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Apr. 20, 2003. 09:00 AM Iraqi anger boils over An awful prediction: War of liberation from U.S. occupation is about to begin Robert Fisk SPECIAL TO THE TORONTO STAR http://tinyurl.com/9yud ".... Even individual U.S. Marines in Baghdad are talking of the insults being flung at them. "Go away! Get out of my face!" an American soldier screamed at an Iraqi trying to push toward the wire surrounding an infantry unit in the capital. I watched the man's face suffuse with rage. "God is Great! God is Great!" the Iraqi retorted. "F--- you!" .... . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------- Today: Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940335,00.html Ba'athists slip quietly back into control Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad "...It has equally become apparent that the Ba'ath party - whose neighbourhood spy cells were as feared as the state intelligence apparatus - will survive in some form, either through the appeal of its founding ideals, or through the rank opportunism of its millions of members. "The coming bureaucracy will be overwhelmed by Ba'athists. They had loyalty to Saddam Hussein, and now they have loyalty to foreign invaders," said Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University who broke with the Ba'ath in 1961, and is trying to organise a new political grouping. The Ba'athist project of reinvention gathered pace at the weekend when the Iraqi Writers' Union - who received salaries for poems for Saddam - held a meeting at which they claimed to have been secret opponents of the regime for years. At the same time, remnants of the regime see no reason to abandon a party that has been around since 1947. "The Arab Ba'ath Socialist party was not Saddam Hussein's idea. Like Marxism, it was not founded by Lenin and Stalin. It is an idea. That is why the Arab masses sup ported Iraq, not because of Saddam Hussein, but because of ideas," said a senior culture bureaucrat. [...] "The party, with its secular principles - though trampled on by Saddam's cynical use of religion - also represents a bulwark against a nascent Islamist movement among Iraq's disenfranchised Shia majority. For middle class Iraqis, the declarations for religious self-rule now emanating from mosques in Baghdad and southern cities are deeply troubling. The new assertiveness by the Shia clergy probably does not sit very well with the Americans either. So that leaves the Ba'ath. "The Ba'ath party was the right hand to Saddam," said Hind Mahmoud, a computer programmer at one of the nationalist banks sacked by the looters. For people like Ms Mahmoud, faith in the party, and in its future role in Iraq, remains undimmed: "No one can take the place of the Ba'ath party. The Ba'ath party has experience - doctors and managers and scientists. It works in everything." .. --------------------------------------- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940082,00.html "The Observer has seen documents submitted to senior US generals by ORHA on 26 March, listing 16 institutions that 'merit securing as soon as possible to prevent further damage, destruction and or pilferage of records and assets'. First was the national bank, next came the museum. The Oil Ministry, which has been carefully guarded, came sixteenth on a list of 16. The memo said 'looters should be arrested/detained', yet US troops continued to pass by looters carting off their booty, and no tanks appeared in front of these buildings for days. The United States army ignored warnings from its own civilian advisers that could have stopped the looting of priceless artefacts in Baghdad, according to leaked documents seen by The Observer. The warnings were echoed yesterday by American archaeologists, who have tried for three months to persuade the Bush administration of the risk to antiquities. Its sacking was 'completely predictable', says the president of the Archaeological Institute of America, Jane Walbaum. A week before the looting, one of the institute's members, Patty Gerstenblith of De Paul University, wrote to Major Christopher Varhola, a US army civil affairs officer in Kuwait, asking for troops to be stationed at the museum. More than two weeks after the March memo was sent, ORHA was told it had not even been read. ------------------------------------------------ And finally, this today, one hour ago: Some in Washington arguing for quick US exit from Iraq: report http://tinyurl.com/9yxr WASHINGTON (AFP) - Some US government officials are rethinking their ambitious plans for rebuilding Iraq, concerned by the high cost and lengthy time commitment required pg- ny, in such pain. _______________________________________________ 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