Uprooting the New Racism
Patrick J. Buchanan
In his Philadelphia address on race, Sen. Obama identified as a root cause of white resentment affirmative action -- the punishing of white working- and middle-class folks for sins they did not commit:
"Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race," said Barack. "As far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything. ... So when they ... hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed ... resentment builds over time."
On this issue, Barack seemed to have nailed it.
But then he revealed the distorting lens through which he and his fellow liberals see the world. To them, black rage is grounded in real grievances, while white resentments are exaggerated and exploited.
White resentments, said Barack, "have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. ... Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism."
What Barack is saying here is that the resentment of black America is justified, but the resentment of white America is a myth manufactured and manipulated by the conservative commentariat. Barack is attempting to de-legitimize the other side of the argument.
Yet, who is he to claim the moral high ground?
Where does this child of privilege who went to two Ivy League schools, then spent 20 years in a church where racist rants were routine, come off preaching to anyone? What are Barack's moral credentials to instruct white folks on what they must do, when he failed to do what any decent father should have done: Take his wife and daughters out of a church where hate had a home in the pulpit?
Barack needs to reread the Lord's admonition in the Sermon on the Mount: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a racket.
That is certainly true of the civil rights movement. Begun with just demands for an end to state-mandated discrimination based on race, it ends with unjust demands for state-mandated preferences, based on race.
Under affirmative action, white men are passed over for jobs and promotions in business and government, and denied admission to colleges and universities to which their grades and merits entitle them, because of their gender and race.
Paradoxically, America's greatest warrior for equal justice under law and an end to reverse racism is, like Barack, a man of mixed ancestry. He is Ward Connerly. And his life's mission is to drive through reverse discrimination the same stake America drove through segregation.
And when one considers that the GOP establishment has often fled Connerly's cause and campaigns, his record of achievement is remarkable.
Connerly was chief engineer of CCRI, the 1996 California Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action based on ethnicity, race or gender in all public institutions of America's most populous state. Two years later, Connerly racked up a second victory in Washington.
In 2006, Connerly went to Michigan to overturn an affirmative action policy that kept Jennifer Gratz out of the University of Michigan, though she had superior grades and performance records than many minority students admitted. The Michigan proposition also carried and has been upheld by the courts.
One U.S. senator, however, taped an ad denouncing Connerly's Proposition 2 in Michigan and endorsed affirmative action for minorities and women. That senator was Barack Obama.
Comes now the big test. Connerly is gathering signatures to place on the ballots in Nebraska, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado and Missouri -- the latter two crucial swing states -- propositions to outlaw all racial, gender and ethnic preferences. Voting would be the same day as the presidential election.
"Race preferences are on the way out," declares Connerly.
Now that our national conversation is underway, Barack should be asked to explain why discrimination against whites is good public policy, while discrimination against blacks explains the rants of the Rev. Wright.
America is headed for a day, a few decades off, when there will be no racial majority, only a collection of minorities. When that day arrives, if some races and ethnic groups may be preferred because of where their ancestors came from, while others can be held back because their ancestors came from Europe, America will become the Balkans writ large.
Folks need to be able to separate the true friends of racial justice from the phonies who believe with the pigs on Orwell's Animal Farm -- that "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
WIKIPEDIA
Ward Connerly
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Ward Connerly
Ward Connerly
Wardell Connerly (born June 15, 1939) is an American political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent. He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences.[1]. He is considered to be the man behind California's Proposition 209 outlawing race and gender-based preferences in state hiring and state university admissions, widely known as affirmative action. His twelve-year tenure on the Board of Regents ended on March 1, 2005.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Early life
* 2 Support of political campaigns against racial preferences
* 3 Political views
* 4 Controversy
* 5 External links
* 6 References
* 7 Notes
// if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } // [edit] Early life
Wardell Anthony Connerly was born June 15, 1939, in Leesville, Louisiana. Connerly has stated he is one-fourth black, with the rest a mix of Irish, French, and Choctaw.[2] His father, Roy Connerly, left the household when Ward was 2, and his mother died when Ward was 4. The young Connerly went to live first with an aunt and uncle and then a grandmother. He attended Sacramento State College, eventually receiving a bachelor of arts with honors in political science in 1962 . While in college, Connerly was student body president and actively involved with Delta Phi Omega, later becoming an honorary member of Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity. During his college years, Connerly was active in campaigning against housing discrimination and helped to get a bill passed by the state legislature banning the practice. After college, he worked for a number of state agencies and Assembly committees, including the Sacramento re-development agency, the state department of housing and urban development, and State Assembly committee on urban affairs. It was during the late 1960s that he became friends with then-legislator Pete Wilson, who would later become governor in 1991 . At the suggestion of Wilson, in 1973 he stepped away from his government job and started his own consultation and land-use planning company. In 1993 he was appointed to the University of California board of regents. Connerly is married to Ilene Connerly who is his equal partner in the firm of Connerly & Associates and they have two children.[3]
Connerly is a member of the Rotary Club of Sacramento, California, and has been inducted as a lifetime member into the California Building Industry Hall of Fame.[4]
[edit] Support of political campaigns against racial preferences
After his appointment to the University of California board of regents in 1993, Connerly began to discuss his views on affirmative action. In 1994, after listening to Jerry and Ellan Cook, whose son had been rejected at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, Connerly became convinced that affirmative action, as practiced in the University of California, was tantamount to racial discrimination. Jerry Cook, a statistician, presented data showing that whites and especially Asians were being systematically denied admission despite having better grades and test scores than other students who were being admitted.[5] This was never denied by the administrators of the UC system, and led Connerly to propose abolishing these controversial programs, though his proposal would still allow consideration of social or economic factors. The regents passed the proposal in January, 1996 despite protests from activist Jesse Jackson and other supporters of affirmative action. Some believe that the UC system had been discriminating against Asian applicants, in light of the fact that the year after affirmative action was abolished, their numbers showed a dramatic increase.[6] UC regents developed a new system, including essay requirements that served to reveal the applicant's race and ethnicity.[7] The new measures, titled "comprehensive review" have not yet been challenged to the California Supreme Court or the Supreme Court of the United States.
In 1995, he became the chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign[2] and helped get the initiative on the California ballot as Proposition 209. The Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, the ACLU, and the California Teachers Association opposed the measure. It passed by a 54% majority.[8] Connerly, in 1997, formed the American Civil Rights Institute. Connerly and the ACRI supported a similar ballot measure in Washington which would later pass by 58%.[9] Connerly and his group worked to get a measure on the ballot in the 2000 Florida election. The Florida Supreme Court put restrictions on the petition language, and Governor Jeb Bush later implemented, through a program called "One Florida," key portions of Connerly's proposal, helping to keep it off the ballot by accomplishing some of its key objectives through legislation. During this time, Connerly also became a supporter of an initiative to provide health benefits for domestic partners employed by the UC system which was barely passed by the regents.[10]
In 2003, Connerly helped place on the California ballot a measure that would prohibit the state government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, with some exceptions.[11] Critics were concerned that such a measure would make it difficult to track housing discrimination and racial profiling activities. The measure was also criticized by newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, that claimed it would hamper legitimate medical and scientific purposes. The measure was not passed by the voters.
Following the 2003 Supreme Court rulings in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, Connerly was invited to Michigan by Jennifer Gratz to support a measure similar to the 1996 California amendment. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative appeared on the November 2006 Michigan ballot and passed.[12]
[edit] Political views
Ward Connerly sees himself as a Republican with a libertarian philosophy.[2] Despite his close political relationship with former California Governor Pete Wilson and their agreement on the question of Affirmative Action, Connerly spearheaded efforts to grant domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian couples in all state universities against Wilson's objection. He says his views on gay rights stem from his libertarian viewpoint that governments, including government-run universities, should not discriminate, whether it's favoring some students because of their race, or limiting spousal benefits to others based on their sexual orientation.[2]
Further, Connerly's support for domestic partner benefits earned him the ire of the conservative advocacy groups Family Research Council and Traditional Values Coalition.[13]. In reference to Connerly, Robert Knight, Director of Cultural Studies at the Family Research Council, stated, "no true conservative would equate homosexual households with marriages, because we believe that without marriage and family as paramount values, hell will break loose."
In January, 2008, Mr. Connerly officially endorsed Republican Presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani[citation needed].
[edit] Controversy
On May 8, 1995, two years after he went public with his anti-affirmative action views, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Connerly had taken advantage of a minority preference program on multiple occasions in the 1990s. The article was based on the paper's review of the records of California's State Energy Commission which showed that Connerly had listed his firm, Connerly & Associates, as a minority-owned firm, and that Connerly's firm received more than $1 million in state government contracts. The article included excerpts of an interview with Connerly in which he admitted that he only participated in the minority preference program to comply with state law.[14] However, the Chronicle published a correction on May 18, 1995, stating that their original source had erred and that Connerly's firm had not been registered as minority-owned at the time the State Energy Commission contract was awarded.[15]
As Connerly pointed out in a story published by the Associated Press on May 9, 1995, due to the state's requirement that 15 percent of state contracts be given to minority-owned firms, he would have been placed in the position of having "to find a minority to turn over 15 percent of a contract which has an 8 percent profit at best."[16]
On July 9, 1997, Connerly's advocacy organization, the American Civil Rights Institute, expressed disappointment with the federal government's decision to reject the addition of a multiracial category on the Census and other government forms that collect racial data.[17] This press release was the beginning of Connerly's alliance with prominent members of what has become known as the multiracial movement. Prior to spearheading the Racial Privacy Initiative in California, Connerly forged ties with the publishers of Interracial Voice and The Multiracial Activist, prominent publications for the multiracial movement. Eventually, Connerly enlisted the help of several outspoken members of the multiracial movement to assist with the execution of the Racial Privacy Initiative.
Connerly's opposition to affirmative action has generated controversy. Connerly believes affirmative action is a form of racism and that people can achieve success without preferential treatment in college enrollment or in employment. His critics contend that he fails to recognize the problems resulting from past racism, and that he fails to recognize that affirmative action programs can overcome the residual effects of past discrimination on people of minorities.[18]
The Detroit-based pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) claimed that Connerly, as CEO of Connerly & Associates, Inc., his Sacramento based consulting firm, benefitted financially from affirmative action programs in contracting,[19] a claim that was supported by the May 8, 1995 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.[14] What BAMN failed to disclose was that the State of California required state agencies to award 15 percent of all contracts to minority classified firms.[20] Minority owned firms that were not classified as such were not eligible for the set-asides. This created an incentive for organizations to register their ownership by race, in order to compete with similarly owned firms. State agencies may have been reluctant to do business with minority-owned firms that were not registered as such, since they would not get full credit for those contracts. Some claim this created a form of state-sanctioned discrimination against non-registered minority-owned firms. While BAMN's charge is accurate, proper context and background are absent.
