[casi] News, 16-23/04/03 (1)

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

News, 16-23/04/03 (1)

NEW IRAQI ORDER

*  For the people on the streets, this is not liberation but a new colonial
oppression
*  Bush Cultural Advisers Quit Over Iraq Museum Theft
*  Iraqi general lays claim to Baghdad mayoralty
*  Confusion over Baghdad 'vote'
*  Iraqis Welcome Plan to Mark Saddam Campaign
*  US to pay Iraqi workers in dollars
*  U.S. victory has steep price in maintaining safe Iraq peace.
International law places demands on occupier
*  Direct democracy in action
*  Communist newspaper back in Baghdad
*  Confusion over who controls Iraq oil ministry
*  Ba'athists slip quietly back into control
*  Easter in Baghdad: Minority Christians fear repression under Muslim
government
*  Democracy begins to sprout in Iraq


NEW IRAQI ORDER

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=397925

*  FOR THE PEOPLE ON THE STREETS, THIS IS NOT LIBERATION BUT A NEW COLONIAL
OPPRESSION
by Robert Fisk
The Indepedent, 17th April

[.....]

Here's what Baghdadis are noticing - and what Iraqis are noticing in all the
main cities of the country. Take the vast security apparatus with which
Saddam surrounded himself, the torture chambers and the huge bureaucracy
that was its foundation. President Bush promised that America was
campaigning for human rights in Iraq, that the guilty, the war criminals,
would be brought to trial. The 60 secret police headquarters in Baghdad are
empty, even the three-square-mile compound headquarters of the Iraqi
Intelligence Service.

I have been to many of them. But there is no evidence even that a single
British or US forensic officer has visited the sites to sift the wealth of
documents lying there or talk to the ex-prisoners returning to their former
places of torment. Is this idleness. Or is this wilful?

Take the Qasimiyeh security station beside the river Tigris. It's a pleasant
villa - once owned by an Iranian-born Iraqi who was deported to Iran in the
1980s. There's a little lawn and a shrubbery and at first you don't notice
the three big hooks in the ceiling of each room or the fact that big sheets
of red paper, decorated with footballers, have been pasted over the windows
to conceal the rooms from outsiders. But across the floors, in the garden,
on the roof, are the files of this place of suffering. They show, for
example, that the head of the torture centre was Hashem al-Tikrit, that his
deputy was called Rashid al-Nababy.

Mohammed Aish Jassem, an ex-prisoner, showed me how he was suspended from
the ceiling by Captain Amar al-Isawi, who believed Jassem was a member of
the religious Dawa party. "They put my hands behind my back like this and
tied them and then pulled me into the air by my tied wrists," he told me.
"They used a little generator to lift me up, right up to the ceiling, then
they'd release the rope in the hope of breaking my shoulder when I fell."

The hooks in the ceiling are just in front of Captain Isawi's desk. I
understood what this meant. There wasn't a separate torture chamber and
office for documentation. The torture chamber was the office. While the man
or woman shrieked in agony above him, Captain Isawi would sign papers, take
telephone calls and - given the contents of his bin - smoke many cigarettes
while he waited for the information he sought from his prisoners.

Were they monsters, these men? Yes. Are they sought by the Americans? No.
Are they now working for the Americans? Yes, quite possibly - indeed some of
them may well be in the long line of ex-security thugs who queue every
morning outside the Palestine Hotel in the hope of being re-hired by the US
Marines' Civil Affairs Unit.

The names of the guards at the Qasimiyeh torture centre in Baghdad are in
papers lying on the floor. They were Ahmed Hassan Alawi, Akil Shaheed,
Noaman Abbas and Moham-med Fayad. But the Americans haven't bothered to find
this out. So Messrs Alawi, Shaheed, Abbas and Fayad are welcome to apply to
work for them.

[.....]

At the end of the Second World War, German-speaking British and US
intelligence officers hoovered up every document in the thousands of Gestapo
and Abwehr bureaux across western Germany. The Russians did the same in
their zone. In Iraq, however, the British and Americans have simply ignored
the evidence.

There's an even more terrible place for the Americans to visit in Baghdad -
the headquarters of the whole intelligence apparatus, a massive grey-painted
block that was bombed by the US and a series of villas and office buildings
that are stashed with files, papers and card indexes. It was here that
Saddam's special political prisoners were brought for vicious interrogation
- electricity being an essential part of this - and it was here that Farzad
Bazoft, the Observer correspondent, was brought for questioning before his
dispatch to the hangman.

It's also graced with delicately shaded laneways, a creche - for the
families of the torturers - and a school in which one pupil had written an
essay in English on (suitably perhaps) Beckett's Waiting for Godot. There's
also a miniature hospital and a road named "Freedom Street" and flowerbeds
and bougainvillea. It's the creepiest place in all of Iraq.

I met - extraordinarily - an Iraqi nuclear scientist walking around the
compound, a colleague of the former head of Iraqi nuclear physics, Dr
Sharistani. "This is the last place I ever wanted to see and I will never
return to it," he said to me. "This was the place of greatest evil in all
the world."

The top security men in Saddam's regime were busy in the last hours,
shredding millions of documents. I found a great pile of black plastic
rubbish bags at the back of one villa, each stuffed with the shreds of
thousands of papers. Shouldn't they be taken to Washington or London and
reconstituted to learn their secrets?

Even the unshredded files contain a wealth of information. But again, the
Americans have not bothered - or do not want - to search through these
papers. If they did, they would find the names of dozens of senior
intelligence men, many of them identified in congratulatory letters they
insisted on sending each other every time they were promoted. Where now, for
example, is Colonel Abdulaziz Saadi, Captain Abdulsalam Salawi, Captain Saad
Ahmed al-Ayash, Colonel Saad Mohammed, Captain Majid Ahmed and scores of
others? We may never know. Or perhaps we are not supposed to know.

Iraqis are right to ask why the Americans don't search for this information,
just as they are right to demand to know why the entire Saddam cabinet -
every man jack of them - got away. The capture by the Americans of Saddam's
half-brother and the ageing Palestinian gunman Abu Abbas, whose last violent
act was 18 years ago, is pathetic compensation for this.

Now here's another question the Iraqis are asking - and to which I cannot
provide an answer. On 8 April, three weeks into the invasion, the Americans
dropped four 2,000lb bombs on the Baghdad residential area of Mansur. They
claimed they thought Saddam was hiding there. They knew they would kill
civilians because it was not, as one Centcom mandarin said, a "risk free
venture" (sic). So they dropped their bombs and killed 14 civilians in
Mansur, most of them members of a Christian family.

The Americans said they couldn't be sure they had killed Saddam until they
could carry out forensic tests at the site. But this turns out to have been
a lie. I went there two days ago. Not a single US or British official had
bothered to visit the bomb craters. Indeed, when I arrived, there was a
putrefying smell and families pulled the remains of a baby from the rubble.

