[lbo-talk] more on Iraqi opinion

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Sep 26 10:41:42 PDT 2003


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Doug Henwood forwarded a very good FT article:


> Financial Times - September 25, 2003
>
> Smiles and shrugs speak volumes about nature of attacks on American
> troops
> By Charles Clover, Mark Huband and Roula Khalaf

I think this article dovetails nicely with the one below. It was put out last week by Knight Ridder, and contains, afaik, the only extensive interviews with people who are attacking US forces, as well as a look at a recruiting and training camp.

The people the Knight Ridder people talked to (five reporters did the interviewing; Hannah Allam wrote it up) seem motivated by a combination of Sunni religious conservatism and Iraqi nationalism. They are anti-Al-Qaeda (on religious grounds) and anti-Saddam. And yet the description of their cell structure makes it clear that most of them literally have no idea who's calling the shots (and supply the money and weapons) nor do they care much. So it's very easy to imagine a kind of resistance staff and field operation where a large resevoir of people with these sorts of nationalist and native-islamic discontents is drawn upon and directed by people with resources to produce a very broad resistance.

It also seems clear that in some respects, the groups are sharply operationally divided. The guys interviewed denounce the three most high-profile attacks (the Jordanian embassy, the UN, the Tomb of Ali). But it doesn't make them doubt their own motives nor worry about the future.

The FT article ended with the US military saying "this doesn't present a strategic threat." I think that means "this can't kill more than a tiny part of our military personnel" which is probably true but largely irrelevant. The strategic goal (of the hidden staff that thinks strategically, rather than just heroically) is to perpetuate poverty and chaos, and with it, hatred of the Americans. And that is a much easy goal to achieve than in any previous guerrilla war because they don't have to create it, simply to perpetuate it. And, having invaded out of the blue (as well as being deeply distrusted because we are seen as responsible for everything bad that's happened to Iraqis for the last 30 years, starting with SH) the US will always be considered to bear the lion's share of the blame for the poverty and chaos. The idea that it's all our fault and part of our master plan also fits the standard Middle Eastern conspiracy theory: Britain or the US has always been seen as controlling every sparrow that falls. Current developments certainly won't make this way of thinking fade away.

================

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/6763724.htm

Sun, Sep. 14, 2003

Iraqi fighters reject label of terrorist

Knight Ridder exclusive: Interview with guerrillas

By HANNAH ALLAM

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAQUBA, Iraq - A mournful voice singing of dreary days and

disappointing harvests drifted across a canal and onto the hidden

grounds where Abu Abdullah teaches his recruits to kill.

Faded Iraqi army uniforms dried on pomegranate trees, and combat

boots lined a dirt path leading into the camp. Young Iraqis picked

ripe grapes and offered them to visitors. And waited for orders to

attack another American convoy.

From this farm hidden among tangled grapevines and tall date palms

an hour north of Baghdad, guerrilla fighters, both Iraqis and

foreigners, have set out on some of the raids that have killed 70

U.S. soldiers in the past four months. The farmer's song is a code

from a lookout, to assure commanders that passing boaters can't

see the band of guerrillas preparing for their next attack on

American soldiers.

The men here, armed with grenades and rifles, seem a ludicrous

match for U.S. forces, whose superior weaponry is evident at every

checkpoint in the country.

But two leaders of guerrilla cells told a Knight Ridder reporter

and photographer in separate interviews that they would fight

until the last vestige of the American presence in Iraq is gone.

Their fate, one said, is "victory or martyrdom."

The interviews, conducted nine days apart in late August and early

September, were the most extensive to date granted by the fighters

who are killing Americans, and the visit to the camp was the first

by journalists covering the war here.

The first interview, with an Iraqi who identified himself as Abu

Mohammed, took place in an abandoned building in Mansour,

Baghdad's most exclusive neighborhood. The second, with a

Jordanian who called himself Abu Abdullah, was at the encampment

near Baquba.