BAMN also claims that as a spokesman for the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) and the American Civil Rights Coalition (ACRC), Connerly earned as much as $400,000, by which BAMN questions Connerly's true motives. BAMN seeks a repeal of Proposition 209 and a return to affirmative action programs, especially in campus admissions. BAMN has recently opposed Connerly's efforts to put the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI)on the 2006 Michigan Ballot, and recently disrupted a Michigan Board of Canvassers meeting by loudly protesting and overturning a table.[21]
Connerly's multiracial identity and views on affirmative action have led to him being labeled a "self-hating black" by some of his critics. In 1995, former State Senator Diane Watson said about him, "He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black."[22][23]
Connerly has also been accused of hypocrisy for supporting domestic partner benefits for gay couples while opposing affirmative action. Connerly's supporters point out that this is not contradictory: he opposes discrimination, whether it is against gays, or any racial, religious, or ethnic group. In this regard, Connerly disparages the term "reverse" discrimination. To Connerly and supporters, racial discrimination is indistinguishable, regardless of which racial or ethnic group is the target.[24]
Another controversy arose after publication of Connerly's autobiography. Relatives have claimed his accounts of an impoverished childhood were exaggerated or simply false. Connerly's aunt claims his account is accurate.[25] Pooley claims that relatives who contradicted Connerly’s anecdotes about his poor childhood are lying because they disagree with his politics.[26][27]
Connerly has made controversial remarks regarding racial segregation on several occasions including the following:
* On a CNN interview in December 2002 he said "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races," in response to a question regarding former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.
* He told the San Francisco Chronicle in September of 2003 "I don't care whether they are segregated or not . . . kids need to be learning, and I place more value on these kids getting educated than I do on whether we have some racial balancing or not." regarding whether his Proposition 54 could derail school integration efforts in California public schools.[28]
* Firelight Media interviewed Connerly for their documentary video "Arise: The Battle Over Affirmative Action" in which he comments; "If the Ku Klux Klan thinks that equality is right, God bless them," Connerly says. "Thank them for finally reaching the point where logic and reason are being applied, instead of hate."
Connerly issued a written statement clarifying remarks, which some of his critics pointed to as showing a favorable tone towards the Ku Klux Klan's support for his Michigan campaign to outlaw affirmative action quotas and set-asides. Connerly's statement read, "Throughout my life I have made absolutely clear my disdain for the KKK. However, like all Americans, I hope that this group will move beyond its ugly history and agree that equality before the law is the ideal. If they or any group accepts equality for all people, I will be the first to welcome them."[29]
Friday, March 28, 2008
US Planes Attack Militia Strongholds in Basra Fighting – IRAQ
U.S. Teams Up With Iran in Basra? (Updated)
By Noah Shachtman March 27, 2008 | 11:40:00
Maliki_ahmadinejad_handshake
For more than a year, America's political and military leaders have been angrily accusing Iran of fueling the violence in Iraq. But, in the battle for Basra, the U.S. suddenly finds itself in the odd position of being, in effect, Tehran's ally against a common foe.
Basra has become the epicenter of a fight between Shi'ite factions. On one side, there's Moktada al-Sadr, the homegrown firebrand and long-time thorn in the side of American forces. On the other, there's the team of Da'wa (the party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki) and the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (which runs most of the country's security services). Both SCIRI and Da'wa have decades-deep connections to Iran. "Shiite rivals, particularly the party loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, regularly accuse the Supreme Council of being a tool of the Iranian intelligence service. The party's top officials, including its leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, lived in Iran for decades and still frequently return," the Times observes.
"SCIRI was essentially created by Iran, and its militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained and equipped by the Revolutionary Guards," Council on Foreign Relations Iran scholar Ray Takeyh notes in the current Middle East Journal.
For its part, Da'wa is Iraq's longest surviving Shi'ite political party, with a courageous record of resisting Saddam's repression. Under tremendous pressure, Da'wa did take refuge in Iran, but it also established a presence in Syria, Lebanon, and eventually Britain... Da'wa and SCIRI do retain close bonds with Iran, and have defended the Islamic Republic against American charges of interference and infiltration.
Sadr's family, on the other hand, stayed in Iraq during Saddam's rule -- and suffered for it. "Moqtada's adherents have relentlessly hammered at the fact that the Sadrs stayed and struggled in Iraq, while the Hakims fled," notes Matthew Duss. The experience has helped make Sadr somewhat more of a nationalist than a pure promoter of Shi'ite causes.
That's not to say Sadr has no ties to Tehran. As with all politics in the Middle East, the relationships are complex. In 2006, Sadr pledged to defend Iran, if it was attacked by the Americans. Many believe Iranian weapons have been funneled to elements of Sadr's Mahdi Army. "But unlike their relations with SCIRI and Da'wa, Iran's ties to Sadr are more opportunistic, as they find his sporadic Arab nationalist rhetoric and erratic behavior problematic," Takeyh observes. "At a time when Sadr is being granted an audience by the Arab leaders and dignitaries across the region, it would be astonishing if Iran did not seek some kind of a relationship with the Shi'ite firebrand."
But, ultimately, "the Sadrist movement has always been about Iraq for the Iraqis," Batle Bull writes. "They might accept help from Iran - and I saw Iranian supplies in their compounds in Najaf in 2004 - but the movement is not for sale. Mr. Sadr gets his strength from the street. And the Arabs of the Iraqi street have no time for Persian bosses."
And now, after a long period of cease-fire and halting negotiations, Tehran's old, old friends, in the prime minister's office and in the security forces of Iraq, have decided to move against Sadr. These old friends are America's allies, as well. The U.S. military have spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives, to strengthen the government in Baghdad. But that government has other backers.
"Why, some wonder, is the U.S. closer to the Iran-backed... Badr Brigades than it is with the Sadrites?" Abu Muqawama asks.
Two Baghdad political veterans have ruefully pointed out to Abu Muqawama that while Sadr has more popular support, the ISCI crowd have something more valuable: they speak English. One former State Department veteran with whom Abu Muqawama spoke a few months ago pointed out that former Iraq honcho Meghan O'Sullivan was particularly vulnerable to falling under the sway of those politicians who didn't just speak in that confusing gutteral language where they write from right to left in co-joined letters. Ergo: they speak English, so they must be our friends! Hoo-ray, democracy!
UPDATE: James Joyner isn't buying it. "An interesting argument but one that masks a complicated reality," he says.
The Iranian government naturally wants a Shiite state next door. At the same time, however, it clearly wants the al-Maliki government — and the U.S. mission in Iraq, more generally — to fail. And, goodness, they’ve sheltered al-Sadr for long periods during the current crisis.
Noah’s, right, though, that Sadr is widely perceived to be a more staunch Iraqi nationalist than Maliki, who is considered more friendly to a wider Shiite alliance...
Regardless, this isn’t an old Western movie; there’s nobody in this mess that are obviously “good guys” or purely “bad guys.” We’re supporting Maliki’s government because it was the one that got elected. Sadr and his forces decided to sit the process out.
UPDATE 2: Fred Kaplan has more background on the intrigue surround the Basra offensive...
Late last month, Iraq's three-man presidential council vetoed a bill calling for provincial elections, in large part because ISCI's [new the name for SCIRI] leaders feared that Sadr's party would win in Basra. The Bush administration, which has (correctly) regarded provincial elections as key to Iraqi reconciliation, pressured Maliki to reverse his stance and let the bill go through. He did—at which point (was this just a coincidence?) planning began for the offensive that's raging now.
The New York Times
March 29, 2008
U.S. Planes Attack Militia Strongholds in Basra Fighting
By ERICA GOODE
BAGHDAD —American military forces conducted air strikes on targets in Basra late Thursday, joining for the first time an onslaught by Iraqi security forces intended to oust Shiite militias in the southern port city.
Two American war planes shelled two targets in Basra, entering the battle at the request of the Iraqi Army, which asked the American and British forces to make the strikes, according to Maj. Tom Holloway, a spokesman for the British Army in Basra.
The air strikes are the clearest sign yet that the coalition forces have been drawn into the fighting in Basra. Up until Thursday night, the American and British air forces insisted that the Iraqis had taken the lead, though they acknowledged surveillance support for the Iraqi Army.
The assault on militia forces in Basra has been presented by President Bush and others as an important test for the American-trained Iraqi forces, to show that they can carry out a major ground operation against insurgents largely on their own.
But the air strikes suggest that the Iraqi military has been unable to successfully rout the militias, despite repeated assurances by American and Iraqi officials that their fighting capabilities have vastly improved.
A failure by the Iraqi forces to secure the port city of Basra would be a serious embarrassment for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and for the Iraqi Army, as well as for American forces who are eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively.
However, Major Holloway said that coalition forces only took part because Iraqi security forces did not have aircraft that could conduct such strikes. “I think the point here is actually that Iraq’s army is capable, they are strong and they have been engaging successfully,” Major Holloway said.
He said the first target of the American strikes was a militia stronghold in the city and the second target was a mortar team that was targeting Iraqi Army forces.
The fighting this week in Basra against the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the political movement led by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, has set off clashes in cities throughout Iraq, and raised tensions. Major demonstrations have been staged this week in a number of Shiite areas of Baghdad, including Sadr City, the huge neighborhood that is Mr. Sadr’s base of power.
Although President Bush praised the Iraqi government on Thursday for leading the fighting, the Iraqi government has also appeared to pursue its own agenda, calling the battles a fight against “criminal” elements but seeking to marginalize the Mahdi Army.
On Wednesday, Mr. Maliki set a 72-hour deadline for Shiite militia fighters in Basra to lay down their arms or else face harsh repercussions. While that deadline still holds, on Thursday he offered an additional cash reward to any residents of Basra who turn in heavy weapons or artillery.
After fierce clashes on Thursday in Basra, the streets of the city were quiet Friday morning before Friday prayers, according to Iraqi police officials on the scene.
However, fighting continued in the Qurna district, 40 miles northwest of Basra, with three civilians reported injured.
In Baghdad, the Green Zone office of one of Iraq’s two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, was hit by two rockets or mortar shells on Friday afternoon, killing one person, according to Mr. Hashimi’s daughter and chief secretary, Lubna al-Hashimi. Mr. Hashimi’s office later said a security guard was the person killed.
Ms. Hashimi, weeping, said in a telephone interview that at least three Iraqis were also wounded. There was no immediate information available about whether Mr. Hashimi was in his office at the time, or whether he was hurt in the attack.
An American official in the Green Zone confirmed the attack on the vice president’s office and said that the wounded had been taken to the combat support hospital there.
The attacks, which resounded with sharp cracks about an hour after the finish of Friday prayers, put a violent end to a morning of relative calm in the capital, which is under a strict curfew. Later, in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad gunfire was heard Friday and American helicopters were flying low to the ground.
The Americans share the Iraqi government’s hostility toward what they call rogue elements of the Mahdi Army, but will also be faced with the consequences if the battles among Shiite factions erupt into more widespread unrest.
The violence underscored the fragile nature of the security improvements partly credited to the American troop increase that began last year. Officials have acknowledged that a cease-fire called by Mr. Sadr last August has contributed to the improvements. Should the cease-fire collapse entirely, those gains could be in serious jeopardy, making it far more difficult to begin bringing substantial numbers of American troops back to the United States.
Although Sadr officials insisted on Thursday that the cease-fire was still in effect, Mr. Sadr has authorized his forces to fight in self-defense, and the battles in Basra appear to be eroding the cease-fire.
During a lengthy speech on Thursday at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Bush praised Iraq’s government for ordering the assault in Basra and portrayed the battle as evidence that his strategy of increasing troop strength was bearing fruit.
“This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them,” he said.
“There’s a strong commitment by the central government of Iraq to say that no one is above the law.”
Mr. Bush also accused Iran of arming, training and financing the militias fighting against the Iraqi forces.
Mr. Bush spoke after three days of briefings with senior advisers and military commanders on the situation in Iraq and the options for reducing the number of American troops there beyond the withdrawals already announced. It was one in a series of speeches he has been giving to build support for his policy before Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Iraq, testifies before Congress next month.
In a videoconference with the president on Monday, General Petraeus recommended taking up to two months to evaluate security in Iraq before considering additional withdrawals, officials said Monday.
On Thursday, medical officials in Basra said the toll in the fighting there had risen to about 100 dead and 500 wounded, including civilians, militiamen and members of the security forces. An Iraqi employee of The New York Times, driving on the main road between Basra and Nasiriya, observed numerous civilian cars with coffins strapped to the roofs, apparently heading to Shiite cemeteries to the north.
Violence also broke out in Kut, Hilla, Amara, Kirkuk, Baquba and other cities. In Baghdad, where explosions shook the city throughout the day on Thursday, American officials said 11 rockets struck the Green Zone, killing an unidentified American government worker, the second this week.
Another American, Paul Converse of Corvallis, Ore., an analyst with a federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, died of wounds suffered in a rocket attack on Sunday, a spokeswoman for the agency said Thursday.
The Iraqi government imposed a citywide curfew in Baghdad until Sunday.
Thousands of demonstrators in Sadr City on Thursday denounced Mr. Maliki, who has personally directed the Basra operation, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite cleric who leads the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a political party that is a crucial member of the coalition keeping Mr. Maliki in power.
The Supreme Council’s armed wing, the Badr Organization, is one of the most powerful rivals of the Mahdi Army in Basra, where Shiite militias have been fighting among themselves for years to control neighborhoods, oil revenues, electricity access, the ports and even the local universities.
Contributing reporting were James Glanz from Baghdad; Steven Lee Myers from Ohio; Graham Bowley from New York; and Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam, Mudhafer al-Husaini, Hosham Hussein, Karim al-Hilmi, and other employees of The New York Times from Basra, Kut, Baghdad, Hilla, Kirkuk and Diyala Province.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq29mar29,0,6396388.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Maliki gives Iraq militiamen more time to disarm
As clashes continue, the prime minister postpones the Saturday deadline to April 8. U.S. forces intervene in Basra at Iraq's request, bombing Shiite militia positions overnight.
By Tina Susman
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
8:20 AM PDT, March 28, 2008
Caught
Email Picture
AFP/Getty Images
CAUGHT: Iraqi police commandos guard captured Shiite militiamen at a military base in the central city of Hilla.
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki today extended a deadline for militiamen battling government troops to disarm as fighters showed no signs of ending a standoff with Iraqi forces.
U.S. forces intervened in the battle in the southern city of Basra by dropping two bombs on militia positions overnight. A British military spokesman in the city, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that Iraq had requested airstrikes on the targets and that American jets happened to be in the vicinity and responded.
Holloway said the planes were part of 24-hour air support provided by the United States and Britain over Basra since Tuesday, when Maliki deployed troops to quell violence by Shiite Muslim militiamen.
Despite a curfew imposed across Baghdad, mortar and rocket attacks today continued to plague the Green Zone, the heavily fortified enclave in the capital that is home to the U.S. Embassy and most Iraqi government offices. One hit the office of Vice President Tariq Hashimi. He was not there, but police said three guards were killed.
Maliki's decision to extend what had been a three-day disarmament deadline, set to expire Saturday, until April 8 was a sign of the resistance he faces from militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.
A spokesman for Iraq's Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said today that "no one handed over his weapons" after Maliki issued his first order Wednesday. But Khalaf said the ministry, which oversees police, had received calls from people asking how to turn in their arms without facing arrest or other repercussions.
As a result, Khalaf said, a formal disarmament system had been established that allows fighters to register at local mosques, instead of having to go to police stations.
"During this time the armed men should hand over the heavy and the medium weapons, and they will receive a financial award," Khalaf said in a telephone interview. He did not say what the financial award would be.
Iraq's government has portrayed the operation so far as a success, but violence has erupted in Shiite strongholds across the country.
Maliki says the offensive is aimed at crushing rogue elements of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which is locked in a power struggle in the south with the rival armed wing of the government-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
But Sadr denies that his men are involved in violence. His followers reject assertions by Maliki and the U.S. military that the current operation is targeting only rogue militiamen and say it is aimed at Sadr in hopes of sidelining his movement.
There were scattered reports of clashes today across Iraq.
Police said fighting in the provincial capital of Nasiriya had left 15 people dead since Thursday, seven of them civilians and the rest militiamen and police.
In Basra, which remained under curfew, gunmen killed the manager of one of the city's hospitals Thursday.
Residents reported fighters massing today on the outskirts of Saidiya, in southwestern Baghdad, in a Shiite area considered a stronghold of the Mahdi Army. Some residents reported clashes between gunmen and U.S. and Iraqi forces there, but there was no independent confirmation.
The use of American bombs to target militiamen in Basra could complicate U.S. efforts to remain on relatively good terms with Sadr, whose self-imposed cease-fire in August is credited with helping bring down violence across Iraq. The U.S. has sought to distance itself from the offensive even as it proclaims its support for Maliki's actions.
But it confirmed that U.S. forces had been involved in some clashes in Baghdad, including three incidents this morning in Sadr City. It said U.S. soldiers killed four "criminals" in the Shiite neighborhood and a fourth in Khadimiya, another Shiite stronghold.
Salah Ubeidi, a Sadr spokesman, said U.S. helicopters had conducted airstrikes in Sadr City at 4:30 a.m. that had left four civilians dead. It was not clear if he was talking about the same incidents as the U.S. military.
The United States did not report any civilian casualties in its operations, but it is not unusual for locals to dispute military statements, and visa versa.
tina.susman@latimes.com
Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Ned Parker in Baghdad and special correspondents in Basra and Baghdad contributed to this report.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
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Middle East Features
The fight for Basra - it's about oil and power
By DPA
Mar 28, 2008, 14:57 GMT
Cairo - US forces in Iraq are in danger of being drawn deeper into the power struggle between the country's Shiite factions.
During the most recent clashes between Iraqi troops and the militia of Shiite preacher Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, the US army may not have been in the teeth of the fighting. But does take action in case of emergencies, when Iraqi troops risk defeat.
Yet over the past months the US military command stressed it was 'respecting the ceasefire announced by Moqtada al-Sadr'. The fact that US troops are fighting the Mahdi Army despite those assurances pose great risks, independent analysts say.
The rivalries between the Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Mahdi Army are not just about differing ideologies or handing out lucrative posts in state and administration.
First and foremost, they are about dividing the legal and illegal profits stemming from the oil business in the southern city of Basra.
If reports from Basra are to be believed, more or less all Shiite parties are involved in illicit oil dealing. Information is passed on only in secret, because of fears of the militias' vengeance.
'When an oil delivery leaves Basra, the (Iraq's governing) Dawa and SICI parties divert about a third of the oil, secretly sell it and pocket the profit,' a Basra man close to the Sadrists said.
'All of that has nothing to do with politics. The structures are more like the Italian Mafia,' he said.
The Sadrists and the members of the Shiite Fadhila party, whose members are very well connected around Basra, are now accused of oil smuggling by al-Maliki's Dawa party and his main coalition partner, the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq (SICI).
'After Prime Minister al-Maliki accused the Sadr movement of being involved in oil smuggling, members of Iraq's anti-corruption authority contacted us,' said MP Asmaa al-Mussawi.
'They informed us that the names on their list did not include a single representative of the Sadrists, but instead the names of several high-ranking government members who are involved in oil rackets.'
The Shiite politician is a member of the Sadr movement. She was elected into parliament in 2005 as a candidate of the Shiite alliance.
Back then, all Shiite parties cooperated. Now the Sadrists, whose six ministers walked out of the government almost one year ago, are demanding al-Maliki's resignation.
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28/03/2008 13:54 BAGHDAD, March 28 (AFP)
Iraq parliament holds emergency session on Basra crisis
Iraq's embattled parliament held an emergency session on Friday to discuss the crisis in the southern city of Basra where Shiite fighters are locked in battle with Iraqi forces, an AFP correspondent said.
Only 54 of the 275 lawmakers attended the session.
The two main parliamentary blocs -- Shiite United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdish Alliance --- were not present for the session which was attended by lawmakers from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc, the small Shiite Fadhila Party, the secular Iraqi National List and the Sunni National Dialogue Council.
©2008 AFP
Slate Magazine
today's papers
Swimming With the Sharks
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008, at 6:00 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with the latest from Iraq, where tens of thousands took to the streets in Baghdad to protest against the crackdown on Shiite militias that is being overseen by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. At least 125 people have been killed, but the Iraqi security forces seem no closer to getting rid of the militias in Basra than when the offensive began on Tuesday. The Green Zone was once again pounded by rocket and mortar attacks, which yesterday killed another American contract worker. The government imposed a curfew in Baghdad after explosions rocked the capital throughout the day and violence continued to rage in several cities. The WSJ highlights that a bomb was placed under an oil pipeline near Basra, which officials said could affect shipments and increase prices. In a Page One story, the WSJ highlights that the increasing violence once again threatens efforts to lure big oil companies to Iraq.
The Washington Post devotes most of its above-the-fold space to the role of U.S. forces in the Iraqi crackdown but leads with a look at how the actions taken by the Federal Reserve in the last couple of weeks could mark a vast expansion in the role of the central bank in the future. The Fed was just trying to deal with the current crisis, but many are now starting to recognize the actions will have long-lasting consequences. "Whether we like it or not, they've recreated the financial universe," a finance professor declared. USA Today leads with the hundreds of flight cancellations that passengers have had to deal with this week and warns there could be more to come as the Federal Aviation Administration continues cracking down on airplane safety. After problems were discovered in Southwest planes, the agency ordered all airlines to check for problems. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines canceled flights this week, and some suspect others will follow suit as the FAA continues its inquiry.
President Bush declared yesterday that Iraq is returning to "normalcy" and praised the latest operation in Basra as a sign that the Iraqi government is taking security matters seriously. "This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them," Bush said.
The WP off-leads its Iraq story and says there are hints that U.S. troops are more involved in the fighting than military officials let on. One of the paper's correspondents saw U.S. troops in armored vehicles directly fighting Mahdi Army forces in Sadr City while Iraqi units largely stuck "to the outskirts of the area." Throughout the day, "the din of American weapons" could be heard, and the WP pointedly declares that U.S. troops "took the lead in the fighting." So U.S. forces are getting more involved in the conflict even as one American official admitted that "we can't quite decipher" the situation and figure out why the government decided to act now. But there's a growing consensus that Maliki is firing "the first salvo in the upcoming elections," says the official, who then gives us the understatement of the day: "It's not a pretty picture." U.S. military officials insist American troops are merely playing backup to Iraqi security forces, but commanders with the Mahdi Army say they've been fighting U.S. troops for the past three days.
The LAT points out that U.S. officials are now in a strange situation where they have to consistently talk about how the crackdown is aimed at Shiite militias in general and insist that it's rogue elements of Muqtada Sadr's army that are to blame and not the cleric. Of course, they're worried that Sadr will officially call off his cease-fire. But as the WP makes clear, that cease-fire seems to exist in name only, since Sadr's "fighters and Iraqi and U.S. forces are waging full-scale war in places." The NYT once again notes that there's "little evidence" that Iraqi security forces in Basra are targeting anyone besides Mahdi Army fighters. Slate's Fred Kaplan plainly declares that the fighting in Basra "is not a clash between good and evil or between a legitimate government and an outlaw insurgency. … It's just another crevice in the widening earthquake called Iraq."
The WP talks to administration officials who say Maliki launched the offensive without consulting the United States. But the move couldn't have been that much of a surprise seeing as the NYT reported on March 13 that the Iraqi army was planning an offensive to take control of Basra's port.
The Post says that when the leaders of the Fed decided to open up what is "essentially a bottomless pit of cash," which was previously available only to traditional banks, to large investment houses, they knew it was a big deal. The plan calls for that money to be available for at least the next six months, but even if it expires, the perception of how the Fed will act in a crisis has been forever changed. Experts now say that investment banks and their clients may be less worried about risky investments in the future since they will assume that the Fed will come to the rescue if there's a crisis. The question now is whether the Fed will formally take on a more heavy-handed approach to regulating Wall Street.
The LAT and NYT front, while everyone else goes inside with, the proposals put forward by the presidential contenders to deal with problems in the economy. Sen. Barack Obama emphasized there should be more federal regulation of the financial markets, while Sen. Hillary Clinton proposed a plan to retrain laid-off workers. Obama put forward a $30 billion economic-stimulus package, and Clinton's aides took the opportunity to highlight that she had proposed to spend $30 billion to help prevent foreclosures (the country needs "leadership, not followership," they said). Both the Democratic contenders sharply criticized Sen. John McCain, who said the federal role should be limited because "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."
The NYT highlights that, despite the rhetoric, both parties have agreed that the government should be involved, but "the ideological clashes are … more about whom it should try to rescue." In the end though, their results could be similar, since it's probably impossible to separate the individuals from the markets, because each would suffer if the other is doing badly.
The NYT's Paul Krugman analyzes their proposals and says that, just as with health care, each candidate's policy tells "a tale that is seriously at odds with the way they're often portrayed." McCain, who is often referred to as an independent maverick, "offers neither straight talk nor originality" as he offers traditional right-wing views. Obama is seen as "a transformational figure," but his proposals "tend to be cautious and relatively orthodox." For her part, Clinton, who "we're assured by sources right and left, tortures puppies and eats babies," offers proposals that "continue to be surprisingly bold and progressive."
The Post takes a look at Obama's huge success in raising funds through the Internet and says that in the past two months the senator has "rewritten the rules of raising campaign cash." The key to his "elaborate marketing effort," which involves spending heavily on Internet ads, seems to be that his campaign doesn't ask for money at every possible turn and instead has pursued a "strategy of slow-walking its way into supporters' wallets."
The WSJ reports that as foreclosures continue to increase, banks and mortgage companies are increasingly finding that homeowners are taking revenge by trashing their homes before handing over the keys. As a result, many are offering homeowners hundreds, or thousands, of dollars "to put their anger in escrow and leave quietly."
Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2187644/
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
UK
Britain sits on sidelines as Iraq's Basra burns
Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:00pm GMT
By Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain ruled out deploying any troops to the Iraqi city of Basra on Friday, despite days of intense battles on the streets and signs Iraq's forces cannot cope with a growing militant uprising.
U.S. war planes dropped bombs on rebel areas in an effort to help the Iraqi army regain control of the city, but Britain said its 4,100 heavily armed troops, based at an airport a few kilometres (miles) from the centre, would not join in.
"This is an Iraqi-led operation and it's one that we have wanted to see since they took responsibility for security in Basra," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence.
"It's going to take time, but it shows the Iraqi government's political will in taking on the militants."
At least 120 people described by the Iraqi government as enemy fighters have been killed and 450 wounded in four days of intense fighting, which began after Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, decided to take on militant groups in the city.
Britain is providing logistical support and treating some of the Iraqi army wounded on its base, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said, reiterating the Iraqis were in charge.
Yet despite Britain's expression of confidence in Iraqi forces its troops have helped train, there are signs Iraq's army is struggling to contain what is a widening conflict.
Militants loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shi'ite cleric opposed to the U.S. and British presence in Iraq, have risen up in cities across the south in the wake of the crackdown in Basra.
Maliki had initially set a 72-hour deadline for militants to give up their weapons, but has now extended that deadline until April 8, indicating that he expects the offensive to take much longer than originally planned to quell the threat.
"PANDORA'S BOX"
The Pentagon described Basra as chaotic this week, but stopped short of any suggestion that Britain, which has overseen the city since 2003, was responsible for the state of affairs.
Since Brown took over as prime minister in June last year, Britain has been steadily drawing forces out of Iraq, looking to draw a line under a war that is unpopular in Britain.
The intention had been to reduce troop numbers to 2,500 in the coming weeks, but that looks less likely given the fighting.
"Citizens down there have been living in a city of chaos and corruption for some time and they and the prime minister clearly have had enough of it," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. "The city has always been dealing with a level of criminality and corruption that no one has been comfortable with."
Part of Britain's reluctance to get involved is that it could exacerbate an already bad situation, turning what is currently a two-way fight into a three-way fight or worse.
Ghassan al-Attiyah, an Iraq analyst in London, said Britain was right not to get involved, but said its presence was now so close to meaningless that all troops should be pulled out.
He said Maliki had opened a Pandora's Box by taking on Sadr's militants in a battle there was no guarantee he could win and that ultimately could play into the hands of Iran, which is building influence in southern Iraq.
"It's a bad development, a misjudgement, and I doubt Maliki will come out of it well," he said. "Do the Iranians want to see the Sadr group vanquished by the Iraqi government? I don't know, but if they are unhappy with it, they are going to react."
(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray in Washington; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)
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Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Editorial: Surge's progress can't halt Iraq turmoil
U.S. must fight smart in Iraq - with fewer troops
05:11 AM CDT on Friday, March 28, 2008
Iraq is once again in turmoil. Shiite militiamen are fighting Iraqi troops to control parts of Baghdad and Basra. The Green Zone is being bombarded. A spike in attacks recently pushed the U.S. death toll past the psychological marker of 4,000. Political bickering still impedes efforts to unite Iraq's sectarian factions.
The turmoil underscores the limits of the U.S. troop surge. It can help stabilize violent areas, but it can't make Iraqis get along with one another. This is not to deny the merits of the surge itself, because military conditions are distinctly better than they were a year ago. Casualties are markedly down. U.S. troops are using smarter tactics to enlist Iraqi support rather than provoke their enmity. This is progress.
Is it enough? Not by a long shot. Today's situation is so brittle that President Bush has had to halt a scheduled drawdown of troops to pre-surge levels. For the sake of short-term stability, that's the correct choice. But the Pentagon's top leadership has consistently warned that we can't sustain this commitment much longer because our armed forces are stretched too thin and the stress caused by lengthy deployments is too great.
The fact that Iraq's leaders are willing to commit their own troops to fight Iraqi militiamen is a good sign. But it's in the political arena where Iraq's problems will be solved over the long term, and that progress has been unacceptably slow. Iraqi leaders have mistaken Mr. Bush's stay-the-course resolve as a sign that the Americans are staying put, so what's the hurry? They're getting the wrong message.
As the surge began, this newspaper offered an alternative approach called Plan B. The philosophy behind it is effectively being put to the test in Iraq right now: Don't withdraw altogether, but take action to reduce U.S. casualties by limiting troops' movements on the ground. Let Iraqis fight Iraqi battles. Let U.S. troops secure the borders and continue going after al-Qaeda and foreign fighters. Whenever possible, deploy by helicopter – as troops do in Afghanistan – so patrols are less vulnerable to the IED attacks that now account for the bulk of American deaths.
We've given the surge a chance to work, and we think its results have been impressive. The key now is to fight smart – with fewer American troops. Our military leadership is pleading for it. U.S. commitments elsewhere, particularly in Afghanistan, demand it. And our Plan B offers what we think is the best way to make it happen.
Basics of Plan B
•Gradually reduce troop levels to 60,000-80,000.
•Move bases to rural areas within 100 miles of Iraq's borders; create a border cordon to halt foreign infiltration.
•End ground-based U.S. military patrols and convoys; minimize IED casualties with helicopter deployments.
•Continue training Iraqi forces so they can fight their own battles.
IRAN
UK delays Iraq withdrawal due to Basra violence - report
London, March 28, IRNA
UK-Iraq
The British government was reported Friday to be delaying its plans to further cut its troops in Iraq by 1,600 due to the upsurge in violence in Basra.
Ministry of Defence officials have admitted that they were no longer thinking about cutting troop numbers to 2,500 from the spring, as had been outlined by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last October, according to the Times newspaper.
"Any plans for a reduction of British troops is off the table for the time being," a senior source was quoted saying by the daily.
Under present strategy, the 4,100 British troops still in Iraq are based at the airport northwest of Basra.
British officials have insisted that so far UK forces were providing support only in the form of air cover and logistics, including 19 liaison officers in Basra city.
