[centraal] Irak na de oorlog deel 28

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Op donderdag 11 augustus 2005 02:58 schreef HarigeKerel het volgende:

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/10/wpotter10.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/10/ixworld.html

Gekte

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Leger VS doodt Irakezen na explosie
Amerikaanse militairen hebben in Irak een aanslag op hun konvooi beantwoord met geweervuur. Daardoor kwamen 15 Irakezen om, onder wie acht kinderen. Dat melden ooggetuigen.

Moskee
17 anderen raakten gewond. Een bom explodeerde in Nasaf toen de kolonne passeerde in de buurt van een moskee in de stad.

Ontkennen
Daarop zouden de militairen het vuur hebben geopend op mensen die uit de moskee kwamen, waar het vrijdaggebed was beëindigd. Het Amerikaanse leger in Irak ontkent dat willekeurig het vuur is geopend.

Bron

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Leger ontdekt chemische fabriek Irak

Amerikaanse militairen hebben in het noorden van Irak een grote chemische fabriek ontdekt. De fabriek werd vermoedelijk gebouwd door opstandelingen. Dat meldt het leger.

Chemicaliën
Militairen trokken de fabriek bij Mosul binnen, 370 kilometer ten noorden van de hoofdstad Bagdad. Volgens de Amerikaanse nieuwszender CNN is bijna 57.000 liter chemicaliën aangetroffen

Onbekend
Het is nog onbekend wat opstandelingen er produceerden of welke rebellengroep de fabriek heeft opgezet.

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Op zaterdag 13 augustus 2005 19:35 schreef HarigeKerel het volgende:
Gek dat ze in Mosul zaten met die fabriek, die peshmerga en Turkmenen laten het wel afweten zeg

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Op zondag 14 augustus 2005 21:00 schreef HarigeKerel het volgende:
Dat weet ik, maar toch had ik verwacht dat de Koerden daar wat beter mee om zouden kunnen gaan.
Die zullen hier dan ook wel flink mee in hun maag zitten, alhoewel ze dit ook juist als argument zouden kunnen gebruiken voor meer autonomie... wellicht hebben ze het daarom juist laten gebeuren?
Oei... ging ik zowaar even op de TRU tour

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U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved despite the chaos that followed the invasion and the escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address.

Iraqi officials yesterday struggled to agree on a draft constitution by a deadline of tomorrow so the document can be submitted to a vote in October. The political transition would be completed in December by elections for a permanent government.

But the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists. Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 percent to 65 percent.

U.S. officials say no turning point forced a reassessment. "It happened rather gradually," said the senior official, triggered by everything from the insurgency to shifting budgets to U.S. personnel changes in Baghdad.

The ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original U.S. goals and the realities after almost 28 months. The U.S. decision to invade Iraq was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honors human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.

But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq's future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shiites are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women's rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist, U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say.

"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."

U.S. officials now acknowledge that they misread the strength of the sentiment among Kurds and Shiites to create a special status. The Shiites' request this month for autonomy to be guaranteed in the constitution stunned the Bush administration, even after more than two years of intense intervention in Iraq's political process, they said.

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Iran backing Iraqi insurgent bombers - Time report

Sun Aug 14,12:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Iranian-backed network of insurgents in Iraq is responsible for a new type of lethal roadside bomb, part of plans by Tehran to influence its neighbor that began even before the U.S. invasion, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

Citing a U.S. military intelligence document, the magazine said that over the past eight months, a network of insurgents led by a man named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani had introduced bombs based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizbollah that can easily pierce battle tank armor.

The document estimated that al-Sheibani's team comprised 280 members divided into 17 bomb-making teams and death squads, Time said.

This appeared to be part of an Iranian plan for gaining influence in Iraq that began before the United States invaded in March 2003, Time said. Its investigation was based on documents smuggled from Iran and interviews with U.S., British and Iraqi intelligence officials, as well as an Iranian agent, armed dissidents and Iraqi militia and political allies.

Time cited an unnamed senior U.S. military official in Baghdad as saying one of the new bombs killed three British soldiers in Amarah last month.

"One suspects this would have to have a higher degree of approval (in Tehran)," it quoted the official as saying.

The United States believes Iran has arranged a pact between Iraqi Shi'ite militants and Hizbollah, and helped import sophisticated weapons that kill and wound U.S. and British troops, it quoted the official as saying.

Time also said it had documents that pointed to a role by forces attached to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in controlling the cities of Kut and Amarah shortly after the invasion.

