[casi] News, 26/03-02/04/03 (5)

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

News, 26/03-02/04/03 (5)

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

*  U.S. picks 30 Iraqi exiles as 'frontmen' of new regime
*  Man who would be 'king' of Iraq
*  Israeli minister wants to reopen Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline: Report
*  US draws up secret plan to impose new regime on Iraq
*  US disputes cloud postwar plans

PROSPECTS FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

*  Suicide bombing near Najaf: 'welcome to hell'
*  What would change my mind on Iraq?
*  It will end in disaster
*  Conversation in unmarked grave


THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030326-28582064.htm

*  U.S. PICKS 30 IRAQI EXILES AS 'FRONTMEN' OF NEW REGIME
by Sharon Behn
The Washington Times, 26th March

The State Department has named more than 30 Iraqi exiles, most  of them
living in the United States, to head to Baghdad to serve as  the
professional core of a new administration as soon as possible  after the
fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime.

Ranging from professors to the chief executive officers of  banks, the
exiles say they expect to serve as the "frontmen" of  Baghdad's new
government, linking with Iraqi nationals on the ground  to reconstruct
everything from the country's police force to its  banking system.

Divided into sectors such as "democratic principles and  procedures" and
"transitional justice," some of those on the list  already are in the region
working in parallel with coalition forces  to oust Saddam.

Others have been coordinating with the State Department and  Department of
Defense, drawing up plans on how best to rebuild Iraq's  institutions and
policies and smooth the path toward a permanent  government.

"The key will be a sustainable peace, and that needs a  sustainable
economy," explained Rubar Sandi, chairman of Corporate  Bank in New York,
who has been named to serve in the economy and  infrastructure sector.

"I will play a major role in the building of institutions from  the bottom
up," said Mr. Sandi, a veteran of the failed Kurdish  uprising in 1974 who
has been talking with the State, Defense and  Treasury departments. However,
he said, he did not see a political  role for himself under an anticipated
U.S.-supported civilian  government.

Emanuel Kambar, a physics professor at Western Michigan  University, also is
on the State Department list of those ready to  move back to Iraq and help
rebuild the government, including  rewriting the country's constitution.

"We would be in some advisory capacity," Mr. Kambar said. "We  hope to see a
civilian transition of Iraq from the inside and the  outside" within six
months to two years from the end of successful  military action.

"I would like to see a democratic, secular, multiethnic Iraq,"  added Mr.
Kambar, who is an Assyrian Christian and longtime Iraqi  opposition member.

But he said he had not had any contact with Jay Garner, the  retired general
who heads the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and  Humanitarian
Assistance and is tipped to lead a post-Hussein  peacekeeping
administration.

The exiles include Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites, but have been  chosen more
for their badly needed professional skills than their  political background,
said Judith Kipper, senior fellow of the Middle  East program at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies.

Members of the political opposition Iraqi National Congress do  not appear
to feature in the group. "I think they will have a  percentage of a role in
building a constituency, but not a role in  governance," said Mr. Sandi.

A number of the Iraqi professionals have been working intensely  for months
to come up with detailed plans for a new Iraqi government;  most say they
are ready to fly to Baghdad at a moment's notice.

"Many have been asked to go in the day after and be facilitators  and
leapfrog the country to prosperity," said Ahmed Al-Hayderi, who  works at a
British-based telecommunications company and lives in  Canada.

But while the group is determined to put Iraq back on its feet  after the
military coalition's operations, Mr. Al-Hayderi said there  was concern
among some Iraqi exiles whether the United States would  stick by its
pledges to let the Iraqi people form their own  democratic system.

Whoever is chosen to lead Iraq, he said, must not have an  immediate
interest in the outcome.


http://observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,925325,00.html

*  MAN WHO WOULD BE 'KING' OF IRAQ
by Oliver Morgan
The Observer, 30th March

President, viceroy, governor, sheriff. It is difficult to know what to call
Jay Garner, the retired US general who will run Iraq if and when Saddam
Hussein is deposed.

The 'call me Jay' 64-year-old would prefer 'co-ordinator of civilian
administration'. That's the bland description of his job heading the Office
for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the Pentagon agency
preparing to govern Iraq's 23 million people in the aftermath of war,
provide humanitarian support and administer the lucrative business of
reconstruction.

Garners credentials are intriguing. He has a fine record in United
Nations-backed humanitarian operations, playing a senior role in protecting
the Kurds of northern Iraq from Saddam after the 1991 Gulf war in Operation
Provide Comfort. Crucially he is now out of khaki, a vital counterpoint to
General Tommy Franks, who is likely to act as a US military governor. On the
other hand, he is closely linked with the group of hawks centred on US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who gave him his latest job), his deputy
Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, who are as keen to bypass the
UN in the aftermath of war as they were before it.

He appears to share their strong pro-Israeli views. He has been involved in
formulating their more controversial defence policies, including the US
national missile defence system that has done much to undermine the 1972
anti-ballistic missile treaty. The company he now works for is a missile
specialist and makes money from systems deployed in Israel and by coalition
forces in Iraq.

With this background, the aid agencies are equivocal about his role. Phil
Bloomer of Oxfam says: 'Iraqis should run Iraq and in the transition the UN
should be in charge, not the US. A worst-case scenario would be to put in
charge of Iraqi reconstruction someone from the US or UK who was linked to
the arms or oil industries.'

Garner's view of the effectiveness of the US military in a humanitarian role
was made clear during Provide Comfort. The army, he said, was the merciful
instrument in shaping future humanitarian operations. But Provide Comfort
was carried out under very different circumstances. The war it followed was
mandated by UN Security Council resolutions, as was the humanitarian
mission.

