Moqtada’s interview at La Repubblica, translated

    Here is a translation of Moqtada’s interview with La Repubblica, contributed to JWN’s comments section earlier today by “JHM”, who modestly writes, “Please let me know if there is something wildly wrong with the translation.”
    I gratefully say, “Thanks, JHM!”


“A Secret Army Against Us, But the Shiites Will Know How to Fight Back”
by Renato Caprile [correspondent of La Reppublica of Rome]
He feels stalked and goes into hiding. He sleeps no more than one night in the same bed. Some of his most faithful allies have already turned their backs. He has even moved his family to an undisclosed location. Muqtada al-Sadr feels that the end is near. Enemy forces, forces infiltrated amongst his own people! Yet for him it is not about al-Málikí, whom he considers little more than a puppet, so much as about ’Iyád al-‘Alláwí, the former prime minister, whom the Americans have never stopped aiming [to empower]. He [‘A.] is the true director of the operation which proposes to wipe him [S.] off the face of Iraq, him and his Mahdi Army.
[Q1] How is it that al-Málikí, who up until a short time ago even saw to it that there were six ministers of your movement in his cabinet, is suddenly so aware that the religious militias, and especially yours, are the true problem that must be solved?
[A1] Between me and Abú Asárá [al-Malikí] there has never been much good will. I have always suspected he was up to something and I never confided in him. We only met a couple of times. The last time he said to me, “You are the backbone of the country,” and then went on to admit to me that he was “obliged” to fight. Obliged, you see?
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[Q2] The fact remains that he is on the brink of [?] unleashing an iron fist against his own people.
[A2] It is effectively unleashed already. Yesterday evening they arrested four hundred and some of my people. It is not we that they wish to destroy, it is Islam. We are only one obstacle. For the moment we shall offer no resistance.
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[Q3] Do you mean you are going to disarm?
[A3] The Qur’án forbids killing in the month of Muharram [21 January through 18 February 2007]. So they’ll do all the killing then. There is no better time for a true believer to die, Paradise is guaranteed. But God is merciful, we are not all going to die. After Muharram, we’ll see.
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[Q4] Some claim that the army and police have been extensively infiltrated by your men and that the Marines by themselves will never manage to disarm you.
[A4] It’s really exactly the other way around: it is our militia which is swarming with spies. It doesn’t take much doing to infiltrate an army of the people. It is precisely those people who by soiling themselves with unworthy actions have discredited the Mahdi. There are at least four armies ready to unleash themselves against us. A “shadow” about which nobody ever talks, trained in great secrecy in the deserts of Jordan by the American armed forces. On top of that, there is the private army of Allawi, the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki, which stands ready at the al-Muthanná military airport. On top of that, there is the Kurdish _peshmerga_ and finally the regular American troops.
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[Q5] If what you say is true, you have no hope of resisting.
[A5] For all that, we are still who we are. [Commenter Christiane renders the foregoing as “”We are many, too.”] We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary.
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[Q6] For a week now you have been officially targeted. The regime claims that without their leaders the religious militias are much weaker militarily.
[A6] I am well aware of it. That is why I have moved my family to a safe place. I have even made a will and I continually move around so they have trouble knowing exactly where I am. But even should I have to die, the Mahdi would continue to exist. Men can be killed, but not faith and ideas.
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[Q7] It is said that you were present in the crowd at Saddam’s execution. Is that true?
[A7] It’s utter nonsense. If I had been there, they would have killed me also. As for Saddam, I’m certainly not going to cry for the man who massacred my family and my people by tens of thousands. The only thing is, I would have executed him in a public square so that all the world saw it.
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[Q8] If you were not there yourself, do you deny that there were a lot of your men in that room?
[A8] No, they were not my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make me look like the person really responsible for that hanging. Listen to the audio again, the proof is that in reciting my prayer they left out some basic passages. Stuff that not even a child in Sadr City would ever have done. The object was to make Muqtadá look like the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they’re getting away with it. At a time when I have been received with full honours in Saudi Arabia! But suddenly after that show under the scaffold, my spokesman al-Zarqání, who was on the pilgrimage to Mecca, has been arrested. A subtle way to let me know that I am no longer on their list of friends.
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[Q9] In any case, the war between you and the Sunnis goes on.
[A9] It is true that we are all Muslims and all sons of the same country, but they must first distance themselves from the Saddamites, from the radical groups, from men like Bin Ladin, over and above just repeating their “No” to the Americans. The only thing that will be enough is for their ulema to accept our conditions [and issue a fatwa against killing Shiites]. So far they have not done so.
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[Q10] Perhaps there will be nothing but bloodshed in Iraq’s future?
[A10] If the future is a country split three ways, I see no alternatives. And that is what Bush wants, so as to have better control. It is certainly not what the Iraqis want. In my opinion, there is only one possible way to arrive at a solution: immediate American withdrawal.
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Update Saturday p.m.: Christiane just sent me a great document that’s a three-column tabulation of the Italian original, JHM’s translation, and her own. It’s a Word doc. She has picked out in red the few points where she feels JHM probably misunderstood the Italian, but says in an accompanying email that she thinks his English is far better than hers. Thanks, Christiane, and thanks again, JHM. You’re once again showing us the great information-leveraging power of the internet.

18 thoughts on “Moqtada’s interview at La Repubblica, translated”

  1. He feels stalked and goes into hiding. He sleeps no more than one night in the same bed. Some of his most faithful allies have already turned their backs.
    don’t take my words as defending another “Man in Black” but look to the propaganda who these newspapers and journalists write, we saw that with old regime “Saddam” and his 11 doubles he have in the end they said “WE GOT HIM” id he the real one or on of the 11 Doubles?
    Doesn’t matter but to those reporting from Baghdad and normally go in and out green zone did any one report that Nori Maliki each day taken by US chop to Kuwait and sleep his night in one of US base in Kuwait and next day brought back by US chop to rule Iraq!!!
    We love to hear from that hidden man in Iraq his name Nir Rosen with his truthful news from inside Iraq….

  2. Today (1/20) J. Cole reports that Maqtada’s group is rejoining the parliament.
    This interview provides further evidence, to my mind, the intimation that Bush is about to pull off one of the greatest ‘come-backs’ in foreign policy and political history. Maqtada sounds like Jesus in Gethsemane – the tragic end is for ordained!
    This leaves me with mixed emotions. Perhaps it’s my Sicilian roots; I have an affinity for the magnificence of Arab culture but I have a violent impatience with how they allow themselves to be manipulated (almost child like) by the toys their conquerors dangle in front of them. Perhaps this contradiction in my mind (magnificent – children) results from the fallacy I begin with; that there is such a thing as an (singular) Arab People. Rather, there are a mass of Semitic people who speak the same language and have a common religious origin but have no common social identity that gives them union and common cause.

  3. There is another (very good) translation of Muktada’s interview here
     by a translator living in Roma.
    Mmm so many translations in such a short time ? Sounds as if the mainstream media had neglected an important actor. Everyone is avid to hear what he says and to make it known.

  6. They were people paid to discredit me. … Listen to the audio again, the proof is that in reciting my prayer they left out some basic passages.
    Can anyone here verify that what he claims here is true?

  7. elendil,
    The “Sadryoon” have a prayer/chant/slogan that they say in lectures and after the “Salawaat” (blessing to the prophet prayer) that goes something like this: Blessings be upon the prophet, and his holy lineage, and may his return be faster/sooner [referring to the Shi’ite messiah, the “Mahdi-eh Aaleh-Mohammad”, who is the Imam 10 generations after Ali, the first Shi’ite Imam, who is said to be in a state of “covert being”], may his enemies experience defeat, and may his friends/helpers be victorious …. and at the end they repeat Moqtada’a name three times. The people taunting Saddam didn’t do the complete thing at the execution. Whether it is because they didn’t know it or were in a rush, is anyone’s call.

  8. David,
    Many thank for the link… sorry to answer so lately, but I was busy
    There is a translation of this interview by Nur al Cubicle
    here.
    By the way, Nur is monitoring both the French and Italian press on ME subjects and offers a lot of very good translations. I’m often surprised that she doens’t get more attention and more comments on her own blog. Because she does a great work.
    I think it could benefit the Americans to read other newspapers which aren’t merely echoing what is said by the White House.

  9. Thank you for your reply, David. Just to clarify, which part did they leave out? Did they only do the three “Moqtada” or did they do part of the chant preceeding it as well?

  10. Anyone have any information about the “shadow” army al-Sadr says is being trained by the Americans in the Jordanian desert?

  11. Anyone have any information about the “shadow” army al-Sadr says is being trained by the Americans in the Jordanian desert?

  12. elendil,
    If I remember correctly, they did the first 3 lines and then the Muqtada X3. The quality of the sound wasn’t that great on the You-Tube clip, but it was clearly much shorter than the full chant. May I ask why it matters please?

  13. David,
    Moktada Al Sadr, in the translated interview, says that the scene under the scaffold was staged in order to irate the Sunnis and ruin his effort to reach to the Sunni. In order to proove it was staged he indicates that his prayer has been amputated from essential passages, an error which not even a children of Sadr city would make..

  14. These efforts to get at the truth are surely noble, but, unfortunately, the avalanche of mysteries, ranging from the 9/11 theories to the actual facts behind the Iarqi scene, are, by now, too abundant to demystify. It seems at this point, those sysmpathetic to Sadr and that strain of Shiite sect would have a good incentive to summarily send him to Allah, turn him into a matyr and inflame Shiites throughout the region. Then, per chance, his legacy may be potent enough to solidify a resoundingly Shia state no Western power would be capable of preventing.
    And who knows, while we pursue all these theories, whether Bush and the neocons are aiming for just such a scenario, which would provide them sufficient grounds for war against Iran – the final showdown in the End Timer’s book of daze.

  15. These efforts to get at the truth are surely noble, but, unfortunately, the avalanche of mysteries, ranging from the 9/11 theories to the actual facts behind the Iarqi scene, are, by now, too abundant to demystify. It seems at this point, those sysmpathetic to Sadr and that strain of Shiite sect would have a good incentive to summarily send him to Allah, turn him into a matyr and inflame Shiites throughout the region. Then, per chance, his legacy may be potent enough to solidify a resoundingly Shia state no Western power would be capable of preventing.
    And who knows, while we pursue all these theories, whether Bush and the neocons are aiming for just such a scenario, which would provide them sufficient grounds for war against Iran – the final showdown in the End Timer’s book of daze.

  16. These efforts to get at the truth are surely noble, but, unfortunately, the avalanche of mysteries, ranging from the 9/11 theories to the actual facts behind the Iarqi scene, are, by now, too abundant to demystify. It seems at this point, those sysmpathetic to Sadr and that strain of Shiite sect would have a good incentive to summarily send him to Allah, turn him into a matyr and inflame Shiites throughout the region. Then, per chance, his legacy may be potent enough to solidify a resoundingly Shia state no Western power would be capable of preventing.
    And who knows, while we pursue all these theories, whether Bush and the neocons are aiming for just such a scenario, which would provide them sufficient grounds for war against Iran – the final showdown in the End Timer’s book of daze.

  17. David: thank you for your replies, I appreciate it. The reason that I’m curious about it is because of what Moqtada implies with it. I don’t know whether to take his implication seriously, and I still don’t know, but obviously the first step to figuring it out was to determine if the facts supporting his claim bore out. Seeing as they have, the most logical response now is to keep my eyes open for more like it.

  18. laurent: Although I wouldn’t put it past the US govt to utilise false flag terrorist operations (see: Operation Northwoods), and have found that asking “who benefits?” is a good heuristic or starting point for working out what is going on, I don’t put much credit in the 9/11 theories that you allude to simply because they lack parsimony. This issue with the hanging, on the other hand, seems a lot less unweildy to manufacture, so I remain skeptical but open-minded to the suggestion that it may have been more than just an accident.

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