About Dhar Jamail:



Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **


May 14, 2005


Amman, Iraq, and Al-Qaim

It feels uncomfortable writing about Iraq from Amman…but my close
friends, Abu Talat (my close friend and interpreter) and intuition have
all provided the same message-do not go inside Iraq at this time.

So I’ve been in Amman now for about a week, and will resume posting
stories from here soon. We’ve been working on a couple of stories about
Iraqis in Amman…those should be out soon.

For now, I am using my Iraqi contacts in Baghdad (and other cities) as
well as those who have joined me here, along with watching Al-Jazeera
television, to pass on some news and photos about the situation.

Abu Talat phoned his family today in Baghdad. They’ve had no electricity
for four days. They told him (uncomfirmed) that all of Iraq has had no
electricity for several days. As Abu Talat says, “Baghdad is running on
the generator.”

Of course the gas crisis persists augmented by the lack of electricity,
along with constantly increasing attacks.

We were in a taxi earlier, driving across the orderly streets of Amman
and talking about the situation in Iraq. “Now I feel ashamed to tell
people I am Iraq,” says Abu Talat after he told the taxi driver he is
from Baghdad, “Because my country has been totally destroyed.”

I look out the window, not knowing what to say. I think to say, ‘But it
isn’t your fault, habibi,” but instead sit quietly, feeling that any
words would be inadequate.

The situation around Al-Qaim where “Operation Matador” is ongoing,
appears to be a micro-version of Fallujah. The military and corporate
media continue to portray the situation as if “foreign fighters” have
taken control of Qaim and surrounding villages (as was said about
Fallujah) when reports from the ground state that interviews with the
fighters have them all saying they are Iraqi.

Of course it behooves the military to claim they are battling “foreign
fighters,” because as in Fallujah and elsewhere, it doesn’t look good in
the press to admit that they are fighting Iraqis who are fighting for
their independence from the occupiers of their country. Even the marines
in Fallujah admitted they had killed a grand total of 35 foreign
fighters there. That kind of debunks the myth of a foreign terrorist
group taking over the city and terrorizing the citizens.

Another similarity between Qaim and Fallujah is that now there is a
humanitarian crisis in Qaim from the fighting. There are 1,300 displaced
families (approximately 80,000 people) from Qaim and the hospital there
was destroyed amidst fighting on 8 May between resistance fighters and
locals. On the 9th there was no electricity or water in Qaim and the
surrounding areas and schools were closed. On the 11th US warplanes
continued to bomb Obeidy and other nearby locations.

All of the aforementioned statistics were provided to me by a friend who
is here working with the Italian Consortium of Solidarity, an Italian
NGO based in Amman which provides humanitarian aid and has set up an
emergency working group for al-Qaim and has contacts on the ground
there. She also reports that people there need shelter, food, water and
medical care.

The loss of life continues unabated….in the last week at least 37 US
soldiers have been killed, while at least 450 Iraqis have died amidst a
huge surge of ongoing attacks since 28 April, when the Iraqi government
was officially announced.

Abdul-Khaliq al-Raqwi, the director of communications for the Iraqi
Government in al-Qaim, confirmed to Al-Jazeera that 2 US helicopters
were shot down in Qusaybah this past Wednesday. The military denied
this, even though witnesses on the ground confirmed the report as well.

Another interesting incident which occurred the beginning of the month
was when two F-18 Hornet jets crashed in Iraq. The military claimed
there was no indication of hostile fire, yet they crashed in different
locations. On the day of their crash, Baghdad airport was closed to
commercial air traffic for three days with no reason given by authorities.

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **


May 15, 2005


A “Welcome Parade” of Blood and Seething Anger

As if to add insult to injury, with over 400 Iraqis killed in violence
during the first two weeks of the newly sworn in Iraqi “government,” US
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a surprise one day visit to the
newest US colony.

