Category Archives: Post-War

Saddam Captured Outside Tikrit

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A disheveled Sad­dam was hid­ing in a “spi­der hole” when cap­tured. Reuters

In a stun­ning and wel­come devel­op­ment, the United States con­firmed that Sad­dam Hus­sein was cap­tured today today with­out major inci­dent.
Appear­ing scruffy and old, his cap­ture will send shock waves through the Arab world, pro­vide a wel­come sense of clo­sure for mil­lions of Iraqis and — pos­si­bly — deal a body blow to the Iraqi insur­gency, which to date has killed “540 troops.”:http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx
Hus­sein was report­edly “tired” and “resigned” when cap­tured in a dirt hole out­side of Adwar, a town about 10 miles from Tikrit. Kur­dish _peshmergas_ helped locate him, accord­ing to some state­ments from the Iraqi Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil.
This is a good day, for despite my oppo­si­tion to the war, there was never a doubt in my mind that Sad­dam was a mon­ster. What every­one is hop­ing for now is that the insur­gency will now lose much of its _raison d’être_. But I’m con­cerned that this will not be the case. The United States crowed that insur­gents would creep away after the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hus­sein in –May– July. They didn’t. And, in fact, the Coali­tion Pro­vi­sional Author­ity said it “expects con­tin­ued attacks”:http://nytimes.com/2003/12/14/international/middleeast/14WIRE-ATTACKS.html?hp, and on the same day Sad­dam was cap­tured, “17 Iraqis were killed”:http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=265510&lang=e&dir=news in a car bomb attack on a Khaldiya Police Sta­tion, west of Bagh­dad.
But how involved was the dic­ta­tor with the insur­gency? Sad­dam has shown him­self time and again to be a pretty use­less tac­ti­cian, so the rel­a­tive suc­cess of the insur­gency indi­cates he’s not the one in charge. How­ever, he was caught with $750,000, so there’s a pretty good chance he was financ­ing it in some way.
What does this mean to the resis­tance? Their morale must surely have taken a major blow and they have lost a potent sym­bol of Amer­i­can impo­tence. Now they have a choice: To give up and slink away or prove that they are still viable fight­ing force by hit­ting back hard. Strat­for feels that the next 72 hours will be the most dan­ger­ous.
“Reac­tion in the Arab”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/international/middleeast/14WIRE-ARAB.html?hp world was mixed, with many Arabs see­ing the cap­ture of Sad­dam as good news, but wor­ried that his appre­hen­sion would boost Pres­i­dent Bush’s re-election chances in Novem­ber and remove the only obsta­cle to Amer­i­can goals in the region.
“Of course it’s bad news. To us, Sad­dam was a sym­bol of defi­ance to the U.S. plans in the region. And we sup­port any per­son who stands in the face of the Amer­i­can dom­i­nance,” said Azzam Hneidi, an Islamist mem­ber of Jordan’s par­lia­ment.
Omi­nously, the _NYTimes_ found a guy work­ing at the Pales­tine Hotel, the home base for many for­eign jour­nal­ists and con­tract work­ers, who was sad that Sad­dam had been cap­tured.
“We lost our only hope and now we are stuck with the Amer­i­cans,” said [Abil] Daoud, who is employed by U.S. troops as a local secu­rity guard. _(Does this guy still have a job as a secu­rity guard? — Ed.)_
How­ever, there was a touch­ing quote from Ayet Bassem. “Things will be bet­ter for my son,” she said, clutch­ing the hand of six-year-old Zenal­badin. “My son now has a future.“
The ques­tion now is what will hap­pen to Sad­dam. Will the pros­e­cu­tion hap­pen in an Iraqi court? Before the Hague? In some other forum? Ahmed Cha­l­abi and other mem­bers of the Iraqi Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil are already call­ing for an Iraqi trial. The IGC formed a spe­cial tri­bunal on Wednes­day for try­ing top mem­bers of Saddam’s regime, but the United States has as yet no com­ment on what the venue for a trial might be.
This is a momen­tous day, for all the play­ers involved in this drama in Mesopotamia. Now the U.S. has a chance to inter­ro­gate the for­mer dic­ta­tor, the gueril­las will have a chance to show the world whether they are seri­ous or not and the Iraqis will have a chance at a new chap­ter. What the par­ties make of these chances is up to them.