The two cell leaders said their fighters primarily were former

Iraqi army officers and young Iraqis who had joined because they

were angry over the deaths or arrests of family members during

U.S. raids in the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his supporters.

The group also shelters remnants of a non-Iraqi Arab unit of

Saddam's elite Fedayeen militia force as well as foreigners who

slipped across the country's long and porous borders to battle

American troops, they said. Abu Abdullah, who directs the camp

near Baquba, said he came to Iraq shortly before the United States

invaded it last spring.

The anti-American forces appear to be more organized than some

U.S. intelligence and military officials thought. Cells receive

orders and intelligence from Diyala, which lies within the

northern "Sunni Triangle" of danger. According to the fighters,

the Diyala leadership oversees about 100 guerrillas, including an

all-women's unit, and is backed by private donations as well as

Syrian funding, according to the two cell leaders. Both said they

had been told by superiors not to contact members of other cells

for fear of infiltrators.

Abu Mohammed seemed confident that Saddam is directing at least

some of the activity. He said he'd heard that leaders many levels

above him had met recently with the fallen Iraqi leader.

Still, he said, the dictator has no chance of returning to power

because of the shame of losing Baghdad and because of relatives

who turned in his sons and other key figures for rewards.

"We love Saddam Hussein for one thing - he has a big mind," Abu

Mohammed said. "He knows how to think and how to plan. He made our

hearts as strong as steel."

Knight Ridder sought the interviews through Iraqi acquaintances,

who spent weeks contacting other acquaintances, searching for

someone with inroads to the group. The interviews themselves were

arranged through an intermediary, who accompanied a Knight Ridder

reporter and photographer to both, but disappeared without

explanation the day an aborted third meeting was to have taken

place in a new location.

In neither instance did the fighters attempt to prevent the

journalists, an accompanying translator or their driver from

seeing the route along which they were taken. But during the trip

to the camp, the journalists' satellite telephones were

confiscated and turned off, out of concern, the intermediary said,

that U.S. forces would trace the phones' signals to pinpoint the

camp's location.

Both cell leaders said they were willing to talk because they

didn't want the story of what was going on in Iraq to be told only

from the American military's standpoint. Abu Abdullah said he

wanted to tell people he didn't consider himself a terrorist, but

the enemy of "U.S. imperialism."

American officials have said they know little of the exact makeup

of the Iraqi fighters. They have linked the guerrillas both to

Saddam's Baath Party and to foreigners linked to Osama bin Laden's

al Qaida terrorist network.

The cell leaders themselves said they were guided by a blend of

Islamist teachings and pan-Arab nationalism. Both spoke

disdainfully of "Wahabbis," as hard-line Sunni Muslim followers

are called. Abu Mohammed said there was no contact with members of

al Qaida at his level; Abu Abdullah broke off the interview before

the question could be asked. But he said his fighters were too

valuable to participate in suicide missions, a hallmark of al

Qaida, and he rejected the label of terrorist.

"Can you describe a man who defends his country as a terrorist?"

asked Abu Abdullah, who said he was 31. "Iraq is the land of

prophets and the birthplace of civilization. We will fight until

we shed the last drop of our blood for this country."

It is impossible to verify the claims of the two men. But Abu

Mohammed described two fatal ambushes of U.S. convoys that matched

times, dates and locations of recent incidents recorded in

American military accounts. And an explosion nearby lent

credibility to Abu Abdullah's claims after he hurriedly broke off

an interview, saying his men had been ordered to ambush a U.S.

convoy that had moved within range. A security report by

international agencies later listed an attack on U.S. troops at

about the same time and place as the explosion. One American

soldier was reported injured.

Abu Mohammed, who said he was 19, called the American victory in

April a humiliating defeat for his family, which has roots in

Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and includes several officers in the

former army.

A friend of Abu Mohammed's said the young man had an uncle among

the U.S.-led coalition's 55 most-wanted figures from the former

regime, though he declined to divulge the uncle's name or whether

he is still missing.