After visiting northern Iraq which has been spared the brunt of the
ongoing violence, Rice traveled to the heavily entrenched “green zone”
in central Baghdad where the U.S. “embassy” is located. She addressed a
crowd in the former Republican Palace, the perfect setting for her
symbolic visit to Iraq where more and more Iraqis are referring to the
devastating occupation which has beset their country as their new
“bloodocracy.”

“We are so grateful that there are Americans willing to sacrifice so the
Middle East will be whole, and free and democratic and at peace,” she
announced before she returned to northern Iraq in her huge contingent of
military helicopters to the mountain stronghold of Kurdish Democratic
Party leader Massoud Barzani before exiting the war ravaged nation.

Rather than a welcoming parade with ticker-tape and rose petals for the
US Secretary of State who was one of the architects of the invasion, 34
corpses of men shot, beheaded or with their throats slit were discovered
across Iraq today.

Other aspects of her warm welcome included drive-by shootings in Baghdad
which claimed the lives of a senior Industry Ministry official, his
driver and a prominent Shia cleric as well as a dual-bomb attack in
Baquba which narrowly missed taking the life of the governor of Diyala
province (but took the lives of four others in his convoy). A second
bomb was delivered five minutes after the first by a man running on foot
towards the convoy who then detonated an explosives belt.

When ambulances arrived medical workers found body parts strewn about in
pools of blood and shattered glass as they attended to 37 wounded Iraqis.

Not only are the vast majority of Iraqis in Iraq vehemently opposed to
the ongoing occupation, but in Amman those I met at the ‘Between the Two
Rivers Trucking Company’ today were just as angry about the occupation.

Inside the large office of the general director of the company, drivers
from Baghdad, Baquba, Sadr City, Fallujah, Ramadi and Basra, Sunni and
Shia alike, crowd about glasses of hot tea to take turns venting their
frustrations amidst my questions.

Prior to the invasion they used to make 4-5 trips between Amman and
Baghdad per month. Now they make one trip per month, primarily due to
the fact that prior to crossing the border into Jordan they are forced
to wait in a line several kilometers long…for 18 days. This is due to,
what they believe, unnecessary harassment by Jordanian border authorities.

They sleep in the cabs of their trucks as the line inches closer to the
border, and when a driver from Basra tells me that if they leave their
trucks at night they are shot at by American soldiers, I glace across
the room to find all of the men nodding in agreement.

None of them are content with the situation.

“All of our problems are due to the Americans,” says Ahmed, a driver who
has been trying to get supplies into Ramadi, “The soldiers have
surrounded the city for so long, there is one entry way in and all of
the people of the city are suffering. The Americans brought all of these
problems with them.”

The subject of civil war is broached, and Mohammed, a Shia driver from
Sadr City blurts out, “The occupiers are creating these problems between
the Shia and Sunni, but they will not divide us! All occupations only
mean destruction and suffering!”

Again I look around the room filled with seething Iraqis and find them
nodding once again.

Ahmed raises his voice over the others and with eyes seething with anger
asks, “My cousin is in al-Qaim, and he just told me the Americans have
destroyed so many houses in that area and killed women and children!”

All of the attention in the room shifts to the large, mustached man
wearing a brown dishdasha as he continues.

“They are entering our houses where women and children are, and this is
totally against our traditions and culture. They must leave our country
immediately!”

It isn’t only the Iraqis in Amman who are opposed to the brutal
occupation of their country. Most Jordanians I’ve spoken with over the
last week feel likewise. As an older Jordanian man from Palestine told
me two days ago at my hotel, “The Iraqis must resist this occupation
now, or they will end up like the Palestinians.”

In the office of the trucking company, the mood is that of searing
anger, frustration and urgency.

Hamad, a Shia man from Basra enters the discussion and states, “I have
seen them destroy three farms in Diyala! Why can’t they stay on their
bases like the British do in the south? If they would just stay on their
bases things would be so much better for us.”

“With my own eyes I’ve seen the Americans, when their patrol was hit by
a roadside bomb open fire on all the civilian cars around them,”
exclaims Mohammed.