It also said coalition military officials believe Iranian-funded militias helped organize a mob attack in the southern township of Majarr al-Kabir in June 2003 that resulted in the execution of six British military police.

Time said it had Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps files that include substantial pay records from August 2004 that seem to show Iran was paying the salaries of at least 11,740 members of Iraq's Badr Corps militia group. However, it said, Badr Corps leader Hadi al-Amri has denied this was currently the case.

Time said Abu Hassan, a former Iraqi official and member of the armored corps of former leader Saddam Hussein, told it last summer that he was recruited by an Iranian agent in 2004 to provide the names and addresses of Interior Ministry officials in close contact with American military officers and liaisons.

It said Abu Hassan's Iranian handler wanted to know "who the Americans trusted and where they were" and asked him to find out if Abu Hassan could get someone into the office of then Prime Minister Iyad Allawi without being searched.

Allawi has told Time he believes Iranian agents plotted to assassinate him, the magazine said.

Western diplomats believe information they give to the new Iraqi government is probably shared with Tehran, Time said. "We have to think anything we tell or share with the Iraqi government ends up in Tehran," it quoted one envoy as saying.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad replied to a question on Sunday by George Stephanopoulos of ABC News about Iranian influence by saying: "Well, I am concerned. I do not oppose good relations between Iraq and Iran. They are neighbors.

"But at the same time, there are Iranian activities that undermine the current system. There are weapons that come across the Iranian border. There are people that come across from the Iranian border into Iraq."

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U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved despite the chaos that followed the invasion and the escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address.

Iraqi officials yesterday struggled to agree on a draft constitution by a deadline of tomorrow so the document can be submitted to a vote in October. The political transition would be completed in December by elections for a permanent government.

But the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

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Someone Tell the President the War Is Over
By FRANK RICH
LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire.

But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.

The president's cable cadre is in disarray as well. At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.)

As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn't unsettling enough, Mr. Bush's top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls "a global struggle against violent extremism." A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war's über-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it's a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.

That battle crashed past the tipping point this month in Ohio. There's historical symmetry in that. It was in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, that Mr. Bush gave the fateful address that sped Congressional ratification of the war just days later. The speech was a miasma of self-delusion, half-truths and hype. The president said that "we know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade," an exaggeration based on evidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee would later find far from conclusive. He said that Saddam "could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year" were he able to secure "an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball." Our own National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1 quoted State Department findings that claims of Iraqi pursuit of uranium in Africa were "highly dubious."

It was on these false premises - that Iraq was both a collaborator on 9/11 and about to inflict mushroom clouds on America - that honorable and brave young Americans were sent off to fight. Among them were the 19 marine reservists from a single suburban Cleveland battalion slaughtered in just three days at the start of this month. As they perished, another Ohio marine reservist who had served in Iraq came close to winning a Congressional election in southern Ohio. Paul Hackett, a Democrat who called the president a "chicken hawk," received 48 percent of the vote in exactly the kind of bedrock conservative Ohio district that decided the 2004 election for Mr. Bush.

These are the tea leaves that all Republicans, not just Chuck Hagel, are reading now. Newt Gingrich called the Hackett near-victory "a wake-up call." The resolutely pro-war New York Post editorial page begged Mr. Bush (to no avail) to "show some leadership" by showing up in Ohio to salute the fallen and their families. A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as "a matter of courtesy and decency." Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Mr. Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can't win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7.

Such political imperatives are rapidly bringing about the war's end. That's inevitable for a war of choice, not necessity, that was conceived in politics from the start. Iraq was a Bush administration idée fixe before there was a 9/11. Within hours of that horrible trauma, according to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Mr. Rumsfeld was proposing Iraq as a battlefield, not because the enemy that attacked America was there, but because it offered "better targets" than the shadowy terrorist redoubts of Afghanistan. It was easier to take out Saddam - and burnish Mr. Bush's credentials as a slam-dunk "war president," suitable for a "Top Gun" victory jig - than to shut down Al Qaeda and smoke out its leader "dead or alive."

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 - "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it.

The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006.

Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq.

WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next mont.

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Op maandag 15 augustus 2005 12:37 schreef Mikrosoft het volgende:
Tjonge. Werkelijk alles wat Bush aanraakt verandert in stront.

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Hirsi Ali hekelt vrouwenrechten Iraakse grondwet

Uitgegeven: 16 augustus 2005 17:35
RIJSWIJK - Ayaan Hirsi Ali uit scherpe kritiek op het negeren van de vrouwenrechten in de ontwerpgrondwet van Irak. Het vrije westen dat zegt op te komen voor de vrijheid en democratie van alle Irakezen, laat dat ook nog eens zonder verzet gebeuren, schreef de VVD-politica dinsdag in een opiniestuk in The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Hamam Hamoudi, het hoofd van de commissie die deze grondwet samenstelt, weigert volgens Hirsi Ali een artikel op te nemen waarin staat dat mannen en vrouwen gelijke rechten hebben. Het westen offert de vrouwenrechten in Irak op om de nieuwe grondwet snel te kunnen invoeren, concludeert zij.

Droom

"Ik dacht dat president Bush en alle bondgenoten die de oorlog tegen Irak steunden democratie en vrijheid voor alle Irakezen wilden bereiken. Zijn Iraakse meisjes en vrouwen niet mens genoeg om deze droom te delen? Nu is er een bizarre situatie gecreëerd waarbij de vrouwen meer rechten onder het regime van Saddam Hussein hadden dan in het Irak na Saddam Hussein", stelt Hirsi Ali vast.

Rechten

Hamoudi benadrukt wel dat vrouwen volledige economische en politieke rechten in de nieuwe grondwet krijgen. Maar die kunnen in de visie van het VVD-Kamerlid teniet worden gedaan als de Shariah geldt. De Shariah is de islamitische wet, die over alle aspecten van het leven van een moslim handelt. De Shariah geeft de moslimman complete controle over zijn vrouw en in dat geval hebben vrouwen dus weinig kans om hun politieke rechten te gebruiken, weet Hirsi Ali.

Huwelijk

Voorbeeld van een situatie waarin vrouwen volgens Hirsi Ali ernstig benadeeld kunnen worden, is bijvoorbeeld het huwelijk. Onder de Shariah is een meisje huwbaar vanaf het moment dat ze begint te menstrueren. In landen waar de islamitische wet geldt, komen kindbruiden dan ook veel voor, schrijft Hirsi Ali. Ze vraagt zich af of degenen die de Iraakse grondwet opstellen begrijpen wat dit betekent voor het risico op miskramen, sterfte onder kraamvrouwen en kinderen.

De Shariah maakt het mannen verder mogelijk met maximaal vier vrouwen te trouwen en van een vrouw te scheiden zonder tussenkomst van een rechter. Hij hoeft allen maar te zeggen "ik scheid van je" in het bijzijn van twee mannelijke getuigen. Vrouwen wordt het daarentegen vrijwel onmogelijk gemaakt van hun man te scheiden.

Tot slot stelt Hirsi Ali dat het erfrecht op basis van de Shariah oneerlijk is: vrouwen erven maar de helft van wat hun broers erven, een echtgenote krijgt slechts een klein deel van de nalatenschap wanneer haar man sterft.

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Op dinsdag 16 augustus 2005 18:32 schreef schatje het volgende:

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bron

Hirsi Ali heeft gelijk. Het lijkt mij ook vrijwel zo goed als zeker dat in de toekomst de Islamitische wet zal gelden in Irak. Sterker nog, in sommige steden in het zuiden van Irak is dat al het geval.

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Op maandag 15 augustus 2005 12:37 schreef Mikrosoft het volgende:
Tjonge. Werkelijk alles wat Bush aanraakt verandert in stront.

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In Irak zal binnen enkele dagen weer worden begonnen met het uitvoeren van doodvonnissen. Dit is voor het eerst sinds de val van het bewind van dictator Saddam Hussein. "De president heeft drie doodvonnissen ondertekend en de eerste worden binnen enkele dagen uitgevoerd in Kut", aldus premier Ibrahim Jaafari.

Drie leden van de aan de terreurbeweging al-Qaeda verbonden groepering Ansar al-Sunna zullen worden geëxecuteerd. Zij werden in mei tot de doodstraf veroordeeld. Dit omdat ze schuldig zijn bevonden door de rechter aan ontvoering van en moord op een politieagent en de verkrachting van Iraakse vrouwen.

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Op dinsdag 16 augustus 2005 18:48 schreef kLowJow het volgende:

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Leuk dat ze er een mening over heeft, maar wat had ze dan verwacht/gewild? Dat het westen een grondwet naar eigen model opstelt en Irak dwingt deze te accepteren?

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Triple Baghdad blasts kill dozens

At least 42 people died and 80 were injured in three car bombings in the centre of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Two of the blasts went off within 10 minutes of each other at 0800 (0400 GMT) at the busy Nahda bus station. The third blast happened on the road to a nearby hospital some 15 minutes later, just as victims of the first two attacks were being brought in.

Four men were arrested at the bus station on suspicion of being involved in the bombings, officials said. No details have been given about the suspects, who are now being questioned. All three attacks were less than 30 minutes apart, and police say their apparent co-ordination and planning means casualty figures are almost certain to rise.

The blasts were the largest attacks by insurgents in recent weeks. Attacks have dropped off amid negotiations on a new Iraqi constitution, which reached a deadlock this week. Police and officials investigating the attacks were trying to determine whether the blasts were work of suicide bombers.

Blazing buses

The bus station serves various parts of the country and would normally have been crowded with travellers at the time of the attacks, says the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Baghdad. One eyewitness told Reuters news agency they saw a coach blow up. "We heard an explosion in the garage, we went there and ran towards the buses for Kut, Basra and Amara," said Ahmed Jabur.

"A coach blew up. When we were leaving, another one blew up in the middle of police cars." Most of the victims appeared to be civilians, many of whom were trapped on buses. Shortly afterwards, the third car bomb echoed around the city. Medics and police helping the wounded to hospital were among the injured, reports say.

In other violence:

Two US soldiers died in separate attacks in southern Baghdad, and northern Iraq, the US military says

Six Iraqi soldiers in northern Iraq were killed when insurgents open fire as they guard oil installations near Kirkuk.

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Myers: Release of Abu Ghraib prison photos could cause riots

NEW YORK The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff warns that releasing photos and videotapes of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison could have serious consequences.

General Richard Myers contends in recently unsealed court documents that the release of such information would aid al-Qaida recruitment, weaken governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and incite riots against U-S troops.

The American Civil Liberties Union wants 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison released as part of a lawsuit it filed in 2003.

The group is seeking information on the treatment of detainees in U-S custody and about the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture.
 

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Op dinsdag 16 augustus 2005 19:40 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Irak start weer met executies

Een regime dat minderheden ontvoert, martelt en liquideert, vertrouw ik niet om de doodstraf uit te voeren, zeker niet als de schuldigen terroristen zijn die vrouwen verkrachten.

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Op donderdag 18 augustus 2005 12:48 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:

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Wat bedoel je met je opmerking?

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Op donderdag 18 augustus 2005 13:09 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:
LOL, en hoe kom jij aan die kennis?! Het is een democtratisch gekozen regering (lees: geen regime) die volgens de wetten van het land mensen berecht. En er is nu in Irak een meest onstabiele en onrustige periode waarbij zulke noodmaatregelen, helaas, nodig zijn.

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Op donderdag 18 augustus 2005 13:17 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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[quote]Het democratisch gehalte valt wel mee. Ten eerste waren de namen van degenen op de lijst onbekend, er werd dus slechts op partijen gestemd,

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ten tweede was een hele bevolkingsgroep de facto uitgesloten van de verkiezingen, te wijten aan terreur en wellicht politieke onwil

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en ten derde heeft de bezettingsmacht nog steeds invloed. Het is mooi dat die verkiezingen er waren, maar ze waren en zijn zeker geen visitekaartje.

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verder: ook een democratisch bestuur kan een regime zijn. Maar je zegt het al: de maatregelen zijn nodig. Nu, wanneer een regime meent dat executies nodig zijn om het land te stabiliseren, dan vind ik dat een slechte ontwikkeling, zeker wanneer dat regime, of elementen daarvan, doodseskaders opricht die minderheden ontvoeren en liquideren. De vorige eeuw is al vaker gebleken waar dat toe leidt.

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Op donderdag 18 augustus 2005 14:13 schreef Hallulama het volgende:
Zijn er in Nederland nog steeds mensen die denken dat het om het brengen van democratie en vrijheid ging in Irak?

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Op donderdag 18 augustus 2005 23:19 schreef Elgigante het volgende:

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Vast wel, het was natuurlijk bijzaak en ik vind het erg hypocriet om anderen gedwongen democratie op te leggen als ze dat niet willen.
Daarom is een mogelijke executie van Saddam het ultieme teken dat het volk zelf beslist.

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 09:47 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:

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Waar heb je t over?? Tussen de 60 en 70% vd bevolking ging naar de stembus, ondanks de dreiging van terreur en aanslagen. En dat is echt opmerkelijk en tegelijk bewonderingswaardig. En dat deel vd groep die niet is gaan stemmen, wilde wel maar die werden vriendelijk doch dringend verzocht om dat niet te doen. Dus je kan moeilijk zeggen dat ze ten eerste werden gedowngen en ten tweede dat de geen democratie willen ...

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 11:47 schreef Godslasteraar het volgende:

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Die mensen kregen de gelegenheid van Irak een islamitische staat te maken, en daar hebben ze voor gekozen. Dit zullen dan ook meteen de laatste vrije verkiezingen zijn.

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Op donderdag 18 augustus 2005 14:33 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:

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In Nederland stemmen we ook op partijen. Bovendien was er door de grote terreurdreiging helaas geen andere optie mogelijk. Wat verwacht je nou ook, van absolute dictatuur naar ultieme democratie??

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Er was een opkomst van tussen de 60 en 70%; dat lijkt me een goede percentage voor verkiezingen onder zulke moeilijke omstandigheden.

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Verder is die bevolkingsgroep niet in z'n totaal uitgesloten: als je zelf niet wilt dan is dat je eigen schuld. Iets anders is dat je bedreigd wordt maar daar hadden ze ook een oplossing: die Soennieten konden naar Baghdad om daar te stemmen. Maar helaas hadden hun leiders hen opgeroepen om de verkiezingen te boycotten!

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IK zei ook, 't is helaas noodzakelijk om enigzins te proberen de situatie te verbeteren. Die zaken die jij aankaart lijken me meer fabels dan werkelijkheid: je moet niet praten alsof de regering met opzet mensen van die 'minderheid' oppakt en doodt omdat ze afkomstig zijn van die minderheid; het is gewoon een feit dat de meeste terroristen uit die nesten komen of anderzijds de terroristen helpen en ondersteunen.

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Waarom vinden er in t noorden en zuiden over 't algemeen geen grote aanslagen plaats, vallen daar gemiddeld minder doden en hebben de mensen de beschikking over de meeste basisvoorzieningen zoals water en electriciteit??

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 12:03 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:

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Bullshit!! Het een sluit de ander sowieso niet uit. Bovendien is de meeste invloedrijke geestelijk in Irak, al-Sistani, voor scheiding van kerk en staat. En Irak bestaat voor 98% uit moslims dus dit zal dan logischerwijs effect hebben op de opbouw en structuur vd regering ...

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 13:26 schreef Godslasteraar het volgende:

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Al Sistanie is een Iraniër, géén Irakees. Hij kon dan ook niet stemmen. De Shiiten worden nu de facto geregeerd door twee islamitische partijen, SCIRI en Dawa. Beiden willen een islamitische staat gebaseerd op de Sharia, zoveel wat betreft Sistani's uitspraken over de scheiding van kerk en staat. Dit zal ertoe leiden dat minderheden van overheidswege gediscrimineerd zullen worden, vrouwen zullen nauwelijks noch rechten hebben, alleen nog maar plichten. En mensen die niet van ''het boek zijn'' zullen zelfs vogelvrij verklaard worden. In het zuiden van Irak is dit al een feit.
Het geweldsmonopolie bij de shiiten licht al bij religieuze milities die ook de politie en het leger domineren.
Zuid Irak is een theocratie Iraanse stijl. Midden Irak zal uiteindelijk ook door shiiten gedomineerd worden en alleen de Koerden lijken hieraan te ontsnappen, die hebben de facto een eigen staat.
Irak is al in feite veranderd in de bekende maar algemeen ontkende islamitische apartheidsstaat.
Voor zover islam en democratie.

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Amid preparations for pivotal elections Friday in Iran - and later this year in Iraq - analysts see two Shiite visions of democracy vying for dominance. Some say the traditionally "quietist" clergy represented by Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is growing more influential at the expense of Iran's all-embracing system of clerical rule embodied by Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"There is a strong possibility that over time large numbers of lay religious Iranians will switch their allegiance to Sistani, and some of the [Iranian] reformers are said already to have done so," says Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and a specialist in Shiite affairs

So, too, with Iraq. Iraqi Shiites represent around 60 percent of the population. The remaining 40 percent is comprised of Sunni Muslims, several Christian sects and a tiny Jewish community. Furthermore, many Shiites are avowedly secular and have little enthusiasm for an Islamic state, whether governed by Wilayet al-Faqih or a less comprehensive form of Islamic rule.

Even groups such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which was supported by Iran during Saddam Hussein's regime, has begun to distance itself from Tehran's clerical rulers to boost its appeal among Iraqi Shiites.

"The Iranians have their own problems and that is not a model for us," says Sheikh Humum Hammoudi, a senior member of SCIRI's leadership. "We want our religious leaders to be advisers not [political] authorities."

He does not believe in 'Wilayat al Faqeeh' as the clergy in Iran do.... He repeatedly stressed that religion has to be separated from government," the letter said. "He said that he firmly believed that the clergy should not interfere with the running of people's lives, with government or with administration. He had forbidden his followers from putting their noses into the state's affairs. He said that clearly and categorically (several times to stress the point!)"

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 13:26 schreef Godslasteraar het volgende:

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Voor zover islam en democratie.

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 13:42 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:

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Dat hij geen Irakees doet hier ter zake niet toe. Ik vind je uitspraken wel grappig, sinds ik daar vrienden en kennissen heb wonen die mij hierover niets vertellen of zeggen dat zoiets daar gaande is. Lees t onderstaand stuk,ter info ...

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Switched Off in Basra & American Journalist Is Shot to Death in Iraq


July 31, 2005
Switched Off in Basra
By STEVEN VINCENT

Basra, Iraq

THE British call it being "switched on" - a state of high morale and readiness, similar to what Americans think of as "gung ho" attitude. During the 10 days I recently spent embedded with the British-led multinational force in this southern Iraqi city, I met many switched-on soldiers involved in what the British call "security sector reform." An effort to maintain peace while training Iraqis to handle their own policing and security, security sector reform is fundamental to the British-American exit strategy. As one British officer put it, "The sooner the locals assume their own security, the sooner we go home."

From this perspective, the strategy appears successful. Particularly in terms of the city police officers, who are proving adept at the close-order drills, marksmanship and proper arrest techniques being drilled into them by their foreign instructors. In addition, police salaries are up, the officers have shiny new patrol cars, and many sport snazzy new uniforms. Better yet, many of these new Iraqi officers seem switched-on themselves. "We want to serve our country" is a repeated refrain.

From another view, however, security sector reform is failing the very people it is intended to serve: average Iraqis who simply want to go about their lives. As has been widely reported of late, Basran politics (and everyday life) is increasingly coming under the control of Shiite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Recruited from the same population of undereducated, underemployed men who swell these organizations' ranks, many of Basra's rank-and-file police officers maintain dual loyalties to mosque and state.

In May, the city's police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

The fact that the British are in effect strengthening the hand of Shiite organizations is not lost on Basra's residents.

"No one trusts the police," one Iraqi journalist told me. "If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump." Mufeed al-Mushashaee, the leader of a liberal political organization called the Shabanea Rebellion, told me that he felt that "the entire force should be dissolved and replaced with people educated in human rights and democracy."

Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren't doing. Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.

The results are apparent. At the city's university, for example, self-appointed monitors patrol the campuses, ensuring that women's attire and makeup are properly Islamic. "I'd like to throw them off the grounds, but who will do it?" a university administrator asked me. "Most of our police belong to the same religious parties as the monitors."

Similarly, the director of Basra's maternity hospital, Mohammad Nasir, told me that he frequently catches staff members pilfering equipment to sell to private hospitals, but hesitates to call the police: "How do I know what religious party they are affiliated with, and what their political connection is to the thieves?"

It is particularly troubling that sectarian tensions are increasing in Basra, which has long been held up as the brightest spot of the liberated Iraq. "Are the police being used for political purposes?" asked Jamal Khazal Makki, the head of the Basra branch of the Sunni-dominated Islamic Party. "They arrest people and hold them in custody, even though the courts order them released. Meanwhile, the police rarely detain anyone who belongs to a Shiite religious party."

An Iraqi police lieutenant, who for obvious reasons asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to me the widespread rumors that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations - mostly of former Baath Party members - that take place in Basra each month. He told me that there is even a sort of "death car": a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment.

Meanwhile, the British stand above the growing turmoil, refusing to challenge the Islamists' claim on the hearts and minds of police officers. This detachment angers many Basrans. "The British know what's happening but they are asleep, pretending they can simply establish security and leave behind democracy," said the police lieutenant who had told me of the assassinations. "Before such a government takes root here, we must experience a transformation of our minds."

In other words, real security reform requires psychological as well as physical training. Unless the British include in their security sector reform strategy some basic lessons in democratic principles, Basra risks falling further under the sway of Islamic extremists and their Western-trained police enforcers.

Steven Vincent, the author of "In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq," is writing a book about Basra.


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August 3, 2005
American Journalist Is Shot to Death in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:43 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- An American freelance journalist was found dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday.

Police said Steven Vincent had been shot multiple times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint hours earlier.

''I can confirm to you that officials in Basra have recovered the body of journalist Steven Vincent,'' said embassy spokesman Pete Mitchell. ''The U.S. Embassy is working with British military and local Iraqi officials in Basra to determine who is responsible for the death of this journalist. Our condolences go out to the family.''

Iraqi police in Basra said Vincent was abducted along with his female translator at gunpoint Tuesday evening. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.

Vincent and the translator were seized Tuesday afternoon by five gunmen in a police car as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.

Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra later. He had been shot in the head and multiple times in the body, al-Zaidi said.

Police said Vincent, a writer who had been living in New York, had been staying in Basra for several months working on a book about the history of the city.

In an opinion column published July 31 in The New York Times, Vincent wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by members of Shiite political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Vincent quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra.

''He told me that there is even a sort of ''death car'' -- a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment,'' he wrote.

Vincent was also critical of the British military, which is responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shiite extremists in the city.

He was the author of ''In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq,'' a recently published book that was an account of life in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Vincent's Web site describes him as a freelance investigative journalist and art critic whose work had appeared in major newspapers and magazines including the Wall Street Journal, Harper's, and the Christian Science Monitor.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, as of June 28, at least 45 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed while covering the war in Iraq since March 2003. Insurgent actions are responsible for the bulk of the deaths.

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 13:48 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Het is juist te danken aan de islamitische Sistani dat er al verkiezingen gehouden zijn, want als het aan de christelijke Bush lag, die de seculiere Hoessein die tegen democratie was verdreven heeft, waren er nog geen verkiezingen geweest.

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Op vrijdag 19 augustus 2005 14:01 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:
Die gassies in het zuiden die daar voor politie willen spelen zijn GEEN onderdeel vd regereing, zijn niet gekozen en niet meer dan een criminele organisatie. Wat jij telkens naar toe wil gaan is te doen alsof de regering een theocratie (in t zuiden) heeft gecreerd en in stand houdt. En dat vond ik bullshit.

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Iraq security chief warns of civil war over federalism

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's national security adviser said on Friday the country would descend into civil war if federalism were not entrenched in the constitution. "Without federalism it means that no community interest has been addressed or fulfilled and therefore different communities will try to find and defend and fight for their rights," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told Reuters in an interview. "I am worried about that. Yes. Absolutely. With a civil war you can't say 'today we don't have a civil war, tomorrow a civil war erupted'. Civil war creeps into the country very gradually."

But underscoring deep divisions in Iraqi politics, several thousand supporters of a Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched through a district of the capital Baghdad denouncing federalism, saying it would rip Iraq apart. Politicians are struggling to overcome sensitive issues such as federalism to meet an extended August 22 deadline for presenting a draft constitution to parliament. In Washington, the State Department said U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad was involved in "intensive diplomacy" to help get the constitution drafted before the deadline expires on Monday.

"We are working with the different groups involved in this process to help facilitate compromise and we are being asked to provide ideas and suggestions and we are doing that," said a State Department spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He's constantly talking to a lot of people in different combinations, small groups, big groups, looking for common ground and reaching across party lines," he added. Kurds want to expand autonomy in their de facto state in the north, some Shi'ites are pushing for their own region in the south, and Sunni Arabs are fiercely opposed to federalism.

January's election boycott left Sunnis with little representation in parliament and, as a result, limited influence in negotiations over the charter. But Iraq's government, led by Shi'ites and Kurds, wants to draw Sunnis into politics in a bid to defuse the Sunni insurgency so the minority sect has some leverage.

GROWING SHI'TE TENSIONS

Differences emerging among Shi'ites could further complicate efforts to strike a deal. "Federalism is very good for the Sunnis as well. Just imagine we have three provinces in the (Sunni region) triangle coming together in one region and that region enjoys all the rights of Kurdistan for example," said Rubaie, a member of the Shi'ite Dawa party, part of the ruling coalition. "It is a federal system we are after and I think this is the only insurance policy for the unity of Iraq."

Supporters of Sadr, who has led two uprisings against U.S. and Iraqi forces, gathered in one of their largest protests in recent months to reject federalism. "No! No! to division," "Yes! Yes! to unity" chanted the crowds as they marched through the poor Sadr City neighborhood of northeastern Baghdad and Khadamiya and Bayaa, two other mainly Shi'ite districts. Facing relentless suicide bombings, assassinations and kidnappings, Iraqi leaders are banking on a constitution and elections planned for December to stabilize the country but sectarian tensions are fracturing politics.

Rubaie shares the view of top Shi'ite leaders like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who suggested Shi'ites should carve out their own federal region in southern Iraq. Friday's demonstration seemed to show that many poor, urban Shi'ites -- Sadr's major support base -- disagree with Hakim's vision of a federal Shi'ite state. "Moqtada al-Sadr's concern is that Iraq must be united, not divided," said Fatah al-Sheikh, a Shi'ite member of parliament who is closely allied to Sadr and led one of the marches.

Sadr has maintained a low profile since his Mehdi Army militia fought U.S. troops in the southern city of Najaf last year. Sunnis, once dominant under Saddam Hussein, want a central government with tight control over oil resources near Kurdish areas in the north and in the Shi'ite south. Muslim preachers stepped up a campaign to involve Sunni Arabs in Shi'ite-dominated politics Friday, telling worshipers

it was their duty to vote on Iraq's constitution in an October referendum. "I call on you to register your names in order to vote over the constitution and in the elections," Abdel-Sattar al-Jumaily told worshipers in Falluja, a Sunni city west of Baghdad. "We face a big challenge and need votes against the constitution if it does not take into account our Islamic and Arab feelings," said Jumaily, who accused the authorities of conspiring to keep Sunni voter numbers down.

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'Grotere rol islam in Irak'

Koerden bereid tot concessie

Amerikaanse diplomaten hebben ingestemd met een grotere invloed van de islam op de Iraakse grondwet. Dit zeggen onderhandelaars, die onder grote druk staan om morgen overeenstemming te bereiken over een ontwerptekst. Zowel shiitische, soennitische als Koerdische onderhandelaars zeggen dat de islam belangrijker wordt dan in het Irak van Saddam Hoessein.
Een Koerdische politicus zei geschokt te zijn dat de Amerikanen de kant van de Iraakse shiieten hebben gekozen. "Het past niet bij de Amerikaanse waarden. Er zijn hier zo veel Amerikanen gesneuveld en er is zo veel Amerikaans geld gespendeerd, alleen maar om een islamitische staat te stichten… ik kan niet geloven dat dat werkelijk is wat het Amerikaanse volk wil."
Een functionaris van een van de shiitische partijen in de interim-regering bevestigt echter de overeenkomst. Volgens de soennitische onderhandelaar Saleh al-Moetlak betekent het akkoord dat het parlement geen wetgeving kan aannemen die "botst met islamitische principes". "De Amerikanen hebben ermee ingestemd onder voorwaarde dat de democratische principes worden gerespecteerd", aldus Al-Moetlak.

De Koerden zeggen wellicht bereid te zijn hun eis om de mogelijke Koerdische afscheiding van Irak in de grondwet op te nemen, te laten vallen. Dit heeft een hoge functionaris, moellah Bakhtiyar, van de Patriottische Unie van Koerdistan - de partij van president Ibrahim al-Jaafari - gisteren gezegd. Dit zou een belangrijke concessie zijn.
Het doorgaande geweld in Irak eiste gisteren het leven van twee politieagenten tijdens een vuurgevecht met opstandelingen in Bagdad. In de hoofdstad werden ook twee burgers door onbekenden doodgeschoten.
In de noordelijke stad Mosoel hebben het Amerikaanse leger en de Iraakse politie drie opstandelingen gedood die het vuur op hen hadden geopend. Ook overleed gisteren een Amerikaanse militair als gevolg van een bomaanslag in Bagdad.

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Politici proberen Iraakse grondwet te redden
Gepubliceerd op maandag 22 augustus 2005
BAGDAD (ANP) - Iraakse sjiieten en Koerden hebben een akkoord bereikt over de nieuwe grondwet. Dat zei de woordvoerder Kubba van premier al-Jaafari maandag. De partijen hebben samen een comfortabele meerderheid in het parlement.

,,De twee grootste blokken (sjiieten en Koerden) zijn het eens over een ontwerp'', zei Kubba tegen de Amerikaanse nieuwszender CNN. Maar een Koerdische deelnemer aan de onderhandelingen over de grondwet liet weten dat er nog steeds geen overeenstemming is. Volgens hem is er wel ,,vooruitgang geboekt'' en ,,lijkt een akkoord mogelijk''. De Nationale Assemblee moet later op de dag nog stemmen over de constitutie.

De soennieten hebben nog niet ingestemd met de grondwet, aldus Kubba. Deze minderheid regeerde het land tot de val van Saddam Hussein. De sjiitische vice-voorzitter van het parlement, al-Shahristani, verwacht dat de soennieten in de Nationale Assemblee uiteindelijk voor de grondwet zullen stemmen.

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Saudi military losing 100 officers per month to Iraq insurgency
Despite U.S. pressure, Saudi military officers have been leaving the kingdom to fight the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Saudi opposition sources said at least 100 National Guard officers leave the kingdom every month for Iraq. The number of Saudis fighting in Iraq has reached 6,000, they said.