Today, relations between Garner and the UN appear strained, as was clear at
a frosty meeting earlier this month, when he explained his role before
departing for Kuwait. 'There was no co-ordination or consultation,' said one
UN official. 'That would be inappropriate from the UN's point of view
because its operations are autonomous; we do not need to consult with the
US. But also from the US position, because it is common knowledge that they
want to go it alone without the UN.'

Despite movement towards a UN role in reconstruction through a new
resolution extending the Oil For Food programme, officials have deep
suspicions about US intentions, particularly those of Garner's friends.
'Powell [pro-UN Secretary of State] has already lost the battle,' said one.
'It is clear that Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest have the ascendancy and they
think, having gone it alone in the war, they should get the benefit of being
seen as liberators. Garner is their man. He is a true believer.'

Beyond the strong Pentagon links of an ex-military man, Garner's political
constituency is with the Republican right. His contacts with the Vice
President go back to Provide Comfort, when Cheney was defence secretary to
the first Bush, while his relationship with Rumsfeld has been sealed through
recent close co-operation on missile defence policy.

These links have provoked unease among companies outside the US, which
believe that the Americans want to carve up reconstruction contracts among
themselves, regardless of any UN role. A subsidiary of Cheney's old company,
Halliburton, has recently secured a deal to put out oil well fires.
Halliburton, and Bechtel, another company with strong Republican links, were
on a US-only shortlist for a major $900m reconstruction contract that will
be overseen by Garner's office.

After strong lobbying from UK companies, the DTI agency Trade Partners UK
managed to get a British secondee into Garners office, and Trade Secretary
Patricia Hewitt lobbied the US government to include the British.

But contractors say ORHA is not responding to requests for contact. 'We have
worries about this,' said one. 'There is a huge row going on behind the
scenes about Halliburton and Bechtel winning deals, and we can't talk to the
people on the ground.'

But there are wider concerns, particularly Garner's work with Rumsfeld, his
commercial activities, and views on Israel. Rumsfeld headed the Commission
to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, which reported
to the US Congress in 1998. The Rumsfeld Commission singled out three
countries threatening the US with ballistic missile development - North
Korea, Iran and Iraq - thus defining the axis of evil that underpins the
US's pre-emptive strategy.

Garner served on Rumsfeld II, which effectively extended missile defence
into space. He was involved in the deployment of Patriot missiles in Israel
during the 1991 Gulf War, and was commander of the US Army Space and
Strategic Defense Command from 1994 to 1996.

When Patriot's effectiveness was questioned at a 1992 congressional hearing,
Garner dismissed critics, saying 40 per cent of engagements in Israel and 70
per cent in Saudi Arabia were successful.

However, Ted Postol of the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, who gave
evidence at the hearing, said: 'We believe that these figures are too high,
and that it may be the case that zero engagements in Israel were effective.
Garner may have been involved in covering up the deficiencies of the
system.'

Garner is now commercially involved in the latest version of Patriot,
currently deployed in Iraq. He is president of SY Coleman, a missile systems
contractor that gives technical advice and support on the running of the
programme. Israel is now protected by a new system called Arrow. SY Coleman
is involved here too: Garner helped oversee development work, a programme
that Postol estimates was 80 per cent funded by the US.

Jack Tyler, SY's senior vice-president for business development, confirmed
it had worked both on Patriot and Arrow. However, he said, there was no
procurement, sale or royalty to the company from the systems, only advisory
fees.

Tyler dismissed suggestions that Garner was hired because of his defence
contacts, saying his role was that of a strategic planner. SY has strong
relationships with the then US government. In 1999 it won a Star Wars
contract worth up to $365m to provide the US forces with advice on space and
missile defence. The SY website lists a series of government logistics and
R&D contracts.Meanwhile, SY was bought by another company, L-3
Communications, last year. L-3 is the ninth-largest contributor to US
political parties in the defence electronics sector. Last week it was
awarded a $1.5bn contract to provide logistics services to US special
operations forces.

Garner's links with Israel are not limited to missile programmes. In October
2000 he put his name to a statement that said that 'Israel had exercised
remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the
leadership of a Palestinian Authority'.

The organisation behind the statement was the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs, which includes Cheney and Richard Perle, another
arch-hawk, among its advisers past and present.

Only last week Perle resigned from the chairmanship of a key Pentagon
committee advising Rumsfeld, after it emerged that he had struck a deal with
bankrupt telecoms company Global Crossing under which he stood to receive up
to $725,000. The deal is being reviewed by a government group that includes
Defense Department officials.

There is no suggestion that Garner might feel similarly compromised by past
association and some find the anti-Garner arguments overstated.

Eric Schwartz of Washington's respected Council on Foreign Relations
think-tank says: 'I am not sure this is a US go-it-alone guy. He understands
the critical importance of it not being the military doing the
nation-building.' Schwartz believes that, after an interim period, the UN
will take control of critical issues in Iraq's future, such as drawing up a
constitution and overseeing elections.

It will be for Washington to decide whether the Sheriff of Baghdad wears a
US or a UN star. His record suggests he would be equally happy in either.
Its how he uses the badge that counts.


http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/news_show.phtml?id=1251&search=&find=

*  ISRAELI MINISTER WANTS TO REOPEN MOSUL-HAIFA OIL PIPELINE: REPORT

JERUSALEM, March 31 (AFP) - Israeli Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky
wants to reopen the pipeline leading from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul
to the Israeli port of Haifa after the end of the US-led war in Iraq, the
daily Haaretz said Monday.

