Securing Iraq (4): Faleh Jabar on the Trajectory of Violence

The website of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions has posted an important analysis of violence in Iraq by Faleh Jabar. Jabar is an Iraqi sociologist and author of many books on Iraq, including The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq (2004).

Some recent commentary has suggested that the so called ‘resistance’ is growing stronger, Faleh Jabar argues it is in inevitable decline. He writes: “Prior to the constituent elections, armed attacks decreased, largely due to increasing native security capacity, as well as improving living standards (basic monthly salaries increased from $3 to $90). After elections legitimacy of the political process was established. The failure of insurgents to derail this phase of transition triggered differences in their camp. Several Sunni groups that boycotted elections realise now their strategy of boycotting the ballot was self-defeating. Insurgents further alienated themselves by targeting Shia communities (the massacre of Hilla, Babylon in March this year).

No more were Iraqis willing to accept the term "resistance", let alone mujahid (holy fighter); they are now using the Western term "terrorists" to describe all insurgents. The icy wall inhibiting cooperation with the security forces also melted down. As a result, whole sectoral networks of insurgency have been dismantled, as was the case in the Haifa Street (Baghdad) which is quiet now.
Violence will definitely continue, but the majority of Iraqis believe it has no future. The new multi-ethnic, multi- religious political class wishes to curry favour with voters not bombers. This reflects both faith and readiness to come out against all those who oppose a Western-enforced democratisation by violent means. Palestinian elections, Egyptian reforms and pro-democracy mobilisation in Lebanon have also encouraged Iraqis that they are on the right track”. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (11) Who’s Who in New Iraqi Cabinet

The BBCwebsite has a handy guide to the new Iraqi cabinet. (AJ)

Securing Iraq (3) “Ethnic cleansing” in Iraq

James Hider’s reports in the Times are one of the best sources of news about Iraq available in the British print media. Today he describes an ongoing drive by Sunni terrorists to ethnically cleanse Iraqi Shias that has led to fears of a descent into civil war. Hider writes, “Abu Ali, a Shia driver from Doura, recounted how he was sitting in his car with his family, waiting for his son to come out of a shop, when the street erupted in bullets. He sped off to save his wife and children: when the gunfire ended, he ran back to look for his son. The boy was shaken but unhurt, sheltering behind a refrigerator that was pocked with bullet holes. Next door, the pharmacist lay dead in his shop. “When I asked people why they killed him, they said it was because he was a Shia and had pictures of Imam Ali and Hussein in his shop,” Mr Ali said. Hider also cites examples of Shia sectarian attacks on Sunni Iraqis. Hider quotes Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to Bayan Jabbor, the Interior Minister, “I do not want to say civil war, but . . . It’s Sunni versus Shia, that is the issue that is really in the ascendancy right now.” We would welcome the views of our Iraqi readers on Hider’s important article. (AJ

Truth and Justice in Iraq (1) 1,500 bodies discovered in new Mass Grave

The Kurdistan Regional Government reports that “ Investigators have uncovered a mass grave in southern Iraq containing as many as 1,500 bodies, most of them thought to be Kurds forcibly removed from their homes in the late 1980s. The site, near the town of Samawa, about 180 miles south of Baghdad, consists of 18 shallow trenches dug by earth-moving vehicles into hard limestone rock. Most of the victims were women and children who were apparently lined up in front of the pits and shot with AK-47 assault rifles, according to a U.S. investigator. Around 110 bodies have been excavated from the site so far, nearly two thirds of them children and teenagers. They are being forensically examined and evidence gathered will be used to build cases against Saddam Hussein and his top deputies for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide”

The proposal of Bakhtiar Amin, the outgoing Human Rights Minister, that 5% of Iraqi oil revenues to be used for a fund for Saddam’s victims is surely reasonable. (AJ).

Using Iraq (2): ‘As if the Iraqi had not spoken’

Johann Hari’s Independent column is now available on his website. He complains that too many people use Iraq as an excuse to argue about something else. A duty of elementary solidarity with the Iraq people is being shirked by entire swathes of liberal-left opinion.

“At every step of the way, British people acted as though the argument about Iraq was a proxy for something else: a row about American power, or about pre-emptive war, or about Tony Blair's proximity to Bush. Too many of us chose our positions on that basis, not on the basis of solidarity with Iraqis.
“There was a small, perfect moment a few months ago that symbolised this refusal to listen. Tony Blair was being interviewed by June Sarpong before a hostile studio audience, and the Prime Minister was talking flatly about Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction. The studio was filled - rightly - with jeering. They knew there were no WMD, and they demanded to know: wasn't this war about oil, or Israel, or a raw assertion of US power post-9/11?

”The row continued for five fruitless minutes, with Blair begging the audience not to question his integrity, and the audience in turn begging to know the real reasons why he went to war.

”And then a small, level voice came from the front row. "I am an Iraqi," a young woman said, "and I have just come back from my country. I know this war was not about Weapons of Mass Destruction, and I know the Americans did not do this because they care about us. But all of my family in Iraq supported this war, and so did I. We did it because we knew there was no other way to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Why can't you all understand that? Why can't you side with us?"

”There was a long pause. The audience looked nonplussed. Nobody spoke. And then the row about WMD burst out again, furious and fiery. Everybody carried on as if the Iraqi had not spoken” (AJ).

Democratising Iraq (10): Democratic Government Formed in Iraq

The Times (April 28) reports that "Iraq formed its first democratically elected Government in 50 years today…the full Cabinet consisted of 17 Shias, eight Kurds, six Sunnis and one Christian. Six of them are said to be women, in charge of seven portfolios. Shias represent 60 per cent of the population, Kurds 20 per cent and Sunnis between 15 and 20 per cent. Mr al-Jaafari said from the steps of his office: "The Iraqis will find that their Government has religious, ethnic, political and geographic variety, in addition to the participation of women. Now that the process has started, we will spare no effort to bring back a smile to children's faces." (AJ)

Securing Iraq (2) The Murder of Lameah Abed Khadouri al-Sakri

An Iraqi woman MP, Lameah Abed Khadouri al-Sakri, was shot nine times
n the chest and head by a terrorist yesterday. She was an MP
representing a secular party and was, according to the Times, 'an advocate of women's rights' who was 'known for here work with widows and orphans'. A former schools inspector, and a Shia Muslim, Ms al-Sakri may have been murdered as a woman by the radical Islamists, as a Shia by Sunni sectarians, or as an MP by the Ba'athists. As a democrat she will be honoured. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (9) New Report calls for Federal Iraq

An important new report, 'Power-Sharing in Iraq', written by David L. Phillips, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Council for Foreign Relations Center for Preventive Action, recommends a "federal system of governance that preserves Iraq as a unitary state, advances the aspirations of ethnic and sectarian groups, and is administratively viable. Federal Iraq states should control all affairs not explicitly assigned to the national government." The
report examines the ownership of Iraq's energy wealth, disarming militias, the status of Kirkuk, individual and group rights, and the role of Islam in Iraqi governance. It also outlines roles for the United States and the United Nations. The report is available to download as a PDF file from the CFR website. (AJ)

Securing Iraq (1) The Madean Crisis

Hussein Ali al-Yassiri and Yaseen al-Rubai’I report (27 April) on the continuing investigation into the hostage-crisis in Madean. They report that ‘Residents said insurgents began appearing in Madaen more than a month ago, apparently after fleeing nearby Latifiya, where the government staged a recent crackdown. They claim that masked gunmen had been roaming the town, and that some - armed with rocket launchers and machine guns - recently told Shia to leave their homes. “All 11 members of my family had to leave,” said farmer Muhammed Raoof, who just returned to Madaen. “The gunmen told us openly to get out of town or they would kill us.”’ (AJ)

Alan Johnson's Weekly Column Richard Gott and the Biodegrading Sixties Left

The Sixties left is biodegrading. Richard Gott has a Basil Fawlty article in the Guardian. He doesn’t mention Iraq. Apparently Guardian readers should vote Lib Dem, Respect, or even Tory (I kid you not) because Blair is Neville Chamberlain, George Bush is Hitler and Saddam and Talabani are, ah, well, don’t ask that, dear reader. The Sixties left doesn't do complexity you see. Also ignored by Gott are the removal of Saddam, the end of the Baath, the return of the refugees, the joy of the Kurds, the religious freedoms now enjoyed by the Shia, the creation of a UN-backed political process, the 8 million voters in the January elections, a fantastic display of ‘purple power’, the rebirth of trade unionism and the labour movement, the rise of new democratic political parties, a relatively free press, the reflooding of the Marshlands, the return of the Marsh Arabs, the opening up of the mass graves and the beginning of a truth and justice process. It’s quite a list.

The really disturbing thing about the Guardian these days is it criticises Bush not as LFIQ does, repeatedly, for what he has done wrong, but incoherently, almost hysterically, ignoring the democratic progress in Iraq. This is a left that thinks Iraq is a 'wedge issue' that can be made to 'give Blair a bloody nose'. Iraq is mood music to accompany venting against Bush. This is a left that can't work out how to criticise America and support the Iraq democrats at the same time.

In an important sense it cant really be thought of as a political left anymore. It is an incoherent anti-American protest left. The sixties left has biodegraded. Excluded from power so completely it can't think politically ('troops out now!), in hock to a romanticism that was understandable back then (I guess, I was playing with my Johnny Seven at the time) but has run rancid now ('victory to the resistance!'), the Ali-Pilger-Gott left has biodegraded. And as Norman Geras points out this is a debacle, we have yet to take the full measure of. We better had do, and quick, for that left dominates the airwaves, the radio waves, and the commentariat and we need to reclaim them. (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (9) Oil Smuggling Untackled

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting present evidence of large-scale oil smuggling in Iraq. “Youssef al-Shekhlee, a technical expert in the state-run South Oil Company, says there’s an urgent need to tackle the problem. “If the necessary procedures aren’t taken to stop smuggling, then Iraq will lose its most important financial resource,” he said’. (AJ)

Open Letter to British Voters

‘Iraqi Expat’ has written an open letter to British voters. LFIQ brings together opponents and supporters of the war but that its important that we listen to Iraqi voices such as this. Read the whole letter. (AJ)

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Dear British Voter

Please accept my sincere and enormous gratitude for helping liberate Iraq and for what you have given me in the last seven years. I have learned a lot by being part of your society, you offered me a home more secure than my own, you showed great tolerance toward foreigners like myself and accepted me as a human, and last but not least you have opened my eyes to a world were good prevails, where freedom and democracy are truly cherished, where I don’t have to be afraid anymore.

I am writing to you because yesterday the issue of the Iraq war has become the highlight of the election agenda; and therefore, I ask you to be as courageous as your honourable leader Tony Blair who decided that he will not bow to the tyrant Saddam Hussein and made history by helping liberate the Iraqi people from their oppressor.

You should be proud of your countrymen and women who have liberated the Iraqis from one of the most brutal dictators. You should be proud of your countrymen and women who are helping a nation to rebuild itself in a democratic fashion after being oppressed for 35 years. You should be proud of your countrymen and women who have helped opening the eyes that were closed by oppressive regimes in the Middle East.

I ask you not to vote against Tony Blair, like some parties would like you to do, because of the Iraq war. I ask you not to accept the argument that Iraq was better before the war, to which I relied earlier. And I ask you not to accept peace with oppressors, as this peace will only lead to more bloodshed of the oppressed people.

To the Muslim community of Britain; I ask you not to stand against those who liberated Muslims from oppression. I ask you to be happy for you brothers and sisters in Iraq who are free and trying to rebuild their country democratically. I ask you to wish for them that their dreams come true, and to wish for them to have the freedom and democracy you enjoy today in Britain. And I ask you not to vote against Tony Blair because of the Iraq war and because he was courageous and decent enough to decide to liberate Iraq from Saddam’s tyranny.

Sometimes true peace can only be achieved though war; therefore, I ask you not to forget what Hitler once did, and not to forget the bravery of your people who ousted him. And I assure you that Saddam was not better than Hitler, and what he did to the Iraqi people was not less than what Hitler did to the Jewish people. Without the brave actions of your people, Iraqis would have been living in Saddam’s Iraq today and would have ended up living in Qusay’s Iraq years from now

Reconstructing Iraq (8) The Return of the Refugees

In case Peter Hitchens missed it (see yesterdays Using Iraq watch Update) back in December 2004 UNHCR Spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis reported “UNHCR is closing several camps for Iraqi refugees in the Islamic Republic of Iran following the departure of more than half of the 202,000 Iraqi refugees in the country. A total of 107,000 refugees have returned to Iraq since the end of Saddam Hussein's rule last year. Many of the refugees had sought asylum in Iran for more than two decades”. And many more have returned since December 2004. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (7) Historic Iraqi Government Moves Closer

Progress toward the formation of an Iraqi goverment is good news. The rise and fall of the bombings and killings of 'the resistance' and the fortunes of the political process in Iraq run in close parallel.

Rory Caroll at the Guardian is reporting "Iraq's political deadlock appeared to have been broken last night when the prime minister-designate, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, submitted a draft list of cabinet ministers to President Jalal Talabani. If approved, the list will clear the way for a government to be formed almost three months after landmark elections, restoring momentum to a political process mired in bickering between rival blocs."

Note that word 'bickering'. Do commentators always understand that what is being achieved in Iraq is historically unprecedented? Without models a democratic polity based on a social contract following one person one vote elections is taking place in a Middle Eastern country. Add in the fact that the borders of Iraq were formed by British imperialism in it’s best Perfidious Albion mode to divide and rule. Then remember that the ethnic groups of Iraq were tormented and deliberately set against each other by a totalitarian dictator for thirty years. And the claims of Islam must be found a place in the constitution without creating a theocracy.. Finally all ths is taking place in a country emerging from sanctions and war suffering a Ba'athist-Islamist 'resistance' that blows up anyone who seeks to make the historic experiment work. No, 'bickering' does not do justice to what has been happening in Iraq. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (5): Talabani Rules Out Islamic Regime

The Kurdish Regional Government website reports that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in an interview published Monday by a Turkish newspaper that an Islamic regime will not be allowed in Iraq but the country's predominantly Muslim identity will be respected. "We the Kurds will never accept the establishment of an Islamic regime in Iraq," Talabani, a senior politician from Iraq's Kurdish minority, told the daily Sabah. Asked whether he would advocate secularism, Talabani said: "Yes, I will, but we do not use the term 'secularism'. What we say is: a democratic, federal, parliamentarian, united and independent Iraq, which respects the Islamic identity of the Iraqi people”. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (6): 'Don't hang your portrait on the wall' - An Iraqi Writes to his President

‘Jhon Witwit’ is a 26 year old man who blogs from Ad Diwaniya, Qadisiys, Iraq. He has written a moving open letter to President Talabani.

Your Excellency,

This is the first time I have spoken to a president, and the first time I have written a letter to someone I do not know. What I have to say is extremely important to many Iraqis. I am asking you to listen to me before you settle into your chair in the palace that was built from our bones and painted with our martyr's blood.

Your Excellency. We don't want to see you more than one minute per day. Respect our private lives, houses, and holidays. Don't hang your portrait on the wall. Don't put your statues in the squares. We don't want to see you wearing a headcord or some other thing whenever we turn around. We don't want to listen to your news on TV welcoming someone, saying farewell to someone else, holding a meeting, or anything else that reminds us you exist. We don't want any of this, Your Excellency.

We want to feel you in our children's health, or while sleeping deeply in peace. We want to feel you in the bread filling our dishes, in the pure water that we drink every day, and in electricity that doesn't switch off every two hours.

Let your slogan be Iraq is for the Iraqis. Iraqis should always be first, not second or tenth or last. And when I say ??Iraqis ?? I mean Kurds, Arabs, Azoreans, Armenians, Chaldeans, Turkmen, and Jews.

Your Excellency. Don't favor your sons and relatives in positions of power. Don't take from Iraq that which does not belong to you. Don't put yourself in a position where you compete with the people. What belongs to you is your salary. Let the former president Abdul Karim Qasim set an example for you.

Your Excellency. Don't buy off poets and educated people. Talk to them. Ask them how they are and how the people are doing. Don't give them prizes and bank accounts. Their prize is love from the people and the intellectual freedom they will have during your presidency. Don't shut down those who won't praise you.

Your Excellency. We don't want to see the army standing on every corner or the police standing at every door. We don't want checkpoints at every crossing. But we do want Iraq to be safe for everyone who lives here and everyone who visits.
Your Excellency. Don't steal our money. Don't stash it in fake bank accounts. We will ask you about every penny you spend, every penny of our oil and gold. Our slogan will be Where did you get this? It will be our sword against evil.

Remember that people have given you their confidence. You won't stay long if you betray them, not even if you stuff them in jails. Don't ever think you are above the law. You are a citizen.

In our new Iraq we don't want to see a Kurdish child freezing out in the cold, or his family shacking in caves. We don't want to see the children of Basra wearing worn clothes and shoes. If this happens, consider yourself overthrown because you will not have fulfilled your duty.

Salaam for he who loves his people and gives them dignity. (AJ)

Abdullah Muhsin writes in Tribune of the struggles of the Iraqi labour movement

Most readers of Tribune will, like me and my comrades in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), have opposed the war. I don't regret doing so and I would do so again. I believed that the Iraqi people had other ways to overthrow Saddam Hussein's despicable fascist-type dictatorship. But things have changed for us Iraqis. Our new priorities are to keep Iraq intact (the risks of Iraq descending into civil war are still real), to build a strong independent and democratic trade union movement and to create a federal democratic and fully sovereign Iraq.

The election at the end of January represented an historic breakthrough. 60 per cent of Iraq's population – 8.5 million people – went to the polls to elect a 275-member Transitional Assembly. Without intimidation, elections irregularities and incompetence, we would have seen an even higher turnout.

But the bland expression ‘went to the polls’ hardly captures what happened on January 30 2005. Even as lines of voters were being blown up by homicidal bombers from the so-called ‘resistance’ they cast their ballot. At one polling station the fascist in question blew himself up before he could reach the lines of voters. All day long the voters walked around his body, spitting on it as they went in to vote, showing it the purple finger as they left. One family saw their son blown up, did their duty to his body in the morning, and then insisted they vote in the afternoon in honour of his memory. These are the martyrs of the new Iraqi democracy. January 30 2005 was a triumph of democracy and the human spirit comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Of course, the shadow of Saddam’s brutal dictatorship is long. Iraq will not be transformed overnight. And now, after decades of repression, sanctions and war, we are now facing a terrorist network that actually targets trade unionists.

A railway worker has been beheaded, his head placed in his stomach and prominently displayed. My friend and colleague, Hadi Saleh, the IFTU's International Secretary, was tortured and murdered, horribly, by remnants of Saddam's secret police. Rocket-propelled grenades have been fired at trade union headquarters. The international labour movement has risen as one to condemn the killing of Hadi and to extend the hand of solidarity to the IFTU. If Hadi had survived he would have been vindicated by the tremendous turnout at the elections.

This election will enable Iraqis to move forward. Already the terrorists and ex-Saddam loyalists are in retreat. The great majority of Iraqis are battling for a new democratic, federal and united Iraq, governed by a secular constitution and the rule of law, parliamentary democracy and a proper separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and an independent judiciary. A new police force and army that are culturally different from Saddam's repressive apparatus are being trained and will be ready soon. They played a crucial role in providing security during the 30th January elections and should be commended.

But the process of building new Iraqi security forces is slow. They are insufficiently trained and remain small in size. As yet they are incapable of taking full responsibility for securing Iraqi large borders and protecting civilians and maintaining law and order. It is vital that efforts are redoubled until Iraq has security forces able to defend the country and the civilians. These forces must be beholden to no political party or individual but loyal only to the Iraqi constitution and its people.

The political key to defeating sectarian violence is to develop a secular constitution that accommodates the aspirations of all Iraqis, including the Iraqi Kurds, for autonomy within a federal structure.

Will Islam be the main source for the new constitution? Compromise must be reached here. Iraq has many other religious communities and discrimination against non-Muslims would be unjust.

The success of Iraqi nation-building also lies with the growth of civil society. Genuine democracy cannot be imposed from above but must be built from below, through a strong social movement composed of free political parties, non-governmental organisations, environmental agencies and free unions.

Iraq's economy was abused by Saddam. Pulverised by his wars, bled by the consequent sanctions, devastated by the invasion of 2003, Iraq is crying out for emergency reconstruction. All sectors need rebuilding with foreign investment but national assets must remain publicly owned. We urgently need to diversify – 95 per cent of our income currently derives from oil.

An emergency reconstruction of Iraq – a Marshall Plan for the people of Iraq – can kick start the economy, improve the quality of life of the people and dry-up the recruitment pool for extremists who feed on poverty. Such a Marshall Plan for Iraq would help cement the UN political structure put in place after the fall of Saddam with the aim of building a new, secure and democratic Iraq.

Many Iraqi workers remain suspicious of the very term 'union', because of the repression they endured at the hands of Saddam's 'yellow unions' – part of the state machine of terror. To remedy this, the IFTU will commence a cultural project. A bus will function as a travelling theatre visiting workplaces and communities to promote the basic tenets of trade unionism and dismantle the culture of fear. Right now, the new unions have little or nothing. Some have buildings, but they are in severe disrepair after the war and subsequent looting. We need computers and fax machines.

The TUC has launched an appeal for Iraqi unions and recently held a conference to boost solidarity and help us train our members and officers. The IFTU is an integral part of the international trade union movement and has received support from international federations as well as many British unions.

Free trade unionism is growing in this more fertile political climate. The IFTU now represents 12 individual unions and has a membership of at least 200,000. The new and independent teachers' union has 75,000 members in Baghdad alone and 16 branches throughout Iraq. The Kurdistan Workers Syndicate Union has about 100,000 members. We all work together for a federal, democratic and secular Iraq. Perhaps most significantly to left-wing critics of the war, we are mobilising to persuade the incoming Assembly to enact a progressive labour code that will allow workers to challenge the economic occupation of our country. The IFTU recently led a successful strike of Hotel Workers in Baghdad.

In Basra the IFTU led a solidarity march with students, male and female, who have been beaten by the Islamic Fundamentalists for holding a picnic.

Iraq is being reborn. The lengthy negotiations between the various parties eventually delivered a deal sharing out the key positions of the state. Hopes are high that a broadly-based national government can be formed. This development would further attract those political groups which initially boycotted the political process and the elections but are now looking to join in.

Please do not be fooled by the news. There is still too much intimidation and violence – and not only against the IFTU - but the so called "resistance" is increasingly withering and the majority of areas in Iraq are now secure.

The UN should also take an active role in compelling neighbouring countries to guard their borders and to prevent the continued influx of foreign fundamentalist fighters into Iraq seeking to incite sectarian conflict.

A strong labour movement is vital to our goal of rebuilding Iraq on the basis of social justice and unity. We desperately need the support of progressives around the world if basic social democratic and labour values are to take root in Iraq. Progressives desperately need an example of social democracy in the region. We need each other.

Using Iraq Watch Update: Iraqi Bloggers Speak Out On The British General Election

Labour Friends of Iraq launched 'Using Iraq Watch' with the promise that when someone ran down the state of Iraq in a grotesquely overstated fashion in order to run up the state of their own electoral chances we would point this out. We gave three examples. An editorial in The Mail on Sunday (April 24) claimed Iraq was “worse as a result” of removing Saddam and hoped 'the issue' could “destroy Labour’s majority”. Peter Hitchens, also writing in the Mail on Sunday (April 24), argued Iraq was worse off, the January 30 Poll had been “more-or-less fraudulent and meaningless”, and "a new Saddam regime is already being created". The Liberal Democrat Deputy leader Menzies Campbell suggested (Observer 24 April) that Iraq was no better off as “the tyranny of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by the tyranny of the suicide bomber”.

Within a day we received three responses from pro-democratic Iraqi and Iraqi Kurd bloggers. Check out below what Iraqi Expat, Iraq the Model and Kurdo’s World had to say. We invite more Iraqi bloggers to get in touch. (AJ)

‘Iraqi Expat’ Sunday, April 24, 2005

How could life be better when...

Many people, including the Mail on Sunday and Peter Hitchens, claim that Iraq was better off under Saddam, that the war has brought poverty, destruction and death, that the elections were meaningless and fraudulent, and the funniest of all is that a new Saddam regime is being created.

While there are problems in Iraq today, most of these problems existed before the war too; the only difference is that it rarely got reported, no one dared to talk about it and it was much worse than it is now.

There are security problems in Iraq, created by many including those who made Iraq look secure and stable in the eyes of the world during Saddam’s rule; but were Iraqis really secure back then? If you think that when the security servicemen come to your house and wipe out your family is security, then Iraqis were secure! If you think that when the government terrorize people is security, then Iraqis were secure!

These people use shallow argument to attack policies and people they disagree with, to make political gains, and or to show their opposition. They are living in denial and will continue to do so because they can not accept change, even if that change is right. They choose to ignore facts and only see what the leftists mainstream media show. They choose to ignore the horrors that the Iraqis used to live by everyday under Saddam’s rule.

How could someone claim that life for Iraqis was better under Saddam, when Saddam killed so many Iraqis in cold blood and terrorized the rest?

How could it be better when a village like Halabja could get exterminated so easily?

How could it be better when hundred of thousands could get buried in mass graves?

How could it be better when you and your family could vanish from the face of the earth for criticizing Saddam or his family? How could it be better when you could be executed for laughing on a joke about Saddam? How could it be better when your daughter or sister could get raped by Uday because he felt like it and you can do nothing about it? How could it be better when you could get killed in front of your family for not giving way in the road to Saddam’s 20 years old nephew?

How could life be better when half a million child have to die because of Saddam’s pride and stupidity?

How could it be better when extravagant palaces and mosques get built while people starving? How could it be better when all these palaces serve three meals a day in case Saddam shows up, but had to throw it all away if he didn’t and not even the servants are allowed to eat that food? How could it be better then when you make $3 dollars a month after over 16 years of education? How could it be better when your life, your country and its wealth is owned by one family?

How could life be better when god (Saddam) is so brutal and unjust?

How could it be better when elections and referendums are won by 99.99%? How could it be better when a Baathist is looking over your shoulder to check that you ticked yes to Saddam? How could it be better when you can not elect the government you support? How could it be better when you are forced to demonstrate your love and loyalty to Saddam? How could it be better when you know all the above but can not complain about it or change it?

How could life be better when you have no hope?

Living hopelessly is much more destructive than any problem you see in Iraq today, and Iraqis were hopeless before the war. If you don’t see the possibility of a bright future for Iraq, if you have no hope today, then you must be either blind, short sighted or living in denial.

IRAQ THE MODEL, Monday, April 25, 2005

Same old argument, new inquisitors

I have received these two pieces (registration required) in an e mail last night, I read them (well, most of them actually) got pissed of, then I thought "why should I bother? It's just another piece of nonsense" so I forgot about them for a while until I saw them this morning again during my morning tour on blogs and I read Ahmed's response to it and I thought I could say a few words.

I think one of the most telling signs of ignorance is when someone pretends to know everything about a subject he's relatively clueless about. I really don't know exactly how informed the authors of these two pieces are about the situation in Iraq before and after the 9th of April but I'm positive that any common Iraqi with ordinary intelligence is way more informed.

There are actually a million stories I can tell to make a comparison between pre and post-Saddam Iraq and to show how dramatically life has improved since April 2003 and the list doesn't necessarily start from the security which is much better off now than under Saddam who murdered 3 million Iraqis during his reign; a figure that dwarfs any post-liberation body count or my salary as a dentist which increased by a hundred folds and doesn't end by the huge change in the Iraqi army that changed from a tool of repression for both, the conscripted soldiers and the civilian population to a security preserving tool that young Iraqis volunteer to join.

Technology and communications had their share too; we moved from a country where your e mail needs two weeks to pass through the filters of the Mukhabarat to a country where people like me can publish their thought to the entire world by a click!

And as our author of honor here is British I'd like to add that before April 2003, being caught while listening to the anti-war BBC radio could throw the listener in jail for indefinite time.

Anyway, if I wanted to talk about every single positive change, I should probably write a book about it as a blog post can't hold all that information.

By European and American standards, Iraq could be considered hell on earth and I agree; life is difficult here, really difficult for many Iraqis and it would be almost impossible for a European or an American but the question here is this: is it more difficult now than under Saddam?

The answer is NO.

What really irritated me was calling the historic January election "fraudulent and meaningless"!

I ask here; what are the proofs for such an insulting statement?

Could it be true that all the 8+ million Iraqis who went to cast their ballots on that day were fools!? And could it be true that those people risked their lives just to please someone!?

I believe the author here used the wrong "weakness point" to attack the administrations/policies he doesn't agree with because he actually offended a whole nation; a nation of men and women who woke up in the morning of that day and each one of them was expecting death on the hands of the terrorists yet that didn't stop them from saying their word.

Saying that Iraq was better off under Saddam is in my opinion similar to saying that Germany was better off under Hitler or that Romania was better off under Ceausescu.

The other brilliant statement of our inspired author is really amazing; I don't know how he reached the conclusion that Iraqi is moving towards having a regime similar to that of Saddam's, which he at the same time portrayed as the worst possible scenario!!

I need you to help me figure this out; if the appearance of a regime similar to that of Saddam and the Ba'ath is the worst thing that can happen, then how could things be better when Saddam himself was in power!?

And what are the signs he saw that made him come up with this theory? Okay, let me think… Was it the 1st free election in Iraq in half a century?

Or maybe it was the two peaceful transfers of power within one year?

Or, was it pluralism and the parliament of 275 members who represent all the components of the Iraqi society?

Maybe it's the PM, Jafari who's busting his a** negotiating with the other parties to form a cabinet that ensures national unity?

Maybe I'm not seeing the truth and maybe I'm having confused daydreams after receiving heavy doses of the Bush-Blair propaganda, after all I'm just a simple Iraqi who lived 25 years in Iraq before and after Saddam. I leave you to decide which perspective is more acceptable.

KURDO’S WORLD, 26 April 2005

The British Elections and Iraq War

As a follower of the British elections campaign, I noticed that the Iraq war is now being used as a political pawn to gain the seat of the British PM.

I find it very disturbing if the British public judged Tony Blair over his decision to get rid of Saddam Hussein. It will be a humiliating defeat for freedom and democracy if the British people, the prime founders of democracy, think that if Saddam Hussein was still in power in Baghdad, Iraqis would have been better off.

The decision to topple Saddam Hussein was the most courageous and beneficial decision a British Prime Minister could have ever taken for the sake of the freedom of the Iraqi people.

You may have the freedom that others don't have. You may have never slept thinking that tomorrow maybe your last day but don't take that for granted because everyone else in the world is not living like you. Iraqis lived under terror for over 35 years and no one in the world protested against tyranny and dictatorship in Iraq. Yet when there was a decision to topple tyranny and dictatorship, thousands in the world protested against it.

I urge you not to follow the lead of George Galloway and others who play with your emotions to get to the prime seat.

If you are voting against Tony Blair for the sake of the Iraqi people, then don't please, because the majority of Iraqis don't appreciate that.

When we see the anti-war protests around the world we think "Where were these people when we were entering our mass-graves alive, when our babies were being gassed, when our villages were being destroyed. Why you didn't protest against Saddam Hussein for our sake ?"

Finally I leave you with these two short video clips for the nightmare days which thanks to Tony Blair, they are no longer part of our lives. See his web site for these.

President Talibani vows to struggle for democracy

The Sun today carries a letter from President Talabani to Tony Blir in which he concludes that “Every Iraqi family, in fact, has lost a loved one because of Saddam. Every Iraqi understands the pain of conflict, the grief that accompanies war. We honour those who sacrificed their lives for our liberation. We are determined out of respect to create a tolerant and democratic Iraq, an Iraq for all the Iraqi people. It will take time and much patience, but I can assure you it will be worth while, not only for Iraq, but for the whole of the Middle East.”

Unionising Iraq (4): Introducing the Wacky World of the International Socialist Organisation

“Unions in the West” should “reject collaboration with the IFTU” says Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the International Socialist Organisation (American co-thinkers of the British SWP). The ISO calls on all trade unionists to boycott the IFTU as ‘collaborators with imperialism’.

Socialist Worker urges support for “those Iraqis who decided to actively oppose the U.S./British occupation” i.e. the Ba’athist and Islamist ‘resistance’, the beheaders, the suicide bombers, the torturers and murderers of Iraqi trade unionists. Sharon Smith, a leader of the ISO, has been gung-ho in her ‘Marxist’ support for the Ba’athist-Islamist ‘resistance’. She wrote “If we are waiting for the “ideologically pure” movement--assuming the unlikely scenario that all those opposed to the war could agree on one--we could be waiting forever…The antiwar movement must not lose sight of the fact that its main enemy is at home--and any resistance to that enemy deserves our unconditional support”.
Socialist Worker tell a pack of lies about the IFTU.

Lies of omission: The ISO does not mention that IFTU offices were raided by the coalition and its leaders jailed. ISO does not mention the strikes led by the IFTU (nor does it raise support for the strikers). The SWP does not mention the IFTU's opposition to the invasion. The ISO does not mention the IFTU’s opposition to the bombing of civilian areas. The ISO does not mention that EVERY political force in Iraq bar the Ba’athist and Islamist would-be dictators participated in the UN-backed political process in Iraq.

Lies of commission. Abdullah Mushin did not make a passionate speech “in support of occupation” at the 2004 Labour Party conference as the ISO claim. He spoke to union delegations about the UN-backed political process in Iraq and explained why the IFTU had decided to critically support that UN-backed political process as the best hope for Iraqi workers. He carefully explained to the union delegations why the IFTU had decided against taking up arms alongside the Ba’athist and Islamist ‘resistance’ so loved by the ISO. He spoke to the delegations about achieving the speedy removal of the troops as part of that UN-backed timetable, along with building up the Iraqi labour movement and democratic political parties, as the best policy for Iraqi workers. Every trade union delegation that heard that message understood and backed it overwhelmingly after democratic deliberation and vote. Every serious trade unionist who had the issue honestly set out before her reached the same conclusion: that is what I would have done. The ISO have never forgiven Abdullah for bringing some reality to the debate in the UK and US. So they slander him and mutter darkly about ‘collaborators’. It is desperate stuff.

The ISO sneer at Abdullah because he has “lived outside of Iraq for 20 years” but they don’t say why he lives outside Iraq. Abdullah Muhsin was a student activist in opposition to Saddam and was chased and harried across Europe by Ba’ath Party goons, seeing his friend stabbed before his eyes in Italy. Abdullah works tirelessly for the IFTU building solidarity across the globe for Iraqi workers. And he may have to continue living outside Iraq in the future because the ISO’s good friend, big brave George Galloway, called Abdullah a ‘quisling’ in the Arab press.

Contrast that to the man the ISO introduce as a ‘political exile from Saddam’s Iraq’ and the authentic voice of Iraq, Sami Ramadani. He can correct us if this information is wrong but didn’t Ramadani leave Iraq in 1967, 38 years ago, and before the Ba’ath, let alone Saddam, came to power? Ramadani is a UK academic who talks breezily from the comfort of his desk in a London university about ‘collaborators’, while IFTU militants who have given their lives for the rebirth of trade unionism in Iraq are murdered.

Seeing the ISO call for a boycott of the free trade unionists of Iraq, and support for the fascists of ‘the resistance’ we might ask the same question Tom Paine posed to George Washington: ‘the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor, whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any’. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (1) Encouraging USAID Report on January 30 Iraq Poll

USAID has now received comprehensive reports on the January 30 elections from more than 80% of the country’s polling places. These reports were completed by the 10,000 Iraqi monitors that were trained by USAID partners who conducted comprehensive polling centre assessments at three times during the election day—at opening, midday, and closing. Each assessment considered key items such as opening and closing times, preparation and availability of documents, voter secrecy and intimidation, and correct electoral staff procedures. Check out the site for all the encouraging results. (AJ)

Democratising Iraq (2): Facing Saddam’s Legacy in Kirkuk

Saddam’s ethnic cleansing and ‘Arabization’ policies have left a difficult legacy in Kirkuk. Hamid Majeed Mousa, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party, is head of a government committee charged with achieving a democratic settlement in Kirkuk. He has been insistent that “the humanitarian aspect must also be taken into consideration in all the cases, without resorting to repression, and employing the principle of mutual agreement in the cases of dispute…When we talk about the return of Kirkuk people to their homes, we mean those who had been really resident in Kirkuk and were forcibly deported as part of ethnic cleansing. When we talk about the return of Arabs who were settled by the previous regime in Kirkuk, we mean those who were settled with the aim of “Arabization” and not for job purposes, or those who had resided in Kirkuk for the purposes of work, business, etc. I therefore stress the need to return those forcibly deported. As for the Arabs who had been settled in Kirkuk, their problem cannot be resolved by expulsion, but rather through amicable agreement, proper compensation and finding suitable place. (AJ) (hat tip Political Affairs).

Democratising Iraq (3) South Africa Agrees on New Iraqi Ambassador

Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa has given his government's agreement on the nomination of Mr. Kasim Abdul Baqi as a new Iraqi Ambassador to South Africa. The general elections in Iraq and the prospects of a new representative Iraqi government have paved the way for the South Africa government's acceptance of the new Iraqi ambassador. (AJ)

Unionising Iraq (3) Interview with Iraqi Teachers’ Union Leader

Go to the excellent IFTU website to read an interview first published in the Morning Star (April 19) with Mahdy Ali Lafta, the head of the Iraq’s teaching union in Baghdad. Any UK teachers who read it and want to discuss solidarity and direct links with Iraq teaching unions should contact Abdullah Muhsin. Click here to email Abdullah Muhsin or phone 07 976 84 68 68. (AJ)

Unionising Iraq (1) IFTU leader opposes Occupation and Privatisation

Ghasib Hassan, member of the executive committee of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, and general secretary of the Union for Aviation and Railway Workers is interviewed by David Bacon over at Truthout.

Hassan makes clear the IFTU are “campaigning to end the occupation of Iraq, to build a democratic, federal Iraq which will guarantee the rights and jobs of its people”.

In Britain there are many lies told about the IFTU by the Galloway-Respect-Socialist Worker-Seamus Milne-Andrew Murray axis. Hassan clear away the debris left by these people and tells some truths.

“Many of the people active in our union are very well known because of their struggle against the former regime of Saddam Hussein. They paid heavily. Our primary need is to create an independent trade union agenda and campaign on behalf of working people.

“In the IFTU we campaign on these issues. We must build a trade union movement which is independent, democratic and pluralist. Workers should be free to join the union of their own choice. We campaign for social, economic and political advances in the interest of working people. We want a strong working class positioned to engage fully in building a federal, prosperous and democratic Iraq.

“Women should take their place in society, government and trade unions. Their wages should be equal to those of men. We now have women who are leaders of national unions in the IFTU.

“The IFTU was established soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Those who participated were trade unionists who had been in exile or prison, and who had suffered terribly. The IFTU is building free, democratic workers' committees. Our executive committee was formed in an open meeting on May 16th, 2003, in a convention of grassroots trade unionists who were all opposed to Saddam Hussein.

“After that meeting, we initiated our work and began going out to factories. We formed committees in the workplaces, which were elected in meetings, and where we sent out notices two weeks beforehand. People could nominate and elect their representatives freely.

“The IFTU supported the first struggle under the occupation, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, where 800 workers in a bicycle factory in Mamoudiya called for raises, and the management refused. The union for the printing and mechanical industry negotiated with the management, and gave them two weeks notice that if there were no raises, the workers would strike. After striking for five hours, the management agreed.

“We've built 12 national unions, and six of them have held open conferences. We've held elections from the workshop level to the leadership - free and democratic elections, with competing candidates in an open process. In the next few months, we'll hold conferences for the other six unions”.
Check out the whole interview. (AJ)

Unionising Iraq (2) “Some deep imperative of solidarity seems to have asserted itself”

In one of the best articles yet about the unions in Iraq John Lloyd writes in the Financial Times (April 22) about the experiences of a five-strong TUC delegation to Iraq.

The important news is that the delegation’s report “will recommend that the TUC and its affiliates help Iraqi unions through the IFTU with training in organisational skills, leadership and English, and give money for offices and equipment. It will recommend that unions should not work with the GFITU, because of its Ba'athist links”. Lloyd comments “There is a strong precedent for this sort of action. After the second world war, the British union movement helped rebuild the German unions - giving them (as many Labour politicians have ruefully reflected since) a structure much more rational and coherent than British unions have today. It was a parallel that occurred to several members of the delegation in Iraq, though all were born after the war. Through the decades, some deep imperative of solidarity seems to have asserted itself”.

The entire article is well worth reading. Here is one extract, an account of a meeting with the leaders of the IFTU in Mosul.

“The four men are members of the executive committee of the Mosul branch of the IFTU. The group's leader, branch president Saady Edan, is a rotund, balding man in his 60s - a craftsman who, in spite of the prowling peshmergas out back, retains an anxious air. That is no wonder: soon after we settle into deep sofas in a lounge, he tells us the story of his kidnapping.

”Edan had been driving from his home on January 26 when a car with two people in it suddenly stopped in front of him. Another car blocked him from behind. In it was a man armed with a heavy machine gun."I tried to get away, but realised they would have shot me. They forced me into the boot of the car and took me to a house in the Zingili district of
Mosul - a section where the extremists are. They put me in a room. They told me very clearly not to work for the IFTU. I was told to leave or my life would be in danger. Now I no longer live at home – I live with my son. We have received many threats, often in letters." He says he thinks that his kidnappers were members of Ansar al-Sunna, an insurgent group strong in the Mosul area, made up of former Ba'athists.

”Edan says his union's largest threat comes from the GFITU, membership of which had been compulsory under Hussein, as it seeks members again. According to Edan, they have far fewer supporters than the IFTU and haven't held elections. But they are funded by Syria and the Arab Federation of Trade Unions and make life difficult for the independent unions.

"These people have occupied trade union buildings with guns," says Edan. "They are defying the law, they are making threats in schools and hospitals. They don't have the membership we have but they do have pressures. They threaten the stronger people, the activists. The weaker ones they buy off with TVs or a fridge." Under Hussein, he says, workers in areas such as Mosul - where support for the regime was strong - had a lot of work and regular pay. This is not the case now: unemployment is between 40 and 50 per cent.

”After listening to Edan, Sonnet [Keith Sonnet, Unison] asks if he wants the US-led occupation of Iraq to end - the question around which anti-war movements throughout the world have mobilised, all of them demanding rapid withdrawal. When the question is translated, there is an exchange of looks among the four Iraqi unionists, and tight, complicit, smiles. Both sides, it seems, know this is an awkward question. Edan replies: "We want the occupation to end. But if it ends now, it will bring chaos. Once the Iraqi security forces are capable, then the occupation should leave. But they are not yet." With that, the executive committee of the Mosul branch of the IFTU departs, going back on the dark and dangerous road to their dark and dangerous town”. (AJ)

Using Iraq Watch

During the rest of the British General Election campaign, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories have vowed to raise the issue of Iraq. Now, the debate about whether Britain went to war on a sound basis is entirely legitimate. Some supporters of Labour Friends of Iraq backed the war, some did not. But what is not legitimate is telling lies about the state of Iraq today, a country emerging from thirty years of war and dictatorship, just to win votes.

So we have launched 'Using Iraq Watch'. When the Lib-Dems and the Tories opportunistically use rhetorical rubbish about the state of Iraq just to win votes in the British general election - running the state of Iraq down in some grotesquely overstated fashion just in order to run up the state of their own electoral chances - we will try to point it out. Here are the first three cases (we will award a special prize at close of polls on election night to the best example). We urge readers to send examples to info@labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk

Using Iraq (1) Liberal Democrat Deputy leader Menzies Campbell

“Despite the election of an interim government in Iraq, the tyranny of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by the tyranny of the suicide bomber”. (Observer, Sunday April 24) (hat tip, HP)

Using Iraq (2) The Mail on Sunday

“It is clear from everything that has happened since this unwise adventure that life for most Iraqis is actually worse as a result not better as Blair claimed it would be and still pretends it is (…) If this issue catches fire then it is the one that has the power to destroy Labour’s majority” (Mail on Sunday Editorial, April 24)

Using Iraq (3) Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday Columnist

“Far from doing good, our righteous interference has brought destruction and poverty, shrouded previously free women in veils and worsened religious divisions (…) The truth is that a new Saddam regime is already being created. There has been a lot of fuss about more-or-less fraudulent and meaningless ‘elections’” (Mail on Sunday, April 24)

The Choice of Comrades

In a thoughtful report on the Battle for Bethnal Green and Bow the left of centre American magazine The New Republic reveals that “In 2002 [Galloway] wrote of his experience on ‘the crowded dance floor of a North African nightclub ... dancing with Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister of Iraq’”.

According to Indict witnesses have testified that Tariq Aziz was a perpetrator in a genocidal regime. One testified, “These were ministers and members of the leadership who SADDAM HUSSEIN ordered to be executed...those taking part included TARIQ AZIZ...I saw that TARIQ AZIZ used a medium sized revolver. The victims were all shot at close range of no more than one metre." Another testified "The following persons were informed of all major decisions prior to their implementation...they were informed of the intended attack on Halabja...these included...TARIQ AZIZ...".

But TNR reports that not all voters in Bethnal Green and Bow are being taken in by Galloway. “Abdullah Muhsin, the London representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, has been speaking at meetings in the district and telling voters about the struggle for a democratic Iraq. He told me in a phone interview that when Bethnal Green and Bow residents ask him about Galloway, he responds--with a certain understatement—that "Galloway's friendship with the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has not been very helpful to the cause of the Iraqi people." It would be a powerful expression of democratic solidarity if a citizen of the world's newest democracy can prevent one of the oldest democracies from seating, in the mother of all parliaments, a man who boasts about having danced with Tariq Aziz”.

Choose your comrade: Tariq Aziz or Abdullah Mushin.

To read the whole article go to Harry’s Place
(AJ) (hat tip HP)

Iraqi Kurd writes Open Letter to George Galloway

The Kurdish Iraqi blogger, Kurdo’s World has written an open letter to George Galloway, the Respect candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow. “I and many other people from Iraq, just like the father of the Iraqi blogs, Salam Pax, will never forget the scenes in which you were sitting and joking with Saddam Hussein on the screens of the Iraqi television. We were wondering what you were laughing about. Were the jokes of the dictator who filled the lands and the rivers with mass graves, who terminated birds and rivers, who did not differentiate between a killing baby and a soldier, were his jokes too funny?” See the entire open letter below. (AJ)

An Open Letter to George Galloway: Re Salam Pax

Dear Mr. Galloway,

I know that you are campaigning hard to win the hearts and minds of the British public, and I wish you good luck in failing. I and many other people from Iraq, just like the father of the Iraqi blogs, Salam Pax, will never forget the scenes in which you were sitting and joking with Saddam Hussein on the screens of the Iraqi television.
We were wondering what you were laughing about. Were the jokes of the dictator who filled the lands and the rivers with mass graves, who terminated birds and rivers, who did not differentiate between a killing baby and a soldier, were his jokes too funny? Or were you laughing at the Iraqi people for having a leader like Saddam Hussein?!

I know that your Christmas wish was the return of Father Saddam to power, so that you can visit Baghdad again and laugh at our expenses, but I got good news for you, Father Saddam will never see daylight again nor your dreams.

The people of Iraq regardless of our ethnic and sectarian differences are happy about the removal of Saddam Hussein and are working hard to bring back peace and stability to our new baby democracy.

I know that many people in the world can not understand this and your harsh comment to Salam Pax that your country's troops have nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's removal and should not have intervened, are only adding more salt to our deep wounds.
I know you now will regard me as a Kurdish collaborator and accuse me, just like you accuse any freedom-loving and Saddam-hating person of Iraq of "selling your country".

We are not related to anyone in power in Iraq. We are just ordinary people loving freedom and democracy and want to live free just like anyone else in the world. We do not appreciate you stealing our cause and using it to steal the hearts and minds of the British public for your own benefits.

You traded with our cause when your friend, Saddam the killer, who you described as "calm, very calm indeed" ,was in power and now when he's locked up in jail, you continue to trade with our blood for your own benefits.

We are thankful for the forces of United States and United Kingdom and the rest of the world for getting rid of a dictator like Saddam Hussein. Many of us died and didn't live to see their long dream of a world-without Saddam, but those who are living today in that dream-come-true world, are not appreciating your works.

Warmest Regards
p.s. Tell me your birthday date I will send you a series of terror-DVDs filmed by Saddam' s men of killing and torturing innocent civilians including the most popular one "The Lion" in which Uday, the dead son of your friend, is giving a man to a lion for loving a girl Uday liked

Reconstructing Iraq (7): An Iraqi's Thoughts

Sami is an Iraqi exile who blogs at An Iraqi's Thoughts. He asks us some questions.

1-Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are
under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38
new schools have been built in Iraq?

2-Did you know that Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20
Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers?

3-Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in
Iraq? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83
railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69
electrical facilities.

4-Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have
received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

5-Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq
and phone use has gone up 158%?

6-Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75
radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

7-Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004? (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (6) Talabani wants "democratic, federal and united Iraq."

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said April 21 that he would work to improve ties with Ankara and pledged action to purge northern Iraq of armed Turkish Kurdish rebels. "I will struggle for the strengthening of relations between Turkey and Iraq (…) I will do my best to improve ties on every level -- political, economic and commercial." Talabani told CNN Turk that the Iraqi Kurds had used their right to self-determination in favor of a "democratic, federal
and united Iraq." (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (5) Iraqi Woman and the Beautiful Game

Iraq's national women's football team
will participate in the second Arab championship arranged by the Amman Club in Jordan. The first group consists of Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, the Orthodox and Al-Jazeera, the second of Syria, Bahrain, Palestine, Amman Club and Jordan junior team. And no Uday Hussein on hand to torture the players who score own goals. (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (4) Explosion in Foreign Language Learning

The Iraqi higher education and scientific research ministry has announced a rapid rise in foreign language learning since the fall of Saddam. Azzaman newspaper
reports the Minister as lamenting the disconnection of Iraq from the external world and celebrating the fact that today universities are expanding language departments to cope with demand. (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (3): USAID in Iraq

US Agency for International Sevelopment (USAID) works with the Interim Government of Iraq and NGO's to reconstruct Iraq. To find out more about its work check out March 24 issue of Reconstruction News. (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (2): Islamic Development Bank Backs Reconstruction of Iraq

The Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA) reports
that the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will continue support the
reconstruction of Iraq.

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shabibi, Iraq's central bank governor met the IDB's president Dr. Ahmad Mohammad Ali. Ali said the bank was ready to provide technical assistance to build government institutions and 500 million dollars to back reconstruction efforts in Iraq. (AJ)

Reconstructing Iraq (1): Iraqi Civil Society Defends Minority Rights

Christian Iraq report April 20 on a two-day conference organised by Iraqi Commission for Civil Society Enterprises (CCSE) in Baghdad.

Iraqi NGOs representing Iraq's minorities and academics met to discuss the new constitution. "Through this conference, we have tried to highlight the fact that Iraqi minorities have the right to be involved in the preparation and writing of the new constitution to ensure our rights are the same as other groups such as the Muslims and Christians (...) We want to have a clear vision through the media and through the people who believe in our rights as Iraqi citizens and [we want] civil society foundations that care about minority rights said the director CCSE, Basel al-Azawi. Participants included Mandaean Democracy Congregation (MDC) and the Assyrian Women's Union (AWU). (AJ)

Blogging Iraq (1): Free Iraqi blogs on ‘a change of mentality’

Free Iraqi has a long and thoughtful post about the rise of a new self-reliance among the Iraqi people. He writes “There's a change of mentality that started to occur in Iraq even before the 9th of April, but toppling Saddam marked a surge in the change process that made it transfere into an active form and spread wider than before (…) it has become obvious to an increasing number of Iraqis that they can never go back to that idle state were they left everything to whoever in charge and instead they're gradually seeing how important their role in making their lives better, and I have no doubt that soon most Iraqis will find that not only they have a role they should play but that this role is in fact the main one”. (AJ)

Blogging Iraq (2): Diary from Baghdad has an ‘adventure’ on her way to the Airport

Rose is a 27 year old civil engineer from Baghdad, married with a 3 year old daughter. She blogs at Diary from Baghdad. Recently Rose’s husband accepted a job offer in Dubai. But first she had to fly out of Iraq from Baghdad airport.

“An American convoy was stuck few cars behind us and they were hit by RPG, we heard a very large explosion then the Americans start shooting, everyone who was standing outside their cars went down and my husband shouted lay down with your daughter, the driver was standing out side, he ran and drove the car on a dusty road and took a short cut and ran away, many similar cars did the same thing, I felt afraid that we might be hit by any of the fighters. The driver shouted lay down and he drove as fast as he could. We arrived to a safe road, where there where many houses and he said that's it I will not take you to the airport, I was going to lose my life, it is not worth it. We told him what? what about our airplane? he said cancel it, nobody could reach the airport. during that time my husband called the airlines and asked them what shall he do? they told him the airplane will fly late because nobody of the passengers had arrived yet, so they asked him to wait till things calm down and then go to the airport again.

So waited for another hour and arrived at the airport about1:30. inside the airport we heard many bombs and we also saw the exploded car near the check point. we took off at about 4 pm and arrived Dubai at about 6 Pm. we where very exhausted tired and I felt dizzy all the way in the airplane. Well let me tell you how airplanes take off from Baghdad airport. There is a small zone around the airport that is secured by the Americans in the meaning that no one can hit an airplane as long as it is in that zone. So the minute the plane takes off, it starts going up like a spiral inside the safety zone until it reaches a certain altitude and that process is very scary.

my husband was having a bad flue and I have a problem with my right shoulder , the doctor told me it needs months till it will be normal again. so He carried many of our luggage.

This is the end of my story. when we arrived to the airport my husband called his friend who was waiting for us at the airport for more than 4hours, he said the airport did not know for how long the plane will be late and whether the airplane will fly or not so he just sat there and waited till they told them it flew”. (AJ)

Blogging Iraq (3): Iraq the Model on ‘the birth of an Iraqi blogosphere’

Mohammed over at Iraq the Model has a fantastic post (scroll down to April 13). Its not just that he takes you on a guided tour of some great Iraqi blogs. He also writes with passion about what it all means. Listen up.

“We can fairly say that we're witnessing the birth of an Iraqi blogosphere. Despite the short time and the difficult circumstances we feel satisfied with the increasing number of men, women, students and civil society organizations who are discovering the world of blogging and free publishing (…)

The increasing number of blogs emerging from Iraq is allowing us to get a better view at what's happening in different cities, small towns and even villages. Everyday there are more people starting new blogs either in Arabic or in English. More people here are learning more about the simplicity of blogs, their capabilities and potentials in connecting people and overriding the barriers of distance. I have always liked the horizontal conversation that blogs allow; no filters or chief editors omitting whole chunks from your article and you don't have to please anyone with your writing. It's simply a person to person conversation as you all know”.

“Blogging has proven to be a bridge that connects people and strengthens the interaction among different cultures and communities.
If the internet in general made this world a small village, then blogging has succeeded in making it a big family.

And there are photographs. (AJ)

Blogging Iraq (4) Neurotic Iraqi Wife blogs on the days of Saddam

Neurotic Iraqi Wife is “AN IRAQI WIFE WHOSE HUSBAND CHOSE TO REBUILD HIS COUNTRY OVER BUILDING HIS NEW LIFE WITH HIS NEW WIFE, ME!!!” On April 14, ‘angry and pissed off’ at those in the west who romanticise the days of Saddam (and the award goes to…Michael Moore for Farenheit 911!) she posted on the horrible reality of the Saddam dictatorship during which ‘unborn children were buried in the earth’. Readers should be warned the post contains links to videos of beating and torture perpetrated by Saddam’s regime. (AJ)

Ken Livingstone on George Galloway

"I've known George for 20 years and there's always been something about him that you can't quite put your finger on. You feel that behind all the rhetoric, it's all about George, its always about George" (The Independent, April 21 2005) (AJ)

Jane Ashworth reports on the Bethnal Green and Bow hustings

It was a 4-4 draw in last night's hustings between Oona King and George Galloway where the only surprise of the night was Shahagir Bakth Faruk the Tory candidate, winning himself some friends, although probably not votes.

He had an approachable style that suggested he is what he says he is: a local bloke who lives in a Council flat and whose children attend the local school. He did not have the polish of George Galloway or Oona. Nor was it entirely clear why he is a Tory , beyond being central to the local Chamber of Commerce, as he supports an increase in the minimum wage, greater investment in council houses – together with more right to buy as a way onto the property ladder and greater state intervention in the local economy. Perhaps the workers in his business can best explain his politics.

It was a very managed hustings. The Tory was the only surprise of the night. A heavy police presence supported the stewards and a riot squad was reported to be on standby. Two guys scuffled and were removed by the police. They may have been arrested. Perhaps they were looking to repeat the earlier attacks on Galloway or Oona.

It was politically very managed too. Questions were circulated in advance, and the answers only two minutes long. There was no impromptu debate, nothing off the cuff, no cross-fire between the candidates. No chance to ask Galloway why he is demanding the immediate release of Tariq Aziz or if he thinks Saddam should be brought before an international court and tried for crimes against humanity. The audience got the two minute answer of their choice. There probably was not a floating voter in amongst the 400 audience.

Iraq was never mentioned and only once alluded to. 'When you make war on Muslims abroad, you are going to make war with Muslims at home', said Galloway to a huge cheer. He is good at drawing cheers. He can let rip on all the touch stones, even when he doesn't actually make sense or is hiding behind a headline. Oona's friends put up almost as much noise as Respect but its hard to work up an audience with New Labour politics. It doesn't work like that: and anyway, Oona's personal style does not involve a great deal of tub- thumping.

Galloway was on an easy wicket. It is easy to play the issues which are close to the hearts of the voters in one of the poorest boroughs in the country. Take housing. A huge cheer went up from white leftists when he shouted, 'No Council house should be sold' and railed against stock transfer to housing associations even though he thought the local Council was 'corrupt and incompetent'. He may genuinely believe that Housing Associations necessarily make worse landlords than Councils. But did he have to dress it up with complaints that the Bethnal Green and Bow community is being 'overrun, colonised, occupied' with City types? There is something about that discourse which sits uneasily- why was he deliberately echoing the language of racism? Perhaps because he is playing to any sort of communalism he can find.

Galloway tried it again with employment issues. He bemoaned the end of the apprenticeship system and blamed this Government, like the Tories before them, for running down manufacturing industry. He remembered the days when there were apprenticeships in ship building. But this time it fell flat. He was playing to an audience that no longer exists –judging by the response, not many aspired to a life in heavy engineering.

Respect sounded as Galloway promised they would –like the very ghost of old Labour. No answers to today's problems but a good line in hooking into the emotions of poverty, misery and disempowerment.

‘One of the savviest human rights advocates in the world’: tributes to Marla Ruzicka (1976-2005)

Marla Ruzicka (1976-2005) was the founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict. Marla was murdered by a suicide bomber in Iraq on 16 April along with Faiz Ali Salim—the Iraq country director of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict.

Tributes to this remarkable woman can be found here, here and, by her friend Jennifer Abrahamson here.

But perhaps the tribute that reveals most powerfully the loss to democratic Iraq has been posted by Christopher Allbritton, a friend and former AP and New York Daily News Reporter. We reproduce an extract below.

She was tireless and ubiquitous in her work, which was to get compensation for Iraqi victims of war from the U.S. military. She confronted, cajoled, flirted with and—more often than not—convinced generals, diplomats and politicians that Iraqi civilians were worthy of remembrance and that the U.S. had a responsibility to the families of those killed or injured by American munitions.

It was hard work. Every day, she was out, with her driver/translator and country coordinator Faiz Ali Salim, meeting families and diplomats, generals and journalists, working everyone to help these families. She had a hurricane energy to her and a radiant goodness that could knock you down and leave your head spinning. I often imagined the first contact she had with Iraqi families who needed help, and how bewildered they must have been by this pretty, loud and enormously kind American woman who swooped into their lives in a black abaya and face-splitting grin.

Bewildered at first, yes, but quickly grateful, and as much in love and in awe of her as any of us who knew her for more than a short time. While she leaves behind a group of friends among the westerners here in Baghdad, she leaves behind a huge extended family of Iraqis who took her in. I saw it myself last summer when I was thinking of pitching a feature on her to New York magazine. I went with her to the home of a family who had lost a daughter in a U.S. bombing. The men hovered around for her protection and gazed at her adoringly. The women of the family swept her up in warm embraces, almost causing her to disappear in the flurry of abayas. The children sat at her feet or played with her blonde hair. Then, the old matriarch told her about how the paperwork was going and asked her about a lawyer in Jordan who was trying to convince the family to take him on as their attorney.

I don’t know what happened with their case because the story never panned out. She was leaving Baghdad and I got busy and with other things. Now I wish I’d pushed harder so that more people might have known about her when she was doing her work instead of the current rush of newspaper epitaphs.

Because what Marla was doing was important and necessary. The night before she died, at one of her thrown-together parties, she said she was staying in Baghdad longer than she had originally planned because she was close to establishing that the military kept records on civilian deaths in Iraq, despite military statements that such records don’t exist. She had personally verified about 2,000 casualties through painstaking casework, although she knew these were just the tip of the iceberg. Through the strength of her personality, she persuaded U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy to push $17.5 million in compensation funds through Congress.

For journalists here, she was our little sister, our masseuse at parties and sometimes our project. For all her energy and good work, she was troubled, telling me over dinner one night about her anxieties and battles with depression. Her mood rollercoasted between mania and tears, and we often felt protective, but also sometimes impatient. Marla, go home; it’s so hard on you—and us, I remember thinking selfishly. I felt this was not the place for DIY therapy, for saving oneself by helping others.

But I think now I was wrong. She helped so many and she was so loved. She died doing exactly what she was born to do, and thousands are grateful to her. Thousands were saved by her. And what have we, the journalists who took her in, done? Compared to the beautiful, sad pixie, most of us are dwarves.

She was so many things to so many people, but for the journalists who knew and loved her she was, ultimately, our heart and our conscience.

We realized something was wrong Saturday when she missed her own party that was to mark the social “coming out” of the Hamra Hotel pool. Some photographers, including Scott Nelson, who is donating any sales of his photos of her to a fund for her families, and me sat around cracking jokes and talking about our friend.

“Every war needs a Marla,” Scott said, referring to her zest for life, compassion, sense of fun and passion for helping people.

“Every war has a Marla,” I said. “It’s Marla.”

Two hours later, we found out she was dead.

Any donations are requested to go to her organization CIVIC at P. O. Box 1189, Lakeport, CA 95453.

Pocantico Conference on Democracy Education

The report of the Pocantico Conference on Democracy Education in the Middle East and Muslim Africa, held on March 18-20 2005 (sponsored by the Council for a Community of Democracies, the Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy and the American Forum for Global Education) is now available as a PDF file at Over thirty specialists from the region as well as from Senegal and Nigeria, Europe and the United States, met with NGO leaders from many countries, including Iraq, to produce the report. Four working groups reported on ‘Islam, Democracy and Citizenship’, ‘The Media and Education for Democracy’, ‘NGOs and Donors for Democracy Education’ and ‘Democracy Education in Informal and Formal Education’. (AJ)

Iraq’s ‘Nina from Toronto’ Problem

Iraq Expat, who blogs here asks ‘how sad and pathetic can someone be? They hate the US so much that they will be happier to see a nation ruined than to see the US succeed!’. It is Nina from Toronto who has caused this fury. In response to a question on the BBC News site, "What are your hopes for Iraq parliament?" Nina from Toronto wrote, “I hate to say this to Iraqis, but I pray for chaos and civil war: it's the only way to stop Bush's policies and show that peace can never come through force. If Iraq gets peace, Bush wins credibility. It cannot be allowed to happen. Nina, Toronto Canada”.

But am I being unfair? Should Iraq’s ‘Nina from Toronto Problem’ really be called Iraq’s ‘Yasmin Alibhai-Brown from London Problem’. The Independent columnist wrote in 2004 “I am ashamed to admit that there have been times when I wanted more chaos, more shocks, more disorder to teach our side a lesson. On Monday I found myself again hoping that this handover proves a failure because it has been orchestrated by the Americans.". No. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown from London did call her own feelings ‘distasteful’ while Nina from Toronto only ‘hates to say it’ then in racing parlance Nina wins by an (empty) head. Well done Nina! (AJ)

Bush Does Not Get It (9) The Agony of Falluja

Daud Salmanof the Institute of War and Peace Reporting has filed a report from Falluja on the progress of reconstruction. The US has set aside $200 million for compensation and reconstruction in Falluja. A quarter of schools have been rebuilt and compensation payments made to some whose homes were destroyed. But, five months after the recapture of the city from the terrorists frustration remains high. Only one quarter of the 200,000 residents who fled have returned. Many school students are still being educated in tents. The IWPR reporter quotes Isa Sabah al-Dulaimy. “Our houses were completely destroyed and now we are living in a camp in al-Habanya, ten kilometres from Falluja, in hard conditions. We have no idea when we will be able to go back home.” (AJ)

The Shame of the Independent

The author William Shawcross has written a letter to the Independent newspaper complaining about their coverage of the death of Marla Ruzicka.

Sir: Marla Ruzicka was a brave and selfless woman who did an enormous amount in her short life for innocent victims of conflict. To run the story of her death under the splash headline "The senseless death of the woman who fought George Bush" (19 April) is totally misleading. She was murdered by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Your editorial rightly praised her work and you said her legacy "should put many politicians in America, and in our own country, to shame". Yet you have no criticism for those who murdered her. That puts you to shame. WILLIAM SHAWCROSS, LONDON W2 (AJ)

Bemused Iraqi Blogger

“The one thing I am learning through the work I am doing on my blog is that there are some people even outside of Iraq and the Middle East who seem to content to want to live under dictators”. So says Husayn Uthman, a 26 year old Iraqi who blogs here. Husayn shares with us a few of the hostile and abusive emails he receives from the west along with his responses. We reproduce the exchanges below. Take a look.

Dear Hussein,

What the hell is wrong with you, you don’t mind having your country blown up by others but you mind people not understanding you. This is a pure crock, and you sir are either mentally unstable or working for the United States. Oliver Jordan

Husayn’s response: Because you don't say what you want to hear I am a liar? This is a great insult to me, this is something that gives me anger. You sit in your box and tell me what is happening in my nation?

Husayn, you are an idiot, I think you are really American. No, I know you are American, no Iraqi feels like you do you lying scumbag. How much is the CIA paying you to spread lies about the occupation of Iraq? I hope you get yours. Nameless

Husayn’s response: This is a very common thing I hear from people, they say I work for the USA or the CIA! I do not work for either, although I am sure if I did my family would be better off. I am a simple Iraqi young man who is scratching a living for his family. I tell things how I see them, and I am giving you what I see in Iraq so that our message, our voice is not extinguished. Interesting how the nameless have the most bravery in slinging insults!

Women and the Democratisation of Kurdistan

In a speech to the Kurdish Women’s International Conference, 9-10 April, 2005, Stockholm Nêchirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (Arbil), and a member of the political bureau of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, spoke of the centrality of women’s empowerment to the democratisation of Kurdistan. He said “We must learn how to proceed to increase the percentage of women in decision-making positions; how to change our laws in ways that correspond to our new conditions to democratise Kurdistan; how to strengthen the position of women within the family, in her decision related to education, marriage, child-birth, and political, economic and social activities. We would like to have clear ideas about which concrete steps are needed against marginalisation of women in Kurdistan; how to formulate feasible programmes to implement positive changes in political, legal and administrative life on daily basis. We need to identify the potential of women in Kurdistan in every aspect of life” (AJ).

Mass Graves Discovered in Southern Iraq

The Kurdistan Regional Government is reporting 16 April that two mass graves have been discovered in southern Iraq that appear to contain the remains of as many as 7,000 people killed by Saddam Hussein’s government. On Friday 15 April Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin said the new government may use the finds to help build its case against alleged war criminals, including Saddam Hussein. The graves were discovered outside Basra and in Samawa. There have been 290 burial sites found in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. (AJ)

Another Terrorist Defeat

Another portent of the decline of the so-called ‘resistance’ and the slow triumph of Iraqi democratic forces. The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) is reporting that the terrorists who murdered and mutilated four Iraqi railway workers in October 2004 have confessed on live TV. Passenger services have reopened 9 April on the Baghdad-Basra-Mosel line. The IFTU “greeted this good news with confidence that the re-opened train services will be of great benefit to the Iraqi people and contribute to the re-building of a democratic and federal Iraq”. As for the terrorists the IFTU is calling on the Iraqi Justice authorities to "bring legal proceedings swiftly against the murderers”. (AJ)

Mandela Advisor leads UN team to help Iraqis draft new constitution

Nicholas Fink Haysom was a legal advisor to Nelson Mandela throughout his term of office as president of South Africa. A constitutional expert, Haysom has been designated by the UN to lead its team to work with Iraqis to draft a new constitution. Haysom has vast experience having worked as a consultant on constitutional reform, conflict resolution and good governance in Lebanon, Nigeria, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Sudan, Somalia and Sri Lanka. The UN website expresses its hope that the expertise of the UN team, and the standing of the UN will be used in the process. Any further UN-isation of the transitional political process is good for Iraq. (AJ)

Bush Does Not Get It (8): The Human Rights Deficit in Iraq’s Prisons

The United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, and the outgoing Iraqi Human Rights Minister, Bakhtiar Amin, have condemned the human rights deficit in Iraqi prisons. Their interventions follow earlier critical reports from Human Rights Watch and the US State Department. Bakhtiar Amin has said "None of the Iraqi detention centres meet international standards for cleanliness, food and the treatment of prisoners. Neither are the buildings up to standard. We have asked for international help." Ashraf Qazi, in his quarterly report to the UN Security Council, highlighted the lack of due process for many detainees. There will be a temptation to point to the hypocrisy of those UN Security Council members who criticise the human rights deficit in Iraq while practicing one in their own countries. This is irrelevant to Iraq. The prize in Iraq is to model an alternative for the region. If Iraq really is to be ‘the Model’ then the human rights deficit in Iraq’s prisons must be urgently addressed. (AJ)

Bush Does Not Get It (7): The Geneva Convention and Civilian Deaths

The Geneva Convention obliges occupying powers to keep records of civilian deaths. Famously, Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command said the US ‘don’t do body counts’. But today’s Independent reports that Marla Ruzicka, the aid worker killed last week by a suicide bomber, recently extracted an admission that US troops do routinely file a report when they kill a non-combatant. In a report for Human Rights Watch written shortly before her death Ruzicka claimed 29 civilians were killed in shoot-outs between US troops and ‘the resistance’ between 28 February and 5 March 2005. The British government must demand that these troop reports are collated and released in order to gain a more accurate estimate of civilian deaths and make generous compensation payments to families. The Independent reports Marla Ruzicka’s view that "In my dealings with the US military officials here, they have shown regret and remorse for the deaths and injuries of civilians. Systematically recording and publicly releasing civilian casualty numbers would assist in helping the victims who survive to piece their lives back together." Read the full story, and an edited extract of Marla Ruzicka’s report, in today’s Independent. (AJ)

Friedman is “rooting for the good guys”

Tom Friedman in the New York Times (registration required) compares debates in the Arab world and in Israel and concludes that “The birth of democracy in the Arab world and the sustaining of democracy in Israel are now on the table. I am an optimist about both in the long run - but brace yourself for the short run.”

Iraqi Public Opinion: April 2005 Update

The Brookings Institute’s Iraq Index collates the results of polls of Iraqi opinion. The results show the great well of hope and democratic sentiment that exists in Iraq but also a dissatisfaction with politics as it has been practiced so far. Asked what the key issues were to enshrine in the new constitution, Iraqi said, in order of importance, ‘protecting basic human rights’, ‘insuring the Muslim identity of Iraq’, ‘holding frequent elections’, ‘freedom to freely practice religion’, ‘freedom of expression’, ‘creation of a strong central government’, ‘protecting minority rights’, ‘term limits on government officials’, ‘autonomy for certain regions’, and, in tenth place as an issue, ‘implementation of strict Sharia law’. 90.7% of Iraqis are either ‘very hopeful’ or ‘hopeful’ about their future. The top four issues to be dealt with are electricity, unemployment, health and crime. It is interesting that 72% say there is no ‘political figure that you currently support or feel shares your ideas or values’. But 70% expect the Transitional assembly to represent the Iraqi people as a whole. (AJ)

New Womens Art Gallery Opens in Baghdad

Neda Shukur reports on the opening in Baghdad of a new art gallery dedicated to Iraqi womens art. She quotes Malak Jamil, a painter who lost her husband in Saddam’s wars 20 years ago. "Few women had the opportunity to participate in art exhibitions and cultural activities during the last regime. It is high time that women contributed to the scene along with the men, after all, we have many female artists in Iraq". (AJ)

Watch the IPWR team in Baghdad

LFIQ often invites readers to head over to the Institute of Peace and War Reporting. The reporting from Iraq of IWPR journalists is first rate. The mission of IWPR in Iraq is to “train fresh voices untainted by the old regime and to incubate new Iraqi-led institutions, including a major new Iraqi Media Institute, envisaged as a critical platform for Iraqi civil society”. IWPR is a precious resource for the fledgling Iraqi democracy. To watch a short programme about the marvellous work of the IWPR journalists in Iraq go to the site and scroll down the sidebar. (AJ)

President Talabani article

The Iraqi Ambassador to Canada, Howar Ziad, has kindly sent this article by the new President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani. The President concludes thus: “Now, the time has come for the rest of the world to recognize that a federal, democratic Iraq that can defend itself against terrorism is a goal worthy of broad international support. The victory of the new Iraq will be the triumph of freedom over hate, of decency over intolerance. Who would not want to share in such a worthy campaign?”

Through their democratically elected representatives, the people of Iraq have entrusted me with the office of the presidency of the republic. After 50 years of political struggle against discrimination and dictatorship, this is a grand honor and a humbling moment. As we look ahead to a new Iraq based on tolerance and equality, federalism and unity, democracy and freedom, we remember those whose sacrifice made this possible -- Iraqis, Americans, Britons, Poles, Italians, Czechs and so many others from around the world.

As president of Iraq, I shall strive to represent the diversity of a country that has too often in the past denied difference. I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized. I will work with the prime minister to ensure that our government's finances are transparent and that our citizens have access to government records; above all, I shall pursue the politics of reconciliation in opposition to the politics of hatred and incitement.

My door will always be open to those who genuinely renounce violence and seek peaceful accommodation into our nascent democracy. That is why I proposed, in my first speech as head of state, an amnesty for those who have been led astray by terrorism.

But while the new Iraq is open to all, there must be no underestimating our determination to vanquish terrorism. Conciliation is not capitulation, nor is compromise to be deemed equivalent to imbalanced concession. Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples. Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight. And fight we shall.

The choice of peace or war lies not with the Iraqis who ignored terrorism and intimidation to vote in their millions, the Iraqis to whom I am accountable. No, that decision lies with the terrorist minority that despises freedom and spurns every offered opportunity to enter the political process. The attacks on election officials, the suicide bombings of voters, and the cowardly attacks on brave Iraqis waiting in line to join our fledgling security forces are not the tactics of "resistance" or "freedom fighters" but of murderers and criminals.

Nor are the terrorists by any stretch of the imagination the repressed or the disadvantaged. They chose violence despite consistent exhortations to contribute to the new Iraq. They are, for the most part, representatives of the old regime, Baathists who gorged themselves on their compatriots' riches. They are not the dispossessed of the earth but those who have been deprived of their palaces.

Slaying terrorism, and the extremist nationalism and perversion of religion that breeds it, will require our greatest effort, both as Iraqis and as new members of the alliance of democracies. We will again and again ask and work with our neighbors to assist us by controlling their borders, intercepting the transmission of funds to the terrorists and by handing over Baathist fugitives. We, in turn, will work with our neighbors to ensure that Iraq is never again a haven for terrorists. All such foreign-armed groups in Iraq must be neutralized and rendered harmless in a manner that is just and legal. Iraqis, the victims of the vilest stratagems and subterfuges, will not fight a "dirty war."

Our commitment to human rights, primarily of the individual, but also of our diverse ethnic and religious heritage for which we suffered, must be absolute. The justice of our cause must be reflected in the manner in which we rectify the crimes of the past.

The rehabilitation of Basra, the refloating of the ancient marshes of southern Iraq, the return of the ethnically cleansed to Kirkuk, the renaissance of the holy cities as centers of learning and piety, all these are acts of justice. They must be accompanied by the trials of the major Baathist criminals. Justice for the major perpetrators cannot be separated from the vindication of the rights of the individual victim.

Nor is justice independent of constitutionalism. Here the progress in Iraq has been remarkable, in place of the provisional Baathist constitution of 1970 we now have the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), a progressive liberal interim constitution. The TAL represents the highest achievement of the new Iraq. The result of intense argument between the legitimate representatives of all of Iraq's communities, the TAL embodies the virtues of compromise. By sensibly sharing power under the TAL we all acquire more rights and security than if we were to each selfishly pursue our maximal objectives.

The TAL governs all politics in Iraq until the adoption of a final constitution. There can be no government, no elections, and no politics of any kind outside of the framework of the TAL. Any attempt to circumvent the TAL would not only be illegal, and an affront to the rule of the law, but an implicit rejection of the justice of the liberation of Iraq from the outlaw Baathist regime.

For all the talk of Iraq as a "model" for the Middle East, we know that there are unique factors at play in building our federal, multi-ethnic democracy. Indeed, we do not seek to export our political ideas or experiences, a practice that has too often led to instability in the Middle East. Rather, we ask that the uniqueness of the Iraqi experience be recognized and our newly restored sovereignty respected. We will not allow the naysayers (who predict disaster awaiting us around every corner) and their companions in despondency, the apologists for despotism, to distract us with their uninformed comment from our vision of a democratic and equitable society: The rectification of past crimes and the binding up of the many wounds inflicted upon us by the Baathist regime -- these are matters for Iraqis alone.

We seek foreign assistance to help us develop our security forces and to partner with us as we try to further sustainable economic growth in our shattered country. We hope that the United Nations will live up to its ideals. The assistance provided by the U.N. during the recent elections was invaluable and an important step toward the return of this organization to Iraq. A continued and consistent U.N. engagement, which bolsters the new Iraq, will convince Iraqis to put aside their qualms about an organization that many of them identify with the previous Baathist regime.

A greater international role is important to lift some of the burden from the shoulders of the United States. Our gratitude to the American people is immense and we should never be embarrassed to express it. Time and again the U.S. has given the world its most precious resource in the cause of freedom, the lives of its most talented and courageous young men and women.

Now, the time has come for the rest of the world to recognize that a federal, democratic Iraq that can defend itself against terrorism is a goal worthy of broad international support. The victory of the new Iraq will be the triumph of freedom over hate, of decency over intolerance. Who would not want to share in such a worthy campaign?

Iraqi blogger confronts Galloway

The Baghdad Blogger Salam Pax challenges George Galloway at his party’s manifesto launch, according to this report on the BBC. Galloway is quoted as telling the blogger who reported from Saddam’s Iraq that "We are not going to agree on this. You are a supporter of the war. You are a supporter of the occupation and I am an opponent. Your family joined the puppet government."

Making Solidarity with Grassroots Iraq

An abridged speech by Alan Johnson, Labour Friends of Iraq, to Leeds North East Constituency Labour Party, March 30 2005

1. Introduction: what is 'Labour Friends of Iraq'?

We launched Labour Friends of Iraq six months ago in October 2004 to bring together party members such as myself who had opposed the war and party members who had supported the war. Our shared belief was that that the priority was now to move on (if not to give up) arguments about the invasion. Our shared purpose was to make urgent practical solidarity with the democrats struggling to make a new Iraq in desperately difficult conditions, and that that meant, firstly, uniting the labour movement and the left here in Britain around support of the fledgling labour movement in Iraq.

This post-war unity of purpose between pro-war and anti-war forces was symbolised by the choice of our two Presidents. One is Ann Clwyd who opposed Saddam Hussein since the 1980s and who is the Prime Minister's special envoy on human rights to Iraq. The other is the North East Derbyshire MP Harry Barnes. Harry opposed the war, marched against the war, and still believes he was right to do so. The two have united to focus party members on the great task of making solidarity with Grassroots Iraq.

Now it is easy to say that – 'solidarity with Grassroots Iraq' – but what does it mean? It means practical steps – steps any local party, any union branch, any individual could take – that, in sum, will wrap the fledgling organisations of the new democratic Iraq in a blanket of solidarity. LFIQ has made a start in creating that blanket of solidarity:

- LFIQ helped organise a fringe meeting of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions on 'Solidarity with Grassroots Iraq' at the 2004 Labour Party conference

- LFIQ (with kind help from USDAW) has produced a 'Toolkit for Solidarity with Grassroots Iraq'.

- LFIQ has organised global solidarity campaigns with Iraqi democrats.

- LFIQ has circulated model resolutions to Constituency Labour Parties on topics such as US Military Action in Fallujah which we opposed and the Defence of Iraqi Trade Unionists. We have addressed local Labour Parties, regional conferences, and helped to bring together UK trade unionists and Iraqi trade unionists. LFIQ supporters were instrumental in organising a tour of the Birmingham trade unions, for instance, for Abdullah Muhsin, the IFTU rep in London. We have publicised vigils in support of Iraqi women's and students' rights, under vicious attack by Fundamentalists. We have promoted the work of the Jubilee Iraq Network.

- LFIQ has publicised strikes in Iraq such as the successful Baghdad Hotel Workers Strike in February 2005, and helped to network support for the strikers.

- LFIQ has pressed Government Ministers and the Prime Minister in the House of Commons for commitments on the defence of trade union rights in the new Iraq, on the treatment of detainees, and on democracy.

There are many LFIQ-supporting MPs and the number is growing. They have tabled questions and Early Day Motions to give the House an opportunity to show its support for grassroots Iraq. We have organised meetings for visiting Iraqi democrats in the House of Commons.

- The LFIQ website has hundreds and hundreds of visitors each day, from the UK, Europe, America, Australia, Asia, Iraq and the Middle East. It acts as a platform for the voices of Iraqi Democrats to be heard. We post news, interviews with the political parties, speeches and policy statements. It also acts as a forum for the democratic left in Britain to discuss Iraq.

- We have plans to launch a foreign policy e-journal of the democratic left, Democratiya, and to recruit interns, organise a delegation of party members to Iraq and more.

We think LFIQ has done pretty well in six months for a group with almost no money, no staff and no office!

But that's enough about LFIQ. I want to talk tonight about the Iraqi democrats as the third force in Iraq.

2. The Third Force in Iraq: the Iraqi Democrats

Between the US-UK troops and the reactionary Ba'athist-Islamist 'resistance' there is a third force in Iraq.

That third force is made up of three components. We owe urgent solidarity to each. I will say something about the kind of individuals who embody each component, and about the solidarity work LFIQ promotes with each.

First, there are the Iraqi free trade unions struggling for labour rights, decent labour conditions, a decent labour code and an economy of social justice rather than a profits pool for the corporations.

Second, there are the Iraqi democratic political parties who fight for a secular, federal, plural and fully democratic Iraq against those forces that seek a controlled pseudo-democracy, a theocracy, or, help us, a return to the torments of the Ba'ath.

Third, there are a host of civil society groups and networks, such as women's groups and student groups, that are struggling for their human rights in the new Iraq.

Each component of this third camp is fighting for its life in the new Iraq. Each has the right to expect Labour Party members will support them.

Making solidarity with Trade Unions

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions is the most important and by far the largest of the trade unions that have emerged in post-Saddam Iraq.

There is a long tradition of a democratic labour movement and progressive politics in Iraq. In 1959 the unions mobilised a million people for its May Day demonstration from a population of only 6.5 million. The Iraqi Communist Party had 25,000 members in 1959, a daily newspaper, and affiliated women's and youth groups.

In 1979 Saddam seized power after a bloody internal coup in the Ba'ath party. His regime immediately broke up the independent workers' trade unions. He took over their offices and arrested their leaders. He turned the unions into yellow unions and appointed his own stooges. Independent and progressive leaders of the old free unions were executed or imprisoned.

In 1987, Saddam's regime introduced a new Labour Code, which removed the right to form or join trade unions. He abolished the eight-hour day and handed over workers pension fund to the treasury without compensation. Saddam announced these measures during a televised meeting with the yellow union leadership and members of the "Central Workers Office" of the Ba'ath party. He said: "From now on, the title 'worker' is abolished and all workers shall become official employees by the State. As everybody is now a government employee, there is no more need for trade unions. Workers in the private sector will have a
special labour law decreed for them". The 'yellow' union applauded all these measures.

Many of today's IFTU militants were driven underground during Saddam's thirty year totalitarian rule, forming the Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement. In Britain, in 1982, as a result of information passed on by the WDTUM to tobacco workers union leader Dougie Grieve, the TUC conference passed a motion condemning the atrocities against workers taking place in Iraq.

Some of today's IFTU militants were tortured in Saddam's jails. I had the honour of meeting Subhi al Mashadani, the General Secretary of the IFTU, at a TUC reception in London last year. Subhi was held for ten years in Saddam's jails and he was tortured. When one thinks that this giant of a man came to London last year and was abused and physically attacked by the
'revolutionaries' of the European Social Forum, who shouted their slogans of victory to the resistance as they jostled Subhi, one does not know whether to laugh or cry.

In 2003 when Saddam fell these militant free trade unionists organised the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.

They organised an open meeting on 16 May 2003 attended by 350 Iraqi trade unionists (liberals, communists, and nationalists, both Arab and Kurds). It was at this meeting that the IFTU was formed.

The IFTU now has over 200,000 members.

The IFTU has achieved some great things against the odds. 12 national unions in key sectors of the Iraq's economy have been established. The IFTU now includes the following unions: The Oil and Gas Union, the Railway Union, The Transport and Communication Union, the Mechanics, Printing and Metal Union. The Textile and Leather Products Union, the Construction and Wood Workers' Union, the Electricians' Union, the Service Industry Union and the Agriculture and Food Staff Workers' Union.

These unions organise in Baghdad and across Iraq's 15 provinces such as Basra, Kirkuk, Mosul, Kurbala, al Najif, Babel and Mesan.

In 2004 many of the IFTU's constituent unions held their first open and free workers' conferences in Baghdad and elected a leading committee.

The IFTU takes strike action. The recent strike of hotel workers in Baghdad, which we publicised on the LFIQ website was victorious.

In Baghdad, the Mechanic, Printing and Metal Union organized industrial action in a bicycle factory near Baghdad. The president of the union committee, Najim Al Daham called for a 24-hour strike and won pay increases from 17,000 to 60,000 Iraqi Dinner. The IFTU was able to bring solidarity delegations from seven Baghdad work places representing several unions, to demonstrate outside the main gate of the bicycle factory in support of the strikers' demands.

The bonds of workers' solidarity are being reforged in Iraq.

The IFTU is pressing hard for the incorporation in the new Labour Code of ILO principles, leading the way.

But while the IFTU has many goals it lacks basic resources. It has no access to the funds of the official Saddam unions, which are frozen. It lacks such basic essentials as desks, chairs, computers and faxes and other IT technologies.

So the IFTU is asking its brothers and sisters in the international labour movement to provide practical assistance. The IFTU also needs training in basic skills such as Health and Safety and Collective Bargaining.

The British trade union movement, with strong TUC encouragement, has been very supportive. Practical support has arrived from many unions including the RMT, the FBU, Unison and the PCS. Such support has been invaluable and the IFTU have been inspired by such gestures of solidarity. One example: the FBU delivered a large container of 600 essential life-saving fire kits (boots, leggings, tunic & helmet) including chemical suits to the IFTU and Iraqi firefighters.

The IFTU has good relations with international Labour movement like the ICFTU, with many European federations such as the CGT and CGIL and with COSATU, the AFL-CIO and with many other trade union centres around the world, such as the Korean labour movement. The Swedish unions have also provided financial support to run basic courses in Trade Unionism.

The IFTU is not the only trade union in Iraq. There are several union federations. There are Kurdish unions independent of the IFTU though sharing cordial relations. And there is the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra, as well as various professional organisations such as the Teachers and Journalists. The Federation of Workers Councils and Union of the Unemployed of Iraq can be found at http://www.uuiraq.org/.

But the new free trade unions face tremendous difficulties.

In 2003 the offices of the IFTU were raided by coalition troops and IFTU leaders were held in custody.

In 2004 and 2005 the IFTU came under murderous assault from the so-called 'resistance'. Its leaders were assassinated – targeted by death squads - its union headquarters came under RPG attack. And on the Mosul-Baghdad rail line its members were kidnapped, murdered and their bodies mutilated.

But let us not speak only of 'headquarters' and 'members' and 'leaders'. Let us talk about a man, Hadi Saleh, and his story.

Hadi's friend and comrade, Faleh A. Jabar, a leading contemporary Iraqi sociologist wrote this about his dear friends torture and murder at the hands of the 'resistance' in January 2005. Forgive me for the long quote.

"A group of five, most probably, ex-security men, broke into his house in Baghdad, waited for him in the dark and preyed on him the moment he stepped in. They killed three times: first they strangled him with a wire; second they riddled his body with bullets; lastly they burnt him. This was not an ordinary killing. Unlike show beheadings that mark 'resistance' in Iraq, this was a triple vengeance: in the 1970s Saleh was condemned to death for clandestine unionism, he was amnestied years later, now the Ba'ath security men working in
clandestine for restoration reneged on their amnesty.

"They also took vengeance for the successes Saleh achieved in rebuilding trade unions (The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, IFTU) that stand now at some 200,000 membership, a formidable democratic social movement defying all sorts of fundamentalist, communal or other parochial identities. Lastly, they wanted to hush him and his colleagues who pursue a twin line of peaceful action for the restitution of Iraq's sovereignty and building an all-inclusive, federal democracy.

"Perhaps he was born with a smile; and simply forgot it was there. I never saw him appearing without that innocent grin. (..) After his return from Sweden in 2003 with his wife Corea and two kids, the offices of the Iraqi unions were raided by the coalition forces for no apparent reason. I was worried about him. Following the macabre series of kidnapping and beheadings in 2004, my worries grew even sharper, and he had this reassurance to offer at our last encounter in Baghdad in November 2004: 'I am a worker and unionist not a politician, who on earth would wish to target me. They are killing your lot, writers and
intellectuals'.

"I wish he were right. He was on the hit list by the very murderers who raped the nation for thirty odd years and who re-emerged now with the gold they dug from the Central Bank, their family networks and the criminals of the underworld, putting a false mantle of 'resistance'.

"Millions of Iraqis are resisting the occupation peaceably. Their collective wisdom is that restitution of sovereignty should go hand in hand with popular mandate, and block restoration. Hadi Saleh's death is a wake-up call for all those who rightly opposed the war, but wrongly support post-conflict violence. The millions of Iraqis who defied death to vote reiterated Saleh's message and sacrifice for those who may see in bombing utilities, gas stations, union offices,
voters and voting stations as 'anti-imperialist' endeavours. Sceptics should ask at least one question: if insurgents genuinely enjoy massive popular support, as they seem to claim, why do they fear the ballot?"

The Stop the War Movement

Though I respect those who supported the invasion on a 'regime change' basis, as a humanitarian intervention, I myself opposed the invasion of Iraq. I marched against it, organised school students walk-outs, teach-ins', blocked roads and train lines.

But when we think of Hadi Saleh's torture and murder is it any wonder that many who marched against the invasion have been looking again at the leaders of the Stop the War Coalition? Andrew Murray and Lindsey German, the leaders of the Coalition, circulated a statement supporting the resistance by 'whatever means they find necessary'? (an embarrassed national committee made them delete the phrase). George Galloway, the Coalition's best known leader, fingered the IFTU as 'quislings in the Arab press. Sami Ramadani wrote in the Guardian that he could think of no better word than 'collaborator' to describe the
IFTU. Cambridge Respect Officers and Parliamentary candidate refused to sign the statement in support of Nozad Ismail, saying, to their shame, "We…repudiate the so-called Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions…it has effectively transferred its loyalty from one murderous tyrant to another, from Saddam Hussein to George W. Bush." An ignorant libel of course but not surprising coming from Respect. Alex Callinicos, the guru of Respect and StW, and a Socialist Workers Party leader, sneered at the outcry over Hadi's death as a 'hullaballo' about a 'communist' and a collaborator. It has been truly been a scoundrel time.

Is it any wonder that Mick Rix, the left-wing socialist ex-leader of the train drivers union, ASLEF, resigned from the Stop the War Coalition? It is worth quoting the angry words of Mick Rix to Andrew Murray, Chair of StWC, 21 October 2004: "If you think I am going to sit back and agree with beheadings,
kidnappings, torture and brutality, and out right terrorization of ordinary Iraqi and others, then you can forget it. (…) "I don't think you also realise the danger that your actions and those of the Respect colleagues in the StWC have placed [the Foreign Representative of the IFTU] against attacks from extremists. Some
people talk about life and death situations, some unfortunately have to live it and so do their families in Iraq and I don't see why you, Respect or the coalition have a right to think you can place them in that situation, when they are living daily with those consequences, because they are not the "new" friends of yourself, George, StWC or Respect such as extreme nationalists, or religious fundamentalists. It is you who have attacked the IFTU and Abdullah (…)
"I will not stand by and say or do nothing, when decent trade unionists, and socialists in the UK, and good committed socialists and trade unionists in Iraq or elsewhere are being attacked, by people who politically have made alliances with, and are supporting, religious fanatics and people who are basically against everything that our movement really stands for."

Mick Rix was right. His words should hit home for each of us. None of us should 'stand by and do nothing' while the free trade unionists of Iraq are threatened by death squads. None of us should place 'not criticising the anti-war movement' above the lives of Iraqi trade unionists as some have. That is why LFIQ has issued a global labour appeal for solidarity with Nozad Ismail, the 40 year old IFTU leader in Kirkuk who has survived two assassination attempts and whose life is threatened still. In a short
time we have won hundreds of messages of solidarity from all over the world. We know this has appreciated mightily by Nozad. A network of labour internationalists, unionists willing to help the new free trade unions of Iraq, is being created.

But the unions are only the first component of the third camp in Iraq, the second is the democratic political parties of Iraq.

Making solidarity with the democratic political parties

Again, let me personalise this. Who is Barham Salih? He is the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, an exile from Saddam in England and a social democrat. He addressed the Council of the Socialist International on February 7 2004 and appealed to called on each of us 'to help Iraqi democrats in this critical juncture of the history of the Middle East.

To help us transform our country from the land of mass graves and aggression, to the land of peace, justice and democracy'

In late 2004 Barham Salih was invited by Ann Clwyd, Joint President of Labour Friends of Iraq, to give the annual Keir Hardie lecture in Wales. He recalled that, "In 1980, when I came to Cardiff, I fled my country, I fled repression and tyranny. Wales gave me a home, gave me an education and gave me lifelong friendships that I cherish. "I'm confident that the people of Wales are freedom fighters and recognise freedom fighters around the world and will support freedom and liberty".

But it is not clear that parts of the western left have recognised who the real freedom fighters are in Iraq. The reaction in some quarters to the historic election in Iraq made this plain.

On January 30 2005, Iraq held its first election. Over 8 million Iraqis went to the polls to elect a 275-member Transitional Assembly.

But let's stop right there. 'Went to the polls' does not capture what happened, does it? Even as voters were being blown up by homicide bombers they voted. At one polling station the fascist in question blew himself up before he could reach the lines of voters. So all day long the voters walked around his body, spitting on it as they went in to vote, showing it the purple finger as they exited. One family saw their son blown up, did their duty to his body, and then went and voted in honour of his memory. No, 'going to the polls' does not
capture what a triumph of democracy and the human spirit was January
30 2005 in Iraq.

The Assembly will choose a government, draft a national constitutional
referendum and supervise fresh elections in December 2005. This political process is fully backed by the United Nations under resolution 1546.

The western left came to a crossroads with the January election in Iraq. Whatever our view of the invasion in 2003 the choice in January 2005 was stark. To support the vast majority of the Iraqi people as they reached out for democracy via the UN backed political process or to give comfort to those who attacked polling stations, shot election workers, and bombed lines of voters.

The democratic choice faced off against the nihilist choice. Listen to these two voices.

The democratic choice was summed up by Abdullah Muhsin, Foreign Representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. He surely spoke for all democrats when he said, "Elections certainly offer the best hope of a secure Iraq and will legitimise the current UN-sanctioned political process, which is aimed at producing a national sovereign transitional assembly and a government mandated by the people. This view rests its legitimacy on nternational law - UN resolutions 1483, 1511 and 1546 - and the engagement of the majority of Iraqis and their key political parties across Iraq. Surely Iraqis,
after all their struggles and sacrifices, have won the right to hold elections. Democracy is not given freely, but won, and to achieve it we shall walk, with heads held high, looking straight into the eyes of the enemies of democracy".

The nihilist choice was caught in the voice of the Ansar al Sunnah Army who on January 19 2005 posted an internet video showing the killing of two Iraqis who were working for an internet company that Ansar al Sunnah claimed was involved in preparations for the Iraqi elections. The statement read "We say to all who support the forces and have anything to do with the elections farce: Repent now and stop your disbelief so that you save your souls, or accept the hollowness of your fate as was the fate of these, as Allah is my witness. And may Allah grant peace and greetings to our prophet Mohammad and to his
family and his friends (The military organization of the Ansar Al Sunnah Army, 9 Dhu'l-Hijjah 1425 / 19 January 2005).

Those parts of the western left which heard both these voices – the democratic trade unionist and the theocratic fascist – and remained indifferent at best, sneering and 'above the fray', or sided with the fascists at worst, will never live it down. And nor should they be allowed to.

Here is the authentic voice of one part of the western left. Seamus Milne is the editor of Guardian's Comment and Analysis pages. On January 13 he argued that Iraq elections would be… 'at best irrelevant'.

Contrast that tired cynicism to the voice of an Iraqi candidate, Ahmed Khudayer who beamed as he described his experience on the stump. "We drove round the streets last Sunday with a motorcade led by a white school bus with the roof taken off and garlanded with flowers to get attention. It went on for four hours. People were crying with joy.

They remembered the past," he said. (He is campaign manager for a coalition of secular parties called the United Democratic Forces).

Here is another voice of this part of Western Left. Socialist Worker - the leading force behind George Galloway's Respect Coalition - condemned the election as… 'nothing but a fraud' (29 Jan).

Note that. 'Nothing but' a fraud. Compare this with the voice of an Iraqi voter. "For 35 years we haven't had free or democratic elections. There was voting for just one person, the dictator Saddam.

I am going to vote and no one can threaten me because I am loyal to my
country and I will not stay at home. If there really is a guy called Zarqawi I will still vote, even if it takes my life".

If the incoherent my-enemy's–enemy-is-my-friend 'anti-imperialism' of
George Galloway, Seamus Milne and the SWP are not to set the tone for the British left - as it has all too often for too long– we need to join together to deliver labour movement solidarity to our allies in Iraq.

The third component of the third camp in Iraq are the many civil
society organisations from women's groups to student groups who are
fighting for human rights.

Making solidarity with Women and Students for their Human Rights

Who is Zihoor Ashour? She is a young woman who on March 15 2005 was
viciously assaulted by radical Islamist thugs in Basra. Her crime? She was in a public park with other students, boys as well as girls. They were having a picnic. Hooded men – violent radical Islamists, supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr - assaulted the students with rubber cables and truncheons, waving pistols. Zihoor, an Armenian Christian girl, was beaten on her head so hard with a thick stick of wood that she lost an eye. Another student (a boy) who came to her rescue after militiamen had torn off her clothes and were beating her was shot in the head and he died subsequently from his injuries.

Students say that their belongings, such as mobile phones, cameras, stereo players and loudspeakers, were stolen or smashed to pieces by the militiamen. Girl students not wearing headscarves, most of them Christian, were severely beaten and at least 20 students were kidnapped, taken to Sadr's office in Al-Tuwaisa for 'interrogation' and were only released late at night.

Students also say British soldiers were nearby but did not intervene.

The response from democratic Iraq has been magnificent. Students from Basra and Shatt Al-Arab universities in Basra City have been on all-out strike. One Iraqi email correspondent writes: "The students of all colleges are in what you can say a revolution because of this.

They made many demonstrations against Al-Mahdi army and Al-Sadr demanding to remove their offices from the universities".

The General Union of Students in the Iraqi Republic (GUSIR, Basra branch) has been joined by many other faculties and high schools and thousands of Basra citizens on the streets.

Al-Sadr and tribal groups have demanded the students issue an apology for insulting Islam or face the bombardment of their university. The students – the bulk of whom remember are practising Muslims - refuse to back down. Their protest is growing and has generated a lot of support, particularly among young people.

Sheikh Al-Basri, one of Sadr's aides in Basra, stated – openly on TV - that the 'believers' of the Mahdi Army did what they did (beat and murdered peaceful students having a picnic) in an act of 'divine intervention' in order to punish the students for their 'immoral and outrageous behaviour' during the 'holy month of Muharram, while the blood of Imam Hussein is yet to dry.'

He added that he had sent the 'group of believers' to observe and photograph the students, and on witnessing them playing loud music, 'the kind they play in bars and discos', and openly talking to female students, the 'believers had to
straighten things out'.

In reply the students slogans are 'No to political Islam', 'No to the new tyranny' and 'No to Sadr'. They are demanding: bring the Sadrist militiamen to a public trial in the presence of representatives from Basrah's student groups; ban Islamist armed groups from entering campus or running Islamist student groups; dissolve the infamous 'Security Committee' which operates in most of Basra's colleges, and which is reminiscent of the Ba'ath's 'University Security' but taking a Shi'ite Islamic appearance instead of a fascist nationalistic one.

Student groups from Baghdad, Arbil and Suleimaniya have sent statements of support to Basra. A national democratic student movement is finding its voice.

The students are finding allies in Iraq. Their ally is the IFTU, the union George Galloway and Respect finger as 'quislings' and 'collaborators'.

On Monday 22 March the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) Basra branch organised a public demonstration in one of Basra's main streets in support of the Iraqi students. The IFTU statement read "We support a democratic Iraq and opposes any political or social repression reminiscent of the movement of the Taliban".

And the Basra students have found allies here in Britain. Peter Tatchell, the National Union of Students and others have rallied to their aid. To get involved contact Alan Clarke (UK National Union of Students national executive member) on alan.clarke@nus.org.uk

Gay and Lesbian Rights

Three Iraqi 'resistance' groups, when they threatened to kill anybody participating in the Iraqi elections released a new statement on their websites denouncing democracy as 'a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit,'' (…) The statement continues, ``This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God - Muslims' doctrine.'' 365Gay.Com is reporting that 'The statements said that democracy would lead to gay rights which was un-Islamic

3. Moving On

What do LFIQ mean when we invite party members to 'move on'? 'Moving on' does not mean forgiving and forgetting. Many party members feel they were misled about Iraq and they will, rightly, want to go on arguing about the decision to go to war, about 45 minutes, the JIC, the dossier, the Attorney General, and so on. Moving on does not mean 'falling into line'. Moving on does not mean 'shutting up'.

Moving on means siding with Hadi Saleh and Nozad Ismail. It means siding with Barham Salih. It means siding with Zihoor Ashour and the Basra students. It means extending the hand of solidarity. It means telling the likes of George Galloway that enough is enough.

Moving on does not mean no longer caring about what the Attorney General said, when, and to whom. But moving on does mean giving up such an obsessional fixation about what the Attorney General said to Tony Blair in March 2003 that you cannot hear what Barham Salih or Zihoor Ashour are saying today, to you, in Spring 2005.

Moving on is not about getting 'on message with Blair'. But it does mean getting past a certain brand of unrelenting negativist and corrosively cynical sneering about every development in Iraq. The New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman said 'All the Europeans care about is being able to say to George Bush "We told you so"'. Is he right? Well, maybe more often than we'd care to admit. Does Friedman not capture something about the journalism of John Humphreys, Seamus Milne and Robert Fisk?

Of course we must not look at Iraq through rose-tinted spectacles. Yes we should oppose with all our strength the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the bombing of civilians, the failures of reconstruction. Yes, we must speak out loudly, as LFIQ does, for human rights, a Marshall Plan for Iraq, social justice in the economy, and a speedy withdrawal of troops. LFIQ has called for an absolute prohibition on torture, the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, an end to the bombing of Falluja, and demands a speedy withdrawal of the troops as part of the UN backed political process that will restore full sovereignty to Iraq.

But it is not to aid George Bush or Tony Blair to admit that we have witnessed the removal of Saddam, the end of the Ba'ath, the return of the refugees, the joy of the Kurds, religious freedoms now enjoyed by the Shia, the creation of a UN-backed political process, the 8 million voters in the January elections, a fantastic display of 'purple power', the rebirth of trade unionism and the labour movement, the rise of new democratic political parties, a relatively free press, the reflooding of the Marshlands and the return of the persecuted Marsh Arabs, the opening up of the mass graves, and the beginning of a truth and justice process.

I am sometimes reminded of the expression 'some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time'. It should be possible for the left to oppose the crimes of the occupation while making solidarity with Grassroots Iraq.

Let us not mistake the daily Steve Bell cartoon for a serious socialist response to Iraq.

LFIQ's argument is simple. Hold the Bush administration and our Labour government to account. But don't leave it at that, as if a daily snort at 'the cowboys in Washington' was our internationalist duty done.

Let us move on from an 'anti-war' campaign and build an Iraqi solidarity campaign.

For there is a great prize to be grasped in Iraq.

4. Iraq the Model

'Iraq the Model' is the name of a blog started off by an Iraqi. The phrase sums up something else, though. It sums up the Great Prize to be won in Iraq.

Speaking for myself I believe Iraq is the hinge of our time. Failure in Iraq would define the post-cold-war world as surely as success. Nothing we could do anywhere will reduce terrorist threat than a democratic outcome in Iraq. And imagine the magnetic attraction of a social democratic Iraq! A social democracy in a mainly Islamic society in the Middle East, fiercely independent and proud, but with peaceful relations with the region and the world, with a welfare state, labour rights, and economic development. That is the great prize to be won not just by the Iraqi people but by the world. And make no mistake, that prospect terrifies the terrorists more than any amount of anti-terror legislation.

And in 21st century Iraq – just as it was in 19th century Britain – leading the way will be the labour movement, women's organisations, democratic political parties, civil society groups, progressive intellectuals. They will be the bearers of that sensibility, the creators of those networks, the organisers of the new Iraq of social justice and democracy. A mass, well-organised and confident trade union movement could do much to bring Iraqis together regardless of
their religious, ethnic or national origins. The IFTU is not Shia, Kurd or Sunni, Assyrian or Christian, but brings all together to improve their working conditions, pay and social provision. And when people come together to do that, well, we know what can happen next.

If socialism is to be put on the agenda in Iraq it will be as the practical and positive political expression of the values embodied in those progressive movements not as the cuckoo in the resistance nest as some on the western left delude themselves.

5. Conclusion: another left is possible

I want to end by making a series of points about 'the left we have' and 'the left we need'. LFIQ is a broad church solidarity organisation. But I think these arguments would be widely shared among the other executive committee members.

Much of the left has backed itself into an incoherent and negativist 'anti-imperialist' corner. It has lost touch with democratic, egalitarian and humane values long-held on the democratic socialist left. This has come about because the 'anti-imperialist' left – guided by theorists such as Alex Callinicos, politicians such as George Galway, journalists such as Seamus Milne - has reduced the complexity of the post-cold-war world to a single Great Contest: 'Imperialism' or
'Empire' versus 'the resistance' or 'the multitude'. Today's 'anti-imperialist' left is griped by the same manichean world-view and the same habits of mind that dominated much of the left in the Stalinist period (from apologia to denial, from cynicism to grossly simplifying tendencies of thought, from the belief that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' to the abandonment of workers who get on the wrong side of the 'anti-imperialists').

The consequence of this Manichean (black and white) thinking, in the Stalinist period and again today, is political and moral disorientation and a kind of Grand Dumbing-Down of the left. At the extremes the 'anti-imperialist' left actually lends its support to vicious sub-imperialisms such as Milosevic and Saddam.

In truth the post-Communist world cannot be reduced to a manichean struggle between "Imperialism" and "Anti-Imperialism." There is no "anti-imperialist camp" in which the working class and the democrats merge their forces with General Galtieri, the Mullahs of Iran, the Serb chauvinism of Slobodan Milosevic, Ba'athists, or Islamic fundamentalist forces. The latter, especially, can indeed become a magnet for the poor and oppressed, as a reaction to Great Power imperialism, but so, in its day, could Stalinism. Socialists cancel
themselves out if they support such forces. Politics involves more than just putting a plus sign where the U.S. State Department puts a negative. Things are not that simple anymore. Not by a long chalk.

If "anti-imperialism" is defined as whatever and whoever, at any given moment, is in conflict with the U.S., then one's politics are defined negatively, but decisively, by the actions of the U.S. An independent democratic socialist judgement on events is impossible. You end up cheer-leading fascists.

* When John Pilger says the left 'should not be choosy' but should back the fascistic Iraqi 'resistance', we should refuse.

* When the left says 9/11 was simply 'blowback' for the crimes of US imperialism, we should refuse.

* When Michael Moore asks us to believe that pre-war Iraq was a country of happy kite-flying children, we should refuse.

* When Michael Moore writes 'there is not terrorist threat, repeat after me, THERE IS NO TERRORIST THREAT', we should refuse.

* When a warm welcome is extended by the 'left-wing' Major of London, Ken Livingstone, to the Fundamentalist cleric, Dr Al-Qaradawi, an anti-semite, and a proponent of the killing of homosexuals and wife-beating, we should refuse.

* When the left fails to rouse itself to oppose Crimes against Humanity in the Balkans, or in Zimbabwe, or in the Sudan, or in North Korea, because to oppose 'the resistance' of Slobodan Milosevic or Robert Mugabe or Kim Il Sung is to support 'imperialism', we should refuse.

* When the left apologises for the suicide bombers who blow up Jews in coffee bars in Tel Aviv on the grounds that the 'resistance' must be supported we should refuse (even as we work for a secure and viable Palestinian state).

* When the left looks at the joy of eight and half million people emerging form totalitarian rule to vote, literally dancing in the streets, and dismisses this as 'nothing but a fraud', we should refuse. For that left is, in a profound sense, dead to progressive politics.

* And when a leader of the Stop the War Movement (and the SWP) John Rees, argues that 'Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed against the oppressor, even if the people who run the oppressed country are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein', we should get angry. Enough is Enough. Enough apologies for tyrants, enough scabbing on free trade unionists, enough convoluted theoretical theses that always seem to end up blocking our ability to make solidarity with those who need it most.

Each refusal carries a positive charge: pro-human rights above all, pro-international solidarity with the victims of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, pro-worker, pro-feminism, pro-gay rights, pro-democracy, pro-liberty, pro-social justice. A decent left politics in the post-cold war world will define itself in terms of these positive values.

On such values we can build a culture of solidarity and a political movement.
I thank you again for inviting Labour Friends of Iraq to address the
constituency.

I would like to end by inviting you to listen to the Iraqi Communist Party leader Salam Ali, interviewed in the Morning Star on 20 April 2004. Salam Ali pleaded with the western left to look again at Iraq, asking us to 'understand the complexities and forge alliances with the forces that matter – with your allies in the struggle…[what] has not been given sufficient attention by the peace movement, not only in Britain but internationally, is solidarity with the democratic forces inside Iraq. They need to develop links with democratic forces. I'm not only talking about political parties - I'm talking about
democratic organisations and social movements'.

I hope you will consider supporting Labour Friends of Iraq and work with us to twin your constituency with a democratic group in Iraq. We can help you to do that.

Let us together build the kind of solidarity that Salam Ali is asking for.

Let us 'understand the complexities and forge alliances with the forces that matter – with your allies in the struggle'.

We have a world to win.

Thank you.

(The speech was followed by a lively discussion. Party members raised a series of searching questions about the nature of the 'resistance', the US plans for the Iraqi economy, the dangers of a Iran-style government in Iraq, the importance of making solidarity with the students of Basra, and the prospects for trade unionism. The meeting was rounded off by a speech from Fabian Hamilton, the constituency MP, an opponent of the war and a supporter of Labour Friends of Iraq. Fabian rounded off an inspiring speech with a reminder of the tremendous heroism that had been shown by the Iraqi people on January 30 2005 and urged the meeting to find inspiration from their example. Leeds North East CLP held a collection for Labour Friends of Iraq, raised £40, and wants to get practical solidarity work going with the Iraqi democrats after the General Election).

Valuing all lives: a tribute to Marla Ruzicka

Marla
Ruzicka, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, is remembered by her friends in an article at Common Dreams. Marla sought to record the innocent victims of the conflict in Afghanistan and in Iraq and, as the Independent editorial puts it today, to "put a human face on the victims of US military intervention." LFIQ concurs that there needs to be an independent and fully funded study to discover the true number of deaths in Iraq not just those of foreign soldiers.

Iraq: Latest Quality of Life Indicators

The Brookings Institute is an independent think-tank based in Washington. It is associated with the liberal wing of US Politics. Every Monday and Thursday it updates a comprehensive Iraq Index, a catalogue of statistics relating to Iraq reconstruction and opinion. The latest quality of life indicators show progress but the pace of improvement remains frustratingly slow. Countries that have pledged donations need to deliver. Reconstruction funds needs to be dispersed. Unemployment remains the number one priority for the new Iraqi government and the coalition. Here are some of the key indicators (AJ):

Iraq: Latest Quality of Life Indicators
Fuel Supply available

May 2003: 10% of target
April 2005 90% of target (down 3% on last month)

Oil Revenue

June 2003: $0.2 billion
March 2005: $1.55 billion

Electricity: Daily Mega Watt Hours (MWH) available

Pre-war: 95,000
August 2003: 72,435
April 2005:84,400 (still below pre-war levels)

Nationwide Unemployment Rate

June 2003: 50-60%
March 2005: 28-40%

Inflation

July 2004: 0.6%
February 2005:11.4%

Telephone Subscribers

Pre-War: 833,000
April 2005: 3, 040, 609

Internet Subscribers

Pre-War: 11,000
March 2005: 147,076

Primary School Enrolment

2000: 3.6 million
2003/4: 4.3 million

Commercial Airport Departures per day

Pre-war: 2-3
October 2004: 45

Hospitals restored to pre-war levels

March 2004: 90%

Relative Amount of Car Traffic

July 2003: 1.0
January 2005: 5.0

Relative length of gasoline lines (miles)

July 2003: 0.1
January 2005: 1.0

Television and Human Rights in Iraq

‘The Revolution Will Not be Televised’ sang Gil Scott Heron. But the decline of the Counter Revolution has been. Kamran Al-Karadaghi over at IWPR reports that the new willingness of Iraqis to report on terrorists is due in part to a TV show, Terror in the Hands of Justice.

Every evening millions of Iraqis watch Iraqi security forces interrogate suspected terrorists. IWPR report that “They give graphic details about their roles in attacks on the police and the army, as well as bombing, beheading, kidnapping and other criminal acts. The suspected insurgents reveal the names of their masters, and the sums of money they were paid to commit extremist acts. The stories they tell are often horrible and disgusting. For a couple of hundred US dollars, one man describes how he tortured then beheaded a fellow Iraqi on the orders of his paymaster. The effect of the programme has been dramatic, and it has clearly helped to encourage people to get involved in the efforts to eradicate the insurgency”. IWPR say, “This image was in stark contrast to the idea of the superman insurgent shown continuously on Arab satellites, particularly the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera”.

But the TV programme has sparked a storm over the abuse of human rights. Mish’an Al-Jubouri, a member of the National Assembly and Editor-In-Chief of an Iraqi newspaper, The Opposite Direction, has criticised the show as a violation of the human rights of the suspected militants.

The Commander of the Wolf Brigade, a special unit set up to defeat the insurgency, has responded to Mish’an Al-Jubouri in these terms: “As for human rights and the humane treatment of [alleged] criminals, let us ask our brother Misha’an about the human rights of the man who is killed in front of his house, the woman who is widowed, the children who are orphaned, the girl who is raped, killed, and mutilated? What about the human rights of mothers who cry day and night, the innocent patriotic people whose only concerns were to protect the country and people’s well-being, whose bodies were left in the streets for days because people were afraid to pick them up and bury them?”

The programme is now being investigated by the Minister of Human Rights, Bakhtiar Amin. (AJ)

Juan Cole: Informed?

Efraim Karsh is the head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, University of London. In an article in the New Republic (free subscription required) he criticises Juan Cole who blogs at Informed Comment. Cole’s posts on Iraq are read avidly by thousands and he appears as an Iraq expert regularly on American TV. Karsh argues that Cole thinks U.S. foreign policy is 'controlled by a ruthless Zionist cabal implanted at the highest echelons of the Bush administration’. The result, argues Karsh, is that Cole’s ‘informed comment’ is sometimes crass prejudice.

Cole warned "The Founding Fathers of the United States deeply feared that a foreign government might gain this level of control over a branch of the United States government, and their fears have been vindicated". He mean Israel. Cole depicts U.S. foreign policy as controlled by ‘Likudniks’, agents of Sharon in the White House, who use "sneaky methods of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of intelligence" to promote its goals? Cole goes on to claim, ‘the real goal of "Wolfowitz's adventure in Iraq" is "to defang Iraq as a favor to Ariel Sharon." And "[I]f Sharon and AIPAC (a pro-Israel pressure group) decide that they need the US government to take military action against Iran it is likely that the US government will do so."

This is more like a script for 'The Manchurian Candidate 2' than informed comment. It is crude conspiratorial thinking that inadvertently echoes some tropes of the stale old Jewish conspiracy myth. I am reminded of Irving Howe's comment about Gore Vidal: 'crackerbarrel elevated to literacy'.

Democratic Iraqi bloggers, for example Iraq the Model, have long been infuriated at the way western liberals assume that Cole always offers the unvarnished truth about developments in Iraq. Maybe they have point? (AJ)

Tariq’s canards

Jim Nolan, a Sydney barrister with an interest in human rights, has penned this splendidly splenetic critique of Tariq Ali's Middle East canards and whose criticisms, unfortunately, go for many other key left thinkers and groups. Jim concludes that “Tariq's hyperbole may have the quality of stale, old-fashioned Stalinism, but its confected indignation and moral humbug gives it a faintly amusing tone. May his self-important exaggerations now situate him where he richly deserves to be - the intellectual moral equivalent of that other famous Ali, Comical.”

Left on the wrong side of history?

Michael Costello in the Australian asks “how has it happened that the Left of politics across the world has ended up opposing a foreign policy philosophy of spreading democracy in favour of supporting the traditional conservative agenda of stability, sovereignty and the status quo?” He says that “It is entirely understandable that the Left is viscerally anti-Bush” and concludes that ““The key thing for those on the Left to understand is that intense dislike of Bush and echoes of Vietnam do not make a foreign policy. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Bolton - they too will pass. What will go on is the great human desire to be free, which should be at the core of our foreign policy. The great danger for the Left is that its Vietnam and Bush obsessions may mean that it will end up on the wrong side of history.”

Cautios optimism

Andrew Sullivan, in the Sunday Times, asks “How do we judge what is now going on in Iraq? I ask that question because the fog of war has in this case been more like an old peasouper.” He concedes American mistakes: “It isn’t the success war-supporters like me wanted. We drastically underestimated the potential for a Ba’athist-jihadist insurgency; we got the WMD issue grotesquely wrong. Nostra culpa. The Bush administration compounded these errors with dumb-as-a-post decisions, like co-opting Abu Ghraib to torture and kill innocents or delaying elections long enough to allow insurgents to seize the initiative.” But rightly says that: “Above all we have not seen civil war, despite many, many attempts to ignite one. Even as the politicians in Baghdad jostled with seemingly unimaginable delay for months after the election, national unity held. We now have the beginnings of a working government, with ethnic and religious differences being hammered out in deals over ministries, boundaries and constitutional clauses.”

Robin Cook on voting Labour

Robin Cook explains, in the Guardian, how “Blair has delivered on some of the left's historic demands” and “Old Labour sympathisers can re-elect the government with enthusiasm.”

The battle lines in Bow

Nick Cohen examines, in today’s Observer, the battle in the East End against a moustachioed demagogue, Oswald Mosley and compares this with the battle between Oona King and George Galloway today. Nick fears that “Appeals to communalism are once again echoing across the streets of Bow.” He concludes that "Many of my colleagues think that Galloway could beat King. He's a ruthless operator and she voted for the war against Iraq and that's that. I'm not so sure. I went to speak at a King rally on the strange histories of the far left and far right. I expected it to be like most meetings I address: all but empty. Instead, it was packed and the audience was up for a fight. The Labour movement, Iraqi refugees and people with no great history of political activism are uniting behind King. The East End left may just manage to win one last battle. "

Interview with Head of the Teachers’ Union in Baghdad

Gary Kent saw Mahdy Ali Lafta on his recent trip to the UK when he was a guest of the TUC and the NAS/UWT.

Teachers lost little time in building a new union. As soon as Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, they were off and by July had organised the first open conference to set up the Baghdad branch of the Iraqi Teachers' Union. Other open conferences were held and the first open national conference was held in August 2003, which elected a central leadership which also draws representatives from each of the branches in Iraq's 14 governorates. There are equivalent organisations in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The activists were starting from scratch. According to the Head of the Teachers’ Union, Mahdy Ali Lafta, on a recent trip to the UK, “The union under Saddam had merely been a transmission belt for the Baa'thist regime. Instead of defending workers it had assisted the torture squads. Many teachers were jailed, tortured or just disappeared.”

Mahdy's brother was one of the many victims: “He just disappeared without trace and his family was never given any compensation or his pension and had to fend for themselves. Even now there has been no trace of him although many mass graves have been discovered. The Mukhabarat secret police used to tag the bodies with identity numbers but increasingly didn't do this because there were so many bodies.”

The new Teachers' Union has issued 250,000 union cards throughout Iraq and there are more than 75,000 in the Baghdad region alone. The union organises educationalists throughout the education sector – from nurseries to schools to universities.

Mahdy outlined the union's priorities: “Education is fundamental to a healthy society. Teachers need proper training and to retrieve the dignity robbed from them by Saddam. We need smaller class sizes of between 25-30 to avoid stress for teachers and for the students. Schools need to be properly equipped with decently sized rooms and be healthy places to work and learn in. Earnings have improved since the fall of Saddam but most teachers don't have secure homes.”

He said that teachers often have to spend two-thirds of their salary on rent. But the union has plenty of land but no money to develop homes, “In Baghdad we could build 4,000 homes if we could raise the money.”

As for the future, he said, “we are positive that a free, democratic, peaceful and federal Iraq will be built and one that is at peace with its neighbours. We are sure that the extremists will wither away but the news you see only shows chaos and suicide bombs but doesn't show how the police and army are making progress in catching extremists by the score. The Iraqi people now have the confidence to co-operate with the police. The election was an historic moment. The terrorists' back was broken by the election and we hope that turnout will be even bigger in the next election.

We opposed the war but the fall of the dictatorship was wonderful. To those who say they are against the war, we say what war are you fighting. The old regime fell so what should we do now. People should support Iraqis against terrorism and for democracy. We need to reconstruct the economy and not blow up pipelines and destroy jobs.

We want to convince the peace movement to support the struggle for democracy. We are very eager to be exposed to the virtues of well-established mature democracies and ask people to come and see for themselves what we're doing.”

The union is not just concerned with its industrial role but also works with the IFTU. A symbol of this is that the ITU has authorised Abdullah Muhsin who is also the IFTU Foreign Representative to represent the union in the UK.

Galloway and Tariq Aziz

Harry’s Place carries news that George Galloway is part of a campaign to release Saddam Hussein’s former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz who stands accused, amongst other things, of personally executing opponents when he was in power. It also links to the Respect Watch web site which contains the text of an interview given by Galloway in which “not one mention is made of the crimes of Saddam's regime and his friend - Tariq Aziz.” The Indict web site carries details of Tariq Aziz’s murderous activities

Divisions over women's rights

Robert F Worth reports in the New York Times (registration required) that women members of the Iraqi National Assembly are split on the role of women in Iraq between those who promote women’s rights and those who want to “put aspects of Islamic law into Iraq's legal code - including provisions that would allow men as many as four wives and reduce the amount of money allotted to women in inheritances.”

Labour's manifesto on Iraq

The Labour Party manifesto says the following: 'We mourn the loss of life of innocent civilians and coalition forces in the war in Iraq and the subsequent terrorism. But the butchery of Saddam is over and across Iraq 8 million people risked their lives to vote earlier this year. Many people disagreed with the action we took in Iraq. We respect and understand their views but we should now unite to support the fledgling democracy in Iraq. British troops should remain there under a UN mandate as long as the democratically elected Government wants them there. They will continue to train Iraqi security forces to take responsibility for their own future.'

LFIQ believes that this addresses the legitimate differences between party members on the war and rightly focuses on giving support to the emerging Iraqi democracy which we will continue to argue should be given a great priority by the next Labour Government.

Terry Jones on the life of the Iraqi child: a critique by David Hirsh

Terry Jones has decided to talk about the war today in the Guardian.

He says that Iraqi children were better off under Saddam than they are now. He cites a report which says that 7.7% of Iraqi children are not getting enough to eat, while under the Saddam regime it was 4%. Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food, said that the starvation of these children is “a result of the war led by coalition forces”. Terry Jones does not mention, and neither does Jean Ziegler, the fact that the writers of the report said that their data were of “limited precision”. Before the war, Jones tells us, the Americans killed half a million Iraqi children with sanctions.

Comfortably backed up by these authoritative figures, Jones goes on to mock mass child-killers Bush, Blair and Madeleine Albright in an ever-so-funny Monty Python way. When figures back up something that is obviously true, it is easy to believe them.

And it is obviously true, isn’t it, that Iraqis, and particularly Iraqi children, are worse off now than they were before the imperialist invasion? Well no, actually it isn’t. Iraq is currently involved in the work of negotiating a democratic constitution. Representatives elected by the people of Iraq in an election – where everybody has a say and then they count up the votes – will make the decisions on the new constitution. Workers are organising themselves into trade unions in Iraq – unions where workers stand together to insist on higher wages, health and safety, more civilised working hours, socialised healthcare and such things. Some Iraqi women are organising themselves against the oncoming challenge of the religious fundamentalists – organising themselves to be allowed to remain in the government and the parliament, to insist on their right to be full citizens, to walk down the street without hiding their faces.

But there are still some people who are nostalgic for the Saddam regime, there are some people who admire the Iranian revolution, there are some people who think that Kurds, Shias, women, lesbians and gay men should have no say in the new Iraq. These people, known by some as ‘The Resistance’, aim to drown the elections, the new constitution, the new Kurdish president of Iraq, the women’s movement and any other free movement of Iraqi people in blood.

Yes, but what about the starving children? The fact that there are parents in Iraq who are watching their children starving and who are unable to bring them food is horrible. I’m finding it difficult to write more right now, because that image is going round and round my head.

Terry Jones does not say what he would do to help those children and parents. All he says is that it is the fault of the Americans and the British and that things were better before, under the Saddam regime. How does he know? Well the figures prove it.

Now I am wondering how the figures for childhood hunger were collected in Saddam’s Iraq. Choco rations up 10 per cent year on year. Childhood hunger at an all time low. “Ah President Saddam, I have bad news for you Sir, I have completed the household survey of childhood hunger and have discovered that your most excellent policy for feeding children is not working as well as we had hoped.” Or “It seems that childhood hunger in Halebja is down this week by an unprecedented amount. I suspect that this is because all the children there have just been gassed.” I wouldn’t much like to be that researcher.

We have heard it all before, haven’t we? East Germany had no unemployment or homelessness. Soviet scientific greatness sent Yuri Gagarin into space. North Korea is a socialist paradise. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Why are we still tempted to believe this stuff?

I am sceptical about the figures for child hunger in Saddam’s Iraq. I am sceptical about the claim that sanctions killed half a million (sometimes a million) children. I am sceptical that child hunger is now higher than it was before the invasion. But maybe, despite my scepticism, it is true?

It might be that ‘resistance’ activity makes it difficult to deliver food aid to some places. It might be that the coalition forces have failed to set up the logistics of delivering food aid. This might be because of a lack of political will on their part to feed the hungry or it might be because conditions are difficult or it might be because they are not up to the job. It might be that the coalition has failed to deliver clean water and electricity quickly enough to all of Iraq.

There are children starving in Iraq today and it is the responsibility of the new Iraqi government and of the coalition. To the extent that it is true, it is a serious and terrible failure on their part.

Terry Jones does not say what he would do to help those children and parents. What he in fact does to help those children and parents is to write a satirical piece in the Guardian about how Iraq was better off under Saddam. I have some better suggestions. We can put pressure on the British and American governments to deliver food to starving children. We can make solidarity with those Iraqis who are building a new democratic state. We can make solidarity with those Iraqis who are arguing for a welfare state rather than an American Republican style naked free market. We can make solidarity with those Iraqis who are fighting for a new Iraq where there are hospitals and jobs and food available to everybody. We can make solidarity with those Iraqis who are defending themselves against the Sunni supremacists and the religious fundamentalists.

The thing that would increase hunger and hopelessness the most in Iraq would be a victory for the ‘resistance’. The very worst thing British and American forces could do in Iraq now would be to walk away

Democratic reform in Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s presidential election of June 2005 will be a vital moment for the country. But, says Mohsen Sazegara – a former and very senior regime loyalist, who returned to Iran with Ayatollah Khomeini - turned vocal critic – even more important is that Iranians campaign to make their constitution democratic and secular.

He is a member of the “generation of the revolution” and argues that “Those in power in Iran have created a fascist version of Islam – an absolutist and authoritarian system. Everything has to be unified, singular, one, a total state. They even use the methods of fascism, like that militia of thugs, the Revolutionary Guards. They are called “white shirts”, a variant of Nazi Germany’s “brown shirts”. They are at every demonstration in Iran, violently attacking all opposition groups. But now things are really changing. That’s what I told my interrogators: “it” has happened and is happening in Iran. By “it” I mean one thing: the promise of democracy. This promise is being led by what I call the “reformation movement”, based on a fourfold set of principles: democracy, human rights, civil society and involvement in the international community. This is something much wider and deeper than the “reform process” of President Khatami, which is now dead.

He adds that “The new paradigm that revolves around liberalism, democracy, pluralism, and human rights is completed by secularism. Its embodiment in a new constitution will be the work of Iranians ourselves. But to ease its birth, we want and need the support of international civil society. We are in a global era where borders are being transcended. We need global support.”

He notes that “Iranians are communicating with each other more than ever before. There are 3-5 million internet users in Iran – perhaps the highest number in the middle east. The young generation in particular is online and blogging; there are 60-70,000 weblogs, making Persian the fourth most-used weblog language. Internet cafés abound.”

Women’s Rights on new satellite station

Will Rasmussen at Alternet examines a new satellite station (Heya – Arabic for “She”) run by women, which is “delicately breaking new ground in the dialogue on women's rights in the Middle East.”

Repression of women was listed as one of the Arab world's three "deficits" in the United Nation's 2002 Arab Human Development Report, along with a lack of political freedom and illiteracy. "Our goal is to empower women," says Heya's founder, Nicolas Abu Samah, who launched the station two years ago. "We want to question taboos and provoke controversy."

Iraqi Constitutional Battle Lies Ahead

Kamran Al-Karadaghi says that the debate over the new constitution could turn into the real “mother of all battles” at the website of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and examines the detail of the constitutional controversies.

Oona King interview

Today’s Times carries an interview with Oona King, including this paragraph. ‘The following spring, 2003, anti-war posters sprouted in this part of London. It didn’t matter that King’s stance on Iraq was at least consistent (having founded the All Party Group on Genocide Prevention in 1998, she first started calling on the UK Government to “do anything and everything in its power” to get rid of the genocidal Saddam Hussein a year later), her decision to back hostilities led to some pretty savage local vilification. She says: “People didn’t tend to accept my view as being genuinely held from all those years ago. They thought I was toeing the party line, voting for the war for the sake of my job, which is ironic because there’s nothing more guaranteed to lose me my job than supporting the war.”’

Oona King versus Galloway

Oona King, the Labour Candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow delivers killer blow against Respect candidate, George Galloway: "When I come across someone who is guilty of genocide I do not get on a plane and go to Baghdad and grovel at his feet," said Oona King about Galloway’s attitude to Saddam Hussein in a head to head debate on BBC Radio London. The full debate can be found here

Iraq’s future

Abdullah Muhsin of the IFTU outlines his thoughts on the future of Iraq in a Fabian Society Magazine article

Getting the resistance wrong

Part 2 of Alan Johnson’s column on the delusional left

The decline of the 'resistance' will dash the expectations, and, it has to be said, the hopes, of a legion of writers such as George Galloway, Michael Moore, John Pilger, Sami Ramadani, Tariq Ali, James Petras, Alex 'Hullabaloo' Callinicos, Seamus Milne, Harold Pinter, and others. Why did they get the resistance so wrong?

TWO FALSE ASSUMPTIONS LED TO ONE DODGY CONCLUSION

1. They got wrong the meaning of the war, which they falsely assumed was simply old-style imperialism.

2. They got wrong the meaning of the resistance, which they falsely assumed (as a reflex of the first false assumption) was a genuine national liberation movement.

Two false assumptions led to a dodgy conclusion: 3. 'troops out now! victory to the resistance!'

The vast majority of the Iraqi people shared neither assumption and spurned the conclusion. The gulf between the simplistic fantasies of the western pro-resistance lobby and the complex realities of Iraq is now obvious. The botched reconstruction and the appalling treatment of prisoners hid this gulf from view for a time. The election has brought it front and centre.

THE CASE OF SAMI RAMADANI

Take Sami Ramadani, the Guardian's Iraq expert. He ends up as an apologist for the resistance. Alex Gordon, an RMT member with a record second to none of building solidarity with the Iraq unions, argues Ramadani is a "useful mouthpiece to cheerlead 'the popular resistance' from the safe distance of London".

Ramadani was asked this question: 'Some voices in the antiwar movement propose that we withhold support for the resistance in Iraq because we disagree with their politics. What do you think?'. Ramadani replied, 'There has always been disagreement with the programs, politics and tactics of resistance movements. This was true of Albania, France, Algeria, Kenya, Cyprus, Vietnam and many others. This is also true of Palestine and Iraq today. My view is that one has to start from the principled position of opposing occupation and conquest, whether of the colonial or imperialist variety--and of supporting the struggle of the peoples for liberation. As a socialist, I would naturally be delighted if these struggles are led by socialist movements. But that is for the people in struggle to decide. Nor should the absence of such strong socialist movements be used as an argument to absolve socialists of their internationalist duty and fundamental task of backing the struggle against imperialist policies of hegemony and wars of aggression".

In Ramadani's answer we have the three essentials of the pro-resistance left world view.

1. Whatever the US does is Imperialism and only Imperialism and must be flatly opposed by all means. Its wars are not complicated mixes of humanitarian rescue and national self-interest. They do not provide opportunities which have to be seized. They are simply 'imperialist wars of aggression', nothing more. Troops out Now!

2. Whoever opposes the US is, by definition, anti-imperialist and, therefore, the 'fundamental task' is to support whoever is firing guns at Americans. Those firing the guns represent a 'people in struggle'. Victory to the Resistance!

3. Those who don't see things this way are 'collaborators' whom the 'anti-imperialists' will legitimately, but of course, unfortunately, target. Socialism would be nice, and if it was up to me, sure, but, well, you know, first things first.

Ramadani's airy wish for 'socialism' has no practical import at all. He claims he would be 'delighted' if socialists led the struggle.

However, when Hadi Saleh, a socialist and the IFTU International Officer, was tortured and murdered by the 'resistance' Ramadani, rushed to point out (7 January 2005) that though he condemned the murder, 'it is highly relevant to inform your readers that Mr Saleh was a leading cadre in the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). After the occupation of Iraq, the ICP changed its line of opposing the US administration's policy, and its secretary-general, Mr Hamid Majid joined the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). Today the ICP plays a vocal role in Mr Iyad Allawi's government. Mr Salih's murder, and that of another ICP leader few weeks ago, were widely reported in Iraq and seen as part of a campaign against "collaborationists"'. According to Ramadani the Iraqi 'resistance' are comparable to the French Resistance who fought the Nazis in World War Two. He says, 'I am not pretending that Iraqi resistance elements are some kind of special angels, but they are not peculiar monsters, either. Nor are they the first resistance movement that targeted collaborators and persons working with occupation forces. We only have to look at the record of the resistance forces in France and elsewhere in Europe in the fight against Nazi occupation forces'. (SW Jan 28 2005).

Now, think on this. Hadi Saleh had been tortured and murdered by fascistic Ba'athists shortly before this interview with Ramadani was published in Socialist Worker on 28 January 2005. The question was clearly about Hadi Saleh. The silence of the SWP was causing trouble even in its own ranks, one suspects . In that context, and in light of Ramadani's comments about the murder on 7th January, and in light of the fact that Ramadani had already written in the Guardian (October 27 2004) that he could think of no more apposite word to describe the IFTU than collaborators, what are we to make of this astonishing statement?

In truth, if you really want a parallel to the Iraqi 'resistance' try Heinrich Himmler's Nazi Werewolves guerrilla movement. Both aimed to use terror to re-impose a tyrannical 'Reich' defined by violence and a leader cult in the face of an allied occupation and a hopeful people.

Both murdered the left. Both murdered those engaged in building democratic institutions. Both blew up infrastructure. But the Iraqi resistance has - thus far - had it much easier than Himmler's Wolves. First, while the Allies flooded Germany with the troops of three Armies, Donald Rumsfeld took too few and through hubris refused to correct his mistake for a criminally long time.

Second, while Hitler committed suicide and his successor, Donitz, told the Werewolves to lay down their arms, in Iraq leading Ba'athists, in the fore Saddam, melted away and called for a guerilla campaign. Third, the German army fought and was destroyed on the battlefield. Saddam's loyalists and Ba'ath party members refused to fight. Instead they also melted away and have used pre-prepared and intact arms dumps, and received financing from the proceeds of Saddam's dictatorship and from tyrants on Iraq's doorstep.

Fourth, in 1945 the Allies banned any reporting of the Werewolves activity. In Iraq there is a 24/7 global media environment and a world media that falls over itself to film every burning Toyota Corolla. In Britain ‘Bombs and Blair’ accounts for maybe 90% of news coverage of Iraq.

A Statement was released by the Resistance on March 12 2005. It announced ‘our resistance has …Islamic and patriotic elements. Adding on that, the effective participation of members of the dismantled Iraqi army and the Ba’ath party. We could expect some objections about the participation of the Ba’ath party in the resistance. There are more than three million active Ba’ath party members in Iraq. So, when we mention members of this party we do not mean –only- those who were in the former Iraqi government. But those who believe in the Ba’ath ideology expressed in their slogan: Unity, Liberty and socialism. The fear of the Islamic character of the Iraqi resistance could be answered by the fact that after the liberation of Iraq, the Iraqi resistance will then be the only legitimized representative of the Iraqi people. A transition period will then give the Iraqi people the chance to choose their representatives to form a united national government with full participation of all parties including the Islamic forces. We have then to accept the choice of the Iraqi people.’

Note that to say ‘we do not mean only those who were in the former Iraqi government’ is actually to say ‘we DO mean those in former Iraqi government, but we also mean the Ba’ath foot-soldiers that we have recruited to fight’. Note that these mass-grave makers claim they will ‘accept the choice of the Iraqi people’. And note the risible claim that the Iraqi Ba’ath Party stood for liberty and socialism.

UNFALSIFIABLE DELUSIONS

Ideologies, Gramsci noted, have a ‘granite-like’ quality. The ideology of the pro-resistance left not only has theoreticians such as Hullabaloo Callinicos (the Palme Dutt of our times, looking out at the ‘resistance’ and seeing only spots on the sun), and sharp propagandists such as George Galloway. Crucially, it rests on a middle class popular ‘common sense’. It is reinforced all day every day, albeit in diluted form, implicit in darkly cynical questions and sarcastic jokes rather than in clear debatable claims. In diluted form the ideology is dominant in parts of television, publishing and the print media. You can wake up and hear versions of it on that radio show in the early morning (I think it is called the What John Humphreys and James Naughtie Think Today Show). You can then walk downstairs and pick up your daily Independent which will give you the ‘line to take’ that day. And if the Indie doesn’t, then Seamus Milne over at the Guardian will. Pop into town and the ideology screams out at you from the shelves of your high street bookshop. Phillipa or Gavin at Waterstones will have stuck up a helpful little note recommending the latest Michael Moore ‘book’ as ‘really a MOST brilliant and profound analysis of what Bush is doing to our world!!’. Nudnik 9/11 conspiracy schlock will be prominently displayed. Come home and find John Snow recycling it all on Channel Four News, Finally hear it one more time at the student bar or the dinner party conversations of the middle class. If you are lucky Phillippa or Gavin will be there.

It isn’t clear to me anymore than anything much can be done about this in the short term. No matter what happens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Libya, Kosovo, Bosnia, the Ukraine, or even Palestine, the ideology will retain its ‘granite-like’ quality. It is, as Karl Popper would have said, unfalsifiable.
In the meantime the Iraqi people will get on with building the new Iraq. We need to keep our heads and do two things. First, work steadily to help them, especially the fledgling trade unions. Second, win a chunk of the new generation, especially in the unions, away from the Galloways', SWPs' and Ramadanis' of the pro-resistance left, in order to build a decent left for the future.

Events in Iraq, by which I mean the great courage of the Iraqi people, and their refusal to be cowed by the Ba’athist-Islamist ‘resistance’ will, I think, continue to help us do both. Though the pro-resistance left hold the airwaves it is the decent left that has the grain of history. Democratiya is on the march and it will roll over the resistance and the pro-resistance left.

Ireland and Iraq

The Belfast Newsletter reports that “A group of politicians from southern Iraq is visiting Northern Ireland on a factfinding mission.The politicians, city councillors from Basra, want to learn about local government in a conflict situation and developing a peace process.”

‘Israa Abd Wahab, deputy chairwoman of Basra City Council said: "My country and its people have experienced terrible times in recent years, but now the future is good, and we have the chance to create a new Iraq. One that is peaceful, democratic and one that will play a positive role in the modern world."

She added: "We have a lot to learn before we can build the new Iraq we want to see, and coming to Northern Ireland will be a great help to us. I know that the time we spend here will help us develop our knowledge and understanding of how to build strong local government in a post conflict and power sharing environment."’

Friends will be friends...

RespectWatch is dedicated to exposing and combating George Galloway and his Respect Party. It carries election campaign materials, like this picture and the following factsheet. Jane Ashworth

Profile of Jalal Talabani, President of Iraq

Founder and Secretary General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr. Talabani has been an advocate for Kurdish rights and democracy in Iraq for more than fifty years. He was born in 1933 in the village of Kelkan in Iraqi Kurdistan near lake Dukan.

He received his elementary and intermediate school education in Koya (Koysanjak) and his high school education in Erbil and Kirkuk. Mr. Talabani has a record of lifelong activism and leadership in the Kurdish and Iraqi causes. In 1946, at the age of 13 he formed a secret Kurdish student association. The following year he became a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and in 1951, at 18, he was elected to the KDP's central committee. Upon finishing his secondary education, he sought admission to medical school but was denied it by authorities of the then ruling Hashemite monarchy owing to his political activities. In 1953 he was allowed to enter law school but was obliged to go into hiding in 1956 to escape arrest for his activities as founder and Secretary General of the Kurdistan Student Union. Following the July 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy, Mr. Talabani returned to law school, at the same time pursuing a career as a journalist and editor of two publications, Khabat and Kurdistan. After graduating in 1959, Mr. Talabani performed national service in the Iraqi army where he served in artillery and armor units and served as a commander of a tank unit.

In September 1961, when the Kurdish revolution for the rights of the Kurds in Iraq was declared against the Baghdad government of Abdul Karim Qassem, Mr. Talabani took charge of the Kirkuk and Sulaimani battle fronts and organized and led resistance in the Mawat, Rezan and the Karadagh regions. In March 1962 he led a coordinated offensive that brought about the liberation of the district of Sharbazher from Iraqi government forces. When not engaged in fighting in the early and mid 1960s, Mr. Talabani undertook numerous diplomatic missions, representing the Kurdish leadership at meetings in Europe and the Middle East. When the KDP split in 1964, Mr. Talabani was part of the "Political Bureau" group that broke away from General Mustafa Barzani's leadership, although he later rejoined the KDP and fought during the 1974-1975 revolution against Iraq’s Ba’athist dictatorship.

The collapse of the Kurdish resistance in March 1975 presented a moment of profound crisis for the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. Believing it was time to give a new direction to the Kurdish resistance and to the Kurdish society, Mr. Talabani, with a group of Kurdish intellectuals and activists, founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Yekiaiti Nishtimani Kurdistan). In 1976, he began organizing armed resistance inside Iraq. During the 1980s, Mr. Talabani led Kurdish struggle from bases inside Iraq until Saddam Hussein's brutal genocidal "Anfal" campaign of 1987 and 1988. The Kurdish movement was again cut adrift and Mr. Talabani was forced to leave Iraq.

During the brutal struggle between Saddam’s tyrannical regime and the Kurdish people, Saddam once offered an amnesty to every Kurdish Peshmerga fighter except Talabani. Fittingly, it is Talabani that will seal Saddam’s fate.

Returning in 1991, he helped inspire the Kurdish rising against Saddam Hussein’s regime. He negotiated a ceasefire with the Iraqi regime that saved the lives of many Kurds and worked closely with the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, France and other countries to set up the safe haven in Iraqi Kurdistan. He established a close personal relationship with the then President of Turkey, Turgut Ozal. Democratic elections were held in the safe haven in 1992 for a Kurdish parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government was founded.

Mr. Talabani has pursued a negotiated settlement to the internecine problems plaguing the Kurdish movement, as well as the larger issue of Kurdish rights in the current regional context. He worked closely with other Kurdish politicians and the governments of the U.S.A., UK and Turkey during the Ankara process of Kurdish reconciliation. He worked closely with all factions of the Iraqi opposition. In close coordination with Massoud Barzani, Mr. Talabani and the Iraqi Kurds played a key role as a partner of the US-Coalition in the liberation of Iraq. The Iraqi Kurds have also joined in the fight against international terrorism.

Mr. Talabani was a member of the Iraqi Governing Council that negotiated the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL); Iraq’s interim constitution. The TAL governs all politics in Iraq and the process of writing and adopting the final constitution. In many ways, the TAL exemplifies the values that Mr. Talabani has promoted, of compromise, consensus and tolerance.

A politician par excellence, Mr. Talabani is a secularist and a believer in democracy, inter-ethnic harmony, equality and women’s rights. He is known for his affable personality, his love of politics and his broad minded outlook. He has defined the PUK as an internationalist party and Mr. Talabani has made a point of publishing in Arabic. A strategic thinker and believer in reconciliation, he has reached out to Turkey and to the Sunni Arab community in Iraq to build bridges.

Mr. Talabani stands for progressive politics, for a society based on social democratic values with a market economy. Close to his political base, and always open to debate, and quick to tell a joke, he has established a close rapport with party members. His elevation to the presidency of Iraq is recognition of his fifty years of service to the cause of freedom and democracy.

Cautious optimism

An editorial, “Gains and Risks in Iraq” in the Washington Post says that “the choice of government sets a precedent of hard-headed cooperation among the Iraqi parties, one they will need if they are to cross the still-higher political hurdles that lie ahead” and notes that “A poll taken in late February and early March showed that 60 percent of Iraqis believed the country is headed in the right direction, and almost as many expected the situation will "slowly" improve.” It concludes that “ For now, however, the situation in Iraq looks better than it has since that first flush of military success two years ago -- and President Bush surely has learned enough since then not to mistake progress for ‘mission accomplished.’”

UN report on Arab development

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times (registration required) examines the third Arab Human Development Report, “written by a courageous group of Arab social scientists under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program. This is one of the finest U.N. products under Kofi Annan.” He concludes that “the important thing about this report is that political reform is now being put on the Arab agenda by Arabs. Yes, it's scathing about the Western and Israeli roles in retarding Arab democratization, but it's equally scathing about what Arabs have done to themselves and how they must change - people don't change when you tell them they should, but when they tell themselves they must. Read this report and you'll also understand why part of every Arab hates the U.S. invasion of Iraq - and why another part is praying that it succeeds.”

Watch this on Women in Iraq

Last night's Newsnight showed a fantastic 10 minutes from Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger and Guardian columnist, looking at the role women are playing in building a new Iraq and quite how difficult, and dangerous, that can be. The piece is available on Newsnight until 10pm tonight. Go to video and then 33 minutes into the programme.

Jane Ashworth

The pipe of peace?

David Ignatius of the Washington Post examines the possibility of a new oil pipeline through Iraq's nastiest war zone.

The new Patchwork Presidency

Ferry Biedermann of the IPS news agency examines the new “Patchwork Presidency” and the issues in the long negotiations that preceded the announcement.

The picture doesn't always tell the story

This BBC profile of the new president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani contains a photo of him meeting Saddam. I have met Talabani and know his party, the PUK, well. The context of the meeting is important. This was not a social call. Kurds, who like Shi’a Arabs, had risen up against Saddam in early March 1991, were dying by the thousands. Talabani, along with other Kurdish leaders, went to Baghdad to secure a ceasefire. I have spoken to two of those who went to those meetings and they did not know if they would return from Baghdad. Talabani was forced to embrace Saddam, but what price public humiliation to save the lives of thousands?

Andrew Apostolou

LFIQ message of unity and solidarity in the Commons today

FCO Questions Today 5 April

Harry Barnes

Is my hon Friend aware that on 4 separate occasions recently in Question Time in the Australian Parliament their Foreign Secretary has used my involvement with the organisation Labour Friends of Iraq in an attempt to undermine the stance adopted by the Australian Labour Party but what has happened is that this has only led to better links being established between Labour Friends of Iraq and the Australian Labour Party where as in Britain those who were for or against the invasion can unite in helping the merging Iraqi trade union and labour movement and to play an active role in the development of civil society and democracy in that country.

Bill Rammell MP, Foreign Office Minister

He will forgive me if I don’t delve into Australian electoral politics, given that we’ve got a bit of that going on in this country. Can I genuinely congratulate my hon Friend not only for forming the Labour Friends of Iraq but also for the significant contribution he has made to this House over the last 18 years. I disagreed with my hon Friend over the decision to go to war over Iraq but I respect his view and I think he respects mine. But what is crucial, however, as he has demonstrated by his actions is that whatever view we took on the war it is crucial that we now work together to unite to help the Iraqis build a free and peaceful Iraq and I believe that his efforts in that regard are a really positive step forward."

IFTU leader interviewed

Over at the IFTU web site (see bottom of this page) American writer and activist David Bacon interviews Ghasib Hassan, member of the executive committee of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, and general secretary of the Union for Aviation and Railway Workers.

He says that the January election “was also a way of facing head-on those extremists and anti-democratic forces who don't want to see Iraq a democratic and secure state.” He explains that the IFTU is “campaigning to end the occupation of Iraq, to build a democratic, federal Iraq which will guarantee the rights and jobs of its people” and opposes privatisation. He also outlines the IFTU’s view on the need for a new labour code and concludes: “Unions should have autonomy, and make their own decisions. Workers should be free to organize. We believe in a real democracy, where workers should choose their own leaders.”

Stalemate broken?

The BBC reports that the Iraqi Parliament has elected a Speaker: “Casting secret ballots, the members chose Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni Arab, as the speaker and picked a Shia Muslim and a Kurd as his deputies” in what is seen as a sign that the two-month stalemate on forming a government may now be broken.

The US, UK and Iraqi unions

Matthew Harwood has written a piece in the influential Washington Monthly on the role of the Iraqi Labour Movement as “a consistent enemy of the insurgency, and a strong proponent of a free, self-governing Iraq.” He contends that “Americans have largely left the Iraqi unions to fend for themselves, and in some cases actively undercut them. As a result, Iraq has been significantly deprived of the movement perhaps most willing and best equipped to nurture along a nascent national democracy in a religiously and ethnically divided country: organized labor,” in contrast to the support given by the British Government. Harwood concludes that “Years from now, when historians try to figure out what precisely went wrong in the American occupation of Iraq and why, there will be many candidates: the failure to win enough international support; insufficient numbers of ground troops; the decision to ignore plans drawn up by experienced nation-building experts outside the Pentagon. But somewhere on the list will be the administration's indifference, indeed hostility, to Iraqi organized labor. The Iraqi people are paying a price for that attitude.”

The battle to boost support from the international labour movement to the Iraqi unions and other parts of Grassroots Iraq is not over and needs urgently to become the major priority for the left, regardless of where it stood on the original invasion (GK).

US military elite's worries about prisoner abuse in Iraq

Columnist Bob Herbert in the New York Times speaks to former members of the US military elite who are horrified by the torture and abuse scandal that has spread through some sectors of the US military. Brig. Gen. James Cullen and Rear Adm. John Hutson have lent their support to New York-based group, Human Rights First, which, along with the American Civil Liberties Union has issued an extraordinary lawsuit that seeks to hold Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ultimately accountable for policies that have given rise to torture and other forms of prisoner abuse.