3 Sufis 3

1) Published this past week:

http://www.isim.nl/files/Review_15/Review_15.pdf

>From Showcase to Basket case: Higher Education in Iraq

Nabil Al-Tikriti

Iraq’s academic professionals continue to face an
uphill struggle to maintain standards following years
of sanctions and months of social chaos.  Although
some may remain optimistic about a future free of
centralized ministerial oversight and autocratic
governance, many more feel bitterness for the lack of
international support offered since the beginning of
the US/UK invasion and subsequent occupation.  As with
so much of post-war Iraq, the higher education sector
is yet another area where US military, political, and
bureaucratic intervention has proven more damaging
than revitalizing. 

 Times are hard for professors in Iraq today—very
hard.  Since the US/UK “coalition of the willing”
invaded the country in March 2003 and forcibly evicted
the country’s sovereign government, an estimated
10-15% of Iraq’s 16,500 instructors spread across some
20 universities have left the country.  In addition to
facing bitterly disappointed expectations of US
institutional support in the past 20 months,
professors have been forced to cope with widespread
looting, targeted violence, campus politicization, and
institutional uncertainty.  Although some actors
remain optimistic about a future for a higher
education sector liberated from a stifling and highly
centralized state control, most remain apprehensive
about the same sector liberated from sources of
funding, professors, and campus civility.
Times were not always so bad.  Iraq’s universities
were a proud part of the national patrimony from the
1950’s to the 1980’s, and were widely considered among
the region’s best throughout this period.  Observers
recall a vibrant and exciting 1970’s, when the
university sector engaged in international research
ventures, published top-flight journals in the
humanities and the sciences, surveyed the country’s
unrivalled archaeological sites, catalogued Iraq’s
impressive manuscript holdings, and sent its best
graduates to earn Ph.D.’s at the foremost research
universities in Europe and North America.  Many of
those internationally educated graduates returned home
in the 1980’s and provided the scientific expertise
needed to build the state’s advanced arms programs in
that time of war.
 Although the growth and elaboration of higher
education continued through much of the 1980’s, the
twin effects of state Saddamization and compulsory
fiscal restraint during the long and difficult
Iran-Iraq War began to sap the energy and vibrancy of
the universities.  By the end of the decade, the good
times had clearly passed as state monitoring of campus
politics began to negatively affect retention of
academic talent.  Yet, by the war’s end education
professionals could still hope to be optimistic about
a long-waited post-war future.
The beginning of the end for Iraqi higher education
dates to the government’s ill-advised hostile takeover
of Kuwait in 1990.  After the international community
mobilized to enforce the illegality of an unprovoked
and unsanctioned invasion of one sovereign country by
another, Iraq found itself facing a crushing sanctions
regime and hefty reparation requirements vis-a-vis
Kuwait.  Iraqis initially expected to endure a few
months of financial difficulty until the UN Security
Council disarmament protocols could be carried out.
Instead, the sanctions regime continued for nearly
thirteen years, primarily due to US and UK insistence.

Trapped in a formerly affluent society now forced to
prioritize procurement of basic necessities, Iraq’s
universities faced gradual decline throughout the
1990’s.  Higher education suffered not only from
internationally enforced neglect, but the sector also
found itself physically and intellectually cut off
from the rest of the world.  Under sanctions,
international exchanges ended completely, journal
subscriptions were prohibited, high technology
purchases were forbidden, and spare parts for
previously purchased equipment were halted.  Famously,
even pencils were embargoed due to the “dual use”
capability of lead.  Combined with the continuing
strictures on intellectual curiosity springing from an
increasingly apprehensive and insecure authoritarian
ruling elite, many of the country’s most talented
academics found the situation unbearable and
emigrated. An estimated 10,000 instructors left the
country in the 1990’s.   In spite of such adversity,
those professors who remained managed to maintain
academic standards through increasingly desperate
forms of improvisation.  For example, in order to keep
up with scientific advances, medical school
instructors annually obtained from Jordan a single
copy of relevant medical textbooks, which were then
provided to photocopiers for class distribution.
Although scientific research ground to a halt,
university instruction continued. 

Looting strips the campuses
The final coup de grace for Iraq’s academe occurred in
the chaos which followed the fall of the Ba‘athist
government in April 2003.  Expressing anger,
frustration, and consternation about a suddenly fallen
state sector, various elements took privatization of
government institutions—like universities—into their
own hands with a wave of mass lootings.  It has been
suggested that officials carried out some of the
looting to erase a contentious past.  Although that
may be true for several sensitive state facilities,
the university looters seem to have largely consisted
of urban poor.  While the effect of the looting was
spread unevenly throughout the country, the damage to
many facilities was devastating.  Various library
facilities were looted and/or burned, as were much of
the holdings of such cultural repositories and
research institutions as the Baghdad Museum, National
Archives, Awqaf Library, Iraqi Academy of Sciences,
and Bayt al-Hikma.  The looting of campus offices
destroyed much of the institutional memory of Iraq’s
universities.  Student records, personnel records,
faculty files, and many other sorts of records which
provide the “nuts and bolts” of education
administration were lost -- as they were in so many
other sectors.   To Iraqis, the looting of April 2003
was only the most recent act of a long-term conspiracy
to “keep Iraq down” rather than an unfortunate example
of “stuff happening” when an authoritarian regime
collapses.  As one Iraqi saying had it when the
government fell and the former president disappeared,
“now the student has left—and the master has arrived.”

University life in occupied Iraq
Iraqi professors, students, and administrators had
reason to hope that their situation might improve.
Unfortunately, the period following the establishment
of the US/UK occupation can largely be characterized
as “one step forward, two steps backward” and has only
served to confirm Iraqi suspicions concerning US
motives. The anticipated reconstruction support from
US institutions never materialized on a scale capable
of restoring the tattered glory of Iraq’s universities
due partly to policy choice, and partly to
circumstance. 
The Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific
Research has calculated that $1.2 billion is needed
for university rehabilitation.  Against that need, the
ministry has been allocated approximately $20 million
in benefits from USAID contracts awarded to American
universities, and $20 million from other international
donors.   Not only is that amount tiny compared to the
estimated required amount, it is also a drop in the
bucket against the $18.6 billion total funds approved
by the US Congress for Iraqi reconstruction in
November 2003.  In one sense, it has made little
difference—only an estimated 20% of such
reconstruction funds had been disbursed by June 2004
in any case.  
>From the beginning, US administrators allocated
funding in accordance with short term US interests
rather than long-term Iraqi interests.  The Republican
party apparatchiks sent by the Bush Administration to
staff the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) did
the best they could, but the strictures of
neo-conservative policy goals designed to “spread
democracy” seriously undermined any efforts to remedy
the situation at hand.  For example, it was felt to be
of the highest priority to ensure that every primary
school student in the country received new textbooks,
complete with USAID-approved re-interpretations of
Iraqi, Arab, and Islamic history.  Combined with a
widely-advertised initiative to leave no primary or
secondary school unpainted, the pre-university sector
received an estimated 7-8 times more funding support
than higher education from the US government and the
World Bank—betraying a prioritization of the mass
indoctrination of Iraqi youth through new textbooks
over the restoration of Iraq’s regional pre-eminence
in higher education.
As with other Iraqi state assets, there was briefly
some discussion of setting up private “international”
educational institutions to compete with, and perhaps
supplant, state higher education facilities.  However,
like so much else that has been envisioned since the
spring of 2003, this idea has yet to materialize
beyond a couple of pilot efforts.  These institutions,
the “American Liberal Arts University of Iraq” in
Arbil and the “College of Democracy,” are both located
in Northern Iraq and are closely identified with
former CPA Higher Education Advisor John Agrestos.
Another priority of US administrators appears to have
been providing corporate welfare to US companies in
the form of reconstruction contracts.  This mode of
funding has so far led to a uniquely American brand of
corporate corruption, whereby US taxpayers pay top
dollar to US companies for basic jobs like painting
primary schools.  In turn, the US companies hire local
subcontractors at pennies on the dollar to physically
fulfill the contracted work.  The leakage implied in
such a contracting protocol would rival any patronage
system of the type routinely condemned by World Bank
and IMF investigators in less wealthy societies.
Although this sort of structure has been somewhat less
in evidence in the higher education sector than in
other sectors, the overall effect has been to bleed
the US economy while robbing Iraqis of sovereignty
over their own institutions. 
One of the most damaging CPA decisions concerning the
universities sprung from the wider US goal of
“de-Ba‘athification.”  In May 2003, newly-appointed
CPA head Paul Bremer announced a comprehensive policy
of de-Ba‘athification for state employees above the
middle ranks.  Even prior to Bremer’s announcement,
Iraqi public opinion—and a couple of targeted
assassinations—forced many unpopular campus Ba‘athist
apparatchiks into hiding.  However, after this
wide-ranging decree, public education institutions
found themselves robbed of much of their best talent,
as CPA Advisor and education commissar Andrew Erdmann
oversaw the expulsion of an estimated 1,400 university
instructors for Ba‘ath party membership.   Although
many of these professionals were later rehired, the
institutional damage has been considerable.
  Research professionals associated with the former
government’s weapons development program found
themselves detained by US officials in prison camps.
The most notable example is Amer al-Sa‘adi, an Iraqi
scientist who became famous before the war for
denying, accurately, that Iraq had any weapons of mass
destruction (WMD).  Anticipating a quick release once
Iraq’s lack of WMD became known, Dr. al-Sa‘adi turned
himself in to US forces immediately after Baghdad’s
fall.  He remains in detention, and repeated calls for
his release through an international petition drive
led by his German wife, who survived the August 2003
Canal Hotel bombing while arguing his case to UN
officials, have to date failed to sway US authorities.

In addition to the physical damage endured in the
wave of looting and the staff depletion caused by
Bremer’s decree and other US actions, the universities
have faced serious issues of campus and personal
security.  Since March 2003, at least 200 academics
have faced violent attacks, the fate of 75 kidnapped
instructors remains unknown, and at least 14
professors have been murdered in a targeted fashion.
In light of such danger, it should come as no surprise
that an estimated 1,600-2,000 university instructors
have left the country.   Those professors remaining
behind have been obliged to face the inevitable
politicization of campus life that followed the
collapse of a system designed to carefully channel
political energies towards centrally-mandated goals
for more than a generation.  Campuses quickly became
arenas for intense political competition between
groups affiliated with various factions of the Iraqi
political scene.  While public political discussion
was a welcome change for many in the new order, such
politicization has proved disruptive to campus
civility and intimidated many.  A recent academic
visitor from Jordan was warned against visiting
campuses because there were “spies” who might inform
on the stranger’s presence. 
Against all odds, Iraq’s university staff carries on:
physical plants have been repaired, new structures of
institutional governance have been established, and
library collections have been re-organized with the
addition of some book shipments.  However, such
activities continue in the face of a shoestring
budget, meagre international support, and a myriad of
security problems.  The combination of staff shortfall
and financial constraints has grown so dire in recent
months that 134 Ph.D. programs have been eliminated
throughout the university system.   As a sign of just
how precarious the security situation has become for
government officials, the Ministry of Education was
hit by a car bomb in the first week of November 2004.
In light of all the obstacles, in some sense it is
remarkable that higher education continues at all in
Iraq.  The fact that it does is a tribute to the
courage and pride of Iraq’s educators.  

Nabil Al-Tikriti is Assistant Professor of Middle East
History at the University of Mary Washington in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA.
Email: naltikriti@yahoo.com


2) 'Biggest Cultural Disaster Since 1258', Says Expert
Humberto Márquez:

CARACAS, Feb 15
 (IPS) - One million books, 10 million
documents and 14,000 archaeological artifacts have
been lost in the U.S.-led invasion and subsequent
occupation of Iraq -- the biggest cultural disaster
since the descendants of Genghis Khan destroyed
Baghdad in 1258, Venezuelan writer Fernando Báez told
IPS.