The newspaper said Paritzky hoped the large Haifa refineries could be
directly supplied with Iraqi oil, saving Israel the cost of importing
expensive crude from Russia.

He said he was convinced the US administration would favour the idea,
Haaretz said.

After the British inter-war mandate over Palestine ended in 1948 with a war
between Israel and its Arab neighbours, Iraqi oil was diverted from Haifa's
refineries to Syria. Israel has never signed a peace accord with either Iraq
or Syria.

There have been several attempts to re-establish the pipeline, including
efforts during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Syria agreed to an
Iranian demand to cut Iraqi oil exports via the Mediterranean.

At the time, Tehran was preventing Iraqi oil tankers from leaving the Gulf,
and then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir proposed bringing the oil
through Haifa.

Haaretz reported that Hanan Bar-On, at the time the assistant director
general at the foreign ministry, said Sunday that Israel was involved in the
1980s in discussions to build a pipeline bringing Iraqi oil to the Red Sea
port of Aqaba in Jordan, next to the Israeli resort of Eilat.

Another pipeline would then have shipped the oil from Eilat to Israel's
Mediterranean coast.

Those discussions involved current US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who
was an advisor to president Ronald Reagan at the time.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,927003,00.html

*  US DRAWS UP SECRET PLAN TO IMPOSE NEW REGIME ON IRAQ
by Brian Whitaker and Luke Harding in Sulaimaniya
The Guardian, 1st April

A disagreement has broken out at a senior level within the Bush
administration over a new government that the US is secretly planning in
Kuwait to rule Iraq in the immediate period after the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein. Under the plan, the government will consist of 23 ministries, each
headed by an American. Every ministry will also have four Iraqi advisers
appointed by the Americans, the Guardian has learned.

The government will take over Iraq city by city. Areas declared "liberated"
by General Tommy Franks will be transferred to the temporary government
under the overall control of Jay Garner, the for mer US general appointed to
head a military occupation of Iraq.

In anticipation of the Baghdad regime's fall, members of this interim
government have begun arriving in Kuwait.

Decisions on the government's composition appear to be entirely in US hands,
particularly those of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence. This
has annoyed Gen Garner, who is officially in charge but who, according to
sources close to the planning of the government, has had to accept the
inclusion of a number of controversial Iraqis in advisory roles.

The most controversial of Mr Wolfowitz's proposed appointees is Ahmed
Chalabi, the head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, together with
his close associates, including his nephew.

During his years in exile, Mr Chalabi has cultivated links with Congress to
raise funds, and has become the Pentagon's darling among the Iraqi
opposition. The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is one of his strongest
supporters.

The state department and CIA, on the other hand, regard him with deep
suspicion.

Mr Chalabi had envisaged becoming prime minister in an interim government,
and is disappointed that no such post is included in the US plan. Instead,
the former banker will be offered an advisory job at the finance ministry.

A senior INC official said last night that Mr Chalabi would not countenance
a purely advisory position. The official added: "It is certainly not the
INC's intention to advise any US ministers in Iraq. Our position is that no
Americans should run Iraqi ministries. The US is talking about an interim
Iraqi authority taking over, but we are calling for a provisional
government."

The revelation about direct rule is likely to cause intense political
discomfort for Tony Blair, who has been pressing for UN and international
involvement in Iraq's reconstruction to overcome opposition in Britain as
well as heal divisions across Europe.

The Foreign Office said last night that a "relatively fluid" number of
British officials had been seconded to the planning team.

Last week Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, told Congress that
immediately after the fall of President Saddam's regime, the US military
would take control of the Iraqi government.

His only concession was that this would be done with the "full
understanding" of the international community and with "the UN presence in
the form of a UN special coordinator".

By imposing Mr Chalabi and his clique on the official
administration-in-waiting, Mr Wolfowitz seems to be trying to appease the
INC leader, even at the risk of annoying Gen Garner and those in Washington
who consider him unsuitable for a senior post.

Mr Chalabi is former chairman of the Petra Bank in Jordan which collapsed,
bringing ruin to many of its depositors. He was eventually convicted of
fraud in his absence by a Jordanian court, though he maintains he is
innocent.

Mr Chalabi has not lived in Iraq since 1956, apart from a short period
organising resistance in the Kurdish north in the 1990s, and is thought to
have little support inside Iraq.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,927738,00.html

*  US DISPUTES CLOUD POSTWAR PLANS
by Brian Whitaker and Owen Bowcott
The Guardian, 2nd April

Plans to set up a US-controlled government to rule Iraq after the removal of
Saddam Hussein have become embroiled in a series of rows involving the state
department, the Pentagon and Iraqi opposition groups.

Under the US plan the temporary government of Iraq will comprise 23
ministries, each headed by an American assisted by Iraqi advisers.

Several prominent Iraqi opposition groups, furious at not being included or
consulted, have denounced the plan as unworkable.

Meanwhile, a list of eight senior US officials put forward by the state
department to help run the government has been rejected by the Pentagon, it
was reported yesterday.

The Pentagon dismissed the state department's nominees - who included
several US ambassadors - as "too low-profile and bureaucratic". It put
forward its own list of long standing supporters of war against Iraq, the
Washington Post said.

The state department's nominees had gone through security and other training
in preparation for travelling to Kuwait last week but were told to "stand
down" at the last minute, the paper added.

"We've been told there is a big disagreement between State and Defence over
who controls the personnel," one of the officials told the paper.

The most prominent of the Pentagon's nominees is former CIA director and
Iraq hard-liner James Woolsey.

Mr Woolsey has previously lent his support to a bizarre theory that Iraq was
behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, rather than the Islamic
militants who were eventually convicted for it.