No American officers have apologised for this appalling killing. And I can
promise them that the baby I saw being placed under a sheet of black plastic
was very definitely not Saddam Hussein. Had they bothered to look at this
place - as they claimed they would - they would at least have found the
baby. Now the craters are a place of pilgrimage for the people of Baghdad.

Then there's the fires that have consumed every one of the city's ministries
- save, of course, for the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Oil - as
well as UN offices, embassies and shopping malls. I have counted a total of
35 ministries now gutted by fire and the number goes on rising.

Yesterday I found myself at the Ministry of Oil, assiduously guarded by US
troops, some of whom were holding clothes over their mouths because of the
clouds of smoke swirling down on them from the neighbouring Ministry of
Agricultural Irrigation. Hard to believe, isn't it, that they were unaware
that someone was setting fire to the next building? Then I spotted another
fire, three kilometres away. I drove to the scene to find flames curling out
of all the windows of the Ministry of Higher Education's Department of
Computer Science. And right next to it, perched on a wall, was a US Marine,
who said he was guarding a neighbouring hospital and didn't know who had lit
the next door fire because "you can't look everywhere at once".

Now I'm sure the marine was not being facetious or dishonest - should the
Americans not believe this story, he was Corporal Ted Nyholm of the 3rd
Regiment, 4th Marines and, yes, I called his fiancée, Jessica, in the States
for him to pass on his love - but something is terribly wrong when US
soldiers are ordered simply to watch vast ministries being burnt by mobs and
do nothing about it.

Because there is also something dangerous - and deeply disturbing - about
the crowds setting light to the buildings of Baghdad, including the great
libraries and state archives. For they are not looters. The looters come
first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and white buses. I
followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and
it sped out of town.

The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge - an
explanation that is growing very thin - and that the fires are started by
"remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who
feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe
Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I.

The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be
paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their
targets. If Saddam had pre-paid them, they wouldn't start the fires. The
moment he disappeared, they would have pocketed the money and forgotten the
whole project.

So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a
middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he
pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working
for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure
of the state, with its cultural heritage? Why didn't the Americans stop
this?

As I said, something is going terribly wrong in Baghdad and something is
going on which demands that serious questions be asked of the United States
government. Why, for example, did Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence,
claim last week that there was no widespread looting or destruction in
Baghdad? His statement was a lie. But why did he make it?

The Americans say they don't have enough troops to control the fires. This
is also untrue. If they don't, what are the hundreds of soldiers deployed in
the gardens of the old Iran-Iraq war memorial doing all day? Or the hundreds
camped in the rose gardens of the President Palace?

So the people of Baghdad are asking who is behind the destruction of their
cultural heritage: the looting of the archaeological treasures from the
national museum; the burning of the entire Ottoman, Royal and State
archives; the Koranic library; and the vast infrastructure of the nation we
claim we are going to create for them.

Why, they ask, do they still have no electricity and no water? In whose
interest is it for Iraq to be deconstructed, divided, burnt, de-historied,
destroyed? Why are they issued with orders for a curfew by their so-called
liberators?

And it's not just the people of Baghdad, but the Shias of the city of Najaf
and of Nasiriyah - where 20,000 protested at America's first attempt to put
together a puppet government on Wednesday - who are asking these questions.
Now there is looting in Mosul where thousands reportedly set fire to the
pro-American governor's car after he promised US help in restoring
electricity.

It's easy for a reporter to predict doom, especially after a brutal war that
lacked all international legitimacy. But catastrophe usually waits for
optimists in the Middle East, especially for false optimists who invade
oil-rich nations with ideological excuses and high flown moral claims and
accusations, such as weapons of mass destruction, which are still unproved.
So I'll make an awful prediction. That America's war of "liberation" is
over. Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is about to begin. In
other words, the real and frightening story starts now.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45938-2003Apr17.html

*  BUSH CULTURAL ADVISERS QUIT OVER IRAQ MUSEUM THEFT
Washington Post, 17th April

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of a U.S. presidential panel on cultural
property has resigned in protest at the failure of U.S. forces to prevent
the wholesale looting of priceless treasures from Baghdad's antiquities
museum.

"It didn't have to happen," Martin Sullivan said of the objects that were
destroyed or stolen from the Iraqi National Museum in a wave of looting that
erupted as U.S.-led forces ended President Saddam Hussein's rule last week.

Sullivan, who chaired the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural
Property for eight years, said he wrote a letter of resignation to the White
House this week in part to make a statement but also because "you can't
speak freely" as a special government-appointed employee.

The president appoints the 11-member advisory committee. Another panel
member, Gary Vikan, also plans to resign because of the looting of the
museum.

"Our priorities had a big gap," Sullivan told Reuters on Thursday. "In a
pre-emptive war that's the kind of thing you should have planned for."

The National Museum held rare artifacts documenting the early civilizations
of ancient Mesopotamia, and leading archeologists were meeting in Paris on
Thursday to seek ways to rescue Iraq's cultural heritage.

Earlier this week, antiquities experts said they had been given assurances
from U.S. military planners that Iraq's historic artifacts and sites would
be protected by occupying forces.

U.S. archeological organizations and the U.N.'s cultural agency UNESCO said
they had provided U.S. officials with information about Iraq's cultural
heritage and archeological sites months before the war began.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has rejected charges the U.S. military was
to blame for failing to prevent the looting, noting the country has offered
rewards for the return of artifacts and information on their whereabouts.

"Looting is an unfortunate thing. Human beings are not perfect," Rumsfeld
said, earlier this month. "To the extent it happens in a war zone, it's
difficult to stop."

The Advisory Committee on Cultural Property convenes when a country requests
U.S. assistance under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on international protection
of cultural objects.


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313840963&p=1012571727172

*  IRAQI GENERAL LAYS CLAIM TO BAGHDAD MAYORALTY
by Roula Khalaf in Baghdad
Financial Times, 17th April

An Iraqi general belonging to the so-called Free Iraqi Forces yesterday
claimed to have been elected mayor of Baghdad, and introduced an official
close to the Iraqi National Congress as the new head of an executive council
for the capital.

Speaking to reporters at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, General Jawdat
al-Obeidi of the FIF - a group of Iraqi exiles enlisted by US forces to help
in the invasion - said tribal leaders and clerics from the Baghdad region
had met in recent days to elect Mohamed Mohsen Zubaidi as "chief of the
executive council".

With Mr Zubaidi standing by his side, Mr Obeidi said it was an election by
"the citizens of Baghdad". Mr Obeidi said he had spent the last 13 years in
the autonomous Kurdish north of Iraq but was close to the INC headed by
Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial ex-banker and most prominent opponent of
Saddam Hussein. Mr Chalabi was reported to have arrived in Baghdad last
night.