At this everyone begins talking at once, the anger raising their voices.

Over the din Rathman, a driver from Fallujah demands, “If Bush is a real
man, he should walk down the street alone!”

“Insh’Allah [God willing] Iraq will be the graveyard of the Americans,”
adds Ahmed, “Qaim is three small villages and with all their planes and
tanks they still fail to control it. If they were brave they should
attack one or two villages without planes and helicopters and tanks and
fight man to man!”

A Shia driver from Hilla, a small city south of Baghdad, sternly says
that the US is “the mother company of terrorism.”

My interpreter Abu Talat, my friend Aisha and I decide it’s time to
excuse ourselves. Several of the men follow us to the street as we wait
for a taxi, continuing to make their statements as we wait. They are
anxious to continue, seeing my pen as an outlet for their frustrations
as I continue to take notes.

“Why is the media not talking more about al-Qaim,” asks Ahmed, as a taxi
approaches and begins to pull over to collect us.

“We strongly advise the American people to pressure their government to
leave Iraq,” says a man from al-Karma who asks to be called Ali.

As I begin to step into the car he asks, “We are now free of Saddam
Hussein, so did the Americans come as liberators or acquirers?”


_______________________________________________
More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

Iraq to send envoys to Syria over insurgents row


ANKARA - Iraq will send a delegation to Damascus soon to seek Syria's help in stopping what Baghdad says is infiltration by insurgents from the Syrian side of the border, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said on Friday.


Speaking on a visit to Turkey -- his first official trip abroad since Iraq's new government was formed this month -- Jaafari also pledged to crack down on Kurdish rebels launching attacks on southeast Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.
"There are armed groups crossing from Syria," Jaafari told a news conference in Ankara. "We will discuss the issue with Syrian officials. There will be a visit to Syria soon and security will be one of the dossiers on the agenda."
A senior U.S. official on Wednesday called Syria "a major disruptive force" in the region and a corridor for foreign Islamist militants slipping into Iraq to fight U.S. forces.
He said the country was a logistical channel for militants fighting for Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for many of the attacks that have disrupted U.S. efforts to stabilise Iraq.
Syria has denied charges that it is helping the insurgents, and says it is ready to cooperate with Iraq on security.
It complains that the United States and Britain have failed to deliver promised equipment to help monitor Syria's 600-km (375-mile) desert border with Iraq, and says Baghdad has failed to send officials to sign a security cooperation deal proposed last year by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
"We will take our borders under control and will ask the neighbouring countries to do the same," Jaafari said.
UNITED AGAINST PKK
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told the news conference Jaafari had pledged to work jointly with Ankara to fight Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels holed up on Iraqi soil.
"We will never allow any group to harm a neighbouring country in any way," Jaafari said. "We won't allow a group in Iraq to damage other countries' politics, economy and security."
The PKK's armed incursions into Turkey are a major concern for Ankara, which faces an ethnic Kurdish rebellion in its impoverished southeast that has killed more than 30,000 people.
The violence tailed off since 1999 after the arrest and conviction of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, but has ticked up again since the PKK called off a unilateral ceasefire last June.
Ankara has long complained that U.S. forces are not doing enough to combat the PKK in northern Iraq. Jaafari also sought to allay Turkish worries that the oil-producing northern city of Kirkuk, a flashpoint for ethnic tensions between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, would fall into purely Kurdish hands.
"Kirkuk reflects Iraq's diverse demographics," he said. "Kirkuk will be protected as a part of a united Iraq."
Turkey views itself as protector of the several hundred thousand Iraqi Turkmen, with whom it has close linguistic and ethnic ties. It fears Kurdish control of Kirkuk could help finance an independent Kurdish state that would fuel Kurdish separatism in Turkey.
By Selcuk Gokoluk
Reuters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 24, 2005
Syria Stops Cooperating With U.S. Forces and C.I.A.
By DOUGLAS JEHL and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, May 23 - Syria has halted military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, its ambassador to Washington said in an interview, in a sign of growing strains between the two nations over the insurgency in Iraq.

The ambassador, Imad Moustapha, said in the interview on Friday at the Syrian Embassy here that his country had, in the last 10 days, "severed all links" with the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency because of what he called unjust American allegations. The Bush administration has complained bitterly that Syria is not doing enough to halt the flow of men and money to the insurgency in Iraq.

Mr. Moustapha said he believed that the Bush administration had decided "to escalate the situation with Syria" despite steps the Syrians have taken against the insurgents in Iraq, and despite the withdrawal in recent weeks of Syrian troops from Lebanon, in response to international demands.

He said American complaints had been renewed since February, when a half-brother of Saddam Hussein, who was once the widely feared head of Iraq's two most powerful security agencies, was handed over to the Iraqi authorities after being captured in Syria along with several lieutenants. The renewal of complaints caused Syria to abandon the idea of providing further help, he said.

"We thought, why should we continue to cooperate?" he said.

Bush administration officials said Syria's stance has prompted intense debate at high levels in the administration about new steps that might be taken against the Syrian government. The officials said the options included possible military, diplomatic or economic action. But senior Pentagon and military officials cautioned Monday that if any military action was eventually ordered, it was likely to be limited to insurgent movements along the border.

"There's a lot of discussion about what to do about Syria and what a problem it is," said the administration official, who works for a government agency that has been involved in the debate.

Relations between Syria and the United States have been souring for months, and some Bush administration officials said Syria's level of cooperation had been dwindling even before the latest move.

Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, said there have been occasional low-level military-to-military communications along the border. He said the Defense Department had received no official notification of a change in that status, nor that the status of American military attachés in Damascus had been altered.

The American officials declined to provide an on-the-record response to Mr. Moustapha's statements on halting intelligence cooperation, citing the delicacy of the issue.

American intelligence officials have said Syria has provided important assistance in the campaign against Al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks. In recent months, senior Pentagon officials and military officers say, cooperation between the two nations has included low-level communications across the border between captains and field-grade officers of the American-led alliance and their Syrian counterparts.

One senior military officer said those communications had been helpful in mitigating a number of "cross-border firings" of artillery that have occurred between Syrian forces and the American-led military in Iraq. Any further scaling back of cooperation there or between Syria and the C.I.A. could have a tangible impact, officials said.

American military officers in Baghdad and intelligence analysts in Washington say militant cells inside Iraq draw on "unlimited money" from an underground financial network run by former Baath Party leaders and relatives of Mr. Hussein, many of whom they say found safe haven to live and operate in Syria.

Those officials say Damascus has done very little in its banking system to stop the financing, nor has it seized former Iraqi Baathists identified by the United States as organizing and financing the insurgency.

In presenting Syria's case, Mr. Moustapha said his government had done all it could to respond to American complaints, including taking steps to build barriers and add to border patrols.

He declined to comment on any role Syria might have played in the capture of Mr. Hussein's half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, No. 36 on the American list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. But the ambassador said Syria had jailed some 1,200 foreign fighters who sought to enter Iraq from Syria, and had returned scores of others to their home countries.

On the day of the interview with Mr. Moustapha, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Syria was "allowing its territory to be used to organize terrorist attacks against innocent Iraqis."

A senior American military officer acknowledged that "the Syrian government has in some cases been helpful" in building border berms and otherwise taking action against people involved in providing support to the insurgency. But the officer added: "Our sense is that they protest a bit too much and that they are capable of doing more. We expect them to do more."

The United States ambassador to Damascus, Margaret Scobey, has been in Washington for several months, having been recalled for consultations after the assassination in Lebanon on Feb. 14 of Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister.

Syrian Pullout Verified
http://nytimes.com/2005/05/24/politics/24s...agewanted=print
UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (AP) - A United Nations team has verified the pullout of all Syrian troops and intelligence officials from Lebanon, Secretary General Kofi Annan announced Monday.

