REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
Bad Water Afflicting Iraq's Children
Four years after the US-led invasion of Iraq that ousted deceased former president Saddam Hussein, the majority of Iraqis find it difficult to get safe water, despite the fact that the country is blessed with two abundant natural water sources, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Like much of Iraq's infrastructure, its national water networks have been left to fall into disrepair over the past two decades as a result of Iraq's long economic stagnation under United Nations-imposed sanctions during Saddam's era.
Sunni Baghdad Becomes Land of Silent Ruins
Theirs is a world of ruined buildings, damaged mosques, streets pitted by mortar shells, uncollected trash and so little electricity that many people have abandoned using refrigerators altogether. The contrast with Shiite neighborhoods is sharp. Markets there are in full swing, community projects are under way, and while electricity is scarce throughout the city, there is less trouble finding fuel for generators in those areas. When the government cannot provide services, civilian arms of the Shiite militias step in to try to fill the gap. But in Adhamiya, a community with a Sunni majority, any semblance of normal life vanished more than a year ago. Its only hospital, Al Numan, is so short of basic items like gauze and cotton pads that when mortar attacks hit the community last fall, the doctors broadcast appeals for supplies over local mosque loudspeakers.
Night Raids
Several times a week, in every troublespot in Iraq, late-night raids are carried out by American and Iraqi troops against the homes of suspected insurgents. Raids take place at around 2 or 3 in the morning. The targets vary, some are suspected makers of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's), by far the number one killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Others are suspected insurgents, who gather in small groups to ambush troops, usually after an IED attack, then vanish, invariably protected by local people. Almost always, the target houses are residential. Entry is abrupt. A dozen soldiers line up on opposite sides of a door. One soldier kicks it in, then he and his comrades stream in, yelling in English and Arabic and quickly subduing the suspects. Their hands are tied and secured by thick plastic bands, and they are made to kneel, while the house is aggressively searched for any sign of contraband. Meanwhile, the company or platoon commander, usually a captain, verifies the identities of the captured men and interrogates them with the help of an interpreter. Interpreters come in several forms. A few, very few, are American citizens of Arabic descent contracted by American companies. Many other are Arabic-speaking Kurds, usually university-educated young men who tend to hate Iraqis. The rest are Iraqis, mostly Shia, who are local but often from a different neighborhood than they patrol. They almost always wear black masks and sunglasses or baklavas to conceal their identities. If contraband is found, or the answers from the captured Iraqis are deemed unacceptable, they are blindfolded and led out of the house. The officer and interpreter will go into the next room, where women and children are being watched over, and explain to them that their husband, father, son is being detained. At the news they nearly always leap up wailing, clawing at themselves, tightly grasping their head in their hands, begging for mercy or leniency. The man or men will be stuffed into a vehicle and taken to a detention facility. Often he will be released in a few days if there is not enough evidence at hand to hold him. Other times he will be held in the American or Iraqi prison system indefinitely. Perhaps 25 per cent of the raids I witnessed led to the detention of suspected insurgents. The rest failed, victims of bad intelligence or timing.
From Juan Cole’s Blog:
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi government is blaming the assassination attempt on the Baath Party. (Note that the Western press was almost unanimous in blaming "al-Qaeda;" but the Iraqi government is better placed to know who is trying to kill its officials). Al-Zawba` is a Sunni Arab clan, the leader of which has, like the vice premier, been willing to cooperate with the Americans. The incident shows the ways in which ideology is sometimes more powerful than kinship ties in today's Iraq. The hope sometimes expressed that tribes could step up and stop the guerrillas founders on such data. Al-Hayat also says that the "Islamic State of Iraq," the fundamentalist guerrilla group active in western Iraq, has demanded that the city of Tikrit accept its rule, in return for which it would release Sheikh Naji Jabarah al-Juburi, the chieftain of the powerful, largely Sunni Arab Jubur tribe.
REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ
U.S. Envoy Says He Met With Iraq Rebels
The senior American envoy in Iraq, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, held talks last year with men he believed represented major insurgent groups in a drive to bring militant Sunni Arabs into politics. "There were discussions with the representatives of various groups in the aftermath of the elections, and during the formation of the government before the Samarra incident, and some discussions afterwards as well," Khalilzad said in a farewell interview on Friday at his home inside the fortified Green Zone. He is the first American official to publicly acknowledge holding such talks. The meetings began in early 2006 and were quite possibly the first attempts at sustained contact between senior American officials here and the Sunni Arab insurgency. Khalilzad flew to Jordan for some of the talks, which included self-identified representatives of the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, two leading nationalist factions, American and Iraqi officials said. Khalilzad declined to give details on the meetings, but other officials said the efforts had foundered by the summer, after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra set off waves of sectarian violence. Khalilzad's willingness even to approach rebel groups seemed at odds with the public position of some Bush administration officials that the United States does not negotiate with insurgents. It was not clear whether he had to seek permission from Washington before engaging in these talks. In general, Khalilzad was given great flexibility in making diplomatic decisions to try to rein in the spiraling violence, and his talks with insurgents reflected the practical view of Iraqi politics that the ambassador adopted throughout his nearly two-year tenure here. American commanders here have also said it is necessary to woo the less radical insurgent groups away from the true militants. American officials have privately acknowledged there have been some talks with insurgent representatives as early as autumn 2005. In another sign of pragmatism, the ambassador reiterated in the interview his position that the American and Iraqi governments had to consider granting amnesty to insurgents. But critics of Khalilzad say that the painstaking and potentially rancorous review of the Constitution under way would not be needed if the Americans had shepherded a more balanced Constitution, instead of one that gave short shrift to the needs of the Sunni Arabs as it tried to appeal to the Kurds and Shiites. Khalilzad and his colleagues, the critics say, were so fixated on meeting the political timetable laid out by the White House that they pushed through a document that may have inflamed the Sunni-led insurgency by enshrining strong regional control. The Constitution reaffirms Sunni Arab beliefs that Shiites and Kurds want oil and territory. "The Constitution is the source of the problem," said Fakhri al-Qaisi, a hard-line Sunni Arab politician who was among 15 Sunni advisers on the Constitution. "It's a sectarian document." Western officials who have examined the Constitution say the Sunni Arabs have a right to be concerned: the document's language skews authority vastly in favor of the regions. If the Iraqi review committee and the Parliament are able to make hard compromises on amendments, then a nationwide referendum on the new Constitution might be held before the end of 2007. What is happening now essentially is a repeat of what took place in 2005.
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