He has also been eagerly predicting revolution in Iran and once explained
strained relations between Europe and the US by saying: "What is going on
here is that many generally leftist members of the European elite have craws
in which plain talk gets stuck."

The Pentagon wanted to put Mr Woolsey in charge of the information ministry
but, according to the Washington Post, that has been rejected as
inappropriate by the White House and another top-level post is being sought
for him.

This latest dispute follows another quarrel, reported by the Guardian
yesterday, between Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, and Jay Garner,
the retired general put in overall charge of Iraq's government-in-waiting.

Mr Garner has been forced to accept a number of controversial Iraqis
nominated to advisory posts by Mr Wolfowitz - including Ahmed Chalabi, head
of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, who is supported by the Pentagon
but opposed by the state department and CIA. Mr Chalabi will be offered an
advisory post in the finance ministry. He was previously convicted in his
absence of a multi-million dollar banking fraud in Jordan, though he denies
the charges.

Mr Wolfowitz wants advisory posts in other ministries to go to Mr Chalabi's
nephew, Salem, and three of his associates, Tamara Daghestani, Goran
Talebani and Aras Habib.

Mr Chalabi - who had hoped to become Iraqi prime minister - appears
disappointed by this offer and has threatened to set up his own rival
government.

News of Washington's proposals for a US-controlled interim administration
has dismayed Iraqi opposition groups.

"These [plans] are not workable at all," said Dilshad Miran, a senior member
of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

"While the American and British forces are liberators, it will give a wrong
impression if they are talking about having direct rule by the US," he
continued. "It will not go down well with the Iraqi people.

"We believe any interim authority should be a national assembly which
includes people in the 65-member opposition committee [established in London
in December] and those still living inside Iraq."

Salah al-Shaikhly, deputy head of the Iraqi National Accord, said his
organisation had not been consulted about plans to put Americans in charge
of Iraqi government departments.

"If there's an administration in Iraq," he said, "it should be run by
Iraqis."


PROSPECTS FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/31_03_03_g.asp

*  SUICIDE BOMBING NEAR NAJAF: 'WELCOME TO HELL'
Lebanon Daily Star, 31st March

American difficulties in the war on Iraq fill the pages of Israel's print
media, with Tel Aviv's mass-circulation Maariv highlighting the first Iraqi
suicide bombing and Yediot Ahronot the fact that the American advance on
Baghdad has been put on hold.

Yediot Ahronot headlines its lead story: "Stuck in the desert," while Maariv
says, "Iraq plays suicide bomber card and US bombs with uranium."

In a front-page comment, Yediot Ahronot military analyst Alex Fishman
maintains that, "It's not easy for the US Central Command to admit it, but
the original war plans have been tossed into the wastebasket and coalition
forces are operating according to an alternative strategy. The signs are all
over the battlefield: the race to Baghdad has been halted; the leaders are
suddenly talking about a long war; and reports are mounting on the building
of additional forces, which will only be fully ready in mid-April."

"It seems the real shock the Americans got was when they were not received
in the town of Nasseriya with flowers, but with bullets and casualties,"
Fishman continues. "It took them time to re-adjust.But from here to the
eulogies that are already being sounded about failure of the campaign, there
is a long way to go. Iraq is not Vietnam. The Americans are not going to
lose this war."

Commenting on the first Iraqi suicide bombing near Najaf on Saturday,
Maariv's Arab affairs analyst Amit Cohen writes that, "Saddam's people won't
have any difficulty recruiting more suicide bombers among young Iraqis or
Arab volunteers. As opposed to the relative quiet among Arab nationalists,
there is growing ferment among Islamic fundamentalists all over the world.
The borders between Arab states are artificial, they say - the work of
Western colonialists designed to weaken the Islamic nation. To make things
crystal clear, they say they are fighting for an 'Islamic Iraq,' not for
Saddam Hussein or his heretical Baath regime."

"In the meantime," Cohen observes, "the suicide weapon developed in Lebanon
20 years ago, and refined in Israel, is now again striking the American
forces. This time it's not a small organization sending its adherents to die
among the enemy, but a state government, and a secular one at that."

Therefore, Cohen concludes, "On Saturday at Najaf, pan-Arabism died. The
Baath ideology lost, and the Islamicism of Al-Qaeda and Hamas won. When the
Arab armies refused to come to Iraq's aid, there was no choice but to
embrace Osama bin Laden's followers and their form of struggle."

According to Maariv diplomatic analyst Chemi Shalev, "The suicide bombing
near Najaf should set off alarm bells in the Pentagon not only because it
might be a foretaste of what the Americans can expect in the 'Baghdad-grad'
Saddam is planning for them, but perhaps also of what lies in store further
down the road, when they eventually set up their occupation regime."

He surmises that, "In return for the generous help he gave Palestinian
suicide terrorists' families, Saddam may well have received advice from
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and set up battalions of dedicated martyrs." And,
"As any Israeli can testify from the experiences of the past two years, that
means 'welcome to hell.'"

As for Israel, Shalev writes, "The more things bog down, the greater the
concern in Jerusalem - and rightfully so. The Iraqi 'successes,' even if
they are only temporary, encourage the advocates of armed struggle among the
Palestinians. And the deeper the Americans dig in to the demanding sands of
Iraq, the greater the chances they will see the 'road map' in its present
form as an essential lifesaver."

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Shalev concludes, "has put all his money on
George W. Bush, for better or worse, and the worse things get for the
American president, the same goes for his friend from Israel. There is no
doubt that in the end the Americans will conquer Baghdad, because failure is
simply not an option. But the chances of a strong, quick and elegant victory
are diminishing. And a weak, slow and ugly victory may very well be seen as
a defeat."

