Informed Comment

Informed Comment


Bombings of Churches Bush and Blair Plotted to Ignore Security Council Who woulda thunk it? Bush and Blair plotted to go to war against Iraq even if the UN Security Council declined to authorize it. The Scotsman summarizes findings of Phillipe Sands: "Prof Sands' book, entitled Lawless World, claims that president Bush had earlier displayed open contempt for the UN during the summit, made wild threats against Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein and displayed astounding ignorance of the likely post-war problems." Now Bush will come out on television Tuesday night and lie about the situation in Iraq to his gullible followers.Guerrillas set off car bombs outside churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk on Sunday, and also targeted a Vatican office. The 8 bombs killed 3 and wounded 17. Many of Iraq's originally 750,000 Christians have already fled, mainly to Syria or Detroit, and some observers fear the community will dwindle to virtually nothing if these attacks continue. Although Iraq's Christians are among the oldest such communities in the world, and are indigenous, radical Muslim guerrillas often code them as "foreign" or allied to the largely Christian American occupiers. There was also other guerrilla violence in Iraq on Sunday, which left altogether at least 25 dead.Some 1500 Shiites demonstrated in the southern port city of Basra (pop. 1.3 mn.) against the British authorities. They were upset about British arrests of policemen that London believes were connected to puritan militias that sometimes acted as death squads. The elected governor of Basra province last Friday threatened to cease cooperating with the British over the arrests.Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim began their deliberations, in a meeting characterized by much formal protocol, on Sunday evening. The negotiations, to be continued on Monday, are expected to take weeks to conclude. Hadi al-Amiri, secretary general of the paramilitary [Shiite fundamentalist] Badr Corps, announced that "The United Iraqi Alliance considers [its possession of] the ministry of the interior a red line that cannot be crossed." [The Iraqi Interior is like the US FBI.] He told al-Zaman that the UIA "Gives the utmost importance to security in Iraq. Prominent personalities in the UIA had been victims during the extinct regime of the former security apparatus. For this reason, we cannot consider stepping down from the ministry of the interior." Amiri revealed that he had been visited by Sunni Arab secular leader Salih al-Mutlak in connection with discussions on forming the new government, but said that he did not know if al-Mutlak had asked the UIA to join them in a national unity government.Young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc in parliament will give him increased clout in the new government, the CSM points out. Amatzia Baram points out that he will push for puritanism and anti-Americanism, and will also reach out to fundamentalist Sunni Arabs.Iraq's oil ministry is again leaderless and in turmoil, at a time when the industry can afford neither. Despite engineering feats accomplished by American teams, the Iraqi petroleum industry is a mess.Number of US military personnel just forced to serve extended duty: 50,000.Number by which junior enlisted soldiers have declined in the US military since 2001: 19,000.New cap on interest rate on government student loans, which Republicans are raising in order to pay for the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina: 6.9%.The US military's practice of taking suspected guerrilla leaders' wives hostage will backfire, according to expert observers.The complexities of Iraq are underlined by the increasingly flourishing condition of the holy Shiite city of Najaf south of Baghdad, which is fairly secure and peaceful. Its pharmacies have medicines, it has 20 hours of electricity a day, and US troops withdrew last September to a base well away from the city, reducing the chance of provocations. Plans are going forward for an airport. Some 3 million pilgrims a year are already coming, mostly from Iran but also from Lebanon, Kuwait, Pakistan and elsewhere, to visit the shrine of Imam Ali. The combination of resources from Iran and from the wealthy merchants and shopkeepers of the city, the calming influence of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who resides there, the loyalty of the tribal levies to Sistani, the induction of members of the Badr Corps paramilitary into the provincial police and government military, and the defeat of the radical Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr in August 2004 by the joint efforts of Sistani, the other grand ayatollahs and the US Marines, have all contributed to this current flourishing situation. Ironically, Najaf's success is a rebuke to Paul Bremer, who once cancelled an election there because he feared Iranian influence in the city. In the end, Iran wins this one.AP explains the long relationship between the Iraqi Shiites and their Iranian co-religionists.Here's hoping Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt pull through. We talk about people getting blown up every day in Iraq, but when it is someone you feel you know and admire through television, it is personal.
posted by Juan @ 1/30/2006 06:30:00 AM

6 Comments:
At 10:35 AM, azeem said...
one aspect regarding flourishing of najaf:the city's repute has not been for the pilgrimage or trade specifically but for it's hawza, the religious university. so, the real progress should be guaged when its hawza returns to normal, as still it has no match with the Qum's hawza. I request any informed reader to please give some input on the status of najaf's hawza. As far as i know there exists a drought of the top teachers after the present marjiya. Even i doubt tops like Sistani, Saeed Al-hakim & Ishaq Fayad are engaged in any teaching work.
At 2:38 PM, Clive of the Islands said...
Australia funded the Iraqi insurgency that's cost the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, claims Prime Minister in waiting.Australia paid $300m to Saddam to win wheat contracts. This is the largest kickback in the UN Oil-for-food scandal. The $300m may well have helped fund the insurgency. Documents released by the judicial inquiry tie the Australian government to the scandal. But the government is refusing to investigate its own role and continues to restrict the inquiry terms of reference to corporate links. The UN requested the inquiry after it found the Australian company AWB to be the largest implicated.
At 3:20 PM, erich kuerschner said...
I found your statement: Bush and Blair plotted to go to war against Iraq even if the UN Security Council declined to authorize it highly misleading.It might imply to some readers that the Bush/Rove spin that UN Resolution 1441 authorized the US to go to War, and a second UN Resolution was unnecessary had some truth.In fact, despite brute coercion and electronic eavesdropping of the UN Security Council by Condoleza Rice, the language of UN Resolution proclaiming “dire consequences” was agreed to ON THE CONDITION that it was agreed that this was NOT an authorization of war. France and Russia were especially explicit on this point.From Wikipedia: “Saddam immediately agreed to allow weapon inspectors to return (despite his awareness that UNSCOM had morphed into a CIA driven agenda, focused on collecting war information such as GPS data on Palace coordinates for “smart bombs”). While the first Blix report was negative, subsequent reports were not.” While your statement is technically correct, please clarify to your readers that the UN NEVER authorized the war in Iraq. The Cheney cabal has spun this so much this so much, and the MSM is complicit in this spin, that we cannot afford to have the public misconstrue that you support the view that the UN condoned the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. As you well know (but the MSM forgets) On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion said "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." Thanks again for all your wonderful reporting!
At 4:40 PM, Mr. Banks said...
The oil-spot strategy works! A couple months ago, people managed to run the oil-spot strategy up the flagpole. The idea was that the US military would sieze & hold a handful of cities, create strong security within them, bring in local people to help run the place and then pump the city full of money. Then this successs would slowly spread to other cities. We kicked the idea around for a week, and then realized it would require more troops and more money. Our military is breaking and our bank is broke, so we dropped it. Now the idea has been vindicated in Najaf, where it seems to be working very well for the Iranians.
At 10:22 PM, Melanie said...
Wow, Juan,Heroic post!
At 1:17 AM, kitchen sink think tank said...
There is something unusual about the attack on Bob Woodruff and his camera man. Not that was hit by an IED but rather that they were riding in the lead vehicle of the convoy. Putting the asset you are trying to protect in the lead vehicle is not standard operating proceedure. Does this suggest an ambush arranged by the Iraqi army unit they were traveling with?