"We have verified all the withdrawal, including the border area," he told reporters.

The Security Council adopted a resolution last Sept. 2 calling on Syria to withdraw completely from Lebanon. But it was the international pressure after the Hariri assassination that led the Syrians to leave.

Syria's last soldier in Lebanon crossed the border on April 26, ending a 29-year military presence that was the key to Damascus's control of Lebanon.



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** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **

May 27, 2005
Sketchy Details

Yesterday Iraq’s Minister of Defense, Sadoun al-Dulaimi, announced that starting
Saturday 40,000 Iraqi troops will seal Baghdad and begin to “hunt down
insurgents and their weapons.” Baghdad will be divided into two main sections,
east and west, and within each section there will be smaller areas of control.

There will be at least 675 checkpoints and al-Dulaimi said this is the first
phase of a security crackdown that will eventually cover all of Iraq.

Keep in mind that most of Iraq has remained in a “state of emergency” since the
beginning of the siege of Fallujah, on November 8th.

“We will also impose a concrete blockade around Baghdad, like a bracelet around
an arm, God willing, and God be with us in our crackdown on the terrorists’
infrastructure.”

Also at the press conference was Bayan Jabor, the Minister of Interior who
added, “These operations will aim at turning the government's role from
defensive to offensive.”

This is really, really bad news.

The Iraqi security forces already have an extremely bad name throughout much of
Baghdad. I’ve had three Iraqi doctors tell me, in different hospitals at
different times, that they call the Iraqi National Guard the “dogs of the
Americans.”

Another close friend of mine in Baghdad, also a doctor, wrote me recently to
say;

“Iraqi forces now have what they call “liwaa al deeb,” which means the Wolf
Brigade. This is a very American name, and is an ugly name which gives the
impression of violence. In the past the Iraqi troops held names of some famous
Muslim and Arabic symbols which were more accepted. Anyway, the name wouldn’t
matter if their behavior was straight….they now practice a kind of state
sponsored terrorism.”

He went on to give an example of their not-so-straight behavior…

“Eyewitnesses in Al-Saydia area to the south of Baghdad told me that recently
when a car bomb detonated and destroyed the area nearby, people were astonished
to see the so-called police looting a destroyed mobile phone store that was
nearby! The police now are a bunch of thieves. Many of then are already
criminals who were released from Abu Ghraib prison before the war.”

When I was in Baghdad in January, I was shot at by Iraqi Police on two different
occasions simply because our car drove too close to them.

Hence, out of concern for his family, Abu Talat has returned to Baghdad. He
fears that his two youngest sons will be detained simply because they are of
“military age,” according to the US military.

Even now in Haditha, where the US military is engaged in an operation called
“Operation New Market,” (where do they get these names?) somewhat similar to
the recent attack on Al-Qa’im, where around 1,000 troops are raiding homes.
They have set up sniper positions, and according to an Iraqi doctor I spoke
with today that has colleagues in Haditha, “The Americans are detaining so many
people there, any man between the ages of 16 and 25 years is being immediately
detained without question.”

So Abu Talat is back into the fire…needless to say, I support his decision to go
back to look after his family, but not without deep concern and sadness.

“What else can I do, habibi,” he asks me while holding up his hands today.

So we say goodbye yet again, which in this situation is always a difficult thing
to do. Will I see him again? Will his family be alright? What if…?

Life in occupied Iraq. On any given day, anything can happen. It’s a numbers
game.

He or any of my other friends there could end up like the three civilians who
were shot dead by US soldiers yesterday while they were traveling in a minibus
in al-Dora, Baghdad.

Lieutenant Jamie Davis, a spokesman for the US military, said of the slaughter,
“The details are sketchy and we don’t know who was involved.”

According to AFP, the bus driver who survived the incident said US troops opened
fire after he pulled over to get out of their way.

Now with over 675 checkpoints to be manned by the “dogs of the Americans,” we’ll
all have to get used to countless more civilian deaths where “the details are
sketchy.”