Posted on 04/24/2003 11:48:02 AM PDT by Shermy
KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims flocked to Iraq's holiest city of Karbala in a pilgrimage banned under Saddam Hussein as the United States rebuffed a diplomatic olive branch from France.
But the second and last day of the Shiite ceremony, outlawed for nearly quarter of a century under Saddam, failed to ignite large anti-US demonstrations despite appeals by clerics for mass shows of anti-Americanism.
Iraq's US civil administrator, retired general Jay Garner, acknowledged Washington was facing "some staged demonstrations" against its rule but insisted most Iraqis "are glad we are here."
Garner continued a tour to assess the needs of rebuilding Iraq, neglected during 24 years of Saddam's rule, weakened by more than a decade of UN sanctions, and shattered in three blistering weeks of US-led bombing.
In northern Iraq, where he helped administer aid to Kurds following the 1991 Gulf war (news - web sites), Garner told Kurdish leaders that they could serve as an example to the rest of the nation.
"You can be the model for your brothers and sisters in the south. We have this small moment in time where we can make all of Iraq democratic... You must grow to work with them to create a great democratic Iraq."
In the southern city of Umm Qasr, British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said he thought Saddam was still alive and in Iraq, despite two coalition air raids on Baghdad intended to kill him.
A spokesman for the Iranian armed opposition People's Mujahedeen guerrillas meanwhile said a ceasefire reached with US forces allowed the Iraq-based group to keep their arms while maintaining their war against the Iranian government.
Washington said it had warned Iran not to send agents into the south of Iraq in a bid to push its brand of Islamic government.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, that he was pleased by the shift in the French position on UN sanctions that were imposed on Iraq after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990.
But Washington, where senior US officials have been wondering aloud how to punish France for its anti-war stance, rebuffed Paris's conciliatory gesture by insisting that the United Nations (news - web sites) lift the sanctions, instead of merely suspending them.
The previous day, France called for an immediate suspension of UN sanctions on Iraq, dropping its earlier insistence that UN inspectors certify the country was free of banned weapons of mass destruction before such a move.
Suspension of sanctions would mean they remain in legal force but would not be applied. Lifting would mean their complete disappearance.
In Karbala, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, many beating their heads and chests and flogging their backs with chains, converged on the city 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, to mourn Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussein, who was beheaded there in 680 AD.
Although organisers of the pilgrimage had expected millions, witnesses said no more than one million faithful came.
Despite loudspeaker trucks touring the city since late Tuesday calling for a huge anti-US demonstration, protests were muted, with no more than the 3,000 people who demonstrating on Tuesday turning out.
Even before the rally was due to start, chants of "No to America and Saddam, yes to Islam" rang out around the city, from which US troops have kept their distance.
"No to an American government, no to Chalabi," the Shiites shouted, referring to Ahmad Chalabi, the pro-US leader of the Iraqi National Congress, who has returned to Iraq after decades of exile.
In a development likely to further inflame tensions between US-led forces and Iraq's majority Shiite community, a prominent cleric charged he had been beaten by US troops.
"Our arrest by the Americans was worse than the arrests that Saddam ordered against our students," Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartusi told Abu Dhabi television.
Fartusi, whose followers said he was detained Sunday along with five other Shiites, reappeared in Baghdad on Tuesday to cheers from hundreds of supporters who had held protests for two days.
"We were beaten... spent a night with our hands tied behind our backs," Fartusi said, adding a US officer did turn up and offer an apology.
US officials have said they could not confirm Fartusi's arrest, but reports that the prominent mullah had been detained infuriated Shiites.
In Britain, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) was treating as "serious" allegations by a London newspaper that a member of his ruling Labour party had been paid by Saddam's regime for his support, his spokesman said.
Scottish deputy George Galloway has vigorously denied the allegations by the right-wing Daily Telegraph and has sued the paper.
On the humanitarian front, the first UN international staff to return to the country since the start of the war entered northern Iraq.
The New York Times quoted a US official as saying that about 1.7 billion dollars (1.6 billion euros) in money, food and medicine had been raised since the United Nations appealed for contributions to the Iraqi relief effort.
The respected aid group Doctors Without Borders (news - web sites) (MSF) said Wednesday that Baghdad hospitals are in dire straits, but that there was no large-scale health crisis in the country.
"It is telling that after two weeks... MSF has not found any reason to justify a major humanitarian medical programme in Iraq," said MSF international president Morten Rostrup.
A surprising headline from AFP.
The clerics might consider the fact that there are fewer clerics than there are members of their flocks.
A surprising headline from AFP.
Tells me that they were deeply saddened and disappointed that the Shi'ites didn't follow the script.
The People's Mujahedeen is one of the groups that make up the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which opposes the Tehran government. The People's Mujahedeen wants to replace Iran's religious government with a democratically elected leadership.
NCRI President Massoud Rajavi said in a statement that he welcomes the cease-fire.
"We welcome the signing of a cease-fire with the U.S. forces ... although, we have not been firing at anyone and were in fact not a party to this war," Rajavi said. "Our presence in Iraq was conditional upon our independence."
The U.S. government views the People's Mujahedeen, which it calls the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization [MEK], as a terrorist group.
"So, until that changes, we view them that way," Brooks said, when asked if captured People's Mujahedeen fighters would be treated as POWs.
"However, there's discussion that's ongoing right now to determine exactly what the condition and what the status will be and how we'll handle them," he said. "It's premature for me to describe exactly what that will be at this point."
MEK members follow a philosophy that mixes Marxism and Islam. During the 1970s, the group staged terrorist attacks inside Iran and killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians, according to the State Department.
The organization helped Iraq suppress Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in northern and southern Iraq in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War, according to the State Department's Web site.
It has also, the Web site says, provided internal security for the government of Iraq while carrying out bomb attacks on Iranian leaders inside Iran and on embassies outside Iraq.
Ali Safavi, a spokesman in Paris, France, for the People's Mujahedeen, said the United States' decision to call the group a terrorist organization was a "goodwill gesture" from President Clinton's administration to Tehran .
In November, about 150 Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives issued a statement saying that the MEK should be taken off the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, calling it a legitimate democratic opposition group.
Read FR and Business News Publishers like the International Hearld Tribune, for these venues cannot "afford" to sell entertainment because people use their news!
After reading this article and the others, I am satisfied that this is true:
Iraq's US civil administrator, retired general Jay Garner, acknowledged Washington was facing "some staged demonstrations" against its rule but insisted most Iraqis "are glad we are here."Okay, even that was written using slanted language, but I'm convinced most Iraqis are indeed "glad we are here".
Perhaps best of all, it looks like despite intense efforts, the Iranians are going nowhere fast in their efforts to establish a Muslim dictatorship.
I'm only guessing, but I suspect the Iraqis know enough about Iran and the Taliban that they don't particularly want to take that route.
D
The fact that this whiner is simply around to complain to the press tells me his assertion is just a teeny wheeny bit incorrect.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.