnings in Bush's August 6 briefing were merely an analysis based on old intelligence from 1998.
The committees were indeed aware before September 11 that a major attack could come soon, so much so, that Sen. Graham told CNN's Kate Snow...quot; on the afternoon of September 11...quot; that he was not suprised.
"I was not surprised that there was an attack, was surprised at the specificity of this one," Graham said in the interview, hours after the attacks.
Expected Backlash
As Democrats appeared to back away from the attacks on Bush over the weekend, Republicans went on the offensive to capitalize on an expected backlash. The Republican Study Committee, a group of about 75 conservative Republicans, released a memo detailing House Democrats' overwhelming opposition to intelligence funding since 1996. According to the memo, 154 House Democrats voted to cut the U.S. intelligence budget in 1996, while 158 Democrats did the same in 1997. Although fewer Democrats voted to cut the intelligence budget in 1999 (only 61), almost all opposition to intelligence spending came from Democrats.
The memo also quotes several Democrats opposing intelligence spending, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.), who advocated the abolition of the CIA on the House floor in March 1997.
In addition, a HUMAN EVENTS survey of lawmakers found that few--even among Republicans--would have been willing to act decisively on threats of hijacking by Muslim extremists. Not one Democrat surveyed would countenance the idea that President Bush, upon learning of the al Qaeda hijacking threat, should have suspended the visas of young men visiting from nations that are al Qaeda hotbeds--even though this measure would likely have prevented the attacks of September 11.
Few support that action even now, after September 11, when new warnings of attacks by al Qaeda have been issued by FBI director Robert Mueller and Vice President Cheney.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.



FLASHBACK: June 10, 2002
Intelligence Chairmen Confirm HUMAN EVENTS Story
Posted Apr 9, 2004
[Editor's note: This article orginally appeared on the cover of the June 10, 2002, issue of HUMAN EVENTS.]
Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," has committed excellent journalism, again.
The May 26 edition of "Meet the Press" featured as a guest Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.). Russert confronted Daschle with the cover story of the May 27 HUMAN EVENTS in which Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham said that the congressional intelligence committees had the same information prior to September 11 that President Bush had--and that this information included three-year-old intelligence that al Qaeda might try to hijack U.S. airliners.
In light of Graham's statement to HUMAN EVENTS, Daschle utterly failed to justify to Russert his tendentious call for an investigation of what the President knew prior to September 11.
Last Sunday, on the June 2 edition of "Meet the Press," Russert interviewed the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. He confronted them with the information in the May 27 HUMAN EVENTS cover story--and each of them, including Graham himself--confirmed the story.
Here is what they said:
Tim Russert, Host of NBC's "Meet the Press": Sen. Graham, let me clear something up for the country, if I can. There was a big uproar a few weeks ago that President Bush had received a briefing on August 6 about a potential hijacking by al-Qaeda, and a lot of charges and countercharges back and forth. HUMAN EVENTS reported that you said that we had all seen that information. Not in the same form as the President, but members of Congress had seen the same information. Is that accurate?
Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham (D.-Fla.): First, I have not seen the briefing that the President received in early August. But I have read a summary of that briefing, and if that summary is correct, and I think it is, of what he received was essentially a historic presentation of the development of al Qaeda, what they'd done in the past, and then some speculations about what they might do in the future. The specific reference that related to hijackers was based on a foreign intelligence source that was two or three years old. So I don't think it is fair to expect the President of the United States to see that kind of information and immediately spring into operational mode. Had Congress seen most of that information, if not all of it? Yes, over time, not in a consolidated historic report that was presented to the President.
Russert: Does anyone here disagree with that, that they didn't see that information?
House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss (R.-Fla.): No, I think it's very clear.
Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Richard Shelby (R.-Ala.): No, we had it.
Russert: Everyone had it.
Shelby: We had it.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee: We had seen it over a period of time. We did not see it in aggregate as the President did that day. That is not to say that it was sufficient information, as the chairman has said, to warrant action on the part of the President, but I think the distinction has to be made that, for some reason, on that early day in August, someone in the intelligence community decided to put all of those events on one piece of paper. Interesting that what we saw in Congress in that same day, in that same 24-hour period, did not have the reporting that referenced hijacking. That was a distinction between what Congress saw and what the White House saw.
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Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.



Was Terrorism Really a Top Priority?
by Linda Chavez
Posted Apr 8, 2004
Condoleezza Rice faces not just the 9/11 commission today but the specter of Richard Clarke, the disgruntled former National Security Council terrorism expert who did his best to undermine the credibility of his former boss when he testified before the commission on March 24. The main thrust of Clarke's testimony was that Rice and the entire Bush team were insufficiently attentive to terrorism as an imminent threat because they were focused on other things, especially Iraq. And the media played right along, parroting Clarke's criticism with front-page news stories questioning Rice's pre-9/11 judgment, like this one in The Washington Post: "Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn't on Terrorism; Rice Speech Cited Missile Defense." Or this in The New York Times: "New to the Job, Rice Focused On More Traditional Threats."
That criticism from Clarke might have been more persuasive had he been equally hard on the Clinton Administration, for which he worked for eight years. But, no, he gave Clinton and the whole national security team high marks, saying, "My impression was that fighting terrorism in general, and fighting al Qaeda in particular, were an extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton Administration, certainly no higher a priority. There were priorities probably of equal importance, such as the Middle East peace process, but I certainly don't know of one that was any higher in the priority of that administration."
Funny, I don't remember the Clinton years that way -- but then maybe my mind is clouded by the disease so common to active partisans, selective memory. So I decided to do a little research to see how the media portrayed the Clinton Administration's priorities at the time.
Using Nexis, the exhaustive data bank of newspaper articles, magazine pieces, and radio and TV transcripts, I looked back over eight years of stories in which Rice's predecessors in the Clinton Administration, Anthony Lake and Samuel Berger, were mentioned in stories that also included references to terrorism or Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda, to see whether they were out sounding the alarm on these threats.
During the entire Clinton Administration's tenure, only 278 stories appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, or Chicago Tribune, which cited these officials in stories that also mentioned either terrorism (271), bin Laden (71), or al Qaeda (4). Most of the mentions of terrorism, however, referred to attacks against Israel or other non-U.S. targets. And few of the stories even suggest that the Clinton Administration made fighting terrorism its top priority.
President Clinton did give a major speech to the United Nations in September 1998, in which he said that fighting terrorism was "at the top of the U.S. agenda." But as The New York Times noted in its coverage, "if he looked preoccupied, which he did, it was because he was in the awkward position of addressing the United Nations at the same time that a videotape of his testimony to a grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter was playing on television screens and computer monitors around the world. Some television banks here were playing his speech and the videotape at once." Moreover, noted the Times, "Mr. Clinton did not advance American policy against terrorism in any new direction. . . ."
Although several terrorist attacks against Americans occurred during Clinton's tenure -- most notably the first World Trade Center bombing, the bombing of a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen -- the military response was spotty at best, consisting of a few cruise missiles launched at an abandoned training camp in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan.
But it isn't just that the Clinton Administration didn't do very much to strike back at terrorists, Clinton's National Security advisers weren't all that outspoken on the issue either. In 1996, for example, Anthony Lake gave a major speech to the Chicago Foreign Relations Council, entitled "Laying the Foundation for a Post-Cold War World: National Security in the 21st Century." In it, Lake mentions terrorism, almost in passing, as a modern threat, along with drug trafficking and managing environmental disaster. The foreign policy crises he described as "the most urgent" were "repression in Haiti, the war in Bosnia and the containment of Iraq."
The truth is, no one -- not George W. Bush or Condoleezza Rice, and certainly not Bill Clinton or his advisers -- fully understood how grave a threat al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other Islamist terrorists posed to America until September 11, 2001. We know now, and the true test of leadership is how our leaders responded once the terrorists struck. And here both Bush and Rice look pretty good compared with their predecessors, Richard Clarke's revisionist history notwithstanding.
Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
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La Maison blanche d?classifie une note du 6 ao?t 2001 sur Al-Qaida
LEMONDE.FR | 11.04.04 | 10h21 * MIS A JOUR LE 11.04.04 | 19h01
Cette note envisageait de possibles d?tournements d'avions. Dimanche le pr?sident Bush a affirm? qu'elle ne disait rien sur d'?ventuelles attaques contre les Etats-Unis.
La Maison blanche a lev?, samedi 10 avril, le secret-d?fense sur une note des services de renseignement am?ricains remise le 6 ao?t 2001 au pr?sident George Bush et exposant des projets d'Al-Qaida de frapper aux Etats-Unis m?me.
A la demande de la commission nationale qui enqu?te sur les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, l'administration Bush a d?classifi? et rendu publique cette note d'une page et demie au titre d?nu? d'ambigu?t? : "Ben Laden r?solu ? frapper en territoire am?ricain".
A trois endroits, des suppressions de mots ont ?t? faites pour prot?ger les noms des gouvernements ?trangers ayant fourni des informations ? la CIA.