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27459


3) Election Analysis:

PFC Energy Iraq Advisory Service"  :
,
energy.com> Objet : MIS
Memo - Iraq: Have Elections Made Stability More
Likely?

17/02/2005 15:41

Iraq: Have Elections Made Stability More Likely?

The January 30 assembly elections in Iraq further
cemented the control of Islamist Shia and Kurdish
groups in Iraq, and will put the role of Islam at
the center of the debate over the country's
constitutional future. Competition between and among
the different parties in the Transitional
National Assembly over government portfolios will be
worked out in the next couple of weeks, but it looks
as if the Prime Minister will be from the
victorious United Iraqi Coalition, while the President
will be a Kurd. Who comes to power and how that power
is distributed will be important for
long-term stability: the election highlighted the deep
political schisms that divide the country, and
maturity will be required from both the new
government and its Sunni and nationalist opponents who
lack significant representation in the new assembly if
national reconciliation is to be
achieved and the new institutions of state are to
enjoy broad legitimacy. This outcome is still far from
assured, and if both sides persist with
their hard-line, insular, no-concessions approach, the
insurgency will persist. The new government will also
face the challenge of meeting the
day-to-day needs of the Iraq public, something its
predecessor failed to do. If it does not, it could
quickly lose its aura of legitimacy, no
matter who is in power.

Major Change in the Political Balance of Power

Much as expected, the January 30 national elections in
Iraq confirmed the shift in the political balance of
power that has taken place since the fall
of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003. Islamist
Shia and Kurdish parties, which formed the backbone of
the Iraqi opposition in exile and of the post-war
institutions established by the US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA), cemented their grip on
power, winning over 75% of the seats in the new
Transitional National Assembly (TNA) between them.
While the Islamist Shia, who campaigned under the
banner of the United Iraqi Coalition (UIC), garnered
less of the vote than they initially claimed,
their 48% was sufficient under election rules to give
them an absolute majority of 140 seats in the 275-seat
parliament. Moreover, the UIC is joined by two smaller
Islamist Shia parties that ran independently,
including the National Independent Elites and Cadres
that is linked to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
While Sadr refused to join the UIC, it includes people
associated with the cleric, and both the Elites and
Cadres and the Kerbala-based Islamic Labour Movement
are likely to ally with the
it on key legislative issues, giving the Islamist Shia
a total of 145 TNA seats.

While this figure is sufficient to allow the UIC to
vote through new legislation on its own, it lacks the
two-thirds parliamentary majority it needs to choose
the new presidential council or form a government.
Thus, the group will be forced to seek alliances,
meaning that the next Iraqi government will be a
coalition. The UIC's most obvious partner is the
Kurdish Alliance, made up predominantly of the two
main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union for
Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party
(KDP). Benefiting from the extremely high turnout in
Iraq's Kurdish provinces (which exceeded 90%), the
Kurdish Alliance secured 26% of the national vote,
which translates into 75 seats; Kurdish Islamists
running separately also won two seats.

Shia-Kurdish Deal-Making Has Already Begun

Realizing that they would probably have to form a
coalition government, Islamist Shia leaders have been
in power-sharing talks with the Kurds since before the
elections took place; indeed, the two sides enjoy a
strategic partnership that goes back to their time in
opposition. However, now that the election results-and
the two sides' relative strength in the TNA-are
known, these talks have become more intense. How long
they take, and whether they are successful, will
depend to a large extent on the UIC's willingness to
make concessions on key appointments, including the
presidency and certain strategic ministries, but the
process should be completed by the end of February at
the latest.

As their majority is only just over 50%, the Islamist
Shia are in a weaker position than they probably hoped
to be, and are therefore more vulnerable
to Kurdish demands. Central among these is Kurdish
insistence that they must hold one of the two main
offices of state in the transitional government,
president or prime minister, and that the Transitional
Administrative Law (TAL) that governs the transition
phase-and which guarantees extensive Kurdish regional
autonomy and gives the Kurds a veto
on national legislation-must remain inviolate.

The UIC has already made it clear that it intends to
reserve the premiership for itself; but Kurdish list
leader and PUK head Jalal Talabani is in a strong
position to become Iraq's first Kurdish president. The
Kurds will also probably expect to retain the deputy
prime minister post they have now (the PUK's Barham
Salih could remain in that post, where he
oversees economic policy) as well as the Foreign
Ministry, where KDP member Hoshiyar Zibari has done a
good job since he was appointed in the first CPA
post-war cabinet in September 2003. Ironically, the
foreign affairs portfolio is no longer regarded as one
of the most strategic, with Defense, Interior,
Finance, Oil and Planning seen as far more important
as they control Iraq's security forces and its revenue
flows. Consequently, the UIC will probably be willing
to compromise with the Kurds allowing Zibari
to stay in place, while seeking to put Coalition
members into the other spots.

The success of the UIC-Kurdish Alliance talks will
depend to a large extent on how hard a bargain the
latter drives, particularly over the issue of
autonomy. Many Islamist Shia leaders, not to mention
their clerical supporters, are intensely distrustful
of Kurdish demands for administrative autonomy, and do
not support the eventual federation of Iraq,
acceptance of which is a sine qua non for Kurdish
participation in government. The two main Kurdish
parties are also keen to extend southwards the
geographic territory that they govern, with Kirkuk
seen as the ultimate prize, and they want to strike
quickly as they are in a stronger position now than
they have been in the last 80 years of Iraqi history.
The Kurdish victory in local elections in Kirkuk will
embolden the Kurdish Alliance further, and they may
seek at least tacit acceptance from the new government
for a de facto southward moving of the Kurdistan
Regional Government's boundary,
possibly to the Hamrin mountain range which already
marks the limit of Kurdish administrative and security
control.

The Islamist Shia may rega
rd this as too high a price
to pay for a coalition government, especially as it
would be deeply unpopular throughout the rest of Iraq,
and the Kurds no longer have the United States and the
United Kingdom to support their demands as they did
during the CPA period. Under these circumstances, they
could turn to incumbent Prime Minister Iyad Allawi,
whose Iraqi list won a disappointing 40 seats in the
TNA. Relations between the two sides have been
strained since Allawi refused to join the UIC, but
nevertheless a deal could be worked out, especially
since the Islamist Shia would find it easier to
dominate the appointments process
if it joined with this weaker group, and it would
allow the UIC to adopt a much more ambiguous position
towards Kurdish federalism and the sanctity of
the TAL. Allawi's group may eventually be brought in
to a wider coalition anyway, unless he sees greater
political virtue in establishing himself as
the "loyal" opposition over the next phase.

Divisions and Competition Among Islamist Shia Parties

While a straight UIC-Iraqi list alliance could see
Allawi become president, he will not retain the
premiership. Who Iraq's next prime minister will
be, however, remains a matter of intense competition,
and one that is testing the cohesion of the UIC, which
is very much a coalition in reality as well as name.
Finance Minister and SCIRI official Adel Abd al-Mahdi
looked to be the front runner, but there are now
unconfirmed reports that he has dropped out in return
for unspecified political concessions (he was
always a reluctant candidate, and his candidacy may
have secured some plum positions for his party in the
new cabinet). If so, that leaves Vice President and
Dawa leader Ibrahim Jaafari and the great phoenix of
Iraqi post-war politics Ahmed Chalabi in the running.
The fractious Jaafari has been a divisive character in
the past, even among Islamist Shia, and has
not always enjoyed the best relations with Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's preeminent Shia cleric.
He would certainly not be London or Washington's first
choice; both have found him a difficult character to
deal with in the past. However, he is respected by
many Iraqis, especially for his performance as the
first of the rotating presidents of the Interim
Governing Council (IGC), and Dawa has consistently
claimed to have a legitimate claim to the post, given
his long history in opposition and its grass-roots
support in Iraq.

Chalabi has also pushed his claim to the premiership
hard, although he insistes he only put his name
forward at the urging of smaller parties
within the UIC. While he may claim the mantle of
secular champion, he has espoused a very explicit Shia
political agenda since he was sidelined by
the CPA in May of last year, and he has good ties to
SCIRI, who would probably rather see Chalabi than
Jaafari win out, especially if he gave the
party more concessions. However, Chalabi remains
extremely controversial in the eyes of many, and his
brief dalliance with Sadr during the height of
the latter's insurgency in Najaf and Kerbala in August
2004 did nothing to build public or political trust in
him. Moreover, he is universally disliked by most of
the Iraqi population, and by many of Iraq's neighbors.
Nevertheless, he is by far the best political operator
among the political elite and could threaten to tear
the UIC apart if he does not get his way. He also
enjoys close ties to Talabani, and the Kurdish leader
is likely to push his appointment over that of
Jaafari. Furthermore, Chalabi has the backing of
important neo-conservatives in Washington, including
some in the
NSC and Department of Defense.

If the contest over the premiership becomes too
divisive, a compromise candidate may yet emerge. The
most obvious at present is Hussein Shahrastani, the
former nuclear physicist and political prisoner under
Saddam who has developed a close relationship with
Sistani. However, Shahrastani lacks an independent
party or support base, and is a relative neophyte in
Iraqi politics, two weaknesses that are likely to
stand against him. One outsider for the post is former
Trade and Defense Minister Ali Allawi, who combines
political links with the administrative qualities to
lead the new government.

Can the New Elite Reach Out to the Old?

Ultimately, the outcome will be a grand political
bargain, whereby the presidency council (the president
and two deputy presidents), the premier
and possibly any deputy premiers are agreed as a
package. Selection to the cabinet could take longer,
as it is likely to involve a wider array of
groups from within the TNA, and may even bring in
other parties as well. A number of UIC and Kurdish
leaders have said that they will seek to encourage the
participation of Sunni and nationalist groups who
either boycotted the elections or failed to win seats
because of the very low Sunni turnout (among prominent
Sunni candidates, only President Ghazi
al-Yawer's mixed and secular Iraqiyyun list figured,
winning five seats).

Although national reconciliation is the key to Iraq's
stability in the long term, it remains to be seen
whether these conciliatory sentiments translate
into genuine action, and whether Islamist Shia and
Kurdish groups reach out beyond former exile fellow
travelers such as Yawer and Adnan Pachachi, who
are known quantities and largely unrepresentative of
the estranged Sunni and nationalist constituencies. It
is clear that there are a range of opinions within
both the Islamist Shia and the Kurdish camps over how
magnanimous the victors should be. Moderates such as
Abd al-Mahdi and Shahrastani have proposed that a
committee be set up with equal Sunni, Shia and Kurdish
representation to oversee, if not actually draft, the
new constitution, an idea that reportedly enjoys
Kurdish, and more importantly Sistani's backing. On
the other hand, hardliners including Chalabi and
senior members of SCIRI (such as Sheikh Jalal al-Din
al-Saghir) and Dawa are keen to use the election
outcome to revive and deepen de-Baathification, and to
root out members of the pre-war security forces who
have found their way back into the new structures.
Inevitably, the communities that would be hardest hit
by these policies would be precisely the Sunni and
nationalist ones that have felt most disenfranchised
since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, and who
provide at least tacit support for the insurgency.
Moreover, any such move would send a signal that
settling old scores remains more important that
focusing on a unified future.

If moderate voices in the government and the TNA win
out, outreach could be more extensive, but they will
need to overcome residual suspicion that they
are simply looking to build their own party bases
(which was Allawi's approach to "Sunni outreach"),
rather than seeking real national reconciliation. At
the same time, leaders of the Sunni and nationalist
opposition groups will need to change their
rejectionist mindsets and show they are willing to
reach a compromise and accept the legitimacy of
transition process and the newly established political
institutions, something that will be much more
difficult if hardliners are in charge.
Prospects for Stability in the Medium Term

Ultimately, it will be the level of political maturity
shown by each side that will determine more than
anything else whether the elections-and the
transition process they are p
art of-are a success.
Thus far, the record has not been good. The new
political oligarchy of former exile parties
have approached politics as a zero-sum game, focusing
on maximizing party-specific gains at the expense of
their rivals, and seeking to punish as much as
possible anyone associated with the ancien regime who
refuses to do their bidding. This approach will need
to change if the divisions in Iraqi politics,
reflected in the relatively low turnout of less than
60%, are to be overcome and the insurgency is to be
marginalized to a small group of extremists. The
elections were genuinely historic and the levels
of violence on the day were much lower than
anticipated, but Washington's argument that the
turnout figure was comparable with the best seen in
Western democracies and that therefore the new
government enjoys broad-based legitimacy is was
somewhat disingenuous. While some Iraqis
were undoubtedly put off by the threat of attacks,
others stayed away because they obeyed the boycott
call by Sunni and nationalist leaders or because they
felt estranged from the political process; and given
the composition of Iraq's population, not all these
no-shows can have been Sunnis. Violence has quickly
returned to pre-election levels, and the new
government and TNA are likely to remain suspect in the
eyes of a sizeable proportion of the population unless
it can demonstrate itself to be inclusive.

Ensuring that the broadest possible number of Iraqis
feel that they have a stake in the political process
will be particularly important for stability
because the TNA's main task over the coming months is
to write a permanent constitution that will determine
the future shape and nature of governance in Iraq, the
powers of central government and the extent to which
Islam becomes a defining feature of the state. All
these decisions will need to be the product of
national compromises if the document-and the
institutions it underpins-are to be regarded as
legitimate by most Iraqis, and therefore provide the
basis for long-term stability. The alternative is the
increasing marginalization of significant numbers of
Sunnis and nationalists, especially the UIC goes ahead
with efforts to give Islam a greater role in the
state, thereby providing fertile ground for extremists
bent of undermining the transition by force.

Can the New Government Deliver?

In addition to political maturity, the new government
will also need to deliver in a practical sense if
broad-based support for the transition is to be
bolstered. Both the CPA and Allawi's government
suffered in the eyes of the Iraqi public for their
failure to deliver in three crucial areas:
personal security, services (especially electricity)
and jobs. This has bred widespread discontent, and
unless the new administration can make quick progress
in some of these areas, the post-election public
euphoria that has been witnessed will quickly change
to anger. Allawi's honeymoon period lasted barely two
months, and there is nothing to indicate that this
new government will enjoy much more time.

If the insurgency cannot be brought under control, the
chances are that the new government will face all the
problems of its two predecessors, particularly on the
services front. Iraqi oil and electricity
infrastructure security remains woefully inadequate,
and attacks on both in Baghdad and the north west of
the country have continued apace. The security
environment has also made it difficult to attract any
foreign investment into either sector. The Kurds have
offered 10,000 of its Peshmarga forces to guard the
oil export pipeline and facilities in Kirkuk
and Mosul, but the central government is wary of the
initiative, fearing that it will set a precedent. Its
view may change if there is a Talabani-Chalabi
president-premier partnership, but it will take some
time for these forces to be really effective.

More generally, there remains the issue of the
politicization of different ministries post-elections,
and the impact that could have on their
administrative capabilities. The next government is
more likely to resemble the CPA Iraqi cabinet, where
ministerial portfolios were divided among
representatives of the IGC, rather than the Allawi
administration, which included fewer party figures and
more technocrats. The former saw the creation of party
fiefdoms in many ministries, and a concomitant rise in
corruption and inefficiency. The Oil Ministry was not
immune, with each of the major IGC parties seeking to
divert contracts (particularly on the oil
sales side) to favored customers and with senior
political figures trying to play a middle-man role in
the award of oil development contracts. If this
pattern is repeated, then the government's ability to
deliver what the public demands will be greatly
constrained.

Raad Alkadiri
Director
Markets & Countries Group
+1 202 721 0313

ralkadiri@pfcenergy.com


4) On Bush's Spinroom:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/arts/20rich.html?ex=1109307600&en;=066a75b566d01bf4&ei;=5070


The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'

Published: February 20, 2005

HE prayers of those hoping that real television news
might take its cues from Jon Stewart were finally
answered on Feb. 9, 2005. A real newsman borrowed a
technique from fake news to deliver real news about
fake news in prime time.

Let me explain.

On "Countdown," a nightly news hour on MSNBC, the
anchor, Keith Olbermann, led off with a classic "Daily
Show"-style bit: a rapid-fire montage of sharply
edited video bites illustrating the apparent idiocy of
those in Washington. In this case, the eight clips
stretched over a year in the White House briefing room
- from February 2004 to late last month - and all
featured a reporter named "Jeff." In most of them, the
White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, says "Go
ahead, Jeff," and "Jeff" responds with a softball
question intended not to elicit information but to
boost President Bush and smear his political
opponents. In the last clip, "Jeff" is quizzing the
president himself, in his first post-inaugural press
conference of Jan. 26. Referring to Harry Reid and
Hillary Clinton, "Jeff" asks, "How are you going to
work with people who seem to have divorced themselves
from reality?"...


5) This protestor has guts -- I wish more people did:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4810151,00.html

Protester Throws Shoe at Richard Perle

Friday February 18, 2005 3:46 PM
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Howard Dean, the newly minted
leader of the Democratic Party, and former Pentagon
adviser Richard Perle made clear their opposing views
on the war in Iraq during a debate marred by a
protester who tossed a shoe at Perle.

Perle had just started his comments Thursday when a
protester threw a shoe at him before being dragged
away, screaming, ``Liar! Liar!''

Perle, a Pentagon official during the Reagan
administration, was more recently chairman of the
Defense Policy Board, a group of non
-government
experts who advise the defense secretary. He was a
major proponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq,
while Dean was among the war's most prominent
opponents....


6) Hariri Analysis (or why Syria probably had nothing
to do with it):

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1418516,00.html

Why 'Mr Lebanon' had many enemies

Diplomats doubt that Syria would kill its former ally
as evidence points to the billionaire being victim of
an 'ordinary bomb'

Peter Beaumont in London and Mitchell Prothero in
Beirut
Sunday February 20, 2005
The Observer

In death, the world feted Lebanon's former Prime
Minister, Rafiq Hariri, assasinated on Valentine's
Day. Obituaries spoke of a grand statesman and 'Mr
Lebanon'.

But in Beirut Hariri was hated and distrusted by many
in equal measure - not for his politics, but for his
controlling interest in the giant post-war Lebanese
reconstruction company Solidere, which has been
accused of carrying out forcible evictions, corruption
and wholesale political graft


7) It's good to see the situation of Iraqi women is so
much improved after "liberation":

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Baghdad Burning
Riverbend

Yesterday, one of our neighbors stopped by the house.
She was carrying a hot plate of some green beans in a
tomato sauce. “Abu Ammar has some wonderful green
beans,” she confided. “But you have to tell him to
give you some of the ones he hides under the table-
the ones on display are a little bit chewy.” I added
green beans to the grocery list and headed off with E.
to Abu Ammar.

Our local grocer, Abu Ammar has a vegetable and fruit
stand set up about 400 m away from our house, on the
main street. He has been there for as long as anyone
can remember and although you would not know it to see
him, Abu Ammar is quite the entrepreneur. He wears a
traditional dishdasha all year round and on cold days,
a worn leather jacket and a black wool cap he pulls
down over his ears.

We, and almost every house on the street, buy our
groceries from him. He sets up his stand early in the
morning and when you pass it by at just the right
time, there’s a myriad of colors: the even brown of
potatoes, deep green of spinach, bright orange of
citrus fruits and the glossy red of sweet Iraqi
tomatoes… And Abu Ammar is almost always there- come
rain or sun or war, sitting in the midst of his
vegetables and fruits, going through a newspaper, a
cigarette in his mouth and crackling out of his little
transistor radio are the warm tones of Fayrouz. On
those rare occasions when Abu Ammar isn’t there, you
can tell something is very wrong.

Abu Ammar sat there in his usual place. I could tell
he was doing a crossword today because he kept making
marks on the newspaper. Abu Ammar rose to greet us and
handed me a few plastic bags so I could pick and
choose the vegetables I wanted. “I have some very good
lemons today,” he declared, tucking the newspaper
under his arm and pointing to a pyramid of small
greenish-yellow fruits. I wandered over to the lemons
and inspected them critically.

I feel like I have my finger on the throbbing pulse of
the Iraqi political situation every time I visit Abu
Ammar. You can often tell just how things are going in
the country from the produce available at his stand.
For example, when he doesn’t have any good tomatoes we
know that the roads to Basra are either closed or
really bad and the tomatoes aren’t getting through to
Baghdad. When citrus fruit isn’t available during the
winter months, we know that the roads to Diyala are
probably risky and oranges and lemons couldn’t be
delivered. He'll also give you the main news headlines
he picks up from various radio stations and if you
feel so inclined, you can read the headlines from any
one of the assorted newspapers lying in a pile near
his feet. Plus, he has all of the neighborhood gossip.

“Did you know Abu Hamid’s family are going to move?”
He took a drag from the cigarette and pointed with his
ballpoint pen towards a house about 100 m away from
his stand.
“Really?” I asked, turning my attention to the
tomatoes, “How did you hear?”
“I saw them showing the house to a couple last week
and then I saw them showing it again this week…
they’re trying to sell it.”

“Did you hear about the election results?” E. asked
Abu Ammar. Abu Ammar shook his head in the affirmative
and squashed his cigarette with a slippered foot.
“Well, we were expecting it.” He shrugged his
shoulders and continued, “Most Shia voted for list
169. They were blaring it out at the Husseiniya near
our house the night of the elections. I was there for
evening prayer.” A Husseiniya is a sort of mosque for
Shia. We had heard that many of them were campaigning
for list 169- the Sistani-backed list.

I shook my head and sighed. “So do you still think the
Americans want to turn Iraq into another America? You
said last year that if we gave them a chance, Baghdad
would look like New York.” I said in reference to a
conversation we had last year. E. gave me a wary look
and tried to draw my attention to some onions, “Oh
hey- look at the onions- do we have onions?”

Abu Ammar shook his head and sighed, “Well if we’re
New York or we’re Baghdad or we’re hell, it’s not
going to make a difference to me. I’ll still sell my
vegetables here.”

I nodded and handed over the bags to be weighed.
“Well… they’re going to turn us into another Iran. You
know list 169 means we might turn into Iran.” Abu
Ammar pondered this a moment as he put the bags on the
old brass scale and adjusted the weights.

“And is Iran so bad?” He finally asked. Well no, Abu
Ammar, I wanted to answer, it’s not bad for *you* -
you’re a man… if anything your right to several
temporary marriages, a few permanent ones and the
right to subdue females will increase. Why should it
be so bad? Instead I was silent. It’s not a good thing
to criticize Iran these days. I numbly reached for the
bags he handed me, trying to rise out of that sinking
feeling that overwhelmed me when the results were
first made public.

It’s not about a Sunni government or a Shia
government- it’s about the possibility of an
Iranian-modeled Iraq. Many Shia are also appalled with
the results of the elections. There’s talk of Sunnis
being marginalized by the elections but that isn’t the
situation. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s moderate Shia
and secular people in general who have been
marginalized.

The list is frightening- Da’awa, SCIRI, Chalabi,
Hussein Shahristani and a whole collection of pro-Iran
political figures and clerics. They are going to have
a primary role in writing the new constitution.
There’s talk of Shari’a, or Islamic law, having a very
primary role in the new constitution. The problem is,
whose Shari’a? Shari’a for many Shia differs from that
of Sunni Shari’a. And what about all the other
religions? What about Christians and Mendiyeen?

Is anyone surprised that the same people who came
along with the Americans – the same puppets who all
had a go at the presidency last y
ear – are the ones
who came out on top in the elections? Jaffari,
Talbani, Barazani, Hakim, Allawi, Chalabi… exiles,
convicted criminals and war lords. Welcome to the new
Iraq.

Ibraheim Al-Jaffari, the head of the pro-Iran Da’awa
party gave an interview the other day. He tried very
hard to pretend he was open-minded and that he wasn’t
going to turn the once-secular Iraq into a
fundamentalist Shia state but the fact of the matter
remains that he is the head of the Da’awa party. The
same party that was responsible for some of the most
infamous explosions and assassinations in Iraq during
the last few decades. This is the same party that
calls for an Islamic Republic modeled like Iran. Most
of its members have spent a substantial amount of time
in Iran.

Jaffari cannot separate himself from the ideology of
his party.

Then there’s Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). He
got to be puppet president for the month of December
and what was the first thing he did? He decided
overburdened, indebted Iraq owed Iran 100 billion
dollars. What was the second thing he did? He tried to
have the “personal status” laws that protect
individuals (and especially women) eradicated.

They try to give impressive interviews to western
press but the situation is wholly different on the
inside. Women feel it the most. There’s an almost
constant pressure in Baghdad from these parties for
women to cover up what little they have showing.
There’s a pressure in many colleges for the
segregation of males and females. There are the
threats, and the printed and verbal warnings, and
sometimes we hear of attacks or insults.

You feel it all around you. It begins slowly and
almost insidiously. You stop wearing slacks or jeans
or skirts that show any leg because you don’t want to
be stopped in the street and lectured by someone who
doesn’t approve. You stop wearing short sleeves and
start preferring wider shirts with a collar that will
cover up some of you neck. You stop letting your hair
flow because you don’t want to attract attention to
it. On the days when you forget to pull it back into a
ponytail, you want to kick yourself and you rummage
around in your handbag trying to find a hair band…
hell, a rubber band to pull back your hair and make
sure you attract less attention from *them*.

We were seriously discussing this situation the other
day with a friend. The subject of the veil and hijab
came up and I confessed my fear that while they might
not make it a law, there would be enough pressure to
make it a requirement for women when they leave their
homes. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well women
in Iran will tell you it’s not so bad- you know that
they just throw something on their heads and use
makeup and go places, etc.” True enough. But it wasn’t
like that at the beginning. It took them over two
decades to be able to do that. In the eighties, women
were hauled off the streets and detained or beaten for
the way they dressed.

It’s also not about covering the hair. I have many
relatives and friends who wore a hijab before the war.
It’s the principle. It’s having so little freedom that
even your wardrobe is dictated. And wardrobe is just
the tip of the iceberg. There are clerics and men who
believe women shouldn’t be able to work or that they
shouldn’t be allowed to do certain jobs or study in
specific fields. Something that disturbed me about the
election forms was that it indicated whether the voter
was ‘male’ or ‘female’- why should that matter? Could
it be because in Shari’a, a women’s vote or voice
counts for half of that of a man? Will they implement
that in the future?

Baghdad is once more shrouded in black. The buildings
and even some of the houses have large black pieces of
cloth hanging upon them, as if the whole city is
mourning the election results. It’s because of
“Ashoura” or the ten days marking the beginning of the
Islamic New Year but also marking the death of the
Prophet’s family 1400+ years ago in what is now known
as Karbala. That means there are droves of religious
Shia dressed in black from head to foot (sometimes
with a touch of green or red) walking in the streets
and beating themselves with special devices designed
for this occasion.

We’ve been staying at home most of the time because
it’s not a good idea to leave the house during these
ten days. It took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to
my aunt’s house yesterday because so many streets were
closed with masses of men chanting and beating
themselves. To say it is frightening is an
understatement. Some of the men are even bleeding and
they wear white to emphasize all the blood flowing
down backs and foreheads. It’s painful to see small
children wearing black clothes and carrying miniature
chains that really don’t hurt, but look so bizarre.

Quite frankly, it’s disgusting. It’s a quasi political
show of Sadomasochism that has nothing to do with
religion. In Islam it’s unfavorable to hurt the human
body. Moderate Shia also find it appalling and
slightly embarrassing. E. teases the Shia cousin
constantly, “So this your idea of a good time, ha?”
But the cousin is just is revolted, although he can’t
really express it. We’re so “free” now, it’s not good
idea to publicly express your distaste to the whole
bloody affair. I can, however, express it on my blog…

We’ve also heard of several more abductions and now
assassinations. They say Badir’s Brigade have come out
with a new list of ‘wanted’… but dead, not alive. It’s
a list of mainly Sunni professors, former army
generals, doctors, etc. Already there have been three
assassinations in Saydiyeh, an area that is a mix of
Sunnis and Shia. They say Badir’s Brigade people broke
into the house and gunned down the families. This
assassination spree is, apparently, a celebration of
the election results.

It’s interesting to watch American politicians talk
about how American troops are the one thing standing
between Sunnis and Shia killing each other in the
streets. It looks more and more these days like that’s
not true. Right now, during all these assassinations
and abductions, the troops are just standing aside and
letting Iraqis get at each other. Not only that, but
the new army or the National Guard are just around to
protect American troops and squelch any resistance.

There was hope of a secular Iraq, even after the
occupation. That hope is fading fast.


8) On Apocalyptic Alliances:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/540774.html

Getting tight with the Bible Belt  
By Nathan Guttman

WASHINGTON - MK Benny Elon (National Union) invests
more time and effort than perhaps any other Israeli in
nurturing the relationship with Evangelical Christians
in the U.S. As minister of tourism during the
intifada, Elon promoted visits by Evangelical churches
to Israel, and he continues to attend their
conferences and speak out against diplomatic
compromise on the Land of Israel....






 
_________________________________

www.truthtalkziraq.blogspot.com
www.truthtalkz.blogspot.com

Am trying to make this as regular as it was, and
failing to do so...

1) Refrain from paying war taxes.  Unplug yourself
from the war economy -- thus reducing your personal
liability for US Government actions. 


Contact: Ruth Benn, National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee
nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org or 800-269-7464

ANTI-WAR PROTESTERS TO USE NEW PEACE "TAX RETURN"

Thousands of U.S. taxpayers opposed to the war in Iraq
are expected to use a new "Peace Tax Return" as a
means to protest-or even resist-the spending of their
federal tax dollars for the war.

The "Peace Tax Return 2004," produced by the
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
(NWTRCC), has two options, either of which would be
sent to the IRS or an elected official. The first
option (Part A) is for people who will be paying their
taxes but want to make a protest. For those who
willing to go further, the second option (Part B) is
for taxpayers who will be refusing to pay some or all
of their federal income taxes, despite possible
consequences from the IRS.

A third part of the peace tax form, which is to be
returned (anonymously if desired) to NWTRCC, will
allow the organization to track its use, thus
measuring the extent of the protest.

The Peace Tax Return is modeled on a return produced
by Conscience, The Peace Tax Campaign in Britain, one
of many groups around the world who are lobbying for
legislation that would allow conscientious objectors
to war to pay their taxes into a special fund that
would not be used by the military. Copies of the Peace
Tax Return can be obtained by downloading from the web

http://www.nwtrcc.org/peacetaxreturn.htm

or

by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to
NWTRCC, PO Box 150553,
Brooklyn,
NY 11215.


The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating
Committee is a 22-year-old coalition of groups who
provide information about war tax resistance and
support for those who refuse to pay some or all of
federal income and excise taxes because they help pay
for war.

National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
(NWTRCC)
PO Box 150553
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 768-3420 * (800) 269-7464
Fax: (718) 768-4388
nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org
www.nwtrcc.org


2) Falluja Account:

Stories from Fallujah

These are the stories that will continue to emerge
from the rubble of Fallujah for years. No, for
generations…

By Dahr Jamail

02/08/05  -- Speaking on condition of anonymity, the
doctor sits with me in a hotel room in Amman, where he
is now a refugee. He’d spoken about what he saw in
Fallujah in the UK, and now is under threat by the US
military if he returns to Iraq.

“I started speaking about what happened in Fallujah
during both sieges in order to raise awareness, and
the Americans raided my house three times,” he says,
talking so fast I can barely keep up. He is driven to
tell what he’s witnessed, and as a doctor working
inside Fallujah, he has video and photographic proof
of all that he tells me.

“I entered Fallujah with a British medical and
humanitarian convoy at the end of December, and stayed
until the end of January,” he explains, “But I was in
Fallujah before that to work with people and see what
their needs were, so I was in there since the
beginning of December.”

When I ask him to explain what he saw when he first
entered Fallujah in December he says it was like a
tsunami struck the city.

“Fallujah is surrounded by refugee camps where people
are living in tents and old cars,” he explains, “It
reminded me of Palestinian refugees. I saw children
coughing because of the cold, and there are no
medicines. Most everyone left their houses with
nothing, and no money, so how can they live depending
only on humanitarian aid?”

The doctors says that in one refugee camp in the
northern area of Fallujah there were 1,200 students
living in seven tents.

“The disaster caused by this siege is so much worse
than the first one, which I witnessed first hand,” he
says, and then tells me he’ll use one story as an
example.

“One story is of a young girl who is 16 years old,” he
says of one of the testimonies he video taped
recently, “She stayed for three days with the bodies
of her family who were killed in their home. When the
soldiers entered she was in her home with her father,
mother, 12 year-old brother and two sisters. She
watched the soldiers enter and shoot her mother and
father directly, without saying anything.”

The girl managed to hide behind the refrigerator with
her brother and witnessed the war crimes first-hand.

“They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the
head,” he said. After this her brother was enraged and
ran at the soldiers while shouting at them, so they
shot him dead.

“She continued hiding after the soldiers left and
stayed with her sisters because they were bleeding,
but still alive. She was too afraid to call for help
because she feared the soldiers would come back and
kill her as well. She stayed for three days, with no
water and no food. Eventually one of the American
snipers saw her and took her to the hospital,” he
added before reminding me again that he had all of her
testimony documented on film.

He briefly told me of another story he documented of a
mother who was in her home during the siege. “On the
fifth day of the siege her home was bombed, and the
roof fell on her son, cutting his legs off,” he says
while using his hands to make cutting motions on his
legs, “For hours she couldn’t go outside because they
announced that anyone going in the street would be
shot. So all she could do was wrap his legs and watch
him die before her eyes.”

He pauses for a few deep breaths, then continues, “All
I can say is that Fallujah is like it was struck by a
tsunami. There weren’t many families in there after
the siege, but they had absolutely nothing. The
suffering was beyond what you can imagine. When the
Americans finally let us in people were fighting just
for a blanket.”

“One of my colleagues, Dr. Saleh Alsawi, he was
speaking so angrily about them. He was in the main
hospital when they raided it at the beginning of the
seige. They entered the theater room when they were
working on a patient…he was there because he’s an
anesthesiologist. They entered with their boots on,
beat the doctors and took them out, leaving the
patient on the table to die.”

This story has already been reported in the Arab
media.

The doctor tells me of the bombing of the Hay Nazal
clinic during the first week of the siege.

“This contained all the foreign aid and medical
instrume
nts we had. All the US military commanders
knew this, because we told them about it so they
wouldn’t bomb it. But this was one of the clinics
bombed, and in the first week of the siege they bombed
it two times.”

He then adds, “Of course they targeted all our
ambulances and doctors. Everyone knows this.”

The doctor tells me he and some other doctors are
trying to sue the US military for the following
incident, for which he has the testimonial evidence on
tape.

It is a story I was told by several refugees in
Baghdad as well…at the end of last November while the
siege was still in progress.

“During the second week of the siege they entered and
announced that all the families have to leave their
homes and meet at an intersection in the street while
carrying a white flag. They gave them 72 hours to
leave and after that they would be considered an
enemy,” he says.

“We documented this story with video-a family of 12,
including a relative and his oldest child who was 7
years old. They heard this instruction, so they left
with all their food and money they could carry, and
white flags. When they reached the intersection where
the families were accumulating, they heard someone
shouting ‘Now!’ in English, and shooting started
everywhere.”

