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[casi] News, 15-22/11/02 (3)



News, 15-22/11/02 (3)

THE OPPOSITION/COLLABORATION

*  Ex-Iraqi Generals Advise U.S.
*  Exiled Iraqi Groups Settle Feud
*  Iraqi exiles throwing elbows
*  Iraqi Dissidents Move Unity Meeting
*  War crimes arrest blow to Iraqi opposition
*  US forms Iraqi opposition army

INSIDE IRAQ

*  8 senior Iraqi officers executed: Daily
*  UN Oil-for-Food Program Has Halved Child Malnutrition in Iraq
*  Saddam shuts down newspaper run by his son Uday
*  How Times barked and Saddam's son was bitten
*  Iraq Christians Hail Saint's Relics
*  Iraqi women tell of Iraq oppression
*  The delegation of the opposition Iraqi National Alliance gets ready to
meet Saddam


THE OPPOSITION/COLLABORATION

http://cgi.wn.com/?action=display&article=16791271&template=baghdad/indexsea
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*  EX-IRAQI GENERALS ADVISE U.S.
Associated Press, 15th November

WASHINGTON: Five Iraqi generals, all defectors from Saddam Hussein's army,
said Friday that once Saddam is ousted, military and security forces in Iraq
must focus on national defense rather than protecting the replacement
regime.

The five, speaking at a seminar sponsored by the American Enterprise
Institute, all criticized the vast array of forces Saddam has assembled to
protect himself from plots against his regime.

Brig. Gen. Tawfik al-Yassiri, who once served as commander of an
administrative affairs school in Iraq, said, "It is important to get rid of
factions that exceed a defensive role."

Brig. Gen. Muhammad Baraa al-Rubaie, a former battalion commander, agreed,
saying that military and security forces "should be used for defense and not
for security purposes."

The major theme of the conference was reconstruction of Iraq's armed forces
in the post Saddam era, a subject that is gaining increasing attention these
days as U.S. military forces take up positions near Iraq in advance of a
possible attempt to dislodge the Iraqi leader.

The Iraqis all spoke through translators, although one of the five, Gen.
Fawzi al-Shammari, opened his remarks with few sentences in English on
Saddam.

"I know him. I know his behavior. It is not my honor to have been one of his
leaders," said al Shammari, who headed nine divisions during the Iran-Iraq
war.

Brig. Gen. Najib al-Salhi, who once served as a commander of a Republican
Guard battalion, said Saddam has survived many attempts by military
personnel to assassinate him.

"Not a month passes without such attempts," said al-Salhi. "The jails are
full." Al-Salhi led underground efforts to depose Saddam starting in 1979,
and defected in 1995.

Al-Salhi said the Iraqi military never engaged in actions outside Iraq's
borders until Saddam took power, alluding to the Iraqi invasions of Iran in
1980 and Kuwait in 1990.

"This is not inherent behavior," al-Salhi said, suggesting that, under a new
regime, problems with neighbors would be resolved diplomatically, as in the
pre-Saddam era.

"Aggressive tendencies are an affliction of Saddam's regime," he added.

Describing Iraq's military as disgruntled, al-Salhi predicted that in the
event outside forces invade Iraq, Saddam cannot count on his forces to
defend him.

He suggested that a few hundred may fight for a few days and then stop.

But Gen. Sadoum al-Dulaimi, who once headed the Center of
Socio-psychological and Security Studies in Iraq, disputed that prediction,
saying that Saddam's security forces would fight fiercely in his defense.

He said 90 percent of these forces, like Saddam, are Sunni Muslims, a
minority sect.

He added that they are trained to protect the country from external and
internal threats and also are prepared to take on the Iraqi army in the
event of an uprising.

The other major ethnic groups are the Shiites, based in the south, and the
northern-based Kurds, both of which are overwhelmingly hostile to Saddam.

Al-Dulaimi said one option for a post-Saddam government would be to haul
large numbers of security force personnel before tribunals to prosecute them
for abuses against the Iraqi people.

But, he said, it would be preferable for the majority to be given a chance
to be good citizens in a new Iraq.

"Their expertise should not be wasted," al-Dulaimi said, reflecting the
views of several of his colleagues.


http://cgi.wn.com/?action=display&article=16817112&template=baghdad/indexsea
rch.txt&index=recent

*  EXILED IRAQI GROUPS SETTLE FEUD
Associated Press, 17th November

CAIRO, Egypt: Six exiled Iraqi opposition groups have settled a feud that
delayed a meeting to discuss their possible role in toppling Saddam Hussein,
an Iraqi dissident said Sunday.

Though the way has been opened for a meeting in Brussels ‹ originally
scheduled for September, the opposition remains deeply divided and
negotiations will be tough. The Iraqi opposition is split along sectarian,
ethnic, clan and political lines. The rivalries have grown more intense with
the prospect of a U.S.-led war to oust Saddam.

In a U.S-brokered compromise, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi
backed off demands to bring 300 more of his supporters to the meeting, which
is expected to be dominated by his powerful political rivals.

The sides agreed to bring just 40 more delegates to the meeting, said Hamid
al-Bayati, a spokesman for the six groups. That means about 300 delegates
will attend in all.

The group hasn't decided who the new delegates will be, al-Bayati said. The
meeting is expected to take place sometime next month.

Al-Bayati said five U.S. mediators from the State Department, the Pentagon
and the National Security Council worked out the compromise during meetings
Saturday in London.

"The Americans pressed for an enlarged conference to be held as soon as
possible and we had no problem with this," al-Bayati said.

The delegates are expected to debate ways the six groups can help oust
Saddam and form a possible government afterward.

Kanan Makiya, another key dissident and a Chalabi ally, had written the
State Department asking it to stop the conference. He said liberal and
independent dissidents would be excluded.

Chalabi spokesmen could not be reached for comment. Al-Bayati said Makiya
had approved the compromise.

Al-Bayati also said a preparatory committee has turned down a proposal by
Makiya and other U.S.-backed exiles that calls for a transitional government
that would be set up before Saddam is toppled.

The United States has repeatedly urged Iraqi opposition groups to unite and
develop plans for governing their nation if Saddam is overthrown.

Last week the preparatory committee said it was postponing the conference
from Friday for two weeks, in part because most of the delegates have not
yet received Belgian visas.

The Belgian government has said the delegates did not give it time to
process visas. The Belgians also appeared concerned that holding the a
meeting in Brussels could be seen as interference in Iraq's internal
affairs.


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK19Ak02.html

*  IRAQI EXILES THROWING ELBOWS
by David Isenberg
Asia Times, 18th November

As the world waits and watches to hear from UN weapons inspectors in Iraq,
it is business as usual for the Iraqi opposition groups on the outside -
that is to say, tumultuous, disorganized and mostly feuding.

The US military has begun training 5,000 Iraqi exiles to fight along with
allied troops should an invasion finally occur. And, according to Zaab
Sethna, a senior member of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the political
leadership of the Iraqi opposition abroad, a second group of 10,000 will
begin training in a matter of weeks.

On Sunday, six exiled Iraqi opposition groups settled a feud that had
delayed a meeting to discuss their possible role in toppling Saddam Hussein,
according to an Iraqi dissident. In a US-brokered compromise, INC leader
Ahmed Chalabi backed off demands to bring 300 more of his supporters to the
meeting, expected to be dominated by his powerful political rivals.

Reportedly five US mediators from the State Department, the Pentagon and the
National Security Council worked out the compromise during meetings on
Saturday in London. US Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman pressed the
dissidents to speed up the convening of a broad conference on Iraq's future.
Grossman said that the proposed conference should choose a committee to
consult with all sectors of Iraqi society about the country's future should
Saddam be ousted.

The sides agreed to bring just 40 more delegates to the meeting, said Hamid
al-Bayati, a spokesman for the six groups. That means about 300 delegates
will attend in all.

This opens the way for a November 22 meeting in Brussels - originally
scheduled for September - which is supposed to serve as a showcase of
emerging cooperation among opponents of Saddam. The delegates are expected
to debate ways in which the six groups can help oust Saddam and form a
possible government afterward.

But the opposition remains deeply divided and negotiations will be tough.
The opposition groups have not held a unity conference since 1997. The main
reason that they are holding one now is that the Bush administration has
been encouraging them for several months to resolve their longstanding
differences and to lay the groundwork for the creation of an interim
government should, or when, Hussein be deposed.

But the latest dispute has raised new questions about whether the groups can
ever work together and underscored the pitfalls of trying to create an
alternative Iraqi government. The groups have deep ideological differences
and mistrust of each other. Each side has accused the others of trying to
use the conference to gain control of a post-Hussein Iraqi government.

The Iraqi opposition is split along sectarian, ethnic, clan and political
lines. The rivalries have grown more intense with the prospect of a US-led
war to oust Saddam. The Iraqi National Congress is also clashing with the
State Department over US$8 million in funding for propaganda, humanitarian
and other programs it is supposed to oversee. A much heralded INC
"information-gathering" operation inside Iraq has yet to get off the ground,
the officials said, because of uncertainty in the Bush administration about
the INC's ability to get and relay useful intelligence.

Meanwhile, according to a news report coming out of London, a confidential
report setting out how Iraq should be run after the ousting of Saddam has
divided the administration of President George W Bush and ignited a damaging
row between exiles vying for power.

The report, funded by the State Department in Washington and drawn up by
more than 30 Iraqi intellectuals, urges that Saddam and his inner circle be
tried for war crimes, while mid and low-level officials from his ruling
Ba'ath party face truth and reconciliation hearings modeled on South
Africa's post-apartheid commission. It recommends an amnesty for those who
join in opposing Saddam in the event of an American invasion. The proposals
also include restitution of property confiscated by the Saddam government,
along the lines of post-Nazi Germany.

While such measures are broadly supported by the main groups of Iraqi
dissidents and by officials in Washington, the report's recommendations for
a transitional government have become the focus of bitter controversy.

The proposals are contained in a draft document entitled "A Report on the
Transition to Democracy in Iraq". It has been drawn up under the auspices of
Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi writer and Harvard academic who has chronicled
Saddam's reign of terror, and ally of Ahmed Chalabi, heads of the INC.

Makiya and his fellow authors have called for a transitional government to
be elected by a conference of exiles. They say that this government, whose
first priority would be to limit disruption caused by the disintegration of
Saddam's authority, should be chosen on the basis of "professional and
individual capability rather than political representation".

The report is scathing about the state of the Iraqi opposition, saying, "No
Iraqi Arab political organization on the scene today has been tested and can
be said to be truly representative." While the White House and the Pentagon
are understood to support the proposals, the State Department is concerned
that a transitional government of professional people chosen on merit would
be dominated by the INC.

Chalabi supports the findings of the report on Iraq's transition to
democracy, which envisages an executive and a national assembly. However,
the smaller opposition groups, including two Kurdish parties, fear that
their role would become marginal if the proposals were enacted, and are
vigorously opposing them.

