THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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Sunday, Feb. 20, 2005
Talking with the Enemy
Inside the secret dialogue between the U.S. and insurgents in Iraq?-and what the rebels say they want
By MICHAEL WARE

The secret meeting is taking place in the bowels of a facility in Baghdad, a cavernous, heavily guarded building in the U.S.-controlled green zone. The Iraqi negotiator, a middle-aged former member of Saddam Hussein's regime and the senior representative of the self-described nationalist insurgency, sits on one side of the table.

He is here to talk to two members of the U.S. military. One of them, an officer, takes notes during the meeting. The other, dressed in civilian clothes, listens as the Iraqi outlines a list of demands the U.S. must satisfy before the insurgents stop fighting. The parties trade boilerplate complaints: the U.S. officer presses the Iraqi for names of other insurgent leaders; the Iraqi says the newly elected Shi'a-dominated government is being controlled by Iran. The discussion does not go beyond generalities, but both sides know what's behind the coded language.

The Iraqi's very presence conveys a message: Members of the insurgency are open to negotiating an end to their struggle with the U.S. "We are ready," he says before leaving, "to work with you."

In that guarded pledge may lie the first sign that after nearly two years of fighting, parts of the insurgency in Iraq are prepared to talk and move toward putting away their arms?-and the U.S. is willing to listen. An account of the secret meeting between the senior insurgent negotiator and the U.S. military officials was provided to TIME by the insurgent negotiator. He says two such meetings have taken place. While U.S. officials would not confirm the details of any specific meetings, sources in Washington told TIME that for the first time the U.S. is in direct contact with members of the Sunni insurgency, including former members of Saddam's Baathist regime.

Pentagon officials say the secret contacts with insurgent leaders are being conducted mainly by U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers. A Western observer close to the discussions says that "there is no authorized dialogue with the insurgents" but that the U.S. has joined "back-channel" communications with rebels. Says the observer: "There's a lot bubbling under the surface today."

Over the course of the war in Iraq, as the anti-U.S. resistance has grown in size and intensity, Administration officials have been steadfast in their refusal to negotiate with enemy fighters. But in recent months, the persistence of the fighting and signs of division in the ranks of the insurgency have prompted some U.S. officials to seek a political solution. And Pentagon and intelligence officials hope the high voter turnout in last month's election will deflate the morale of the insurgents and persuade more of them to come in from the cold.

Hard-line islamist fighters like Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda group will not compromise in their campaign to create an Islamic state. But in interviews with TIME, senior Iraqi insurgent commanders said several "nationalist" rebel groups?-composed predominantly of ex-military officers and what the Pentagon dubs "former regime elements"?-have moved toward a strategy of "fight and negotiate." Although they have no immediate plans to halt attacks on U.S. troops, they say their aim is to establish a political identity that can represent disenfranchised Sunnis and eventually negotiate an end to the U.S. military's offensive in the Sunni triangle. Their model is Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, which ultimately earned the I.R.A. a role in the Northern Ireland peace process. "That's what we're working for, to have a political face appear from the battlefield, to unify the groups, to resist the aggressor and put our views to the people," says a battle commander in the upper tiers of the insurgency who asked to be identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Marwan. Another negotiator, called Abu Mohammed, told TIME, "Despite what has happened, the possibility for negotiation is still open."

But can such talks succeed? A senior official in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad says the nationalist insurgents "want to cut a deal, thinking we get ours and they get theirs." Any deal with the insurgents would be up to the new government, but embassy officials say they believe that reaching an accord should be the new government's top priority.

Behind the scenes, the U.S. is encouraging Sunni leaders and the insurgents to talk with the government. A tougher job may be to convince the leaders of political parties about to assume power?-many of whom were brutalized by Baathists now coordinating the insurgency?-that it's in their interests to reach a peaceful settlement with their former tormentors. In the U.S. command, there is increasing skepticism that the insurgency can be defeated through military might alone. Says a senior U.S. officer: "The Iraqis are the solution to the insurgency, and they are the solution to our departure."

Insurgent sources say both sides have been feeling each other out for months. Some of the earliest advances were made last year through Jordanian intelligence officers, but insurgents balked at the idea of meeting in Jordan. U.S. diplomats also initiated contact with conservative Sunnis known to have influence with the insurgents, such as Harith al-Dhari, the head of the Association of Muslim Scholars.

Insurgent sources say that last summer a loose amalgam of nationalist groups?-Mohammed's Army, al-Nasser al-Saladin, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and perhaps even the Islamic Army of Iraq?-met to discuss forging a common political platform.

Meanwhile, some Americans showed openness to a dialogue. In meetings with Sunni tribal leaders, Lieut. Colonel Rick Welch, the senior special-operations civil-military affairs adviser to the commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad, put word out that the military was willing to talk to hard-liners about their grievances and that, as Welch says, "the door is not closed, except for some very top regime guys." Welch, a reservist and prosecutor from Morgan County, Ohio, told TIME, "I don't meet all the insurgent leaders, but I've met some of them." Although not an authorized negotiator, Welch has become a back channel in the nascent U.S. dialogue with the insurgents. Insurgent negotiators confirm to TIME that they have met with Welch.

What do the insurgents want? Top insurgent field commanders and negotiators informed TIME that the rebels have told diplomats and military officers that they support a secular democracy in Iraq but resent the prospect of a government run by exiles who fled to Iran and the West during Saddam's regime. The insurgents also seek a guaranteed timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, a demand the U.S. refuses. But there are some hints of compromise: insurgent negotiators have told their U.S. counterparts they would accept a U.N. peacekeeping force as the U.S. troop presence recedes. Insurgent representative Abu Mohammed says the nationalists would even tolerate U.S. bases on Iraqi soil. "We don't mind if the invader becomes a guest," he says, suggesting a situation akin to the U.S. military presence in Germany and Japan.

As promising as such proffers might sound, it's far too early for optimism. The new U.S. policy of engagement is aimed at driving a wedge between nationalist insurgents and the jihadists. But al-Zarqawi and his allies have silenced nationalists by threatening to kill them if they negotiate. The Western observer close to the discussions says, "Al-Zarqawi keeps pulling the process away from 'fight and negotiate' to 'pure mayhem.'"

The engagement strategy faces another obstacle: the new Iraqi government. Leaders of the victorious political parties say they have no interest in continuing dialogue with the insurgents. "The voters gave us a mandate to attack these insurgents, not negotiate with them," says Humam Bakr Hammoudi, a political strategist for the dominant sciri party. U.S. negotiators say they believe the new government will eventually realize that only a political settlement will subdue the insurgency?-which may soon direct its wrath at the new Iraqi rulers if it believes its interests are being ignored.

While some in the Bush Administration might find the idea of backing an accord with archenemy Baathists distasteful, the Western observer says, "I think you've got a pretty flexible [U.S.] government." Now it's up to the others to follow.


With reporting by Aparisim Ghosh/Baghdad and Douglas Waller/ Washington

Civil War Plans

Even under the U.S. umbrella and prodding, the Kurds were unable to establish a working Parliament or a common administration for Kurdistan. Include the Shiites, who follow the dictates of Ali Sistani, and the chances of any democratic give-and-take look remote. One might see the kind of political turmoil and brinkmanship that was witnessed in Damascus after the collapse of the Ottoman armies and the arrival of Emir Feisal's supporters, as depicted in the film "Lawrence of Arabia." British troops had "liberated" the Arab lands, but they had their own agenda. As does the U.S. administration in "liberated" Iraq - its oil and strategic control of the region. The Shiites have got a dominant role by virtue of U.S. guns, tanks, helicopters and F-16s; it is not an organic political evolution. The continuing Sunni Arab insurgency, which is a national resistance aimed principally at the U.S.-imposed institutions and the new Iraqi government, could provoke a Shiite backlash and lead to a civil war. The U.S. forgets that Indian troops left Bangladesh as soon peace was restored; still, the new state was hardly thankful. In Iraq, the Shiites wouldn't be grateful, either, if exiles were imposed as rulers and U.S. troops stayed put. The United States has seen underground Shiite organization in spite of decades of Sunni-dominated secular regime. Soon after the toppling of Saddam's statue in March 2003, U.S. Special Forces encouraged Shiites to take revenge against members of the Baathist regime. U.S. and British Special Forces remain active in Iraq to this day, making for a violent brew. What if the Shiite followers of Moqtada al-Sadr also turned on the occupation forces?

Has anyone heard anything else about when they are going to announce the PM?

Iraqi interim PM Allawi in bid to keep his job
Mon Feb 21, 2005


By Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi put in a bid to retain his job on Monday when his coalition, which came third in the Jan. 30 election, formally nominated him as a candidate for premier.

"Iyad Allawi is the Iraqi List's candidate to be the next prime minister," Thaer al-Naqib, a government spokesman, told Reuters. "There are several other parties and lists that support his bid for the prime ministership," he added.

Iraq's election was won by the United Iraqi Alliance, a religious Shi'ite-led coalition, and its candidate for prime minister, who is yet to be chosen, is widely expected to be the strongest contender for the post.

But Allawi's entrance into the fray now means there will be competition for Iraq's most-powerful political position.

It also suggests Allawi's backers believe not everyone is content to allow the United Iraqi Alliance to decide unopposed who gets the job.

The United Iraqi Alliance is expected to choose Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the head of a religious Shi'ite Muslim party, as its candidate for prime minister, but his candidacy is being challenged from inside the alliance by Ahmad Chalabi.

A two-thirds majority is needed in Iraq's newly elected 275-seat National Assembly to form a government -- a margin no coalition has unless it strikes an alliance with another group.

The United Iraqi Alliance has 140 seats in the assembly, or 51 percent, and a Kurdish alliance, which came second in the election, has 75 seats.

If they form an alliance, they could grasp a two-thirds majority and decide the top government posts between them.

The Kurds, who have taken on the role of kingmaker in the country's post-electoral process, are in talks with both the main Shi'ite alliance and Allawi, a secular Shi'ite seen as close to the U.S. administration.

The Kurds, who have said they want to make their candidate Iraq's president -- a largely ceremonial role -- were seen as favouring an alliance with the main Shi'ite bloc.

But government spokesman Naqib said Allawi's list and the Kurds were still talking, and did not rule out the possibility of a deal.

Editorial
Injustice, in Secret

Monday, February 21, 2005; Page A26

ATTORNEYS FOR the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court. This position is alien to the history and premise of Anglo-American jurisprudence, which assumes that opposing lawyers will challenge one another's arguments.

Ahmed Abu Ali was arrested in June 2003 in Saudi Arabia. He and his family claim the arrest took place at the behest of U.S. officials who,1 though unable to bring a case against him, have encouraged the Saudis to keep him locked up. The facts are murky, and Judge John D. Bates refused in December to dismiss the case, writing that he needed more information before he could decide whether a U.S. court has jurisdiction.
Since then, the U.S. government has acted to frustrate all reasonable searches for answers. It has moved to stay discovery based on secret evidence. It has proposed adding to the facts at Judge Bates's disposal by submitting secret evidence that Mr. Abu Ali's attorneys would have no opportunity to challenge. Most recently, it urged that the case be dismissed on the basis, yet again, of secret evidence -- this time supplemented with what a Justice Department lawyer termed "legal argument [that] itself cannot be made public without disclosing the classified information that underlies it."

Judge Bates is cautious and generally deferential to government concerns. Yet he was evidently disturbed by this argument, at one point asking whether the government could identify "any case in which . . . even the legal theory for dismissal is not known to the other side?" The government could not.

In this case, the liberty of a U.S. citizen is at stake. It is not clear what role the U.S. government played in his arrest, nor that he is innocent. What is clear is that Mr. Abu Ali has been held for 20 months without being charged and that, as Judge Bates wrote in December, his lawyers "have presented some unrebutted evidence that [his] detention is at the behest and ongoing direction of United States officials." It should be unthinkable that the courts would resolve this matter without hearing from both sides on key legal questions. It should have been unthinkable for the government to propose such a step.

I liked this one. . . couldn't resist

Current Events
Why Millions Say, Softly, God Bless America
Paul Johnson, 02.28.05, 12:00 AM ET

Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them. It also has many hypocritical and humbugging pseudosupporters, which is one of numerous lessons to be drawn from the situation in Iraq.

When America--having smashed Iraq's 40-year-old Baathist tyranny and captured its blood-soaked leader, Saddam Hussein--promised to hold democratic elections with all deliberate speed so that Iraqis could decide their own future, the hope and expectation was that democratic nations and peoples the world over would come and help. But that did not happen. With the notable exceptions of Australia, Poland and Britain (whose prime minister, Tony Blair, has taken huge political risks to back America 100%), most other democratic nations have looked the other way.

The worst example is Spain. On the eve of elections there, terrorists detonated bombs on trains in Madrid, panicking the nation. In a spasm of fear the Spanish--not normally lacking in courage--voted in a Socialist government. The new government took the coward's way out and withdrew its troops from Iraq.

In Ukraine voters took to the streets to reverse a crooked election. Thanks to the backing of the U.S., Ukrainians won their point, and their true, democratically elected president took office. But even though it has tasted the sweets of democracy itself, Ukraine is also withdrawing its troops from Iraq--a case of cowardice compounded by selfishness that bodes ill for the country's future.

Spain and Ukraine expect to enjoy democracy but will not lift a finger to help the Iraqis, who have never had such a luxury.

France and Germany have remained on the sidelines, greeting America's costly efforts to bring democracy to the Arab world with a mixture of vicious criticism, sneers and obstructive tactics. But then, neither nation has much of a democratic record.

The Germans have had democracy imposed on them twice by the victorious Allies, each time after a world war Germany started. German democracy is a superficial growth, and if the Socialists there continue to mismanage the economy and impoverish the people, who can say whether freedom in Germany will survive?

The French have had 12 written constitutions since 1789. None has given ordinary French people the feeling that they are really in charge of their affairs. If they have a real grievance they take to the streets and block the roads and ports, knowing from bitter experience that force is more likely to get results than arguments or votes.

Italy has had democracy of a sort since 1945, but it is so corrupt that Italians don't put much faith in it. They know that family and business connections--based on favors given and reciprocated--are the only way to obtain justice and their rights.

The European Union itself is the epitome of the Continent's pseudodemocracy. There power is distributed among masterful bureaucrats and permanent political elites. The resulting lack of freedom for individuals and businesses means that economic growth is almost nil and the future is bleak.

As for European intellectuals, who command so much power in the media, universities and opinion-forming circles, they have done everything they possibly could to abuse America's initiative in Iraq and to prevent the installation of freedom. Some make it clear that they would much prefer Iraq to be run by men like Saddam than by American-backed democrats. Of course, intellectuals pay lip service to free elections but in practice have a profound (if secret) hatred of democracy. They cannot believe that their votes should count for no more than the votes of "uneducated" people who run small businesses, work on farms and in factories and have never read Proust.

The intellectuals wanted the Iraqi elections to be defeated by terror. But now that the elections have actually taken place, they want the new government to fail. They want democracy to fail in Afghanistan as well so that they can smile smugly and say, "We told you so." For if democracy were to triumph everywhere, what role would there be for the intellectual critic? As Shakespeare put it, "Othello's occupation's gone."


Turning Point?
Despite all these false friends and hidden enemies, however, democracy is taking its first faltering steps in the Arab-Muslim world. It may well be that in history's long perspective, America's success in turning Afghanistan and Iraq away from tyranny, fear and murder toward the peaceful rule of the ballot will seem a historic turning point. Other successes may well follow, and the chariot of democracy will gather momentum.

Just as the appalling 20th century was the age of the totalitarian state, the Gulag and Auschwitz, so the 21st may come to be seen as the age of government "of the people, by the people, for the people." If so, the U.S., by its courage and persistence, will be able to take primary credit. It has certainly led from the front, and it has shown that it knows how to use its position as the world's sole superpower with judgment, honor and unselfishness.

I think Abraham Lincoln would be proud of what George W. Bush and the U.S. forces have done. After the freeing of the slaves, what more logical and benevolent step could there be than to free millions of Arabs from the slavery of terror? So I say, God Bless America. And I'm confident that countless millions throughout the world say so, too, even if they do not dare--yet--to say so aloud.

Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author; Lee Kuan Yew, minister mentor of Singapore; and Ernesto Zedillo, director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, former president of Mexico; in addition to Forbes Chairman Caspar W. Weinberger, rotate in writing this column. To see past Current Events columns, visit our Web site at www.forbes.com/currentevents.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0228/025_print.html

The Results Are In
BY Nibras Kazimi
February 17, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/9378

The good news: we are not getting an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. The bad news, well, there is none. The results of the Iraqi elections were announced Sunday, and I did what every self-respecting obsessive election-watcher does: get out the calculator. Many hours later, and with the full list of the 275 members of the newly elected National Assembly or parliament before me, I have the following breakdown to report:

Gender politics: The Transitional Administrative Law, which was drawn up by the former Iraqi Governing Council to regulate a period of interim sovereignty that lasted from July of last year, when the coalition occupation was declared over, to last January's election, stipulated that no less than 25% of the seats in the new parliament should be reserved for women. The slates that competed in these elections had to be formulated in such a way to give women that minimum quota, and as a result there will be 85 of them (or a whopping 31%) in this new legislative body. I don't think this has happened anywhere in the world, and I dare the experts or the Women's Lib movement to prove otherwise. More women than men voted in these globally landmark elections and there are more women represented in Iraq's new parliament than any elected body on Mother Earth. Oprah, Hillary, would you care to say something?

The new democracy in Iraq shall have founding fathers, and founding mothers. This, coupled with the emancipation of women from the non-pedicured clutches of the Taliban, should compel the bra-burning crowd to send gushy Valentine's cards to President Bush. Somehow, I think that Maureen Dowd, the self-appointed maiden of punditry, is not going to understand the magnitude of what just happened. But I'm sure women in Saudi Arabia do.

Communal politics: The Arab Sunnis got 24 seats (9%), the Kurds got 74 seats (27%), the Christians got eight seats (3%), the Turkomen got five seats (2%) and the Yezidis, an obscure religion sometimes labeled as ancient "Devil-Worshippers," got two seats (1%).

Everyone who wanted the elections to be delayed, and the list included the New York Times editorial page and plenty of Arab dictators, was worried sick about Sunni Arab alienation from the elections that, according to their reasoning, would leave them with no option other than waging civil war. These folks should be feeling as small and foolish as the Sunni Arab leadership, because their reasoning was upside down. The current insurgency is an undeclared civil war waged by the Arab Sunnis of Iraq who hope to reclaim the absolute power they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein, and the only reason there was no massive outbreak of communal strife is due to the fact that the Sunnis could not find a partner for their macabre and tangled tango. Saddam's victims, predominately the Shias and the Kurds, waited for the ballot boxes as their response to Sunni provocation. Now, the real leaders of the Arab Sunnis who were fanning the flames of the insurgency (not the ones roused from retirement by Foggy Bottom like Pachachi, who couldn't even manage to get a seat) are sheepishly asking to be allowed to play with all the others on the playground of parliamentary politics.

For the first time in the Middle East, the use of politically motivated violence as a means of getting recognized and earning a seat at the table, as employed by Yasser Arafat and other Arab dictators, has failed miserably and conclusively. Elections were the wake-up call for Iraq's Sunnis, not the beginning of the end.

The Kurds, who for the past 80 years of Iraq's existence fought valiantly to exit the "Iraqi arrangement" and opt for independence, are coming around to the idea that maybe, for the time being, a federal Iraq is an option they can live with. Thousands of Kurdish nationalists uttered "Long Live Kurdistan" as their last words before a horrible death at the hands of an Iraqi state that forcibly tried to keep the country unified. Last Sunday, millions of Kurds went to the polls to vote as Iraqis as part of a compromise with the ghosts of national destiny. For much of Iraq's history, there was a de facto civil war that ended up murdering hundreds of thousands of Kurds. These election results had the effect of binding a segment of the population, as numerous as the Arab Sunnis, to the idea of a unified Iraq, and ending the longest running civil war in the Middle East. How come no one at the New York Times editorial board is celebrating this outcome?

Ideological politics: The United Alliance List, peddled as the "Islamic Revolution Lite" list, walked away with an astounding 140 seats, the largest single block. The fad these days is for journalists and anti-Bush pundits to raise their brows in feigned horror and yell, "We have created an Islamic Frankenstein!"

Rest at ease: As usual it is a case of mistaken identity. Although the first name on the UAI list is a mullah, the majority of those who got elected from this particular slate are secular leaning academics and technocrats. At least one likes to drink alcohol more than is good for him. By my count, there are fewer than 30 party affiliates, and the bulk are unknown independents. Those reporters in Baghdad should be forgiven for all that alarmist drivel, for they had not met any of those new leaders of Iraq at political rallies or press conferences and thus don't know where they stand on issues. The new faces of Iraq's democracy were busy giving literary lectures, treating patients, or tending gardens. They are the building blocks of Iraq's nascent civil society, and Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who lovingly put together the UAI list, wanted their views heard amidst the raucous clamoring of political agendas as the constitution is being written, which is the primary role of this elected parliament.

And here's a political prediction to boot: The current law on the books called the Civil Affairs Law of 1959, which covers personal matters such as marriage, inheritance, and divorce, will not be repealed. This law, the most liberal in all of the Islamic world, is the litmus test of the Islamist agenda. The fundamentalists on the UAI list would like to substitute Islamic jurisprudence, or Sharia, as the final arbiter of personal matters. They tried to do just that during their tenure on the Governing Council and failed due to American intervention; they will fail again in the new parliament because they don't have the votes.

Dirty politics: Yes, there was massive vote fraud, some of which was probably managed by the Baghdad station of the Central Intelligence Agency, but that also counts as good news. Massive vote rigging was held in check by massive voter turnout. Yet again, the spooks did not see this one coming: Iraqis voted in very large numbers, and the fraudsters were caught off-guard when they realized that their made-to-order ballots were not enough to tip the balance in favor of their well-financed candidates. Two lists that had covertly pocketed tens of millions of American taxpayer money among themselves over the years did not even manage to get a single seat. Prime Minister Allawi, who poured tens of millions of dollars into an all-out ad campaign that marketed his "can-do" prowess, did fairly well, but still not enough to keep him politically relevant.

So there you have it: a real election with real results. None of that "the Great Leader won a landslide with 99.9% of the votes" business. Politics, in all its many high and low gradations, has been reintroduced into Iraq, and these elected representatives of the people are about to chart a new course for their nation. Iraqis are now fully in charge of their country's destiny, for better or worse. And should they stumble or fail, the Iraqi people will vote them out, and my calculator will be dusted off yet again.

Mr. Kazimi is an Iraqi writer living in Washington, D.C. He can be contacted at [email protected]
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