Maariv columnist Ruvik Rosenthal says the Americans and the British have
fallen into a trap of their own making and "in order to silence the critics,
they must win the 'war of choice' that they have begun. This entails both
unseating the Saddam Hussein regime and finding and destroying his weapons
of mass destruction. Failing to do so will not only unseat those who
initiated the war, but it will cause immense damage: Saddam, together with
everything that he represents, will emerge strengthened."

"This is a dangerous moment," Rosenthal warns. "The coalition has come up
against resistance and may be gripped by hysteria, leading it to enter the
large cities, primarily Baghdad, because only in the narrow side streets can
victory be achieved. Millions of Iraqi refugees will be sitting in the
desert around their cities, more and more bodies of civilians and soldiers
of both sides will be scattered in the streets. Gradually it will transpire
that this war, despite its grandiose goals, is just another war: ugly,
futile and a losers' game."

Rosenthal's conclusion: "The fundamental truth was forgotten by the
instigators: War is the last resort, to be used only when there is no other
way to achieve the goals, and only when those goals are, beyond any doubt,
just and reasonable. This doesn't appear to be the case in Iraq. The
instigators of the war are trapped by their goals, and the longer it takes
to achieve them, the more remote they will become and more and more lives
will be lost, not to mention material and political assets, and the last
vestiges of hope that the world can still set a sane course."

In another piece on Maariv's opinion page, left-wing columnist Nir Baram
lays on the irony in drawing similar conclusions. "Bush's Republicans
thought they knew the Iraqis," he writes. "They're not really Arabs, they
thought. All that stuff with language and the culture and the religion and
the mustaches is all camouflage. The truth is, the Iraqis don't want to be
Iraqis, like the Cubans don't want to be Cubans, and the Chileans didn't
want to be Chileans, when the CIA toppled Salvador Allende, the elected
president in 1973. The Iraqis want to be Americans. They want
democratization and globalization and McDonald's and a free market, and
perhaps a little privatization of the oil fields. Can't they see all that
Western wealth, and doesn't it fill them with envy? Don't they want it all
at home too?"

"So the Republicans went to war to save the Iraqis from their dictatorial,
Levantine, Arab existence. Just one blitz of 5,000 smart bombs, destroying
homes, infrastructures, food and water sources and children, that's all that
was needed to bring them right into the 21st century."

"But what to do, those primitive, stupid Iraqis are so stuck on being Arabs
that they don't want to be saved," Baram continues. "They don't want all
that wonderful freedom that the Republican Uncle Sams are offering them, and
all for nothing. Isn't it all ugly, horrifying Arab treachery, to dare to
fight so obstinately against their saviors? These Arabs, they really have no
shame."

Baram asserts that, "This war is nothing more than a lunatic whim of a group
of imperialistic Republicans whose simplistic conception collapsed in the
first week, and now they are going to smash Iraq in order to prove
themselves right.

"And just about the only place in the world where they will be applauded
enthusiastically and belligerently, right up to the tragic end when Baghdad
is in ruins and many thousands of Iraqis are dead, is Israel. And this is no
coincidence. After all 'enlightened occupiers' must stick together."

"Just as we have learned here, the Americans will pay exorbitant,
unexpected, cruel prices for their adventure. As for Bush, it will cost him
his second term," Baram warns. "The Americans learn their lessons quicker
than we do."

On Yediot Ahronot's opinion page, columnist Guy Bichor adopts a more
academic approach and contends that "the explanation for the apparent Iraqi
social and military cohesion that has astonished the Americans is fear, not
only of the tyrant Saddam Hussein, but also of what will happen to Iraq if
he goes. The Iraqis fear the vacuum, and the communal, religious and ethnic
genies that will burst out of the bottle, where the regime has brutally kept
them corked up.

"Will the ruling Sunni minority waive their privileges on behalf of the
Shiite majorityŠ? Won't that just open the door for the Shiites to take
revenge and settle the accounts that have accumulated against the Sunnis
over the years? And what about the Kurds? And the others who have been kept
at the bottom of the Iraqi social pyramid?"

"The Iraqis' attitude to Saddam," Bichor continues, "can be summed up in the
words of the Persian polymath and Islamic philosopher Abu Bakr Mohammed bin
Zakariya al-Razi (or Rhazes) over 900 years ago, when he wrote that 100
years of the despotism of a sultan are preferable to one year of social
disorder. Contemporary Arab military dictatorships have adapted this outlook
as the basis for their stability."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,926724,00.html

*  WHAT WOULD CHANGE MY MIND ON IRAQ?
by David Aaronovitch
The Guardian, 1st April

All week my pacific alter ego has been sitting on my shoulder and whispering
a harsh question in my ear. "Your war. How long does it have to go on, how
expensive does it have to be, how many have to die, before you admit it's a
mad failure?"

By the weekend I could scarcely bring myself to look at the news bulletins.
A much-loved friend emailed me from 12,000 miles away and (more or less)
told me I was a lunatic. Others have informed me that I am a cunt. The last
one to use this word has just revealed (after a pithy correspondence) that
he now intends to work for the Liberal Democrats at the next election. That
should make their canvassing more exciting than usual.

The question stands. This war for me has always been a fine judgment call, a
choice between deeply shitty alternatives (my big argument with some in the
anti-war campaign has been their belief that there are - or were - No-Die
options in Iraq). Agnostic on the threat of weapons of mass destruction
(though believing that Saddam would develop them if permitted to), sceptical
on alleged Iraqi links with new Osama bin Laden-type groups, it finally came
down to the lesser of these three evils: Saddam unchained; a "contained"
Saddam plus sanctions and endless inspections; invasion and no Saddam. In
the end, I chose the latter.

Even so, there has always been the possibility of a war that was worse even
than another 20 years of Saddam, Uday, Qusay, Chemical Ali and Dr Germ. And
there have been moments in the past few days when I have wondered whether we
aren't fighting it.

It is the war of Saddam's Vicious Circle. Iraqi Fedayeen and Republican
Guards "embed" themselves in the civilian population, fighting in civilian
clothes, basing themselves in built up areas, and sometimes using suicide
tactics. Their presence deters any nascent uprising. The invaders take
longer to reach their objectives and use more force in order to do so. They
also treat ordinary Iraqis as though they are a threat. Aid can't get
through or is delayed, which increases local hostility and resistance, which
in turn further holds up aid, makes Saddam's survival seem possible, and
stiffens resistance from elite and irregular forces. To gain a victory, more
risks have to be taken with bombing, and many more civilians are killed,
thus inflaming Arab and Muslim opinion. The war eventually ends with huge
civilian loss of life through direct military action and lack of food, water
and medicines. Or, worst of all, ends with all that plus the precipitate
withdrawal of coalition forces.

So how many is too many, and how long is too long? What, when children are
dying, constitutes enough?

This is not just a question for current pro-invasion people, but also for
those who argued for war but only with a second UN resolution, and also
those who have said "arm the Kurds" or "support uprisings". A second
resolution would have made us feel more legitimate, might have made Saddam a
few per cent more likely to have thrown in the towel and could even have
supplied the venture with a few French troops. But it's hard to see how it
would have changed anything at all on the dying front. And supporting
uprisings without using air power or ground troops would be to condemn Iraqi
dissidents to another bloody defeat.

Kosovo was, most of us agree, "worth it". Worth it even though we hit the
train on the bridge at Leskovac, killing 10, and the refugee convoy at
Prizren in Kosovo which slaughtered more than 70. "Worth it" to both Robin
Cook (then foreign secretary) and me. As was the bombing of the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade in 1999 or, in Afghanistan, the infamous missile attack
on the gun-toting wedding party.

If this sounds callous, my answer is that we make choices like this all the
time. Except no one rushes to the scene of motorway crashes to report on how
an ill-timed phone-call, speeding, or pre-drive joint has left body parts
scattered along the fast lane of the M6. We know it, but you still couldn't
get 500 people to London to call for the end of the motor car. In Kosovo the
scenes from the border justified our actions to us at a time when the action
seemed most pointless and brutal. Right now, there are no pictures from
Baghdad of the summary executions and the beheadings; Rageh Omar has not
been taken to see those. Yet. But if we could see inside those buildings and
speak to some of the families of victims, the calculation might change.

So far, compared to most wars and to Saddam's own peace-time action,
civilian casualties in Iraq have not been heavy (though God knows they have
been heavy enough). Nor, by historical standards, have we lost many military
personnel (though I wouldn't want to say so to a mother who has just heard
that her 19-year-old son is dead near Basra). To put this into some kind of
context, each year about 250 members of the US armed services die in
accidents unconnected with combat when on duty. Those too are tragedies. We
put up with them.

So it is a matter of scale and outcome. The Iraqi figure for civilian deaths
is around 500 at the moment. No one knows how many Iraqi soldiers have died.
Would 5,000 dead civilians be too many to justify war? Or 5,000 coalition
soldiers? Of course, if operative chemical and biological weapons are found
(or used), plus any evidence of a link between those weapons and terrorist
groups, then a very much higher casualty level might be deemed to have been
worth it. I doubt, however, that they will be used and that such a link will
be discovered. As of today the advance seems to have resumed.

But you cannot easily answer in an actuarial manner. How do you balance this
many dead civilians against the thousands still to be killed in Saddam's
prisons or in his suppression of rebellion? This many soldiers versus the
thousands still to die as the regime (at some future date) implodes? This
much terrorism provoked, versus this much democracy encouraged?

So, whatever the amount of death and mayhem, it could be years before anyone
on either side of the argument can credibly claim vindication. Although, as
the voice whispers, if Donald Rumsfeld really is an idiot, Tony Blair really
is a fantasist and I really am a cunt, it could be only weeks.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,926820,00.html

*  IT WILL END IN DISASTER
by George Monbiot
The Guardian, 1st April

So far, the liberators have succeeded only in freeing the souls of the
Iraqis from their bodies. Saddam Hussein's troops have proved less inclined
to surrender than they had anticipated, and the civilians less prepared to
revolt. But while no one can now ignore the immediate problems this illegal
war has met, we are beginning, too, to understand what should have been
obvious all along: that, however this conflict is resolved, the outcome will
be a disaster.

It seems to me that there are three possible results of the war with Iraq.
The first, which is now beginning to look unlikely, is that Saddam Hussein
is swiftly dispatched, his generals and ministers abandon their posts and
the people who had been cowed by his militias and his secret police rise up
and greet the invaders with their long-awaited blessing of flowers and rice.
The troops are welcomed into Baghdad, and start preparing for what the US
administration claims will be a transfer of power to a democratic
government.

For a few weeks, this will look like victory. Then several things are likely
to happen. The first is that, elated by its reception in Baghdad, the
American government decides, as Donald Rumsfeld hinted again last week, to
visit its perpetual war upon another nation: Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia,
North Korea or anywhere else whose conquest may be calculated to enhance the
stature of the president and the scope of his empire. It is almost as if
Bush and his advisers are determined to meet the nemesis which their hubris
invites.

Our next discovery is likely to be, as John Gray pointed out some months
ago, that the choice of regimes in the Middle East is not a choice between
secular dictatorship and secular democracy, but between secular dictatorship
and Islamic democracy. What the people of the Middle East want and what the
US government says they want appear to be rather different things, and the
tension between the two objectives will be a source of instability and
conflict until western governments permit those people to make their own
choices unmolested. That is unlikely to happen until the oil runs out. The
Iraqis may celebrate their independence by embracing a long-suppressed
fundamentalism, and the United States may respond by seeking to crush it.

The coalition might also soon discover why Saddam Hussein became such an
abhorrent dictator. Iraq is a colonial artefact, forced together by the
British from three Ottoman provinces, whose people have wildly different
religious and ethnic loyalties. It is arguable that this absurd construction
can be sustained only by brute force.

A US-backed administration seeking to keep this nation of warring factions
intact may rapidly encounter Saddam's problem, and, in so doing, rediscover
his solution. Perhaps we should not be surprised to see that George Bush's
government was, until recently, planning merely to replace the two most
senior officials in each of Saddam's ministries, leaving the rest of his
government undisturbed.

The alternative would be to permit Iraq to fall apart. While fragmentation
may, in the long run, be the only feasible future for its people, it is
impossible, in the short term, to see how this could happen without
bloodshed, as every faction seeks to carve out its domain. Whether the US
tries to oversee this partition or flees from it as the British did from
India, its victory in these circumstances is likely to sour very quickly.

The second possible outcome of this war is that the US kills Saddam and
destroys the bulk of his army, but has to govern Iraq as a hostile occupying
force. Saddam Hussein, whose psychological warfare appears to be rather more
advanced than that of the Americans, may have ensured that this is now the
most likely result.

The coalition forces cannot win without taking Baghdad, and Saddam is
seeking to ensure that they cannot take Baghdad without killing thousands of
civilians. His soldiers will shelter in homes, schools and hospitals. In
trying to destroy them, the American and British troops may blow away the
last possibility of winning the hearts and minds of the residents. Saddam's
deployment of suicide bombers has already obliged the coalition forces to
deal brutally with innocent civilians.

The comparisons with Palestine will not be lost on the Iraqis, or on anyone
in the Middle East. The United States, like Israel, will discover that
occupation is bloody and, ultimately, unsustainable. Its troops will be
harassed by snipers and suicide bombers, and its response to them will
alienate even the people who were grateful for the overthrow of Saddam. We
can expect the US, in these circumstances, hurriedly to proclaim victory,
install a feeble and doomed Iraqi government, and pull out before the whole
place crashes down around it. What happens after that, to Iraq and the rest
of the Middle East, is anyone's guess, but I think we can anticipate that it
won't be pleasant.

The third possibility is that the coalition forces fail swiftly to kill or
capture Saddam Hussein or to win a decisive victory in Iraq. While still
unlikely, this is now an outcome which cannot be entirely dismissed. Saddam
may be too smart to wait in his bunker for a bomb big enough to reach him,
but might, like King Alfred, slip into the civilian population, occasionally
throwing off his disguise and appearing among his troops, to keep the flame
of liberation burning.

If this happens, then the US will have transformed him from the hated
oppressor into the romantic, almost mythological hero of Arab and Muslim
resistance, the Salah al-Din of his dreams. He will be seen as the man who
could do to the United States what the mujahideen of Afghanistan did to the
Soviet Union: drawing it so far into an unwinnable war that its economy and
its popular support collapse. The longer he survives, the more the
population - not just of Iraq, but of all Muslim countries - will turn
towards him, and the less likely a western victory becomes.

The US will almost certainly then have engineered the improbable chimera it
claims to be chasing: the marriage of Saddam's well-armed secular brutality
and al-Qaida's global insurrection. Even if, having held out for many weeks
or months, Saddam Hussein is found and killed, his spirit may continue to
inspire a revolt throughout the Muslim world, against the Americans, the
British and, of course, Israel. Pakistan's unpopular leader, Pervez
Musharraf, would then find himself in serious trouble. If, as seems likely
in these circumstances, he is overthrown in an Islamic revolt, then a
fundamentalist regime, deeply hostile to the west, would possess real
nuclear weapons, primed and ready to fire.

I hope I've missed something here, and will be proved spectacularly wrong,
but it seems to me that the American and British governments have dragged us
into a mess from which we might not emerge for many years. They have
unlocked the spirit of war, and it could be unwilling to return to its
casket until it has traversed the world.


http://www.dailystarnews.com/200304/02/n3040202.htm#BODY5

*  CONVERSATION IN UNMARKED GRAVE
by M.Shafiullah
Daily Star, Bangladesh, 2nd April

GOEBBELS in his global tour at these busiest hours revisited Berlin for few
moments only to find Fuehrer [Hitler] in angst [anxiety caused by the
uncertainty of human existence]. Fuehrer had not seen him after 11 September
2001. Not much pleased for his long absence, nonetheless, Goebbels was
welcome for exchange of the latest rundown of events that literary shook the
earth. Iraq has been under shower of 1000 Cruise missiles and thousand
pounders from the sky per night. Goebbels without much audio of the modern
day sycophants straightaway congratulated the Herr [master] on the
successful transmission of his lebensraum doctrine [life space, room for
living, used to justify his acquisition of foreign land for Germany] to the
Mother and Father of democracies in the 21st century. Hitler thought he was
already a fallen leader much maligned by the West, the Jews controlled media
and Hollywood movies, and perhaps his disciple was not flattering him. But
then Fuehrer reminded Goebbels his doctrine was for those parts of Europe
where Germans live would be Deutschland [Germany]. His principle was based
on realpolitik [politics based on practical needs rather than moral or
ethical ideas]. Hitler is now in angst to view a Dummkopf [dumb-head] is set
to occupy lands in distant continent on the principle that where there is
enough oilfields that would be 'Bush-land'. Hitler confessed his blitzkrieg
[a sudden strong attack] was unto neighboring countries and would not have
gone beyond had the then imperial 'axis of evils' not provoked him. His
defence was that he had not gone to another continent in pursuit of conquest
of 'space' for the Germans.

During Hitler's time Gulf region was under imperial occupation. Hitler was
amused to learn from his faithful disciple that the victorious imperialist
powers truncated the region into tiny Sheikhdoms and kingdoms to manoeuvre
at ease to keep oil resources under their complete control. A fabulous
life-style blinded the nouveau-riche Arabs turning them to live in almost a
never never land. Arabs deposited their billions of dollar fortunes with the
Anglo American financial institutions. An Arab bank [ BCCI] was liquidated
with billions of dollar assets by Britain in 1991. Under American Patriot
Act $ 1.74 billion Iraqi deposit in US banks was confiscated the other day
and another six billion from other destinations are at command of Bush
Administration. An undisclosed amount of Libyan money had already been
frozen when that oil-rich country came under sanction in 1992.

Goebbels after reincarnation became faithful to facts and almost sanguine
that his progenies in the Western media and elsewhere would also undergo
similar transformation in their turn. Quoting from US sources he apprised
Hitler that Anglo-American troops outnumbered the native Arab population in
those tiny Sheikhdoms spread from Oman in the south, to Kuwait in the north.
With assets in Anglo-American banks and neo-imperialist troops on native
soils the oil-rich kingdoms are but virtual prisoners of their wealth.

Hitler wondered how under democratic dispensation countries go for blatant
occupation of foreign territories. Neither the president of America nor the
prime minister of Britain can be accused of being dictator like him. Or are
they? To calm Fuehrer, Goebbels said they were not. In fact one is a child
prodigy and was re-elected and the other became president by court verdict.
Goebbels provided the Anglo-US rationale to station troops in far away lands
in the Middle East. First, to protect the Gulf states from another invasion
from despotic Saddam regime that invaded Kuwait in 1990. Fleecing of Gulf
states to the point of bleeding to maintain US troops under duress started
from day one of the first Gulf war. Second, to liberate Iraqi people from
tyranny of dictator Saddam even if through indiscriminate bombing of the
country. Third, democracy which is flying on the wings of B-52 bombers and
cruise missile warheads will be transplanted in the desert of Iraq to be
emulated by the Kings and life time Presidents and leaders of never ending
Revolution in the Arab world. A reform agenda with a tunnel vision for the
Middle East is coming out of the barrel of the gun. Fourth, Anglo-US troops
will 'water' the plants of democracy as long as necessary to take roots in
the desert climate. Fifth, Iraqi oil reserve which is 112.5 billion barrels,
the second largest after Saudi reserve of 216.8 bb, to be used for the
welfare and reconstruction of Iraq ravaged to O-ground in resisting
'liberation forces'; American oil reserve of 30.4 bb lifted at the rate of
7.7 million barrels per day is fast depleting. US are the world's biggest
user of oil. Despite their oil-hunger Anglo-American occupying forces will
rein in their temptation and greed to be custodian of the Iraqi interest.

Sixth, Kurds will not be betrayed unlike 1991 Gulf War. Their legitimate
national aspiration for a State will be met by carving out territories of
Iraq, Iran, S Syria and Turkey. Iran crossed swords with US in taking
hostage of American diplomats in 1979. Tehran must pay for it in good time,
which is now. Syria has been endangering Israel's security in insisting
withdrawal from Golan Heights. Further dismemberment of Damascus is in
order. Sevenht, with US annual three billion economic packages and two
billion security assistance and daily wanton violence against the
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Israel is insecure because
of Yasser Arafat. He lived too long against the wishes of mass murderer
Ariel Sharon. Arafat must be brought to heel immediately after Saddam.
Washington's road map for Palestinian State will end up in Tel Aviv.

Hitler, apparently pleased with the turn of events, changed side in his
debris-filled grave and asked, "What's next?" Goebbels read out to him
recent statement of Ramsfeld which says "World will witness the scale of
destruction and devastation of war in Iraq which it never ever saw before."
Hardly Goebbels had finished, Fuehrer made an attempt to jump out but tons
of broken pieces of bunker were on him from head to toe. Nonetheless, heaps
of debris could not stop his gift of the gab: "My records in Europe have
been dwarfed in Vietnam, in Afghanistan and now in Iraq. Out of the ashes of
the Second World War the Charters of the United Nations was proclaimed on 26
June 1945 in San Francisco, which reads in part 'We the peoples of the
United Nations determined to save the succeeding generations from the
scourge of wars...'. The very country that hosts UN edifices shattered my
records. Have they saved succeeding generations from war after my fall? Have
I not been vindicated by the democracies? Could not I then ask for a stone
on my grave?" Goebbels nodded and said, "Fuehrer, you deserve something more
than that." "What is up in your sleeve?" Hitler shot back. Goebbels replied,
"You may even come out for a tour". Hitler enquired, "Will not the Jews hang
me in public for crime against humanity?" Goebbels reassured "Before that I
will take you to a Texas saloon to remove your moustache and for a cowboy
haircut.

M.Shafiullah is a former ambassador.




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