And last but not least is a report in the new issue of American Prospect
magazine. It says that Chalabi is the "front man for the latest incarnation
of a long-time neoconservative strategy to redraw the map of the oil-rich
Middle East, put American troops - and American oil companies - in full
control of the Persian Gulf's reserves and use the Gulf as a fulcrum for
enhancing America's global strategic hegemony".

According to the article, once an occupying US army seizes Baghdad,
Chalabi's INC and its American backers are spinning scenarios about
dismantling Saudi Arabia, seizing its oil and collapsing the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries.


http://cgi.wn.com/?action=display&article=16855897&template=baghdad/indexsea
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*  IRAQI DISSIDENTS MOVE UNITY MEETING
Associated Press, 19th November

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) ‹ Iraqi dissidents have agreed to move their unity
conference from Belgium to Britain and have set a date, but old divisions
are likely to shadow the meeting even as the United States presses the
exiles to prepare to run their country.

Hamid al-Bayati, a London-based spokesman for the conference's organizers,
said Tuesday the meeting was being moved from Brussels to London and had
been tentatively scheduled for Dec. 10-11.

He said the meeting was moved because of "a negative response" from the
Belgian government.

The conference, which was expected to choose a committee that might be the
basis of an interim government for a post-Saddam Iraq, has repeatedly been
postponed, in part because of clashes within the Iraqi opposition ‹ split
along sectarian, ethnic, clan and political lines. The rivalries have grown
more intense with the prospect of a U.S.-led war to oust Saddam.

The conference originally was scheduled for September in Belgium. After
first postponing until Nov. 22, organizers had said last week the meeting
was being pushed back two more weeks, in part because most of the delegates
have not yet received Belgian visas.

The Belgian government has said the delegates did not give it time to
process visas. The Belgians also appeared concerned that holding the meeting
in Brussels could be seen as interference in Iraq's internal affairs.

The United States has repeatedly urged Iraqi opposition groups to unite and
develop plans for governing their nation if Saddam is overthrown.

According to opposition sources, a U.S team representing the State
Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council has offered "a
paper of principles" it wants the dissidents to use to guide their
activities.

The paper stressed U.S. support for a single, unified opposition conference,
but made clear that Washington does not support "a national assembly or a
provisional government at this point."

The paper, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, also
proposes that any post-Saddam regime unconditionally accept all U.N.
Security Council resolutions, including one calling for disarming Iraq.

Al-Bayati, who ‹ in addition to acting as a spokesman for the conference
organizers ‹ is a representative of the Iran-based Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group, and Fouad Masoum of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said their groups are not bound by the terms
set out by the Americans.

"This is an Iraqi conference and financed by Iraqis. We will decide what we
feel is in the interests of our people," al-Bayati said in a telephone
interview.

Masoum noted that the U.S. document does not refer to a federal system, a
central demand of Iraqi Kurds.

"We will take what we see good to us and reject what is not," Masoum said by
telephone from his London office.

Kurds as well as Shiite Muslims have complained of repression by the
minority Sunni Muslim community that has traditionally dominated Iraqi
politics.

The six groups planning the unity meeting are the Constitutional Monarchist
Movement, led by a first cousin of the last Iraqi king; the Iraqi National
Accord; the Iraqi National Congress; the Kurdistan Democratic Party; the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution
in Iraq.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-486536,00.html

*  WAR CRIMES ARREST BLOW TO IRAQI OPPOSITION
by Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
The Times, 20th November

DANISH police arrested last night an exiled Iraqi general tipped as a
possible replacement for President Saddam Hussein. He faces charges that he
was responsible for killing thousands of Kurds in a chemical weapons attack
14 years ago.

The arrest of General Nizar Khazraji, the former Iraqi Chief-of-Staff and
the most senior officer to defect from Baghdad, appeared to wreck any
chances that he might lead a mutiny in the Armed Forces and help to topple
Saddam's regime.

He has been under investigation in the North Sea town of Soroe for the past
year, after he was reported to the Danish authorities by a Kurdish
immigrant. Reports from Copenhagen last night said that the police had
charged him with war crimes, violating the Geneva conventions and other
human rights abuses.

General Khazraji, 64, commanded the Iraqi Armed Forces during the Iran-Iraq
War, when Baghdad used banned poison gas against Iranian troops and Kurdish
civilians. In the most notorious incident 5,000 Kurds in the town of Halabja
were killed when Iraqi artillery and warplanes bombed the area with nerve
gas and mustard gas.

He remained military commander during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but
fled to Jordan after falling out with Saddam. He applied for political
asylum with his wife and son in Denmark three years ago.

Iraqi opposition sources said last night that his arrest was a serious blow
to their efforts to build a credible alternative to Saddam's regime. Next
month they hope to convene a conference in London for 350 Iraqi exiles as a
first step to establishing an alternative government.General Khazraji could
have played an important role, particularly on security and military
matters.

"His arrest is a major setback for us," one opposition figure said. "He is a
man with credibility back home. His arrest will make it that much harder to
encourage other officers to defect if they fear that they will be charged,
too."

The Bush Administration is compiling evidence against several prominent
members of the Saddam regime, who could face war crimes trials if it is
toppled. Washington, however, would like any hearings to take place inside
Iraq and to concentrate on a "dirty dozen" list of suspects, including
Saddam and his ruling clan.

General Khazraji, from a prominent Sunni Muslim family in the northern Iraqi
city of Mosul, was not believed to under investigation. Nevertheless, he was
regarded in Washington and London as one of the few former army officers
with real clout inside the Armed Forces. His arrest will probably be greeted
with dismay in both capitals. The Bush Administration is counting on the
Iraqi Army to revolt en masse against Saddam in the event of a US-led
operation.