There was no confirmation from US that a new council had been formed. But
yesterday's claim was likely to intensify tensions among the Iraqi
opposition, in which many officials fear that Mr Chalabi's group will be
favoured in a postwar administration.

The FIF is made up of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers working under US forces.
Parts of it belong to the INC and were flown to the southern town of
Nasiriya this month with Mr Chalabi, a move that frustrated others in the
opposition.

Some Iraqi forces, however, say they belong to a group headed by Najib
al-Salhi, a defector from the Republican Guards.

‹ US General Tommy Franks, commander of the US-led forces in Iraq, arrived
in Baghdad yesterday to meet commanders, a Central Command spokesman in
Qatar said.

On Sunday, Gen Franks told Fox News: "I'm not looking to have a victory
parade in downtown Baghdad; I am looking to have the best appreciation of
what's going on in that country that I can have, because it's my
responsibility to do that."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/2956551.stm

*  CONFUSION OVER BAGHDAD 'VOTE'
BBC, 18th April

A US marine spokesman in Baghdad has downplayed reports that an Iraqi has
been elected to govern the city.

The officer was responding to news that Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi had
announced his "election" by local people and was liaising with the US
military.

"Anyone can call themselves anything they want to, but future appointments
like this will be handled through USAid," Captain Joe Plenzler told AFP news
agency.

Political manoeuvring is intensifying across Iraq as exiled opposition
leaders return to the country and try to stake their claims for roles in the
future government.

Mr Zubaidi, who says he is a member of the US-backed Iraqi National Congress
(INC), told reporters he had been elected by religious and community leaders
as "president of Baghdad's executive committee" but he gave few details.

Reuters news agency reports that most Iraqis it interviewed after Mr
Zubaidi's "election" said they knew nothing about polling.

Mr Zubaidi said executive committees were being set up to restore health
care and other essential services to the capital which has been without
electricity for about two weeks.

Looting continues in the capital, but US forces say that with 300 volunteer
police on the streets, lawlessness is less widespread than before.

BBC regional analyst Pam O'Toole says that installing people as governors or
leaders at this stage would go against everything Washington has been saying
about a democratic political process.

At the same time, our correspondent notes, the Americans clearly need help
restoring order and public services.

At US Central Command in Qatar, the main US military spokesman did not
comment directly on reports of Mr Zubaidi's appointment along with that of
an interim mayor, Jaudat Obeidi.

"There are a number of emerging leaders throughout Iraq and the coalition
works with a number of them on a variety of levels," Brigadier General
Vincent Brooks told reporters on Thursday.

The men jockeying for position in Iraq now range from members of the Shia
Muslim community to people who left Iraq more than a decade ago, to former
members of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Some have joined a process started by the United States to identify an
interim administration for post-war Iraq while others are boycotting.

Others have declared themselves leaders of cities but analysts say such
claims are near worthless without the approval or backing of the coalition
forces controlling Iraq.

Those competing for leading post-war roles include:

Ahmed Chalabi of the London-based INC who appears to be trying to force the
pace by moving from his initial base in southern Iraq to the capital,
Baghdad.

Ayad Alawi, who leads a party which includes many military defectors from
the old regime, is said to be in Baghdad seeking to garner support from
so-called "clean" Baath party members.

Mashaan al-Juburi who defected from the regime in the 1990s and is now
working with the Kurds and Americans in northern Iraq; he describes himself
as acting governor of Mosul.


http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=6004205

*  IRAQIS WELCOME PLAN TO MARK SADDAM CAMPAIGN
by Tony Jones
The Scotsman, 18th April

Plans suggested by Tony Blair for a "major celebration" to mark the campaign
to remove Saddam Hussein from power were today welcomed by the Iraqi
community.

The Prime Minister has said he wants to mark the "huge contribution" played
by British forces in the conflict but stressed that the people who suffered
under the dictator should be involved in any event.

Mr Blair told The Sun newspaper: "We will unquestionably do something to
acknowledge the huge contribution of the troops, their sacrifice and the
pride the country feels in them."

He explained that he wanted the Iraqi people to play a large part in what he
hoped would be a major celebration.

"I would want that, the vast majority of people in Iraq never wanted to live
under Saddam, and so to have some sense of their liberation in this would be
important," Mr Blair said.

Falah Shareef, a community adviser at the Dar Al-Islam Foundation, a
cultural and community centre in Willesden, north west London, welcomed the
move.

He said: "The Iraqi people appreciate the work done by the British and
Americans.

"We would be very pleased to participate in any celebration or function held
by the Government.

"We have already sent messages of condolence to the families of those
British personnel who have died."

Zara Mohammed, a Faili Kurd living in London since 1985 who lost four
brothers and her father under Saddam's regime, said she would support a
celebration but wanted it to be low-key.

Mrs Mohammed said: "If we celebrate it should be in a simple way.

"Myself I cannot celebrate because my happiness is gone because I lost half
my family.

"When they capture or kill Saddam then we will feel justice has been done."


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-650216,00.html

*  US TO PAY IRAQI WORKERS IN DOLLARS
by Tim Reid in Washington
The Times, 17th April

The US is airlifting millions of dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York into Baghdad to pay Iraqi workers with American currency until a
replacement for the discredited Iraqi currency is found.

US officials said today that they will give any Iraqi civil service employee
who returns to a job a $20 payment in an effort to quell Iraqi unrest, the
looting of banks and to stabilise the chaotic Iraqi economy.

The decision to pay government employees follows the use of US dollars by
British officials for the wages of workers refitting the southern port of
Umm Qasr, and will make the US dollar the interim de facto Iraqi currency.

The move carries significant economic and political risks, not least the
repercussions it will have in the Arab world where many are suspicious that
Washington wants to dominate and control Iraq.

Some economists also fear that the introduction of the dollar will
complicate and undermine efforts to introduce a new Iraqi currency because
it will struggle to gain any market strength in an economy already flooded
with US currency.

But US officials insist there are no plans for the "dollarisation" of the
Iraqi economy. In the short term, they say, it is imperative that Iraqi
workers are paid in a recognised currency and the US dollar is the only
currency to which they have access.

"This is not an issue of dollarising the economy, but to get money into
desperate people's hands that has real value," one US official said. Funds
for the payments will come from the $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets that the US
has recently frozen.

At first, Iraqi workers will be given $20 each, in $1 and $5 bills. That is
a large sum in Iraq. In central and southern Iraq, a mid-level oil
professional with a university degree would make the equivalent of $50 a
month.

There are three currencies circulating in Iraq: the US dollar on the black
market alongside the "Saddam dinar", now largely discredited, and the more
stable "Swiss dinar", a pre-Saddam dinar used in the Kurdish north. It
earned its nickname because of Switzerland's reputation for financial
probity.