The family was all carrying white flags, as
instructed, according to the young man who gave his
testimony. Yet he watched his mother and father shot
by snipers-his mother in the head and his father shot
in the heart. His two aunts were shot, then his
brother was shot in the neck. The man stated that when
he raised himself from the ground to shout for help,
he was shot in the side.

“After some hours he raised his arm for help and they
shot his arm,” continues the doctor, “So after awhile
he raised his hand and they shot his hand.”

A six year-old boy of the family was standing over the
bodies of his parents, crying, and he too was then
shot.

“Anyone who raised up was shot,” adds the doctor, then
added again that he had photographs of the dead as
well as photos of the gunshot wounds of the survivors.


“Once it grew dark some of them along with this man
who spoke with me, with his child and sister-in-law
and sister managed to crawl away after it got dark.
They crawled to a building and stayed for 8 days. They
had one cup of water and gave it to the child. They
used cooking oil to put on their wounds which were of
course infected, and found some roots and dates to
eat.”

He stops here. His eyes look around the room as cars
pass by outside on wet streets…water hissing under
their tires.

He left Fallujah at the end of January, so I ask him
what it was like when he left recently.

“Now maybe 25% of the people have returned, but there
are still no doctors. The hatred now of Fallujans
against every American is incredible, and you cannot
blame them. The humiliation at the checkpoints is only
making people even angrier,” he tells me.

“I’ve been there, and I saw that anyone who even turns
their head is threatened and hit by both American and
Iraqi soldiers alike…one man did this, and when the
Iraqi soldier tried to humiliate him, the man took a
gun of a nearby soldier and killed two ING, so then of
course he was shot.”

The doctor tells me they are keeping people in the
line for several hours at a time, in addition to the
US military making propaganda films of the situation.

“And I’ve seen them use the media-and on January 2nd
at the north checkpoint in the north part of Fallujah,
they were giving people $200 per family to return to
Fallujah so they can film them in the line…when
actually, at that time, nobody was returning to
Fallujah,” he says. It reminds me of the story my
colleague told me of what he saw in January. At that
time a CNN crew was escorted in by the military to
film street cleaners that were brought in as props,
and soldiers handing out candy to children.

“You must understand the hatred that has been
caused…it has gotten more difficult for Iraqis,
including myself, to make the distinction between the
American government and the American people,” he tells
me.

His story is like countless others.

“My cousin was a poor man in Fallujah,” he explains,
“He walked from his house to work and back, while
living with his wife and five daughters. In July of
2003, American soldiers entered his house and woke
them all up. They drug them into the main room of the
house, and executed my cousin in front of his family.
Then they simply left.”

He pauses then holds up his hands and asks, “Now, how
are these people going to feel about Americans?”

Copyright: Dahr Jamail - http://dahrjamailiraq.com All
rights reserved. You may republish under the following
conditions: An active link to the original publication
must be provided. You must not alter, edit or remove
any text within the article, including this copyright
notice



3) ATFP Congressional Testimony on US Policy in the
Middle East:

The long version of the testimony of ATFP president
Dr. Ziad Asali, given February 10 at the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on International Relations
on 'The Way Forward in the Middle East Peace
Process,' is now available.

This is the version that is submitted for the
Congressional record.

To view the testimony with attachments please visit:

http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/109/asa021005.pdf

For a Word version by email, please contact
rdajani@atfp.net

http://www.americantaskforce.org/qandawithdoc.htm


4) Palestine Land Society -- this is a great website
for understanding the evolution of the land struggle
at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  It is
extremely detailed:

www.plands.org



5) Baghdad Security Wall Murals.  I'll give one mural
in this message as a sample.  For the rest, click on
the following link:

http://www.iraqpatrol.com/php/index.php?showtopic=7698&hl;=




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1) Lest we forget.  The following is a compilation of

statements made by Bush Administration officials

concerning Iraqi WMD's in the leadup to the invasion

of March 2003:



http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/iraqintell/adminquoteshtml.htm



The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass

Destruction Capabilities

August 2002-November 2003



Prepared by Christina Andersson



We have compiled statements from the Bush

Administration primarily on Iraq's previous and

current ability to manufacture and hide chemical,

biological, and nuclear weapons as well as delivery

systems. We have also included statements on the

relationship between intelligence and post-war

evidence of such capabilities. Statements in bold are

our emphases...





2) New Yorker profile of Iyad Allawi:



http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact1



A MAN OF THE SHADOWS

by JON LEE ANDERSON



Can Iyad Allawi hold Iraq together?

Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31

Posted 2005-01-17



A few days before the New Year, on a crisp, sunny day

in the Jordanian capital of Amman, I had tea with Iyad

Allawi, the interim Prime Minister of Iraq, on the

terrace of an unremarkable limestone villa that serves

as the local headquarters for his political

organization, the Iraqi National Accord, or the I.N.A.

Several Jordanian and Iraqi security men lurked on the

edges of the terrace, furtively smoking cigarettes.

Only Allawi’s American bodyguard, a man wearing the

dark suit and dark glasses of an archetypal Secret

Service agent, hovered close by. All the windows of an

apartment complex overlooking the terrace were

shuttered....





3) Ca. 10-15% Iraqi Expat Voter Participation:



http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/807AAC59-999C-4BEE-BED7-E3A5668266C8.htm



Poll fails to enthuse expat Iraqis

Sunday 23 January 2005, 8:49 Makka Time, 5:49 GMT



Officials hope the extra days will see more Iraqis

sign up



The deadline for expatriate Iraqis to register for

voting in the 30 January elections has been extended

by two days due to low registration figures.



The extensions was made on Saturday after only about

one in eight of those eligible to vote signed up

during the initial phase.



By Friday, the fifth day of registration, 131,635 of

an estimated one million eligible voters in 14

countries had registered, the Geneva-based

International Organisation for Migration's Iraq's Out

of Country Programme said.







4) Apparently Baghdadis have been liberated from their

water supply this week:



http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/



Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where

hearts can heal and souls can mend...



Saturday, January 22, 2005



Bleak Eid...

It's the third day of Eid. Eid is the Islamic holiday

and usually it’s a time for families to get together,

eat, drink and celebrate. Not this Eid. This Eid is

unbearable. We managed a feeble gathering on the first

day and no one was in a celebratory mood. There have

been several explosions- some far and some near but

even those aren't as worrisome as the tension that

seems to be growing on a daily basis.



There hasn’t been a drop of water in the faucets for

six days. six days. Even at the beginning of the

occupation, when the water would disappear in the

summer, there was always a trickle that would come

from one of the pipes in the garden. Now, even that is

gone. We’ve been purchasing bottles of water (the

price has gone up) to use for cooking and drinking.

Forget about cleaning. It’s really frustrating because

everyone cleans house during Eid. It’s like a part of

the tradition. The days leading up to Eid are a frenzy

of mops, brooms, dusting rags and disinfectant. The

cleaning makes one feel like there's room for a fresh

start. It's almost as if the house and its inhabitants

are being reborn. Not this year. We’re managing just

enough water to rinse dishes with. To bathe, we have

to try to make-do with a few liters of water heated in

pots on kerosene heaters....





5) Ba'quba Amnesty Negotiations Gone Bad:



http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/723EDB4B-6F81-46C0-8AA8-99B286F6CCE8.htm



Suspected fighters vent frustrations



Wednesday 19 January 2005, 20:04 Makka Time, 17:04 GMT





Baquba residents were asked not to speak against

elections





When dozens of suspected fighters showed up for a

so-called peace conference in Baquba on Tuesday, they

told the governor sponsoring it why they would not lay

down their weapons ahead of elections....





6) NYT Op-Ed Idea advocating Iraqi Referendum on US

withdrawal:



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/opinion/19barton.html?oref=login



Should We Stay or Should We Go?

By FREDRICK BARTON, BATHSHEBA CROCKER and CRAIG COHEN

Published: January 19, 2005



Washington — WITH Iraqi elections scheduled to take

place in two weeks, many Americans already have one

eye on the exit. The Bush administration insists that

American troops will stay until a free, stable and

peaceful Iraq is established, as Condoleezza Rice did

yesterday at her Senate confirmation hearings. But it

seems likely that momentum for a speedy withdrawal

will increase after the January elections no matter

the degree of stability in Iraq....







7) Ein Tamr Field Report on Falluja Refugees:



Jan 13,2005

> Ein Tamor (Spring of Dates) is a small picturesque

> spot in the western Iraqi desert, 90 kilometers to

> the west of the sacred Karbala. It is part of a

> bigger oasis that contains the Razzazah Lake, many

> smaller towns, date palm and fruit thick orchards

> surrounding the lake, and a very important

> historical fortress called Al-Ekheider Castle. In

> the seventies, this area was developed as a resort;

> a tourist complex was built in Ein Tamor.

> 

> The tourist complex was fifty small flats

> surrounding the lake and the colorful natural

> springs. After the 1991 war, and during the UN

> economic sanctions against Iraq through the nineties

> until 2003, this tourist area was neglected, like

> many other similar places all over Iraq. During this

> period, when tourism was not a priority in Iraq, the

> complex was mainly visited by newly wed couples who

> spent their honey moon there. In April 2003, after

> the occupation of Iraq, the complex was looted and

> damaged, nothing remained except the walls.

> 

> Now it is a refugee camp for more than 50 Fallujan

> families, who fled the bombing and killings last

> October. It is like Habbaniya, another refugee camp,

> which was a tourist complex 40 kilometers to the

> north, near the Habbaniya Lake.

> 

> Obviously, Fallujans fled to these places because

> there were walls and roofs which can be used as

> better shelters than tents in the cold season. Ein

> Tamor, once one of the most beautiful areas of Iraq

> where picnics were made especially in winter, is now

> one of the saddest places. To go there, one has to

> go through the Triangle of death south of Baghdad,

> where many attacks against the occupying troops take

> place daily.

> 

> Usually it takes an hour to go to Karbalaa. It took

> us 3 hours, because of the check points, a bombed

> car that was still on fire, and traffic jam due to

> fuel (kilometers-long) queues. The roads are not the

> same. I used to go there to visit my grand mother.

> These are not the roads I used to go through; they

> are not roads at all, nothing is straight, just

> snake-like curves in the dusty wilderness.

> Paradoxically, the way from Karbalaa to Ein Tamor

> was calmer, better, and easier to go through,

> although the Iraqi Human Rights Watch members who

> accompanied us to the refugee camp warned us of

> looters.

> 

> The refugee camp was a club of sadness. Every one

> there had a story, even the children.

> 

> "No one visited us, except these people" said Sabiha

> Hashim, pointing to the Iraqi HRW members who

> accompanied us. She is a crippled widow in her

> fifties, and a mother of two young boys. She was

> burnt two years ago, and was handicapped since.

> Wrapped in a blanket, she was sitting in the middle

> of her miserable properties. Few dirty dishes, a

> blackened broken oil lamp that has not been cleaned

> ever, small primitive oil stove…etc. There was a new

> electric heater donated by some generous donor, but

> there was no electricity. Sabiha was silent," why do

> not you talk to this lady" Sami of the Iraqi HRW

> asked her, pointing to me," she came from Baghdad to

> see you".

> 

> "She did not ask" replied Sabiha.

> 

> "How did you come here?" I asked looking for some

> thing to say, after I saw her inhuman, totally

> unacceptable situation.

> 

> "The neighbors brought me when the bombing began"

> 

> " She promised to give me a dinar for every joke I

> tell her" said Sami, trying to lighten the very

> gloomy atmosphere " she is my fiancée now"

> 

> "poor Sami" I said, "now you have to look for 1000

> jokes to get 1000 dinars" ($ 0.7)

> 

> "What do you need", I asked Sabiha

> 

> "My medicine"

> 

> "What is it?"