General Khazraji has consistently denied that he was responsible for
ordering the use of chemical weapons and claims that the accusations were
orchestrated by Iraqi intelligence officers to prevent him co-operating with
the opposition.

In a BBC interview earlier this year he predicted that the military would
rise against Saddam in the right circumstances. "The most important thing is
that the Iraqis must be sure that a democratic regime will be there after
the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and Iraq will be an independent country," he
said.

Although mentioned as a possible future leader, he said that he was not
interested in the job. "I am a military man, I prefer to stay on this side,"
he said.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1121/p01s02-wome.html

*  US FORMS IRAQI OPPOSITION ARMY
by Scott Peterson
Christian Science Monitor, 22nd November

SULEIMANIYEH AND ARBIL, NORTHERN IRAQ ­ With promises of $3,000 and a trip
to America, the US is quietly recruiting - inside northern Iraq - part of a
new 5,000-man force to help topple Saddam Hussein.

But Iraqi opposition leaders here say that the US is creating a military
force for the controversial Iraqi National Congress (INC), which has little
support in Iraq. It is one of six opposition groups that Washington is
encouraging to come up with a plan for ruling a post Hussein Iraq.

Iraq's squabbling opposition groups have already put off until mid-December
a key meeting in Brussels meant to have started tomorrow. This
behind-the-scenes US drive - which may also include a separate US
intelligence effort to recruit agents across Iraq - is exacerbating the
infighting between the Iraqi groups.

"The US should enter into partnership with the real freedom fighters of
Iraq, the people with a real constituency," says Barham Salih, the prime
minister of one of two main armed Kurdish groups that control northern Iraq,
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. "Mercenaries will not do the job."

In early October, President Bush signed a presidential directive authorizing
the combat training, and approved the use of $92 million remaining from the
1998 Iraq Liberation Act to create a force of local scouts, interpreters,
forward spotters to call in laser-guided bombs, and even guards for
prisoner-of-war camps. Most of those recruited for the new army so far are
being drawn from Iraqi exiles living abroad, from lists supplied by the INC,
but some fresh recruiting is now taking place here in northern Iraq.

Critics say the new army is designed to provide a power base for the INC
leader, Ahmed Chalabi, who has the ear of Congress, the Pentagon and Vice
President Dick Cheney's office, but has little support in Iraq and is
dismissed by some State Department and CIA officials as a self-promoting
solo act.

Ironically, one of the top recruiters for America's new Iraqi opposition
army is Bahaldeen Nouri, a septuagenarian former secretary general of the
Iraqi Communist Party. In recent weeks, he's signed up and sent 150 new
recruits to Turkey, for transport to a secret training camp.

"So many people have shown an interest - some people slept overnight to sign
up; people came from Iran," says Kurdish elder Nouri, his turban cocked
gamely to the right. Though he has reservations about the quality of the
recruits, the first batch sent off to a secret training base was "very, very
enthusiastic, because they hate [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein," and were
promised $3000 and a trip to the US.

Nouri makes clear he was not asked directly by Americans to take part, and
that a "friend with links to the outside" requested his help with the
hush-hush operation.

But Nouri has no doubt about who he is working for: "America is recruiting
them, paying them and training them," he says. "America should decide what
to do with them."

Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, who control tens of thousands of lightly
armed forces arrayed against the Baghdad regime, say the US effort to create
yet another force is "dangerous" and could result in a "fiasco."

Informed sources say the initial batch of recruits has been "infiltrated" by
intelligence "assets" of several governments, including Iraq.

"This should be about freedom, not about king-making," says Mr. Salih, of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The forms for applicants to the "Iraq Liberation Army" ask volunteers about
their past military experience, family history of imprisonments and
executions by the Baghdad regime, and whether they had taken part in war
crimes or human rights violations.

"Did you ever speak or give any pronouncement against America?" reads the
final question.

Most of the recruits from northern Iraq so far are from Iraq's minority
Sunni Arab population, the same group that Mr. Hussein is from, and that -
unlike the Kurds in the north, and Shia Muslim Arabs in the south - have no
armed opposition forces of their own.

While noting that such guides could be useful for US troops during any
invasion, "the Iraqi people will not take kindly to such groups - no matter
how patriotic they may be - if they are seen to be riding the US train,"
says Fawzi Hariri, a senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP), the other main armed group in northern Iraq.

And KDP Prime Minister Nerchivan Barzani warns that any new force will
create "tension" in the opposition. "Who is this being organized for? We
assume it is for Ahmed Chalabi," he says, adding that it would be
"impossible" for the INC leader to find 5,000 followers without paying for
them.

"We think it is very dangerous, because we view that [force] as the nucleus
for a new civil war in the future," Mr. Barzani says.

"There are sufficient armed men in Iraq already - we don't need anymore."

Though Mr. Chalabi "deserves to play a role," Mr. Hariri says, "Iraq is not
Afghanistan, and there is no room for warlords - especially imported ones."

Most of Nouri's recruits so far are from northern Iraq, and from Iraq's
minority Sunni Arab population, though he says his organization, the
Kurdistan Democratic Movement, is able to recruit from across Iraq. Mr.
Hussein is from the Sunni Muslim Arab minority, which - unlike the Kurds in
the north, and Shia Muslim Arabs in the south - has no armed opposition
forces of its own.

For that reason, having such a force play a role in any US invasion may
appeal to American war planners.

"It's a reasonable thing to do, because Arabs aren't going to join Kurdish
forces, and Kurds won't train outside Iraq," says Peter Galbraith, a former
US ambassador who has spent years working on northern Iraq issues, now at
the National War College in Washington.

"The State Department should be careful about belittling Chalabi - he ought
to have a role," says Mr. Galbraith. "Dismissing him as a Savile Row
revolutionary is not fair. It's easy to dismiss a bunch of guys who go
around Washington with tin cups and pontificating."

Even some of Chalabi's sternest critics say he should receive credit for
keeping Iraq opposition issues alive in Congress during the 1990s.

But Chalabi also has a colorful past that is coloring the present. He is
wanted in Jordan for allegedly embezzling from a bank that he ran, and
played a key role in a CIA operation in northern Iraq in the 1990s that went
bust. State Department funding for the INC was cut off for a time this year,
amid allegations of fiscal mismanagement.

"Chalabi has no military on the ground, so how can he tell America 'I have
1,000 fighters'? So he comes here to get them," says a senior Kurdish
security official. "But these people are collected from the street - they're
not fighters."

The Iraqi infighting is taking place as the US is moving its own CIA assets
into Iraq. The Washington Post reported last week that "two teams of eight
CIA agents each, with interpreters, were recently inserted secretly" into
KDP and PUK territory. It said that Vice President Dick Cheney "reportedly
exploded" when he found that State and the CIA had blocked funding for a $4
million intelligence gathering operation inside Iraq by dissidents.

Former communist chief Nouri could be recruiting for some similar operation.
The clock on his office wall ticks away, inexplicably two hours and ten
minutes fast. He speaks about how the force he is helping to build will be
the kernel for a new, national army, drawn from all of Iraq's ethnic groups
to minimize revenge attacks and street fighting in a post-Saddam world.

But even Nouri is not entirely pleased with the recruiting effort.

"We should send people who are capable, and believe in it, but some of those
who were collected - maybe they won't be good for this mission," says Nouri.
"The way it has been done, so rushed, means some people were not suitable.
Some of those, you look at them, and you can see that they can't be
trained."

Nouri denies that he's recruiting directly for Chalabi's INC, saying that he
uses "different channels." His first group of recruits was kept at a hotel
in KDP territory for several days, at KDP expense, before moving to the town
of Zakho and crossing into Turkey. He says he is waiting for a call to send
the second batch.

"This is not Chalabi's army," Nouri says. "This army is a power base for
America - if they want Ahmed Chalabi to be a powerful man, or someone else,
I don't know.

"My goal is to change the regime, and America is doing that," Nouri says.
"They are trying to do a good job in Iraq, and we should clasp hands and
join with them."


INSIDE IRAQ

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_104153,00050004.htm

*  8 SENIOR IRAQI OFFICERS EXECUTED: DAILY
Hindustani Times, from Press Trust of India, 17th November

Eight senior Iraqi officers were executed after they were accused of
triggering an explosion at a missile storage site which they supervised, a
Kurdish weekly said on Sunday.

The Mediya reported that the officers, who were responsible for the depot in
Biji, north of Baghdad, were executed on November 8 in the presence of Ali
Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

It published the names of the officers, including those of a general and a
colonel.

There was no confirmation of the report by the Iraqi authorities or other
sources.

The Mediya weekly is published in the UN enclave of northern Iraq, where the
majority ethnic Kurds have enjoyed a degree of autonomy since Iraqi troops
were defeated in the 1991 Gulf war.

Radio Azadi, which broadcasts from Iraqi Kurdistan, said meanwhile that the
bodies of 12 women, who were freed from prison under an Iraqi amnesty on
October 20, were found lying in a vacant lot in Baghdad.


http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=11/17/02&Cat=5&Num=2

*  UN OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM HAS HALVED CHILD MALNUTRITION IN IRAQ
Tehran Times, 17th November

UNITED NATIONS -- Malnutrition rates among children in Iraq have halved
since the United Nations oil-for-food program was set up six years ago, UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan said Friday.

In a report to the Security Council, Annan said there had also been "major
achievements" in transport and food handling and improvements in education
and electricity, AFP reported.

But he drew attention to the "dire funding shortfall", due in part to a row
between Iraq and members of the UN Security Council over the oil export
pricing mechanism, and he appealed to both sides to help end it.

The council has scheduled a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the report. The
program comes up for renewal on November 25, when its current 180-day phase
expires.

Oil-for-food was set up in December 1996 to cushion Iraqi citizens from the
crippling sanctions imposed on their country after it invaded Kuwait in
August 1990.

Originally a conduit for food and medicine, it now includes 24 economic
sectors and has a budget of more than 10 billion dollars a year, four-fifths
of it for government-controlled regions in the south and center of the
country and one-fifth for the Kurdish North, where the program is run by UN
agencies.

"Preliminary findings indicate a reduction in the number of underweight
children from 23 percent in 1996 to 10 percent in 2002," in central and
southern Iraq, the report said.

The rates of chronic malnutrition had dropped from 32 to 24 percent and of
acute malnutrition from 11 to 5.4 percent in the same period.

In northern Iraq, there was a 20 percent reduction in acute malnutrition, a
56 percent cut in chronic malnutrition and a 44 percent decrease in the
incidence of underweight children in the under-five age group, the report
said.

"The nutritional value of the monthly food basket distributed countrywide
has almost doubled since 1996, from about 1,200 to about 2,200 kilocalories
per person per day," it said. Among the "major achievements" in transport,
traffic through the port of Umm Qasr -- Iraq's only outlet to the sea -- was
16 percent greater in 2001 than in the previous year, resulting in "the
quicker discharge of vessels, the faster receipt of program inputs and a
reduction in transport cost."

Goods traffic on the railways rose by 30 percent last year and reliable
inter-city public passenger road and rail services had been restored, it
said.

"Notable achievements in the health sector" included a 40 percent [increase?
- PB] in major surgeries since 1997 in the center and south of Iraq as well
as a reduction in communicable diseases such as cholera, malaria, measles,
mumps, meningitis and tuberculosis.

"Countrywide there have been no cases of polio in the last 32 months," the
report said.

"There are, however, shortages of pre-anaesthetic and reagents" because the
UN Security Council's Sanctions Committee blocked imports of goods believed
to have a military potential.

Cholera has been eradicated in northern Iraq and malaria is at an 11-year
low, the report said.

"The distribution of 1.2 million school desks has met 60 percent of the need
at primary and secondary schools in the center and south," it went on. "This
is a great improvement compared with the situation in 1996, when primary and
secondary school students were forced to sit on bare floors."

On the downside, the report noted that access to drinking water was
"insufficient in both quantity and quality".

Water and sanitation networks are in a poor state of repair and an estimated
500,000 tons of solid raw or partially raw sewage is discharged daily into
Iraq's two rivers, which are the main source of water, the report said.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=354222

*  SADDAM SHUTS DOWN NEWSPAPER RUN BY HIS SON UDAY
by Anne Penketh
The Independent, 21st November

Saddam Hussein has ordered a month-long shutdown of the newspaper run by his
eldest son, Uday, a move that appears to signal a new bout of trouble in
Iraq's ruling family.

Iraqi officials said President Saddam had banned Mr Hussein's newspaper,
Babel, for "violating the instructions of the Information Ministry".

In the absence of any further official explanation, there was speculation
that the paper's criticism of pro-American Arab regimes may have prompted
the decision, at a time when Iraq's relations with Arab states have been
thawing.

Babel has recently attacked Jordan and Egypt, and published details on
Sunday of a British newspaper report that President Saddam had sent an envoy
to Libya to negotiate a "bolt hole" for family members in case of his
military overthrow.

The intriguing move against Babel comes when Mr Hussein appeared to have
prepared the ground for his father to agree to a new UN resolution calling
for the Iraqi regime to disarm or face military force.

On the day of the vote by the Iraqi National Assembly to reject the UN
terms, Mr Hussein, who is an MP, wrote an article to the parliament calling
for the resolution to be accepted. The following day, on 13 November, the
Iraqi leadership announced it would accept the resolution unconditionally.

Although he remains influential because of Babel, Mr Hussein, a playboy
turned politician, lost a power struggle within the Hussein family over the
past year when his younger brother Qusay was put in charge of the country's
security apparatus. Mr Hussein owns the popular Shehab (Youth) television
station and is chairman of Iraq's National Olympic Committee and the Iraqi
journalists' union.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-488813,00.html

*  HOW TIMES BARKED AND SADDAM'S SON WAS BITTEN
by Zoran Kusovac
The Times, 22nd November

IT MAY not have been such a good idea for a Baghdad newspaper to repeat a
Times story about Saddam Hussein's purchase of a Libyan bolthole for his
inner circle.

The Al-Babil daily, run by the Iraqi dictator's son Udai, printed an
abbreviated translation of the article. It had a mocking headline ‹ "The
Barking of the Dogs" ‹ but that has made no difference. The Iraqi
Information Ministry has banned the newspaper from publishing for a month.

Officials gave no reason beyond saying that it had "violated press
regulations". Observers believe that the ban must at least have Saddam's
tacit consent.

Al-Babil has published three articles in recent days that may have angered
Saddam, but Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Arabic paper Al Quds, had
little doubt that publishing the Times story was a major factor.

The suspension "probably means that Saddam was very angry that any reference
had been made to the damaging story at all, at this most sensitive time when
any mention of even junior family members planning to quit is potential
political dynamite".

Udai's newspaper regularly carries excerpts from foreign press and various
internet sources. A week ago it published a list of several hundred Iraqi
officials that an opposition website had identified as "targets". The
headline was: "Heroes' list".

It allegedly infuriated a number of those named. It also printed articles
considered insulting to Arab heads of state, in particular Egypt's President
Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah.

Once groomed to succeed his father, in the past few years Udai has been
overshadowed by his younger brother, Qusai, who heads the feared secret
service. Nevertheless, he remains extremely powerful.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,61-487235,00.html

*  VIBRANT REMINDER OF IRAQ'S RICH HISTORY
by Daniel Crewe
The Times, 21st November

THE title of "Miss Baghdad" may seem improbable today, but in 1947 the
competition not only existed but was won by a Jewish girl, Renιe Dangoor.
The photograph of Miss Baghdad, wrapped in a sash marked in Arabic, is one
of the most striking images in an exhibition that opened yesterday at the
Jewish Museum in London. Using material from Baghdadi Jews who now live in
London, By the Rivers of Babylon describes the glory years and final dark
days of the oldest of the diaspora communities.

Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylonia, had taken Jerusalem in 597BC and
forced Jews to live in Babylon in captivity. This was recalled in Psalm 137:
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we
remembered Zion." The exhibition is a timely reminder of Iraq's rich
history. "A lot of the Jewish institutions we take for granted today come
from the circumstances that Jews found themselves in when they were exiled,"
says Jennifer Marin, the curator of the exhibition.

It was the Jews in Iraq, for example, who established Torah academies, so
that over 300 years the compilation of Jewish law and practice, the
Babylonian Talmud (Bavli), was written. They also established the first
synagogues, after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the first Temple in Jerusalem in
586BC.

Babylonia became the centre of the Jewish world, and though Jews fled to
Syria and Kurdistan after the Mongol invasion of 1258, the religion was
revived in Iraq in the 19th century and many Jews became prominent figures.

The exhibition is set out in three parts. The first, which includes the
reconstruction of a house, looks at social life in Iraq, taking in music,
food and even the "henna" parties at which the dye would be applied to a
bride's fingers.

Most striking, though, is the fine clothing that is on display. Photographs
demonstrate the transition to Western attire in the 1930s and 1940s, and
there are fine examples of gold thread embroidery.

The second section consists of panels focusing on 2,000 years of glorious
times. "You can see what a rich and important culture it was," says Marin.
"It was side by side with the Muslim culture and no one saw any conflict."

The third section, which includes the dark etchings of the Baghdadi-born
artist Irene Scheinmann (nιe Reuben- Karady), looks at the community's
tragic decline, and at this point the coloured panels become black and
white. But the testimonies of those who have talked about life in Iraq
recall that even during the pogroms of 1941, Jews were helped by their
Muslim neighbours.

It was after these riots that thousands of Jews left the country, and
between 1948 and 1951 more than 120,000 Iraqis settled in Israel. There are
dramatic images of the Operation Ezra and Nehemiah airlift and of crowds
registering for emigration outside the Batawein synagogue, which was
described by a Times reporter last month as having "padlocked steel gates
plastered with Saddam Hussein posters".

Several departing Jews formed a close-knit community in London, where names
such as Saatchi and Kedourie became well known. In 1940 the Jews of Iraq
numbered more than 300,000 but by 1952 only 6,000 remained. Now there are
fewer than 40, and only two of those know Hebrew.

Many people headed not west from Iraq but east. The philanthropist David
Sassoon (1792 1864), whose family was a pillar of the Baghdad community, was
the first Jew to move from the city to Bombay, starting a business there in
the 1830s. His family included Rachel Sassoon Beer (who simultaneously
edited The Sunday Times and The Observer), and Siegfried Sassoon.

Playing in the background at the exhibition is music in the Iraqi Jewish
tradition by the mixed-faith nine-piece band, Rivers of Babylon, led by the
ethnomusicologist Dr Sara Manasseh, David Sassoon's great-great-great
granddaughter.

Dr Manasseh will next month talk on the music of the Baghdadi Jews as part
of the museum's programme of events and, in March, Rivers of Babylon will
give a concert as part of the Jewish Arts Festival. The concert is sponsored
by Naim Dangoor and the Exilarch's Foundation, the publisher of The Scribe,
the journal of Babylonian Jewry. Dangoor, who lent many items to the
exhibition, is the grandson of one of Iraq's leading chief rabbis, Hakham
Ezra Dangoor (1848-1930) ‹ and the husband of Miss Baghdad.

The exhibition continues until April 6 at The Jewish Museum, Albert Street,
London NW1. Telephone 020-7284 1997. www.jewishmuseum.org.uk


http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2002/nov/21/112103286.html

*  IRAQ CHRISTIANS HAIL SAINT'S RELICS
by Bassem Mroue
Las Vegas Sun (from AP), 21st November

BAGHDAD, Iraq- Hundreds of Christians held a mass to celebrate the arrival
of a French saint's relics to Iraq and said they hope the remains will
ensure peace in the country.

The relics of Saint Therese arrived by plane from Lebanon on Wednesday,
after touring that Arab nation for 77 days. The arrival coincided with a
call by Iraqi Christians for the country's churches to hold a special prayer
for peace Friday.

Dozens of people, many with their children, arrived at St. Joseph's Chaldean
Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad before the mass to see the relics inside a
brown box placed in front of the altar.

Saint Therese was a Catholic nun who lived in the Carmel convent in Lisieux,
about 125 miles northwest of Paris, and died at 24 in 1897. She was
canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius VI.

The relics arrived as United Nations inspectors prepared to resume their
search next week for weapons of mass destruction after a four-year absence.
The United States says it will use force to disarm Iraq if it does not fully
cooperate with the inspectors.

Some of those attending the mass said they hoped the relics would help
prevent war against Iraq and end the sweeping U.N. sanctions imposed after
its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Ramzia Isaac, a retired teacher, said she hoped Saint Therese would cure her
sick son. "I also hope that she will keep war away from us and end the
embargo."

Imad Elias, another worshipper, said he hoped the saint would cure him of
his diabetes and stop "the hostile war against us."

Patriarch Jean Suleiman said the saint's relics will tour Iraq until Dec.
27.

Christians make up about five percent of Iraq's 22 million people. One of
the most prominent Christians in the country is Deputy Prime Minister Tariq
Aziz.


http://cgi.wn.com/?action=display&article=16907355&template=baghdad/indexsea
rch.txt&index=recent

*  IRAQI WOMEN TELL OF IRAQ OPPRESSION
Associated Press, 21st November

LONDON (AP) ‹ Iraqi women from the country's different ethnic communities
spoke out Thursday about what they termed as oppression under Saddam
Hussein's regime, hoping to turn an international spotlight on the issue.

Six women who have fled their homes in the south, central, and northern
Kurdish areas of Iraq told a London news conference of deaths and
disappearances of their relatives, the burning of their homes, and of living
day to day under threat.

They were Arab, Kurdish, Assyrian, Turkoman and Shiite Muslim. And all spoke
of executions, torture and oppression in their communities.

"We are here begging the support of the free world to liberate us from the
nightmare that we have been living in for the past three decades," said
Safia al-Souhail, who accuses the Iraqi government of the 1994 assassination
of her father, head of the prominent Bani-Tamim tribe, who had been involved
in planning a coup against Saddam.

"Although men have received the biggest share of the tyrant's brutality,"
she said, "women end up suffering the consequence."

The wives of thousands of missing Iraqi men struggle to provide for their
families and cannot remarry, even though they are sure their husbands have
been killed, said al-Souhail.

Fatima Bahr al Ulum, a small, soft spoken young woman whose head was covered
by a scarf, read out a list of 22 members of her prominent Shiite family ‹
many of them scholars and imams ‹ saying they had been arrested shortly
after the start of the 1991 Iraqi uprising that followed the Gulf War.

Many have never been seen again; others remain in jail, she said.

The Sunni sect of Islam has dominated Iraq since its independence in 1922,
and has been accused of suppressing the Shiite branch of the religion there.

In the north, Iraq's Assyrians, who are Christians, have suffered cultural
oppression and thousands have been forced to leave the country.

Assyrian poet Melina Bakoos, now living in London, said her people, who
originated in Iraq thousands of years ago, are denied Iraqi passports and
many basic rights.

"Saddam Hussein and his regime have tried hard to kill our identity as a
nation," she said. "We are part of the Iraqi people with all its
nationalities."

Two Kurdish women, Ala Talabani and Berivan Doski, had stories of repeated
treks from their burned homes to places of refuge, sometimes over the
mountains to Iran.

The speakers called for a change of regime in Iraq, if necessary through
military action.

"Disarmament alone will not end our suffering," al-Souhail said. "This
regime should be indicted for its crimes against humanity."

The women said they were dedicated to working together for an Iraq that
respected all its peoples and gave women a place in government. But the
political opposition-in-exile has so far failed to overcome its divisions.

Iraqi dissident leaders are to meet in London next month and are expected to
choose a committee that might be the basis of an interim post-Saddam
government.

But the conference has repeatedly been postponed, in part because of clashes
within the Iraqi opposition ‹ split along sectarian, ethnic, clan and
political lines. New dissident organizations ‹ including Assyrians and
Turkomans ‹ have been formed.

Some 70 groups organized around sectarian, ethnic and political lines, but
only a few are seen as credible and effective.


NO URL (sent to and translated for list)

*  THE DELEGATION OF THE OPPOSITION IRAQI NATIONAL ALLIANCE GETS READY TO
MEET SADDAM
Al-Quds Al-Arabi Issue, 22nd November (Translated from Arabic by Hassan
Zeini)

Baghdad/ Al-Quds Al-Arabi: Abdul-Jabbar al-Kubaisy, the leader of the Iraqi
National Alliance confirmed that the Iraqi leadership is working now to
finalize a new constitution for the country which emphasizes democratic
liberties, respect for human rights and political multilateralism.

In a statement to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, al-Kubasiy said that he and his
colleagues in the delegation of the Alliance which is visiting Baghdad now,
were surprised that the Iraqi leadership has set up committees to draft
proposals for a new constitution and new laws for political parties and
liberties, which allow political multilateralism and freedoms.

He added that the Iraqi leadership is no longer intolerant towards any
criticism directed at it including accusations of dictatorship, oppression
and violations of human rights.

The delegation of the National Alliance had met with Izzet Ibrahim, Saddam's
Deputy and other officials. There are speculations that the delegation would
meet the Iraqi President in the coming few days.

The delegation includes the spokesman of the alliance Awni al-Qalamchi,
Fadhil al-Rubai'i, Labib Mansour Abdul-Aziz, Muhammed Jawad Faris and Amer
al-Zerb.

Mr. al-Qalamchi explained that this change occurred after the opinion of the
faction in the leadership which calls for granting more freedoms prevailed
over the other faction in the leadership which wants to wait until the
extraordinary situation changes, especially since the country is subjected
to choking sanctions and is preparing for an American aggression.

Mr. al-Kubaisy explained that they toured Iraq, visited many houses and met
citizens without government supervision. He stressed that life in Baghdad
and other cities is normal.

Al-Kubaisy pointed out that all members of the Iraqi opposition can go back
and freely be involved in political activity, and can direct any criticism.
He said that the only exemption is for those people or groups that are
linked to foreign or Israeli intelligence services.

 Mr. al-Kubaisy talked about the excellent state of preparations to face any
US aggression, explaining that there are ten million Iraqis armed with
different weapons including anti-tank rockets, and that all are ready to
fight and defend the country.

Al-Kubaisy was also confident that the impression he got from officials was
that Iraq has learned from the lessons of the 1991 war, and that it may
surprise many with a different performance if war starts and the US
aggression begins. He stated that there is the readiness to continue the war
for ten years and even more, and that ammunition and provisions have been
provided, without elaborating more on this issue.

Fadhil al-Rubai'i described the visit of the delegation as one of
solidarity, to confirm that the delegation stands with the Iraqi people and
its leadership in the face of any US aggression, stressing that the priority
should be given to the protection of Iraq and its unity and safety.

The Iraqi National Alliance is an umbrella organization that includes many
Iraqi national figures. It has always distanced itself from opposition
groups linked to US plans to occupy Iraq and condemned these groups. The
Alliance has been in public and secret contacts with the Iraqi leadership
for the past three years.




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