Ce m?morandum avait ?t? r?dig? en ao?t 2001 ? la demande de George W. Bush, qui souhaitait conna?tre l'ampleur de la menace d'Al-Qaida sur le territoire am?ricain apr?s avoir pris connaissance de rapports faisant ?tat de menaces de la m?me n?buleuse contre les int?r?ts am?ricains ? l'?tranger, a expliqu? samedi soir un responsable de la Maison blanche. La conseill?re ? la s?curit? de la Maison blanche, Condoleezza Rice, avait ?voqu? cette note lors de sa d?position en public, jeudi, devant la commission. Les d?mocrates qui y si?gent avaient alors demand? ? ce que le secret soit lev? sur ladite note afin de favoriser le cours de l'enqu?te sur les carences ?ventuelles des services de renseignement avant les attentats du 11 septembre.
Des responsables de la Maison blanche se sont empress?s samedi, apr?s la diffusion de la note dans la soir?e, d'assurer que celle-ci, bien que mentionnant la possibilit? de d?tournements d'avions, n'?voquait pas le risque de les voir utilis?s comme missiles contre des b?timents. "Rien, dans ce texte, n'a trait au complot du 11 septembre", a affirm? devant les journalistes un haut responsable de la Maison blanche.
Dimanche le pr?sident Bush a affirm? que le m?morandum du 6 ao?t 2001 ne disait rien sur d'?ventuelles attaques contre les Etats-Unis. "Ce PDB (appel? "rapport pr?sidentiel quotidien", PDB en anglais) ne disait rien d'une attaque contre l'Am?rique. Il parlait d'intentions et du fait que quelqu'un d?testait l'Am?rique. Cela nous le savions d?j?", a dit M. Bush ? la presse lors d'une visite sur la base militaire de Fort Hood (Texas). "Si j'avais su qu'il y allait y avoir une attaque contre l'Am?rique, j'aurais tout fait pour l'emp?cher", a-t-il ajout?."S'ils (les services de renseignement) avaient trouv? quelque chose, ils m'en auraient inform?", a estim? M. Bush, en r?affirmant que la commission d'enqu?te devait enqu?ter sur la fa?on dont les renseignements disponibles avaient ?t? rassembl?s et transmis.
70 ENQU?TES
La note risque bien pourtant de relancer, en pleine ann?e ?lectorale, le d?bat sur l'incapacit? des services de renseignement et des autorit?s ? pr?venir les attentats. Dans sa d?position de jeudi, Rice insistait sur le fait que la note contenait essentiellement des renseignements relatifs au pass? et ne signalait pas des pr?paratifs d'attentats sur le territoire am?ricain.
Mais ses paroles pourraient ?tre contredites par la note elle-m?me. Dans cette derni?re, il est inscrit noir sur blanc que des hommes d'Al-Qaida cherchaient ? p?n?trer aux Etats-Unis ou s'y trouvaient d?j?. "Le FBI conduit approximativement 70 enqu?tes sur le terrain, ? travers les Etats-Unis, qui ont trait ? Ben Laden. La CIA et le FBI enqu?tent sur un appel re?u par notre ambassade aux Emirats arabes unis en mai, disant qu'un groupe de partisans de Ben Laden se trouvent aux Etats-Unis o? ils pr?parent des attentats ? l'explosif", lit-on dans la note.
Le document, qui ne mentionne aucune cible pr?cise et ne fait ?tat d'aucune date, se fonde sur un rapport des services secrets ?tabli en mai 2001, laissant penser que des partisans de Ben Laden avaient l'intention d'entrer aux Etats-Unis par le Canada. La note ajoutait que des membres d'Al-Qaida, au nombre desquels des personnes ayant la nationalit? am?ricaine, "s?journent ou se sont rendus aux Etats-Unis, depuis des ann?es, et le groupe semble maintenir une structure logistique qui pourrait contribuer ? des attentats". "Une source clandestine avait dit en 1998 qu'une cellule Ben Laden recrutait ? New York des jeunes Am?ricains musulmans, dans le but de commettre des attentats", lit-on par ailleurs dans la note. "Des informations ?manant de sources clandestines, de gouvernements ?trangers et de m?dias laissent entendre que Ben Laden, depuis 1997, veut commettre des attentats terroristes aux Etats-Unis", stipule aussi le document.
La note informait le pr?sident de ce que le FBI avait d?cel? des activit?s suspectes ?voquant des pr?paratifs de d?tournements et autres types d'attentats, et avait constat? que des immeubles f?d?raux de New York faisaient l'objet d'une surveillance. * La Maison blanche a expliqu? samedi soir, en parall?le ? la publication du m?morandum, que les renseignements relatifs ? une surveillance d'immeubles f?d?raux ? New York concernaient en fait de simples all?es et venues de touristes.