> 

> "I do not know, I did not bring the doctor's

> receipt, there was no time. It is unfair" that was

> the only thing Sabiha said about her tragedy.

> 

> I looked for my friend Dr. Intisar, she is a

> pharmacist who is working with me and other Iraqi

> doctors to help Falluja refugees with medicines and

> supplies. I could not see her any where, but I could

> see a big crowd of women and children near the gate.

> 

> 

> "Your friend, Dr. Intisar, is examining the children

> and giving medicines", said Ismael Chali, a man in

> his fifties who is helping in running the camp.

> 

> It was not raining that day, Ein Tamor was sunny and

> warm. The gardens are no more than dusty yards now,

> few dry trees scattered, the once beautiful tourist

> flats are just walls, with hanging sheets of cloths

> serving as doors and windows. Falluja women did

> amazing job keeping the whole place clean.

> 

> "May be you want to see this old man" Sami said and

> pointed to a man sitting in the sun, two crunches in

> his hands. Hussein Abdul Nabbi, had an accident and

> broke his thighs. He is the father of a family of

> 18; two of them are young and very healthy looking

> men.

> 

> "What are you doing here?" I asked them, in a rather

> criticizing tone.

> 

> "Waiting for God's mercy" one of them replied," we

> are cotton carders, our shop was burnt, three

> electric sewing machines, cotton and cloths that

> worth 2 million dinars, and other equipments ,all

> are gone"

> 

> "But staying here does not help, does it" I insisted

> 

> "We went to Falluja a week ago; we waited the whole

> day but could not pass through the check points.

> Next day we went at 3 am, it was not before 3 pm

> that we could pass through the third sonar check

> point. Our house was destroyed, there is a huge hole

> in the ceiling, the fence is totally ruined, and the

> furniture damaged. The soldiers told us not to move

> out side the house or open the door after 6 pm. We

> are not supposed to make any noise; there is no

> electricity, no water, no shops, no hospitals, and

> no schools. How are we supposed to live there with

> our families? There are no families there, only men,

> those who can not live in tents any longer."

> 

> Other Fallujans told us that burning houses, bombing

> and looting are still going on until now.

> 

> Mustapha, 20 years, a student, said that he found

> his house, the furniture, the door, and the car

> destroyed and burnt. But the American soldiers told

> him not to use any thing from Falluja, not to use

> the sheets and blankets for example, not to drink

> water, and that if he does, it is his own decision

> and he has to take the responsibility for that.

> 

> "What does that mean?"

> 

> It means that everything in Falluja is contaminated"

> "

> 

> Ahmad Hashim, a guard in the Falluja sewage station,

> and a father of 3 children, found his house, which

> was no more than a room under the water tank,

> burnt." If a child gets ill, he simply dies, it is

> suicide to decide to go back to Falluja now"

> 

> Alahin Jalil, a young beautiful wife and a mother of

> 4 children, decided to go back home , no matter

> what. She was too tired of difficulties in the

> refugee camp, "I have to go to Karbalaa for

> medicines, there is no water here, no fuel, no

> money" . When she went to Falluja, she found out

> that her house which was in Nazzal district, one of

> the most bombed areas in Falluja, was totally

> destroyed. She decided to return back to the refugee

> camp, but it was not a better option. "For the whole

> family we get half a sheet of ampiciline

> (anti-biotic)

> 

> Money was the most difficult problem in the camp.

> These families consumed all their savings, if they

> had any. Food is given according to the food ration

> ID. Many of them fled Falluja without bringing their

> documents. Those get no food.

> 

> "What about the 150.000 dinars that are given to

> each Falluja family that we read about in the

> newspapers this week?"

> 

> "We never heard about them" every body replied.

> Where is UN, the Iraqi government, the humanitarian

> orgs, the Red Crescent, the Red Cross…they asked.

> 

> Darawsha is a small village 5 kilometers to the west

> of Ein Tamor. The Iraqi HRW in Karbalaa told us that

> its villagers share their houses with Falluja

> refugees. When we entered Darawsha, I remembered

> what James Baker said before the 1991 American

> attack on Iraq. "We will return Iraq to the middle

> ages" he said. This is not even the middle ages. The

> narrow muddy streets, small clay huts were dark,

> cold and crowded with big families. The smoky

> burning wet branches are not giving warmth to the

> damp cottages, more than the thick suffocating smoke

> .

> 

> Sheikh Farhan Al-Duleimi, the local council head,

> said" my name is Farhan (happy), but I am very sad

> for what happened to Falluja… at the same time this

> is a good example of the Shiite-Sunni unity in Iraq.

> Darawsha families are all Shiite, but they are

> welcoming Sunnis from Falluja as if they are one

> family, despite the fact that they are poor, and

> already in need of much help themselves.

> 

> We decided to stop in the middle of the village, and

> to donate the medicines and financial help to the

> families, promising them and ourselves to come back

> again to listen to their stories. It was already 4

> pm, we need to hurry back because it is too

> dangerous to be on the highway after sunset. There

> are at least 85 Falluja families here. Dr. Intisar

> opened the car box and began to donate medicines. A

> young, shy girl approached her and said "do you need

> help, I am a pharmacist". We asked the villagers to

> form a committee with at least one woman in it, to

> receive the money and distribute it on the Falluja

> refugees.

> 

> "You need to go to Rahaliya and Ahmad bin Hashim

> villages" said Abbass, from the Iraqi HRW, who was

> accompanying us all the time," the situation in

> those refugee camps are much more difficult, and

> they rarely get any help, because they are too far

> away"

> 

> "Then we need to come back again soon", I replied

> 

> "Yes, you have also to visit refugees from Basra,

> Amara and the marshes"

> 

> "What are you talking about?"

> 

> "There are refugees from the south, fleeing from the

> worsening security situation"

> 

> The way back to Baghdad was the most difficult part

> of the trip. At 5.30 it was deep dark. No lights on

> the way, no moon and too much dust. Some of the

> check points were already deserted by security men.

> The highway was almost empty except of us. "If you

> were men I would not worry "Ahmad, our driver said.

> We could tell that he was very tense, reading lines

> of the Holy Quran all the time, and smoking too

> much. "Those looters are the worst of criminals".

> 

> Dr. Intisar was very calm and exhausted "I love you"

> she suddenly said.

> 

> I was too tired to ask what made her say so.

> Surprisingly, we were not afraid at all, of any

> thing.

> 

> To be continued...

8) Supposedly hoax VW car ad spoofing suicide bombers:



http://ad-rag.com/117074.php







9) This is an election analysis concerning the

possible effects of the Iraqi election on sectarian

divisions:



"PFC Energy Iraq Advisory"

22/01/2005 00:07



What Do Sectarian Politics Mean For Iraq's Next

Government



Secular Groups Back Out:



Latest information from Baghdad indicates that another

Sunni-led group, Hatem Mukhlis' Iraqi National

Movement (INM) intends to pull out of the 30 January

elections. It is not clear why the Mukhlis list is

withdrawing, although security concerns, and

frustration that Sunni and nationalist calls for a

temporary postponement of the vote have been ignored,

were no doubt contributing factors. The INM's decision

to boycott can be seen as disingenuous on one level;

as is the case with the Iraqi Islamic Party and other

groups that have recently abandoned the poll, its name

will remain on the ballot paper because it did not

make its decision before 15 December. But it is

nonetheless indicative of the impact that insurgency

violence has had on the elections, and the degree to

which the Sunni and nationalist communities feel

alienated from what they perceive as a deeply flawed

process that is shaped by ethnic and sectarian

politics and dominated by an oligarchy of former

Interim Governing Council (IGC) parties.





That Mukhlis has withdrawn is also illustrative of the

broader challenges to the transition process and how

divided Iraq has become. Secular, pro-western and an

advocate of democracy, he was in many ways a

poster-child for the new Iraq. A physician and former

exile, he lived in the United States from the 1970s

after the Iraqi government killed his father. The

opposition movement he founded there was eventually

recognized by the Bush Administration and included on

the list of groups to receive funding under the Iraq

Liberation Act. Prior to the war, he was one of three

opposition activists invited to meet privately with

President George Bush.



Post-war, however, Mukhlis emerged as a vocal critic

of the transition process. Having failed to make it

into the IGC, he was forced to set about building a

local constituency for himself, particularly in

Salahudin Province (his family hails from Tikrit) and

Baghdad. He was disparaging of the Coalition

Provisional Authority's policies, especially its

emphasis on formal ethnic and sectarian quotas and,

somewhat ironically, its over-reliance on former exile

parties. He argued that secular and Sunni groups were

feeling increasingly disenfranchised, and warned of

the dangers of formally incorporating proportional

representation into the framework of government and

the constitution. In part, this no doubt represented

bitterness at having lost out in the new, US-selected

system. But in being forced to build an independent

power base, his views were probably a good indication

of the prevailing sentiment outside the Green Zone,

and remain so.



Islamist Shia Parties on the Rise



It is unclear how well the IMN would have faired in

the election; in reality, it would probably have

picked up only a handful of votes. Nonetheless, its

withdrawal is noteworthy. It is not simply that

another "Sunni" has pulled out in protest; equally

important is the fact that another secular,

nationalist party has removed itself from the election

scene. This trend has weighty implications for what

the government of Iraq may look like in the future,

and whether stability will be achievable in the medium

term. The overriding tendency of the media, not to

mention Washington and London, has been to cast the

elections (and the broader political transition) in

sectarian and ethnic terms. As such, the prevailing

view is that the vote will overturn very real

historical injustices and give the Shia their rightful

majority in the institutions of state, something that

will bolster stability. Iraq's Islamist Shia parties

have sought to bolster this perception since before

Saddam Hussein's ouster, not least by insisting that

it is the outcome that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani

wants.





But the emphasis on sectarian quotas ignores two other

very important parallel dynamics in Iraqi politics.

The first is regional, which finds some resonance in

the attention paid to Kurdish regional autonomy,

although the sentiment is felt more broadly,

especially in the deep south of Iraq. The second

dynamic is the competition between secular and

religious views of government in Iraq. This has a long

history in Iraq, and is intimately linked to what has

become the sectarian struggle between Shia and Sunni.

While Shia clerics played an active political role in

the 1920s in fomenting opposition to the UK occupation

of Iraq and the government it established, Islamist

political organizations that sought to shape

governance in Iraq did not emerge until the 1950s. It

was then that a group of young clerics (led by the

late Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr but including

such luminaries as eventual SCIRI founder Mohammed

Baqer al-Hakim; Hezbollah's former spiritual guide

Ayatollah Hassan Fadhlallah; and Qom-based Ayatollah

Kadhem al-Haeri), sought to counter the growing appeal

of secular ideologies, particularly Communism, among

the Shia poor in Baghdad and southern Iraq, which

threatened to eclipse Islam and further dilute

clerical authority. Sadr developed a coherent Islamic

political and economic program for the government of

the Iraqi state. It differed from Khomeini's Vilayat

al-Faqih (rule of the jurisprudent) in Iran, which

sanctioned direct, authoritarian clerical rule. Sadr's

vision was more liberal, and more democratic,

advocating diversity and lay legislative and executive

power, and respect for private ownership.

Nevertheless, the goal was to propagate a Shia Islamic

state, run in accordance with the Islamic Sharia, and

with the senior clerics (the Marjaiya) acting as

judicial overseers, ensuring that laws accorded with

religious tenets.





Sadr's efforts ultimately led to the formation of the

Islamic Dawa Party, which remains the most popular

Islamist Shia organization in Iraq today, despite its

internal schisms. Dawa's mobilization efforts, its

Islamist ideology and its periodic resort to violence

were from the beginning regarded as threatening by the

secular Iraqi state that it sought to replace, and the

party faced repression, culminating in the late 1970s

and early 1980s, when Saddam Hussein's regime sought

to crush it after a series of anti-regime

demonstrations and attacks against senior government

officials. By that time, the war with clerical-led

Iran had made the Iraqi regime sensitive to any Shia

political stirrings. Tehran's assistance in creating

the umbrella group SCIRI (which included senior Dawa

leaders and which initially advocated Wilayat

al-Faqih) as a political and guerrilla force to

undermine Saddam's rule and breed opposition to it in

the south of the country fed the Baghdad regime's

growing sectarian insecurities; the 1991 anti-regime

uprisings only added to it, prompting even more

widespread repression of the Shia.