Family connections to the Baath Party brought raids and arrests of

several relatives, Abu Mohammed said. In June, a cousin confided

that he had joined the anti-American forces. Abu Mohammed said he

accepted his cousin's invitation to watch an attack and was

seduced instantly by the thrill of revenge.

Nearly three months later, his loyalty and family reputation had

earned him a position as the leader of a 20-member cell that

scouts the highways in and around Baghdad for passing American

convoys, which he said made easy targets for rocket-propelled

grenades and homemade bombs.

Superiors sent Abu Mohammed to meet with Knight Ridder one evening

in late August to provide basic information on the Diyala umbrella

group and to vet the journalists before a second meeting.

A middleman named Ahmed accompanied a reporter and photographer to

the Mansour building. Ahmed paid a child standing outside a

handful of Iraqi dinars, presumably to act as a lookout during the

hour-long interview. Ahmed then led the way to a dim, first-floor

office where Abu Mohammed sat behind a desk, wearing a tightly

wrapped head scarf that revealed only his eyes.

His thin frame slumped under the weight of a Kalashnikov and a

military-style vest packed with hand grenades and ammunition. His

hands shook, and he explained that he was nervous because U.S.

raids were growing closer to the Diyala leadership. Raids in

recent weeks had resulted in the arrest of one member, he said,

and two others had narrowly escaped capture.

Fear of informants restricts recruiting to family members, close

neighborhood friends and military buddies, he said.

"We are Islamist in that we are protecting our religion. We are

nationalist in that we are protecting our country," Abu Mohammed

said. "We don't care about our lives. We care about the lives of

our fellow Iraqis."

Abu Mohammed's cell relies on the Baghdad branch for information

on convoy routes, checkpoints with the least security and areas

with high American soldier traffic. Baghdad leaders arrange each

attack and sometimes send members afterward to stand at the scene

posing as onlookers to count casualties. A report then goes to the

Diyala leaders, Abu Mohammed said.

One attack, he said, was scrapped at the last minute because a van

carrying an Iraqi family pulled next to the targeted convoy and

could have been hit by mistake. Typically, however, most attacks

are carried out, and Iraqis who happen to be around are

"sacrificed," he said.

The day before an Aug. 12 attack near Taji, home to a U.S.

military base just north of Baghdad, Abu Mohammed said, he and six

other men scouted the area, plotting the operation and mapping the

quickest escape routes. They planned to have two men on an

overpass fire a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and other

weapons. Two others, one at each end of the overpass, would serve

as lookouts, another as the getaway driver and two more would

guard alternate escape routes farther from the scene. Abu Mohammed

said he was one of the latter two.

The day of the attack, one member recited protective verses from

the Quran and the others repeated each line in unison. They drove

to the site, took their positions and waited for the convoy, which

the Baghdad cell told them would be carrying an important American

military figure.

At about 6 p.m., Abu Mohammed said, they fired on the convoy and

escaped as planned. "I don't know how many were injured," he said.

"I saw two soldiers who looked dead."

On Aug. 13, the U.S. military announced that one 4th Infantry

Division soldier had been killed and two others had been wounded

around 6:15 p.m. the previous day when their convoy was attacked

"in the vicinity of al Taji." Though the records match Abu

Mohammed's account, there's no way to guarantee that the attack

was the one he described.

Even if the U.S.-led military coalition leaves Iraq, Abu Mohammed

said, his group will turn to the U.S.-appointed Governing Council

as a new target. The men harbor particular disdain for Ahmad

Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi exile who helped spur the war

with information he gave to key players in the Bush administration

and to American newspaper reporters. Abu Mohammed said no exile

would be safe as president; his group would accept only an Iraqi

leader who "suffered like us, who was with the people" during wars

and sanctions.

"I promise you," he said. "The first day Chalabi is president, we

will bomb his house no matter who is inside."