Avec Reuters
Acheter les droits de reproduction
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Thomas L. Friedman: Three conversations needed to save Iraq
Thomas L. Friedman NYT
Monday, April 12, 2004
WASHINGTON The U.S. operation in Iraq is hanging by a thread. If it has any hope of surviving this Hobbesian moment, we need three conversations to happen fast: George W. Bush needs to talk to his father, the Arab leaders need to talk to their sons - and daughters - and Americans need to talk to the Iraqi Governing Council.
President Bush, please call home. You need some of your father's wisdom right now. Old man Bush, U.S. president no. 41, may not have had the vision thing, but he did have the prudence thing. He understood that he could not expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait without a real coalition that included Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other key Arab states, not to mention all the NATO allies and the United Nations. America would not have had the legitimacy to operate in that theater for the length of time required without Arab and European cover.
What was true for expelling Saddam from Kuwait was triply true for expelling Saddam from Iraq and is quadruply true for expelling the die-hard Baathists from Falluja and the Shiite radicals from Najaf. The deeper we Americans try to penetrate Iraqi society, especially with tanks and troops, the more legitimacy we need.
When things were going all right in Baghdad with the political process, America could have its way by buying legitimacy with cash or imposing it with muscle. But when you are talking about killing rebellious Iraqi young men and clerics, you can't buy the legitimacy for that, and you can't compel it. Iraqi moderates are just too frightened to stand up and defend that on their own. Indeed, they will run away from the United States.
Only a real coalition of the United Nations, Arab and Muslim states and Europe - the Bush 41 coalition - might bolster them. It may be too late for that now, but the Bush 43 folks had better try.
We Americans have a staggering legitimacy deficit for the task ahead. I am glad El Salvador is with us, but when Iraqis get satellite dishes, they don't tune in TV El Salvador. They tune in TV Al Jazeera.
If it is America alone against the Iraqi street, we lose. If it is the world against the Iraqi street, we have a chance.
And we need two other conversations. I have nothing but respect for the Kurds of Iraq. They have a democratic soul. But in the debate in the Governing Council over Iraq's interim constitution they overreached, and the Bush team made a big mistake in letting them overreach, by giving the Kurds effective veto power over Iraq's final constitution. I believe the Kurds need and are entitled to some form of protection. I would support any U.S. guarantees for them. But too many moderate Shiites, led by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, are feeling that the Iraqi interim constitution tilts so far in favor of minority rights that it unfairly limits majority (read Shiite) rights. If the interim constitution has any hope of surviving this fighting, and being accepted by the moderate Shiite majority, it needs to be recalibrated - through a dialogue among Iraq's factional leaders and with us. Otherwise, a stable transfer of power is impossible (if it isn't already).
Arab leaders also have a vital interest in working with the United States to quell the turmoil in Iraq and to re-empower the potentially moderate center. As unpleasant as it may be for them to help the Bush team - and as worrisome as free elections in Iraq might be to unelected leaders of the Arab world - having oil-rich Iraq taken over partly by Baathist radicals happy to work with Al Qaeda and partly by Shiite radicals happy to work with Iran will be even worse. It will empower radicals across the Arab region, and freeze the infant reform process there.
And that's why the Arab leaders need to talk to their sons and daughters. If the Arabs miss yet another decade of reform, because Iraq spins out of control while the world speeds ahead, they will find themselves outside the world system and dealing with plenty of their own Fallujas.
Talk to Arab youth today, and you will find so many of them utterly despondent at the complete drift in their societies. They are stuck in a sandstorm, where opportunities for young people to realize their potential are fading.
What is going on in Iraq today is not only a war between radical Islam and America, it is, more importantly, a war within Islam - between those who want an Islam with a human and progressive face that can meld with the world and those who want an Islam that is exclusivist and hostile to the world. So, yes, we need all the Arab and Muslim support we can get to see Iraq through to some decent outcome. But the Arab-Muslim world needs a decent outcome in Iraq just as much - if not more.
Copyright ? 2002 The International Herald Tribune

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Suicide bomb workshop found in Falluja: US military
April 12, 2004 - 8:09AM
Bomb workshop found in Fallujah: US military Iraq Bombers
US marines this week killed one suicide bomber and discovered a suicide bomb workshop in the Sunni Muslim bastion of Fallujah apparently run by Iraqis and foreigners, marines said.
The building, found on Thursday when marines chased a sniper, provided new indication of the growing role of Iraqis in suicide bombings, marines said.
The US marines are entrenched in a near week-long campaign to rid Fallujah of insurgents after four US contractors were killed by a mob and two of them were savagely mutilated on March 31.
Iraqi police and judges have recently expressed alarm about the increasing involvement of Iraqis in suicide bombings, which US officials have previously blamed on foreign fighters thought to be slipping across the border.
Police in the holy city of Karbala charged that some Iraqis are indoctrinated and high on drugs when they are dispatched on suicide missions.
Top US military officials have warned the radical Islamist current in Iraq relies more heavily on Iraqi nationals than foreign elements.
Members of the 1st Battalion 5th (1-5) Marines stumbled on the workshop on Thursday, when they were trying to locate a sniper position.
"There was an open storage area and a living room. There were four belts packed with explosives," said Lance Corporal James Walter, one of the men who discovered the arsenal in Fallujah's southeastern industrial sector.
A box of old US military uniforms were also found, issued by the US Army's 82nd Airborne, said Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne.
Marines said that they believe about 15 to 20 people had been working in the facility.
Also Thursday, marines from the 1-5 battalion shot dead a suicide bomber, captured a second individual without a vest and found a third blood-stained belt.
The vest was identical to those found in the open storage area, said Captain James Smith.
Marines had come under fire and entered a home where they shot and killed the bomber.
The marines lobbed grenades at the body to blow it up due to fears the corpse was booby trapped, said Smith.
Smith showed pictures of the corpse before the marines blew up the body, with the white belt and wiring attached to a bearded man lying on a tile floor.
The belts were fashioned in the style of the radical Palestinian group Hamas that popularised suicide bombings in Iraq, with a hand-held detonator attached to the belt, Byrne added.
AFP
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Terrorist chemical threat 'worse than suspected'
By Mark Huband, Security Correspondent, in Paris
Published: April 11 2004 18:26 | Last Updated: April 11 2004 18:26
Terrorists plotting to use chemical weapons in Europe have more advanced plans than security services previously suspected, a senior French counter-terrorism official has warned.
Small groups of chemicals experts have been detected in several European countries and have developed ways of communicating with each other that allowed them to avoid being exposed.
"We have underestimated the terrorists' willingness and capacity to develop chemical weapons," the French official told the Financial Times. He said a recent wave of arrests in Britain and France has revealed how far they had developed their plans.
The groups appear to operate separately from other cells planning attacks using ordinary explosives. Several of them are believed to have links to Islamic militants in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. Western intelligence services allege that extremists linked to al-Qaeda have carried out experiments in chemical warfare in Chechnya.
In January French anti-terrorist police arrested five people in the Lyons suburb of Venisseux - three of them from the same family - on suspicion of involvement in planning terrorist attacks. Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, said that one of the detainees, Menad Benchallali, "was trained to produce chemical substances".
Two of the detainees admitted a plan had been devised to attack Russian targets in France using ricin poison and botulinum bacteria. French officials say Mr Benchellali received chemical weapons training in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a haven for Chechen fighters.
On April 6 British anti- terrorist officers uncovered a possible plot to use osmium tetroxide in an attack. The chemical can cause death or blindness if dispersed in an explosion. UK security officials have refused to comment on the alleged plan, though US officials said it was in its early stages.
The alleged plotters were reported to have been in direct contact with extremists in Pakistan, as the plot was discovered when their telephone calls were monitored by GCHQ, the UK government's electronic surveillance centre.
"The Pakistani element [in developing these weapons] was also totally underestimated, as was the experience developed in Chechnya," said the French official. He added that militants within the Pakistani Islamist group Lashkar-i-Toiba, which has close links to al-Qaeda, had helped develop chemical weapons skills now dispersed to sever al parts of the al-Qaeda network.
"The thing that is most clear is that the people with the knowledge of chemicals are very organised," the French official said. "There are links between the groups that have chemical expertise. These groups are not present everywhere, though Chechnya is where they learned this skill."
The arrests in January in Venisseux led to the discovery of vital clues about the links between alleged extremists with knowledge of chemicals and experts trained in Chechnya and Afghanistan.
"The group arrested in Venisseux has links to Chechnya, but also to Abu Musab al-Zarkawi," the official said.
Al-Zarkawi, a Jordanian thought to be in Iraq, is said by intelligence officals to have run classes in chemical warfare at an al-Qaeda training camp in the Afghan city of Herat in 2000-01. A taped statement attributed to al-Zarkawi was broadcast on an Islamist website this week, in which he said that Iraq's Sunni Muslims should "burn the earth under the [foreign] occupiers' feet" in Iraq.

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Contractors put Iraq reconstruction on hold
By Nicolas Pelham in Baghdad
Published: April 11 2004 18:05 | Last Updated: April 11 2004 18:05
Many of Iraq's reconstruction projects are being put on hold after a spate of foreign kidnappings and attacks on convoys in Baghdad grounded foreign and Iraqi contractors.