Will the Next Government Be Islamist?



Looking forward, one of the big questions is how much

the Islamist Shia parties will seek to push the goal

of Islamic government if, as expected, they do well in

elections. Publicly, Dawa and SCIRI leaders, and their

counterparts on the primarily Shia United Iraqi

Coalition list, have adopted a moderate tone, but

without going into any details. They have insisted

that they would encourage broad participation in

government and in drafting the constitution, and that

rather than seeking to impose Islamic government on

Iraq, their goal is simply to ensure that Iraq's

Islamic identity is respected. They have also backed

foreign investment in all sectors, including the oil

industry, something that Sistani apparently supports.

Indeed, they have hinted that their vision of a new

constitution would look similar to the existing

Transitional Administrative Law. Islamist Shia

moderation was certainly on display when the TAL was

being drafted, although it is not clear whether this

was due to conviction or the fact that the occupation

authority temporarily held the political upper hand

(the one area they dug their heels in was over the

role of Islam in the state, and it took intense

negotiations to reach a compromise). If Shia Islamists

were to form a majority in the next parliament,

neither the parties nor their supporters may see the

need to be so accommodating.





What is certain is that the religious current runs

strong among these parties and their

supporters?indeed, it is their raison d'etre and by

insisting so intently on the need for sectarian

balance in political institutions and paying so much

deference to Sistani, Washington has inadvertently

bolstered these groups, and with them the influence of

political Islam. Religious identity has rapidly become

the defining feature of Iraqi politics over the past

21 months, to the exclusion of a national agenda, and

this change is fueling the violent and divisive

sectarian battle for power. Even if a liberal and

democratic leaning form of political Islam is adopted

as part of the constitution, this instability could

get worse because it envisages clerical oversight by

the Shia Marjaiyah, especially Sistani, rather than a

cross-sectarian collective of clerics, and because the

Islam that will be promoted will be of the Shia

variety.





The withdrawal of secular groups like the INM from the

elections will only help to improve electoral

prospects of Shia Islamist groups, and with it their

ability to shape the new constitution. At present,

only Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya list,

President Ghazi al-Yawer Iraqiyun list and former IGC

member Adnan Pachachi's Independent Democrats list

remain to offer any real competition to the Islamist

Shia on a national scale. Although Allawi enjoys the

advantage of being the incumbent Premier, which gives

him access to state organs to back his campaign,

divisions between these secular groups could hurt

their election chances. Moreover, their close

association with the allied occupation of Iraq will

taint them in the eyes of some of their natural

constituency. Diminishing security, especially in big

cities such as Baghdad and Mosul where secular groups

would be expected to well, will also undermine their

vote getting. Indeed, turnout will be key for their

success: the lower the overall figure, the more the

Islamist Shia are likely to benefit: they have been

more adept at mobilizing their supporters and have

successfully used the symbol of Sistani to rally the

faithful behind them. The campaign efforts by Sunni

and secular independent nationalist groups has been

paltry by comparison, and faced with a combination of

security fears, a perceived lack of representation and

a growing sense of disenfranchisement, they may choose

not to vote at all.



Raad Alkadiri

Director

Markets & Countries Group

+1 202 721 0313





10) Aceh Evangelicals:



Hong Kong Standard Weekend

January 22-23, 2005



Feature



God squads of Aceh



By Vaudine England



Father Fernando, aged 70, is more comfortable speaking

Indonesian or  his native Italian, rather than

English. A resident of Aceh for almost  two decades,

he runs the Catholic church and adjacent school,

serving a  flock of mainly Chinese-Indonesians.



His twinkling eyes and shaggy white hair are a

testament to his  survival skills. As usual on a

Christmas Day, he had celebrated mass in  central

Banda Aceh then taken a bus down the west coast to

Meulaboh.



There, in a town since made famous by disaster, he

held a Christmas  mass. The next morning, as he was at

the bus station ready to go back  to Banda Aceh, he

heard the people shouting in panic. With everyone

else, the priest ran away from the coast trying to

escape the tsunami,  but he couldn't run fast enough.



He took refuge in one of the few buildings left

standing: on the second  floor of a mosque.



It was a fitting place. ``Yes of course, why not! I

have also been  giving refuge to Muslims for many

years,'' he says, in reference to his  church's

program of importing foreign doctors to operate on

Muslim  children with cleft palates along Aceh's north

coast.



'`I spent four days in Meulaboh,'' recounts the

priest, ``moving from  one house to another. First we

stayed in an Acehnese house, then in a  Chinese house,

then in a school with many policemen.'' He slept under

a peasant house, with soldiers, so close to a chicken

coop he feared  getting bird flu, he jokes.



His odyssey reveals the tolerant and cosmopolitan

aspects of life atop  Aceh's Islamic bedrock. This is

where Islam first came to Indonesia  half a millenium

ago - and it has generally been confident, erudite

Islam rather than its paranoid, more radical cousin.



Even in the midst of what Father Fernando calls ``an

apocalyptic  vision'' of destruction, the ties that

bound humanity were stronger  than those that divided.



But some Indonesians and aid workers worry that the

need to let  Acehnese think for themselves may be lost

in the enormous aid push  underway, some of it by

ambitious religious groups with agendas that go

beyond shelter and food.



One United States Agency for International Development

(USAID) official  says it's the perfect opportunity

for aid groups - faith-based or not -  to make funding

proposals based around the tsunami. ``Even in the

first  week we saw a flood of proposals, with high

expat salaries, the works.  This disaster will make

careers,'' she says. A key goal early on was to  get

USAID stickers on to every shipment to make sure the

publicity was  clear. Some staff have been seen giving

autographs.



For many groups pouring into Aceh, it's not only a

time to harvest the  big bucks of aid flowing in, but

to harvest souls.



Veteran aid workers say they are not surprised by the

onslaught of  unusual groups appearing at the scene of

disaster, but fear their  impact.



``It's the first time I've run into so many different

people from so  many different agencies in one

place,'' says Wayne Ulrich, emergency  coordinator for

Catholic Relief Services, a non-evangelical, pragmatic

aid organisation.



Many long-term aid agencies might have roots in a

particular faith but  have decades of experience and

they work irrespective of others' race,  creed or

religion. These ecumenical churches offer broad

acceptance of  varied faiths and aim their good works

at a multicultural world.



Some groups are widely seen as cults, pushing a

quasi-religious  doctrine of healing and feeling.

Other groups, particularly American  evangelicals

associated with the conservative politics of the Bush

administration, focus on a personal and direct

relationship with a  defined God through literal

adherence to ancient texts. Their  temptation, say

critics, is to use disaster as an excuse to make

converts.



``There are elements here which shouldn't be here,''

says the director of one of the largest international

aid agencies working in Aceh.  ``There are lots of

faith-based groups, and some of them are explicit

about the need to spread the word. People will get

sick of that pretty quick.''



In a city famed for its gracious mosque, built

according to an Italian  design with Dutch money in

1881, still standing alongside colonial and  Chinese

buildings, a rich history has survived the tsunami.

But it has yet to weather the spiritual after-shocks.



Directly across from the Pendopo, the old Dutch

Governor's House in  Banda Aceh built in 1880, is a

cluster of large green tents with  foreigners sitting

around in bright yellow T-shirts. The logo: ``Church

of Scientology.''



``We're focusing on emotional stress and trauma,''

says Gregory Churilov, an Argentinian convert to the

cult which promises new life  for hard cash.



``Here, it's as if everyone's been in a huge car

accident, whole  families have been wiped out, and

Scientology offers a methodology to  handle loss and

trauma.''



He disclaims any intention to garner converts: ``We

really frown on  that. You can look at all this in two

ways: that we are getting more  exposure because we

are greedy for converts, or that we are getting  more

exposure because we are willing to help.''



He and his cohorts are offering the so-called science

of ``Dianetics,''  a cathartic form of therapy which

includes a form of massage ``to get  the person in

communication with their body.'' Churilov claims to

have  mastered a ``basic technique to orient people

into the present, to snap  them out of the past,

making them more alert.''



But one group of men gathered around a cooking fire at

the university's  mosque were merely bemused, feeling

no need for massage, they said, and  having no idea

what Scientology might be.



In an unusual twist on the notion of bringing aid to

the destitute,  Churilov says his group arrived in

Aceh with nothing and were given  tents by the army

and food by friendly locals. Unfazed that the aid

flow was meant to go the other way, he used this as an

example of how well accepted the Scientologists were

by the local people, rather than  an example of

traditional manners.



But the notion that catching people in a weakened

state and exposing  them to ideas and practices they

have never felt the need for before is  disturbing.



``I was at a meeting and I was surprised at how many

groups there were  saying they were into psycho-social

and trauma recovery, and we've  never heard of them

before,'' says Indonesian psychologist and London

graduate Livia Iskandar. She helps run a group called

Pulih (literally  To Recover), of professional trauma

experts who focus on the need for  community-based

solutions to conflict or disaster.



``There is a danger of pathologizing people and not

giving time for  normal recovery to take place. This

is a collective trauma - it's too  early to label

individuals as traumatized.



``We know the Acehnese are very strong people. Aceh

has special  characteristics in its culture and

religion that even as Indonesians,  we need to be

aware of. We really appreciate efforts by the

international community, but there is a need to

respect the traditions  already in place,'' she says.



Radical Islamic groups have received the most

attention so far, but aid  workers at established

agencies also wonder what Christian evangelists,

including Mormons, on the streets of Banda Aceh might

have to offer.



A strange confluence of need and available money has

also drawn groups  focused on, say, the trafficking of

women, which has rarely been an  issue in cohesive

Acehnese society.



``We're having money thrown at us by the United States

government for  trafficking programs we haven't even

asked for!'' says a communications  director of a

large international agency.



One faith-based group intent on saving women from

prostitution, whether  they like it or not, is the

International Justice Mission (IJM), a  group of

God-fearing, Harvard-trained lawyers. Describing

itself as a  ``Christ-centered'' organization on its

Web site, it argues - and  provides biblical

references for - a doctrine of ``explicitly

Christian'' direct intervention.



IJM's Sean Litton, speaking on the phone from Medan

wouldn't talk about  what he was doing in Sumatra and

refers callers to his US head office.  ``We're in the

middle of things it would not be a good thing to talk

about,'' he says.



Drew Bishop of Compassion International is more open

and admits that its current work with local partner,

PESAT, is a departure from its  usual business of

training local churches in child development.



``We are channeling funds through local partners and

providing a  framework for the many volunteers coming

in who have no idea what they're doing,'' says

Bishop.



``We had looked to contact Christians in Aceh but

found most of the churches were filled with bodies.

We're still looking, we want to get  them involved.



``We want to distance ourselves from Christian groups

who are trying to assign blame or judgment. We are

here just because we care. We're not  asking if

recipients are Christian or not. We're saying we can

help you  to help your own people.''



Hans Geni, of PESAT, is an Indonesian Pentecostal

Christian but insists  his kindergartens all over

Indonesia follow the national, not a  sectarian,

curriculum. The tsunami has given his group an

opportunity to enter Aceh for the first time.



It's a different faith but a similar message over at

the office of the World Association of Muslim Youth.

Hamid Sa-ad from Jeddah has an  ``open budget'' and is

overseeing the work of loading piles of food and

household kits on to trucks for distribution to camps.



``We have some Islamic programs in education, to

explain what Islam is to non-Muslim people. But in

Indonesia there is no need for this,'' he  says.