Before the war the Saddam dinar traded at about 2,500 to the dollar. In
recent days, after the widespread looting of banks, some of its bigger
denomination notes were trading at over 16,000 to the dollar.

US Treasury officials say they will work closely with any new interim Iraqi
authority on the choice of a new currency.

In Afghanistan, Washington urged the new government to use the dollar for
large government transactions, to reassure donors that Kabul intended to
rapidly stabilise the economy. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, refused,
and his administration quickly printed a new currency as a symbol of
national unity.


http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/iraq/bal
te.occupation18apr18,0,3382917.story?coll=bal%2Dnews%2Dnation

*  U.S. VICTORY HAS STEEP PRICE IN MAINTAINING SAFE IRAQ PEACE.
INTERNATIONAL LAW PLACES DEMANDS ON OCCUPIER
by Robert Little
Baltimore Sun, 18th April

WASHINGTON - As their soldiers police Baghdad and their engineers grapple
with the city's failing water and electrical systems, American military
officials in Iraq are acting out of more than simply humanitarian good will
- they are required to repair the country under international law.

According to well-established treaties that the United States has long
upheld, the invading American forces must restore and maintain order in
Iraq. And that is only the beginning of the reparative responsibilities of a
foreign occupying power.

If Iraqi citizens need food and medicine, the United States must get it for
them. If orphans need an education, the United States must provide it. If
anyone in Iraq needs books or supplies to practice their religion, American
forces have an obligation to help gather and distribute them.

The laws of occupation are so demanding that some legal scholars think they
are a disincentive for American officials to declare a formal end to the
war. Once the United States' status as an occupier is established it not
only inherits Iraq's humanitarian and peacekeeping needs but also faces new
obstacles in its effort to find or kill Saddam Hussein. He is a military
target as long as the war continues, but becomes a "protected person" during
a military occupation, subject to criminal prosecution but not to assaults
by Special Forces or 2,000-pound bombs.

"It's harder for us to kill Saddam Hussein if we're [an occupying power]
because then he has protection," said John B. Quigley, a professor of
international law at Ohio State University. "I've suspected that is one
reason why we've been reluctant to declare that the war is over. As long as
there's still hostility we can say he's an enemy and go after him."

The laws of occupation carry little legal punch, because the United States
does not recognize the International Criminal Court that most likely would
be called on to enforce them.

But as an occupying force, the United States is nonetheless responsible for
virtually every facet of Iraq's civil administration, according to
long-accepted treaties that have been incorporated into this country's own
laws and guidelines for war.

"[Gen.] Tommy Franks can't just call off the fighting and then sit on his
hands while people need food and medical supplies," said University of
Houston law professor Jordan J. Paust, referring to the top U.S. commander
in Iraq. "That would be dereliction of duty, with possible criminal
consequences.

"I don't mean to say that has happened, but it is something that has to be
taken seriously. I can assure you that the Pentagon knows to take it
seriously."

The United States has long been a party to two groups of international
treaties - the Hague Conventions of 1907 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949
- that form the basis for a general law of war that is recognized throughout
the world. The U.S. Army's "Law of Land Warfare," first published in 1956
and still in effect, is essentially a compilation of the Hague and Geneva
conventions.

Most of the laws are designed to protect prisoners and civilians while a war
is raging, but they impose specific responsibilities on an invading army
that has seized control of enemy territory and assumed the role of
"belligerent occupant."

Foremost, the occupying army must assure that the basic humanitarian needs
of the population are met, either by bringing in food and medicine or by
handing over that function to an aid organization. It must also do its best
to restore public order.

And the obligations go on. The occupying army must respect citizens' rights
to family life and religious freedom, and it must enforce criminal laws and
ensure that a judicial system is functioning. No government or public
buildings can be destroyed without a specific military purpose; no private
property can be seized unless a receipt is issued and compensation is
promised and, ultimately, paid.

"It's a very serious obligation," said Quigley. "When you take over a
country, and eliminate whatever controlling authority existed there, you
have a responsibility to make sure things are decent, that the people's
basic needs are met."

The occupying forces can restrict the movement of citizens, regulate
commercial business, seize and operate public transportation and censor
newspapers and broadcast stations, according to the United States'
interpretations of international law. It can collect taxes, create a new
currency system and operate government revenue sources - like the Iraqi oil
wells - to pay for the costs of occupation.

Some legal experts think the United States has already violated
international law by not preventing Iraqis from looting banks and shops and
destroying government buildings and historical artifacts. According to the
Hague conventions, an occupying force "shall take all the measures in his
power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety."

American military officials say they tried to prevent some of the recent
looting, and that military battles prevented them from assigning troops to
policing roles.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld described the looting in Baghdad as "an
unfortunate thing" during a Pentagon briefing this week, but said American
forces were too involved in combat to stop it. "To the extent it can be
stopped, it should be stopped," he said. "To the extent it happens in a war
zone, it's difficult to stop."

Added Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff: "When some of that looting was going on, people were being killed,
people were being wounded. ... So I think it's, as much as anything else, a
matter of priorities."

The laws of occupation, however, make no exception for "the mere existence
of local resistance groups."

"There's a strict duty here - the Pentagon had a responsibility to do
something about the looting of Baghdad, and it didn't," said Francis A.
Boyle, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. "Basically,
we're now responsible for the entire country of Iraq and all of its 25
million residents. Somebody should have given the order to stop the looting
and protect those buildings."

But international laws are subject to broad interpretation, and other legal
authorities do not find fault with the United States' behavior in the war.

"The law doesn't say you have to have 20,000 trained MPs who come in right
behind you. That's ridiculous," said Eugene R. Fidell, a lawyer specializing
in military law and president of the National Institute of Military Justice
in Washington. "I don't know of any authority for the proposition that you
have to prepare yourself for a premature collapse of your adversary."

The U.S. military's position on the laws of occupation seems to be that it
has not formally made the transition from invading force to occupying power,
and so the laws don't apply, at least not yet. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, a
spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said this week: "We're still a
liberating force, and that's how we're approaching our operations. The final
legalistic declarations we make will be forthcoming in the next several
days."

But "liberating force" is not a legal designation, and many legal scholars
say the United States already meets the legal definition of "belligerent
occupant." The United States' peacekeeping responsibilities kicked in the
moment Hussein fell from power, they say, regardless of whether those
responsibilities were militarily convenient.

"It makes sense that the military would not be all that interested in moving
into that role right away. It's a big responsibility," said Boyle. "But
there's no question that we are now a belligerent occupant of that country,
whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. We have an obligation to ensure
that the indigenous Iraqi civilians can carry on with their lives."