"We'll give it another week. If it doesn't improve, we'll have to leave," says Trevor Holborn of the Amman-based Shaheen Group, one of hundreds of foreign workers who have suspended their operations and headed for shelter inside the walls of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified enclave where the occupation has its headquarters.
"We still have people in Iraq, but we may not able to work on a day to day basis," said a contractor with a big US energy company. "Right now Iraq is not a safe place to work, and the safety of our staff comes first."
The kidnapping of at least 10 foreigners, and according to some reports as many as 30, has shaken the already fragile confidence of contractors. The hostages included an employee of the Houston-based company, Kellogg, Brown & Root, which handles supplies and logistics for US forces and the occupation administration and is reputed to be one of the best defended companies in the country. Thomas Hamill, 43, of Macon, Mississippi, was captured on Friday during a convoy ambush.
Coalition officials say they have contingency plans for an evacuation of civilians, but remain fully staffed. One said it was a "miracle" that none of the scores of mortars and rockets which have so rocked the enclave have hit their targets.
British diplomats and some contractors are bunkered down in an underground car-park inside the Green zone, dubbed the "Batcave". But many American contractors are housed in trailer accommodation. Their sides have been bolstered with sandbags but the soft-top roofs are singularly vulnerable to mortar attack.
Amid continuing negotiations for a ceasefire, insurgents have continued torching convoys carrying food and fuel to Baghdad.
Coalition authority officials deny the attacks on their supply lines have interrupted the delivery of vital goods, but contractors say Iraqi drivers are shying away from work with the coalition leaving ports clogged with containers.
"Try to lease a truck now, no one will give you one," said Faisal Khudairy, an Iraqi contractor with a large deal to build a military base north of Baghad.
The coalition's Project Management Office (PMO), which oversees $8bn (?4.7bn) of US reconstruction funds, says it remains committed to rebuilding Iraq and is intent on finding Iraqi partners to assist the primary US contractors it named last month. "We've got our prime contractors on the ground. It will not halt reconstruction," said John Procter, an official with the project Management Office in Baghdad.
He said that the reconstruction effort was vital if the coalition was to soak up Iraq's millions of unemployed malcontents who are a breeding ground for the insurgency.
But it was not clear if the coalition would meet its target of employing 50,000 Iraqis by 30 June, when the US governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, is scheduled to relinquish control of Iraq.
Mr Procter said that Iraq's trade fair, postponed last week because of the risk of attack, was being relocated from Baghdad to Suleimaniya, a city in the former Kurdish haven, and would open on April 30.
Another conference on oil exploration scheduled to take place next week in the British-administered Gulf port of Basra is reported to have been indefinitely postponed. Several foreign companies and aid agencies say they are also providing for the evacuation of non-essential staff.
"We gave our staff the freedom to go home to whoever would like to do so," said Mohammed Moneim, chief operating officer of the Kuwaiti-based Kharafi group, which has over 100 foreign staff in Iraq working in the oil and construction sectors. But Mr Moneim said that the company was also committed to fulfilling its responsibilities to its 1,500 Iraqi staff.
At least two of the three banks that received their licences last January have yet to begin operations inside Iraq. Officials at HSBC, the UK bank, said it was unlikely services would be available until at least the end of the year. Baghdad bank has also temporarily closed three of its 20 branches, said its chief operating officer, Mahmood Muwaffaq. Some contractors complained that their contracts prevented them from pulling out of Iraq.
"Many companies have given control over the evacuation procedure to the US Department of Defence, so we cannot leave even if we want to," said a security company director. He said insurgents are now targeting mercenaries in Iraq, aware that foreign contractors win more headlines than soldiers. But the director stressed that under their contracts, companies would still be compensated in full for any days lost as a result of insecurity.
Seven Chinese were seized in central Iraq on Sunday, China's Xinhua news agency said, Reuters reports. In a separate incident, eight foreign men described as truck drivers who had been held hostage were released, according to a videotape aired by al-Jazeera television on Sunday. The men included three from Pakistan, two Turks, an Indian, a Nepali and one from the Philippines.
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Marines Find Traces Of Suicide Squads
25 minutes ago
By Pamela Constable, Washington Post Foreign Service
FALLUJAH, Iraq (news - web sites), April 11 -- When the U.S. troops entered the abandoned factory shed Sunday, they found a hastily abandoned campsite full of jumbled clothing and bedrolls, scattered sneakers and gym bags, broken eggs and dirty cooking pots.
But there were other, less innocent objects half-hidden in the gloom. Sacks full of chemical-coated rocks. Leather belts stuffed with explosive putty, and one smeared with dried blood. Boxes of batteries with wires taped to them. Instructions for making bombs.
"This was a 16-man terrorist cell," pronounced a Marine captain, rifling through the mess. "See? All the bags and sneakers are brand new, all the same make. This took money and planning. Someone sponsored them."
Among the debris were more intimate clues to the identity and motives of the suicide squad that had lived, prayed and made bombs in the shed, preparing to do battle with the 2,500 Marines who entered sections of this turbulent city one week ago.
The evidence -- Islamic books, pamphlets, tapes and farewell letters in Arabic -- suggested that some of the men were not Iraqis from the area, but foreign Sunni Muslims who had traveled to this urban Sunni stronghold to fight and die in a holy war, both against the U.S. forces and the country's Shiite Muslim majority.
"I say goodbye with tears in my eyes and heart, and I ask God for victory," read one letter, which suggested the writer's parents had tried to stop him from leaving home. "Father, don't blame yourself. I am happy to be here," it said. "Mother, don't be weak. Raise your children to be martyrs for the cause."
The urban guerrillas battling Marines since last Monday have put up a fierce and well-organized fight, and Marine officials said early last week that they believed foreign Islamic fighters had joined the local insurgents. On Thursday the Marines shot and killed a sniper who was wearing a suicide belt, and they have since discovered seven suicide bomb devices in various hiding places.
But so far they have not conclusively established that any of the insurgents were foreign infiltrators. Several detained Sudanese nationals turned out to be longtime workers here, and Marine officials said Sunday that they had used grenades and bombs to explode the corpses of two snipers shot while wearing suicide devices, which made them impossible to identify.
But the unearthing of the Islamic documents among the bomb-making materials Sunday, while two foreign journalists and an Arabic interpreter were present, suggested that at least some of the suicide squad members were not from Iraq.
Some letters referred to repaying old debts, patching up quarrels and acquiring false passports. Others read like sermons, and one contained a poem saying that "the blood of martyrs smells sweet." Most were in blank envelopes and some were signed with Islamic noms de guerre such as Abu Ahmed. They were apparently intended to be delivered home by messengers.
In one letter, dated April 4, a man urged a friend to leave behind worldly concerns and come join a "beautiful" war against Shiite "nonbelievers" and Americans. "This is like Iran, there are many Shiites and we need to fight them," he wrote. "We are in another Kandahar, and we will burn the Americans." Kandahar, a city in Afghanistan (news - web sites), was the religious stronghold of the Taliban, the extremist Sunni militia that was toppled by U.S-led forces in 2001.
There were also notebooks with instructions on how to make a bomb and where to launch attacks against American facilities in Baghdad, 35 miles east.
As they listened to the letters being translated, the young Marines looked incredulous. Then someone opened a wallet that contained drawings of U.S. military insignia, evidently meant to pick out important targets. "I see captain and lieutenant, but no warrant officer. Guess I'm safe," said one Marine with a nervous laugh.
The squad examining the shed also inspected several other weapons caches in the abandoned factory zone Sunday, including a freezer full of mortar rounds and a pile of rice sacks from Vietnam that contained machine-gun ammunition. Officers said most of the material would be detonated or destroyed.
After the troops finished their work, they left several riflemen on guard, wishing them a happy Easter, and headed back to their command post in an empty pottery and carpentry workshop. Some rested in dust-covered armchairs; others gathered around a corporal who was being treated for a shrapnel wound in the knee.
"When I saw those [suicide] vests, I thought those people obviously don't value life," said one staff sergeant, shaking his head in bewilderment. A 20-year-old corporal, Philip Dennis, said he had expected to be building schools in Iraq, not dodging mortar shells.
"I'm a humanitarian person, and I don't believe in killing for no reason, but I guess this is the job that needs to be done," he said. On his first day of combat, Dennis recounted, he climbed on a roof and was astonished to see dozens of black-robed insurgents with AK-47 rifles. "I had no idea they had so many people, and I realized this was very big." He paused and added, "We killed a lot of them."
A few minutes later, a Navy chaplain arrived at the command post in a Humvee to hold a brief Easter communion service, which he repeated at two more front-line posts.
"God, we pray that our actions here give some glory back to you," said Navy Chaplain Wayne Hall, 36, who set up his communion vessels on a factory workbench. "We live in grace even here, and we are not afraid of death. . . . None of us wants to die here, but death is the blink of an eye, and you wake up in paradise."
One young corpsman, tending to an injured man in his command post, said he had little time to think about Easter but a great deal to live for. Picking up his helmet, he displayed a snapshot of his baby son glued to the inside.
He also said he was keeping a war diary that he would eventually take home to California. One entry was addressed to his wife, in Spanish and dated April 6 -- two day after the suicide squad member had written to his friend in Arabic, urging him to become a fellow martyr in the "beautiful" war against Shiites and Americans.
"Hello my dear, how is my precious boy?" the Marine's letter began. "We are in the middle of the most dangerous operation in the world. Thousands of Marines are united in this battle to eliminate terrorists from this city. Last night we got in a fierce firefight and I could see the explosions and rockets going up in the sky. Tonight I expect an even more dangerous mission, and I hope I can write you again tomorrow and tell you how it went."
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Ambushed while heading home, Blackfoot Company delivers hard counterpunch
By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer
Soldiers from Blackfoot Company, 1st/501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, responded to an ambush in Southeastern Afghanistan. It was the second enemy contact the unit has faced in a 24-hour period. No coalition forces were wounded in the action. -- Steve Elfers / Military Times
KHOST, Afghanistan -- It had been a good week patrolling the restive border region near Khost, near the border with Pakistan. This small band of soldiers had inspected houses for contraband, sipped tea with village elders and waged a firefight after they were ambushed by terrorist forces the day before.
It was time to join their fellow troops with the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment at their forward base at Camp Salerno. Time to get some rest, refit their equipment and take a much-needed shower. They were done; it was all down hill from here.
No such luck.
the convoy of more than a dozen Humvees had reached the mouth of the canyon leading down from their mountaintop position on this Good Friday afternoon when suddenly bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sizzled through the air around them.
Terrorists dug into hilltop positions to the west were trying to kill the soldiers with 3rd Platoon, Blackfoot Company
Soldiers with .50 caliber machineguns wheeled and ripped off some return fire as other troopers scrambled from their vehicles for higher ground. Deadly puffs of smoke rose from the craggy ridges as the Blackfoot soldiers pumped grenades from M203 and Mark19 guns at their attackers.
The convoy was badly exposed, its vehicles strung out for nearly 100 yards on open ground with mountains on either side. It could have been a turkey shoot.
But the Blackfoot troops put up a fierce resistance, setting up a mortar position within minutes and lobbing shells into the enemy's position.
"Birds inbound," one of the soldiers yelled over the deadly, rapid-fire "boom" of the heavy machineguns.
Then two A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets streaked overhead, rapidly followed by a pair of Marine AH-1W Super Cobra gunships. The aircraft swung immediately into the fray, scanning the mountain ridges with wide sweeping orbits looking for the perpetrators of the ambush.
"All I can say is God bless air support," said Spc. Bryan Hanks, of Spokane, Wash., as Cobras chopped low overhead.
The helicopters reported two suspicious caves and scanned them with forward-looking infrared scopes for any sign that the attackers might be hiding inside. But without a positive I.D., the Cobras did not fire. As the sun began to drop over the horizon, the company commander, Capt. Jonathan Chung, ordered his men to mount up and head out for the base. No casualties, no damaged equipment. The enemy had either been killed or, as most suspected, had melted back into the rocky Afghan hills.
"That's cheap shooting," said
Sgt. Cole Roupe, Alpha team leader with 3rd Squad. His second battle in 24 hours, the Orifino, Idaho native was clearly spoiling for more fight.
It was unclear who might have attacked the platoon this time. Just two days before, Blackfoot Company's 1st Platoon had searched a compound nearby and detained two men who held multiple passports, a horde of ammunition and guns and a makeshift radio antenna that the soldiers believed was meant for covert communications.
Maybe today's ambush was revenge for the April 7 raid, or maybe it was a sign of a larger push by al Qaida and its allies to undermine America's occupation here. Whatever the case, that's just how commanders want it; they've been trying for weeks to draw the enemy out, and now it looks like they're finally beginning to pop their heads above the ramparts.
"This is the effect we've been trying to achieve for the past four-to-five weeks," said one battalion leader.
"We had to make ourselves look weak to get them to come down on us."

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Town to build barrier to avert pollution from base
Associated Press
ROY, Utah -- Environmental officials plan to build a barrier to speed cleanup of a mile-long groundwater contamination through the southern part of this city.
The effort is intended to remove a contaminant called trichloroethylene, caused by nearby Hill Air Force Base. The Roy plume is one of 12 caused by improper disposal of degreaser and jet fuel at Hill.
The proposed reactive barrier is a key component of the second phase of a cleanup process that could take up to 30 years to complete.
It would include a 650-foot-long trench holding a sand and iron mixture. TCE found in water passing through the barrier would be broken down into harmless components, said Mark Loucks, an environmental engineer.
TCE has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory rats, but hasn't been linked to cancer in humans. It's currently classified as a probable carcinogen.
Traces of the chemical have been detected in 25 of 210 tested homes in the plume area.
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