Cupid and Cupidity: MAUREEN DOWD - Wolfie and Shaha

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Cupid and Cupidity

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: April 18, 2007

Never has a star-crossed romance so perfectly illuminated a star-crossed conflict as the unfolding saga of Wolfie and Shaha.

There have been many tender love stories in war.

Ike and Kay. Pamela Harriman and Edward R. Murrow. Aeneas and Dido. Achilles and his tent temptation, Patroclus.

But my favorite is the unfolding saga of Wolfie and Shaha. Never has a star-crossed romance so perfectly illuminated a star-crossed conflict.

The weekend meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were consumed with the question of how the bank chief could fight corruption while indulging in cronyism. Who could focus on a weak yen when you had a weak Wolfie with a strong yen for Shaha?

In addition to the story about Paul Wolfowitz’s giving his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a promotion and a $60,000 raise because he felt guilty that she had to be transferred from the World Bank to the State Department when he took over, The Times reported yesterday on more imperialist hanky-panky.

Steven Weisman and David Sanger wrote that in 2003, when Wolfie was No. 2 at the Pentagon, the office of his consigliere, Douglas Feith, directed a private contractor to hire Ms. Riza, then at the World Bank, to spend a month traveling in Iraq to study ways to set up the new government.

(It was simple to get the contractor, the Science Applications International Corporation, to play along. As Vanity Fair reported, the Pentagon awarded SAIC seven contracts valued at more than $100 million before the war, without competitive bidding. Mr. Feith’s deputy was Christopher Henry, a former SAIC senior vice president.)

Wolfie and Shaha did not let a little thing like World Bank rules — which barred the bank from providing economic assistance to an area under military occupation — keep them from pushing the neocon delusions.

--MORE--

Iraqi Gov Insider Blasts US Occupation As "Corroded, Inefficient, Incompetent And Corrupt"

[April 8, 2007, 10:00 pm]
"(AP) Iraqi Insider Details U.S. Mismanagement"

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
NEW YORK

In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country _ a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators."

"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press.

Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.

The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country's four-year ordeal. It's an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word "ignorance" crops up repeatedly.

First came the "monumental ignorance" of those inWashington pushing for war in 2002 without "the faintest idea" of Iraq's realities. "More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society," he writes.

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

_ The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds ofthousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

_ Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party _ from government, school faculties and elsewhere _ left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

_ An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

_ The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the "commercial gangs" of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

_ Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capitalequipment to be spirited away across borders.

_ The CPA perpetuated Saddam's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.

In his 2006 memoir of the occupation, Bremer wrote that senior U.S. generals wanted to recall elements of the old Iraqi army in 2003, but were rebuffed by the Bush administration. Bremer complained generally that his authority was undermined by Washington's "micromanagement."

Although Allawi, a cousin of Ayad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister in 2004, is a member of a secularist Shiite Muslim political grouping, his well-researched bookbetrays little partisanship.

On U.S. reconstruction failures _ in electricity, health care and other areas documented by Washington's own auditors _ Allawi writes that the Americans' "insipid retelling of `success' stories" merely hid "the huge black hole that lay underneath."

For their part, U.S. officials have often largely blamed Iraq's explosive violence for the failures of reconstruction and poor governance.

The author has been instrumental since 2005 in publicizing extensive corruption within Iraq's "new order," including an $800-million Defense Ministry scandal. Under Saddam,he writes, the secret police kept would-be plunderers in check better than the U.S. occupiers have done.

As 2007 began, Allawi concludes, "America's only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise."

Copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Iyad Allawi is waiting in the wings to take over Iraq

Friday, March 16, 2007

Iraq: Former Premier Pushing New Plan For Reconciliation

By Kathleen Ridolfo

Iyad Allawi (file photo)

(AFP)

March 16, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is currently courting Iraqi political parties and blocs in an attempt to forge a new national-unity government.



Allawi has criticized the government of current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for its sectarian nature and claims he has a plan to end sectarianism in Iraq. He says he has presented his plan to the United States, Britain, and regional states, and has received positive responses. There are suggestions, however, that it is short on substance and is little more than an attempt to grab the reins of power.

Supporters of Allawi's plan have all complained that their parties have been shut out of decision-making processes within al-Maliki's government. While several parties hold high-level seats, their leaders say that power rests in the hands of a small group of Shi'ite leaders who control key facets of the government.

The End Of Quotas?

A key element of Allawi's plan is to form a national-unity government not based on sectarian quotas. He has said that he supports the appointment of qualified persons based on competence rather than affiliation. It is debatable, however, whether Iraq's political parties are mature enough -- or patriotic enough -- to put the country's interests over their own aspirations. Moreover, Allawi's own track record offers little promise of change: his interim administration was based on quotas.

"They [the government] want to marginalize us for many reasons, including the fact that we differ with them over the issues of militias, the sectarian-sharing system, and the building of the modern state."

Allawi supporter Izzat al-Shabandar told "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" in January that a "sectarian spirit controls the political process in Iraq because the Shi'ite community's amirs are clinging to power, since they believe this is their right that they lost several centuries ago, while the Sunnis' amirs fear the Shi'a control over everything." While many believe al-Maliki himself is not sectarian, they are not confident in his ability to fashion a nonsectarian government.

Allawi told "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" in an interview published on January 20 that part of the problem in Iraq today is that the government does not want to amend de-Ba'athification (al-Maliki has promised to review the de-Ba'athification process). Meanwhile, former Ba'athists do not want to sit at the table with the current government because they do not recognize it as legitimate, he said. Allawi has met regularly with former Ba'athist and "resistance" leaders since 2004.

He then told Al-Iraqiyah television on February 27 that he has lobbied with the U.S. military to release several supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad, who he said had cooperated with the United States and Iraqi parties "before and during" the 2003 war. Hashim is currently being tried in the Anfal case for crimes against the Kurds.

As for his Iraqi National List, Allawi said, "They [the government] want to marginalize us for many reasons, including the fact that we differ with them over the issues of militias, the sectarian-sharing system, and the building of the modern state." He added: "We also differ with them on the issue of Iraq's Arab and Islamic affiliation. We believe that Iraq is part of the Arab and Islamic nations. It appears that the government and many other parties do not want Iraq to have an Arab or an Islamic wing." Because of his bloc's position, several of its members have been targeted for arrest, he added.

Political Maneuvering

Allawi's plan emerged some weeks after "moderate" parties attempted their own restructuring of the political landscape, according to Arab media reports. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi said attempts were made in December to bring together his Iraqi Islamic Party, the Kurdistan Coalition, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and al-Maliki's Al-Da'wah Party. "Al-Maliki was unable to persuade the party to join because of its alliance" with al-Sadr's supporters, al-Hashimi told "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" in an interview published on January 18.

Al-Abadi said it needs to be determined who is responsible for the violence (epa file photo)Parliamentarian and Al-Da'wah member Haidar al-Abadi told the daily in a separate interview published the same day that his party's refusal to join was based on the fact that it believes in the current political process, while other parties do not. He accused the disgruntled parties of having no vision, and said al-Maliki is committed to political reconciliation.

"The prime minister [al-Maliki] has sent envoys to Cairo, Amman, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries.... The envoys have met with Ba'athist groups and other groups that are far from the Ba'ath [Party]. The only party they did not meet with is Al-Qaeda," al-Abadi said.

All those parties claimed they wanted a role in the political process, al-Abadi said, adding: "But the problem is that we should determine...who is responsible for the acts of violence. So far, this has not been determined." He noted that some of the parties claimed to represent armed groups but those groups turned out to be small and uninfluential.

In addition, the government was unwilling to meet demands that the political process go back to square one -- a demand that Allawi appears to be advocating at the moment. Al-Maliki's alternative, it appears, will come in the form of his upcoming cabinet reshuffle.

The 'Plan' Takes Shape

Allawi told the Amman daily "Al-Dustur" in an interview published on January 22 that the plan has four points: declaring martial law for a period of two years; forming a ministerial security group headed by a competent, nonsectarian prime minister and including the ministers of defense, interior, national security, and justice, along with the head of the intelligence service; working to build national institutions, combat militias, and purge state institutions of those militias; and holding a UN-sponsored regional conference similar to the Sharm el-Sheikh conference that was held in November 2004.

The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference would co-sponsor the conference. Allawi told the daily he has elicited and received the support of Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Allawi has said he also advocates bringing troops from Arab countries -- though not including Iraq's neighbors -- to maintain security in Iraq. The same idea was floated under Allawi's interim government, but was opposed by several political parties.

Allawi spokesman Ibrahim al-Janabi told "Al-Dustur" on January 20 that the former prime minister presented his plan to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as an alternative to the Baghdad security plan during a recent meeting in Baghdad and that Rice welcomed the plan.

Regarding Iraq's neighbors, Allawi told state-run Al-Iraqiyah television on February 27, "Syria and Saudi Arabia are ready to help Iraq," and "Iran is likely to contribute to Iraq's stability."

Support Forms Behind Allawi

Sunni Arab politician Salih al-Mutlaq told RFE/RL last week that several political parties would support Allawi's national-unity front. "There were about 32 political groups in it. At that time, Al-Tawafuq [the Iraqi Accordance Front] was part of it, Allawi's group was part of it, Al-Fadilah, some of the Sadrists, the Ba'athists, the old army leadership, the Arab tribe organizations, some influential political groups from the south, especially [Ayatollah Mahmud al-Hasani] al-Sarkhi's group, the [Iraqi] Turkoman Front, the Kurdish movement, apart from the two Kurdish parties. So we only excluded the two Kurdish parties -- to be negotiated with them later because they have their own project, which is a non-Iraqi project nowadays.... And we excluded SCIRI because it's looking for sectarianism in Iraq and its aim is to divide Iraq."

Al-Dulaymi at the March 6 press conference (epa)Adnan al-Dulaymi, the head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the major Sunni bloc, announced at a March 6 press conference in Baghdad that his front intended to join Allawi's new front, which would be called the Iraqi National Front. Later that day, he told Al-Sharqiyah television: "Correcting the course of the Iraqi political process is the demand of all Iraqis. Everybody wants the course of the political process to be corrected."

The next day, the Al-Fadilah Party withdrew from the Shi'ite-led United Iraqi Alliance. "We consider the first step of saving Iraq is to dismantle these blocs and to prevent blocs [from] forming on a sectarian basis," Al-Fadilah leader Nadim al-Jabiri told reporters. The party has yet to announce whether it intends to join Allawi's front.

Wooing The Kurds

Allawi has been rumored to be courting the two major Kurdish parties in recent press reports. Al-Iraqiyah spokesman Izzat al-Shahbandar told "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" that Allawi discussed the front when he and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad visited Kurdistan region President Mas'ud Barzani, who heads the Kurdistan Democratic Party, during the first week of March. Allawi also reportedly met with representatives of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan the same week.

The fact that Allawi and Barzani are now both in Saudi Arabia is no coincidence, al-Shahbandar said. "I believe that this visit was coordinated so as to have both Allawi and President Barzani in Riyadh....within the framework of the joint efforts of Dr. Allawi and President Barzani to back the Iraqi national plan," he noted.

Should Allawi succeed in forming his front with the support of the Iraqi Accordance Front (44 parliamentary seats), the Kurdistan Coalition (55 seats), and Al-Fadilah (15 seats), he will prove a strong rival to the current government. Allawi aide Falah al-Naquib told London's "The Times" that with Al-Fadilah and the Kurds, the front should have 140 of the 275 seats in parliament, the daily's website reported on March 14. The ruling Shi'ite alliance currently has 113 seats following the departure of Al-Fadilah.

A Step Back

The problem with Allawi's plan is that in essence, he advocates a step backward. His call for the imposition of martial law equates to a call for a prime minister, heading a war council, with unique powers that essentially cannot be checked by other governmental bodies. Two elements of the plan -- Arab troops and de-Ba'athification -- are likely to be greeted by Sunni Arab groups but encounter stiff resistance from Shi'ite political parties, meaning he would trade one opposition for another.

The participation of the Arab League, which has never proven to be an effective body, will produce little change, and again, satisfy the Sunni Arab groups and agitate the Shi'a. In addition, opinion polls show that public support for Allawi is about equal to that for al-Maliki.

A more productive alternative might be to work with al-Maliki to amend the current political landscape, which will help bring about the required policy changes.

Allawi told state-run Al-Iraqiyah television on February 27 that he supports al-Maliki, but needs to see changes made in the prime minister's administration. Allawi said al-Maliki told him privately that he is against militias and power sharing. "If [al-Maliki] tries to entrench the power-sharing system, we will not stand by him," Allawi said, adding, "If the policy of exclusion, punishment, and the use of militias continues, we will not be able to take part in the executive authority."

In Iraq, Whispers of Soft Coup Arise

Posted GMT 3-9-2007 21:38:25

BAGHDAD -- Secular former prime minister and U.S. favorite Ayad Allawi is leading a new push to replace the Shiite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with a broad-based government that would focus on restoring order.

Amid deepening concerns among Sunnis and secularists about al-Maliki's performance, Allawi has emerged at the center of an initiative to create a "national salvation front," which his supporters say would be able to secure the backing of Iraqi insurgents, reunite the country and end the sectarian conflict that has prevailed for more than a year.

Though Allawi's aides deny that he wants to replace al-Maliki as prime minister, Allawi is preparing to embark on a tour of the region to win the support of Arab governments for his proposals, just as representatives of Iraq's neighbors are gathering with the U.S. in Baghdad for a regional conference intended to shore up support for the al-Maliki government.

The idea of a new coalition to overturn the current political process is not new, and the front has yet to be fully formed.

Sending a message

But the effort has been given new momentum by the reappearance on the Iraqi political scene of Allawi, a high-profile U.S. ally who is both a Shiite and a centrist; the defection this week of the Fadhila Party, a small faction from al-Maliki's ruling Shiite coalition; and a trip by Allawi in the company of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to visit the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani last weekend.

U.S. Embassy officials refused to say why Khalilzad accompanied Allawi on the trip to Kurdistan or what was discussed during the talks.

But the Kurdistan visit was interpreted by many in Baghdad as a public display of support for Allawi by the U.S. It was also seen as a warning to al-Maliki that he cannot count on continued U.S. support if his Shiite-led government does not deliver on a range of promises intended to end the sectarian conflict and bring about real reconciliation with Sunnis.

"You see Allawi meeting with Barzani and the U.S. ambassador is with Allawi, so people analyze this as meaning that the U.S. supports Allawi," said Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman, who discussed the meeting with Barzani and does not believe the U.S. has made a decision to support the new front.

"Maybe the U.S. is using this to put pressure on Maliki to deliver more, to remind him that there are alternatives," Othman said.

Sunnis and secularists staunchly opposed to the Islamist Shiite parties now running the government have unsuccessfully tried to find ways to block Shiite rule since the December 2005 election, which gave Shiites a plurality, though not an outright majority, in the Iraqi parliament.

For any new coalition to have a chance of outvoting the al-Maliki government in parliament, it would have to secure the backing of the Kurds, the second-largest parliamentary bloc. The Kurds teamed up with the Shiite coalition to form a majority in the current government.

Triggering rumors

The Kurds are not prepared to abandon their Shiite partners for now, said Othman, which makes it difficult to see how Allawi can succeed in his efforts.

The U.S. has also given no indication that it is considering abandoning al-Maliki. Addressing reporters at his first news conference on Thursday, Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, expressed full confidence in al-Maliki, saying that he and his team are "striving to be leaders for all Iraqis and responsive to the desires of all Iraqis."

The political maneuvering has nonetheless triggered rumors across Baghdad that a coup plot is being hatched, stirring fury among al-Maliki's supporters.

"If there is any conspiracy or plot against Maliki's government, millions of people will take to the streets," Shiite legislator Hassan Snaid, one of al-Maliki's closest advisers, told Al-Hurra TV, in a reminder that the Shiite government enjoys the support of the vast majority of ordinary Shiites.

Supporters of the new front deny that they are conspiring to remove al-Maliki. They say they will seek to replace him only if he fails to fulfill a set of demands that includes the formation of a new government, an overhaul of the de-Baathification law, which prevents many former Baathists from returning to public life, and a review of the constitution.

These are longstanding Sunni demands, backed by the U.S., that al-Maliki has repeatedly said he will address. They also include a revamp of his Cabinet, which he has promised in the coming week.

"Our problem is not with Mr. Maliki as a person. Our problem is with the system, which must be modified," said Izzat Shahbandar, a parliamentarian from Allawi's bloc who is closely involved in the new effort.

"The first step is for Mr. Maliki to make changes, and if he doesn't respond we are ready to form a parliamentary bloc that is big enough to remove the prime minister."

The latest challenge to al-Maliki has the support of most members of the main parliamentary Sunni and secular blocs, and efforts are also under way to lure support away from the Shiite coalition, which controls 128 seats. Past efforts to split the United Iraqi Alliance have failed, though the small Fadhila Party, with 15 seats, announced it was leaving the coalition earlier this week.

But with the Kurds in control of 53 seats, that still leaves the Allawi initiative far short of the 138 seats needed to bring about a parliamentary coup.

"I'm not optimistic that it will succeed," said Othman, the Kurdish legislator. "I'd prefer a secular government, but the Shiites are sticking together and they're a strong coalition."

By Liz Sly
Chicago Tribune

Allawi's scheme for the Baghdad Conference

Ayad Allawi--Former and almost certainly current CIA asset, former Ba'athist goon, former Interim Puppet Prime-Minister....

Related
Deconstructing the Allawi scheme
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Saturday, March 03, 2007

Accord Front leader links the "new front" scheme to the success or failure of the Baghdad Conference

A member of Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List, Osama al-Najafi, told an Al-Hayat reporter that both Allawi and US ambassador Khalilzad are in Kurdistan for talks with leaders there. Allawi is trying to convince the leaders of the Kurdish coalition in the national parliament to join the "new front" he is forming, since the Kurds have a big weight in parliament and in the current government. And Najafi told the reporter that Khalilzad's presence there indicates the US supports the Allawi plan.

The reporter then recites the contents of the announcement made Friday by a spokesman for Allawi's group, about the political and security collapse and the threat of Allawi's group exiting the government and the current political process. Here's the new part of what he reports:

And Najafi said the question of the Iraqi List staying in the current government is conditional on agreement to its demands, represented by: revision of the political process in its entirety, changing the method of administering the Iraqi state, freezing the constitution, and dissolving parliament. And he stressed that the decision to withdraw [in the event the demands aren't met] has been agreed to my most of the members of the Iraqi List.

The reporter also talked to Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accord Front, the biggest Sunni bloc in parliament, and here's how that went:

And the IAF, through its leader Adnan Dulaimi, said the group supports the creation of a new front to correct the course of the political process via redistribution of official appointments and the security ministries, in the event of failure of the international Baghdad Conference to cure the current situation.

So the Iraqi List appears to be talking about a "new front" that will demand freezing of the constitution and dissolving parliament as part of a "course-correction in the political process", otherwise they will bolt. The IAF leader talks about this "new front" idea as a "redistribution of official positions", and says it is something that should happen in the event that the Baghdad Conference (expected to be held in about a week, on March 10) doesn't solve anything. And the Allawi person, perhaps predictably, says Allawi is being given tacit US support by Khalilzad, in his current attempt to get the two big Kurdish parties to join in this.

Meanwhile, Maliki, for his part, in an AP interview, promises major changes in ministerial appointments and in law-enforcement policy before the Baghdad Conference. AP reports in detail on speculation what this could mean in terms of placating the Bush administration, cracking down on the Sadrists, and so on. By contrast, the Allawi project hasn't been mentioned anywhere in the Western press. It should be the Western media's motto: Exactly half of what you need to know.

Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan

Related
Practice to Deceive

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Allawi on Plus Up

24 Jan 2007 07:08 pm

An interesting interview. Money quote:

Ayad Allawi: I’m not a military strategist, but looking at it on the surface, I think 20,000 additional troops to complement the 130,000 already there doesn’t seem to be a great boost in the troop numbers. So I don’t think it’s purely a military gesture, and I don’t think it will have a very significant effect on the military equation.

But it’s part of a multi-pronged strategy that basically will ratchet up the pressure on the Iraqi government, propose an alternative to it, and at the same time escalate the costs that Iran may have to bear if it continues to confront or challenge the United States in Iraq.

National Interest: So in your view, the troop increase is in part intended to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, could you elaborate on that?

AA: Well I think it’s clear—the role that Iran has in the Iraqi crisis. It is extremely important and significant, particularly its effect on the Shi‘a Islamist political parties.

And as much as the United States, or the Bush Administration, has objected to possibility of negotiations with Iran, the only alternative course that they have is to confront it, and to challenge it, and to raise the cost of its apparent intervention in the Iraqi crisis.

This of course creates a serious problem for the Iraqi government itself, which is to an extent anchored around the Islamist parties of the United Iraqi Alliance. On the surface it appears to be a contradiction. I mean how can the United States expect that by confronting Iran and Iraq, it is going to get the support of the UIA, which is to some extent dependent on Iranian support—ongoing support—politically and otherwise?

So it’s a way of trying to break this conundrum. Now I don’t think it’s likely to succeed because the only thing that can happen out of this strategy is basically the breakup of the United Iraqi Alliance. You are going to get possibly a new governing majority in parliament, but that would not necessarily reduce the violence or the instability inside the country.

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AL-SADR IN HIS OWN WORDS

Rome, 19 Jan. (AKI) - In a long interview with Rome-daily La Repubblica published Friday, Iraqi Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr said he has never trusted prime minister Nouri al-Maliki nor his predecessor Iyad Allawi, whom he described as the brains behind a US-backed plot to destroy him and his militia. Al-Sadr said a crackdown on him and his al-Mahdi Army "has already kicked off." "Last night they arrested over 400 of my people. But it is not us they want to destroy, it's Islam," he said.

A prominent aide of al-Sadr was arrested by Iraqi and United States forces in Baghdad on Friday. The US military said the man arrested was a senior death squad leader. But a spokesman for al-Sadr's political office told Reuters the man detained was Abdul Hadi al Darraji, a media spokesman.

Friday's arrest follows a crackdown, announced by Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki on the al-Mahdi Army, involving 400 arrests this week, and coincides with the arrival in Basra of US defence secretary Robert Gates to meet the US commander in Iraq, General George Casey.

In the interview to the Italian paper, al-Sadr also denied that members of his militia have infiltrated the army and police.

"The exact opposite has happened: it is our militia which is full of spies. It is actually very easy to infiltrate an army of the people."

The Shiite leader also denied that the guards who chanted his name and insulted late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during his execution had nothing to do with him.

"No, they were not my men," he said. "Those were people paid to disparage me, to make me appear like the person respondible for the hanging."

While Saddam Hussein was standing on the trapdoor with the noose being fastened around his neck on 30 December last year, guards insulted him and chanted the name of Moqtada al-Sadr. A total 14 witnesses were reportedly present at the execution at the former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, and some reports alleged the Shiite leader was among them.

(Ebc/Aki)

Jan-19-07 12:03

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Original in Italian

Machine translation

FOREIGN COUNTRIES

It sendes

Stampa

Moqtada speaks to the Sadr: “The man of the USA is Allawi, not Maliki”
The alive leader of the intégriste military service by now to the spot

“A secret army against of we
but the sciiti ones will know to resist "

FROM OUR ENVOY RENATO CAPRILE

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Moqtada To the Sadr

BAGDAD - It is felt braccato and one hides. It never more does not sleep of one night in the same bed. Someone of its faithful has already turned it the shoulders. It has even transferred the family in a secret place. Moqtada to the Sadr feels that the fine ones is near. Too many enemies, too many infiltrate to you between its people. Nevertheless it does not have to us with to the Maliki that considers little more of a marionette, how much with Yad Allawi, the former ones premier, on which the Americans would not have never stopped to head. He would be he the true director of the operation that aimed to cancel from the face of the Iraq he and its army of the Mahdi.

Com'è that to the Maliki, in whose government until little time makes was quite six ministers of its current, without warning it is shrewed that they are the religious military services, and above all its, the true problem to resolve?

“Between me and Abu Assara (the “father of Assara”, name of the daughter of Maliki, ndr) not never has been a lot feeling. I have always suspected that it was maneuvered and never they are not trusted me he. There are only meets to you in a pair of occasions. In the last one of which to before it has said me “you are the dorsal thorn of the country”, and then it has confessed to me of “obliged” being to fight to us. Obliged, it understands”.

The fact remains that against its people is in order to release the iron fist.

“While already it is released. Yesterday night they have already arrested beyond four hundred of mine. He is not we that they want to destroy, but the Islam. We are only an obstacle. For hour we will not oppose resistance”.

He wants to say that you will deliver the crews?

“During the muharram, (the sacred month in which the martyrdom of Hussein, happened beyond six centuries is commemorated ago, ndr) the Corano forbids us to kill. That they also kill to us, therefore. For a true believer not there is moment better than this in order to die: the Paradise is assured. But God is generous: not moriremo all. After the muharram riparliamo some”.

There is who supports that army and police are widely infiltrate to you from its and that the marines by themselves they will not make us never to disarm to you.

“True E' the exact contrary: it is our military service that pullula of spies, On the other hand in a people army us does not want a lot to be infiltrated. And they are just these that blotting itself of dishonourable actions have discredited the Mahdi. There are at least four exercises ready to get loose itself against of we. A “shadow” of which it is not never spoken, trained in great secret in the giordano desert the military services Americans. And then there is that private of Allawi, infedele that soon it will succeed to Maliki, that is being prepared in the former military airport of Muthanna. Then there are peshmerga curdi and at last the regular troops Americans”.

If it is true what it says, you do not have some hope to resist.

“We Are in many also. We represent the majority of the country that he does not want that the Iraq, as instead it dreams Allawi, becomes one Be lay, servant of the western powers”.

From a week it is officially in the view-finder. The government supports that without their leaders the religious military services are militarily more weak people.

“Of they are aware. For this I have transferred my family in a sure place. I have even made testament and I move myself continuously making so that they are in little to knowing exactly where I find myself. But even if you had to die, the Mahdi would continue to exist. The men can be victims of a murder, the faith and the ideas not”.

It has been said that in means to the present crowd to the execution of Saddam there was also she. And true?

“E' one total sciocchezza. If pits be them, would have killed also me. As far as Saddam, I do not have sure I plant for the man who has massacred my family and my people to tens of migliaia. That I would have only executed it on a public public square because all the world saw”.

If it not were, she denies that in that one she knows it was the full load of its?

“Not, they were not my men. She was paid people in order to discredit to me. In order it makes me to appear like the true one in charge of that hanging. The test is in the fact, enough to riascoltare the audio, than in reciting my prayer they have omitted some fundamental passages. Roba that a child to Sadr City would not have never made. The objective was to make to pass Moqtada like the true enemy of the Sunnites. And there are resolutions. Time makes has been received with all the honors in Saudi Arabia. But endured after that putting in scene under the scaffold, my megaphone, to the Zarqani, that it was in pilgrimage to the Mecca has been arrested. A too much explicit way end in order makes me to understand that I was not more in the list of the friends”.

In any case the war between you and the Sunnites continuous.

“True E' that we are all Muslims and all sons of the same country but they must before take the distances from the saddamisti, from the radical groups, the men of Bin Laden beyond ribadire theirs “not” to the Americans. It would only be enough that the ulema our conditions accepted these. They have not still made it”.

Possible that not there is other that blood in the future of the Iraq?

“If the future is a country divided in three, it does not seem to me are alternatives. E' that that it wants Bush in order to control to us better, sure not what they wish the iracheni. To my warning there is a single possibility because solution is arrived to one: the immediate withdrawal American”.


(19 January 2007)