BlogIraq

The fierce fights now taking place in Basra, Nasirya, Samawa, Diwanya, Hilla, and Kut are expected to be the final fight with Mehdi Militia. Although I don't see it as the final fight because for the last two years they have been killing innocents for sectarian reasons, and now they will be fighting for their own lives and existence. So, its not going to be easy, short, nor final.

Based on what I have seen from Maliki since he took over, I do not really think that he suddenly grow a conscious and decided to fight the bad people. Hes just not that kind of a guy.

Here is what I think is behind this fight,

If you read the names of the cities and provinces in which the fight is fierce, you can easily link it to another list. The list of the provinces that Al-Hakim wants in his "Southern Federation". Of course we will have to add Najaf and Karbala. Referring to the Article 115 of the Iraqi constitution;

"One or more provinces shall have the right to organize into a region based on a request to be voted on in a referendum submitted in one of the following two methods:

A. A request by one-third of the council members of each province intending to form a region.

B. A request by one-tenth of the voters in each of the province intending to form a region."

And since Al-Sadr has many followers in all of these provinces, and the Sadr PMs are highly against this decision, it will be virtually impossible for Al-Hakim and the Shiaa Coalition to impose such a decision without kicking Muqtada and his followers out of the way.

So, now the fight continues until the Mehdi militia is severely weakened, the Sadr PMs withdraw from the parliament, new provincial councils are voted for next October, new council members are Al-Hakim people, new council members demand the creation of the southern-region, a referendum is held, money paid to the buy the voting and Sadrists are forced to shut-up earlier, and finally the southern-region is created.

This way, Al-Hakim has booked the 70% of the Iraqi oil that used to belong to Saddam before, and have never belonged to the Iraqi people nor spent in their interest since the oil was discovered in Iraq.

Why Al-Maliki is doing this for Al-Hakim, you might ask. Maybe he offered him a share of the cake maybe with some important political position in the southern-region so they would not bother paying for the next elections of the parliament because they will have their own government, oil, and army.

The Sunnis can not do anything about it since it is, according to the constitution, the sole right of the people living in these provinces to decide whether they want to be in a federal-region of their own or not, and the parliament has no say in this. And the Kurdish leaders are fine with it as long as it has nothing to do with Kurdistan region nor Kirkuk.

The only way to prove me wrong, is after kicking the Mehdi militia's a*ses, Badr people should be next, and that is not going to happen.

This day marks five years since the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Five years full of death and suffering to Iraqis. What is even more sad, is that the suffering of the Iraqis did not start only five years ago. It started a long long time before that. Saddam and his entourage caused pain, agony, and death to an enormous number of people. Some people thought it would end by the occupation of Iraq by the US and life will flourish again. How wrong were they.

Those five years were nothing but another episode of suffering. With some new types of suffering, I must admit. If we look into facts of what this war has accomplished in five years, and I mean the accomplishments to the simple Iraqi person who does not have "Democratic" dreams, you can simply say, NOTHING. And what pro-american people might say about the improvements, it is the improvements done to what was sabotaged during these years of occupation. I can simply see that the last year, there was so much effort to fix things. Things that were broken in the past four years before. The last few months witnessed decrease in number of deaths, as compared to other periods during the occupation, not as compared to a normal country (Something we only hear about). Many media interns of the US were bragging about the low rates of deaths in the past few months. It ONLY 300 people this month. Its ONLY 200 people this month. What do they care? its just a number. A number that when compared to other months looks small. I mean, its ONLY lives of people we are talking about here.

And if I start about the services, oh my God I will not stop. The government had made sure to keep the people NOT having many services they did not have in the four years earlier. Secondary things like electricity, gas, clean water (or even not clean), garbage disposal, health care, education, paved roads, and many other secondary things. All of these things are considered secondary because the main accomplishment is security.