Pentagon avoids ‘news filter’

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The Pen­ta­gon will begin broad­cast­ing “C-SPAN Baghdad”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42547-2003Nov14&notFound=true soon — a satel­lite feed from Iraq that will cir­cum­vent the “fil­ter” of the national net­works and send images cho­sen by the Defense Depart­ment right into America’s liv­ing rooms by way of local news affil­i­ates. Why do this? Because:

Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials assert that U.S. news orga­ni­za­tions have empha­sized vio­lence and set­backs in occu­pied Iraq while play­ing down progress. The offi­cials say the satel­lite capa­bil­ity is designed to help local sta­tions inter­view U.S. author­i­ties in Iraq and offer live cov­er­age of mil­i­tary cer­e­monies and brief­ings rel­e­vant to their geo­graphic areas.

Avoid­ing ques­tions from big-time reporters from the major net­works is part of of larger strat­egy begun last month by the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion which saw Bush, Defense Sec­re­tary Rums­feld and oth­ers gave inter­views to, for exam­ple, the local ABC affil­i­ate in Kalamzoo.

Con­tinue read­ing →

U.S. clashes with PKK/Kadek in north?

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Eye­brows should be raised, but the Turk­ish for­eign min­is­ter Abdul­lah Gul is claim­ing that Amer­i­can forces have clashed with PKK/KADEK forces in north­ern Iraq. The BBC reports that U.S. forces exchanged fire with “unknown forces” in the area.

A spokesman for the US 101st Air­borne Divi­sion, based in Mosul, said the inci­dent took place near Dahuk, about 10 miles (15 kilo­me­ters) from the Turkey-Iraq bor­der.
One mem­ber of the Iraqi bor­der patrol was killed, he said.
The “unknown forces” were dis­bursed with the assis­tance of Apache attack heli­copters and a quick reac­tion force team, he added.

“It is true that clashes took place yes­ter­day,” Gul has said. “Not only U.S. forces but also Kur­dish ‘pesh­merga’ fight­ers were involved in engag­ing the PKK. Some U.S. heli­copters were also deployed.“
[UPDATE 1:40 PM EST: Agence France Press is report­ing ambi­gu­ity in the par­ties involved, just as BBC did ear­lier, say­ing Iraqi bor­der guards came under attack by “unknown forces.” The “Kur­dis­tan Demo­c­ra­tic Party”:http://www.kdp.pp.se/ office in Wash­ing­ton has no com­ment.]
The “PKK/KADEK”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000119.php#000119 fought a bru­tal war with Turkey from 1984 – 1998, in which upwards of 30,000 civil­ians in south­east Turkey were killed and entire vil­lages destroyed. In an effort to per­suade Turkey to con­tribute 10,000 troops to Iraq, Wash­ing­ton promised to help crack­down on the Kur­dish group, which ended its 5-year cease fire against Turkey in Sep­tem­ber.
At the time, Qubad Jalal Tal­a­bani, the deputy rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the “Patri­otic Union of Kurdistan”:http://www.puk.org in Wash­ing­ton — which has had some­times warmer, some­times cooler rela­tions with the PKK — told me via email:

There is much talk about US-Turkey action towards the PKK, but in real­ity, the US are already fight­ing a war on a few fronts (Al-Qaeda, Ansar, Sad­dam loy­al­ists etc). The last thing would want to do is open another front.
Sec­ondly, the US and the Kurds (Iraqi), are on a very new and dif­fer­ent play­ing field, in terms of the respect that each shows the other. The US would never do such actions with first con­sult­ing, and sec­ond receiv­ing per­mis­sion, from us.
Our advice to the US and to Turkey has always been, the PKK are tired, regard­less of what some idiots from within them think, the major­ity of them are ready to lay down their arms and go back to their homes. If the US can pres­sure Turkey into pro­vid­ing them with an amnesty (a real one!) then this prob­lem will be resolved.

Turkey appar­ently with­drew its offer of troops Nov. 7 and said, “The gov­ern­ment has decided not to imple­ment the (par­lia­men­tary) motion to send troops to Iraq,” an unnamed gov­ern­ment offi­cial was quoted as say­ing. The next day, Gul warned the U.S. “not to show bias towards Iraqi Kurds.” Tellingly, Gul also

told NTV that the US had reaf­firmed its deter­mi­na­tion to elim­i­nate the PKK threat, but insisted that that Ankara reserved the right of inter­ven­tion in case of a “threat or attack” com­ing out of its neighbour’s territory.

