Operation Phantom Fury--Day 31-Mop Up Continues; Operation Plymouth Rock

Bush Gives Palestinians $20 Million
Wed Dec 8, 2004 10:42 AM ET:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Wednesday announced it was giving $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority to help it through a financial crisis.
A senior Bush administration official said it hoped the aid would encourage additional donations from other countries "at a time when the Palestinian Authority is in desperate need of budget support to pay its bills, maintain stability and allow it to focus on the larger question of governing."

The Palestinian Authority is facing a severe financial crisis due to falling tax revenues during four years of violence which has paralyzed the Palestinian economy.

The $20 million in direct aid was to be announced during an international donors conference for the Palestinians in Oslo.

It is part of a push to help the Palestinians before their Jan. 9 election, at which President Bush hopes the Palestinians will elect a democratic leader willing to negotiate peace with Israel.

"The upcoming Palestinian elections have made a functioning Palestinian Authority more important than ever," the official said. "The United States has a national security interest in helping to end the ongoing violence and terror in the Middle East and to make progress toward the president's June 24, 2002, vision of peace."

The money is to help pay utility services, including the payment of arrears to Israeli utility companies.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7029964

Other Views: Gulf Times, The Scotsman, Christian Science Monitor
International Herald Tribune Thursday, December 9, 2004

Terrorist attack on Jidda
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DOHA, Qatar: If the assailants in the Jidda attack meant to take revenge for the U.S. war in Iraq, then Saudi Arabia, or any other Arab country, is not the battlefield. Al Qaeda's sympathizers are scattered in many countries after their defeat in Afghanistan; their terror campaigns from Indonesia to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Spain have earned them condemnation and isolation in their own countries. Even their direct families have deplored their acts. The Arab, Muslim and international communities stand by the Saudi government in its crackdown on these outlawed elements who spread terror among peaceful and innocent people. Their terrorist campaign lacks support - they are harming their own people and undermining their country's economy. Moreover, they are destroying the image of Islam, the religion that has gained respect from non-Muslim nations over the centuries.
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(Gulf Times)
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Home-grown Saudi security problem
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EDINBURGH: The fountainhead of Islamic fundamentalist unrest is not in Afghanistan, far less Iraq. Rather it is in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi elite, rich beyond Croesus on the proceeds of oil, is not directly the problem. It is pro-Western. But to protect its wealth from popular envy, in a country where youth unemployment is endemic, it embarked on a high-risk strategy. It funded Islamic fundamentalist schools as a way of diverting the masses. Predictably, this Frankenstein monster turned on the Saudi ruling class. The Saudi authorities have a limited time frame to rectify their mistakes. The ruling family should admit that it has a major internal security problem instead of blaming rogue elements. And it should grasp that outrages like Monday's attack in Jidda are not possible unless the security forces are turning a blind eye to Qaeda operations inside Saudi Arabia itself.
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(The Scotsman)
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Sticking to Iraq's electoral schedule
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BOSTON: The security situation in Iraq recently prompted more than a dozen mostly Sunni parties to seek to delay the country's first election by six months. But President George W. Bush insists the election will proceed as scheduled. This is the right course, even if the elections are seriously flawed. What puts the postponement issue in perspective is another question: Will a delay significantly improve the security conditions? November matched April as the highest one-month total of U.S. troops who died in Iraq (135). As long as security remains an open question, there's no point in kicking the voting six months down the road. Sticking to the timetable carries risk, but other factors lend courage to going ahead. Derailing the election is exactly what the insurgents want; agreeing to that is giving in to terrorist demands.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/08/opinion/edother3.html

More U.S. Soldiers Survive War Wounds

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer For every American soldier killed in Iraq, nine others have been wounded and survived — the highest rate of any war in U.S. history. It isn't that their injuries were less serious, a new report says. In fact, some young soldiers and Marines have had faces, arms and legs blown off and are now returning home badly maimed.

But they have survived thanks, in part, to armor-like vests and fast treatment from doctors on the move with surgical kits in backpacks.

"This is unprecedented. People who lose not just one but two or three extremities are people who just have not survived in the past," said Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who researched military medicine and wrote about it in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The journal also published a five-page spread of 21 military photographs that graphically depict the horrific injuries and conditions under which these modern-day MASH surgeons operate.

"We thought a lot about it," said the journal's editor, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, and ultimately decided the pictures told an important story.

"This war is producing unique injuries — less lethal but more traumatic," he said.

In one traumatic case, Gawande tells of an airman who lost both legs, his right hand and part of his face. "How he and others like him will be able to live and function remains an open question," Gawande writes.

Kevlar helmets and vests are one reason for the high survival rate.

"The critical core, your chest and your abdomen, are protected," said Dr. George Peoples, a Walter Reed Army Medical Center surgeon who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Parodixically, what we've seen is devastating extremity injuries because people are surviving wounds they otherwise wouldn't have."

By mid-November, 10,369 American troops had been wounded in battle in Afghanistan or Iraq, and 1,004 had died — a survival rate of roughly 90 percent. In the Vietnam War, one in four wounded died, virtually all of them before they could reach MASH units some distance from the fighting.

Today in Iraq, real-life Hawkeyes and B.J. Hunnicuts have stripped trauma surgery to its most basic level, carrying "mini-hospitals" in six Humvees and field operating kits in five backpacks so they can move with troops and do surgery on the spot.

"Within an hour, we drop the tents and set up the OR tables, and we can pretty much start operating immediately," said Peoples, whose photographs are in the medical journal.

He's now at Walter Reed in Washington which has treated 150 amputees from the Iraq war. American military hospitals collectively have had 200 amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, three of them triple amputees.

The record survival rates in Iraq have been achieved with an astonishingly small number of general surgeons. The entire Army has only about 120 on active duty and a similar number in the reserves. Of these, only 30 to 50 are in Iraq, plus 10 to 15 orthopedic surgeons, to care for 130,000 to 150,000 troops, Gawande reports.

That's fewer than the 80 general and orthopedic surgeons on staff at two Boston hospitals — Brigham and Massachusetts General.

"It's a very tight supply," Gawande said of the surgeons in Iraq. "They're now also burdened with civilian Iraqis seeking their help because the U.S. has taken over many Iraqi hospitals."

Virginia Stephanakis, a spokeswoman for the Army Surgeon General's Office, said Gawande had done excellent research and that his figures on casualties jibe with those on Department of Defense Web sites, though she wouldn't confirm the number of surgeons in Iraq.

Gawande and others also credit nurses, anesthetists, helicopter pilots, other transport staff and an entire rethinking of the combat medicine system for soldiers' survival.

The strategy is damage control, not definitive repair. Field doctors limit surgery to two hours or less, often leaving temporary closures and even plastic bags over wounds, and send soldiers to one of several combat support hospitals in Iraq with services like labs and X-rays.

"We basically work to save life over limb," said Navy Capt. Kenneth Kelleher, chief of the surgical company at the chief U.S. Marine base near Fallujah. "No frills, nothing complicated. If the injury is not going to be salvageable, we do a rapid amputation, and there have been a fair number of those."

If soldiers are shipped to a combat support hospital, the maximum stay is three days. If more advanced care is needed, they're sent to hospitals in Landstuhl, Germany, or Kuwait or Spain. If care will be needed for a month or more, they're whisked directly to Walter Reed or Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

"The average time from battlefield to arrival in the United States is now less than four days. In Vietnam, it was 45 days," Gawande writes.

John Greenwood, a historian with the Army Surgeon General's office, said the new strategy has made a big difference in survival.

"Historically, the key change has been the ability to move the wounded man to definitive surgical care," he said.

Field surgeons moving with troops is the first step. Peoples traveled 1,100 miles throughout southern Iraq and into Baghdad, doing only what was absolutely necessary to save a life and shipping patients out.

He said he tried to ignore personal danger, like the time his medical team was sent to an evacuated air base in southern Iraq.

"At least, we thought it was evacuated," he said. In fact, Iraqi soldiers were still being routed out. The medical team was told to pick any of the bombed-out buildings to use as a makeshift hospital. After finishing one surgery, he walked outside and noticed big red X's on all the other buildings warning against entry.

By sheer luck, he said, "we had chosen the only one that hadn't been booby-trapped."

As for the soldiers he took pictures of, he had this to say:

"Every person depicted in those photos survived."

___

Eds: Associated Press writer Katarina Kratovac in Fallujah, Iraq, contributed to this report.

2:48 PM PST, December 8, 2004 E-mail story Print

Samarra Erupts in Violence
At least four Iraqis die. U.S. military convoy damaged and local police chief resigns.

