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News, 02-09/04/03 (10) THE OLD IRAQ * Saddam's regime is a European import * Aid shipments to Iraq being refused * Bagdhad, two cities separated by the Tigris * British troops find human remains in Iraqi 'morgue' * Remains of 200 killed in Iran-Iraq war found near Basra * Remains are old soldiers, not torture victims * US finds 'terrorist' camp * Iran says Iraq-based armed opposition defecting in face of US-led invasion * Ali Hassan al-Majid THE NEW IRAQ * Umm Qasr aid effort 'a shambles' * Call to prayer revived by troops * Baghdad hospitals on the brink of crisis * ICRC stops staff movement in Baghdad * Lack of fresh water threatens hospitals swamped by casualties * War Against Iraqi People THE OLD IRAQ http://www.nationalpost.com/search/site/story.asp?id=0E39D93C-7FF7-43A9-9E5D A0E7EF4CF6C4 * SADDAM'S REGIME IS A EUROPEAN IMPORT by Bernard Lewis National Post (Canada), 3rd April In the Western world, knowledge of history is poor -- and the awareness of history is frequently poorer. For example, people often argue today as if the kind of political order that prevails in Iraq is part of the immemorial Arab and Islamic tradition. This is totally untrue. The kind of regime represented by Saddam Hussein has no roots in either the Arab or Islamic past. Rather, it is an ideological importation from Europe -- the only one that worked and succeeded (at least in the sense of being able to survive). In 1940, the French government accepted defeat and signed a separate peace with the Third Reich. The French colonies in Syria and Lebanon remained under Vichy control, and were therefore open to the Nazis to do what they wished. They became major bases for Nazi propaganda and activity in the Middle East. The Nazis extended their operations from Syria and Lebanon, with some success, to Iraq and other places. That was the time when the Baath Party was founded, as a kind of clone of the Nazi and Fascist parties, using very similar methods and adapting a very similar ideology, and operating in the same way -- as part of an apparatus of surveillance that exists under a one-party state, where a party is not a party in the Western democratic sense, but part of the apparatus of a government. That was the origin of the Baath Party. When the Third Reich collapsed, and after an interval was replaced by the Soviet Union as the patron of all anti-Western forces, the adjustment from the Nazi model to the Communist model was not very difficult and was carried throughout without problems. That is where the present Iraqi type of government comes from. As I said before, it has no roots in the authentic Arabic or Islamic past. It is, instead, part of the most successful and most harmful process of Westernization to have occurred in the Middle East. When Westernization failed in the Middle East, this failure was followed by a redefinition and return to older, more deep-rooted perceptions of self and other. I mean, of course, religion. Religion had several advantages. It was more familiar. It was more readily intelligible. It could be understood immediately by Muslims. Nationalist and socialist slogans, by contrast, needed explanation. Religion was less impeded. What I mean is that even the most ruthless of dictatorships cannot totally suppress religiously defined opposition. In the mosques, people can meet and speak. In most fascist-style states, openly meeting and speaking are rigidly controlled and repressed. This is not possible in dealing with Islam. Islamic opposition movements can use a language familiar to all, and, through mosques, can tap into a network of communication and organization. This gave to religious arguments a very powerful advantage. In fact, dictatorships were even helping them by eliminating competing oppositions. They had another great advantage in competing with democratic movements. Such movements must allow freedom of expression, even to those who are opposed to them. Those who are opposed to them are under no such obligation. Indeed, their very doctrines require them to suppress what they see as impious and immoral ideas -- an unfair advantage in this political competition. These religious movements have another advantage. They can invoke the very traditional definition of "self" and "enemy" that exists in the Islamic world. It is very old. We see it, for example, in historiography. We can talk of European history as a struggle against, for example, the Moors, or the Tartars. If you look at contemporary historiography for the Middle East's Muslim peoples, their struggle is always defined in religious terms. For their historians, their side is Islam, their ruler is the lord of Islam, and the enemy is defined as infidels. That earlier classification has come back again. Osama bin Laden's habit of defining his enemies as "crusaders" illustrates this. By "crusaders," bin Laden does not mean Americans or Zionists. "Crusaders," of course, were Christian warriors in a holy war for Christendom, fighting to recover the holy places of Christendom, which had been lost to Muslim conquerors in the 7th century. Bin Laden sees it as a struggle between two rival religions. I say again: To blame the Saddam Hussein-type governments on Islamic and Arabic traditions is totally false. Those traditions led to the development of societies that, while not democratic in the sense of having elected bodies, produced limited governments. That is, governments limited by the holy law, limited in a practical sense by the existence of powerful groups in society, like the rural gentry and the military and religious establishments. These acted as constraints on the power of the government. The idea of absolute rule is totally alien to Islamic practice until, sad to say, modernization made it possible. What the process of modernization did was to strengthen the sovereign power, and place at the disposal of the sovereign power the whole modern apparatus of control and repression. Modernization also weakened the intermediate powers, which previously limited the powers of the state and had acted as a countervailing force. Modernization meant a shift from old elites living on their estates, to new elites who regarded the state as their estate. Modernization has not erased the fact that the peoples of the Muslim Middle East have a tradition of limited, responsible government. While not democratic, this tradition shares many