Nine days passed before Knight Ridder was offered a second

meeting, this time with a higher-ranking cell leader. The

middleman from the first meeting and an unidentified member of the

Baghdad cell took the same reporter and photographer down a maze

of country roads an hour north of Baghdad. At one point, the car

traveled directly behind an American convoy, stirring laughter and

shrugs from the middleman and the Baghdad cell member.

The car stopped outside a remote, overgrown farm surrounded by a

high wall. The group entered through a padlocked side door and the

men warned of snakes as they walked down a dirt path strewn with

military boots, charred metal parts and tubs of freshly picked

dates from the tall palm trees that cast shadows over the

campgrounds. Stockpiles of canned food could be seen from the

path.

At the end of the trail, a narrow canal sparkled in the afternoon

sunlight. The escort from the Baghdad cell said the camp gave him

a feeling of "brotherhood," with members swimming together in the

canal or racing to pick the ripest grapes. The man, who looked to

be in his early 30s, offered the visitors seats on a neglected

patio about 20 feet from the banks of the canal.

After a 20-minute wait, noise from the path signaled the arrival

of Abu Abdullah and three other men, one of whom sported a Saddam

Fedayeen logo - a winged heart - tattooed on his hand. Abu

Abdullah, who wore track pants and a T-shirt, had covered his face

with a black-and-white scarf, though the other men weren't

disguised.

He said he left Jordan for Iraq just before the war, when

volunteers from neighboring Arab countries lined up at the borders

to show their willingness to help Iraqi soldiers. He was drawn not

by religious beliefs, he said, but by fear that war in Iraq would

lead to Western rule of the Middle East.

He said he since had met like-minded Syrians, Egyptians and

Afghans from other cells.

"I saw what the Zionists did to Palestine, how they destroyed

Palestinian homes," he said. "I told myself I could never let this

happen to another Arab country. The Americans are only coming to

occupy Iraq, to drain this land of its natural resources."

At the camp, he continued, he trains recruits to operate heavy

weapons and small arms such as machine guns and hand grenades. He

said the recruits, who were increasing daily "from inside and

outside Iraq," were quick students because most already had

military experience. The leader of the anti-American network

sometimes visits the camp to encourage new recruits to fight with

courage.

The men are taught to seek only military targets, and to spare

civilian lives when possible. For this reason, he said, he

condemns the car bombs that killed dozens of innocents recently at

the Jordanian Embassy, the United Nations base in Baghdad and the

Imam Ali shrine in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf. Abu

Abdullah said he thought U.S. forces orchestrated the Najaf

bombing to divide Sunni and Shiite Muslims by assassinating

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al Hakim, the leading Shiite cleric who

died in the blast.

"Americans want to split us," he said. "Those heretical people

want to finish Islam, to kill our religion. But we know Muslims,

and in our holy book it says to fight together against those who

threaten Islam. So, we will fight."

The promised hour-long interview ended after just 15 minutes, when

another member whispered something in his ear. Abu Abdullah

apologized profusely and excused himself. Information had arrived

on a convoy that would be an easy hit as long as the fighters

acted immediately, he said.

"This is from someone coming to tell us we have a mission now,"

Abu Abdullah said. "We are ready to go and attack our target." He

left, and the visitors were led back to the car by Ahmed and the

same escort from Baghdad.

On the way back to the main road into Baquba, an explosion so

powerful it rattled the car was heard in the distance.

The men in the front seat turned to each other and smiled.

(Allam reports for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.)

_____________________________________________________________

The interviews for this story were conducted in clandestine

meetings in Baghdad and at a camp in a rural area north of the

city. They provide a chilling insight into a shadowy organization

responsible for at least some of the attacks that have killed 70

Americans since President Bush declared major combat over on May

1. The story may disturb some readers who will believe that

American journalists should not talk with the enemy and that

American newspapers should not publish anything they say. But the

story provides important information to help the public understand

something of the nature of the enemy that U.S. troops are facing.

________________________________________________________________

© 2003 RealCities.com and wire service sources. All Rights

Reserved.

http://www.bayarea.com



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