BAGHDAD — Two months after U.S. forces declared that they had pacified Samarra, the restive biblical city again erupted in violence today with a string of attacks that killed at least four Iraqis, damaged a U.S. military convoy and caused the police chief to announce his resignation.

The strikes follow a month of car bombs, ambushes and bloodshed in the Iraqi city that has shaken residents, shuttered businesses and disrupted voter registration efforts.

In announcing his resignation over a mosque loudspeaker, Maj. Gen. Talib Shamil Samarriee said insurgents had attacked his home and nearly kidnapped his son at school, where teachers hid the boy to save him. Earlier in the day, gunmen attacked the chief's car and fled.

"I came according to the wish of the sons of the city in order to serve this city and to present any assistance I can," the police commander said. "But [after] what has happened to me within these three days, especially today when my house and family were attacked and terrified, I decided to quit everything. I have no relationship with any governmental office."

U.S. military officials said late today that they had contacted the police chief and he was staying on the job. It was not immediately clear if Samarriee had changed his mind.

The confusion followed a difficult day for Iraqi security forces in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Insurgents armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades stormed two police stations. At one, they killed an Iraqi police officer and a child at a nearby school, witnesses said. At the second, militants chased officers away and set off explosives.

U.S. and Iraqi forces eventually secured both stations.

The same morning a suicide car bomber attacked two U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles driving just outside the city and gunmen fired at a U.S. checkpoint. No soldiers were hurt, but two Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. troops in the crossfire, military officials said. One of the Bradleys was damaged by the car bomb.

The assault on Samarra in September by 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers was once touted as a model for defeating Iraq's insurgency. The recent turnaround underscores the long-term challenges faced by U.S. military leaders, who are finding that as they squeeze militants in one city they are popping up in another.

The turmoil in Samarra has grown gradually over the past month as U.S. and Iraqi security forces diverted their attentions toward retaking Fallouja, another flashpoint city dominated by Sunni Muslims.

U.S. military leaders Monday downplayed the insurgent attacks and stressed that police training and recruitment in Samarra remains on track.

"Currently, Task Force 1-26, along with the local government of Samarra, has control of the city," said Maj. Jeffery Church, executive officer of the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, which oversees about 1,000 U.S. soldiers in the area.

When U.S. troops reduced their presence in Samarra in October, the chief question was whether Iraqi security forces would be able to keep the peace. At the time, nearly 1,200 Iraqi army and national guard members were stationed in the city and the governor pledged to send an additional 1,500 Iraqi police officers from other parts of the country until local police could be trained.

But many of those out of town officers have since left the city, particularly after attacks increased, according to residents and police officers.

"We are exposed to continuous threats by gunmen," said one Samarra police officer, who requested anonymity for fear of being targeted. "The insurgents have better weapons."

There are also questions about whether the police force has been infiltrated by insurgents. After militants raided a Samarra police station last week and escaped with equipment and cars, U.S. military reportedly visited the station the next day and arrested several people.

For Samarra residents, life in the city has become increasingly tense. Cars are banned from the roads after 5 p.m. and a 9 p.m. curfew remains in effect. On Wednesday, sniper fire between U.S. troops and insurgents kept many residents indoors.

A special correspondent in Samarra contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-120804samarra_lat,0,1115591.story?coll=la-home-headlines

'US cautioned against Pak F-16 deal'

AFP[ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 08, 2004 04:19:10 AM ]

NEW DELHI: India has cautioned the United States against a decision to sell F-16 fighter aircraft to arch-rival Pakistan, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh said Wednesday.

"We have cautioned the US against such a decision," Singh told Parliament just hours before US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was due to arrive for talks with the Indian leadership.

"We have also conveyed that US arms supply to Pakistan would have a negative impact on the goodwill the United States enjoys in India, particularly as a sister democracy," he added.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf met US President George Bush last Saturday during which he said he discussed the potential purchase of the F-16 fighters.

Singh said New Delhi has pointed out that the supply of arms to Pakistan by the United States at a time when the dialogue between the two countries is at a "sensitive stage" would have a "negative impact".

Pakistan reportedly wants to buy up to 25 of the F-16s, which cost around 25 million dollars each, by mid-2005 to add another squadron of such planes to its existing fleet.

Musharraf has won Bush's firm support since he sided with Washington to oust Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, originally backed by Pakistan, after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Singh termed India's relations with Pakistan as "accident-prone".

"We have therefore to deal with this matter with great restraint, great wisdom (and) patience," he said. The minister, who was India's Ambassador to Pakistan during the mid-eighties, said that of late relations had improved.

"... I must say that the atmosphere between the two countries has considerably improved and it is our endeavour that it remains so. There are complicated issues going back many decades. There are no quick fixes, no magic solutions available. All we can do is try," Singh said at the end of a two-day debate on foreign policy.

Religion Of Violence And Death

By: Aram Tofi

Dec 7, 2004

Islam started with war and killing. Muhammad as god’s prophet, spread over Islam with a bloodied sword in his hand. At that time, the Islamized primitive Arab clans were settled in current Saudi Arabia, which was well meant and well suited for them. More than a thousand years later, however, nothing special has happened but Islam is still considered to be a religion of violence and destruction. This is not assumption or baseless accusation, this is a fact. It took Islam six hundred years to destroy the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Moreover Islam spread slowly to other peace loving nations such as India and Kurdistan. Consequently they destroyed sophisticated and well developed cultures in the regions such as Iran (which is still in progress, being conducted by the Mullahs in Tehran).

The second destruction by Islam is Kurdistan and the Kurdish identity.
The Islamizing of Kurdistan started with war in the heart of Kurdistan and the mutilation of children and women. The evidence of this is thousands of tombs of (Ashaaba) Muhammad’s followers who were buried everywhere in Kurdistan.

Those people were killers and rapists just like Saddam’s mercenaries. The irony is these murderers are now considered to be holy men. However, the spirit of the Kurd has survived the bloody history of Islam. To justify this opinion, we need to examine the countries that are ruled by Islam. I can tell you directly it’s really hard to find one single country that has democracy and respect for human life. The best one is Saudi Arabia. It’s now year 2004 and still women CANNOT vote, nor be allowed to drive cars, or have a simple conversation with men.

This is a fundamental of Islam and the rules are not exaggerated. Because this is the nature of Islam (which is narrow minded, judgmental, and based on the Quran). In turn, it reflects a desert values and chauvinistic ideas.
Now my point is, those values and the degradation of human beings don’t match the Kurdish values. The Kurd, with a history of more than 6000 years with a profoundly developed culture and respect for women, also has admiration for all living things.

Kurds have writers and poets such as Goran, Wafai and Qanik; they have poems of love, passion, beauty of women and body, and about nature and affections. In contrast the Quran never mentions one single word of love; it’s always about hate and killing. It’s about how God will burn them if they don’t do this and that.

Before islamization and arabization of Kurdistan the people had a greater role in the area. Then, the Islam invaded Kurdistan, consequently the violence of the Quran was implemented over Kurdistan. The Sura Al anfal was latterly redeployed by Saddam with great pleasure.

Surat Al-Anfal

Remember, when your Lord revealed to the angels, “Verily I am with you, so keep firm those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks and smite over all their fingers and toes. This is because they defied and disobeyed Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad). And whoever defies and disobeys Allah and His Messenger, them verily, Allah is Severe in punishment. This is the torment, so taste it and surely, for the disbelievers is the torment of the Fire.
(Surat Al-Anfal – Spoils of War- 8:12-14)

Now, it is high time to abandon the religion of killing and hate. The religion was never actually chosen, it was compelled, and that is why it should be removed. My appeal to the Kurdish authorities and politicians is to act now and don’t miss this golden opportunity! Here is what they can do to repair the damage and build a society without bloodshed and hate.

Do not allow Islamic aid organizations in Kurdistan to build mosques. How about building Kurdish schools instead. (NOT religious)

• Have a policy that every village must have at least one school.

• Yazidi should be recognized as the main Kurdish religion and be included in the school books.

• Expel the Turkish based language centers. They could open a Kurdish languages course in Turkey (if they want to help).

• Political parties should build upon the ideology of constructive ideas. NOT religions!

• Debunk the violence of Islam in the history books and their genocide of Kurdish people.

• Develop a Kurdish related alphabet and get rid of the Arabic. In addition, merge Sorani and Kirmanji and purge the language of any Arabic influence.

• Computerize and industrialize Kurdistan and make it’s agriculture independent

• Develop a good relationship with Israel (Kurds and Jews have more in common than Arabs and Kurds)

• Don’t ever put your destiny in your neighbor’s hands (such as Turks and Arabs)

• The Shiites and Sunni Arabs are NOT your friends (as soon as they build an army they are going to send it to Kurdistan for jihad)

• There are thousands of highly educated Kurds abroad. Invite them back home and employ them as political science advisers, pedagogical instructors. Etc.

• Have one army of Kurdistan with Special Forces (politically independent)

• What ever happens in Iraq, don’t follow the rules of the Islam.

• If you stay in the federation of Iraq, demand the change to have your own flag and change the name of IRAQ

• Make a deal with the USA and continue to struggle towards a “Kurdish state,” (it’s your legitimate right!) You don’t need to declare yourself to the Turks, saying that you don’t seek self independence.

• Develop and construct highways, bridges, and AIRPORTS (NOT with Turkey BUT with Greece or Israel) to interconnect the entire Kurdistan into one unit and connect to the rest of the world. Why do you have to justify and apologize if you have relations with Israel?

• Have an independent media (Not politically related)

• Expel all foreigners from North Africa: e.g. Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Syrian, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. (this includes the Turks)

• To the Kurdish leaders: Stop idealizing Syria, Turkey and Iran. Iran and Syria is the base of terrorists. Turkey is a land of prejudices.

• Leave Baghdad and concentrate every effort on rebuilding Kurdistan. (while Shiites torture themselves to commemorate Hassan and Hussein)

• The collaborators with Mukhbarat should be suspended and debarred from their party and government offices. Reveal there names and bring them to justice. Finally, make the files of perpetrators official.

• Combat corruptions. Now it is easy for everyone to get a piece of mark for free, this is supposed to be allocated for the victims of Saddam's crime. Even I got an offer to receive one, only if I know someone in PUK’s hieratical. This shows how corrupt these administrations are.

Finally it seems that Mam Jalal has got the Arafat syndrome, namely, he will die and take the power and the money into the grave. The Kurdish leaders must act now, and stop humiliating themselves and the Kurds in front of Turkey. To Mam Jalal, please don’t talk too much when you meet the media in Arab countries, it only leads to more stupid comments. The last comment of Mam Jalal in Egypt was that he condemned the coalition force for using obsessive force. Why doesn’t he ask about the fate of young Kurdish girls that were abducted and sold to Egypt? In a visit to Turkey Mam Jalal made this comment “Turkey is a great democracy” That is ironic as the rest of the world considers Turkey to be a corrupt and fascistic regime.

The Kurdish leaders need to open the doors and allow other more intelligent people to have a chance to make a contribution.
KurdistanObserver.com
http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan5/7-12-04-opiniopn-aram-religion-of-violence.html

Iraqi cleric killed by Saddam an inspiration for Arab democrat

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters

Thursday, December 09, 2004

BAGHDAD—Almost a quarter of a century after his death, an Iraqi Shiite theologian is inspiring a generation of democrats in the Middle East.

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr, executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980, advocated constitutionalism, democracy and the rule of law—the same values the United States says it wants to spread in the region to help stamp out terrorism.

A group of leading Arab lawyers, thinkers and democracy activists, is hoping to engage Washington to develop the US initiative, called the Partnership for Peace in the Middle East and North Africa.

Chibli Mallat, the Arab group’s strategist, is the prize-winning author of a biography of Sadr, written in English but widely translated into Arabic.

Sadr was the uncle of Moqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric who led two Shiite revolts this year against US-led forces in Iraq. He lacks the wide respect his uncle commanded.

Mallat says Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr was the main intellectual power behind the Constitution of Iran, which includes Ayatollah Ruhallah al-Khomeini’s own theory of the velayat-e faqih, or rule of the jurist—the doctrine that an eminent Shiite cleric can be the absolute legal authority.

“Sadr was a subtler, more innovative and dynamic thinker than Khomeini,” said 43-year old Mallat, the founder of the School of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law at London’s prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies.

“In his work you find a streak of democratic majoritanism and readiness to espouse democracy without the direct rule of the clergy. Politically, Khomeini was more effective.”

In discussions about a new Iraqi constitution, no senior Shiite figure has called for velayat-e faqih but rather for reconciling Islam with popular sovereignty.

The most influential cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has stressed the importance of elections, which are due in January.

The main Shiite parties planning to take part in the elections—Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq—are Sadr’s political heirs.

Dawa’s draft election manifesto reads in many parts like that of a Western social democrat party and invokes Islam to stress human rights.

“Sadr was the embodiment of Iraq. His work and ideas are fundamental to a democratic Iraq,” said Iraq’s Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who heads Dawa.

Outside influence

Sadr’s body was exhumed last year from an unmarked spot and moved to a new grave in Wadi al-Salam (the valley of peace), the sprawling cemetery of Najaf. The body of his sister, killed at the same time, was never found.

Zuhair al-Amidi, the man who buried Sadr’s body after he was executed, kept the place secret until Saddam was toppled last year.

“If people had known where the grave was it would have become a shrine and the authorities would have razed it immediately,” he said.

Even Khomeini, whose relationship with Sadr was uneasy, mourned him when he was killed and described him as the mentor of all Shiites. Khomeini spent many years in exile with Sadr in Najaf, a center of Shiite scholarship.

US influence could help realize what Sadr envisioned, although he resented Washington’s support for authoritarian forces in the region.

The United States lobbied hard at the G-8 summit in June to pass the Partnership for Peace in the Middle East and North Africa. The administration started to push Arab states after the September 11, 2001, attacks on US cities to accept the initiative, which includes economic reform, education and political participation.

European countries felt the initiative ignored their own efforts to advance reform in the Middle East, known as the 1995 Barcelona declaration, but backed it after Washington included a stronger commitment to a fair peace between Israeli and the Palestinians.

The Arab democrats group, which includes Bahaaldin Hassan, head of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights, Saudi dissident Abdul Aziz al-Khamis and Kuwaiti writer Mohammad al-Rumeihi, want the initiative to hold Arab rulers accountable for human rights and push for the rotation of power.

“All prisoners of conscience must be released, while former presidents turned into retired citizens, and leaders responsible for crimes against humanity put behind bars,” said their declaration, drafted by Mallat, and issued before they met senior G-8 officials in New York two months ago.

Just before the US invasion of Iraq, Mallat organized a petition of Arab thinkers that called for the focus on Iraq to be switched from the issue of weapons of mass destruction to human rights and the rule of law, including stationing international human rights monitors in Iraq.

Mallat made his first visit to Najaf earlier this year, a Maronite Christian welcomed in the homes of senior Shiite clerics who knew that his first port of call was the grave of Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr.

Shiite parties form coalition

Unity bolsters chances for rule

By Liz Sly
Tribune foreign correspondent

December 8, 2004

BAGHDAD -- Representatives of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Tuesday finalized an electoral coalition that will group all the country's major Shiite political parties, most minor ones and dozens of independents on a single slate.

The coalition's broad reach will put it in a commanding position to gain a sizable percentage of the majority-Shiite vote in Iraq's election scheduled for Jan. 30 and perhaps dominate the National Assembly that will draft a permanent constitution for Iraq.

The coalition will run as the United Iraqi Alliance, though among most Iraqis it already is being referred to simply as "Sistani's list." That alone is likely to give it a boost among Iraqi Shiites, who universally respect their top religious leader, regardless of their political views.

Triumph for al-Sistani

The list represents a triumph for the ayatollah, who has cast aside his traditional detachment from politics to work toward uniting Iraq's Shiites behind the electoral process.

A threat by several smaller Shiite parties and secularists to pull out of the coalition and contest the election independently was averted at a meeting in Baghdad between the parties and al-Sistani's representatives late Tuesday, participants said.

The Shiite Political Council, an umbrella organization of 38 parties, was persuaded to join the coalition after announcing last week that it would withdraw to protest the preponderance of religious hard-liners on the list, said Hussein Musawi, a spokesman for the group.

At the time, Musawi complained that "all the top names on the list are turbaned men who support wilayat al faqih," the theory of governance pioneered by Iran's late leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi, the former favorite of the Bush administration, also confirmed its participation Tuesday after expressing similar reservations. A spokesman for Chalabi, Haidar Musawi, said some of the group's concerns were addressed by reshuffling the order of names.

If either or both of these two groups had decided to run independently, al-Sistani's vision of presenting a united Shiite front to the electorate would have been diluted.

But such is the weight of the groups on the list that any one party would find it hard to compete against it, something acknowledged by the Shiite Council in deciding to rejoin.

"I don't think the Shiite Council can make a difference to the equation either way," Hussein Musawi said.

The list includes candidates from the two biggest Shiite political parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Dawa Party, as well as representatives of former rebel leader Moqtada Sadr.

Groups representing the minority Turkman Shiites and Kurdish Shiites are on the list, as well as Christians and a leading Sunni tribesman in an attempt to broaden the coalition's appeal beyond Shiites.

Al-Sistani will not have representatives on the list nor will he endorse it, an aide said. He also was not involved directly in the crafting of the list, which was left to a committee of aides headed by former nuclear scientist Hussein Shahrastani.

The two Kurdish political groups, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have announced that they will submit a single slate of candidates, which is expected to sweep the vast majority of Kurdish votes in the north.

With al-Sistani's list grouping all major Shiite factions, and the Kurdish list uniting most Kurds, the election is starting to shape up as a sectarian contest whose result is likely to mirror broadly the country's ethnic makeup.

Sunni boycott threatened

A big question mark remains over the intentions of the minority Sunni community, whose leaders have threatened to boycott the election and whose citizens live in violence-racked areas prone to intimidation by insurgents.

Sunnis would be unlikely to vote for the Kurdish list or the Shiite one, and if their own leaders don't stand for election, they may have little incentive to vote.

But with 204 parties registered to run, along with 15 "entities" and 18 individuals, there is still room for options, U.S. diplomats say.

Most of the parties are new, with little name recognition among Iraq's inexperienced electorate. They are expected to team up to form broader coalitions, and this week has seen intense bargaining among them before the final deadlines for submitting lists of candidates Friday.

Marine Security Team Heading To Jiddah
Associated Press
December 8, 2004:

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military ordered a Marine Corps antiterrorism security team to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday to assist in security at the consulate, defense officials said.

The officials discussed operational matters only on the condition of anonymity. The team is based elsewhere in the Middle East, the official said.

These teams typically have 50 Marines and are experts in providing security and conducting raids in urban areas, said Maj. Matt Morgan, a Marine Corps spokesman at Camp Lejeune, N.C. They are often deployed in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

In Jiddah, they will reinforce defenses at the U.S. consulate that were breached by a group of attackers Monday. Eight people, including three attackers and five non-American embassy employees, were killed in the ensuing gunbattle.

Meanwhile, the State Department said Tuesday that the attack could be followed by more terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, a worried State Department said Tuesday.

New travel warnings to discourage U.S. citizens from going there are expected to be issued soon. But, in the meantime, the U.S. consulate in Jiddah will be reopened soon, and the embassy in Riyadh was preparing to reopen, as well.

A day after Islamic militants shot their way into the compound at Jiddah, the circumstances remained unclear, including whether foreign national had been held hostage, spokesman Adam Ereli said.

"Embassy personnel have interviewed all the foreign service nationals who were involved in the attack, Some have said they were taken hostage and used as human shields," he said.

"Our operating assumption is that there are still terrorist elements active in the kingdom, targeting u.S. citizens and faiclities, as well as other commercial and civilian establishments," Ereli said. "Therefore, maximum alertness and caution and prudence is called for."

In general, American diplomatic facilities like the one in Jiddah employ a layered defense against terrorist attacks, with foreign guards on the outside and American security personnel including U.S. Marines inside.

U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide rely almost exclusively on host-nation soldiers and police or private security guards to guard their outer walls. This keeps armed Americans off overseas streets - their presence would be tantamount to foreign soldiers patrolling Embassy Row on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington.

Inside, physical security is provided by U.S. Marines and federal civilian officers with the Diplomatic Security Service.

Four Marines are believed to have been inside the U.S. consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, when it was attacked Monday, Morgan said.

Initial reports suggested none were hurt, and it was unknown whether they took part in the fighting, he said.

There are six Marines, led by a staff sergeant, assigned to the consulate, but Morgan said his best information is that only four were inside during the attack.

The Marines' main job is to control access to the embassy and protect any classified information inside, Morgan said. Marines would not take part in protecting the perimeter of the consulate, but they would assist if there was a security threat inside.

Protection of diplomats and other consular personnel inside is the primary responsibility of the State Department's civilian Diplomatic Security Service. They and the Marines report to a regional security officer.

Morgan said many consulates - which are smaller than embassies - do not have detachments of Marine guards, and those that do are typically in high-threat areas.

Only in Kabul and Baghdad do Marines patrol an embassy's outer perimeter, Morgan said.

The Marine presence at American diplomatic buildings throughout the Middle East is higher than most, he said.

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