It took you nearly three years to figure this out. The rest of us "righties"
have known this as a potential problem in Iraq since 1990.


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Posted on Mon, Dec. 12, 2005
Iran gaining influence, power in Iraq through militia
BY TOM LASSETER
Knight Ridder Newspapers
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/13391612.htm


BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iranian-backed militia the Badr Organization has taken
over many of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence activities and
infiltrated its elite commando units, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

That's enabled the Shiite Muslim militia to use Interior Ministry vehicles
and equipment - much of it bought with American money - to carry out
revenge
attacks against the minority Sunni Muslims, who persecuted the Shiites
under
Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, current and former Ministry of Interior
employees told Knight Ridder.

The officials, some of whom agreed to speak only on the condition of
anonymity for fear of violent reprisals, said the Interior Ministry had
become what amounted to an Iranian fifth column inside the U.S.-backed
Iraqi
government, running death squads and operating a network of secret
prisons.

The militia's secret activities threaten to derail U.S.-backed efforts to
persuade Sunnis to abandon the violent insurgency and join Shiites and
Kurds
in Iraq's fledgling political process. And by supporting Badr and other
Shiite groups, Iran - a member of President Bush's "axis of evil" that
sponsors international terrorism, is thought to be seeking nuclear weapons
and calls for the destruction of Israel - has used the American-led
invasion
to gain influence in Iraq.

"They're putting millions of dollars into the south to influence the
elections ... it's funded primarily through their charity organizations
and
also Badr and some of these political parties," said Gen. George W. Casey,
the top U.S. general in Iraq. "A lot of their guys (Badr) are going into
the
police and military."

Current and former ministry officials said the American military hadn't
interfered with Badr's infiltration of the ministry, either because U.S.
officials weren't fully aware of what was happening or because they didn't
want to risk arresting militia leaders who had powerful political
positions
and tens of thousands of followers.

Interior Ministry and Badr officials have denied any involvement in the
prisons or death squads, but Gen. Muntadhar Muhi al-Samaraee, a former
head
of special forces at the Interior Ministry, said the prisons were run by
Badr operatives.

"All prisons in the south and most of those in Baghdad are run by the Badr
militia," al-Samaraee, a Sunni, said in an interview in Amman, Jordan.
Al-Samaraee said he left the country for medical treatment and decided not
to return because of death threats. He's denied Interior Ministry
accusations that he fled to Jordan after stealing a car.

Badr's leader, Hadi al-Amari, has denied maintaining ties to Iran, but in
a
fit of anger during a recent interview with Knight Ridder he admitted as
much while striking out against U.S.-backed secular Shiite politician Ayad
Allawi.

"Allawi receives money from America, from the CIA, but nobody talks about
that. All they talk about is our funding from Iran," he said, raising his
voice. "We are funded by some (Persian) Gulf countries and the Islamic
Republic of Iran. We don't hide it."

Badr was formed and trained in Iran in cooperation with the Iranian
government, and its members staged raids into Iraq during the war between
the neighboring countries in the 1980s.

"The Americans use the Interior Ministry commandos as tools to fight the
insurgency. They know what Badr is doing and they don't care," charged
Omar
al-Jabouri, a top official with the Iraqi Islamic Party, an influential
Sunni group. "The interests of the Americans are the same as Badr."

Sunni groups, including the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Muslim Scholars
Association, have cataloged hundreds of instances this year in which men
wearing Interior Ministry uniforms arrived in Sunni neighborhoods at night
and took men who later were found dead.

Last Thursday, a raid on a detention center near the Interior Ministry
building found 13 men who apparently had been tortured and needed medical
treatment.

Last month, 169 men, most of them Sunnis, were found in an Interior
Ministry
bunker in Baghdad's Jadriyah neighborhood. Many of them had been beaten
with
leather belts and steel rods and made to sit in their own excrement,
according to a U.S. military official and an Iraqi who was held at the
center. Police officers with knowledge of the jail said Badr ran it.

A Human Rights Ministry official who spoke only on the condition of
anonymity said both places were home to clandestine operations run by the
Interior Ministry's intelligence units.

"We monitor the prisons, but there are so many secret centers that we know
nothing about," the official said.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, acknowledged that the
torture at the Jadriyah site was carried out by a rogue Interior Ministry
intelligence group.

"It's not clear this was an official MOI (Ministry of Interior)
organization," the official said. "If you look at the MOI organizational
charts, you will not find the Jadriyah bunker."

After Iraq's national elections last January, the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party that's tied to Badr, took
power and installed an official with strong ties to Badr, Bayan Jabr, as
the
head of the Interior Ministry. The ministry's ranks, particularly
intelligence and commando units, were quickly stocked with Badr militia
members, according to interviews with current and former ministry
officials.

"Everybody says you have a Badr guy in the MOI. Well ... he was elected,"
said the senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. "And they say he's
appointed a bunch of Badr guys. We have a Republican administration in
America, and guess what? They've appointed a lot of Republicans. You
elected
SCIRI, and SCIRI is Badr."

The American officer said it would be up to the Iraqi government to deal
with the Badr organization and other militias.

Sunni leaders say the Shiite-controlled government will never police
Shiite
militias.

There also have been allegations that the militia that's loyal to radical
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who also has Iranian support, is
responsible
for some of the killings. Many of the details of the incidents, however,
point more to Badr. For instance, the killers often are reported as
traveling in white Toyota Land Cruisers and carrying Glock pistols. Both
are
common at the Badr headquarters in Baghdad, but not with al-Sadr's Mahdi
Army fighters, most of whom are poor and travel in beat-up vans and cars.

Asked who was behind the rounding up and killing of Sunnis, Casey said, "I
don't know that it's the quote Badr corps that's doing it or the ... Mahdi
(Army) that's doing it, but I have no doubt that people who are associated
with those groups are involved."

Although militias are illegal under Iraqi law, Badr has flourished as U.S.
forces have declined to crack down.

"It's not infiltration. They're upfront about it (their militia
affiliation)
and day to day things are OK, but then there's a crisis," Casey said.
"What
you see happening is that people are ... signing up (for the security
forces) but their loyalties lie more to a militia leader than a chief of
police."

A document obtained by Knight Ridder appears to reveal the existence of an
Interior Ministry death squad.

A memo written by an Iraqi general in the ministry operations room and
addressed to the minister's office says on its subject line: "Names of
detainees." It lists 14 men who were taken from Iskan, a Sunni
neighborhood
in western Baghdad, during the early morning hours of Aug. 18. It also
marks
the time of their detention: 5:15 a.m.

The bodies of the same 14 men were found in the town of Badrah near the
Iranian border in early October. Hussein Sayhoud, a doctor at Baghdad's
main
morgue who examined the bodies and signed one of the death certificates,
said that most of the men had been killed by single gunshots to their
heads.

"I remember when they brought in the whole group," Sayhoud said. "They
were
so badly decomposed we couldn't identify any marks of torture."

The general who signed the Interior Ministry memo, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem
Khalaf, confirmed its authenticity. But despite a heading that reads
"Names
of the detainees in the Iskan District," Khalaf maintained that
insurgents,
not Interior Ministry police, had abducted the men.

It's unclear, however, why an Interior Ministry general would refer to men
who'd been kidnapped by Sunni insurgents as "detainees" in an official
government document, or how the general knew the exact time of the
abduction.

Pressed for more details, Khalaf said: "The minister is very upset. He
wants
to know how such a document slipped out of the ministry."

Col. Joseph DiSalvo, who commands a brigade of the U.S. Army's 3rd
Infantry
Division in eastern Baghdad, where there's a heavy Shiite militia
presence,
said it would be all but impossible for the American military to defeat
the
militias.

The largest neighborhood in DiSalvo's area of operations is Sadr City,
home
to 2.5 million to 3 million people. It was the site of fierce clashes last
year between al-Sadr's militia and U.S. forces.

"Sadr City is probably our most secure zone because of the de facto
militia
presence ... the Mahdi militias doing their neighborhood patrols," DiSalvo
said. "And you also have Badr patrols where you have SCIRI enclaves."

There've been reports of several instances in DiSalvo's area of Sunni men
being rounded up by vehicles with Interior Ministry markings, then found
murdered.

"The coalition forces cannot enforce it (the law forbidding militias). We
cannot negate the militias. It would be like having a 2 million-man tribe,
and all of a sudden saying, `Tribe, you do not exist,'" DiSalvo said.
"You'd
have to have more manpower than is feasible."


--
China: See Wal-Mart.

"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
It took you nearly three years to figure this out. The rest of us
"righties" have known this as a potential problem in Iraq since 1990.

It's good that you knew that. Now, if you think real hard, you might figure
out why your president's strategy could have ONLY had this result, and no
other.

In article ,
says...
"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
It took you nearly three years to figure this out. The rest of us
"righties" have known this as a potential problem in Iraq since 1990.

It's good that you knew that. Now, if you think real hard, you might figure
out why your president's strategy could have ONLY had this result, and no
other.

His daddy figured it out without going in...

I'm guessin' GW now thinks his daddy is one real smart feller.

jps

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
"Bert Robbins" wrote in message
...
It took you nearly three years to figure this out. The rest of us
"righties" have known this as a potential problem in Iraq since 1990.

It's good that you knew that. Now, if you think real hard, you might
figure
out why your president's strategy could have ONLY had this result, and no
other.

His daddy figured it out without going in...

I'm guessin' GW now thinks his daddy is one real smart feller.

jps

I've seen a couple of interesting articles about this by former participants
in his daddy's adventures. They all say the same thing: The whole strategy
is wrong. Not "get out", but do it MUCH differently. The problem with their
approach is that it requires the ability to understand certain subtleties of
other cultures.

So much for that idea. Next president, please. I don't care what party he or
she comes from - it couldn't be any dumber than George.