Ruminatrix
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Thursday, Apr 10, 2003
Kirkuk, Open City...Kurdish guerillas replicate yesterday's demolition of a Saddam statue. Kurds disagree, but it's not a Kurdish city per se -- many ethnic groups live there, including the Turcoman minority so dear to Ankara. Watch out.
"Liberated" Baghdad is still in violent chaos...looting and arson are widespread and at least one Marine has been killed in one of many so-called "pockets of resistance," which sound more like civil-war zones. Under international law (the Geneva Conventions), the US/UK coalition is now the "occupying power." Its armies are therefore responsible for law and order, protecting and providing for the civilian population. It's not enough to say: "We don't do policing, somebody else can deal with that." You took it, it's your responsibility, deal with it.
Theories about the whereabouts of Saddam and his sons --if they're alive -- fall into four camps: Baghdad, Tikrit, Syria, Russia. Tikrit is certainly possible and the likeliest place for a Last Stand within the country. The Russian option (i.e. a diplomats' convoy took 'em along when they left their embassy three days ago) is plausible, more so than the Syrian one beloved by Pan-Arabists and the Likud alike.
But this would require the collusion of the US at some high level. And such a deal would imply intermediaries within the Iraqi power structure, most likely the Iraqi Army. Maybe that's why it was so quiet during the past eighteen days as to be almost invisible. That's Teheran's preferred theory (via Agonist): Washington wants Saddam in controlled exile, not on trial. Killing Saddam achieves a similar objective -- blocking inquiries into US support for his regime prior to his invasion of Kuwait.
We'll see if the Iraqi Army now reappears to offer its services as a political "security force" -- it's probably the Sunnis' best chance of retaining leverage over Kurds and Shiites. If such a deal was made, when did it happen, one wonders....
Baghdadis loot government buildings...a small crowd (and a flock of journalists) prepares to topple a massive Saddam statue in Firdoz Square, with assistance from an American tank... The Baathist regime is finished in Baghad, even if there are still "loyalist" snipers in parts of the capital, as well as diehards in Tikrit and elsewhere in the North...
There are ironies galore in the US armed forces standing aside to permit looting, even at the DGS (secret police) building. Keep in mind that much uglier retribution -- lynchings most likely -- will not be far behind. Who is responsible for public order in Iraq tomorrow?
But it's always fascinating to see a crowd at such a turning point, delirious, unsure of what comes next, teeming, confused, with all the potentiality of a historical moment of flux, in a collaborative act of symbolic demolition. It's so rarely seen. Toppling statues and symbols of former rulers is something human beings need to do -- and it's no, it's not the same thing as iconoclasm or outright vandalism (Banyam, Ayodha). And it's not as ugly as the deaths beforehand or the retribution afterwards. This is Iraq's day, no matter what comes next, and no matter how unwise the war that preceded it.
Street-fighting in Baghdad continues as US armored columns gradually move into nabes on the East bank of the Tigris. It's largely a psychological ploy, say the press officers, to convince Baghdadis that despite what they might hear, the Yanks are indeed coming. So where is the fine line between:
i) taking Radio Baghdad off the air to prevent the Baath from urging resistance;
ii) striking Al Jazeera, which broadcasts footage not approved by CentCom;
iii) accidentally killing other correspondents?
....And how does the liberation of Iraq resemble that of Afghanistan? The 1979 one, not the 2001 one.
Military tribunals are ready to roll for Guantanamo's 640 Afghan POWs, reports the NYT. There is a catch, of course:
Despite the fact that there will be a system in place, many officials said that there might not be an actual proceeding anytime soon. The Pentagon hopes that the first handful of prisoners charged will be persuaded to accept plea bargains in which they could plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for providing new information about Al Qaeda.Gooood morning. I'm Captain X, your attorney, and I advise you to sign this......
In essence, the first tribunal is supposed to serve as a continuation of the plan to get as much information as possible out of the detainees, with the actual prosecution of any crimes as a secondary goal.
"The priority has always been to gather intelligence from these people," one official said. Another official cautioned, however, that there was no guarantee that the defendants would go along with this plan. In that event, the military would be obliged to go ahead with a proceeding.
Monday, Apr 07, 2003
Too busy for long entry today...news of a possible Iraqi sarin stash will wait. So just a quote from a GI in Baghdad outside one of Saddam's palaces: "This is a nice place --they should turn it into a Six Flags." (This has been removed from Yahoo news, along with reports of US soldiers crapping in Saddam's bathroom and looting "souvenirs" therefrom).
Want a Russian equivalent to Israel's Debka, try www.iraqwar.ru, for a Russian perspective on the Iraq war. Link via Guardian UK and the newly-married Agonist.
Meanwhile another French-American dispute is growing on the horizon: and it's all about whose is bigger...from today's NYT (login/password: fmhreader). Kowabunga!
There's a summary of an odd LA Times poll over here. I haven't seen the questions they asked, but then again those answers (Osama/Saddam/Yo Mama) are what you get in wartime when people's heads are full of propaganda. (Lovely whitehouse.org stuff, graphics- heavy)
My technique is more -- dare I say it -- scientific: I dial a number at random, sing a couple of verses of Randy Newman's Political Science.
No one likes us-I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens
We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them...
And listen carefully to the response received...
Speaking of pulverizing things, the latest ordnance now ready for (re-)use over Baghdad is the concrete bomb. These improved wonder-weapons (no explosives, just fins and steering vanes) are "precision bombs that are considered effective against fixed targets while minimizing risk to nearby civilian structures," says Reuters. In an old England idiom, That's about as subtle as a flying mallet.
But don't worry about the above-mentioned poll results: they don't count any more. This President is on the record as being not about to set policy based upon a focus group. Therefore he should logically ignore this poll's results. One can go further and say the President must ignore them on firm moral principle, I think -- unless God were to tell him otherwise. But I'm asking God not to -- just in case He is looking at the numbers.
Now I have some polling work to do.
It's not about OPEC oil, is it? A Kurdish spokesman (PUK and KPD) says:
"We are going to 'demonopolise' the oil," Dara Attar, an Iraqi Kurd oil consultant told AFP after two days of meetings in London.In other words -- cheap oil until the end of the world....
"The government is going to be a federal state, therefore the economy will be different. It's going to be done in a way to serve the federal state," said Attar, one of a 15-strong body charged by the US State Department with planning Iraq post-war oil policy.
Iraq will remain a member of the Organisation of Petrolium Exporting Countries, but will not limit its production to stabilize the international oil market if it can produce more -- once its installations have been repaired.
There is some pretty sensible analysis of Iraqi Shi'a wait-and-see politics over at Daily Kos. "While they clearly need Saddam gone from power, they certainly have no intention to exchange a Sunni dictatorship for an American viceroy." Or if you prefer, Please declare victory over the Ba'athists now, so the real contest can begin.
A Puzzle
Evidence: They're long dead, probably from around 1991.
Evidence: Many have gunshot wounds to the head.
Evidence "found at the scene suggests many of the deaths occurred on the premises." So who are they?
i) Iran says they're Iranians (can we tell from the uniforms perhaps, dogtags?)
ii) Human Rights Watch thinks they're Iraqi opponents of Saddam.
iii) Baghdad claims they're corpses of Iraqi troops killed over in Iran and shipped back home for burial.
I didn't realize it yesterday how much it echoes Katyn. Katyn. No-one wanted to believe the Nazis, but they were indeed being truthful. And it took the Russians fifty-odd years to admit it. On a point of personal interest: one of my grandfathers narrowly escaped those quicklime pits in the pine forests near Smolensk. He wound up in a Roumanian internment camp instead and later escaped westwards. But that's another story.
Saturday, Apr 05, 2003
Copy-cat! Doesn't this statement from Pyongyang sound sort-of familiar?
And why did the Secretary of State feel it was necessary to reassure Al-Hayat:
"Nobody in the American administration (has) talked about invading Iran or Syria," Powell said. "It seems that there is a constant desire by everybody to accuse us of invasion operations. That didn't, and won't, take place."The fact that Mr Powell felt a need to clarify this point (if indeed "didn't and won't" does the job adequately) speaks volumes about the state of of the administration's current diplomatic efforts. With all the Syria-bashing that's gone on in the past week -- chronicled in the PST thread -- you would think the US 4th Division's tanks are about to roll up up over the Golan Heights.
Last, could the unearthing of more mass graves convince Iraqi, Arab, (and world?) opinion of the unsavoriness of the Ba'ath regime? Perhaps more so than the so-far unimpressive bio-chem site digs. But then forensic investigations often require neutral experts to convince skeptics.
Baghdad surrounded? Not quite -- there are no US troops immediately to the north of the city yet. But it's a matter of time and US troops are staging rolling patrol reconnaissance raids within the city limits, primarily for psychological effect. Reuters cites a UK official: "US Tanks have gone into Baghdad to make it clear to the people that whatever the regime may say, coalition forces are advancing and there is a determination to see the job through". You can anticipate major media madness when the first US tanks become visible to the TV news cameras in downtown Baghdad.
Because it's largely a war of images, words -- "perceptions" -- now. There's a slipperiness to language in this Looking-Glass world.
i) Baghdad Radio claims some allied paratroops landed at the airport and are surrounded: that's propaganda, of course.
ii) US Central Command says it doesn't matter whether Saddam is dead or alive, or ever found: wishful thinking, at best.
iii) US troops claim to move "freely" in Baghdad: exaggeration, by any common definition of freedom.
Hysteria creeps into each side's claims: desperation on one side, giddy anticipation of victory on the other.
Both surrenders and desertions continue in and around Baghad. But Ba'athist militia, cadres and SRG bodyguards and secret police guys and cousins from Tikrit, of whom there are very many, probably don't have the option to just melt away into the civilian population. Never mind would-be "martyrs."
Lagniappe: Why a Lebanese cleric may be most important to the actions of Iraq's Shiite population and those of the mysterious Badr Brigade.
Tony hasn't given his word as a English gentleman, precisely, but:
"The one thing that I want to make absolutely clear is that at the end of this, Iraq is not going to be run by Americans or by Britons, or by any other outside power.That's pretty straightforward. So I would expect him to resign on principal if the US Government fails to take the same position.
"As soon as the process of transition is over, it's going to be run by Iraqi people and a broad, representative government, not a small clique, an elite around someone like Saddam."
Now Iraq's Information Ministry is promising "non-conventional action" in the defense of Baghdad -- sounds like fair warning of a "martyrdom" suicide attack to me.
Two topical items on disarmament, our casus belli: Some white powder has been found at one Iraqi site, Latifiya. "But a senior US official familiar with initial testing said the white powder found at Latifiya was believed to be explosives, AP reported."
Meanwhile, a report suggests the war could boost the sales of the defense industry -- in Russia. Yeah, makes sense. Remember how the Falklands war boosted interest in the Exocet?: "According to some analysts, there has already been a surge in interest for Russian weapons at the IDEX-2003 arms exhibition, the biggest in the Middle East, which took place on the eve of the war in Abu Dhabi from March 16 to 20."
Gotta go. I can quit any time, I know I can...