The government have accomplished so much in the past year. I mean just today, the second session of the reconciliation conference was concluded. A conference where our beloved "politicians" give speeches about how important it is to re-conciliate. and then they leave the conference in their armored vehicles with ten or more security personnel because they might be attacked by "terrorists" who happen to have connections with some other people who were in that conference. One important achievement we must not forget. The parliament changed the flag of Iraq. It was the last trace of Saddam left in Iraq. And it had to be changed. There are no Bathists or terrorists connected to Saddam anymore that we have to worry about, its just the flag that was left. The government also passed a big bunch of laws. The very same laws that the government tends to break every once in a while. And the government sure gain much respect with so many statements they made the past year about how they are going to bring to trial everyone who commits crimes on the Iraqi soil. And speaking of trials and courts. The Iraqi court made a big achievement last year too. They released one of the most important leaders of death-squads in Baghdad, because the witnesses just could not make it to the court room. I don't know why. Maybe because of the small concrete walls all over Baghdad. It can be a little confusing, I know. One last huge accomplishment is not to be forgotten. Turkey had a big military operation inside the Iraqi land.

What do we need to conclude from these five years, as Iraqis?

1. It is our battle against terrorists. No one is going to fight this battle for us. Not the American nor anyone else. The title of this post is "Five gone, X more to go..", it is our decision to determine the value of X. Only us can determine how many years we can take of this suffering.

2. When the government does something wrong, we need to stand-up for ourselves. Being a victim does not do any gains. We need to stand-up for ourselves and take control. I know it is not easy with all the armed people around, but we have to make a start, or else we will create another Saddam Hussien, and another, and another.

3. NEVER vote based on sect or ethnicity. It has brought nothing but harm in the past few years.

4. We need to raise our awareness of our rights. And fight for them. And I do not mean armed fight, I mean peaceful fight in every possible way.

5. Tyrannies do not always end. Occupations do.

I know it sounds like an election speach. Or more like a shout in the face of a tornado (As we say in Iraq, and sorry for the expression, boola bi shatt, like piss in a river). But again I say, no one is going to fight for us. The Americans did not fight for us when the toppled Saddam. They did it for themselves. So, we have to do whatever it takes to have the life that we want, no one will do it for us.

As you might already know, Gaith is writing for the Guardian for some time now. And he is doing a series of articles about the life of people in Iraq. Its an interesting reading. I like his professional style in writing. I thought you might be interested in his latest article about the life of a school principal in Baghdad.

********** Update **********

After looking into G's videos for several times, I could not but applaud him for his courage. It is not easy to make such videos even if they were short in a place like Baghdad.

I think a guy like Gaith in Baghdad would give a good insight of what things really look like on the ground. And would help people to decide whether the "surge" is succeeding or not.

In the video "Baghdad: City of Walls", some remarks he made regarding the need of a fake ID and a pair of rings to get into Al-Qahira neighborhood is absolutely true. There are many places where even Shiaa people need to wear rings (with big colored rocks) as a decisive evidence that they are Shiaa. And it was very brave of him as a Christian person to go to Adhamiya and shoot the conditions in which people are living day by day. I think he might have needed another fake ID other than the one he used in Al-Qahira neighborhood.

One thing I could not help noticing in the article about the school principal in Baghdad, that I referred to earlier; it is the courage of that principal to speak out. I believe that people in Iraq have got to a point that the are so fed up that the just have to speak no matter what were the repercussions.  For the school principal to reveal his name and photograph, I believe it took a great amount of courage. Masked gun-men tried to assassinate him once before in 2006, as he told Gaith in the interview. 

Another video that blew me away was "Baghdad's Killing Fields". Shooting two graveyards in Adhamiya and Sadr City is just too impossible. Thank God Gaith managed to get out of there alive. I don't know the amount of security he needed to get to and out of these places safely, or maybe it was pure luck.

This, relatively, small graveyard in Adhamiya (the first one in the video) holds about 3,000 bodies since it was open only 2 years ago. And people buried there are of Adhamiya inhibitors only because no one would consider going to Adhamiya in the condition it has been since the occupation. This makes me think of the actual number of dead people since the occupation. If in Adhamiya only, and in two years only, three thousand people died, how many died in five years all over Iraq?

It was heart breaking for me to watch the dump in which the militias buried the people they kill. I have heard a lot about Al-Sadda, but I have never seen it until I saw this video. I keep thinking about all the mothers waiting for their sons to come back home, while their bodies are decaying in this dump called Al-Sadda. I just wish that the government "discovers" this graveyard and do not mistake it for the many of Saddam's massive graves.

This series from Gaith will continue to be published for a week, and I will try to update this post during that time.

The Guardian today published an article about an ad being banned because it is considered offensive to Christians. So, when the cartoons are offending the Muslims its freedom of speech and when its offending the Christians it is banned?