The next day, Sun­day, we see the U.S. [pos­si­bly] attack­ing PKK/KADEK forces. Gul’s com­ments can only be seen as a maneu­ver to get the U.S. to act, [and thus should be looked at skep­ti­cally.]
But why? Run­ning through all this is the Amer­i­can desire to have some kind of help — any kind — to help with increas­ingly suc­cess­ful insur­gents in Iraq. Strat­for says a Turk­ish force is still not out of the ques­tion, espe­cially if Wash­ing­ton fields a Shia anti-guerilla force with the help of Iran — Turkey’s old neme­sis in Iraq. Is it so out of the ques­tion that the action in the north, which runs the risk of alien­at­ing a sub­stan­tial por­tion of the Kur­dish pop­u­la­tion in Iraq, which is anti-Turk, is a show of good faith by the U.S. in an effort to get Turkey’s civil­ian gov­ern­ment to change its mind? (By all accounts, the Turk­ish mil­i­tary, unlike Ankara’s civil­ian gov­ern­ment, sees send­ing troops as a chance to deal with the “Kur­dish Prob­lem” once and for all and estab­lish con­trol over north­ern Iraq.) If, in the future, fight­ing between PKK/KADEK and U.S. forces is seen, I wouldn’t be sur­prised to see Turk­ish troops close behind.

Is Syria Next?

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There’s been a lot of spec­u­la­tion that Iraq was just the first in a line of net­tle­some prob­lems in the Mid­dle East that neo-cons wanted to “solve.” Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Sharon said in an inter­view almost a year ago that Iran should be the next tar­get. How­ever, it seems Wash­ing­ton has decided to step up its cam­paign against Syria.
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U.S.-led coali­tion troops treat wounded sol­diers after an attack on a Humvee on the main road about 50 miles south of Bagh­dad. The extent of the sol­diers’ wounds was unclear. (Greg Baker — AP) Click to enlargeLast week­end, “to cau­tion Israel’s ene­mies at a time of height­ened ten­sions in the region and con­cern over Iran’s alleged ambi­tions,” Wash­ing­ton revealed that Israel now has land-, air– and submarine-based nuclear launch capa­bil­ity. This came just days after Turk­ish law­mak­ers voted to send up to 10,000 troops to Iraq. With the Turks now a dues-paying mem­ber of the “Coali­tion of Will­ing,” this means Syria is effec­tively sur­rounded. Remem­ber that the major fight­ing in Iraq ended with Syr­ian and Amer­i­can forces skir­mish­ing on the bor­der, and now Dam­as­cus is pressed on the north and south by the for­merly neu­tral Turkey and its old enemy Israel. The pres­sure is on Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Asad to cease sup­port for groups such as Hizbal­lah and other groups oper­at­ing out of Dam­as­cus. Asad is fac­ing a dan­ger­ous gam­ble: Is the United States bluff­ing in its deploy­ment of its and its allies’ forces around Syria in an attempt to force behav­ior change? Will a regime change fol­low if Syria’s behav­ior doesn’t alter?
Adding fur­ther to pres­sure is the Syria Account­abil­ity and Lebanese Sov­er­eignty Restora­tion Act of 2003 (HR 1828). It passed the House this week, and par­tic­u­lar note should be paid to Sec­tion 4 — State­ment of Prin­ci­ples:

  1. Syria will be held respon­si­ble for attacks com­mit­ted by Hizbal­lah and other ter­ror­ist groups with offices, train­ing camps, or other facil­i­ties in Syria, or bases in areas of Lebanon occu­pied by Syria;
  2. the United States shall impede Syria’s abil­ity to sup­port acts of inter­na­tional ter­ror­ism and efforts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction;
  3. the Sec­re­tary of State will con­tinue to list Syria as a state spon­sor of ter­ror­ism until Syria ends its sup­port for ter­ror­ism, includ­ing its sup­port of Hizbal­lah and other ter­ror­ist groups in Lebanon and its host­ing of ter­ror­ist groups in Dam­as­cus, and comes into full com­pli­ance with United States law relat­ing to ter­ror­ism and United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 1373 (Sep­tem­ber 28, 2001);
  4. efforts against Hizbal­lah will be expanded given the recog­ni­tion that Hizbal­lah is equally or more capa­ble than al Qa’ida;
  5. the full restora­tion of Lebanon’s sov­er­eignty, polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence, and ter­ri­to­r­ial integrity is in the national secu­rity inter­est of the United States;
  6. Syria is in vio­la­tion of United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 520 (Sep­tem­ber 17, 1982) through its con­tin­ued occu­pa­tion of Lebanese ter­ri­tory and its encroach­ment upon Lebanon’s polit­i­cal independence;
  7. Syria’s oblig­a­tion to with­draw from Lebanon is not con­di­tioned upon progress in the Israeli-Syrian or Israeli-Lebanese peace process but derives from Syria’s oblig­a­tion under Secu­rity Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 520;
  8. Syria’s acqui­si­tion of weapons of mass destruc­tion and bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­grams threaten the secu­rity of the Mid­dle East and the national secu­rity inter­ests of the United States;
  9. Syria will be held account­able for any harm to Coali­tion armed forces or to any United States cit­i­zen in Iraq due to its facil­i­ta­tion of ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties and its ship­ments of mil­i­tary sup­plies to Iraq; and
  10. the United States will not pro­vide any assis­tance to Syria and will oppose mul­ti­lat­eral assis­tance for Syria until Syria ends all sup­port for ter­ror­ism, with­draws its armed forces from Lebanon, and halts the devel­op­ment and deploy­ment of weapons of mass destruc­tion and medium– and long-range surface-to-surface bal­lis­tic missiles.

