News & Views 07/28/07

Photo: Meantime, Hussain, one of the drivers, stopped by with a painting to brighten the room. It was a commissioned piece, I'm told. The staffer who ordered it wanted something that said "Iraq."

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

"Karbala civilians killed" in US-Iraqi forces raid

Medical, police and Mahdi Army sources said 10 civilians including six from one family were killed and 28, including children, were wounded during a US raid on Karbala early Friday.

Story of a Kidnapping in Baghdad

Something told him he was alone. Kudum Hussein Ali couldn't be sure, because he was blindfolded. He only knew that the dusty house was still and that the gunmen who had been guarding him must either have gone out or fallen into a deep and silent sleep. It was time to make a move. Ali raised his tightly bound hands to his face and pushed the dark fabric off his eyes. The room was empty. Soundlessly, he crept into the hallway, down the stairs and to the front door, hoping to slip into the darkness without rousing his captors. Kidnappings happen every day in Baghdad. A car blocks the road. Gunmen emerge and order their target into the trunk. The prey may resist momentarily, but it is futile. The men have guns, after all, and they usually work in teams. The tale of Ali, a Shiite Muslim who survived a kidnapping, provides a rare look at the tactics used by captors and their prey as they try to outwit each other. Abductions have become so common that, in May, the state-run National Insurance Co. began offering anti-terrorism coverage in life insurance policies, providing payouts for death or injury resulting from kidnapping. "There was a missing link. We basically inserted that missing link," said Sadik F. Khafaji, the company's president. The kidnapping epidemic is a reflection of the inability of the tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops to secure Baghdad's streets, much less stop bombings and other terrorist attacks. According to the Ministry of Interior, which oversees Iraqi police forces, at least 188 kidnappings had been reported in Baghdad this year as of July 1. U.S. and Iraqi law enforcement experts say the actual number is probably much higher because many Iraqis do not report kidnappings out of distrust of the security forces and fear that the abductors will kill their captives if they seek help from soldiers or the police.

Some abductions are for ransom. Others are carried out by Islamic militants opposed to what they consider the sacrilegious lifestyles of professors, journalists, professional women and other members of Iraq's educated class. Last month, Khafaji's company announced a special discount in coverage to university professors, among its customers most at risk. The aim is to persuade them to remain in the country and not contribute to its ‘brain drain’. "We consider them a national treasure, and we want them to stay," Khafaji said. Many abductions, like Ali's, are driven by sectarian hatred between Sunnis and Shiites. That makes the violence in Iraq different from that in most countries convulsed by civil conflict. "That's not to say there has not been even more sectarian slaughter elsewhere," said Rand Corp. terrorism expert Brian Michael Jenkins. "But they weren't really individual abductions like we are seeing in Iraq." Those abducted for ransom have a chance of survival if their families pay up. Kidnappers know that if they kill too many abductees after ransoms are paid, people will stop handing over money. And that would put them out of business.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraq Round-up! Covers all the political developments this past week.

Iraqi Government Dismisses Sunni Demands

The Shiite-led Iraqi government issued a sharp response Friday to a Sunni political bloc that is threatening to pull out of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration, saying the group's "threatening, pressuring and blackmail" cannot impede Iraq's progress. In a four-page statement, Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, dismissed each of the 11 demands made by the Iraqi Accordance Front, the country's largest Sunni political group. Dabbagh accused the Accordance Front of working for its own political gains rather than for the benefit of the Iraqi people. "The threatening, pressuring and blackmail is useless, and delaying the work of the government, the council of representatives and the political process will not bring Iraq back to the time of dictatorship and slavery," Dabbagh wrote in the statement. The Accordance Front announced Wednesday that its six ministers in Maliki's cabinet would quit the government permanently unless the prime minister made significant progress on its list of demands by next week. The group is seeking a greater role in security matters, the removal of militia members from Iraqi security forces and the release of thousands of detainees its members believe are unjustly imprisoned.

Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush. Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda. One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general's signature strategy to be scrapped. "He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias," said the official. "Bush told Maliki to calm down." At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: "I can't deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you."

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

U.S. Widens Push to Use Armed Iraqi Residents

The U.S. military in Iraq is expanding its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents as local protection forces in order to improve security and promote reconciliation at the neighborhood level, according to senior U.S. commanders. Within the past month, the U.S. military command in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq ordered subordinate units to step up creation of the local forces, authorizing commanders to pay the fighters with U.S. emergency funds, reward payments and other monies.

………… The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, called the development of the grass-roots forces the most significant trend in Iraq "of the last four months or so" and one that could help propel slow-moving efforts at national reconciliation among Iraq's main religious sects and ethnic groups. "This is a very, very important component of reconciliation because it's happening from the bottom up," he said in an interview Friday. "The bottom-up piece is much farther along than any of us would have anticipated a few months back. It's become the focus of a great deal of effort, as there is a sense that this can bear a lot of fruit." [It will bear a lot of “fruit” alright – as long as you consider dead people “fruit”. Also, the US plans new arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other Gulf states that are considered “allies”. And, the US military is loading up some very big bunker-buster bombs for the Middle East this week. – dancewater]

Iraq Moratorium Day – September 21 and every third Friday thereafter ~ "I hereby make a commitment that on Friday, September 21, 2007, and the third Friday of every subsequent month I will break my daily routine and take some action, by myself or with others, to end the War in Iraq."

Quote of the day: "The president continues to keep information away from the American people and the Congress," said [Senator] Boxer, who advocates withdrawing troops. "It's obvious that he wants to paint a rosy picture." [Worse than that, I fear. – dancewater]