I think this is the exact definition of hypocrisy. 

In the past few days, terrorism is rising again all over Iraq. Many people have died in many incidents starting from the Karrada explosions on Friday until this very moment. And when someone believes it is appropriate to kill 68 people in a public market, it just shows you how in-human and sick this person is.

The explosion in Mansour that killed 5 US soldiers in the middle of a public market is just as terrorizing. My wife and 18 months daughter were only 15 meters away. I called her earlier that morning before the explosion to check on her and the baby. I told her that I had a bad dream about them and I just wanted to check and see if everything is fine. Few hours later, she called me and told me what happened. They were around the place of the explosion only a couple of minutes earlier, and when they saw the Americans around, they decided to walk away because the existence of any armed men around means trouble, eventually. They crossed the road and entered a shoe shop. Few seconds later, the explosion happened. Everyone was panicked and the US soldiers started to shoot. "We did not know where they were shooting at", she said. She held my daughter and pushed herself between the shelves of the shoes to avoid being shot. Everyone started running away. And the Iraqi army guys came from a nearby checkpoint and started shooting in the air. They wanted to push people away because they were afraid that there might be a second explosion as the Karrada incident two days earlier. My wife, daughter and sister-in-law kept hiding in the shoe shop. Few minutes later, the Iraqi army guys were telling all the shop owners to close down and walk away from the area. And the whole area was blocked. They had to walk a long long way back home. But thank God they did not get hurt.

This bounce back of terrorism whether in Baghdad, Baquba, Basra, Sulaimanya or Kut today, shows only how long this battle of wills is going to be. Yes. It is a battle of wills. Its Iraqis vs. terrorists. Its going to be long, painful, and hateful. But it is a battle that All Iraqis have to fight, because no one is going to fight it for them. It is our will to have a decent life, and its our duty to fulfill it. Not the Americans, nor anyone else is going to fight that battle for us. They know only how to start wars, but they know very little about how to end them. 

On October 15th, 2005 the Iraqi constitution was approved in a day that lots of people thought would be the starting point of democracy in Iraq. Personally, I did not participate in the voting, because I did not have a copy of the proposal before the voting day, and so did many Iraqis. Anyway, the constitution was approved, and democracy means that even the people who voted "No", will have to abide by the will of the majority. So, it is a valid Iraqi constitution no matter what anybody say.

Some people do not believe that. The Iraqi government, the US government, and few other fellows do not believe that this is the constitution that every living soul on the Iraqi land have to obey. So many constitutional violations have happened. Most of them were done by the Iraqi government, and some done by the US.

I was taking a quick look through the constitution yesterday, and it struck me. The constitution in Iraq applies only when it lines up with the interests of the Iraqi politicians and the US army. It does not apply all the time. I'll state few violations that I have cited in my quick reading, so it is not a complete list after all:

1. Article 7: Two:

The State shall undertake combating terrorism in all its forms, and shall work to protect its territories from being a base or pathway or field for terrorist activities.

Iraq currently is hosting Mujahidi Khalq, and the PKK. Both of these organizations are consisdered terrorist organizations. And the State DID NOT work to protect its territories from being a base, pathway, or field for terrorist activities.

2. Article 9: One: B:

It is prohibited to form armed militia outside the framework of the state armed forces.

In Iraq, there are Mehdi militias, Badr Brigades, and recently, the Awakening groups. All of these priorly mentioned, are armed militias that is not part of the Iraqi security forces. and what is ironic about that, is that instead of disarming these guys, the government have discussions with them and the politicians "wish that the Mehdi army would extend its truce". And the Americans pay the salaries of the other kind of militia, the Awakening groups. And if the awakening groups are not considered as militia, they might be considered as contractors with the Us army just like their earliest enemy, BlackWater. All of these groups are armed groups that are not part of the Iraqi security forces, and the act outside the control of the Iraqi government.

3. Article 17: Two:

The sanctity of the homes is inviolable and homes may not be entered, searched, or put in danger, except by a judicial decision, and in accordance with the law.

And,

Article 19: Thirteen:

The preliminary investigative documents must be submitted to the competent judge in a period not to exceed twenty-four hours from the time of the arrest of the accused. It may be extended only once and for the same period.

House are violated, search, and people get arrested on daily basis without judicial decision. And thousands of people are held in custady of Iraqi and Us forces for months, and sometimes for years, without being trailed or prosecuted in courts.

4. Article 18: Four:

An Iraqi may have multiple nationalities. Everyone who assumes a senior, security sovereign position must abandon any other acquired nationality. This will be organized by law.

Many parliament members and ministers have two nationalities, and few of them who have been wanted for prosecution fleet the country with their non-iraqi passport, and the security forces in the airports could not stop them because there are paused as NOT iraqis.

5. Article 24:

The State guarantees freedom of movement of Iraqi manpower, goods and capitals between regions and provinces. This will be organized by law.

And,

Article 42: One:

Each Iraqi enjoys the right of free movement, travel, and residence inside and outside Iraq.

An arab iraqi is not allowed to get into Kurdistan region unless he has a kurdish sponsor.

6. Article 41: Two:

The state guarantees freedom of worship and the protection of the places of worship.

We all remember how this have been violated starting from the attacks on Mehdi militia people inside the holly mosques of Kerbala during Allawi's leadership, the bombing of mosques in Falluja, the bombing of the holly mosques in Samarra, and what followed that until this day of the burning and bombing of mosques and churches all over Iraq.

7. Article 92:

No special or exceptional courts may be established.

The court the is looking into the crimes done by Saddam and his gang is called "The Special Court".

There are some other articles that have been violated but requires more time and effort to gather information about, and I am too tired to look into it.

One interesting thing that blew my mind is that the prime minister and the president has to have a college degree to be appointed, while the parliament member does not…!!!

Maybe one day we will have not only criminals in the parliament, but also illiterate people too. Thats a relief. Long live the exported democracy.

Charges against Hakim Al-Zamili and Hamid Al-Shimmari were dropped last Monday. Al-Zamili, who was the deputy health minister until his arrest by the US Army Feb., 2007, was accused of leading death squads in the ministry along with Al-Shimmari, who was the leader of the ministry security forces.

The key witness who testified against the two gangsters did not attend the two day trial. Al-Zamili and his colleague were arrested for a whole year and the trail was over in two days. And the witnesses and their families were threatened and forced to change their testimonies or just not attend. And the wise three judges decided to drop the charges since the witness were too afraid to come forward.

The most famous two crimes these guys committed were the kidnapping of Al-Saffar, who was the deputy health minister who prepared a report about the corruption in the ministry and pointed out Al-Zamili as a part of it. The other incident was the disappearance of Dr.Al-Mahdawi, who was the director general of health in Diyalaa, after attending to a meeting in the ministry on June 12t, 2006. This incident caused large protest by doctors and health care staff all over Iraq.

Other than that, al-Zamili and his colleague facilitated the use of the ministry security forces and ambulance cars by the Mehdi Militias. An insider in the ministry told me once that after killing the people in the basement of the ministry, they issue official papers saying that the body was found in any area in Baghdad, and stamp it with the seal of the police station of that area, and then take the bodies to the morgue, which is the adjacent building to the ministry.

Their crimes also include the killing of Sunnis who came to the morgue to collect the bodies of their dead relatives in 2006 and early 2007. And if someone wants the body of a relative, they will have to pay large bribes just to be able to give them a proper burial. One time I remember meeting an old woman who had to contact the US army and she was escorted by the US army to the morgue to take the body of her son who was killed by Mehdi Militias in Al-Amil area back in 2006.

One interesting thing is that the security forces of the ministry of health consists of 13,000 members. Yes, that is thirteen thousand members. And despite that, more Iraqi doctors and health academics were killed than any other educated sector in Iraq.

When a judge looks into a case, and the key witnesses did not appear at the day of the trial after a year of suspects detention, and makes his decision to dismiss the case in two days, something smells fishy here, doesn't it?

I mean he could postpone the case for a couple of weeks to look for the witnesses. And provide the necessary security to them. This isn't a simple shop-lifting case that can be dismissed without harming anyone. Its a huge case of a suspected leader of death squads. A guy who transferred 60 million dollars to a relative of his in Amman two days before his arrest. And to make things worse, the 60 million dollars were transferred through the "Iraqi Bank of Commerce" which is the bank that overlooks all the governmental transactions. This bank is mainly managed by Americans and is positioned in the first two floors of the Central Bank of Iraq building.  I mean there are documents about this transfer. And all of this was not enough to prolong the case for more than two days.

This means one of two things; either the judges are part of the crimes these guys were doing, or the were shushed by the criminals by force or bribery. In the two cases, the system is f*cked up.

How can people trust the government anymore?

No security, no services, and power of law. These are the three things that Iraqis will remember the Maliki's government with.

************ Update March 6th, 2008 ************

To make things even worse, Al-Zamili has announced that he will go back to his position in the Ministry in an interview today with RadioSawa. (RealAudio of the interview here)

Congrats to the Iraqi people. 

Yesterday, Mr.President (Ahmedinajad) paid a visit to the Iraqi Government in Iraq. My odd observation is that in that nice day he came, there were no bombed cars, no roadside bombs, no killings, no kidnappings, and no Al-Qaeda attacks in Baghdad in the norm that we got used to in the past few months.

I wounder why was that?

The reason can be one of three things;

The terrorists are his boys and they can't hurt the master.

They government CAN control the security and they did secure the area because they can't afford hurting their master.

Or,

We were merely lucky because all of the terrorist groups in Baghdad took a day off.

The awakening groups in Diyala province has dropped weapons and went home for a nap. The U.S. military said the units in ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala had stopped work over pay and a disagreement with the provincial police chief.

The Iraqis say this act was based on the disagreement with Ghanim Al-Quraishi, the chief police because the police have arrested two women two days ago. And the 20,000 fighters dropped their weapons and left their posts because the police refused to release these two women.

On the American side, only 4,326 awakening members are registered with the US army. And most of them were on strike for about three weeks before this incident because of payment issues. I think its a mixture of the two causes that led to that decision.

On the other hand, the awakening groups south of Baghdad, in the formerly called the death triangle, have also dropped weapons and decided to take a nap. The cause this time is that the American army shot and killed three awakening members few days ago.

On a third hand (!!!), things are boiling in Anbar province, where the awakening movements started, because of the high tension between the Islamic Party (led by vice-president Tariq Al-Hashimi) and the awakening movements. This is apparently happening because of the Islamic Party is trying to take credit of the security improvements in Anbar, and trying to take over the leading official positions in the province. And I think in this matter, there will be blood.

In Baghdad, the "Ruthless, Shadowy", as called by LA Times, Abu-Abed, the leader of the awakening movement in Amirya area has left Amirya. He has, allegedly, joined the Iraqi security forces in fighting Al-Qaeda as he said he has many informers and intelligence information about Al-Qaeda that might be useful in the up-coming fight in Mosul. Abu Abed who an officer in the Special Security Forces (Al-Amin Al-Kha9) in Saddam's time. And in the LA times report about him, they said that many Shiaa families went back to their homes in Amirya and even Abu-Abed personally welcomed them and escorted them to their houses. This is not true. Few days ago I talked to a neighbor who lives in Amirya on the phone, and he said that no Shiaa family came back. But he said that there is indeed good improvement in security in the area and many shops have re-opened.

In Dora, some disturbances were reported between the Awakening members where the former-Baathi's form the majority of this group. This of course was not reported in the media and I don't think it will.

I think that the Americans held high hopes for the Awakening groups to settle thing down once and for good. But I do not think that people bought with money will be loyal, not to their country and not to their employer. I have no doubts that there are good people in the Awakening movements, but the majority is in there for the money.

I still believe that the US took the wrong way by supporting the awakening movement. We had a semi-civil war after the Samarra bombings in 2006. In this war there was one side that is well equipped and ready to rock, which is obviously the Shiaa side. And the other side was not as equipped or ready. So, instead of disarming the Shiaa militias and cleansing the Iraqi security forces, the US decided to arm and support the Sunni side to have a balance. Maybe the US thought it was easier, faster, and less expensive (money-wise and military-losses-wise) than cleansing the security forces and fighting the Shiaa militias that became so embedded in the security forces that no practical solution is in sight.

This fragile balance will not last for long. As soon as the Americans withdraw, or decrease their existence in Iraq, we will have an all-out civil war that will lead to enormous number of deaths and eventually bisecting Iraq into sectarian regions. This might be even more facilitated if the democrats win the US elections.

You might call me pessimistic, but I see the way out of the current situation as a loose-loose bet. I hope that I am wrong. And I hope that the disaster waiting to happen will not happen.