Note that many of these prin­ci­ples are almost iden­ti­cal to those expressed against Iraq, par­tic­u­larly the vio­la­tion of United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions, the weapons of mass destruc­tion and its ties to ter­ror­ism — in this case Hizbal­lah, which has been pro­moted to Al Qa’ida rank in evil. Even the “axis of evil” rhetoric has been heated up, as this state­ment from the office of House Major­ity Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, illus­trates:

Syria is a gov­ern­ment at war with the val­ues of the civ­i­lized world and a vio­lent threat to free nations and free men every­where. We’ll send a clear mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Asad and his fel­low trav­el­ers along the axis of evil: The United States will not tol­er­ate ter­ror­ism, its per­pe­tra­tors, or its spon­sors. And our warn­ings are not to be ignored. (Empha­sis added — Ed.)

Strat​for​.com notes that the cap­ture of Bagh­dad shocked the Arab world, and the United States seized the psy­cho­log­i­cal ini­tia­tive with the city’s fall. The United States went from being per­ceived as a hated but impo­tent power to a hated but feared one. Since the fall of Bagh­dad, how­ever, the per­cep­tion that the United States is bogged down by gueril­las has taken hold and much of the ini­tia­tive has been lost. The pas­sage of HR 1828 and the coa­lesc­ing of a regional coali­tion against Syria is required if the United States’ is to regain its foot­ing and momen­tum. If pres­sure by Wash­ing­ton works, then Syria will reduce sup­port to ter­ror groups tar­get­ing Israel and halt the flow of fight­ers into Iraq. If it doesn’t, the United States will need to deal with Syria by force.
Related link: Why Iraq?

Women’s rights in Iraq

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Free­lance jour­nal­ist Thierry Robin has entered Iraq to cover the plight of women in post-war Iraqi soci­ety. She He wrote to me the fol­low­ing:

I’m a free­lance reporter and a mem­ber of the ABIR (Asso­ci­a­tion for the Ben­e­fit of the Iraqi Women and their Rel­a­tives) asso­ci­a­tion. I will go on a trip to Iraq from 8th to 22nd of Octo­ber and I will blog from Bagh­dad about women’s rights (in French and in Eng­lish). I thought you could be inter­ested in this ini­tia­tive and that’s why I’m con­tact­ing you.
With other mem­bers of ABIR, we will bring mate­r­ial to a dis­pen­sary and an orphan­age. We will also meet Hanaa Edward from the local NGO “Al Amal” and other per­sons involved in the pro­mo­tion of women’s rights in Iraq. It will be an oppor­tu­nity for me to make sev­eral reports with the aim of catch­ing people’s atten­tion about the appalling fate of Iraqi women and girls: Sex­ual vio­lences, abduc­tions and mur­ders are wide­spread, pre­vent­ing the women from tak­ing part in the post­war society.

Her His blog is up, and the Eng­lish ver­sion is at the bot­tom of the post­ings. Her His report­ing on the needs of the sick and the dying in the woe­fully under-equipped Bagh­dad hos­pi­tals are heart­break­ing. And — big sur­prise — the vio­lence that the Bush admin­is­tra­tion says is get­ting too much atten­tion is omnipresent.
*UPDATE* Thank to my non-existent French skills, and the sharp eyes of two of my read­ers, David Frazer and Amy N., I found out that Thierry is a man, not a woman. My apolo­gies for the screw-up. Thanks for the cor­rec­tion, guys!