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May 19, 2003

Mass protests in Iraq to begin today

Looks like Bremer is planning to take back even more promises Garner made. How can the Iraqis trust us if we change our officials, then go back on our word! As Fareed Zakaria explains very well in his new book, "The Future of Freedon: Illiberal Democracies at Home and Abroad," it is important to have a strong constitution before you have elections. However, as Fareed has also stated in many of his latest interviews, this is exactly the reason we should bring in the UN now! If the US, who has killed thousands of Iraqis, is now imposing a new constitution, policing the streets, and naming a subordinate interim authority which it will control for an "indefinite" period, instead of handing over power - all at the same time we are lobbying the UN for control over Iraqi oil for a similarly "indefinite" period - what do we expect, if not more anti-American sentiment and civil disobedience of our inept occupation?

Just in from the Washington Post:

Powerful Shiite Muslim clergy have called on hundreds of thousands of their supporters to take to the streets of Baghdad and other cities Monday in what could be the biggest show of religious opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The call, made today in a statement by a leading cleric in Baghdad and in leaflets posted in mosques in Shiite neighborhoods in the capital, marks an escalation in organized Shiite disenchantment with the U.S. occupation administration of L. Paul Bremer III, who last week replaced retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq.

The clerics, themselves engaged in a power struggle over the future of Iraq's majority Shiite community, criticized the U.S. determination to rule Iraq for months, perhaps years, and complained that U.S. officials have failed to reach out to their constituency.

"We will keep making our demands until we achieve them and, if not, we will continue peaceful rebellion and expose their glossy slogans," Mohammed Fartousi, a key cleric in Baghdad, said in an interview today. "The masses will ask for freedom and they will refuse the occupation."

He added: "We don't need a foreign man to run our country."

Fartousi said the biggest demonstrations are planned for Baghdad and the Shiite Muslim holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in southern Iraq. He predicted that 1 million people would take part in the protests, though there was no way to gauge potential turnout. While sporadic protests have erupted since the fall of former president Saddam Hussein and the end of 35 years of Baath Party rule, Fartousi said the demonstrations planned for Monday would mark the largest, most coordinated show of opposition to the U.S. occupation.

This from the New York Times a few minutes later:

One of Iraq's largest Shiite political groups accused the United States' new civilian administrator today of reneging on promises to support the rapid creation of an Iraqi-led interim government.

"We were talking about an interim government, with authority to make decisions," said Adel Abdel Mahdi, political adviser to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But, he continued, a draft resolution sponsored by the United States at the United Nations is "clearly something else."

The Supreme Council and its newly returned leader, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, have close ties to Iran and have long been critical of the United States. But the Shiite group's unhappiness and suspicion regarding recent American statements echo sentiments in a wide range of other parties, including the two main Kurdish political groups and the strongly pro-American Iraqi National Congress under Ahmad Chalabi.

But the new American civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, insisted today that he had no plans to delay the creation of an interim Iraqi authority and said he would hold more meetings with Iraqi political leaders within the next two weeks.

"I don't accept the hypothesis that there has been any delay," Mr. Bremer said during a trip to Mosul, in northern Iraq. "I don't know where these stories are coming from, because we haven't delayed anything."

But Mr. Bremer continued to use the phrase "interim authority," rather than "interim government," and Iraqi political leaders from several factions said he had made it clear to them on Friday that the United States wanted to retain control over crucial levers of power for an indefinite period.

In case you missed it, from the Charlotte Observer yesterday:

In an abrupt reversal Friday, the United States and Britain delayed indefinitely their plan to allow Iraqi opposition forces to form a national assembly and an interim government in Iraq by the end of the month.

Instead, top American and British diplomats leading reconstruction efforts told exile leaders in a meeting that coalition officials would remain in charge of Iraq for an indefinite period, according to Iraqis who attended the meeting....

Bremer, who was accompanied at Friday's meeting by John Sawers, a British diplomat representing Prime Minister Tony Blair, told Iraqi political figures that the coalition preferred to revert to the concept of creating an "interim authority" -- not a provisional government.

He said he wanted Iraqis to assist the coalition by writing a constitution for the country, revamping the educational system and devising a plan for democratic elections.

"It's quite clear that you cannot transfer all powers onto some interim body, because it will not have the strength or the resources to carry those responsibilities out," Sawers said.

One Iraqi who attended the meeting said Iraqi opposition leaders expressed strong disappointment about the reversal.

Posted by Mike at May 19, 2003 12:18 AM

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