News & Views 11/26/07

Photo: People cry as they escort the coffin of one of the victims of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007. A parked car bomb exploded in a crowded area near a medical complex in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 30, officials said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

97 women burnt to death, 27 others killed in Kurdistan region in 4 months

Ninety-seven women were burnt to death and 27 others killed in the three Kurdish provinces during the past four months, the human rights minister in the Iraqi Kurdistan region revealed. "I cannot say that violence against women has lowered," Yusuf Aziz Muhammad told reporters after taking part in a conference held in Arbil on Sunday to discuss means to stop violence against women. The statements coincide with the international day to eliminate violence against women, November 25. "Surveys conducted in Arbil (the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region) showed that there were 60 cases of women burning in Arbil, 21 in Duhuk and 16 in Sulaimaniya. There were also 10 cases of women killing in Arbil, 11 in Duhuk and six in Sulaimaniya," Muhammad said. The Kurdish official, citing the figures of 2005, noted that there were 59 cases of women killing in the region, which rose to 118 in 2006. "Cases of women burning themselves in Sulaimaniya during 2006 were 64 and in Duhuk 185," said the minister. Women proved involved in honor-related crimes are forced to burn themselves and sometimes they are set ablaze by their male relatives. The minister, who heads the committee to investigate violence against women, said members of his committee "dealt with the reasons behind this deterioration and agreed to replace the term 'honor killing' with the term 'violence against women' and to set determined tasks for relevant ministries."

11 Relatives of Iraqi Journalist Killed

Masked gunmen stormed the family home of a journalist who was associated with Saddam Hussein's party and critical of the Iraqi government, killing 11 relatives as they ate breakfast in a neighborhood known as a Shiite militia stronghold, colleagues said Monday. Dhia al-Kawaz, editor of the Jordan-based Asawat al-Iraq news agency, was in Jordan when his sisters, their husbands and children were reportedly killed Sunday in north Baghdad's Shaab district. According to the news agency's Web site, witnesses said more than five masked men broke into the home and opened fire, then planted a bomb inside. "Sectarian militias killed 11 family members of Dhia al-Kawaz," the agency's statement said, apparently referring to Shiite death squads that frequently target minority Sunnis and their supporters. The media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said Iraqi police at a nearby checkpoint failed to intervene as the family — al-Kawaz's sisters, their husbands and their seven children — was slaughtered. Al-Kawaz, his wife and their children live elsewhere.

Mohammed Salman, a colleague of al-Kawaz in the Jordanian capital of Amman, confirmed the attack in Shaab, a Shiite militia stronghold where a group of Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks was kidnapped last month before being freed in a U.S. and Iraqi rescue operation. Another colleague, who refused to be named because he feared reprisal, said al-Kawaz has received threats for his stance against the U.S. occupation and sectarian strife in Iraq. The colleague refused to say whether al-Kawaz was Sunni or Shiite. That colleague said an SUV without license plates stopped at the gate of the house and threw two bombs as the two couples and their children aged 5 to 10 were eating breakfast. Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, said al-Kawaz had recently received threats from the Badr Brigade, the militant arm of Iraq's largest Shiite party the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Al-Kawaz, who declined to comment Monday, has rejected the U.S. occupation and accused majority-Shiite Iran of seeking to dominate the Iraqi government. The journalist is known as an advocate for Saddam's banned Baath Party.

Baghdad: Quieter but Not Peaceful

The quietest time in Baghdad usually comes around midnight. Curfew falls. People across the city turn off lights and bed down, easing the load on the electricity grid enough to allow government-run power-lines to flow. Generators go silent. Fumes clear, and stars come into view in the clear night sky. On some evenings these days if you stay up late you can hear unbroken hours of hushed calm stirred only by the distant barking of dogs or the wispy echoes of a jet high overhead. Other nights, though, the crunch of bombs falling around the city begins to sound heavily as the clock moves through the hours of the early morning. On some nights only half-a-dozen or so bombs can be heard hitting southern Baghdad and other quarters of the city. On other nights neighborhoods within earshot of the Green Zone take brutal hammerings, a dozen strikes or more crashing in the darkness. For weeks it has gone like this - relative calm in the city during the day followed on many evenings by a chorus of explosions around the city. In the past several days, however, dawn has brought blasts of its own, a seeming answer by insurgents and militia fighters to assertions by U.S. and Iraqi officials that Baghdad and other areas of Iraq are on the mend.

Reopening of looted museum signals a calmer Baghdad

Nearly five years after it was ransacked by hordes of looters in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, the Iraq museum in Baghdad is about to open its doors again. The museum, famous for priceless antiquities representing the world’s earliest civilisation, is scheduled to open next month, according to its acting director, Amira Emiran. Visits will be confined to just two galleries on the ground floor containing Assyrian and Islamic treasures that are too large and heavy to be easily removed. The remaining 16 galleries will remain empty and closed and security will be tight. Nevertheless, Iraqi and American officials are keen to portray the opening as a sign that security in Baghdad has improved after the chaos of the past few years.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq

Members of the Baghdad Brigade receive $300 a man each month from the Americans, who also provide vehicles, uniforms and flak jackets. In return the brigade keeps out Al-Qaeda, dismantles roadside bombs and patrols the area, a task performed with considerable swagger by many of its 4,000 recruits. The US military is delighted with the results achieved by the brigade in Abu Ghraib and by similar groups in other former “hot spots” of sectarian conflict that have seen a sharp decline in violence. For Shi’ites such as Kahiriya Musa, however, a Sunni militia represents another potential source of terror in a country where millions have been traumatised by ethnic cleansing. A 50% cut in car and roadside bombs, shootings and rocket and mortar attacks since June has brought hope that some of the 5m Iraqis driven from home may soon be able to go back. Yet many – Kahiriya Musa among them – are too frightened of the new militias and the ethnic cleansers in their ranks to risk moving. Officials in the Shi’ite-led government also fear the burgeoning of fresh forces beyond its control. The question being asked in government circles is: have the Americans achieved a short-term gain in security at a cost of long-term pain that may be inflicted by the Sunni militias, which are already threatening to go to war against their Shi’ite counterparts? The western province of Anbar first witnessed the phenomenon known as “the awakening” – the turning of Sunni tribes against the largely foreign fighters of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. For General David Petraeus, the American commander, the awakening has proved a powerful force with which to increase the impact of his surge of 30,000 US troops earlier this year. By allying the US forces with Sunnis opposed to Al-Qaeda, the general has engineered victories over the brutal foreign fighters that seemed almost unimaginable 12 months ago. US-backed Sunni militias have spread eastwards from Anbar across Baghdad. They already number 77,000, known collectively as “concerned local citizens”. This is more than the Shi’ite Mahdi Army and nearly half the number in the Iraqi army. Exotically named groups such as the Knights of Ameriya and the Guardians of Ghazaliya strut the streets in camouflage uniforms, brandishing new AK47s that the Americans say they have not supplied.

Islamic Army splits over fight with Qaeda

A split in the ranks of the Islamic Army of Iraq is certain to reverse the successes U.S. occupation troops allege to have made in the country in the past few months. The Mosul sector has severed ties with the Islamic Army whose leaders have agreed to cooperate with U.S. troops and turn their guns against Qaeda fighters and elements in the country. The Mosul sector is one of the most effective and battle hardened of the insurgent group which once claimed the execution of almost daily attacks on U.S. troops. Mosul – Iraq’s second largest city and the districts within the borders of the Province of Nineveh, of which the city is the capital – was the hometown of army generals and senior officers of former leader Saddam Hussein’s armed forces. From Mosul came the largest number of volunteers of the former Republican Guards, Saddam Hussein’s elite forces, the Special Security and intelligence. These disgruntled officers and security and army personnel are the commanders of the Islamic Army and the split of Mosul is bound to complicate matters for both the U.S. an the Iraq government. While the Islamic Army has pledged to suspend all operations against U.S. troops, its Mosul sector has vowed to proceed ahead with anti-U.S. operations.

Iraqi Shiite leader defends Iran

Iraq's most influential Shiite politician said Sunday that the U.S had not backed up claims that Iran is fueling violence here, underscoring a wide gap on the issue between Washington and the Shiite-led Baghdad government. A draft bill to ease curbs on ex-Saddam Hussein loyalists in government services also drew sharp criticism from Shiite lawmakers, opening old wounds at a time when the United States is pressing the Iraqis for compromise for the sake of national unity. The Americans have long accused the Iranians of arming and training Shiite militias, including some linked to the U.S.-backed government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. U.S. officials have also alleged that Iran has provided weapons used to kill Americans — a charge the Iranians vehemently deny. "These are only accusations raised by the multinational forces and I think these accusations need more proof," Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraq Council, told reporters.

Iraq Kurds defy Baghdad on oil deals

The autonomous Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq defied Baghdad on Monday, vowing to sign more contracts with international oil firms despite the national government's opposition. "The (regional) government will continue with the contracts and they will be implemented," its prime minister Nechirvan Barzani said. "No one can cancel any contract of the KRG (Kurdistan regional government) signed with foreign companies," a defiant Barzani told reporters in the regional capital Arbil. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani has declared all oil contracts between the Kurdish administration and foreign companies null and void, saying they have been signed illegally in the absence of a national oil law. Barzani insisted the contracts are legal and fall within the provisions of the region's constitution.

Shia-Shia Conflict Fuels Instability

While the commercial media continues to focus single-mindedly on "sectarian violence," Iraq is being wrenched apart by political conflict. Increasing conflict and finger pointing between leading Shi'ite political blocs are heightening instability in war-torn Iraq. "It is said in the Arab world that if thieves were not seen while steeling, they would be seen while dividing the loot," Wayil Hikmet, an Iraqi historian in Baghdad told IPS. "That is what goes for the accelerating collapse of the Iraqi political system that was made in the USA. The thieves of the Green Zone are now giving me and my colleagues good material to write down for the coming generations," Hikmet said, referring to new scandals floating to the surface of the political scene in recent days. The Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq (SICI) led by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, and The Sadr Movement led by anti-occupation cleric Muqtada Al- Sadr are accusing each other of committing serious crimes against humanity in the southern parts of Iraq. In early September, clashes between Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and the Badr Organisation militia of SIIC erupted in the holy city of Kerbala, 100 kilometres southwest of Baghdad.

………Bahaa Al-A'raji, an MP with the Sadr movement, told journalists in Baghdad this week that his movement is being targeted by the SICI that dominates the Ministry of Interior. Many Sadr followers have been arrested and tortured by police loyal to the SICI in different parts of Iraq, Al-A'raji said. SICI operates militarily via the Badr Organization militia, which was created in Tehran in 1982 and has been armed, trained and advised by Iranian intelligence since then.

Most likely a pile of lies: Iraq government wants to pay neighborhood police units

Iraq's government wants to start paying the wages of neighborhood security units that have been backed by U.S. forces and credited with helping cut violence in the country, a U.S. general said on Monday. The Shi'ite-led government has at times appeared ambivalent about the rapid growth of such units, dubbed "concerned local citizens" groups by the U.S. military. The vast majority of the 77,000 men under the program are Sunni Arabs largely recruited from their own neighborhoods to man checkpoints. Brigadier-General Edward Cardon, a deputy commander for an area extending from Baghdad's southern outskirts into central Iraq, said coalition forces were currently paying the wages. "However, the government of Iraq has just come to us, saying it would like to take over this role and they will start working with these citizen groups and pay them for what they are doing," Cardon told a news conference. "That is still very much in the beginning stages, but (is) a very positive development."

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

U.S.-Iraq agreement sets stage for talks on troop levels

Iraq and the United States agreed Monday that the U.N.-mandated occupation of Iraq will end in December 2008 and that any U.S. troop presence in the country after that time will be subject to U.S.-Iraq negotiations that are to be completed by next summer. The agreement likely will be seen as a victory for Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who's been pressing for an end to U.S. supervision of Iraq. In a nationally televised speech, Maliki said the agreement "ends the presence of international troops" in Iraq. "This is the target we all seek," he said.

It's Official: In Iraq Forever

So it begins. After years of obfuscation and denial on the length of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq, the White House and the Maliki government have released a joint declaration of "principles" for "friendship and cooperation." Apparently President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the declaration during a morning teleconference. Naturally, the declaration is euphemistic, and doesn't refer explicitly to any U.S. military presence.

-- Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq. We are ready to build that relationship in a sustainable way that protects our mutual interests, promotes regional stability, and requires fewer Coalition forces.

-- In response, this Declaration is the first step in a three-step process that will normalize U.S.-Iraqi relations in a way which is consistent with Iraq's sovereignty and will help Iraq regain its rightful status in the international community – something both we and the Iraqis seek. The second step is the renewal of the Multinational Force-Iraq's Chapter VII United Nations mandate for a final year, followed by the third step, the negotiation of the detailed arrangements that will codify our bilateral relationship after the Chapter VII mandate expires.

A "democratic Iraq" here means the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The current political arrangement will receive U.S. military protection against coups or any other internal subversion. That's something the Iraqi government wants desperately: not only is it massively unpopular, even among Iraqi Shiites, but the increasing U.S.-Sunni security cooperation strikes the Shiite government -- with some justification -- as a recipe for a future coup.

Does not know what he is talking about: Officer: Iraq groups supported by Iran

Five years from now they will be saying the same thing: Iraq forces better but not ready yet: U.S. general

COMMENTARY

‘U.S. Politics Turning Communities Against Each Other’

"As long as the U.S. troops stay in Iraq there will be violence," warns Gilbert Achcar, professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Achcar -- a vehement critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East since Sep. 11, 2001 -- was born in Senegal and lived in Lebanon until moving to France in 1983. He has served as professor of politics and international relations at the University of Paris VIII, and has written many books about the impact of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East during the post Sep. 11 era. Achcar spoke with IPS correspondent Apostolis Fotiadis about the current state of the war and what the future might hold. IPS: Would the absence of U.S. forces in Iraq result in an interethnic conflict of total annihilation? GA: There are many signs to the contrary. Civil conflict has been going on anyway. It peaked some months ago and has subsided recently, but still the U.S. politics of turning the communities against each other has sharpened tensions between ethnic and sectarian groups. The only undisputable fact is the correlation between the occupation and the level of violence. As long as the U.S. troops stay in Iraq there will be violence in this country. The announcement of a date of departure would exert pressure on the various factions in Iraq to reach a consensus. In that case people will know they are facing a deadline for finding a way to co-exist or lose control.

IPS: What would a withdrawal without first establishing effective control in the country mean for the U.S.? GA: To withdraw from Iraq without securing control over the country and the area would result in a loss of credibility. The credibility of U.S. deterrence and power has already suffered a lot. Look at Iran now -- it is clear that they are not intimidated by the U.S. threats. Iraq has paralysed them to such an extent that they are unable to turn against other threats. It has also exposed the Achilles heel of the U.S. -- which is the Vietnam syndrome. The population does not want the country to be involved in dirty wars and this creates a serious human resource shortage for the military. IPS: Could the increasing scale of militarisation and violence in the region be connected with the declining hegemony of the U.S.? GA: We do not deal here with some kind of a beast that instinctively produces aggression. The war drive that has been going on since 9/11 is obviously motivated by U.S. strategic interests and it is designed according to two main concerns. One is to control the major world oil reserves. We have entered into the last few decades of cheap oil . . . the strategic importance of oil is increasing. The second is that the U.S. military presence in the heart of Eurasia -- especially in areas of interest for Russia and China -- is important because they fear an alliance of both at the expense of U.S. hegemony in the region.

Iraq Has Only Militants, No Civilians

Name them. Maim them. Kill them. From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, air strikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed "militants," "criminals," "suspected insurgents," "IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers," "anti-American fighters," "terrorists," "military age males," "armed men," "extremists," or "al-Qaeda." The pattern for reporting on such attacks has remained the same from the early years of the occupation to today. Take a helicopter attack on October 23rd of this year near the village of Djila, north of Samarra. The U.S. military claimed it had killed 11 among "a group of men planting a roadside bomb." Only later did a military spokesperson acknowledge that at least six of the dead were civilians. Local residents claimed that those killed were farmers, that there were children among them, and that the number of dead was greater than 11.

Here is part of the statement released by U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq, Major Peggy Kageleiry: "A suspected insurgent and improvised explosive device cell member was identified among the killed in an engagement between Coalition Forces and suspected IED emplacers just north of Samarra.... During the engagement, insurgents used a nearby house as a safe haven to re-engage coalition aircraft. A known member of an IED cell was among the 11 killed during the multiple engagements. We send condolences to the families of those victims and we regret any loss of life." As usual, the version offered by locals was vastly different. Abdul al-Rahman Iyadeh, a relative of some of the victims, revealed that the "group of men" attacked were actually three farmers who had left their homes at 4:30 A.M. to irrigate their fields. Two were killed in the initial helicopter attack and the survivor ran back to his home where other residents gathered. The second air strike, he claimed, destroyed the house killing 14 people. Another witness told reporters that four separate houses were hit by the helicopter. A local Iraqi policeman, Captain Abdullah al-Isawi, put the death toll at 16 -- seven men, six women, and three children, with another 14 wounded.

RESISTANCE

We Support the Troops Who Oppose the War

On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history's largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide first hand accounts of their experiences and reveal the truth of occupation. We support Iraq Veterans Against the War and their Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Join us in supporting the effort to reveal truth in the way that only those who lived it can.

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