Iranian Alert -- December 28, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD

Toll 20,000 & Rising as Quake Crews Dig

December 28, 2003
NY Daily
Jose Martinez

Rescue crews desperately dug through mounds of rubble yesterday, looking for signs of life in an ancient Iranian city leveled by a massive earthquake that left at least 20,000 people dead.

As humanitarian aid from around the world began pouring into Bam, a city in southeast Iran, estimates of the dead ranged far higher.

"As more bodies are pulled out, we fear that the death toll may reach as high as 40,000," said Akbar Alavi, the mayor of Kerman, the provincial capital.

Poking with shovels and clawing by hand, workers searched for anyone who may have been trapped by mounds of poorly built structures of unreinforced mud brick that crumbled onto people.

"We don't have anything, just our bare hands," said rescue worker Omid Alipour, who said his unit dug out three injured victims.

More than 150 survivors, including an infant, were pulled from the rubble yesterday, according to Masoud Amiri, an officer with the Revolutionary Guards.

But the rising number of dead overwhelmed a region that crumbled under the world's deadliest earthquake since 1990 - when 50,000 were killed, also in Iran.

Corpses crowded cemeteries, relatives cried for the missing and rescuers were warned to wear gloves as many of the dead were dragged to mass graves to prevent disease outbreaks.

"Bam has turned into a wasteland," said Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari.

"Even if a few buildings are standing, you cannot trust to live in them."

Officials said about 70% of the centuries-old city was destroyed, and that Bam's airport had been converted into a makeshift hospital.

Teams of rescuers from around of the world, including more than 200 Americans, began arriving in Iran.

The U.S., which does not have formal relations with Iran - a member of President Bush's so-called axis of evil - volunteered to send 150,000 pounds of medical supplies and water purification equipment in a military airlift.

The aid offer stemmed from highly unusual direct talks between Iran and the United States involving Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Top administration officials emphasized, though, that the assistance does not mark a change in U.S. policy toward Iran.

But the Islamic state rebuffed an offer of aid from Israel.

"Iran prefers to play politics instead of accepting a generous offer by private Israelis," said Avi Pazner, a spokesman for the Israeli government. "It is their decision."

The State Department also confirmed that at least one American was killed and another injured while visiting a 2,000-year-old Bam citadel that was reduced to rubble.

The walled city, which is more than 600 miles from Tehran, was hit with a wave of aftershocks yesterday, hindering some rescuers.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/149821p-132092c.html

Iranian Leaders to Victims: Better That You Die Than We Accept Israeli Help

December 28, 2003
Arutz Sheva
israelnn.com

Iran took time out from dealing with its tens of thousands of earthquake casualties to spew forth more hatred towards Israel - even at the expense of its own dead, wounded, orphans and homeless. "The Islamic Republic of Iran," announced the country's official news agency IRNA, "welcomes all the humanitarian aid being offered by various countries and organizations - except for that from the Zionist entity."

Despite the above, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom issued a statement of condolences, saying, "The Government of Israel and the people of Israel feel the pain of the human tragedy being experienced by the Iranian people. Amidst all our differences, what is required at these moments is total mobilization by the international community to help the families of the dead and injured."

It should also be noted that during the height of recent Greek-Turkish hostilities, the two countries sent aid to each other when they both suffered earthquakes a month apart in 1999.

Private and public Israeli groups are attempting, despite the Iranian government's hostility, to help ease the enemy country's human suffering, via third parties or other unofficial channels. "This is not a political question," said Dr. Mike Naftali, Chairman of the Topaz Humanitarian Fund of the Israeli Kibbutz Movement. "Tens of thousands of children are suffering terribly, and it is incumbent upon us, as human beings, to help them."

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=55219

Iran Press Lambasts Quake Efforts

December 28, 2003
BBC News
BBCi

Lack of preventive measures and the government's coordination of relief efforts following the Bam earthquake are receiving short shrift in the Iranian press.

One paper, however, hopes for a change of international attitude towards Iran as countries around the world, including the US and Israel, offer their assistance.

What the hell happened to crisis management, responsible governance, and all the talk about caring for those in most need?

Men, women and children dying in the thousands only because the state machinery was ill-prepared for natural disasters is mind-boggling, to say the least.

As for those who manage the affairs of 70m Iranians, they could do much better to be proactive than reactive.

Iran Daily (English-language web site)

If anyone told you that the quake victims of the past 10 or 20 years were still living in tents, you might not believe it. We are very good at lamenting and crying, but when it comes to planning, preventing and fortifying... we more or less do nothing but wait for the disaster to happen and then see what we can do.

We know how to spend billions of dollars on bread and petrol subsidies so no-one raises their voice. But we are not prepared to spend the same amount on a national plan for making buildings quake-proof.

Khorasan (conservative)

Those organisations or individuals issuing permits for buildings, factories producing sub-standard building materials and people or companies in the construction industry - don't any of them think that, one day, a building might collapse on their heads and the heads of their own children? They only think about how to turn one dollar into two.

It seems our experiences are only useful to other countries - they are the ones who learn from our mistakes.

Sharq (reformist)

How many times have we reminded the ruling establishment that the first structures to fall during a major earthquake would be those dealing with emergency management and relief, such as hospitals, police and fire stations?

Hospitals and other centres designated for disaster relief were among the first to collapse in yesterday's (26 December) tragic quake. The officials in charge are either deaf or simply don't care.

Iran News (English-language web site)

When hospitals and relief centres in the city have also been destroyed and their staff are among those killed, who is left to rush to the assistance of the injured and those under the rubble?

There is a need for serious and principled planning, and for these plans to be implemented throughout the country.

Kayhan (hardline, pro-Khamene'i)

The lack of preparations to receive voluntary assistance - many volunteers couldn't give their blood, for example - is another regrettable scene in this incident.

And the very sad lack of coordination has inflicted much damage on the people. Don't people have the right to be extremely worried if experience has shown that there is such a lack of coordination?

Aftab-e Yazd (reformist)

If Iran was newsworthy before the earthquake, it was because of accusations and allegations over nuclear and Al-Qaeda activities. The earthquake in Bam has greatly changed the atmosphere.

Israel's non-governmental organizations have asked for guidelines on assisting Iran... The White House has earmarked around m for Iran.

Not long ago, the atmosphere was one of trading allegations and hostile disputes. Now, in a complete about-face, it has become one of humanitarian assistance. This could help lay a new foundation of international relations.

America and Israel's relations with each other, and their relations with Iran, have undergone much tension and fluctuation, but they could follow another path.

Sharq (reformist)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3352479.stm

Fears Replace Hopes in Iran Quake City, U.S. Sends Aid

By Parisa Hafezi

BAM, Iran (Reuters) - The stench of death filled Iran's earthquake-devastated city of Bam on Sunday and fears of epidemics and looting grew as hopes dwindled for those still buried by a disaster that killed 22,000 people.

Aid poured in from around the world, including Iran's arch-foe the United States, to help deal with what appeared to be the world's most lethal earthquake in at least 10 years.

"The toll has risen to 22,000 dead," an official from the government of the Kerman province where Bam is located told Reuters on Sunday evening.

Cemeteries overflowed with corpses. Mullahs in shirt-sleeves rather than their usual flowing robes and wearing face-masks against the dust and smell tore sheeting to shroud corpses.

With no time to wash them according to Islamic practice, bodies brought in blankets from wrecked buildings were sprayed with disinfectant to try to guard against disease and tipped into trenches hollowed out by mechanical diggers.

State television said 16,000 bodies had been recovered and buried while aid workers estimated more than 100,000 people may have been left homeless.

United Nations (news - web sites) Humanitarian Affairs Officer Jesper Lund, heading the U.N. coordination team, said 22 international search and rescue teams were still scouring the ruins for survivors but would probably soon switch to helping those already found.

The pre-dawn quake on Friday also injured about 30,000 people when it flattened about 70 percent of the mostly mud-brick buildings in the ancient Silk Road city.

Bam airport became a sprawling, makeshift hospital and rubble-strewn pavements were lined with injured, some on intravenous drips. Rescue workers said anyone still trapped could survive until Monday without water but not much longer.

"The number of dead could be far more than 20,000 -- many places are untouched. We are beginning to smell the stench of death. If we haven't cleared the area by the end of the week there will be a threat of epidemics," an Iranian rescuer said.

ARMED YOUNG MEN LOOT TENTS

There was some looting when vans of young men armed with pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles drove into Bam and stole Red Crescent tents, while others on motorbikes chased aid trucks, picking up blankets thrown out by soldiers.

Local people and some aid workers said relief efforts were chaotic. "There is no organization. Whoever is stronger takes the aid," said resident Mehdi Dehghani.

Underlining the scale of the disaster, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, held telephone talks about aid, even though their countries have no official ties.

A U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules landed in Kerman, near Bam, with a first shipment of aid and the U.S. military said it would ship in about 70 tonnes of aid originally earmarked for reconstruction in Iraq (news - web sites) after the U.S.-led war.

U.S. Central Command said American airmen and Iranian soldiers worked together to unload the plane, the first American flight into Iran since the Iranian hostage crisis ended in 1981.

Washington broke ties with Iran after students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. In 2002, Bush branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction.

President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) said Iran could not cope on its own. "Everyone is doing their best to help, but the disaster is so huge that I believe no matter how much is done we cannot meet the people's expectations."

Survivors prepared for a third night in the open among palm groves around Bam, some 600 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, burning cardboard and any other material they could find to fend off the cold.

HOPES OF MORE SURVIVORS FADE

Ari Vakkilainnen, leading a Finnish rescue team, said on Sunday only 30 people had been dug out alive overnight and he did not think many more survivors would be found.

Dust-coated Iranian rescue worker Ahmad Ali said he lacked the tools to do his job properly.

"We are using our bare hands. On Friday, a baby was pushed through the rubble by its parents. The parents died," he said.

Roland Schlachter, leading a team from the Swiss Corps for Humanitarian Aid, said tents, heating stoves and blankets were urgently needed, as was coordination of the relief effort.

"There is actually no coordination," he said in Bam.

Rescue attempts were complicated by fears of aftershocks, which experts said could be as strong as the first quake and occur at any time over the next few weeks.

The Islamic Republic's call for help from anywhere but Israel contrasted with its rejection of international assistance in 1990 when a quake killed 36,000 people.

Until Friday, the biggest earthquake death toll in the past decade was in India, where 19,700 people died in January 2001.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/quake_iran_dc

SMCCDI News
Security forces mobilized for regime's leaders visit
SMCCDI (Information Service)
Dec 28, 2003

Thousands of the regime forces have been mobilized in the Kerman Province and especially in the cities of Bam and Jiroft in order to prepare the "conditions" for the "future" visit of the Islamic republic leaders.

Orders have been issued to arrest or shoot on any protester in the devastated areas under the label of "fighting looters".

The Islamic regime knowing the degree of the popular hatered and the existing explosive situation has preferred to postpone these official visits and its leaders, such as Mohamad Khatami, haven't showed up on the scenes of the unprecedented devastation which stroke the region on Friday and which has tooke the lives of tens of thousands of Iranians.

Reports on sporadic protest actions and the probable massive demonstration of the victims' families under the eyes of many foreign reporters are the main reason for this delay to respond to a duty known by all other countries' leaders who usually rush for showing support to their nationals.

The fear of the authorities has reached a level which many of the voluntary aids and people rushing to the area have started to get blocked and forbidden of access to the area. Trucks and vans along with hundreds of volunteers are awaiting near the entries of the area under the close watch of armed militiamen.

An increasing anger and hate has been reported from most Iranian cities and especially in the Capital where sporadic protests and shouting slogans against the regime have happened during voluntary blood and aid collects.

Many Iranians have shouted slogans or expressed signs for stating their gratitudes to the US and Israeli governments despite getting beaten up by the regime's security apparatus present to monitor these gatherings.

In some of the hospitals of the Kerman and Tehran, scenes of public altercation between members of the Medical Corp. and the regime's security or official agents, such as the governmental TV-Radio sent for propaganda purpose, have resulted in protest of families and friends of the victims sent for cure.

"It's like that these bugs are not even willing to let people to die in peace" a doctor was heard saying in one of the capital's main hospital.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/smccdinews/article/publish/article_4078.shtml

Decision Time for UK Search Team

December 28, 2003
BBC News
BBCi

British rescuers say they may leave the scene of the Iranian earthquake as the search operation draws to a close. The 20-strong Rapid-UK team had found only bodies despite searching non-stop since they reached the city of Bam on Saturday morning, a spokeswoman said.

Speaking on Sunday night, Gillian Dacey said they would decide early on Monday whether to remain there or return home.

The confirmed death toll from Friday morning's earthquake has now risen to 22,000, according to local officials.

Death toll 'may rise'

An estimated 80% of the city was flattened in the magnitude 6.3 tremor.

One local official said the death toll could reach 30,000.

Ms Dacey said: "We have managed to search a large area today, in conjunction with other teams from Turkey, Spain and Russia.

"It was a concerted effort but we found no survivors. The destruction has been so severe."

She said the team had not heard of anyone being found alive in the last couple of days at that the chances of finding survivors was now "very slight".

"The reason is that the collapse of the structures is so complete, the voids, the spaces that we would normally look in are just not there and if they are, the amount of dust is likely to have led to asphyxiation", she added.

"The chances of survival are very low."

She said the search effort would probably not continue overnight because the team would not receive any new information from local people after dark.

'Worthwhile operation'

The group would join other British rescue teams and the Department for International Development in deciding whether to leave the area in the morning, she said.

"It is being looked into because we believe our part here, the search and rescue of victims, is drawing to a close."

Ms Dacey said the support the team had shown to the local population meant the operation had been worthwhile, despite not finding any survivors.

"It is important for them to know that someone from the outside world is caring for them", she said.

About 400 foreign experts have joined rescue and recovery efforts including fire and rescue crews from Essex, the British-based International Rescue Corps and sniffer dogs from British International Rescue Dogs and Canis.

The US has sent two planes carrying food and aid as well as about 200 rescue and medical experts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3353193.stm

A MESSAGE TO THE MULLAHS

By AMIR TAHERI

December 28, 2003 -- WITHIN the next few days, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is expected to decide whether or not to pay a stay visit to Iran. According to Egyptian and Iranian sources, his decision depends on a symbolic move by the leadership in Tehran.

Mubarak wants the Iranians to change the name of a Tehran street. The reason? The street, where the Egyptian Embassy building is located, bears the name of Khalid al-Islambouli, one of the terrorists involved in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Facing the embassy's main entrance is a giant-size mural of al-Islambouli that Mubarak also wants removed.

The current assumption is that unless those demands are met, the Egyptian president will not go to Tehran.

I think Mubarak should go, even if the street's name is not changed and the assassin's mural is not removed.

There are several reasons why that is the right course.

To start with, Mubarak should not make any of his decisions conditional to what terrorists or their supporters might or might not do.

The decision to change the name of the street in question does not rest with President Muhammad Khatami, who has invited Mubarak.

Strictly legally speaking, Khatami does not even have the right to invite a foreign head of state to Iran. Under the 1979 Constitution and its amendments, the president is not the head of state. He is the head of the executive, a kind of prime minister whose title is "president".

Legally speaking, the head of state in the Islamic Republic of Iran is Ali Khamenehi, the mullah who bears the title of "Supreme Guide." In that position he is the head of all three branches of government and commander-in-chief. He has the power to dismiss the president, dissolve the parliament and even suspend the rules of Islam if he so pleases.

For more than two decades, however, most foreign heads of states and other foreign dignitaries have chosen to ignore those facts, acting as if the Iranian president were the head of state.

Technically, this is a major diplomatic concession to Iran because it assumes that the Iranian "Supreme Guide," which the Constitution presents as the leader of all Muslims throughout the world, stands higher than other heads of state.

