THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

It (the war) is no longer about oil. It now is about two elections,

President wants Senate to hurry with new anti-terrorism laws
July 30, 1996
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton urged Congress Tuesday to act swiftly in developing anti-terrorism legislation before its August recess. (1.6 MB AIFF or WAV sound)

"We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue," Clinton said during a White House news conference.

But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, doubted that the Senate would rush to action before they recess this weekend. The Senate needs to study all the options, he said, and trying to get it done in the next three days would be tough.

One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives "a phony issue."
Taggants value disputed

Clinton said he knew there was Republican opposition to his proposal on explosive taggants, but it should not be allowed to block the provisions on which both parties agree.

"What I urge them to do is to be explicit about their disagreement, but don't let it overcome the areas of agreement," he said.

The president emphasized coming to terms on specific areas of disagreement would help move the legislation along. The president stressed it's important to get the legislation out before the weekend's recess, especially following the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park and the crash of TWA Flight 800.

"The most important thing right now is that they get the best, strongest bill they can out -- that they give us as much help as they can," he said.
Hatch blasts 'phony' issues

Republican leaders earlier met with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for about an hour in response to the president's call for "the very best ideas" for fighting terrorism.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."

Hatch called Clinton's proposed study of taggants -- chemical markers in explosives that could help track terrorists -- "a phony issue."

"If they want to, they can study the thing" already, Hatch asserted. He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said it is a mistake if Congress leaves town without addressing anti-terrorism legislation. Daschle is expected to hold a special meeting on the matter Wednesday with Congressional leaders.

DS 05/01/04

Can the US keep Iraqi Shiites happy for long?

British officials publicly worried recently that the United States-led coalition occupying Iraq had only about a year before the Shiites of Iraq turned against it.
Shiites, the majority in the country, so far have been more welcoming of the coalition military and civilian presence than have the Sunni Arabs. But the Shiite community, which is more religious than most outside observers had anticipated, is deeply ambivalent about the occupation. Like most Iraqis, Shiites dislike the idea of occupation, but most also want the security provided by coalition troops, at least for now. If very many Shiites turn hostile, they might begin listening to radical voices. This would make Iraq ungovernable for the coalition.
Tensions have arisen with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the pre-eminent Shiite religious authority, over the procedure for drafting a new constitution. A July 1 fatwa, or legal ruling, by Sistani rejected the US's original plan, under which the US-appointed Governing Council (GC) would have chosen a committee to draft the constitution.

The fatwa stated that "general elections must be held so that all eligible Iraqis can choose someone to represent them at the constitutional convention that will draft the constitution." The pronouncement by Sistani, who has enormous moral authority among mainstream Shiites, convinced the Shiite members of the Governing Council to insist on this way of proceeding. The Kurds, who fear the tyranny of the Shiite majority, want an appointed committee to do the drafting. This issue has paralyzed the council.
Concerns that a lengthy and contentious constitution drafting process could cause friction with the Shiite community appear to have been among the factors leading the US to significantly revise its plan for handing over civilian power to the Iraqis. The new plan, to which the US civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, and the GC agreed on Nov. 15, calls for a newly formed provisional assembly to form a government that will assume civil power by June 2004 and hold elections for drafters of a constitution by March 2005. National elections would be held under the new constitution by the end of 2005.

This plan may not fully satisfy Sistani and his followers, however. They may object that elections for the provisional assembly will not be truly democratic, since the electors will be local notables and tribal chieftains chosen in a process supervised by the US. Already, in a little-noticed fatwa issued on Oct. 6, Sistani's office said the Governing Council was illegitimate because it has been recognized neither by the Najaf religious authorities nor by a popular election.
The coalition's relations with the young firebrand Shiite preacher, Moqtada al-Sadr, are also prickly. As many as a third of Shiites, especially those living in the teeming ghettos of Baghdad and Basra, may sympathize with Sadr. He has called repeatedly for an immediate US withdrawal, and his lieutenants in mosques throughout the country criticize the Americans as corrupters of morals and as neocolonial oppressors.
Sadr and his lieutenants have staged several anti-American demonstrations in Baghdad and Basra, ranging in size from a few hundred to five and perhaps 10,000 people. Sadrists, as his followers are known, played a role in whipping up mobs against the British in Basra last August, and coalition troops clashed with Sadr's militias in eastern Baghdad and Karbala on Oct. 9 and 16, respectively. When those clashes resulted in the deaths of US servicemen, the US military considered arresting Sadr.

Instead, he appears to have been threatened and perhaps also bribed. He issued a statement in early November praising the US for removing Saddam Hussein (who had killed his father), and calling for cooperation with the coalition. The US cannot count on this conversion to moderation to last, however, since it is clearly rooted in pragmatism. Radicalized Shiites might swell the ranks of Sadr's followers and stage massive urban demonstrations of the sort initiated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the shah in Iran in 1978 and 1979. This would very likely trump the US. If the US left hundreds of thousands of demonstrators alone, it would be ceding control over that social space to them. If the US tried to control civilian crowds with force, trouble would escalate.
It remains to be seen whether the US's planned transition to Iraqi sovereignty in June 2004 can mollify both Sistani and Sadr. Both have welcomed the move, but problems remain. The date for a handoff of civil authority is farther away than most Iraqis would like, and it could slide.

The transfer of sovereignty will not necessarily end the large coalition military presence in the country, and many Shiites may lose patience with it.
Iran's hard-liners, who have condemned the US presence, have little authority in Iraq at present. However, that could change if the Iraqi public becomes deeply unhappy with the Americans. The US is walking a political tightrope, and may have to make further concessions to keep the Shiites happy.

Juan Cole is professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and author of Sacred Space and Holy War (IB Tauris, 2002). This is a revised version of an article reprinted with permission from the Arab Reform Bulletin #5 (November 2003) (http://www.ceip.org/ArabReform) © 2003, Carnegie

3 soldiers discharged for prisoner abuse
Detainees in Iraq were repeatedly kicked, miitary says

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:08 a.m. ET Jan. 05, 2004

KUWAIT CITY - The U.S. Army discharged three soldiers for abusing prisoners at a detention center in Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

The three soldiers, all from Pennsylvania, were scheduled to face court martials this month but opted instead to submit to a nonjudicial hearing, in which their conduct was judged by a commander without a jury, Lt. Col. Vic Harris said.

Brig. Gen. Ennis Whitehead III, the acting commander of the 143d Transportation Command, found the three soldiers had maltreated prisoners at Camp Bucca, southern Iraq, on May 12. He demoted two of the soldiers and ordered that all three forfeit their salaries for two months. All three were also discharged.

The general found that Master Sgt. Lisa Marie Girman, 35, of Hazelton, Pa. knocked a prisoner to the ground, “repeatedly kicking him in the groin, abdomen, and head, and encouraging her subordinate soldiers to do the same,” Harris said.

Girman received an “other-than-honorable conditions” discharge.

Staff Sgt. Scott A. McKenzie, 38, of Clearfield, Pa., was found to have dragged a prisoner by his shoulders and then to have held his legs apart “and encouraging others to kick him in the groin while other U.S. soldiers kicked him in the abdomen and head,” Harris said.

McKenzie was also found to have thrown the detainee face-down to the ground and have stepped on “his previously injured arm.”

Back in the U.S.

The general also found McKenzie made “a false sworn statement to a special agent of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division.”

McKenzie was demoted to sergeant and received a “general, under honorable conditions” discharge.

Spc. Timothy F. Canjar, 21, of Moscow, Pa., was found to have made a false statement to the army’s criminal investigators and to have held a detainee’s legs apart “while others kicked him in the groin,” in addition to “violently twisting his previously injured arm and causing him to scream in pain.”

Canjar was demoted to private — a rank two lower than specialist — and received a “general, under honorable conditions” discharge, Harris said.

The findings were handed down at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait on Dec. 29. The three soldiers have now returned to the United States.

A fourth soldier was charged in the same case, but Sgt. Shawna Edmondson, 24, requested and received an “other-than-honorable” discharge from the military last year rather than face a court martial.

I am outraged they were not court-matialled and thrown in jail!

Oh gods, I'm having chest pains!

Resistance
In Fedayeen's path, long term plans, unlikley organization
Iraq Today staff - 29-Dec-2003


BAGHDAD - When Saddam Hussein was finally captured in December, Fathel, a onetime leader of the Fedayeen and now a resistance leader, got a special message. The game has changed, he was told, and they had to change as well. "Our leaders ordered that we should meet and adapt ourselves to this new situation and to remove Iraqi people who were agents of the US," Fathel said. "They also told us that our work must be more organized and more secret because there are spies among us. But we are still here and we are still hard at work."

Three weeks after Saddam Hussein was caught, the Iraqi resistance has remained as intractable as ever, even as the coalition stepped up an aggressive campaign to wipe out insurgents in Baghdad. Threats of a "Christmas Surprise" came true this week as a barrage of rockets, mortars and suicide bombings throughout the country left more than 10 US soldiers dead, countless Iraqis dead or injured and the general security situation still in jeopardy. The skies over Baghdad rumbled with explosions and artillery fire, most of it aimed at Coalition targets and several civilian targets. Rebels launched a series of synchronized rocket, mortar, gunfire and bomb attacks in Baghdad -- the most serious insurgent action since Saddam's capture, hitting the Sheraton Palace hotel in Baghdad on two occasions and the CPA's "Green Zone". Nobody was killed and the military dismissed the insurgent offensive as a "random and irresponsible" terrorist act.

In the mean time, the coalition went on the offensive with operation Iron Grip, launching a barrage on successive nights against suspected resistance targets in the south of Baghdad. Heavy machine gun fire, artillery and missile fire underscored a sense of a city still at war.

But as the barrage continued overhead, Fathel was undeterred as he sat comfortably at home. In a rare look into the Fedayeen command, the former ommander underscored a level of organization and planning that continues to drive the resistance. Much as political analysts and Coalition leaders themselves have warned, the resistance is not likely to ebb any time soon. The question today, however, is whether the resistance will in fact become even more intractable.

"The resistance will never end," he warned confidently.



Initial orders



A day before Baghdad fell last April, Fathel received clear unexpected orders from his superiors. "Send your family away and rent a house in the outskirts of Baghdad," he was told. The order came from a high level Baathi leader, thought to be was clear: a new stage in the war was to begin.

The Fedayeen leadership was told to lay low and quiet; their commanders would know where to find them, and messengers would travel back and forth relaying orders, advice and news. For months, now, they have been active, unleashing a deadly campaign intended to drive out the coalition and stop Iraqis from working with the foreign forces.

Two weeks after the fall of the regime, Fathel was ordered to head to Ramadi to meet Saddam Hussein, he thought. As it turned out, Saddam never showed. But the ragtag gang of onetime military leaders were told, however, that Saddam was well and that he encouraged all to lead the resistance against the US troops.

A week later, in another ad-hoc meeting, the commanders asked Fathel and his cohorts to be more organized. "They divided us into groups and told us that together these groups would make up what was called Mohammad's Second Army," Fathel said. "After that we carried out many plans and operations.

Fathel claims he was frequently ill from an unspecified infection and was often unable to take part in many of the operations. Eventually he was excused from day to day operations. But he remained involved nonetheless.

In June, Fathel received the next major order: he was to sell everything and in particular the cars, houses and lands that the government had given him and await new orders. "We were happy to do this and many of us had already sold our cars in the first months after the fall of Baghdad," he claims. With cash in hand, he waited for further word. Then one day it came--Fathel was ordered to head to Amman for yet another ajor meeting.



Amman Reunion



"When I went to Amman I was shocked by the numbers of my colleagues and friends from the Baath socialist party there, as well as the presence of many of the ex-security men," he admitted. "They told me that they had gone to Jordan after the fall of Baghdad and continued to prepare operations from there and had stayed in touch with Saddam's family, many of whom were now in Jordan."

Numerous former Baathis flooded Jordan's capital during the summer months, many of them with cash in hand ready to buy real estate and more. In ritzy Amman neighborhoods like Deir Ghbar-- literally translated Dusty Monastry--new buildings have risen in recent months fetching some of the highest prices in Amman.

The buildings are full of members of Saddam Hussein's former regime and their compatriots, including high ranking former Baathis either unknown to or not wanted by the Coalition. The most famous Iraqis in town, Saddam Hussein's daughters Raghad and Rana, are also getting on with life in a three-storey white stone guesthouse in the Royal Palace that used to belong to the late King Hussein.

Flush with money, gold and jewelry they brought with them from Iraq, the new émigrés are splashing money around. Whether at Amman's new Mecca Mall, or at luxury clothing and jewelry stores in flashy neighborhoods like Abdoun and Sweifieh, Iraqi exiles, with their slightly out of style fashions and decidedly Tikriti accents are making their dollars felt.

"Iraqis are keeping a lot of us in business these days," admited one Amman jeweler there last month. "It's dangerous there [in Iraq], so they're bringing their money to here."

But Fathel's trip would be far shorter than most of his Baathi cohorts'. He went back to Baghdad days later, where he has remained operating quietly.

"After I went back to Baghdad I had many further meetings with the Baath leaders and they were all in good spirits," he claims. Those spirits have remained high. But Fathel insists he has not been involved directly in attacks against US soldiers, but has only been hearing about.

Nonetheless Fathel describes an intricate resistance network that is more a series of bee colonies than a centrally controlled army. Messages are transferred by trusted messengers who know how to reach individual members.

The cells operate relatively independently and freely, so that the arrest or killing of one will not affect the others. But there are even far more secretive procedures that Fathel would not discuss. Ultimately, those secrets lie at the heart of the continued intractable resistance, for which military might still appears a losing strategy.





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