But right next door is the office of a group which

aided the rampaging  Indonesian military-backed

militias in East Timor in 1999. Young men  lounging at

the offices of the Laskar Merah Putih say they're

defenders of Indonesian national unity.



``We are friends with the TNI [Indonesian Armed

Forces],'' boasts Eddie  Juliansyah, an Acehnese who

helps run the Laskar Merah Putih office.



More recent Islamic entrants include the Front Pembela

Islam (FPI),  better known for trashing bars and other

houses of sin in Jakarta, but  now earning plaudits

for their volunteer work in collecting Aceh's  corpses

for proper burial.



Camped out in the Heroes Cemetery on the same street

as the expanding Unicef office in Banda Aceh, FPI

leaders tried to expel two female  reporters who

refused to wear headscarves. ``This is an Islamic

state,'' they insisted, although Acehnese Muslims

rarely insist on such  dogma.



Ploughing through the well-funded buffet of groups and

ideas now on  offer to the Acehnese in this vulnerable

time of their lives, it's easy  to reach overload.



That's why the non-evangelical, mainstream Indonesian

Council of  Churches, related to the liberal World

Council of Churches in Geneva, has a special

taskforce to track just what Christian groups are

doing.



``We are sharing information about the activities of

all these  groups,'' says Frans Tumiwa, a leader of

the Council of Churches. He  and his colleagues worry

that many conservative Christian groups are  giving

the rest of the church a bad name.



``The people in Aceh need to be helped, with practical

things, with  food and supplies. But when people come

in saying they're representing  this or that Christian

group, well, there shouldn't be any talk about

religion. Some of these groups can destroy the whole

image of the  church,'' he says. He too worries about

the number of groups he's never heard of before,

charging into Aceh with many thousands of dollars and

an explicit evangelical agenda.



``They give a wrong impression about the real mission

of the church,  which is to be in solidarity with the

people of Aceh,'' he says.



Samaritan's Purse is promising an airlift of a

helicopter with crucial  supplies. This group is run

by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy  Graham,

and is overt about catering to the spiritual as well

as the  physical needs of victims of the tsunami.



Its Web site offers special prayers with biblical

references to help make a difference for the tsunami

survivors, promising to meet the  needs of victims

``with the purpose of sharing God's love through His

Son, Jesus Christ.''



Just as conversion efforts by radical Islamists have

long been rebuffed in Aceh, so too has any other

evangelism.



But the Samaritan's Purse promises to ``offer more

than help. We offer  hope. To suffering people in a

broken world, we share the news of the only One who

can bring true peace - Jesus Christ, Prince of

Peace.''



World Relief is another one to watch. One veteran aid

agency director  recalled seeing World Relief on the

Thai-Cambodian border years ago,  filling ox-carts

with bibles for Cambodians just emerging from the

traumatic years of Khmer Rouge rule.



'`The bibles became strangely popular and it took us a

while to work  out why, but it was because the paper

they were printed on was such  good quality that it

could be re-used as cigarette paper. It burned  very

nicely,'' the agency director says.



Dr Galen Carey directs World Relief's work in

Indonesia and insists he wouldn't dream of sending

bibles into Aceh as it would be ``too  sensitive.'' He

says his work focuses on health, education,

agriculture, refugees and trade.



Up to 20 percent of World Relief's funds come from

churches, he says, some from private donations, and

about half from USAID.



``This is not a time to take advantage of people. What

we are explaining is that this is a time of tragedy,

it's a time to provide  help on a human to human

basis,'' Carey says.



``We have no plans to bring in bibles in or any other

literature. I  can't speak for what has happened

before.''



Meanwhile, the Taiwanese Buddhist group, the Tzu Chi

Foundation, is  bringing in tents and building homes

for thousands of displaced people  regardless of

faith.



``We don't get involved in politics. We have Muslim,

Christian and  Buddhist volunteers,'' says Ji Shou, a

Malaysian staffer with Tzu Chi.





11) New Orleans Jazz Funeral for Democracy Pictures,

Commentary.  This was a creative peace demonstration

on the day of Bush's inauguration:



http://www.traprockpeace.org/jazz_funeral_20jan05/



http://blog.radioleft.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/21/270618.html





12) Pre-inauguration global poll:



http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1394393,00.html



World fears new Bush era



Blair urges more consensual US approach as poll shows

unease in 18 out of 21 nations



Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor

Thursday January 20 2005

The Guardian



George Bush will be sworn in as president of the

United States for a second term today in a lavish

Washington ceremony, amid mounting international

concern that his new administration will make the

world a more dangerous place.



A poll of 21 countries published yesterday -

reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North

America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear

majority have grave fears about the next four years.



Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in

the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said

they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on

peace and security, compared with only 26% who

considered him a positive force...



13) Guardian op-ed before Inauguration:



http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1394229,00.html



Davos World, Pax Americana, New Caliphate or Cycle of

Fear - the planet's choices for 2020



Martin Kettle

Thursday January 20 2005

The Guardian



George Bush will offer Americans a shining vision of

their place in the world for the next four years when

he is sworn in for his second term today. But in the

White House sits a copy of a newly published report on

the world in 2020 which contains few of the

certainties he prefers...





14) Oh Canada!:



http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=602513



Canada, here they come...

They threatened to run for the border if Bush was

re-elected. But how many did? Today, as the President

is sworn in on the steps of the Capitol, Andrew

Buncombe meets the Americans who are choosing to begin

new lives in self-imposed exile

20 January 2005



At their home in a comfortable, quiet Seattle suburb,

Mike Teller and his partner Bob Vesely will not be

cheering today. Indeed, while the celebratory

thousands line the streets for the presidential

inauguration 3,000 miles away in Washington DC, Teller

and Vesely will think of their future and the greener

pastures they believe await them. They'll be thinking

of escape...











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I hope everyone's in the mood not to buy anything at

all tomorrow, in commemoration of "Not One Damn Dime

Day"...



1) Always good to know that British soldiers are so

much more civilized and experienced than their

American counterparts, due to their experience in

Northern Ireland, etc...



http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8542,1393803,00.html



January 19 2005: Photographs taken by five British

servicemen and shown to the courts martial in

Osnabruck, Germany, of three British soldiers from the

Royal Regiment of Fusiliers accused of "shocking and

appalling" acts of abuse and assault against Iraqi

civilians in a humanitarian aid camp known as the

Bread Basket, near Basra, in May 2003. The charges

include forcing detainees to strip and simulate sex.

Lance Corporal Mark Cooley, 25, and Corporal Daniel

Kenyon, 33, have entered not guilty pleas to the

charges. Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, admitted

one charge of assaulting an unknown male at the camp

but pleaded not guilty to other charges.

All photographs: MoD/British court martial handout/PA





2) Bush forces UN refugee chief to go:



http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1394439,00.html



Israeli pressure backed by conservative and Jewish

groups in US stops reappointment of controversial head

of relief agency



Chris McGreal in Gaza City

Thursday January 20 2005

The Guardian



The Bush administration has blocked the reappointment

of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency chief, Peter

Hansen, after a campaign by conservative and Jewish

groups in the US, and the government in Jerusalem

which accused him of being an "Israel hater".



Some European and Arab governments were keen for Mr

Hansen to stay on at the end of his nine-year tenure

but the US supported Israel's assertion that the head

of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is biased

and soft on "terrorists". This week Mr Hansen sent an

email to staff saying he will leave on March 31.





3) This article discusses Iraq's marshes and their

developments in the past decade.  It's a far better

article than the same issue's approach to Daniel Pipes

which was posted here last week:



http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010538.html



Paradise Lost?

What should--or can--be done about "the environmental

crime of the century"?

by Christopher Reed



Five thousand years ago in the Mesopotamian marshes,

between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in southern

Iraq, the Sumerians began history. They devised an

irrigation system and built an agrarian society,

banding together the children of hunter-gatherers in

the world's first cities—Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Lagash,

Larsa—on the edge of the marshes. From their cradle of

civilization, the Sumerians brought forth writing (as

well as the wheel, maybe, and much else fundamental)

and carved into clay tablets the epic of Gilgamesh,

which describes the Flood. Here, many say, was the

Garden of Eden (although the latest scientific

thinking suggests it was at a spot now at the bottom

of the Persian Gulf).





4) OpEd: "Julia Roberts has a better chance of winning

this war":



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1393528,00.html



Iraq will surrender its soul to America only when the

US army has left



Max Hastings

Wednesday January 19, 2005

The Guardian



There is growing dissension and dismay in the US armed

forces about their prospects of victory in Iraq. The

yellow ribbons, lapel pins and yard signs expressing

solidarity with the nation's soldiers are still

conspicuous around army bases across America. But

commanders and soldiers alike are conducting an

increasingly anguished debate.

There are four reasons for this. First, many service

people are shocked by the incontrovertible evidence

that the justifications offered by the Bush

administration for invading Iraq - WMD and a link with

international terrorism - were false. Second, bitter

and painful fighting, notably in the showpiece assault

on Falluja, has failed to suppress insurgency. Third,

there is deep scepticism about progress in recruiting

Iraqis to assume the security burden. Even General

David Petraeus, the US airborne general charged with

organising Iraq's new forces, is said to be

increasingly despondent. And finally, the army and

marine corps are acutely aware that they have to

sustain the occupation without sufficient troops to

control the country effectively.





5) Before and after Tsunami satellite shots:



http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/2.html

www.truthtalkziraq.blogspot.com

www.truthtalkz.blogspot.com



1) New Not In Our Name Petition, regarding

inauguration and statements that election is a

mandate:



www.nion.us







2) Yup, Iran's next, perhaps before the summer.

However, since even Americans are tiring of folks

defending themselves against foreign invaders, this

time they'll probably just bomb Iran, with

"precision".  It'll just end up killing a lot of

people, whom we won't bother counting:



http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1392687,00.html



Now US ponders attack on Iran



Hardliners in Pentagon ready to neutralise 'nuclear

threat' posed by Tehran



Julian Borger in Washington and Ian Traynor

Tuesday January 18, 2005

The Guardian



President Bush's second inauguration on Thursday will

provide the signal for an intense and urgent debate in

Washington over whether or when to extend the "global

war on terror" to Iran, according to officials and

foreign policy analysts in Washington.

That debate is being driven by "neo-conservatives" at

the Pentagon who emerged from the post-election Bush

reshuffle unscathed, despite their involvement in

collecting misleading intelligence on Iraq's weapons

in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.



Washington has stood aside from recent European

negotiations with Iran and Pentagon hardliners are

convinced that the current European-brokered deal

suspending nuclear enrichment and intensifying weapons

inspections is unenforceable and will collapse in

months.



Only the credible threat, and if necessary the use, of

air and special operations attacks against Iran's

suspected nuclear facilities will stop the ruling

clerics in Tehran acquiring warheads, many in the

administration argue.







3) Dear Abby Letter:



DEAR ABBY,



My husband has a long record of money problems. He

runs up huge credit card bills. At the end of the

month, if I try to pay them off, he shouts at me,

saying I am stealing his money. He says pay the

minimum, and let our kids worry about the rest, but

already we can hardly keep up with the interest.



Also he has been so arrogant and abusive toward our

neighbors that most of them no longer speak to us. The

few that do are an odd bunch, to whom he has been

giving a lot of expensive gifts, running up our bills

even more.



Also, he has gotten religious in a big way, although I

don't quite understand it. One week he hangs out with

Catholics and the next with people who say the Pope is

the Anti-Christ. And now he has been going

to the gym an awful lot and is into wearing uniforms

and cowboy outfits, and I hate to think what that

means.



Finally, the last straw. He's demanding that before

anyone can be in the same room with him, they must

sign a loyalty oath. It's just so horribly creepy!



Can you help?



Signed, Lost in DC



DEAR LOST:



Stop whining, Laura. You can divorce the jerk any time

you want. The rest of us are stuck with the ___hole

for four more years!







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