Having accepted this, Mubarak would be wrong to cancel his visit because of the al-Islambouli issue, which is part of the power game played out in Tehran.

By the latest count, there are some 30 Tehran streets that bear the names of various Iranian and foreign terrorists and other murderers. The street where the British Embassy is located is named after Bobby Sands, an IRA terrorist. The street where Hassan Ali Mansour, one of Iran's prime ministers, once lived is named after the man who murdered him.

Less radical Khomeinists like Khatami are embarrassed by all that and wish to do something about it. More radical Khomeinists, however, see any attempt at taking off the names of the terrorists as a direct attack on their ideology.

The truth is that Khatami is unable to bring about the street name change demanded by Mubarak. That decision belongs to the Tehran Municipal Council and mayor. Tehran's new mayor is a hard line Khomeinist who regards Khatami as a traitor. The new municipality is dominated by hardliners who hate Mubarak as much as they hate Ariel Sharon.

The new mayor and the new municipality were elected earlier this year thanks to the massive boycott of the polls by the Tehrani electorate.

Less than 15 per cent of those eligible to vote went to the polls, enabling the radicals to win control of a megapolis of some 12 million people with a few thousand votes. Thus, whatever that the mayor and the municipality might decide to do, or not to do, would not reflect the real views of the Tehranis.

Mubarak should go as guest of the Iranian people.

Rightly or wrongly, Egypt remains the most popular Arab country in Iran. In fact, many Iranians believe that Egypt, despite the recent decline in its relative importance, remains the key Arab world with which Iran should forge close relations. Also, many Iranians regard Anwar Sadat as a hero.

The political gangsters who have put the name of terrorists on Tehran streets did so, in part, to prevent people like Mubarak from going to Iran. This is precisely why Mubarak should not allow that trick to work.

Many world leaders have understood this. For example, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has visited Tehran five times in two years, ignoring the daily insult of having his embassy's door opening in a street named after an IRA terrorist. Various French foreign ministers have also visited Tehran, ignoring the streets named after terrorists who killed more than two dozen French men and women in Paris in the 1980s.

Mubarak should know that, at this juncture in history, Iran has two personae, locked in a conflict.

One persona is that of Iran as the embodiment of a revolution whose aim is to conquer, first the Muslim world and then the entire globe. This persona not only honors terrorists but also finances and sponsors terrorism. It is the enemy of Egypt, just as it is the enemy of the Iranian people.

Under that persona, Iran would be isolated from the world, with North Korea as a model. That isolation would enable the ideology of terrorism to perpetuate the fiction that Iran is the vanguard of a global revolution in the name of Islam.

But Mubarak's advisors would know that the murderous persona in question no longer represents the mainstream of Iranian politics.

The other persona represents Iran as a nation-state whose interest is in developing the best of relations with all countries, especially one such as Egypt that is heir to a great civilization.

Let the Khomeinist gangsters cling to their terrorist icons. What matters is to show that their Middle East policy has hit a wall.

Khomeini had vowed to never allow a restoration of ties with Egypt unless the Egyptians tore up the Camp David accords that led to peace with Israel. Well, the Egyptians have not done so, and their leader could go to Tehran to show that Khomeini was wrong to sever ties in the first place.

Mubarak appearing in Tehran would be a moment of humiliation for those who wish people like-Islambouli to rule the Muslim world.

I am no great fan of President Mubarak. In recent days, however, I have been bombarded with telephone calls and e-mails from all over Iran asking me to spread the message that the Egyptian leader should go to Iran, and that his visit would be a blow to the hardliners on the eve of the Iranian general election.

In Tehran, Mubarak would show that the outside world, starting with the Muslim countries, is prepared to accept Iran as a friend and partner provided it abandons its revolutionary pretensions and terrorist projects. And that is the message that the overwhelming majority of Iranians wish to hear.

So, Mr. President: Ahlan wa sahlan - please do go to Iran. You have many more friends there than you think.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/14572.htm

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