WELCOME TO IWPR'S IRAQI CRISIS REPORT, No. 15, April 17, 2003

AMERICA'S NEW IRAQI ORDER:
PROMISING DEMOCRACY WHILE PROTECTING ABUSERS
By Julie Flint in Beirut

UNDER AMERICAN EYES:
NOT LIBERATION, BUT THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY
By Samir Rebeiz in Beirut

THE ROLE OF THE INTELLECTUAL IN SHAPING THE NEW IRAQ
By Jamal Heidar in London

COMMENT: DON'T LET THE KURD SEE HIS MOTHER!
By Yildirim Turker in Istanbul


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AMERICA'S NEW IRAQI ORDER: PROMISING DEMOCRACY WHILE PROTECTING ABUSERS

By Julie Flint in Beirut

"A free and democratic Iraq will begin today," Jay Garner, the retired
American general overseeing the politics of the new Iraq, told opposition
and community leaders in the southern town of Nasiriya this week. At the
same time, however, at the other end of the country, US troops were
protecting a man whom many Iraqis consider one of the worst of the old
regime - a Sunni tribal leader who gained a fearsome reputation as a
personal bodyguard to Saddam Hussein.

Misha'an Juburi declared himself governor of the northern oil city of
Mosul on Tuesday with the apparent blessing of the US forces who entered
the city last week. Reporters in Mosul said Juburi had been "installed"
by the United States, and US troops protected him as he came under attack
from angry townspeople after making a speech promising democracy.

The grab for power by Juburi, a man rejected by many even within his own
tribe, caused two days of protests in Mosul that claimed at least 17
lives. Col. Andrew Frick, the most senior US officer in the city, said
trouble began after demonstrators opened fire on American soldiers. But a
doctor in Mosul hospital quoted wounded civilians as saying Juburi urged
US Marines to open fire on a crowd that had attacked and overturned his
car.

As the situation ran out of control, both sides agree that Marines fired
on the protestors and escorted Juburi to safety in city hall.

The emergence of Juburi, who defected from the regime in 1992, has raised
serious concerns about the quality of the democracy that may emerge in
Iraq under US auspices. He was booed at a meeting of opposition leaders
in London last December together with two other high-ranking defectors who
are seeking a place in the post-Saddam sun: former military intelligence
chief Wafik Samara'i and journalist Sa'ad Bazzaz, a former press advisor
to Saddam.

Juburi's closest - virtually his only - friend in the Iraqi opposition is
the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, whose fighters entered
Mosul with the Americans after Saddam's forces withdrew. Some speculate
that this support is Barzani's way of making amends for a KDP attack on
the Juburi family that killed 15 members of Misha'an's family including
his father and several uncles in the mid-'60s.

A native of Mosul province, Juburi was initially a member of Saddam's
personal guard but later joined his motorcycle escort. In 1991, he led an
army unit that participated in the suppression of the popular uprising in
southern Iraq following Saddam's occupation of Kuwait. He formed a close
relationship with the president's homicidal older son, Odey Saddam
Hussein, and after his defection to the liberated Kurdish region of
northern Iraq reportedly made a fortune by trading with money amassed
during his friendship with Odey. Some Iraqi exiles believe his
relationship with Odey continued even after his defection.

"Misha'an Juburi is one of the butchers," claimed Ghanem Jawad, head of
the human rights department of the London based KHOEI Foundation, a Shia
Philanthropic organisation. "People are very afraid of him. In 1992,
soon after his defection, he told a meeting of Iraqi opposition Leaders in
Salaheddine in Northern Iraq: 'I am a Sunni, head of a powerfull Sunni
Tribe. We have killed thousands and thousands of Shia.' He thought this
was a way of impressing his importance on the opposition."

Iraqi journalist Kamran Karadaghi said Juburi was unable to visit his
native village, Shirqat, because of the hatred his own people nurtured
toward him. "He is the most corrupt person I have ever known," he said.

In Baghdad on Thursday, the US Marine Corps distanced itself from two
Iraqis claiming to have been elected by local leaders as mayor of Baghdad
and interim governor. Public affairs officer Captain Joe Plenzler said:
"The US government has not appointed anyone." There was no corresponding
denial from US officials in Mosul.

The much-trumpeted opposition meeting in Nasiriya, which was attended by
both Garner and White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, adjourned for 10 days
on its opening day amid many questions about its purpose and place in
America's post-war plans for Iraq. A wide range of Shia groups boycotted
the meeting and thousands of Shias demonstrated against peacefully against
it because of its American sponsorship.

The United States and Britain have already been accused by some Iraqis of
manifesting a bias towards Sunnis, the foundation of Saddam's regime, in
their earliest dealings in post-Saddam Iraq. Although the Arab world has
a Sunni majority - and Sunni regimes allied to the West have expressed
concern about any change that weakens the Sunni position in Iraq - the
majority of Iraq's population is Shia.

The Nasiriya conference brought exiled activists together with some 75
community leaders from a number of religious, political and tribal groups.
Attendance was by US invitation only and appeared heavily tilted towards
US-based exiles. Some London-based exiles had to go under their own steam
and pay their own way.

"Overall the Nasiriya conference was very poorly organised, with a few
people from near-leadership ranks and many unknowns," said Ali Allawi, a
London-based banker and opposition independent. "The issue is the
interconnectedness of such a conference with the interim authority the
Americans are planning. If Nasiriya was just one of series of small
conferences, OK: they had to do something to create the impression that
things are going forward. But if was an influential meeting, then it was
not well organised and not well represented."

Julie Flint is Iraqi Crisis Report Co-ordinating Editor and former IWPR
trustee.


UNDER AMERICAN EYES: NOT LIBERATION, BUT THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF
HISTORY

By Samir Rebeiz in Beirut

The priceless antiquities of Iraq's 7,000 years of recorded history have
withstood many wars and bombings. Just as most of the galleries in
England were emptied and taken to the countryside in the Second World War,
so Iraq's treasures are moved up and down every time there is a war.
Iraqis respect history because they have such a long history themselves.

When the Iraqi army occupied Kuwait in 1991, there was looting by
soldiers - especially of the residences of the ruling Sabah family - but
the National Museum was not touched. It was immediately protected by a
special brigade. Museum staff who came to Kuwait from Baghdad inventoried
and professionally packed objects, and took them to the storerooms of the
Baghdad museum for safekeeping. Even Kuwaitis admit that the first
serious inventory of the objects in their National Museum was done by
Iraq.

After the Iraqi army withdrew from Kuwait, which Saddam Hussein considered
a province of Iraq, the thousands of objects taken from Kuwait were
returned. Some were broken, but the damage to most objects was very
minor. When the Kuwaitis were asked how many items they expected to be
returned, they were told the figure they gave was wrong: the real figure
was much higher.

The destruction we have seen in recent days - the looting of almost all of
the 170,000 artifacts in Baghdad's National Museum, the best collection of
Mesopotamian archaeology in the world; the burning of the National Library
including the entire royal court records and files from the days when Iraq
was part of the Ottoman Empire, the destruction of the Awqaf religious
library and its magnificent medieval manuscripts - was a predictable
outcome of the loss of control in Baghdad.

The National Museum contained the beginning of history. What has been
lost, under the eyes and the complete disinterest of American soldiers, is
the earliest manifestation of human consciousness and thought.

Dr. Lamia Gailani, one of Iraq's most respected archaelogists, had warned
both the State Department and the Pentagon that the National Museum could
be looted. American archeologists familiar with Iraq had given US
officials maps on which they had marked sites to look out for. UNESCO had
impressed upon the US administration that Iraq is the cradle of
civilisation, the repository of many icons of human achievement.

Why could American forces protect Iraq's oil wells and oil ministry, but
not its antiquities? Was it because there is no direct profit from
protecting Iraqi culture? Was it because the more destruction there is,
the more money can be earned from reconstruction?

Iraq, among all other countries in the area, has always been
systematically looted. You only have to walk into the main galleries of
the British Museum to realise the extent: the walls of the Assur Nasser
Palace, for example, have been completed dismantled and moved to the
British Museum. But what we have seen in Baghdad is difficult to
comprehend. Although the vast majority of Iraqi antiques are outside
Iraq, the National Museum was still mind-boggling. Many of the items it
contained were the cornerstones of world culture: the Lady from Warka, a
priceless alabaster sculpture dating back to 3000 BC, "the Mona Lisa of
the East"; the bronze of Sargon the Great of Akkad; the jewellery from the
Ur tombs; the Tablets; the first writing in the world...

It is as difficult for us to comprehend the extent of the loss as it to
imagine how Iraqis can treat their own heritage like this unless they were
incited to do so. If the Americans cared, they could have protected these
things. But they don't care. This confirms the suspicions Arabs have
always had about the undeclared interests of the American occupation of
Iraq. How can the Americans establish peace and democracy if they cannot
save the property of the Iraqi people?

Who is going to buy all these things? Where can they possibly be sold?
They are just too well-known. They will be swallowed up by private
collectors with more money than morals - or they will be destroyed.

The assistant curator of the British Museum this week reminded Dr. Gailani
of just one of the objects in the museum - the Warka vase. Dr. Gailani
begged her not to remind her of specific objects. "It's unbearable to
think about it," she said. "They were like our children."

Samir Rebeiz is a Lebanese architect and conservationist who has worked in
Iraq and Kuwait.


THE ROLE OF THE INTELLECTUAL IN SHAPING THE NEW IRAQ

By Jamal Heidar in London

It is impossible find words to describe the chasm that separated genuine
creativity from the "culture" that grew up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
As Saddam's regime vanished, the only features of culture in Iraq were
coercion and aggressivity, and verbosity and rabble-rousing that were
empty of all content. There was a complete divorce between the people and
the culture of the state.

Under Saddam Hussein, all media and cultural bodies turned into trumpets
for state propaganda, hypocritically praising the regime and providing it
with justifications for pursing its sanguinary programme of destroying
everything that was not in complete agreement with it.

The regime saw its rights through the mirror of the delusions and the
slogans that it itself created.

It created a deep-rooted sectarianism and strong religious divisions. The
culture of the state lacked the simplest ingredients of true patriotism
and encouraged immoral behaviour and customs never seen in Iraq's long
history.

It was a culture that served only the regime. In the new era Iraq is now
embarking upon, this state culture will be discarded as others search for
a new intellectual product to "market".

There is no purpose in revisiting here the disasters caused by Saddam
Hussein's regime - the foolish wars that reaped nothing but death and
destruction, the threats posed to the safety and the security of the
region, the wasting of Iraq's natural wealth, the degradation and the
crushing of the Iraqi spirit in a prison whose impregnable walls were
built over more than three decades.

What is pertinent today is the limitless damage the regime visited upon
Iraqi culture - and the legacy of that damage with which Iraqi
intellectuals now have to wrestle.

Alongside the false culture of the Iraqi state, an alternative, opposition
culture grew up in exile. But true creativity, a creativity with genuine
roots, develops according to its own slow rhythm. It has nothing to do
with a culture that springs from a passing shock to the system and that is
looking for a quick fix. Culture is the product of thought. It needs a
free environment in which to develop its creativity.

Caught between these two cultures - the culture of the state and the
culture of the opposition - the Iraqi intellectual knows instinctively
where to position himself. He does not conceive of history as a sharp
struggle between two approaches, but rather provides an alternative to the
struggle between two essentially political approaches. He demands that
Iraqi opposition groups now be transparent about their agendas and sources
of finance; that they declare how they spend the money they receive.

But while intellectuals may not agree with the aims, views and political
alliances of these opposition groups - while the gap between them is
actually widening - both are seeking to lay strong foundations for justice
and freedom in Iraq and to guarantee the principles of democracy and human
rights. Both are struggling to give the new Iraq a little piece of bread
dipped in dignity.

Today Iraqi intellectuals have a chance to influence Iraq's political
path, to embrace a political programme and frame it in the service of a
new democratic project. The new politicians, for their part, must throw
off their egotism and the narrowness of their cultural horizons. But will
the Iraqi opposition, whatever that means, accept the truth that
intellectuals are deserting them, unconvinced by their temporary, casual
attempts to collect us under their umbrella and to draw us into their
circle of influence?

The task ahead is more complicated than the efforts that have been made to
date suggest: opposition parties and forces must expand their cultural
awareness to defeat the perverted culture of the regime and activate a
true culture based on true patriotism.After all that has befallen Iraq -
its people, its land and its civilisation - we must storm the barriers of
cultural degeneration and seek the values of justice, freedom and reason.
These values can only be reborn, and be suffused with new originality,
away from stagnant ideologies, totalitarianism and ready-made political
commandments.

Jamal Heidar is an Iraqi writer and a former editor of Baghdad newspaper.


COMMENT: DON'T LET THE KURD SEE HIS MOTHER!

By Yildirim Turker in Istanbul

The Turkish press has a multitude of columnists. Some are lazy souls who
can do no more than tell stories. Others are stuck in old ways of
thinking that echo official thought and that instantly recall the story of
the Turk and the Kurd who go to the gallows together. The hangman asks
the Kurd for his final wish. "I would like to see my mother," he says.
The hangman says: "Granted" - and then asks the Turk for his final wish.
"Don't let the Kurd see his mother," the Turk replies.

Recently one of the bright sparks in the Turkish press ran a column about
the Kurds of Iraq that was entitled: "Why do they love the Kurds?" Raging
against an article on the Kurds in Britain's Financial Times newspaper, he
asked: "Why is there not a single line on the Turcomen? They are, in our
opinion, one of the principal constituencies in Iraq." The answer, he
said, was that Iraqi Kurds - "even without even a state" - have explained
their case to the international community better than Turkey.

To summarise this view: the world would have loved us if only we had
promoted ourselves better.

It is the compulsion to insist on Turkish control over the future status
quo in northern Iraq that has caused Turkey difficulties in this war.
Turkey's ultimate objective is to obtain a guarantee that Iraqi Kurds will
not establish a state in northern Iraq and US Secretary of State Colin
Powell was forced to visit Turkey after the government twice rejected
America's demands for help in opening a northern front against Saddam
Hussein. But the key question in this debate is never tackled: would a
Kurdish state in northern Iraq create a serious peril for Turkey? If so,
why?

There are probably several reasons for this omission. One reason, in my
opinion, is that we are not yet comfortable uttering the word "Kurd". We
only recently accepted that "Kurd" is not the sound mountain Turks make
when they are walking on snow.

After the first Gulf War, Turkey avoided mention of the word "Kurd" by
calling the tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds who had taken refuge in
Turkey "Iraqis sheltering in our country". Conditions in the camps where
they were held, not accepted as refugees, were terrible: they died from
cold and hunger in the winter, and from disease and lack of water in
summer. Aid sent to them from local people was obstructed and assistance
sent from abroad did not reach them.

Thousands of Kurds perished in this land where they had taken refuge.

At last we are obliged to call the Kurds by their name. But the fact that
there is a large Kurdish population in northern Iraq is still a nightmare
for Turkish officialdom. Consequently, neo-liberal journalists declare
that anti-war groups in Turkey are an alliance of pro-Kurdish, leftist and
other shadowy groups and carry out their usual mission of advising the
authorities who they should deal with. Before the war began, they delved
into historical documents about Mosul and Kirkuk and made untimely
declarations regarding Turkey's rights. We may have lost Wallachia and
Moldavia for ever, but why not recover Mosul and Kirkuk? The Foreign
Ministry even stated that it was examining the issue.

And now they find it hard to understand why the West is so insistent on
not wanting Turkish troops in northern Iraq!

Now we are making claims for "our Turcomen brothers". We say they are our
"relatives". I wonder how much of our population thinks this way. Is
this really the opinion of the average Turk? Could the ethnic group that
comprises 20% of our population, the group whose name - "Kurd" - we are
only just able to pronounce, not feel the same about the Kurds of northern
Iraq? Are their emotions and loyalty to their ethnicity shameful, a sin
or a crime? Does Turkey, which expresses such concern about the Turcomen,
have not the slightest anxiety about the future of the Kurds in Iraq -
especially as it was they who suffered most from Saddam's cruelty? Why
does the idea of their having a say in their own future so frighten
Turkey?

If the Kurds want to establish a state, what harm would that do to the
relatives of Turcomen living here?

Colin Powell came all the way here to ask Turkey for its final wish and
Turkey opened the way for US military convoys to go to the Iraqi border.
But it was still mumbling the same old refrain: "Don't let the Kurd see
his mother."

Yildirim Turker is a Turkish columnist.

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Copyright (c) 2003 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

IRAQI CRISIS REPORT No. 15