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED19Ak06.html

*  DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN ACTION
by Pepe Escobar
Asia Times, 19th April

HILLA - Mr Iskander, a lawyer and former officer in the Iraqi air force,
married with four sons and five daughters, sits behind his desk in a
nondescript building formerly used for religious meetings for Sunni and
Shi'ite alike, now guarded by five Marines. He receives a non-stop string of
visitors, juggling between as many as four conversations simultaneously.
Iskander is now the de facto mayor of Hilla, a poor sprawling city of 2
million, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad, chosen through consensus by the
local population. This is Iraqi democracy in action, the post-Saddam Hussein
version.

Hilla is now largely peaceful. People are still intrigued by the meaning of
the letters "TV" spelled out in black tape all over our car. Kids play
soccer oblivious to a passing sandstorm and next to a miraculously
non-defaced mural of Saddam, where he is pictured between al Aqsa mosque in
Jerusalem and Ishtar Gate in Babylon. Splendid, elegant (in a dusty way)
Shi'ite couples carry green flags with the inscriptions "Ali" and "Hussein".
Police officers now patrol the streets and locals swear that there has been
no looting in Hilla. Food distribution has started - from a local food
warehouse, and organized by the same managers who once worked for the Saddam
government ("But now they are free," said a grinning official at the new
mayor's office).

Iskander is in the middle of the process of forming a new government. He
lists his priorities as oxygen for hospitals, equipment for water
purification and the reconstruction of the gas pipeline between Basra and
Hilla. Security, according to him, is "very good" as proven by police
officers coming back to their old jobs. He expects the Americans to provide
"new uniforms and the new weapons to be used". He is "very glad" with the
American presence: "It was very good to remove Saddam Hussein. No force
could do it except the US and the British." More than 100 American soldiers
are now stationed in Hilla, according to Iskander.

The people's priority, and the main subject of talks with his visitors is,
of course, security: "35 years of Saddam was too bad," he said, his cue to
show the visitor some gruesome pictures from 1998 of his brother Jaffar, a
victim of torture, under no specific accusation, by Saddam's regime. He also
shows Jaffar's death certificate: "Dead under inquiry."

Sheikh Salim Saed, an imposing figure in robe and keffiah (head scarf)
contrasting with his sparkling blue eyes, is also in the room. He is the
supreme sheikh of the tribes of Shurfa (which means "honesty" in Arabic).
The sheikh's father was hanged by Saddam's henchmen in 1991, after the
failed Shi'ite uprising following the Gulf War. The son of an accompanying
sheikh was also hanged in 1991, as well as the brother of a lawyer also in
the room. A few minutes later comes Abbas, who had many family members
killed by Saddam's regime from 1981 to 1991. He is now searching for five
still "disappeared" family members. Iskander said that "we'll give him any
chance available to find work".

The sheikh is clutching a stack of black and white copies of a photo of
Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader and self-styled new
regime strongman who stormed into Baghdad on Wednesday. For Iskander,
Chalabi "is known for his history of working with people against Saddam
Hussein. And he has a very strong character." The sheikh's opinion is tinged
with slightly more subtlety: "As far as I'm concerned, I don't know anything
about Chalabi, but I consider a suitable person who will govern Iraq must
provide freedom in order to deserve this position." The sheikh's ideal ruler
would be "anyone that is not Saddam Hussein".

Iskander has his views on what took place in a faraway neighborhood of Hilla
called Nader in the beginning of April. According to him, "Syrian Fedayeen
came to this place, people tried to kick them out, and then the Americans
bombed it." He said that there were a maximum of three civilian dead and 20
wounded. This contrasts with figures from the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC), according to which at least 61 people were killed and more
than 460 seriously injured - mostly by cluster bombing - in what has become
known as the Hilla massacre.

The new Iskander government is practically in place: it lists 14 members,
including Sunni, Shi'ites and Kurds. But where will the money come from?
Their only source of finance is "managers of Iraqi banks", who have already
had a meeting with the Americans. The new government will start collecting
taxes, but not now: "Our intention is to lower taxes," Iskander swore. "Our
banks were not looted. There are some thieves who are returning money to
mosques." He said that "for the last 35 years there was no money here,
Saddam took it all. But there are 4 million Iraqis living outside the
country. We are very rich. They should absolutely come back to rebuild their
country."

We are firmly discouraged by the new mayor's top officials to travel further
south to the holy Shi'ite sites of Najaf and Karbala: "Every foreigner is
being shot on the road and inside the cities. There are Americans there, but
they don't care about the situation."

On the way back to Baghdad we stop at the dirt-poor village of Mahmudiya, 30
kilometers south of the capital, and the site of a ferocious battle only a
few days ago. Amid rows of destroyed and burned businesses, and charred
tanks in alleyways laden with unexploded bombs, locals remain extremely
angry. There's no water, no electricity - and no police in the streets. They
want answers - and fast. One is almost tempted to suggest a quick trip to
the brave new world of Hilla.


http://www.dawn.com/2003/04/21/int10.htm

*  COMMUNIST NEWSPAPER BACK IN BAGHDAD
by Rosalind Russell
Dawn, 21st April

BAGHDAD (Reuters): It would not be Washington's first choice, but the
long-banned Iraq Communist Party on Sunday won the race to publish the first
newspaper in Baghdad since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The eight-page "People's Path" was handed out for free, snapped up eagerly
by passers-by hungry for any kind of news after the US invasion eradicated
state-run media.

"Collapse of a Dictator" read the headline under the hammer and sickle on
the front page, followed by an article railing against the abuses of
Saddam's "bloody, terrorist reign".

"With the dictatorship's collapse, all the wishes of the vast majority of
the Iraqi people have come true," it said, printed around a picture of a
child victim of the US-led war, his head bandaged and a tear rolling down
his cheek.

When US forces rolled into Baghdad 11 days ago, ending Saddam's rule and
toppling a statue of him for good measure, they created an information and
authority void, with practically no electricity, no papers, no TV and no
officialdom to turn to.

Angry citizens yearn for order and advice, but the last written US
information came in the form of airdropped leaflets urging people to stay
calm during the war.

Others have moved in to fill the void, with influential religious leaders
setting up community services, but the Communists were the first into print.

In Firdos Square in the centre, Iraqis stopped in their tracks to read the
paper, amazed to see criticism of their former leader in writing.

"It is telling us about Saddam, how he did harm to our country," said
27-year-old Khudair. "Of course we knew it, but we have never seen it
written in a newspaper before."

It was not clear where the paper was printed but it was full of praise for
Kurdish leaders in north Iraq, which was free of Saddam's control for a
decade and where small Communist Party cells operated.

Under Saddam's 24-year-old rule Iraq's newsstands sold only state-approved
papers. Babel, the highest-circulation newspaper, belonged to Saddam's
eldest son Uday, while Thawra was the official mouthpiece of Saddam's Baath
Party.