features of democratic Western governments. It provides, I believe, a good basis for the development of democratic institutions -- as has happened elsewhere in the world. I remain cautiously optimistic for their future. Bernard Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He has written numerous books about Islam, including, most recently, The Crisis Of Islam: Holy War And Unholy Terror (March 2003). This essay is adapted from the 8th Annual Barbara Frum Lecture delivered by Prof. Lewis in Toronto which will be broadcast on CBC Radio's IDEAS on April 24. http://www.jordantimes.com/Fri/homenews/homenews3.htm * AID SHIPMENTS TO IRAQ BEING REFUSED by Tareq Ayyoub and Dina Al Wakeel Jordan Times, 4th April TREIBIL/AMMAN ‹ The Iraqi Red Crescent has rejected a shipment of humanitarian assistance donated by their Jordanian counterpart and ordered the trucks loaded with medicine to return to Amman, sources said Thursday. The sources, who spoke with The Jordan Times at the Iraqi border crossing, said they were instructed by the Iraqi Red Crescent Society to return the six trucks loaded with humanitarian aid that have remained at the crossing point since their arrival. In transit from Ruweished to Amman, President of Jordan Red Crescent Society Mohammad Hadid told The Jordan Times Thursday night that he had received a letter from his Iraqi counterpart earlier in the day. "[The letter] informed us that they would not accept any humanitarian assistance or medical relief. They said that they only wanted us to condemn the aggression against Iraq, the killing of civilians and the violation of International Humanitarian Law, particularly the bombardment of the Red Crescent Hospital several days ago, which caused damage to the hospital and left several injured." Hadid added that he did not know what would become of the trucks, explaining that he had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad to find out additional information about the shipment, but could not provide anything further in that regard. When asked if shipments were being refused from other countries as well, Hadid said he believed aid from all Red Crescent Societies was being refused and that Jordan was not being targeted specifically. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Jordan Times, was signed by the chairman of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, Hisham Salman Saadon and read: "We apologise but we cannot accept any humanitarian assistance. We urge you to work to denounce the inhuman practices and to end the aggression against our country ... We urge you to demand an immediate stoppage to the aggression." The drivers of the six trucks, which have been waiting at the border for the last two days, said that only trucks loaded with goods purchased by Iraq in line with the oil-for-food programme were being allowed to cross. All humanitarian assistance was being refused and returned to the Kingdom, they added. http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/news_show.phtml?id=1268&search=&find= * BAGDHAD, TWO CITIES SEPARATED BY THE TIGRIS DUBAI, April 5 (AFP) - Baghdad, scene of bloody street clashes between US and Iraqi troops on Saturday, is a bustling metropolis of some five million people, made up of two cities, Al Kharakh and Russafa, separated by the river Tigris. Founded on the banks of the Tigris in 762 and called City of Peace, Baghdad boasts 13 bridges spanning the river, linking the two settlements on the eastern and western banks of the capital which sprawls over some 50 kilometres (30 miles). Al Kharakh, on the west bank, is home to the airport, now stripped off its title Saddam International, a number of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, key ministries and luxury hotels like the Al Rashid, temporary home of visiting VIPS. It also houses the Republican Palace, bombed several times since the start of the war 17 days ago, a veritable fortress built along the riverside in the heart of the city and dating from the first days of the Republic in 1958. Well-to-do neighbourhoods like Al Mansur, Al Yarmuk and Sidiyya are home to a thriving middle class and an extensive foreign community, while the architecture is on the grand scale, with vast monuments and wide avenues giving it the air of a major international city. On the opposite bank, Al Russafa is the very image of old Baghdad, with its popular markets, minarets, museums and old palaces, narrow streets and busy cafes. It also houses Tahrir or Liberation Square, dominated by a huge monument commemorating the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. In addition, a number of government ministries are based here, cheek by jowl with the predominantly Shiite Muslim population, closely watched for signs of unrest in their massive poorer neighbourhoods, Saddam City pre-eminent among them. Abu Nawwass Avenue, on the east bank, is one of the longest boulevards in the capital. Once a popular haunt with foreign tourists in the 1970s, the avenue has lost some of its gloss over the years but remains famous for its fish restaurants. http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/news_show.phtml?id=1268&search=&find= * BRITISH TROOPS FIND HUMAN REMAINS IN IRAQI 'MORGUE' Haaveru Daily, Maldives, 5th April LONDON - Hundreds of human remains were discovered Saturday by British soldiers in a makeshift morgue in southern Iraq, Britain's domestic Press Association news agency and Sky News television reported. The remains, including bundles of bone in strips of military uniform, were found by officers from the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery in an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of Al Zubayr. It was not known how long the remains had been there, but they will be investigated by forensic specialists as possible evidence of atrocities carried out by President Saddam Hussein's regime. Al Zubayr is 20 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Iraq's second city Basra, in an area secured by British troops allied with US forces which invaded the country on March 20. Sky News, in a live report from west of Basra, carried video images of the morgue, showing a line of cardboard boxes with what appeared to be white shrouds in each of them. A British soldier was also seen flipping through what appeared to be a handwritten list of the dead. Captain Jack Kemp, 40, told the Press Association that he discovered "approximately 200 makeshift coffins" when he led a team of soldiers into the building for a security check. "I wouldn't like to speculate, but the bones inside are obviously years old," he told the Press Association. "It is certainly not from the recent conflict but it could be from the one before." He said the building had been declared off-limits to all personnel "and we will treat it as a mass grave." In a graphic description of the scene, Press Association chief reporter Vanessa Allen, who is embedded with the British army's Royal Logistic Corps, told of cardboard coffins "stacked five deep in a warehouse." A neighbouring building "contained apparent cells and catalogues of photographs of the dead, most of whom had died from gunshot wounds to the head." "Others were mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen in the faded black and white photographs," she reported. "Outside stood what one soldier described as 'a purpose-built shooting gallery'." She said a tiled plinth, about a foot (30 centimeters) in height, stood in a courtyard, with the brickwork behind it riddled with bullets. Behind it was a drainage ditch. "Inside the warehouse, one of the bags and coffins contained an identity card written in Arabic, while military webbing and boot soles were visible in others," she reported. "Human skulls, their teeth broken and missing, looked out from other bags, bundled into the coffins." http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=1891&version =1&template_id=277&parent_id=258 * REMAINS OF 200 KILLED IN IRAN-IRAQ WAR FOUND NEAR BASRA aljazeera.net, 6th April Forensic experts are investigating the remains of up to 200 people found by British forces in a rundown military complex on Saturday near Iraq's second largest city Basra. "They discovered some bodies in a barracks between Basra and Az Zubair," a British military spokeswoman at Central Command headquarters in Qatar said. Television footage showed dozens of wooden coffins, bones in plastic bags and pieces of military uniform as well as photographs of slain men most of which appeared to have gunshot wounds to the head. It was not clear whether the pictures had anything to do with the corpses. A skull found with other human remains alongside coffins and and photos of dead bodies at an abandoned Iraqi base near the city of Basra A British military spokesman on the scene was quoted as saying the bodies which were described as desiccated - might be from a previous war since they were quite old. Al Jazeera television quoted an unnamed Iraqi official in Basra as saying the remains were those of Iraqi soldiers killed in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and recently repatriated by Tehran. The official said the start of the Anglo-American war on Iraq prevented officials from returning the bodies to their families. Iran and Iraq still exchange prisoners and bodies even though the war ended 15 years ago and the last prisoner swap took place on March 19 a day before the start of the current war. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/07/1049567627977.html * REMAINS ARE OLD SOLDIERS, NOT TORTURE VICTIMS Sydney Morning Herald (The New York Times/Washington Post), 8th April Human remains found inside a makeshift morgue in a former artillery complex appeared to be soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war, not victims of atrocities as first reports suggested. Investigators from the US 75th Exploitation Task Force arrived at the site north of Zubayr on Sunday morning from their camp in northern Kuwait to investigate initial descriptions which suggested the morgue was a centre for torture and execution. But after just a few hours, Chief Warrant Officer Dan Walters, the leader of the task force's Criminal Investigation Division unit, said a preliminary examination of the remains of 408 men in 664 thin wooden coffins and some of the thousands of pages of documents in a building next to the warehouse suggested that atrocities had probably not occurred there. Rather, he said, Iraqis had apparently been processing the remains and preparing to exchange them with Iran. "Their wounds were consistent with combat deaths, not executions," said Mr Walters. "So far," he added, "there are no indications that war crimes were committed here." Outside the warehouse, a bullet-riddled wall also turned out to be less than the initial reports had suggested. "A search of the area did not reveal any evidence that the wall was used as a firing wall or an execution wall," said Mr Walters. An estimated one million people were killed in the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war, which Saddam initiated against the fledgling Iranian Islamic government, his first war as president. The conflict ended in an uneasy truce. But Iraq claimed victory in the war, which nearly bankrupted the government and paved the way for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It was in the war with Iran that Saddam ordered the use of poison gas against enemy forces for the first time, as he did against Iraqi Kurds. But members of the forensic team examining the remains said they had found no trace of chemicals or biological agents. Brigadier General Mirfeisal Baqerzadeh, the head of Iran's search and recovery committee of those missing in action, had said that the bodies were found in recent months in joint recovery operations in Iran and southern Iraq, but that the exchange had not taken place because of the American-led invasion. Some early news reports by correspondents travelling with the British forces who stumbled on the site on Saturday suggested that it had been used for torture. But Captain Thomas Jagielski, who heads the war crimes team, said the suspected "torture chambers" were apparently makeshift offices separated by hastily erected mud-brick partitions. Here, Iraqis had apparently documented the identities of the dead. About 85 per cent of the dead were Iraqis, Mr Walters said. The rest are believed to be Iranian. The men are believed to have been killed sometime in the mid-1980s. Mr Walters said efforts would be made in the coming days and weeks to return the remains to the families of the Iranians and Iraqis. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/07/1049567590455.html * US FINDS 'TERRORIST' CAMP The Age (Australia), from Reuters, 7th April The US military said today it had captured or killed fighters from Sudan, Egypt and other countries in Iraq, and some of those captured had led it to a terrorist training camp. Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks told a briefing at Central Command in Qatar that the camp, found at Salman Pak southeast of Baghdad, demonstrated "a linkage between this regime and terrorism". But he said there was nothing to tie the camp to specific organisations. The United States, Britain and their allies went to war against Iraq on March 20, accusing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of hiding chemical and other weapons of mass destruction and vowing to topple him. Before the conflict, Washington sought to convince doubters in the United Nations that there were links between Baghdad and al-Qaeda, the network it accuses of carrying out the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks on America. Since invading, US military officials have accused Iraq of using "terrorist" tactics. "Some of these fighters come from Sudan, some from Egypt, some from other places," Brooks said of the foreigners. "We've killed a number of them and we've captured a number of them, and that's where some of this information came from. It does say an awful lot about the approach the regime is taking to what's going on the battlefield right now." Baghdad had appealed to sympathisers in other countries to join its forces in the battle against US-led forces and in recent days there have been reports of many people from Arab countries travelling to Iraq to do just that. Brooks gave sketchy details of what convinced the US forces they had uncovered a terrorist camp, referring only the work being done by those captured and "inferences to the type of training they received". He said some tanks, a small number of personnel carriers plus buildings used for command, control, morale and welfare were all destroyed at the camp. "All of that - when you roll together the reports, where they're from, why they might be here - tells us that there's still a linkage clearly between this regime and terrorism, and that's something we want to make sure we break." http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/ * IRAN SAYS IRAQ-BASED ARMED OPPOSITION DEFECTING IN FACE OF US-LED INVASION TEHRAN, April 7 (AFP) - Scores of militants from Iran's Iraq-based armed opposition have defected and returned home in the face of the US-led onslaught of their Baghdad backers, Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said Monday. British and US troops have yet to overrun any of the People's Mujahedeen's Iraqi bases, Yunesi said, but Iranian border forces had already received a flood of "repentant" militants from the group which is reviled by both Iran and the Iraqi opposition for fighting alongside the Baghdad regime in the past. "The return of Monafeqeen (hypocrites -- the Tehan regime's standard term of abuse for the group) has accelerated in recent months," state radio quoted the minister as saying. "For instance recently around a hundred members of the group handed themselves over to the Islamic Republic authorities." Yunesi promised that the regime would not press criminal charges against repentant opposition members, although they would have to respond to any civil suits. They "can enter Iran without fear, but if they have civil cases, they will have to settle them," he said. The minister said the People's Mujahedeen had kept up its campaign against the Islamic regime right up to the eve of the war, joining US-led criticism of Iran's nuclear programme. Mujahadeen members "tried to present false information that Iran's peaceful nuclear activities were aimed at building atomic weapons", he said. But he added that Iran had no intention of exploiting the US-led war to attack the opposition group. "They are next door but for certain reasons we don't want to enter Iraqi soil" to fight with them, he said. The Mujahedeen took part in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah but later fell out with the Islamic regime, fighting a brutal civil war. During the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the group won recognition from Baghdad as the government of Iran and the use of bases in its western neighbour. But its role in the bloody conflict which cost some one million lives earned it the abiding hatred of the regime, against which it has continued to launch assassinations and other attacks. http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,931901,00.html * ALI HASSAN AL-MAJID by Charles Tripp The Guardian, 8th April General Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", has died aged 64. He was killed commanding the southern Iraqi city of Basra by SAS-organised air and artillery attacks, said local British military sources. Majid earned his macabre nickname during the two years from 1987 when, as head of the Iraqi Ba'ath party's northern bureau, he presided over Operation Al-Anfal, which devastated most of Kurdistan. More than 100,000 Kurds were killed during a campaign of gassings, mass executions and starvation, including 5,000 who died in one day when the town of Halabja was saturated with chemical weapons. Majid's attitude to this slaughter was captured on videotape when he told a group of party officials in the middle of the campaign: "Who will say anything? The international community? Fuck them." Majid personified the clannish and ruthless nature of Saddam Hussein's republic of fear in Iraq. A key figure in the country's security apparatus, his appointment last month as commander of the southern region had as much to do with instilling fear into the Iraqi forces as with organising an effective military strategy to resist the American onslaught. Born near Tikrit, Saddam's hometown to the north of Baghdad, Majid was the son of the Iraqi leader's paternal uncle, a peasant from a subordinate clan of the al-Bu Nasir tribe. He joined the Iraqi army as a young man and, by the mid-1960s, was an NCO and driver. It was then that the family connections helped his rise. After the collapse of the Ba'ath government of 1963, the party was being rebuilt by Colonel Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, a tribal relative of Majid, who had entrusted Saddam with restoring the underground networks of the Ba'ath party. In the violent and conspiratorial world of Baghdad politics, Majid became Saddam's loyal enforcer. This stood him in good stead when al-Bakr seized power in 1968. As Saddam's star rose, so too did the fortunes of Majid. By 1976, he was director general of the office of the Ba'ath's regional command; in 1978, he became head of the party's key military bureau. After his important role in the bloody party purges which accompanied Saddam's assumption of the Baghdad presidency in 1979, he was rewarded, the following year, with the directorship of public security. This was the beginning of eight years of war with Iran, when the Iraqi regime was as much concerned with internal security as with the battle front on its eastern border. Majid rooted out real and imagined enemies with terrifying zeal, and it was these qualities that led Saddam to entrust him with the crushing of resistance in the Kurdish areas of the north in the latter stages of the war. When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Majid was appointed governor, bringing his methods and reputation with him. Later that year, when it seemed that war with the western coalition would follow, he was recalled to Baghdad. In March 1991, he was made minister of the interior, and charged with putting down the rebellions that had broken out in southern and northern Iraq following the Iraqi army's expulsion from Kuwait. He helped to crush these uprisings in his usual style, leaving some 30,000 people dead or missing. During the years of UN sanctions and isolation in the 1990s, Majid occupied a number of senior government posts, using the opportunity - as did many in the elite - to enrich himself through the web of smuggling and business deals made pos sible by his close connection to the ruling family. It was said that his blatant corruption led to his dismissal as defence minister in 1995, although shifts in the politics of the clan, most of whose members were similarly implicated, probably had a significant effect. In 1996, he got the chance to rehabilitate himself. He helped organise the murder of his nephews - and Saddam's sons-in-law - Hussein Kamil and Saddam Kamil, who had fled the country in 1995, but had then unwisely returned. Thereafter, Majid was back in the centre, and, in 1997, he was appointed as overseer and coordinator of the intelligence services and of the Ba'ath party apparatus in central and southern Iraq. As the present crisis between the US and the Baghdad regime closed in, it was not surprising that Saddam should have looked to one of his most loyal and ruthless clansmen to try to salvage something from the wreckage. This time, however, he and the regime he served were up against something that their resources of violence and cruelty were unable to handle. Ali Hassan al-Majid, soldier and political boss, born 1938; died April 4 2003 THE NEW IRAQ news.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/world/middle_east/2915091.stm * UMM QASR AID EFFORT 'A SHAMBLES' BBC News On-line, 3rd April Aid agencies have been trying to send their workers into Iraq to assess what relief supplies are needed in the war torn country. Patrick Nicholson of the UK charity Cafod has just returned from the Umm Qasr, where he found the humanitarian effort in the British occupied area to be a "shambles". I have just returned from working in Angola and never expected to see exactly the same sort of poverty in Iraq - a country floating on oil. >From the TV pictures of Umm Qasr, I had been led to believe it was a town under control, where the needs of the people were being met. The town is not under control. It's like the Wild West. And even the most major humanitarian concern, water, is not being adequately administered. Everywhere I went, the local people asked me for water. I went into the two rooms occupied by a family of 14, they were drinking from an oil drum half full of stagnant, dirty water. It was water I certainly would not have drunk. The little girl was very malnourished, skeletal, and in my experience as an aid worker I would say she had less than a week to live. The coalition has installed a water pipeline in Umm Qasr and sends out water tankers, but the Iraqi lorry drivers go off and sell the water. Most people have no money to buy it. The hospital has been without water for three days. Inside people were very angry with me because I was a westerner. They felt angry, frustrated and let down by the coalition. Many had come to Umm Qasr from Basra because they had been told in American radio broadcasts that they would be looked after. They now say the coalition lied to them. Adu Sulsam had brought his four-year-old daughter, Fatima, to the hospital and pleaded with me to help. He said that I was her only hope. I told him I was not a doctor. There is only one doctor at the hospital. The little girl was very malnourished, skeletal, and in my experience as an aid worker I would say she had less than a week to live. Another man had brought his 12-year-old son, Farahan, to Umm Qasr because the boy had been hit in the head with shrapnel in Basra, but had not got better after being operated on. This father also thought his child would receive better treatment in Umm Qasr. Both men were completely disappointed. One young man angrily said to me: "You support us when the TV cameras and newspapers are here, to show the world you like us. "When they have gone you change. You have changed Saddam for another kind of imperialism." Umm Qasr was taken 10 days ago and it was deemed safe for aid agencies to enter on Monday, and yet it is still a shambles. If the coalition has trouble looking after such a small town, then what are they going to do about the city of Basra or, my God, Baghdad? If the coalition is trying to win the battle of hearts and minds in Iraq, then it is not winning by the evidence of the people of Umm Qasr. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2918453.stm * CALL TO PRAYER REVIVED BY TROOPS by Sarah Oliver BBC, 5th April It is a sound which has echoed down the centuries but which has not been heard here for 15 years - the wailing call to prayer. On Friday however, at 0430 (0130 GMT), in the minutes before the desert dawn, the voice of the Imam rang out. What Saddam's Baath party had forbidden, the British Army had restored. The townspeople, whose mosque was destroyed years ago, prayed in the privacy of their own homes. But instead of their worship being a secret and dangerous thing, it was freely performed with new joy. The 1st Battalion Royal Irish secured a public address system for the Imam and men from their attached Royal, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers installed it on Thursday night in time for Friday prayers. By next Friday, commanding officer Lt Colonel Tim Collins hopes to have a prayer tent in place so the community can gather for the traditional midday address. He said: "Banning prayer and denying Muslim people a mosque is simply one more manifestation of the Baath party's evil regime. "From the moment we began our hearts and minds campaign here its restoration was a top priority. "From now they will have their call to prayer five times a day - it will no longer be conducted behind closed doors, it will be done openly, as it should be." Although the Imam was permitted to offer pastoral care, he was not allowed to fulfil his role as their religious leader, leaving the population of 4,000 struggling with the secular ideals of Baath. On Friday, as dozens of townspeople thronged the alleyway at the back of his shabby terraced home, it was clear they had not forgotten their God. The return of the call to prayer is perhaps the most significant sign yet that the shanty communities inhabiting the wealthy oilfields of southern Iraq are recovering their equilibrium under occupation by the British Army. Another is the re-opening of the barber's shop where many officers from the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment are paying 250 dinars (10p) for a trim, which is finished with a cut throat razor. The primary and secondary schools with 40 and 20 pupils apiece, have also opened their doors. They are flying the Iraqi flag as a symbol of national identity but all pro-Saddam slogans have been painted out by local townspeople and Baath propaganda stripped from the classrooms. A new football pitch, volleyball court and schoolyard are to be built for the children by the 1st Royal Irish. Although none of the food shops has reopened - the traders are trapped in the southern city of Basra - nomadic tomato and onion sellers have returned to the marketplace and flatbreads are being baked. British troops are banned from spending pounds sterling or US dollars as commanders are determined the local economy should not be undermined by hard currency trading. They have bankrolled the town's first ever bank with £1,000 worth of dinars confiscated from the Baath Party. It is being used to pay the wages of municipal employees such as teachers and security staff and fund the town clinic which has been re-opened by a fourth year medical student after the doctor fled in the face of the Allied advance. Next the Army will attempt to conduct a census on the main community which is dominated by oil industry workers, and its attached, much poorer and more rural village where railway workers - nicknamed the Ali Babars by townspeople - live. Law and order has been restored by the arrival of British Military Police and a regional government created by the formation of a Joint Civil-Military Commission, headed by Royal Irish second in command Major Andrew Cullen. He said: "The influence of Baath was so great that it had filtered down to the lowest level of society and since we have destroyed Baath we must now help them build a new framework. "We can't play god and enforce our own societal values on people, we need to enable them." As well as helping with water and power, attached engineers are assisting with carpentry or plumbing. They hope that soon residents will be self-sufficient. The ambition of the townspeople and the Royal Irish is to see the oilfields re-opened and jobs restored. With the oil will come wealth and with the wealth will come security and stability. "We are here to see that happens," said Major Cullen. This is pooled copy from Sarah Oliver of the Mail On Sunday, with the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment in southern Iraq. http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=1964&version =1&template_id=277&parent_id=258 * BAGHDAD HOSPITALS ON THE BRINK OF CRISIS aljazeera.net, 6th April UN relief agencies warned on Sunday of a health crisis facing the five million inhabitants of Baghdad, with hospitals overwhelmed and infrastructure devastated. "We expect a severe deterioration of the health situation during the days to come due to the daily bombardment that results in damage of infrastructure and sharp rise in civilian casualties," Fadela Chaib, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson told reporters. Baghdad hospitals reported a continuous flow of war-wounded victims on Sunday, warning their meagre resources were being stretched to the limit as fighting grew more intense. WHO officials warned access to health care and drugs was becoming more difficult as stocks cannot be replenished. The UN's health body contacted 10 major medical stores in Jordan to procure 54 urgently needed medicines and medical supplies to send to Baghdad as soon as possible. "It's certainly an emergency situation," said Antonella Notari, chief spokesman of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Latest reports from ICRC staff in Baghdad said fighting in and around the capital continued unabated on Sunday. The ICRC is one of the few international aid operations not to have withdrawn their staff from Iraq in the run-up to the US-led war. Hospitals in Baghdad reported a steady stream of hundreds of patients. ICRC staff in the capital said that during the more fierce bombardments, hospitals were receiving up to 100 casualties per hour. The international aid organisation said while hospitals were stretched, they were handling the situation sufficiently and as professionally as war would allow. ICRC staff were touring hospitals and providing first aid and surgery kits, including 150 blankets and 50 body bags to Al-Yarmouk hospital. "The situation overall is extremely problematic now in terms of clean water supply and sewage evacuation. Everybody now is operating on back-up generators as there is hardly any power any more," said Notari. In the rest of the country, the ICRC continued distributing medical supplies in the southern city of Basra, where fierce fighting has continued for days. The international group is also trucking water to the three main hospitals in the neighbouring war-torn district of Al-Zubayr. At the Kindi hospital staff were reported to have been overwhelmed by the sharp rise in casualties since US ground troops thrust north towards Baghdad and intensified their air attacks. Victims were carried in on sheets after stretchers ran out. With many staff unable to reach the hospitals due to bombing, doctors worked furiously as they performed operations, taking blood, giving injections and ferrying the wounded. Dr. Osama Saleh al-Duleimi, an orthopaedic surgeon and assistant director at Kindi, said they were overloaded and suffering from shortages of anaesthetics, painkillers and staff. Doctors were also reportedly overwhelmed by the injuries they are seeing, including massive trauma and fatal wounds such as head, abdominal and limb injuries from lethal weapons. "I've been a doctor for 25 years and this is the worst I've seen in terms of casualties and fatal wounds," said al-Duleimi, who also practised during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 Gulf War. "We are receiving a lot of civilian casualties," he added. Dr. Sadek al-Mukhtar described this war as more destructive than the 1991 Gulf War. "In the previous battles, the weapons seemed merely disabling; now they're much more lethal," he said. Meanwhile, extensive damage to Baghdad's infrastructure from the US-led war is a major obstacle to treating the injured and getting aid, said David Wimhurst, spokesman for the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordination for Iraq (UNOHCI). "Damage to infrastructure is further hampering relief efforts in and around the city," said Wimhurst, citing the destruction of a bridge leading south from Baghdad which made alternative routes south of the city unsafe. The ICRC has described the situation as "near critical" in the capital with water systems to become quickly affected with no maintenance of power plants and generators. Lack of adequate clean water is hampering efforts to treat the wounded. http://www.bahraintribune.com/local.asp?Art_No=9822 * ICRC STOPS STAFF MOVEMENT IN BAGHDAD Bahrain Tribune, 7th April The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has temporarily suspended the movement of its staff within Baghdad, it was revealed yesterday. The Bahrain Red Crescent Society (BRCS), in its daily Press briefing, said that this had been done due to the intense bombing of the city and the resulting dangers of movement within the city. "While all Iraqi staff of ICRC have been sent home to their families, the international staff is staying at the office," said BRCS assistant undersecretary Dr Fawzi Amin, quoting the latest report from Iraq, received by Bahrain society chairman Shaikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al Khalifa. Dr Amin explained: "Fighting in and near Baghdad appears to have continued pretty much unabated, and the international committee delegation in Baghdad is hearing the continuous sound of fighting from parts of the city. "Because of the security situation, the delegation has decided to temporarily suspend movements of staff in the city," he emphasised. "The electricity supply in the city remains mostly out of order, and some parts of Baghdad reportedly no longer have piped-in water." [.....] http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,931965,00.html * LACK OF FRESH WATER THREATENS HOSPITALS SWAMPED BY CASUALTIES by Owen Bowcott The Guardian, 8th April A shortage of fresh water in Baghdad is threatening the ability of hospitals to carry out operations and depriving the population of sanitation, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned yesterday. At least one hospital in the southern suburb of Mahmudiya has been overwhelmed by the number of civilian and military casualties, according to the agency's director of operations, Pierre Krahenbuhl. Another ICRC official described the situation as "extremely precarious". Water supplies stopped on Thursday because mains electricity, which powers the pumps, had been knocked out by the fighting. Red Cross teams have kept generators running and set up water treatment installations but have found it difficult to move as sporadic fighting spreads across the capital. "Fresh water supplies for hospitals are very important but the environment is becoming less and less predictable," he told a press conference in London. At one stage on Saturday, following air raids and the US military incursion, civilian casualties were arriving at one Baghdad hospital at the rate of 100 an hour. Water shortages are also acute in Kerbala, Najaf, Nassiriya and Basra, south of Baghdad. The ICRC has six foreign aid workers in Baghdad, four in Basra and another four in the north, as well as more than 100 local staff. Those in the capital said they could only reach one hospital, al-Kindi, yesterday, where surgeons were working non-stop and running short of anaesthetics and equipment. Doctors said they had taken in four dead and 176 injured in the previous 24 hours. "Surgeons have been working round the clock for the past two days and most are exhausted. Conditions are terrible," said Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, of the Red Cross. "You could hear very close range explosions. The windows are rattling from the thud of explosions." The agency delivered thousands of one-litre water bags to the main hospitals in Baghdad before the American assault began but stocks are now running low. The agency is now attempting to bring in another 30,000 litres to the city's five main surgical hospitals. In Basra, the ICRC said staff had reached agreement with Iraqi and British troops allowing them to cross "no man's land" between the front lines and repair the pumping stations. Mr Krahenbuhl said 50% of the population had running water restored. "Some of the supply is on a rotating basis where different areas of the city receive water at different times," he said. One inhabitant,holding his one-year-old daughter in his arms, told a reporter: "The situation is not good. There is no water. All the citizens are very thirsty. "On television and radio, they promised to give us water, but all we have is air." Britain's Department for International Development, which has contributed £32m towards Red Cross emergency relief work in Iraq, said yesterday that it understood there were water shortages in other parts of central Iraq such as Abu Ghraib, Mahmudiya, Hilla, Kerbala and Anbar. In Nassiriya, where US teams are trying to restore supplies, resident were reported to be out on the streets searching for water. Lack of clean drinking water is a major cause of diarrhoea and respiratory diseases, which already take a heavy toll of Iraqi children. The ICRC yesterday also revealed it had raised fresh concerns with London and Washington about the use of cluster bombs. "We have raised those concerns particularly in urban areas," said Mr Krahenbuhl. http://www.arabnews.com/print.asp?id=24875&ArY=2003&ArM=4&ArD=8 * WAR AGAINST IRAQI PEOPLE by Essam Al-Ghalib Arab News (Saudi Arabia), 8th April NAJAF, 8 April 2003 This is no longer a war against Saddam and his regime, if it ever was. It has become a war against the Iraqi people. The number of civilians killed since the invasion began is massive, and is rising dramatically as American and British forces continue to make their way north through densely populated areas. Each Iraqi city has lost many civilians, at times entire families, to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sami Osama, a truck driver, was delivering 5,000 kg of tomatoes through the small town of Sanawa when he approached an American checkpoint. According to witnesses who spoke to Arab News yesterday, he did not understand the orders in English and approached the checkpoint as normal. The US forces opened fire, killing him instantly and injuring two of his passengers. A friend of the deceased told Arab News: Had there been a translator at the checkpoint, he would be alive now. His friend who was driving with him said that before he was executed he was slowing down and asking what the US troops could be shooting at. While Arab News was interviewing witnesses to the death of Sami Osama, a woman approached and asked to use a satellite phone belonging to this correspondent. She wanted to call the United States for, as she put it, a humanitarian reason. She explained that her brother had arrived from the United States, where he was living with his wife and 10 children before the war began. He had been on a visit to his own family in Nassiriyah and Sanawa, and was killed there as the US troops advanced. In Sanawa, witnesses described how American troops were firing at suspected Iraqi positions, some located in residential areas. Huge holes could be seen in virtually every building along the heavily traveled highway to Sanawa, and there was also a burned-out high school. Saleh Mohammed, a local, told Arab News: One Iraqi soldier will enter a neighborhood and fire a few shots at the fighter plane, and they will respond with a barrage of shots killing as many as 50 civilians in the effort to get him. Further north, in the city of Hamza, a taxi driver told of a rescue operation in progress at a Baath Party center bombed from the air. A witness told Arab News: It was nighttime and there were civilians walking in front of the building when the first explosions started. They were all buried underneath the rubble. The rescue efforts or, more accurately, the body recovery had been going on for two days. So far, 22 corpses have been removed. They were laid to rest just near the place where they were killed. While Arab News was interviewing witnesses at the scene, the body of an eight-year-old boy was removed from under the rubble. Among the tragedies of war comes desperation, and a loss of dignity. During the three-hour drive from Sanawa, Iraqis lined the roads, begging for food and water. Arab News came across a three-year-old boy named Ahmed and his father. The boys feet were swollen, cut and bleeding as a result of severe eczema. The father explained: We were told medical service will be provided for the sick and the injured. But since the Americans arrived, I havent been allowed to drive outside Sanawa to get the medication I need for my son. Just outside Hamza, a military checkpoint was set up. All Iraqis and their vehicles are being searched thoroughly, including a coffin containing the corpse of a man strapped to his family car. He had nothing to do with Saddam or Baath, yet he is dead, said his family. Residents of Sanawa, without food or water for several days, complained that the US troops in some sections of the city have not been allowing people to move to other districts. As a result, the river, a lifeline for the people, has not been accessible to the hungry. At Najaf, the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society was supposed to be distributing food to the hungry masses. As Arab News approached, a Kuwaiti shouting in Arabic was heard. He was dressed in a US military uniform, and was ordering people to stand back. He shouted: If you step back from the fence, maybe we will start thinking of distributing food. If you do not behave, we will not distribute food. Angered further by the crowd eager to receive the humanitarian aid, he bellowed: I have warned you enough times, so there will be no distribution today. The food distribution was stopped for at least 15 minutes. Then only women and those with aid permits were being allowed to take away packages. Arab News asked what was involved in getting an aid permit, but none of the distributors nor the Iraqi civilians knew. Above him a soldier was pointing at the crowd ordering them away from the fence separating the food distributors from the hungry crowd. Every time the soldier passed an order on to the civilians or those arriving in vehicles, he aggressively pointed his 50- caliber truck-mounted machine gun at them, lowering his head to see as though taking aim. Arab News approached the soldier and asked why he was pointing his machine gun at unarmed civilians here to receive humanitarian aid. Any of these people could be suicide bombers, was his reply. An Iraqi man, who asked not to be identified, told Arab News that as the Iraqi troops begin to see that they are becoming weaker and weaker, many of them are not surrendering but withdrawing and moving ahead of the Americans. As the Americans are moving north, they are fighting the same soldiers from the cities they have conquered. Iraqi soldiers from the southern districts are moving north and joining their counterparts there. The biggest battle is going to be the battle of Baghdad, they say. The Americans are becoming more and more scared as they lose more of their soldiers. And they appear to have little if any respect for the civilians they say they have come to liberate. To them all Iraqis are a threat. They have no respect for us, so we have no respect for them, one civilian said. As they kill us, the time will come when we will kill them. _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk