France briefed Iraq on war: report April 27, 2003 FRANCE gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with US officials, The Sunday Times reported, quoting files it had found in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry. The conservative British weekly said the information kept Saddam abreast of every development in US planning and may have helped him to prepare for war. One report warned of a US "attempt to involve Iraq with terrorism" as "cover for an attack on Iraq", according to The Sunday Times. Another, dated September 25, 2001, from Naji Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, to Saddam's palace, was based on a briefing from the French ambassador in Baghdad and covered talks between presidents Jacques Chirac and US President George W Bush. Chirac was said to have been told that the US was "100 per cent certain Osama bin Laden was behind the September 11 attacks and that the answer of the United States would be decisive". The report also gave a detailed account of American attitudes towards Saddam amid anxiety in Iraq that the country might soon become a target of US reprisals. "Information available to the French embassy in Washington suggests that there is no intention on the part of the Americans to attack Iraq, but that matters might change quickly," said one document from folders marked "France 2001" found by The Sunday Times. Bernard Jenkin, defence spokesman for Britain's opposition Conservative Party, told the paper that the briefings went beyond diplomatic courtesies and pointed to French "duplicitousness". France came in for sustained attack from Britain's tabloid press in the run-up to and during the Iraq war for opposing early military action against Saddam's regime, with the Sun newspaper notably labelling Chirac a "worm". Agence France-Presse
Msfe, if you want to be treated like a normal human being instead of the village idiot many think you are, you really ought to try to answer a reasonable question in a normal manner instead of being evasive and refusing to address the question properly. So here is the question again : >>If you really are so peace loving, tell us what you would do if an intruder breaks into your house and sets off a bomb because he does not like your particular lifestyle or values.<< freealways
By P. Mitchell Prothero From the International Desk Published 4/27/2003 2:58 PM BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 27 (UPI) -- In Leviathan, philosopher Thomas Hobbes described life for man living outside the protection of society as "nasty, brutish and short." This is also the life that Saddam Hussein's regime offered the people of Iraqi. Not to say that the Baath regime did not deliver some benefits -- cheap food, gasoline and energy -- that aided daily life for its people, but overall it was a nasty and brutish rule that lasted far too long, and a new group of Iraqis holds the shocking details in millions of manila office folders. In what was once the home of the former head of Iraqi military intelligence, an impromptu group called Committee of Freed Iraqi Prisoners now studies the theories and practice of the hell by the former government. When looters first arrived at the home shortly after Baghdad fell, they discovered records that detail the crimes and fates of over 2 million people persecuted, and mostly killed, by Saddam's men. These records only span the period from 1981 to 1991, but even more were killed from 1991 to 2003, committee officials say. United Press International was granted access to these records on the condition that it not photograph the researchers or use the names of committee officials. It seems that with no confirmation of Saddam's death these men who were persecuted so brutally are taking no chances on the return of his regime or the revenge of its supporters. They also requested that UPI not use the names of prisoners from the records because their families continue to search for information on their fates and it would be cruel, they say, to learn of them in an article written by a foreign stranger. Family members come by the carload to loiter in the yard of the house, pouring over the lists identifying men killed, and when. About six months ago, Saddam emptied his prisons of most of the criminal and some political offenders in preparation for the American invasion. The families knew what it meant when these men never came home, but they have never received confirmation -- which might lead to some information on which mass grave the men were dumped in, which might allow them to find the body for proper burial over 10 years later. The scene is one that's both touching and sinister. Emotional old Iraqi women scan the walls and sometimes crumple into a moaning heap as they find a name. Men cry and yell at an American visitor for his government's inexcusable betrayal of the Shiite Muslims when they rose against Saddam in 1991 at former President Bush's urging after the Persian Gulf War, only to be slaughtered by the tens of thousands after Bush changed his mind and allowed Saddam to crush the uprising. Teenagers with AK-47s roam the yard as a form of very dangerous security to ward off Baath threats. At one point, someone throws a brick through a window of the home, sending the gun-toting man-child at the door into a deadly parody of a soldier as his "patrols" the grounds looking for the offender. Inside the home, committee officials brief their visitors from the foreign media. They detail their own tales of suffering. Each was related to someone that attended too many Shiite religious ceremonies, which drew regime attention, which led to allegations that they were agents of Iran. Once the allegations were made, each male family member was arrested and most were killed. Each room of the house is strewn with neat records that in some cases are stacked feet high. Each folder has details of the prisoner on the outside; his name, crime, date of arrest, date of conviction and ultimate fate are stamped with bureaucratic dispassion and efficiency. Most accusations are Dawa Party member or assassin supported by foreign regime. The fates don't vary much: Hanged, hanged, hanged, life in prison, hanged. Inside the folders are reports from the investigating judge. In one case the judge decides on 20 years in prison, but the next page is a typed letter signed by Saddam himself overruling the judge. Hanged. "My bother went to mosque," said one man who claimed to be 40, but looked a decade older. "That meant he was a member of the (dissident) Dawa Party. I was in prison from 1981 until this year." He displays the scars of his torture: Burns from cigarettes, electrocution and beatings. "How can Bush and the Americans support this man Saddam?" he asks, referring to the occasional collaboration between the United States and Saddam prior to 1991 and the ensuing betrayal of the Shiites. "Why did they do this to us? What do they say in their defense about my four brothers? About me?" he asks. "You are American, what will you say about this to (President George W.) Bush, to (Vice President Dick) Cheney, to the world?" The reporter cautiously offers that the Americans who betrayed him and his people will face God one day and have to account for their actions. But this draws a surprising response from a man tortured for his religious convictions. "I do not care about that, I do not care about God," he replies. The man has lost more than just 20 years and four members of his family. The crowd outside is increasing and grows more dangerous. It's time for the reporters to go, and the tone turns nasty. The committee officials are kind men despite their anger and help ward off some of the passionate demands and intense cries for attention as the reporters struggle into their vehicle. At the car, the group has now stopped moving and almost has to fight to get in. But there is not outbreak of violence and they depart for the safety of their journalist compound and its four tanks, its four Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
I don't think I've commented on this thread before, because in general I don't have anything against non-Americans offering their points of view on matters that concern American national interests. It also seemed right during the lead-up to the war to stand up at every opportunity against the lies, distortions, and prejudices that were being spread by anti-war contributors. With the war over, it's easier for me at least to adopt a different policy, at least with those on the other side who have shown themselves incapable of or uninterested in intelligent dialogue - in some cases having done so repeatedly over the course of months. In those instances, I think we can take a cue from the Administration - as David Warren put it recently: Whole piece at http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/Comment/Apr03/index134.shtml I don't have a problem with anyone who feels like taking on the ET cranks, but I think that if more of us exercised the option of indifference, we'd save some time and energy, we'd spend less time wiping the rhetorical spit off our faces, and the discussion threads would become less cluttered with diversionary side-arguments and name-calling. On this last note, I suspect that seeing discussions sidetracked makes some ET cranks feel like they've done their piece for the day obstructing the Americans - though the petty sadomasochistic thrill that comes from angering us may remain the principle motivation. There's a chance that, when met with indifference, our virtual adolescents will either give up and find someone else to bother, or conceivably (one might always hope) raise the level of their own discourse. It's also possible that these individuals are really as mentally impaired as they seem. In that case, arguing with them is even less likely to be worthwhile. In any event, I don't we really need to care about them very much, one way or the other. Lately, it seems, their posts have been going so far over the top and are so obviously devoid of judgment and intelligence that they don't really require responses.
David Warren: "Actual discussion on matters of significance is reserved to allies." The dictator on the 8.43 When Stephen Moss went for an audition for a Saddam Hussein-lookalike, the real test wasn't the interview itself - but the commuter train into town Stephen Moss in dastardly mode on the 8.43 from Kingston to Wimbledon. Photo: Martin Godwin The embedded journalists in the Iraq war were, of course, very brave, but there is courage too in dressing up in Ba'ath party uniform and catching the 8.43 from Kingston to Wimbledon, en route to an audition of Saddam Hussein lookalikes at the Riverside Studios. The audition - for a new play about the war by satirist Alistair Beaton - was advertised in theatre newspaper the Stage last week, and burly, moustachioed men from all over Britain are heading for Hammersmith in west London. When I first try on the beret, it feels more Frank Spencer than Saddam Hussein, and several members of my immediate family remark on the campness of my appearance. Naturally, I have them butchered. I am also aware of the greyness of my hair. Saddam was not, it seems, prepared to die, but he was always willing to dye. The photographer advises me to look "genial but sinister". He also clips my moustache - "it should be double the length of Hitler's". It is far too thin for the part - more Clark Gable than Saddam Hussein - but the show must go on. The uniform is perfect, apart from the gunbelt which keeps popping open. At Kingston station, the ticket collector says he has my face on a playing card - this is the first time he has ever spoken to me - and a man asks "Is this a spoof?" I am tempted to say "No, but don't tell Donald Rumsfeld," in the rasping, metallic voice I have been practising. On the platform, schoolboys laugh at me, but the adults (most of whom look sinister and not especially genial) ignore me, acting for all the world as if Saddam frequently takes the 8.43. I buy a copy of the Daily Telegraph at Wimbledon - "There you go, dear," says the cheery woman behind the counter in Smith's - and take the tube to Earl's Court. "Where are your weapons of mass destruction?" asks an elderly man, enjoying the joke. Everyone else looks stern/perplexed/mortified by the interruption to their tedious routine. The moustache makes me sneeze and I suddenly remember that I've left the glue remover at home. At Hammersmith, I have breakfast at Pret a Manger. "I've always wanted to meet Saddam," says one of the staff with pleasure. I assume that he is humouring me. Hammersmith Broadway is crawling with police, but they are more interested in an incident at Barclays bank than in the fact that Saddam's in town. I make it to the theatre bang on time and am immediately descended on by about 100 journalists and camera crews - dog eat media dog. I try not to give interviews, but Russian TV insists - "we are great friends of Saddam". The New York Times is taking Polaroids of every Saddam that turns up. Just in case? One interviewer wants to know what I would bring to the part. "A large stomach," is the only answer I can think of. "What do you think of the real Saddam?" asks another. "A brute," I say diplomatically. But if this scrum is anything to go by, now a figure of fun, too. About 15 Saddams have shown up and within a few seconds it is clear - to me, anyway, and I'm sure to the director, Jeff - who the winner will be: a sixtysomething ex-manager from the Royal Shakespeare Company who looks just like the real thing and has Saddam's slow, deliberate movements off to a tee. "Pretend you are a statue," he tells me. "Just make tiny, barely discernible movements of the hand." One female Saddam has turned up in a huge moustache. "You look like Groucho Marx," says Jeff, who himself has a wonderful walrus moustache that, if dyed, would be perfect for the part. An especially rotund Saddam does some comic business with a mobile phone, but Jeff is not amused. The competition is tough - one actor has previously played Stalin. Big moustaches seem to be his speciality. We audition separately - slowly walking across the stage, waving, acknowledging the applause of the crowd. The man from the RSC is brilliant - he must get the part. But there are some good runners-up - a man with an east London accent who looks like Omar Sharif and an elderly Indian who waves with real panache. Beaton is sure to need a few look-alikes for the lookalike. Shame the currently unemployed members of the Baghdad branch of Equity can't be contacted. I do my turn with what seems to me real aplomb - so in character that the reporter from the Guardian doesn't recognise me - but Jeff is cutting. "A touch of the John Cleeses there, I think." Would Kenneth Branagh be treated this way? On reflection, perhaps we did overtrim the moustache and I've ended up looking more Bognor than Basra. I give my phone number to the studio manager, but I don't suppose he'll be calling. (An early Ba'ath?) Maybe I could play Comical Ali instead? On the way back, I stop at Lillywhite's to buy a cricket ball. Thinking I'm an anti-war protester, the security man refuses to let me in. I go to a newsagents in Leicester Square instead and treat myself to a large cigar. The shopowner insists on taking my photograph. At last, adulation.
Shia clergy push for Islamist state Majority sect builds up power base and ridicules western 'liberty' Ewen MacAskill in Najaf Saturday May 3, 2003 The acting director of the Qadissiya hospital in Sadr City, Baghdad, is Sheikh Tahsin al-Ekabi, a Shia cleric. As he chatted to three people at the same time amid the chaos of post-Saddam medical services, a woman knocked on his office door and requested two tins of powdered milk. He signed a piece of paper and told her to take it to the local mosque, where she would be given the milk. While the US and their Iraqi allies discuss the country's future, Shias have taken control on the ground. The Shia - the majority sect of Islam in Iraq - who were suppressed by Saddam, are running not only hospitals but every aspect of life, including community and cultural centres and police stations. Mr Ekabi said: "When the US invaded, there was a power vacuum. We are providing security. Most of the patrols in the streets are being done by clerics because the people will obey the clerics more than they will obey foreigners. There have been no US patrols in Sadr City for two days." Sadr City , formerly Saddam City and home to two million Shias, has been renamed after one of the most revered Shia clerics, Imam Mohammed al-Sadr. He was killed by Saddam in 1999. Freshly painted pictures of Sadr have replaced those of Saddam all over Sadr City. The US is not happy that Shia gunmen are guarding the hospitals and have said they will confront the problem. But even if the Shias hand over control voluntarily they are well-entrenched at local level. This takeover has been replicated in other parts of Baghdad and in the cities further south, such as Basra, Kerbala and Najaf. The future of Iraq will be decided not in the US-led talks among the approved opposition parties but behind a battered grey metal door in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, that protects the Hawza, the city's main Shia seminary where Iraq's leading clerics teach. One of them, Sheikh Mohammed al-Yacobi, a former civil engineer who joined the clergy 12 years ago, is emerging as one of the key figures in the new Iraq. While some senior clerics are wary of becoming involved in politics, his supporters are not. Sheikh Yacobi told the Guardian: "Ninety-eight per cent of the people are Muslims. The Iraqi constitution must not commit to anything that will go against sharia [Islamic law]." He was guarded about saying what an Islamic constitution would mean in practice. But it was clear enough in the sermons delivered at mosques all over Iraq yesterday. Preaching to tens of thousands worshippers at the Qadhimaya mosque in northern Baghdad, Sheikh Mohammed al-Tabatabi said: "The west calls for freedom and liberty. Islam is not calling for this. Islam rejects such liberty. True liberty is obedience to God and to be liberated from desires. The dangers we should anticipate in coming days is the danger to our religion from the west trying to spread pornographic magazines and channels." Under Saddam, Iraq was a secular society. Women had equal rights with men and freedom to dress in western clothes. It was more lax than many of its neighbours about alcohol. But Sheikh Tabatabi said: "We will not allow shops to sell alcohol and we ask for the closure of all such places and we ask you to use every available means to bring this about." He added that women should not be allowed to wander unveiled around Qadhimaya City. The former US general appointed by George Bush to help create a new government, Jay Garner, has said he would not allow an Islamist state. But in the Hawza another cleric, Quais al-Khazaaly, said: "I think the right decision is to have an Islamist state. If the US blocks such a state and people want it, this will lead to lots of trouble with the US." If Shias act in unison, they will rule Iraq. But they are fragmented. The Hawza is dominated by two groups, those around the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali al-Sistani, a conservative, and those who follow Sadr, a more radical figure. There is also the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, led by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, which has been operating from Iran with a 15,000-strong army. All the political parties vying for power in Iraq acknowledge the dominance of the Shia clergy. The Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's choice, has pictures of Sadr on the walls of its offices in Baghdad. The Iraqi Communist party offered its condolences on the anniversary of the death of one of the leading figures in the Shia hierarchy. At the Qadhimaya mosque yesterday, clerics told worshippers not to support any party until the Hawza decides. That decision, when it comes, will dictate Iraq's future.
Hey msfe, you Evil Iraqi Lover and Hater of America... ya should know by now that we're gonna have us some democracy in Iraq, so that our guys get in... if those Evil Iraqi Scumbags elect anyone we don't like, we will smoke their evil terrorist leaders out and liberate the country, so that it can become democratic...
I like your attitude Candleman. Can we offer you a free ticket to Iraq ? They need people like yourself there. And ..............., it will be the most exciting experience to have ever happened in your life. freealways
The Debka File carries an article which says : "Tehranâs Friday Prayers preachers called on Iraqi Muslims to murder American soldiers and force them to leave country even if only half population survives. Influential Ayatollah Ali Meshkeni: Better 10 million free Iraqis than 21 million under foreign rule" What a quagmire the West is in. Now I am starting to understand why Saddam had a policy of cutting off people's tongues. freealways