They were the last vestige of the old rule to be seen, hitting the streets
on the morning of Wednesday April 9 - US marines rode into Baghdad on tanks.

"The great Iraq will remain steadfast," read Babel's last front-page
editorial. All other parties and their media were banned, and leaders of
what was once the most powerful Communist movement in the Middle East had
long fled into exile in Britain and elsewhere.

Now the official newspapers have gone, along with state-run television and
radio. Iraqis may not miss them, but they are desperate for news. Most
listen to Iranian or Kuwaiti radio, BBC Arabic or Radio Sawa, the
US-sponsored pan-Arabic station.

The occupying forces' own Alliance Television airs for three hours from 8 pm
on frequencies once used by Saddam-eulogizing state television, but few
Baghdadis have the power to tune in.

If they do, they prefer to watch al-Alam, an Iranian-based channel broadcast
in Arabic which Iraqis can pick up without a satellite dish and which first
popped up just before the war.

Satellite dishes, banned under Saddam but available discreetly to the
wealthy, are now being snapped up.


http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=030421000715&query=charles+clove
r&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

*  CONFUSION OVER WHO CONTROLS IRAQ OIL MINISTRY
by Charles Clover in Baghdad
Financial Times, 21st April

Ringed by US tanks and guarded by US soldiers with a very exclusive
admission list, Iraq's oil ministry, in charge of the world's second largest
petroleum reserves, yesterday appeared secluded from the disorder that
reigns in the rest of Baghdad.

One question nevertheless provoked a great deal of confusion: who is in
charge?

The former minister is barred from entering, as are his deputies. A man in a
green suit, standing outside the barbed wire, introduced himself as Fellah
al-Khawaja and said he represented the Co-ordinating Committee for the Oil
Ministry, which few of the employees had heard of.

It draws its authority from a self-declared local government led by Mohamed
Mohsen al Zubaidi, a recently returned exile who says he is now the
effective mayor of Baghdad.

According to Faris Nouri, a ministry section chief, the committee has issued
a list of who should be allowed into the ministry by US troops guarding the
building. Yesterday it was announced that Mr Zubaidi's deputy, former
general Jawdat al-Obeidi, would lead Iraq's delegation to the next meeting
of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

But when asked who was giving the orders at the ministry, most employees
pointed to a portly man standing in the lobby, who looked to be in his 50s
but declined to give his name.

"I was a DG [director-general] in the old administration, and no one has
told me I'm not a DG anymore," he said.

Employees have been reappearing since Thursday at the ministry, which
largely escaped the destruction suffered by most other public buildings in
Baghdad, and is one of the few to be guarded by US soldiers.

The director-general said he was confused by the lack of any formal notices,
and had a only a vague idea of the committee, backed by the Iraqi National
Congress, the formerly exiled opposition group.

"I don't honestly know who they are, who chose them, how they are being
motivated," he said. "I know I am in contact with no one and no one is in
contact with me."

However, he lamented the whole US approach to dealing with postwar Iraq. "We
have a lot of experience with coup d'états and this one is the worst," he
said. "Any colonel in the Iraqi army will tell you that when he does a coup
d'état, he goes to the broadcasting station with five announcements."

"The first one is long live this, down with that. The second one is your new
government is this and that. The third is the list of the people to go on
retirement. The fourth one, every other official is to report back to work
tomorrow morning. The fifth is the curfew."

This is usually done within one hour, he added. "Now we are waiting more
than a week and still we hear nothing from them."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940335,00.html

*  BA'ATHISTS SLIP QUIETLY BACK INTO CONTROL
by Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
The Guardian, 21st April

They have quietly removed the pictures of Saddam Hussein from their sitting
rooms, and reconfigured their memories to transform lives of privilege into
tales of suffering. Less than two weeks after the collapse of the regime,
thousands of members of the Arab Ba'ath Socialist party, the all too willing
instrument of Saddam, are resuming their roles as the men and women who run
Iraq.

Two thousand policemen - all cardholding party members - have put on the
olive green, or the grey-and-white uniforms of traffic wardens, and returned
to the streets of Baghdad at America's invitation.

Dozens of minders from the information ministry, who spied on foreign
journalists for the security agencies, have returned to the Palestine Hotel
where most reporters stay, offering their services as translators to
unwitting new arrivals.

Seasoned bureaucrats at the oil ministry - including the brother of General
Amer Saadi, the chemical weapons expert now in American custody - have been
offered their jobs back by the US military. Feelers have also gone out to
Saddam's health minister, despite past American charges that Iraqi hospitals
stole medicine from the sick.

It has become increasingly apparent that Washington cannot restore
governance to Baghdad without resorting to the party which for decades
controlled every aspect of life under the regime.

It has equally become apparent that the Ba'ath party - whose neighbourhood
spy cells were as feared as the state intelligence apparatus - will survive
in some form, either through the appeal of its founding ideals, or through
the rank opportunism of its millions of members.

"The coming bureaucracy will be overwhelmed by Ba'athists. They had loyalty
to Saddam Hussein, and now they have loyalty to foreign invaders," said
Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University who broke
with the Ba'ath in 1961, and is trying to organise a new political grouping.

The Ba'athist project of reinvention gathered pace at the weekend when the
Iraqi Writers' Union - who received salaries for poems for Saddam - held a
meeting at which they claimed to have been secret opponents of the regime
for years.

At the same time, remnants of the regime see no reason to abandon a party
that has been around since 1947.

"The Arab Ba'ath Socialist party was not Saddam Hussein's idea. Like
Marxism, it was not founded by Lenin and Stalin. It is an idea. That is why
the Arab masses supported Iraq, not because of Saddam Hussein, but because
of ideas," said a senior culture bureaucrat.

The resurrection of the Ba'ath is, in part, acknowledgment of the daunting
reality of governing a country as complex and battered as Iraq. Under Saddam
membership was mandatory for teachers, police, the army, and senior posts in
hospitals, universities, banks and the civil service.

Local party bosses, or mukhtars, dispensed marriage licences, pressganged
locals into militias, and organised parades in honour of Saddam. They also
winnowed out potential neighbourhood traitors, destroying the lives of the
millions who fell foul of the regime.

That elite - dominated by the Sunni minority which has governed Iraq since
the Ottoman empire - remains the major source of local talent for the new US
administration.

Now, though the party cadre has been orphaned by the flight of Saddam and
the upper echelons, local party bosses and bureaucrats who joined up
strictly for career advancement see no reason to step aside. "I haven't hurt
anyone, and the people love me," said Haji Talat, the boss of Adhamiya, with
direct charge for 4,000 households.

The northern neighbourhood was the most solidly Ba'athist of Baghdad - so
secure that Saddam did a walkabout there just three days before the US tanks
rolled in.

Mr Talat has taken down his photo of Saddam but he is not willing to
relinquish his control. "I had to go along with the regime because otherwise
they would turn me into cinnamon. But the people know me. The bad mukhtars
might go now, but the good ones will stay," he said.

Such attitudes prevail even in poorer neighbourhoods, such as the Jamila
suburb of Baghdad, where there was more resentment of the Ba'ath. "In our
circumstances, it is necessary to work with the Americans to keep order, but
later we might not agree," said Rahim Ahmoud, a mukhtar of eight years.

The prospects for the survival of the Ba'ath have been enhanced by the chaos
of these early days of the US military occupation. There is also no serious
challenge to its iron grip.

The party, with its secular principles - though trampled on by Saddam's
cynical use of religion - also represents a bulwark against a nascent
Islamist movement among Iraq's disenfranchised Shia majority.

For middle class Iraqis, the declarations for religious self-rule now
emanating from mosques in Baghdad and southern cities are deeply troubling.
The new assertiveness by the Shia clergy probably does not sit very well
with the Americans either. So that leaves the Ba'ath.

"The Ba'ath party was the right hand to Saddam," said Hind Mahmoud, a
computer programmer at one of the nationalist banks sacked by the looters.
For people like Ms Mahmoud, faith in the party, and in its future role in
Iraq, remains undimmed: "No one can take the place of the Ba'ath party. The
Ba'ath party has experience - doctors and managers and scientists. It works
in everything."


http://www.post-gazette.com/World/20030421iraqchristiansworld6p6.asp

*  EASTER IN BAGHDAD: MINORITY CHRISTIANS FEAR REPRESSION UNDER MUSLIM
GOVERNMENT
by Carol Morello
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, from The Washington Post, 21st April

BAGHDAD -- In all his 57 years, Samir Ahad has never experienced an Easter
Sunday so filled with sorrow, hopelessness and dread as this one.

At every turn was a reminder of the war that left lives in shambles and
usurped a government that had cosseted the small Christian minority.
Parishioners arrived at the Evangelical Protestant Church, where Ahad is the
secretary, in cars pockmarked by shrapnel. The absence of the chocolates,
colored eggs and new clothes that usually mark Easter services at the
Presbyterian church underscored that the parishioners have no income to
spend. The Italian organ donated by ousted president Saddam Hussein sat
silent, for lack of $2,000 to repair it.

Under a gloomy sky, nobody could muster even a perfunctory "Happy Easter"
greeting. Instead, many wept through the sermon on a day meant to celebrate
resurrection.

"This is a sad Easter," said Ahad, sipping tea in the church office where
ceiling fans rotated lazily under a generator's power. "We have suffered,
not only from Saddam but from pollution of the air and the water, from
having no jobs and no income. And in my mind I keep seeing my son carrying a
Kalashnikov to protect the church from looters. I didn't want this for him.
We are all afraid, for today and for the future."

A smothering blanket of loss and worry stripped joy from Easter services.

Like most Iraqis, Christians are reeling from the double blow of the war and
the massive looting that ensued. But many Christians are also concerned that
the new, free Iraq will be dominated by Islamic parties. Some already
predict they will feel less welcome here and are considering leaving. At the
same time, many of the nation's Christian leaders say they are relieved to
be rid of the despotic rule of Saddam and his Baath Party followers.

During his 24-year reign, a symbiotic relationship existed between the
government, which was dominated by Sunni Muslims, and the Christian minority
of less than 1 million out of 25 million Iraqis. One of the founders of the
Iraqi Baath Party was a Syrian Christian, Michel Aflaq, who later converted
to Islam. Christians held prominent positions in the government, including
the deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz. Saddam hired a Christian nanny when
his two sons, Uday and Qusay, were small, and retained several Christian
bodyguards and aides.

Many Iraqi churches had a benefactor in the government. It gave land on
which to build churches, and sometimes paid for the construction. Their
water and electricity were free. About a decade ago, Saddam gave every major
church in the country a new organ.

The largesse went beyond material goods. According to religious leaders,
government controlled newspapers were prohibited from publishing anything
derogatory about Christians. In return, Saddam counted on their
acquiescence, if not outright support. Iraqi television frequently showed
Christian leaders warmly greeting him, shaking his hand and praising his
leadership.

"Saddam loved Christians," said Ikram Mehanni, the minister of the
Evangelical Protestant Church. "He didn't abuse our religion. To the
contrary, he gave us money."

Asked why Saddam was so generous, Mehanni replied, "Christians didn't give
problems to the government."

Now that is all over, and many Christians worry about what comes next.

"Christians are afraid of the new government, and what it will do with us,"
said Wisal Kotta, as she left Easter services at Our Lady of Rescue, a
Syrian Catholic church. "There may be many political parties, religious
parties."

The concern is not limited to Christians. A tiny number of Iraqi Jews live
in Baghdad, which before the creation of Israel in 1948 had about 60,000
Jews.

A knock at the heavy metal door in a wall about 15 feet high around the
city's only functioning synagogue was answered by a Muslim watchman. He said
it was forbidden for anyone to enter. Services were held every Saturday
until about two months ago, he said. But the Jews who live in the area
either fled to other parts of the city before the war or went abroad, he
said. He did not know how to contact them.

To a degree, the concern is as much about the perils and sorrows of the
present, as about dread of the future.

"Of course we are sad," said Jusef Waad, an agricultural engineer attending
Easter services at the Syrian Catholic church with his wife and two teen-age
daughters. "We have no security. We have no electricity or water. We have no
jobs. Everything is gone. There is no Easter this year. This smile on my
face is false. It is only there so I can carry on with life and do my
religious duty. But inside ourselves, we are still afraid."

At the nearby Armenian Catholic church, Vicar Antoine Atamian kissed the
cheeks of hundreds of parishioners after Easter services. Many people in the
church knew someone who had died, he said. Among the dead was one of his two
drivers, who apparently was killed in crossfire during the war. During the
worst of the bombardment, he said, hundreds of Iraqis, among them Kurds and
Muslims, sought shelter in the church's underground meeting hall.

"He was a dictator," said Atamian, pulling out a letter of appointment as
vicar signed by Saddam. "The Shia were afraid. They couldn't move. But he
respected us as religious men."

Atamian said the Iraqi president never failed to dispatch greetings and
gifts on religious holidays. "For Christmas and Easter, he sent greeting
cards and a big box of dates and gifts," said Atamian, sitting behind a
large desk in his office, which was furnished with red velvet sofas. "Very
high officials, directly from the presidential palace, would come and ask us
if we needed anything. I believed Saddam Hussein was a nationalist. We used
to be beside him. I had many meetings with him. We used to express our
feelings and love to him. Now, we are changed. He talked about staying with
us, to the last bullet. He was on TV. 'Live or die with pride,' he said. But
we heard he left the city."

But at Evangelical Protestant Church, a widowed parishioner said he was
preparing to leave Iraq, hoping to provide his grown son with a better
future.

"It's going to be like Iran," warned the parishioner. "Even Christians will
have to wear head scarves. There will be no alcohol. No dancing. All
Christians are afraid now."


http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0423/p01s03-woiq.html

*  DEMOCRACY BEGINS TO SPROUT IN IRAQ
by Peter Ford
The Christian Science Monitor, 23rd April

BAGHDAD, IRAQ: Up from the rubble of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, the first
tentative seedlings of democracy are poking their heads, as political
parties of every shape and form race to put down roots in the new Iraq.
Commandeering abandoned buildings, putting up flags and banners to announce
their presence, and signing up new members, communists, monarchists,
Islamists, liberal democrats, and army generals are taking advantage of
freedoms that their country has not known for decades.  Some of that freedom
is the fruit of the anarchy that still prevails in Iraq, with no functioning
government, few public services, and wide uncertainty among ordinary
citizens about what their future holds.

The disorder extends to the nascent democracy.

Jassem Hamed has set up a branch office of the US-backed Iraqi National
Congress in the cramped reception area of a former Baghdad passport office
that was burned, looted, and trashed. While his colleagues make tea in the
courtyard on a fire fueled by passport records, he explains that he joined
the party a week ago, and was given his responsibility because a cousin
works as a bodyguard to INC leader Ahmed Chalabi.

He is unclear exactly what his party stands for. "They say the INC will
publish a booklet explaining what it is about, and when I read it, if I am
convinced, I will stay," he says. "If not, I will leave. For the moment, it
is just about democracy."

Across town, Communist Party Central Committee member Adel Khaled voices a
more politically astute viewpoint. Recently emerged from five years of
underground organizing, he is clearly delighted by the bustle of activity in
his makeshift headquarters as the committed and the curious elbow their way
to a table piled with clenched fist posters and copies of the party
newspaper.

"If people feel secure, if they are allowed to express how they feel, they
will come to us," he says confidently. "The party has existed for and from
the people so they have been aware of us for a long time."

Iraq does not yet have the interim government that US officials say is
planned, and it is not even clear who will be appointed to it, aside from
two leading Kurdish parties and the INC.

But already the first flush of democratic excitement is unsettling some
participants.

"It is normal ... that people are enthusiastic, because they can express
their ideas," says Khasro Jaaf, head of the Baghdad office of the Kurdish
Democratic Party. "But there is a hairsbreadth of difference between
democracy and the jungle. The longer the Americans stay, the safer it will
be for each party to present its ideas."

Others are encouraged by the "anything goes" mood. "There are parties
opening up that we have never heard of," says Zaab Sethna, spokesman for the
INC. "In general, we think it is a very good thing, a very good sign of the
beginnings of civil society."

Mr. Jaaf, an architect with a mane of gray hair and a flamboyant manner, has
chosen a Baghdad headquarters for his party after his own style: the marbled
mansion once occupied by Saddam Hussein's personal team of palace
architects.

Other parties seem to have chosen and occupied other abandoned public
buildings with which they feel some affinity: The Communist Party has
installed itself in an apartment block that once housed Soviet advisers, and
draped it with red banners proclaiming the party slogan - "A free country
and a happy people."

The Islamist Dawa party has set up in the Sindbad youth center - its
overgrown garden pitted with sandbagged foxholes - and hung a handpainted
banner from the fence declaring that "The will of Allah rules."

The INC has established its temporary headquarters in the Iraqi Hunting
Club, once a favorite haunt of Saddam's elder son Uday in the capital's posh
Mansour district.

For all Iraqi wannabe politicians, returning from exile or emerging from
clandestinity, the first order of business is to introduce themselves to the
public.

Mr. Chalabi has been meeting supporters who risked their lives inside Iraq
to send his organization information.

The KDP office's role is to "spread our program of democracy and federalism"
to the 1 million Kurds who live in the capital, Jaaf says.

The Free Officers and Civilians Movement, led by former Iraqi Gen. Najib
Salihi, is signing up new members in thick ledgers, name by carefully
numbered name, from the cool recesses of a private house lent to them by a
benefactor. Some have already been issued membership cards - a map of Iraq
emblazoned with "Iraq First" on one side, the owner's name, date of birth,
and blood type on the other.

"We are just taking names and telling people to wait until General Salihi
arrives," says an officer in charge of registration. "He will be here in a
few days."

>From his INC branch office on Haifa St., Mr. Hamed is handing out yellow,
blue, and green party flags and posters of Mr. Chalabi. "I tell people who
ask for the posters that I want them to know Mr. Chalabi and what he is
doing, not just put up the pictures as they did with Saddam Hussein," he
says.

Hamed cannot help, however, when people come - as he says they often do - to
ask when electricity or running water will return to their neighborhoods. "I
advise them to go to our main office, because I have no information," he
explains. "I cannot tell them much because I don't know."

Communist Party militants are distributing their party newspaper, "The
Peoples' Press," whose appearance in Baghdad last weekend - the first paper
to be published since the former government fell - was an early sign of the
party's organizational skills.

Once the biggest party in Iraq, the Communist Party was brutally repressed
by President Hussein, who saw it as a serious threat to his power. But
thousands of activists continued to organize secret cells, Mr. Khaled says,
and now they are coming out of hiding to build their party anew.

Among their converts on Tuesday was Col. Ghassan Nouri, who teaches at the
Iraqi Army Staff College in Baghdad. He had stopped by the Free Officers and
Civilian Movement that morning, he said, but found "a few people sitting
around doing nothing. I was not satisfied that they were serious."

"This is a clearer organization," he said of the Communists. "They are the
oldest party in Iraq, most members are very educated and very nationalist,
and the Communist Party has done nothing shameful to this country. They have
always fought against the regimes."

The birth pangs of democracy have spawned one fiasco already. One INC
operative who reached Baghdad ahead of his leaders, Mohammed Mehsin al
Zubeidi, announced to the world last week that he had been chosen as the
capital's top civilian official by a gathering of intellectuals, tribal
leaders, and policemen, and that he was working in tandem with the
Americans.

Barbara Bodine, coordinator for central Iraq in the US civil administration,
disowned him, however, on Monday, saying she did not know how he had been
elected.

"We haven't had any contact with him since we got to Baghdad," says INC
spokesman Sethna. "In fact, he is off the reservation."

Some observers expect the flood of new political parties to recede once the
initial fervor dies down, and the largest, best established groups impose
their authority.

"The next few months will tell who is strong and who is not," says Khaled.
"We have just come out of the war, and if democracy establishes itself
you'll see a lot of changes."




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