Yesterday, I noted here that Iraq’s transitional President, Jalal Talabani, has a “security counsellor” called Wafiq al-Samarai.
Commenter “Badr” noted that the position should probably be translated as “national security advisor”, and that “Wafiq al-Samarai was chief of military intelligence under Saddam and a leading opposition figure to the regime later.”
Interesting.
Both that Talabani has his own “national security advisor”, in a system that I had previously understood to be one in which the responsible-to-parliament PM would exercize executive power and the President would perform Queen Elizabeth 2-like ceremonial tasks.
I guess I got that wrong, huh? (But actually, did I?)
If Talabani is really building his own entire parallel ruling apparatus I think the word for that is “divide and rule”?
Also interesting, that Talabani would pick this Samarai person. Can Badr or anyone else give more details to reveal the distance Samarai might actually have traveled from his high-level Baathist past? Also, knowing something about his commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law would, I think, be very informative…
In a related vein, Juan Cole writes today that:
- Jalal Talabani told al-Hayat that he feared that the concerns among the Shiite religious parties about Sunni Arab cabinet ministers being completely free of any Baath association would cause the baby to be thrown out with the bath water. It is this issue of vetting the Sunni Arab ministers that appears to have delayed the finalization of the cabinet, along with continued Sunni Arab demands for some important ministries. Talabani warned against any purge of ex-Baathists, pointing out that there there are a million and a half Baathists in Iraq. He said it was important to distinguish between ordinary party members and the Baath military. The latter had to be kept away from the levers of power, he said, lest it make another coup similar to the one in 1968.
Talabani also warned that for foreign troops to be withdrawn at this point risked provoking civil war. He insisted that Iraq is not occupied[!!!]
Oh, how convenient for Mr. Talabani as, with huge help from his friends in Washington, he gathers powers to himself and is able blithely to contradict the actual standing of his country under international law.
Talibani defines the word opportunist. He is performing absolutely true to character by acting on behalf of his American benefactors as one of the not-so-thin edges of the wedge by which they hope to maintain control of the political situation in Iraq.
As for Wafiq Samarra’i – he is just another “ex-Ba`thist opportunist with plenty of Iraqi blood on his hands, and plenty of willingness to shed more Iraqi blood in order to realize his ambitions.
PS Let’s not forget that Talibani has shed hundreds of gallons of (mostly Kurdish) Iraqi blood in his main job as Warlord, and in his turf wars with the even more brutal and corrupt Mas`oud Barzani.
And speaking of Barzani, Mas`oud is to Mullah Mustafa as Muqtada As Sadr is to Mohammad Sadeq – anything but a worthy successor.
Talibani has been acting like he runs the place and I notice on the comments of rightwing blogs the prevailing view that as president he is boss. They manage to avoid the confusion of the MSM which might point out the role is primarily ceremonial.
However the relationship of Bush and his administration to the guy is I think contradictory. Rice and others must know that the development of too much Kurdish independance is dangerous, this has been stressed over and over.
But he is a “friend,” loyalty to friends is important, I think the Bush view is naively touching (his literally holding hands with the Saudi crown prince was so sweet and I hope it is broadcast among the red states to show that sponge bob is not necessarily immoral for holding hands with his starfish friend) and there is this belief that if you vaguely go with the “good” guys and causes that all things will work out well.
From the outside this looks like conspiracy, thus the desire to build freemarkets in Iraq was to my mind sincere, it was just naively believed tat you do this with large US corporations with quasi socialist relationships with our government because they somehow represent capitalism and only good can come from it.
The entire policy is similar to tax cuts. They completely ignored Uncle Milton’s warning that a tax cut that isn’t accompanied by spending decreases means a larger tax increase in the future. Which is very likely to occur with a wave of opular resentment towards the wealthy. Nor do they consider that dependance on the kindness of foreign starngers to sponsor our federal debts probably means that when the hit comes the decline of the dollar will be more significant and traumatic meaning that loss of wealth will be significantly greater than any money gained by temporarily reduced taxes.
These concerns are definitely part of the more sophisticated financial players (quite conservative) but to Bush and his supporters it’s “more money in my pocket is good and since I consider myself a capitalist (or identify with capitalists) and capitalists make wealth into more wealth not only me (or those people I admire, you know the rich ones) but everyone wil get richer.”
So the *motive* is benign. It is simply a sincere belief that the interests of the admnistration and it’s friends are good and will benefit all. The potential negative consequences of giving in to Talibani or lovey dovey with Faisal are unimagined. Loyalty is important.
We have an administration where moral values are important, more important than all those complicated issues. Why can’t everyone just get along with us and our friends? We shall hum our song to the tune of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It would make a wonderful movie and the end would of course be happy.
Yay!
Salah,
Yes, now I remember something about the incident you talk about. Al Samarra’i was also one of the people responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Iran, and against Kurds. The Kurds used to have quite a big dossier on him. And now the opportunist Talibani is holding hands with a man who is responsible for killing many Kurds. Of course, since Talibani has so much Kurdish blood on his own hands, it is appropriate I guess. I wonder what has happened to that dossier.
Another one who was very infamous for his abuses against Kurds was also a favourite of the Bush administration, and that one is Nizar Khazrachi. His story, though, is very strange indeed as he was one of those selected by the Bushies for Iraqi “leadership”. At a very strategically interesting time he “mysteriously” disappeared from Denmark where he was under house arrest awaiting trial for war crimes which included giving the order for the Halabja massacre. We expected to see him in Iraq after the invasion along with Chalabi, `Allawi and the other designated “leaders”, but he never turned up there, and as far as I know no one knows where he is. There were numerous rumours, including one that he had been killed. The Kurds also had a large dossier on this one for his crimes against them (including kicking one child to death), and of course the Halabja massacre.
Shirin
Gassing of the Kurds
I am here not defending the dictator regime, put interesting to read this story
The story by freelancer Trevor Rowe was an intriguing piece of information. Rowe reported the Iraqi forces had attacked Halabja when it “was occupied by Iranian troops. Five thousand Kurdish civilians were reportedly killed.”
Let’s fast-forward to Jan. 31 of this year, when The New York Times published an opinion piece by Stephen C. Pelletiere, the CIA’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the 1980s.
In the article, Pelletiere said the only thing known for certain was that “Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds.”
Pelletiere said the gassing occurred during a battle between Iraqis and Iranians.
“Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town … The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq’s main target,” he wrote.
The former CIA official revealed that immediately after the battle the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report that said it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds.
Both sides used gas at Halabja, Pelletiere suggested.
“The condition of the dead Kurds’ bodies however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent – that is, a cyanide-based gas – which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.”
“A War Crime Or an Act of War?” was the way The Times’ headline writer neatly summed up Pelletiere’s argument.
No doubt, Saddam has mistreated Kurds during his rule. But it’s misleading to say, so simply and without context, that he killed his own people by gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja.