Will Iraq Start to Unravel?

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Will Iraq Start to Unravel?
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Wed, 02-11-2004 - 1:44pm

Kurdish calls for autonomy are generating fears of ethnic conflict that could complicate U.S. exit plans.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040216-588398,00.html?cnn=yes


If you want a glimpse into the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to prevent Iraq from coming apart, consider the plight of Salim Izzat. Five months before the U.S. invasion last March, Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime ordered Izzat to vacate his farm outside the northern-Iraq town of Dibagan, 50 miles southeast of Mosul. The command was part of the regime's systematic, 15-year-long campaign to populate the predominantly Kurdish reaches of northern Iraq with ethnic Arabs. Kurds like Izzat were pushed out of their homes by force; dissenters, including Izzat's brother, were executed. A few days before the war, most of the Arabs who had taken up residence in Dibagan left town, but not before they demolished houses, ransacked shops on the main street and plundered every scrap of metal that would move. Izzat's Arab tenants razed his crops, stole more than 200 chickens and ran off with his life savings. Now Izzat lives with his wife and nine children in a crumbling three-room guardhouse in a parking lot in Dibagan; every day a policeman comes to tell him he has to move off city property. Izzat isn't ready to forgive the people he blames for his predicament. "I hate the Arabs," he says.


Ethnic grudges die hard in Iraq. In towns like Dibagan all across the country, long-simmering disputes between Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites, and even secular and religious Iraqis are bubbling to the surface—all of which has complicated the U.S.'s plan to transfer power to a new Iraqi government by June 30 and raised questions about whether Iraq will remain whole after it does. And so it was not entirely surprising that the Bush Administration last week scrambled for help in sorting out the mess. In a meeting at the White House, President Bush asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to come up with a plan for Iraqi self-rule that the country's squabbling factions could accept. A U.N. team arrived in Iraq last week to evaluate the coalition's plans for transition and assess the feasibility of holding broad-based elections before the June 30 deadline. The elections have been demanded by Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, but are resisted by U.S. officials, who say a general vote cannot be held safely. The intrigue deepened last Thursday when Sistani's bodyguards said the cleric had escaped an assassination attempt outside his home in Najaf. Sistani aides later told U.S. military officials that accounts of the purported attack had been fabricated.


Still, the rumors seemed to underscore fears that the country could quickly slide toward chaos. Retired General Anthony Zinni, the former top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told TIME that foreign jihadists are trying to incite a civil war in Iraq. "They want Iraq to come apart," he says. "They want the U.S. to fail, and they want to see it become three theocratic states. They don't want to see Iraq hold together as a democracy." Says Herro Kader Mustafa, a Kurdish-American coalition official in Mosul: "We are doing our best to make sure things don't erupt."

Nowhere is that task more delicate than in northern Iraq, home to most of the country's 4 million Kurds. The area has been among the nation's most peaceful since the overthrow of Saddam, but that calm was shattered on Feb. 1 when a pair of suicide bombers detonated themselves in the offices of the two main Kurdish political parties in the city of Arbil, killing more than 100. The attacks raised fears that the violence plaguing the rest of Iraq might now routinely spill into the Kurdish areas and might have strengthened the Kurds' determination to defend the autonomy they have enjoyed since 1991, when the U.S. established a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect the Kurds from Saddam. The U.S. has assured the Kurds that the new government in Baghdad will allow them to maintain their own parliament and security forces. But many observers believe such a federal structure is only the first step toward the Kurds' ultimate goal: independence. "The Kurdish problem is the most difficult for Iraq's long-term territorial integrity," says Phebe Marr, a veteran Iraq expert retired from the Pentagon's National Defense University, "because they are really separatists."

The U.S. is worried that Kurdish hopes for greater autonomy could spark clashes with Arabs living in northern Iraq, especially if the Kurds claim control over Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city in an area prized for its vast oil reserves. The prospect of an oil-rich, autonomous Kurdish state also frightens Iraq's neighbors—Syria, Iran and Turkey—all of which have large, restive Kurdish populations that might be emboldened and financed by wealthy Iraqi Kurds. Turkey, which has fought a 15-year war against Kurdish separatists, has threatened to send its army into Iraq to prevent the Kurds from attempting to secede. In a press conference in January, the deputy chief of staff of the Turkish army, General Ilker Basbug, warned that "Iraq's future might be very bloody if there was a federal structure, especially based on ethnicity."

The U.S. has so far been able to ward off sectarian violence between Kurds and Arabs. "There isn't obvious ethnic hatred in the north," says Mustafa, the U.S. official in Mosul. "But there is a real conflict that political parties are exacerbating with their attempts to manipulate public opinion." Some locals say Kurdish authorities have incited ethnic hostility by giving benefits to their kinsmen. Nasser Rahim Jusef, a Turkish employee of the Northern Oil Co., says the former regime's program of "Arabization" is being replaced by "Kurdization": at the expense of other ethnic groups, Kurds are being recruited back into jobs Saddam's regime pushed them out of. "The oil business needs to be a meritocracy," says Jusef, who has worked at the company for 28 years, "not one based on racial discrimination."

Yehya Assi Mahmoud, an Arab attorney in Kirkuk, says he saw Kurdish militias seize 28 Arab homes in his village of Shaheed last April. In June he quit the city council to protest what he considered to be American favoritism toward the Kurds; now he fears that the coming transfer of power will result in wide-scale reprisals by Kurds against their Arab neighbors. "If the U.S. left now, Kurds would move in to ethnically cleanse the remaining Arabs in Kirkuk," he says.

Kirkuk may be the most combustible place in northern Iraq. The city is fairly evenly divided among Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkomans. Kurdish leaders want the city and its environs, which hold some 40% of the country's oil reserves, to be part of Kurdistan within a federal Iraq. That way, says a U.S. official in Kirkuk, the Kurds hope to secure a sustainable source of oil income for themselves in case a new government in Baghdad proves incapable of running the country once the U.S. hands over power. U.S. and Iraqi officials fear that Kurdish authorities may try to run Arabs and Turkomans out of Kirkuk and move Kurds south into the city, then hold an independent referendum to decide whether Kirkuk should join Kurdistan. Says Rogar Ali, a political adviser to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (P.U.K.), one of the two large Kurdish political groups: "Elections will decide the destiny of Kirkuk and other Kurdish areas."

For their part, the Kurds say autonomy is their only safeguard against the possibility of oppression by Iraq's Arab majority. And as mostly Sunni Muslims, the Kurds fear domination by a directly elected Shi'ite government. While the perpetrators of the suicide bombings in Arbil are unknown—some Kurdish officials suspect loyalists of Saddam's regime, whereas others finger foreign terrorists from Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamist outfit linked to al-Qaeda—the attacks served as a grisly reminder to the Kurds of the ruthlessness of their enemies. At the P.U.K. headquarters, where a suicide bomber blew up more than 50 partygoers on the first day of the Muslim feast of 'Id al-Adha, colorful streamers still hang from charred walls pockmarked by shrapnel and bits of human flesh. There had been so much carnage to remove, the cleanup crew had missed a severed right hand that still lay on the floor, between an overturned couch and a stereo speaker. Across town, at the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Shwan Hala Salih surveyed a similar scene of devastation. His cousin had been killed in the blast. "Terrorists are of many kinds," he said, holding a hand-colored photograph of his relative. "Most are enemies of the Kurdish people."

The shock of such a brutal atrocity is likely to bolster calls for revenge. Yet in towns where Arabs and Kurds have lived together for generations, members of both groups say they are determined to stay. In Mukhmur, 30 miles south of Arbil, locals have painted over the portrait of Saddam with a picture of an Arab and a Kurd holding a flagpole. Hanging together above the two men are the Kurdish and Iraqi flags, and above these fly the American and British flags. Naffisa Abdullah, an Arab woman dressed in a black head scarf and a navy blue aba, says she will resist any attempts to force her out of her home. "I consider this area my native place," she says. "We just want to have a good life and get along with each other."

Such sentiments seem wishful in a land where so many still have grievances to settle. In Arbil last week, Hajji Maluwd, 62, a mechanic, walked in the funeral procession for a Kurdish leader who was killed in the 'Id bombings and ran down a list of personal demands: he wants his demolished home rebuilt, and he wants to move back to the land that Saddam's regime took away. At the same time, Maluwd doesn't think a civil war will erupt between the Kurds and the Arabs, and he says he's willing to wait for his house and his land and let democracy work. Gesturing his cigarette at the procession of Kurds mourning the death of a fallen leader, he says, "We've walked in too many of these." Iraq's only hope is that many more of his countrymen feel the same.


What does it take to hold national elections in Iraq?


>"Some Iraqis do not understand why the 30 June date has become sacred. They suspect it has more to do with the American democratic process than their own."<


Quote from............


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3416793.stm


Dozens die in Iraq car bomb blast.

 

At least 50 people have been killed and dozens injured in apparent suicide attack outside an Iraqi police station, hospital officials say.


 

 

Car bomb kills Iraq army recruits.


In one of the bloodiest 24 hours since the war in Iraq ended, a second suicide bomber has killed dozens of Iraqis working for the US-led coalition.

Up to 47 people died in the latest attack - a car bomb detonated outside an army recruiting centre in Baghdad.

On Tuesday, a similar attack at a police recruitment centre south of Baghdad killed at least 50 people.

The US military said the bombs bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda or its affiliate group in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam.


More.............


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3478339.stm


Witness sensed something was wrong before bomb attack.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/02/11/sprj.nirq.blast.reut/index.html



 

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 02-19-2004 - 11:15pm

>"The U.S. has to be sure not to rush this or it will backfire on EVERYONE."<


That's exactly what we're saying........ Bush wants to be out at the end of June!


>"They are betting on just what the liberals are falling into...Kill enough Americans, and they will give up and leave. "<


Please explain.

cl-Libraone~

 


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Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 02-19-2004 - 11:30pm
You were probably trying to be facetious about the UN's job containing and controlling Hussein. Actually, they seem to have been far more effective in doing just that than anybody in the Bush administration realized.

What do you mean, "rush this"? There are lots of contradictions as near as I can tell--troops are not coming home and staying home but Bush's henchmen all seem to be insisting on the original June 30 deadline reversion of government to Iraqis. Does that mean you think they're wrong?

By chance are you referring to the letter by al Zarqawi, the Jordanian? If so, it made plenty of media outlets. It made network news tonight, at least on CBS but the point was made that there was no big secret to that strategy. It has always been true--divide and conquer. And I'll raise the question again. Why are Americans and Iraqis still being attacked, injured and killed if "Americans were drying up their resources and kicking their asses."? Somehow that just seems like a bit of a contradiction, don't you think?

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

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Registered: 01-29-2004
Fri, 02-20-2004 - 7:13am
Govt. elections are scheduled for June. That is not when U.S. troops pack up and leave.

There is actually a small group of resistance attacking U.S. and Iraqi supporters, that is why they use remote devices to attack bit by bit.

The world knows that Americans are impatient and value human life more than a lot of cultures around the world, blowing up bombs and taking out a couple soldiers at a time will wear American confidence down, especially during an election year when change of leadership is being debated.

Since the Gulf War (with few casualties), Americans somehow believe that a war can be fought without loss of life. This is not the case and with every soldier lost, the left justifies their position that this war was illegit and a quick solution or retreat is the answer.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 02-20-2004 - 9:37am
Dear sweet heaven. Of course war is about deaths and dying. You may want to characterize dislike of administration policy right now as being an ideological divide between left and right but it's becoming clear that there are those who were staunch supporters of the president's policies who are now wondering abut the justification and outcome of this war.

Some of us, who had questions from the beginning, didn't want the war to start because we remember history lessons. But Bush insisted on plowing ahead without any sort of consensus in the world community that the war was needful or just. He sent American troops in where he himself lacked the moral fiber to go during Vietnam--into danger and conflict. And the whole rationale for sending troops into war has proven to be without basis.

Unless Bush plans to somehow "stack the deck" in Iraq's ruling entity, there's a very real chance that civil war will ensue. It hardly matters whether there are many guerilla fighters or few. It IS taking a toll. American troops are trying to do what they can and sometimes they succeed but they're not exactly getting pelted with flowers. Unless they act as security, rebuilding and stabilizing forces (making them targets) there will be little they can do just sitting in Iraq. Has it dawned on you how high a price they're paying? And for what? Would YOU pay that price?

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 02-20-2004 - 10:29am

>" "What we're talking about is an interim government to whom sovereignty will be transferred until such time as you can have a full constitution in place and that you can have a full election, which nobody believes is possible by June, but at some point in the future," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday.

"Whether it's the end of this year or sometime next year remains to be determined," Powell said.

The New York Times, meanwhile, reported today that Shi'ite leaders were pushing a new plan for the transfer of power that calls for partial elections, with balloting in the relatively secure Shi'ite and Kurdish areas but not in the more turbulent area known as the Sunni Triangle. But partial elections, U.S. officials said, would further alienate the Sunnis, who are thought to be behind most of the violence against U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies.

It remains to be seen whether a temporary, unelected government, either based on the Governing Council or some other formula, can stabilize the country and deal with its myriad problems.

Many Iraqi intellectuals, while harboring disdain for the council, say they'd rather see the country in Iraqi hands than delay the June 30 deadline for the transfer of authority.

"The Americans will not be able to solve our problems better than we can," said Hazem al Niemi, a researcher at the Arab Homeland Center at al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. "In nine months, all the Americans did was to get rid of the former regime. They broke our state and have no idea how to fix it. Now it's our turn."

The CIA remains pessimistic that sovereignty can be returned to Iraqis without ethnic strife or even civil war, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday."<


Quote from.............


 


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Tue, 03-02-2004 - 8:28am

Deadly attacks rock Baghdad, Karbala.


A series of near simultaneous attacks Tuesday in Baghdad and Karbala killed as many as 141 people and wounded hundreds of others, many of them Shiite Muslims attending festivals marking the holy day of Ashoura, officials said.


As many as 85 people were killed and more than 300 were wounded in the attacks in Karbala, according to sources at the Hussein hospital in the holy Shiite city.


At least 56 people were killed in the Baghdad attacks and at least 200 injured, according to Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim, the Iraqi deputy interior minister.


"We don't know exactly what happened yet, whether it was an explosion or a mortar round," Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling of the U.S. Army said in the Iraqi capital. "It may have been a suicide bomber. We're just not sure."


Video from the two cities showed a number of bodies -- many dismembered and burned beyond recognition -- and scores of wounded.


Iraqi police patrolled the streets, trying to restore order. U.S. military helicopters circled overhead.


In Baghdad, tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims had filled the streets for the Ashoura religious ceremony.


Bodies were stacked onto pickup trucks as the sounds of ambulances could be heard racing through the streets.


Banned for more than 30 years under former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Ashoura is the holiest day on the Shiite Muslim calendar. It commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein -- a top Shiite saint and the grandson of the prophet Muhammad -- who died in 680.


More................


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/02/sprj.nirq.main/index.html

cl-Libraone~

 


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Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 03-02-2004 - 1:06pm
After the initial push into Baghdad and the subsequent looting that followed in the first days of the American occupation, there was talk about the window of opportunity US troops had to establish some semblance of normalcy.

I think that window closed before troops and Jerry Bremer were able to convince all Iraqis that no pockets of anarchy would be tolerated. After all, US troops watched as looters ransacked and vandalized most of the governmental ministries, though probably not the oil ministry! What sort of message did that send? Ostensibly, it was to give the Iraqis an outlet to vent against Saddam's regime. In reality, it was because there weren't enough troops to keep watch and limit lawlessness throughout all the areas where it was needed.

Donald Rumsfeld has been adamant that troop strength is and was more than adequate to establish and maintain order. He has an Air Force background, NOT "boots on the ground" and squelched any of the commanders, like Eric Shinseki, under him who disagreed with the size of the military presence. I laughed grimly when he said that the commanders were in agreement with him. For crying out loud, he's their superior in the military chain of command. RHIP (rank hath its privileges)! He has this apparent total certainty of the rightness of his decisions. He's a NITWIT. Any military commander will tell you that IF you wage war at all, you go in with overwhelming force. The idea is to intimidate the dickens out of your opponent and by doing so, minimize casualties both at present and in future. And as usual in wars, it's not the ones who made the decisions who are suffering--it's the people, both civilians and soldiers, in the war theater itself.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

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