But the Times said it did not rule out sending a small force to help the Iraqis against the insurgency if requested by the authorities in Baghdad.
Earlier this month, Defence Secretary Des Browne flew to Basra to meet commanders on the ground as uncertainty hung over the withdrawal plans.
In a statement to parliament last October, the British premier said the intention was to reduce the number of UK troops there to 2,500, starting in the spring, but speculation is that the UK may have altered its plans.
2220**345**1420
IRAN
UK soldier killed in Iraq reported to be SAS officer
London, March 27, IRNA
UK-Iraq
The British soldier killed in Iraq on Wednesday was a member of the UK's special forces, it was reported Thursday.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD), which does not comment officially on the activities of the SAS, said only that a British soldier was shot and killed in Iraq.
Uncommonly it did not state where in the country he was killed.
But according to the Guardian newspaper, quoting sources, he was an SAS soldier and was killed in a gunfight during a covert operation in the Baghdad area.
The MoD said the soldier died as a result of gunshot wounds "sustained during a firefight in the early hours of Wednesday," but indicated that he was not killed in Basra, where 4,100 of the 4,300 British troops still in Iraq are based.
None of soldiers based at Basra airport have combat roles.
Apart from the unknown number of SAS officers operating in the country, there are also some 200 British soldiers in Baghdad, mainly on guard duty.
The latest death brings the total number of British military fatalities in Iraq to 176 since the 2003 invasion.
Up until the end of 2007, another 212 British troops have been very seriously or seriously injured.
The only other SAS deaths reported in Iraq were two killed in a Puma helicopter crash last November during an anti-insurgency mission on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The daily reported that SAS patrols have been operating in Iraq since before the invasion.
It said there was a squadron of about 60 from 22 SAS Regiment, based about 50 miles from Baghdad, often working with US special forces.
Last month, a member of the SAS who recently resigned after being assigned to Iraq, accused the UK government of being "deeply involved" with the US in the extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects to torture camps.
"Throughout my time in Iraq I was in no doubt that individuals detained by UKSF (special forces) and handed over to our American colleagues would be tortured," Ben Griffin told a news conference in London on February 25.
2220**345**1420
By Noah Shachtman March 27, 2008 | 11:40:00
Maliki_ahmadinejad_handshake
For more than a year, America's political and military leaders have been angrily accusing Iran of fueling the violence in Iraq. But, in the battle for Basra, the U.S. suddenly finds itself in the odd position of being, in effect, Tehran's ally against a common foe.
Basra has become the epicenter of a fight between Shi'ite factions. On one side, there's Moktada al-Sadr, the homegrown firebrand and long-time thorn in the side of American forces. On the other, there's the team of Da'wa (the party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki) and the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (which runs most of the country's security services). Both SCIRI and Da'wa have decades-deep connections to Iran. "Shiite rivals, particularly the party loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, regularly accuse the Supreme Council of being a tool of the Iranian intelligence service. The party's top officials, including its leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, lived in Iran for decades and still frequently return," the Times observes.
"SCIRI was essentially created by Iran, and its militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained and equipped by the Revolutionary Guards," Council on Foreign Relations Iran scholar Ray Takeyh notes in the current Middle East Journal.
For its part, Da'wa is Iraq's longest surviving Shi'ite political party, with a courageous record of resisting Saddam's repression. Under tremendous pressure, Da'wa did take refuge in Iran, but it also established a presence in Syria, Lebanon, and eventually Britain... Da'wa and SCIRI do retain close bonds with Iran, and have defended the Islamic Republic against American charges of interference and infiltration.
Sadr's family, on the other hand, stayed in Iraq during Saddam's rule -- and suffered for it. "Moqtada's adherents have relentlessly hammered at the fact that the Sadrs stayed and struggled in Iraq, while the Hakims fled," notes Matthew Duss. The experience has helped make Sadr somewhat more of a nationalist than a pure promoter of Shi'ite causes.
That's not to say Sadr has no ties to Tehran. As with all politics in the Middle East, the relationships are complex. In 2006, Sadr pledged to defend Iran, if it was attacked by the Americans. Many believe Iranian weapons have been funneled to elements of Sadr's Mahdi Army. "But unlike their relations with SCIRI and Da'wa, Iran's ties to Sadr are more opportunistic, as they find his sporadic Arab nationalist rhetoric and erratic behavior problematic," Takeyh observes. "At a time when Sadr is being granted an audience by the Arab leaders and dignitaries across the region, it would be astonishing if Iran did not seek some kind of a relationship with the Shi'ite firebrand."
But, ultimately, "the Sadrist movement has always been about Iraq for the Iraqis," Batle Bull writes. "They might accept help from Iran - and I saw Iranian supplies in their compounds in Najaf in 2004 - but the movement is not for sale. Mr. Sadr gets his strength from the street. And the Arabs of the Iraqi street have no time for Persian bosses."
And now, after a long period of cease-fire and halting negotiations, Tehran's old, old friends, in the prime minister's office and in the security forces of Iraq, have decided to move against Sadr. These old friends are America's allies, as well. The U.S. military have spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives, to strengthen the government in Baghdad. But that government has other backers.
"Why, some wonder, is the U.S. closer to the Iran-backed... Badr Brigades than it is with the Sadrites?" Abu Muqawama asks.
Two Baghdad political veterans have ruefully pointed out to Abu Muqawama that while Sadr has more popular support, the ISCI crowd have something more valuable: they speak English. One former State Department veteran with whom Abu Muqawama spoke a few months ago pointed out that former Iraq honcho Meghan O'Sullivan was particularly vulnerable to falling under the sway of those politicians who didn't just speak in that confusing gutteral language where they write from right to left in co-joined letters. Ergo: they speak English, so they must be our friends! Hoo-ray, democracy!
UPDATE: James Joyner isn't buying it. "An interesting argument but one that masks a complicated reality," he says.
The Iranian government naturally wants a Shiite state next door. At the same time, however, it clearly wants the al-Maliki government — and the U.S. mission in Iraq, more generally — to fail. And, goodness, they’ve sheltered al-Sadr for long periods during the current crisis.
Noah’s, right, though, that Sadr is widely perceived to be a more staunch Iraqi nationalist than Maliki, who is considered more friendly to a wider Shiite alliance...
Regardless, this isn’t an old Western movie; there’s nobody in this mess that are obviously “good guys” or purely “bad guys.” We’re supporting Maliki’s government because it was the one that got elected. Sadr and his forces decided to sit the process out.
UPDATE 2: Fred Kaplan has more background on the intrigue surround the Basra offensive...
Late last month, Iraq's three-man presidential council vetoed a bill calling for provincial elections, in large part because ISCI's [new the name for SCIRI] leaders feared that Sadr's party would win in Basra. The Bush administration, which has (correctly) regarded provincial elections as key to Iraqi reconciliation, pressured Maliki to reverse his stance and let the bill go through. He did—at which point (was this just a coincidence?) planning began for the offensive that's raging now.
The New York Times
March 29, 2008
U.S. Planes Attack Militia Strongholds in Basra Fighting
By ERICA GOODE
BAGHDAD —American military forces conducted air strikes on targets in Basra late Thursday, joining for the first time an onslaught by Iraqi security forces intended to oust Shiite militias in the southern port city.
Two American war planes shelled two targets in Basra, entering the battle at the request of the Iraqi Army, which asked the American and British forces to make the strikes, according to Maj. Tom Holloway, a spokesman for the British Army in Basra.
The air strikes are the clearest sign yet that the coalition forces have been drawn into the fighting in Basra. Up until Thursday night, the American and British air forces insisted that the Iraqis had taken the lead, though they acknowledged surveillance support for the Iraqi Army.
The assault on militia forces in Basra has been presented by President Bush and others as an important test for the American-trained Iraqi forces, to show that they can carry out a major ground operation against insurgents largely on their own.
But the air strikes suggest that the Iraqi military has been unable to successfully rout the militias, despite repeated assurances by American and Iraqi officials that their fighting capabilities have vastly improved.
A failure by the Iraqi forces to secure the port city of Basra would be a serious embarrassment for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and for the Iraqi Army, as well as for American forces who are eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively.
However, Major Holloway said that coalition forces only took part because Iraqi security forces did not have aircraft that could conduct such strikes. “I think the point here is actually that Iraq’s army is capable, they are strong and they have been engaging successfully,” Major Holloway said.
He said the first target of the American strikes was a militia stronghold in the city and the second target was a mortar team that was targeting Iraqi Army forces.
The fighting this week in Basra against the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the political movement led by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, has set off clashes in cities throughout Iraq, and raised tensions. Major demonstrations have been staged this week in a number of Shiite areas of Baghdad, including Sadr City, the huge neighborhood that is Mr. Sadr’s base of power.
Although President Bush praised the Iraqi government on Thursday for leading the fighting, the Iraqi government has also appeared to pursue its own agenda, calling the battles a fight against “criminal” elements but seeking to marginalize the Mahdi Army.
On Wednesday, Mr. Maliki set a 72-hour deadline for Shiite militia fighters in Basra to lay down their arms or else face harsh repercussions. While that deadline still holds, on Thursday he offered an additional cash reward to any residents of Basra who turn in heavy weapons or artillery.
After fierce clashes on Thursday in Basra, the streets of the city were quiet Friday morning before Friday prayers, according to Iraqi police officials on the scene.
However, fighting continued in the Qurna district, 40 miles northwest of Basra, with three civilians reported injured.
In Baghdad, the Green Zone office of one of Iraq’s two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, was hit by two rockets or mortar shells on Friday afternoon, killing one person, according to Mr. Hashimi’s daughter and chief secretary, Lubna al-Hashimi. Mr. Hashimi’s office later said a security guard was the person killed.
Ms. Hashimi, weeping, said in a telephone interview that at least three Iraqis were also wounded. There was no immediate information available about whether Mr. Hashimi was in his office at the time, or whether he was hurt in the attack.
An American official in the Green Zone confirmed the attack on the vice president’s office and said that the wounded had been taken to the combat support hospital there.
The attacks, which resounded with sharp cracks about an hour after the finish of Friday prayers, put a violent end to a morning of relative calm in the capital, which is under a strict curfew. Later, in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad gunfire was heard Friday and American helicopters were flying low to the ground.
The Americans share the Iraqi government’s hostility toward what they call rogue elements of the Mahdi Army, but will also be faced with the consequences if the battles among Shiite factions erupt into more widespread unrest.
The violence underscored the fragile nature of the security improvements partly credited to the American troop increase that began last year. Officials have acknowledged that a cease-fire called by Mr. Sadr last August has contributed to the improvements. Should the cease-fire collapse entirely, those gains could be in serious jeopardy, making it far more difficult to begin bringing substantial numbers of American troops back to the United States.
Although Sadr officials insisted on Thursday that the cease-fire was still in effect, Mr. Sadr has authorized his forces to fight in self-defense, and the battles in Basra appear to be eroding the cease-fire.
During a lengthy speech on Thursday at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Bush praised Iraq’s government for ordering the assault in Basra and portrayed the battle as evidence that his strategy of increasing troop strength was bearing fruit.
“This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them,” he said.
“There’s a strong commitment by the central government of Iraq to say that no one is above the law.”
Mr. Bush also accused Iran of arming, training and financing the militias fighting against the Iraqi forces.
Mr. Bush spoke after three days of briefings with senior advisers and military commanders on the situation in Iraq and the options for reducing the number of American troops there beyond the withdrawals already announced. It was one in a series of speeches he has been giving to build support for his policy before Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Iraq, testifies before Congress next month.
In a videoconference with the president on Monday, General Petraeus recommended taking up to two months to evaluate security in Iraq before considering additional withdrawals, officials said Monday.
On Thursday, medical officials in Basra said the toll in the fighting there had risen to about 100 dead and 500 wounded, including civilians, militiamen and members of the security forces. An Iraqi employee of The New York Times, driving on the main road between Basra and Nasiriya, observed numerous civilian cars with coffins strapped to the roofs, apparently heading to Shiite cemeteries to the north.
Violence also broke out in Kut, Hilla, Amara, Kirkuk, Baquba and other cities. In Baghdad, where explosions shook the city throughout the day on Thursday, American officials said 11 rockets struck the Green Zone, killing an unidentified American government worker, the second this week.
Another American, Paul Converse of Corvallis, Ore., an analyst with a federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, died of wounds suffered in a rocket attack on Sunday, a spokeswoman for the agency said Thursday.
The Iraqi government imposed a citywide curfew in Baghdad until Sunday.
Thousands of demonstrators in Sadr City on Thursday denounced Mr. Maliki, who has personally directed the Basra operation, and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite cleric who leads the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a political party that is a crucial member of the coalition keeping Mr. Maliki in power.
The Supreme Council’s armed wing, the Badr Organization, is one of the most powerful rivals of the Mahdi Army in Basra, where Shiite militias have been fighting among themselves for years to control neighborhoods, oil revenues, electricity access, the ports and even the local universities.
Contributing reporting were James Glanz from Baghdad; Steven Lee Myers from Ohio; Graham Bowley from New York; and Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam, Mudhafer al-Husaini, Hosham Hussein, Karim al-Hilmi, and other employees of The New York Times from Basra, Kut, Baghdad, Hilla, Kirkuk and Diyala Province.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq29mar29,0,6396388.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Maliki gives Iraq militiamen more time to disarm
As clashes continue, the prime minister postpones the Saturday deadline to April 8. U.S. forces intervene in Basra at Iraq's request, bombing Shiite militia positions overnight.
By Tina Susman
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
8:20 AM PDT, March 28, 2008
Caught
Email Picture
AFP/Getty Images
CAUGHT: Iraqi police commandos guard captured Shiite militiamen at a military base in the central city of Hilla.
BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki today extended a deadline for militiamen battling government troops to disarm as fighters showed no signs of ending a standoff with Iraqi forces.
U.S. forces intervened in the battle in the southern city of Basra by dropping two bombs on militia positions overnight. A British military spokesman in the city, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that Iraq had requested airstrikes on the targets and that American jets happened to be in the vicinity and responded.
Holloway said the planes were part of 24-hour air support provided by the United States and Britain over Basra since Tuesday, when Maliki deployed troops to quell violence by Shiite Muslim militiamen.
Despite a curfew imposed across Baghdad, mortar and rocket attacks today continued to plague the Green Zone, the heavily fortified enclave in the capital that is home to the U.S. Embassy and most Iraqi government offices. One hit the office of Vice President Tariq Hashimi. He was not there, but police said three guards were killed.
Maliki's decision to extend what had been a three-day disarmament deadline, set to expire Saturday, until April 8 was a sign of the resistance he faces from militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.
A spokesman for Iraq's Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said today that "no one handed over his weapons" after Maliki issued his first order Wednesday. But Khalaf said the ministry, which oversees police, had received calls from people asking how to turn in their arms without facing arrest or other repercussions.
As a result, Khalaf said, a formal disarmament system had been established that allows fighters to register at local mosques, instead of having to go to police stations.
"During this time the armed men should hand over the heavy and the medium weapons, and they will receive a financial award," Khalaf said in a telephone interview. He did not say what the financial award would be.
Iraq's government has portrayed the operation so far as a success, but violence has erupted in Shiite strongholds across the country.
Maliki says the offensive is aimed at crushing rogue elements of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which is locked in a power struggle in the south with the rival armed wing of the government-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
But Sadr denies that his men are involved in violence. His followers reject assertions by Maliki and the U.S. military that the current operation is targeting only rogue militiamen and say it is aimed at Sadr in hopes of sidelining his movement.
There were scattered reports of clashes today across Iraq.
Police said fighting in the provincial capital of Nasiriya had left 15 people dead since Thursday, seven of them civilians and the rest militiamen and police.
In Basra, which remained under curfew, gunmen killed the manager of one of the city's hospitals Thursday.
Residents reported fighters massing today on the outskirts of Saidiya, in southwestern Baghdad, in a Shiite area considered a stronghold of the Mahdi Army. Some residents reported clashes between gunmen and U.S. and Iraqi forces there, but there was no independent confirmation.
The use of American bombs to target militiamen in Basra could complicate U.S. efforts to remain on relatively good terms with Sadr, whose self-imposed cease-fire in August is credited with helping bring down violence across Iraq. The U.S. has sought to distance itself from the offensive even as it proclaims its support for Maliki's actions.
But it confirmed that U.S. forces had been involved in some clashes in Baghdad, including three incidents this morning in Sadr City. It said U.S. soldiers killed four "criminals" in the Shiite neighborhood and a fourth in Khadimiya, another Shiite stronghold.
Salah Ubeidi, a Sadr spokesman, said U.S. helicopters had conducted airstrikes in Sadr City at 4:30 a.m. that had left four civilians dead. It was not clear if he was talking about the same incidents as the U.S. military.
The United States did not report any civilian casualties in its operations, but it is not unusual for locals to dispute military statements, and visa versa.
tina.susman@latimes.com
Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Ned Parker in Baghdad and special correspondents in Basra and Baghdad contributed to this report.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
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Middle East Features
The fight for Basra - it's about oil and power
By DPA
Mar 28, 2008, 14:57 GMT
Cairo - US forces in Iraq are in danger of being drawn deeper into the power struggle between the country's Shiite factions.
During the most recent clashes between Iraqi troops and the militia of Shiite preacher Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, the US army may not have been in the teeth of the fighting. But does take action in case of emergencies, when Iraqi troops risk defeat.
Yet over the past months the US military command stressed it was 'respecting the ceasefire announced by Moqtada al-Sadr'. The fact that US troops are fighting the Mahdi Army despite those assurances pose great risks, independent analysts say.
The rivalries between the Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Mahdi Army are not just about differing ideologies or handing out lucrative posts in state and administration.
First and foremost, they are about dividing the legal and illegal profits stemming from the oil business in the southern city of Basra.
If reports from Basra are to be believed, more or less all Shiite parties are involved in illicit oil dealing. Information is passed on only in secret, because of fears of the militias' vengeance.
'When an oil delivery leaves Basra, the (Iraq's governing) Dawa and SICI parties divert about a third of the oil, secretly sell it and pocket the profit,' a Basra man close to the Sadrists said.
'All of that has nothing to do with politics. The structures are more like the Italian Mafia,' he said.
The Sadrists and the members of the Shiite Fadhila party, whose members are very well connected around Basra, are now accused of oil smuggling by al-Maliki's Dawa party and his main coalition partner, the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq (SICI).
'After Prime Minister al-Maliki accused the Sadr movement of being involved in oil smuggling, members of Iraq's anti-corruption authority contacted us,' said MP Asmaa al-Mussawi.
'They informed us that the names on their list did not include a single representative of the Sadrists, but instead the names of several high-ranking government members who are involved in oil rackets.'
The Shiite politician is a member of the Sadr movement. She was elected into parliament in 2005 as a candidate of the Shiite alliance.
Back then, all Shiite parties cooperated. Now the Sadrists, whose six ministers walked out of the government almost one year ago, are demanding al-Maliki's resignation.
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28/03/2008 13:54 BAGHDAD, March 28 (AFP)
Iraq parliament holds emergency session on Basra crisis
Iraq's embattled parliament held an emergency session on Friday to discuss the crisis in the southern city of Basra where Shiite fighters are locked in battle with Iraqi forces, an AFP correspondent said.
Only 54 of the 275 lawmakers attended the session.
The two main parliamentary blocs -- Shiite United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdish Alliance --- were not present for the session which was attended by lawmakers from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc, the small Shiite Fadhila Party, the secular Iraqi National List and the Sunni National Dialogue Council.
©2008 AFP
Slate Magazine
today's papers
Swimming With the Sharks
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, March 28, 2008, at 6:00 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with the latest from Iraq, where tens of thousands took to the streets in Baghdad to protest against the crackdown on Shiite militias that is being overseen by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. At least 125 people have been killed, but the Iraqi security forces seem no closer to getting rid of the militias in Basra than when the offensive began on Tuesday. The Green Zone was once again pounded by rocket and mortar attacks, which yesterday killed another American contract worker. The government imposed a curfew in Baghdad after explosions rocked the capital throughout the day and violence continued to rage in several cities. The WSJ highlights that a bomb was placed under an oil pipeline near Basra, which officials said could affect shipments and increase prices. In a Page One story, the WSJ highlights that the increasing violence once again threatens efforts to lure big oil companies to Iraq.
The Washington Post devotes most of its above-the-fold space to the role of U.S. forces in the Iraqi crackdown but leads with a look at how the actions taken by the Federal Reserve in the last couple of weeks could mark a vast expansion in the role of the central bank in the future. The Fed was just trying to deal with the current crisis, but many are now starting to recognize the actions will have long-lasting consequences. "Whether we like it or not, they've recreated the financial universe," a finance professor declared. USA Today leads with the hundreds of flight cancellations that passengers have had to deal with this week and warns there could be more to come as the Federal Aviation Administration continues cracking down on airplane safety. After problems were discovered in Southwest planes, the agency ordered all airlines to check for problems. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines canceled flights this week, and some suspect others will follow suit as the FAA continues its inquiry.
President Bush declared yesterday that Iraq is returning to "normalcy" and praised the latest operation in Basra as a sign that the Iraqi government is taking security matters seriously. "This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them," Bush said.
The WP off-leads its Iraq story and says there are hints that U.S. troops are more involved in the fighting than military officials let on. One of the paper's correspondents saw U.S. troops in armored vehicles directly fighting Mahdi Army forces in Sadr City while Iraqi units largely stuck "to the outskirts of the area." Throughout the day, "the din of American weapons" could be heard, and the WP pointedly declares that U.S. troops "took the lead in the fighting." So U.S. forces are getting more involved in the conflict even as one American official admitted that "we can't quite decipher" the situation and figure out why the government decided to act now. But there's a growing consensus that Maliki is firing "the first salvo in the upcoming elections," says the official, who then gives us the understatement of the day: "It's not a pretty picture." U.S. military officials insist American troops are merely playing backup to Iraqi security forces, but commanders with the Mahdi Army say they've been fighting U.S. troops for the past three days.
The LAT points out that U.S. officials are now in a strange situation where they have to consistently talk about how the crackdown is aimed at Shiite militias in general and insist that it's rogue elements of Muqtada Sadr's army that are to blame and not the cleric. Of course, they're worried that Sadr will officially call off his cease-fire. But as the WP makes clear, that cease-fire seems to exist in name only, since Sadr's "fighters and Iraqi and U.S. forces are waging full-scale war in places." The NYT once again notes that there's "little evidence" that Iraqi security forces in Basra are targeting anyone besides Mahdi Army fighters. Slate's Fred Kaplan plainly declares that the fighting in Basra "is not a clash between good and evil or between a legitimate government and an outlaw insurgency. … It's just another crevice in the widening earthquake called Iraq."
The WP talks to administration officials who say Maliki launched the offensive without consulting the United States. But the move couldn't have been that much of a surprise seeing as the NYT reported on March 13 that the Iraqi army was planning an offensive to take control of Basra's port.
The Post says that when the leaders of the Fed decided to open up what is "essentially a bottomless pit of cash," which was previously available only to traditional banks, to large investment houses, they knew it was a big deal. The plan calls for that money to be available for at least the next six months, but even if it expires, the perception of how the Fed will act in a crisis has been forever changed. Experts now say that investment banks and their clients may be less worried about risky investments in the future since they will assume that the Fed will come to the rescue if there's a crisis. The question now is whether the Fed will formally take on a more heavy-handed approach to regulating Wall Street.
The LAT and NYT front, while everyone else goes inside with, the proposals put forward by the presidential contenders to deal with problems in the economy. Sen. Barack Obama emphasized there should be more federal regulation of the financial markets, while Sen. Hillary Clinton proposed a plan to retrain laid-off workers. Obama put forward a $30 billion economic-stimulus package, and Clinton's aides took the opportunity to highlight that she had proposed to spend $30 billion to help prevent foreclosures (the country needs "leadership, not followership," they said). Both the Democratic contenders sharply criticized Sen. John McCain, who said the federal role should be limited because "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."
The NYT highlights that, despite the rhetoric, both parties have agreed that the government should be involved, but "the ideological clashes are … more about whom it should try to rescue." In the end though, their results could be similar, since it's probably impossible to separate the individuals from the markets, because each would suffer if the other is doing badly.
The NYT's Paul Krugman analyzes their proposals and says that, just as with health care, each candidate's policy tells "a tale that is seriously at odds with the way they're often portrayed." McCain, who is often referred to as an independent maverick, "offers neither straight talk nor originality" as he offers traditional right-wing views. Obama is seen as "a transformational figure," but his proposals "tend to be cautious and relatively orthodox." For her part, Clinton, who "we're assured by sources right and left, tortures puppies and eats babies," offers proposals that "continue to be surprisingly bold and progressive."
The Post takes a look at Obama's huge success in raising funds through the Internet and says that in the past two months the senator has "rewritten the rules of raising campaign cash." The key to his "elaborate marketing effort," which involves spending heavily on Internet ads, seems to be that his campaign doesn't ask for money at every possible turn and instead has pursued a "strategy of slow-walking its way into supporters' wallets."
The WSJ reports that as foreclosures continue to increase, banks and mortgage companies are increasingly finding that homeowners are taking revenge by trashing their homes before handing over the keys. As a result, many are offering homeowners hundreds, or thousands, of dollars "to put their anger in escrow and leave quietly."
Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2187644/
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
UK
Britain sits on sidelines as Iraq's Basra burns
Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:00pm GMT
By Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain ruled out deploying any troops to the Iraqi city of Basra on Friday, despite days of intense battles on the streets and signs Iraq's forces cannot cope with a growing militant uprising.
U.S. war planes dropped bombs on rebel areas in an effort to help the Iraqi army regain control of the city, but Britain said its 4,100 heavily armed troops, based at an airport a few kilometres (miles) from the centre, would not join in.
"This is an Iraqi-led operation and it's one that we have wanted to see since they took responsibility for security in Basra," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence.
"It's going to take time, but it shows the Iraqi government's political will in taking on the militants."
At least 120 people described by the Iraqi government as enemy fighters have been killed and 450 wounded in four days of intense fighting, which began after Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, decided to take on militant groups in the city.
Britain is providing logistical support and treating some of the Iraqi army wounded on its base, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said, reiterating the Iraqis were in charge.
Yet despite Britain's expression of confidence in Iraqi forces its troops have helped train, there are signs Iraq's army is struggling to contain what is a widening conflict.
Militants loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shi'ite cleric opposed to the U.S. and British presence in Iraq, have risen up in cities across the south in the wake of the crackdown in Basra.
Maliki had initially set a 72-hour deadline for militants to give up their weapons, but has now extended that deadline until April 8, indicating that he expects the offensive to take much longer than originally planned to quell the threat.
"PANDORA'S BOX"
The Pentagon described Basra as chaotic this week, but stopped short of any suggestion that Britain, which has overseen the city since 2003, was responsible for the state of affairs.
Since Brown took over as prime minister in June last year, Britain has been steadily drawing forces out of Iraq, looking to draw a line under a war that is unpopular in Britain.
The intention had been to reduce troop numbers to 2,500 in the coming weeks, but that looks less likely given the fighting.
"Citizens down there have been living in a city of chaos and corruption for some time and they and the prime minister clearly have had enough of it," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. "The city has always been dealing with a level of criminality and corruption that no one has been comfortable with."
Part of Britain's reluctance to get involved is that it could exacerbate an already bad situation, turning what is currently a two-way fight into a three-way fight or worse.
Ghassan al-Attiyah, an Iraq analyst in London, said Britain was right not to get involved, but said its presence was now so close to meaningless that all troops should be pulled out.
He said Maliki had opened a Pandora's Box by taking on Sadr's militants in a battle there was no guarantee he could win and that ultimately could play into the hands of Iran, which is building influence in southern Iraq.
"It's a bad development, a misjudgement, and I doubt Maliki will come out of it well," he said. "Do the Iranians want to see the Sadr group vanquished by the Iraqi government? I don't know, but if they are unhappy with it, they are going to react."
(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray in Washington; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Editorial: Surge's progress can't halt Iraq turmoil
U.S. must fight smart in Iraq - with fewer troops
05:11 AM CDT on Friday, March 28, 2008
Iraq is once again in turmoil. Shiite militiamen are fighting Iraqi troops to control parts of Baghdad and Basra. The Green Zone is being bombarded. A spike in attacks recently pushed the U.S. death toll past the psychological marker of 4,000. Political bickering still impedes efforts to unite Iraq's sectarian factions.
The turmoil underscores the limits of the U.S. troop surge. It can help stabilize violent areas, but it can't make Iraqis get along with one another. This is not to deny the merits of the surge itself, because military conditions are distinctly better than they were a year ago. Casualties are markedly down. U.S. troops are using smarter tactics to enlist Iraqi support rather than provoke their enmity. This is progress.
Is it enough? Not by a long shot. Today's situation is so brittle that President Bush has had to halt a scheduled drawdown of troops to pre-surge levels. For the sake of short-term stability, that's the correct choice. But the Pentagon's top leadership has consistently warned that we can't sustain this commitment much longer because our armed forces are stretched too thin and the stress caused by lengthy deployments is too great.
The fact that Iraq's leaders are willing to commit their own troops to fight Iraqi militiamen is a good sign. But it's in the political arena where Iraq's problems will be solved over the long term, and that progress has been unacceptably slow. Iraqi leaders have mistaken Mr. Bush's stay-the-course resolve as a sign that the Americans are staying put, so what's the hurry? They're getting the wrong message.
As the surge began, this newspaper offered an alternative approach called Plan B. The philosophy behind it is effectively being put to the test in Iraq right now: Don't withdraw altogether, but take action to reduce U.S. casualties by limiting troops' movements on the ground. Let Iraqis fight Iraqi battles. Let U.S. troops secure the borders and continue going after al-Qaeda and foreign fighters. Whenever possible, deploy by helicopter – as troops do in Afghanistan – so patrols are less vulnerable to the IED attacks that now account for the bulk of American deaths.
We've given the surge a chance to work, and we think its results have been impressive. The key now is to fight smart – with fewer American troops. Our military leadership is pleading for it. U.S. commitments elsewhere, particularly in Afghanistan, demand it. And our Plan B offers what we think is the best way to make it happen.
Basics of Plan B
•Gradually reduce troop levels to 60,000-80,000.
•Move bases to rural areas within 100 miles of Iraq's borders; create a border cordon to halt foreign infiltration.
•End ground-based U.S. military patrols and convoys; minimize IED casualties with helicopter deployments.
•Continue training Iraqi forces so they can fight their own battles.
IRAN
UK delays Iraq withdrawal due to Basra violence - report
London, March 28, IRNA
UK-Iraq
The British government was reported Friday to be delaying its plans to further cut its troops in Iraq by 1,600 due to the upsurge in violence in Basra.
Ministry of Defence officials have admitted that they were no longer thinking about cutting troop numbers to 2,500 from the spring, as had been outlined by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last October, according to the Times newspaper.
"Any plans for a reduction of British troops is off the table for the time being," a senior source was quoted saying by the daily.
Under present strategy, the 4,100 British troops still in Iraq are based at the airport northwest of Basra.
British officials have insisted that so far UK forces were providing support only in the form of air cover and logistics, including 19 liaison officers in Basra city.
But the Times said it did not rule out sending a small force to help the Iraqis against the insurgency if requested by the authorities in Baghdad.
Earlier this month, Defence Secretary Des Browne flew to Basra to meet commanders on the ground as uncertainty hung over the withdrawal plans.
In a statement to parliament last October, the British premier said the intention was to reduce the number of UK troops there to 2,500, starting in the spring, but speculation is that the UK may have altered its plans.
2220**345**1420
IRAN
UK soldier killed in Iraq reported to be SAS officer
London, March 27, IRNA
UK-Iraq
The British soldier killed in Iraq on Wednesday was a member of the UK's special forces, it was reported Thursday.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD), which does not comment officially on the activities of the SAS, said only that a British soldier was shot and killed in Iraq.
Uncommonly it did not state where in the country he was killed.
But according to the Guardian newspaper, quoting sources, he was an SAS soldier and was killed in a gunfight during a covert operation in the Baghdad area.
The MoD said the soldier died as a result of gunshot wounds "sustained during a firefight in the early hours of Wednesday," but indicated that he was not killed in Basra, where 4,100 of the 4,300 British troops still in Iraq are based.
None of soldiers based at Basra airport have combat roles.
Apart from the unknown number of SAS officers operating in the country, there are also some 200 British soldiers in Baghdad, mainly on guard duty.
The latest death brings the total number of British military fatalities in Iraq to 176 since the 2003 invasion.
Up until the end of 2007, another 212 British troops have been very seriously or seriously injured.
The only other SAS deaths reported in Iraq were two killed in a Puma helicopter crash last November during an anti-insurgency mission on the outskirts of Baghdad.
The daily reported that SAS patrols have been operating in Iraq since before the invasion.
It said there was a squadron of about 60 from 22 SAS Regiment, based about 50 miles from Baghdad, often working with US special forces.
Last month, a member of the SAS who recently resigned after being assigned to Iraq, accused the UK government of being "deeply involved" with the US in the extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects to torture camps.
"Throughout my time in Iraq I was in no doubt that individuals detained by UKSF (special forces) and handed over to our American colleagues would be tortured," Ben Griffin told a news conference in London on February 25.
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Bush Apologizes to Mubarak for Suez Shooting - EGYPT - Muhammad Fouad Afifi
NEW YORK TIMES
March 28, 2008
Bush Apologizes to Mubarak for Suez Shooting
By MONA EL-NAGGAR
CAIRO — President Bush apologized to the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, on Thursday for the killing of an Egyptian vendor when a cargo ship chartered by the United States opened fire on his small boat near the Suez Canal on Monday in an incident that has enraged Egyptians.
“President Bush expressed his deep regret and sympathies for the incident in the Suez Canal,” the White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said Thursday morning aboard Air Force One, adding that, in his telephone conversation with Mr. Mubarak, President Bush promised that the United States “would fully investigate.”
President Bush also expressed hopes that the accident would not damage friendly relations between the two countries, a press release from the Egyptian president’s office said Thursday.
The vendor, 28-year-old Muhammad Fouad Afifi, was a licensed trader selling cigarettes and antiques to ships passing through the Suez Canal. He was shot on Monday evening as he approached a cargo ship, the Global Patriot. The ship was under contract to the Navy, which has been wary of small motorboats since the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, in which terrorists drove a small vessel packed with explosives into the ship as it lay at anchor at a Yemeni port, killing 17 crew members.
An Egyptian daily newspaper, Rozalyousef, reported on the case on Wednesday under the headline “Cole Phobia Resulted in the Suez Canal Tragedy.”
Egyptians were further infuriated when the United States Embassy in Cairo and the Navy initially maintained that the security team aboard the Global Patriot said there had been no casualties in the shooting.
On Wednesday, Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, acknowledged the killing, calling it accidental. In a statement, he said a security team on board the ship had fired two sets of warning shots as three small boats approached. After the first set, two boats turned away, but the vendor’s boat did not. “This situation is tragic, and we will do our utmost to help take care of the family of the deceased,” the statement said.
Mr. Afifi left behind his 23-year-old wife, a 5-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old son. On Thursday, a relative said they had not received any form of compensation.
“There is no possible compensation for his life,” said Heba Moustafa, Mr. Afifi’s 21-year-old niece, in a telephone interview. “But we want to feel like someone is standing up for us.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
Egypt upset at US over accidental killing in Suez Canal
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST
Mar. 27, 2008
Egypt's Foreign Minister says his country is upset with the accidental killing of an Egyptian citizen by a US Navy-contracted ship that fired warning shots at approaching motor boats in the Suez Canal.
The state-run Middle East News Agency quotes Ahmed Aboul Gheit as saying that the dead man's rights should be protected. The Navy has expressed regret for the incident and promised to take care of the victim's family.
The cargo ship entered the Suez Canal on Monday and was approached by small motor boats that conduct informal commerce in the canal, prompting the onboard Navy security team to fire shots after issuing verbal warnings.
updated 9:42 a.m. EDT, Wed March 26, 2008
U.S.: Egyptian killed by warning shots
* Story Highlights
* U.S. military security team on civilian cargo ship fired on approaching boat
* Warning shots accidentally hit man on boat, U.S. Navy says
* U.S. initially said no one died; it vows to help take care of victim's family
*
* Small boats often approach civilian ships, avoid warships, source tells AP
(CNN) -- The U.S. Navy on Wednesday admitted an Egyptian was killed this week when shots were fired from a military-contracted cargo ship at a boat near the Suez Canal.
art.global.patriot.ap.jpg
The U.S. military-contracted cargo ship Global Patriot moves through the Suez Canal on Tuesday.
art.egyptian.killed.ap.jpg
Mohammed Fouad, a 27-year-old father of three, was killed in Monday's shooting incident.
"We accept responsibility for actions that apparently resulted in this accidental death. This situation is tragic, and we will help take care of the victim's family," said Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
Cosgriff said the fleet is cooperating with Egyptian authorities in their investigation.
The United States originally said no one died in Monday's encounter between the cargo vessel Global Patriot and three small boats near the Suez Canal, a 100-mile waterway that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea.
When the boats approached the Global Patriot, a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn warned the vessels to turn away, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, said.
"A warning flare was then fired," the embassy said in a statement. "One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots."
The embassy said Wednesday it appears that one of the warning shots killed an Egyptian on the approaching boat.
The embassy did not mention anyone being wounded. Egyptian media reports said two people were wounded in addition to the death.
"We express our deepest condolences to the family of the deceased," the embassy said.
A senior U.S. military official said an armed military security team was on board for the canal transit.
Abbas al-Amrikani, the head of the Suez seaman's union, told The Associated Press the dead man was Mohammed Fouad, a 27-year-old father of three.
"The bullet entered his heart and went out the other side," the AP quoted al-Amrikani as saying.
An Egyptian security official, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity, said merchants often use small boats to try to sell cigarettes and other items to ships transiting the Suez Canal.
The merchants know not to approach military vessels, he told the AP, but the fact that the Global Patriot was a civilian vessel may have led to confusion.
The U.S. State Department said the U.S. Department of Defense had contracted the vessel to carry department materials
Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
BBC News
Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 09:47 GMT
US admits to Suez canal killing
The Global Patriot (image from Global Container Lines website)
The ship was reportedly carrying used military equipment
US officials have said an Egyptian was killed when a ship contracted to the US navy fired warning shots at approaching boats in the Suez Canal on Monday.
US officials had previously maintained that there were no casualties.
Mohammed Fouad was buried on Tuesday amid expressions of anger against the Egyptian government and the US.
A US embassy statement issued on Wednesday said: "It appears that an Egyptian in the boat was killed by one of the warning shots."
According to the US account of the incident, the Global Patriot - on short-term charter to the US military - was approached by several boats as it prepared to enter the Suez Canal after dark on Monday.
Map
Warning shots were fired from the ship.
"The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired," the embassy statement said.
"One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow."
Egyptian officials and witnesses say that two others were injured in the shooting.
Hawkers
According to the US Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC), the Global Patriot is a US-flagged roll-on, roll-off container ship chartered from Global Container Lines.
In is used by the MSC to transport US military equipment around the world.
The BBC's Heba Saleh in Cairo says fisherman and small boats carrying hawkers ply the waters of the canal trying to sell cigarettes and other local products to ships passing through.
Al-Qaeda militants have in the past used small motorboats to attack US military and other foreign vessels in waters off the coast of Yemen, our correspondent adds.
Some 7.5% of world sea trade passes through the Suez Canal, which is 190km long (118 miles) and 120m wide (395ft) at its narrowest point.
March 28, 2008
Bush Apologizes to Mubarak for Suez Shooting
By MONA EL-NAGGAR
CAIRO — President Bush apologized to the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, on Thursday for the killing of an Egyptian vendor when a cargo ship chartered by the United States opened fire on his small boat near the Suez Canal on Monday in an incident that has enraged Egyptians.
“President Bush expressed his deep regret and sympathies for the incident in the Suez Canal,” the White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said Thursday morning aboard Air Force One, adding that, in his telephone conversation with Mr. Mubarak, President Bush promised that the United States “would fully investigate.”
President Bush also expressed hopes that the accident would not damage friendly relations between the two countries, a press release from the Egyptian president’s office said Thursday.
The vendor, 28-year-old Muhammad Fouad Afifi, was a licensed trader selling cigarettes and antiques to ships passing through the Suez Canal. He was shot on Monday evening as he approached a cargo ship, the Global Patriot. The ship was under contract to the Navy, which has been wary of small motorboats since the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, in which terrorists drove a small vessel packed with explosives into the ship as it lay at anchor at a Yemeni port, killing 17 crew members.
An Egyptian daily newspaper, Rozalyousef, reported on the case on Wednesday under the headline “Cole Phobia Resulted in the Suez Canal Tragedy.”
Egyptians were further infuriated when the United States Embassy in Cairo and the Navy initially maintained that the security team aboard the Global Patriot said there had been no casualties in the shooting.
On Wednesday, Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, acknowledged the killing, calling it accidental. In a statement, he said a security team on board the ship had fired two sets of warning shots as three small boats approached. After the first set, two boats turned away, but the vendor’s boat did not. “This situation is tragic, and we will do our utmost to help take care of the family of the deceased,” the statement said.
Mr. Afifi left behind his 23-year-old wife, a 5-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old son. On Thursday, a relative said they had not received any form of compensation.
“There is no possible compensation for his life,” said Heba Moustafa, Mr. Afifi’s 21-year-old niece, in a telephone interview. “But we want to feel like someone is standing up for us.”
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
Egypt upset at US over accidental killing in Suez Canal
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST
Mar. 27, 2008
Egypt's Foreign Minister says his country is upset with the accidental killing of an Egyptian citizen by a US Navy-contracted ship that fired warning shots at approaching motor boats in the Suez Canal.
The state-run Middle East News Agency quotes Ahmed Aboul Gheit as saying that the dead man's rights should be protected. The Navy has expressed regret for the incident and promised to take care of the victim's family.
The cargo ship entered the Suez Canal on Monday and was approached by small motor boats that conduct informal commerce in the canal, prompting the onboard Navy security team to fire shots after issuing verbal warnings.
updated 9:42 a.m. EDT, Wed March 26, 2008
U.S.: Egyptian killed by warning shots
* Story Highlights
* U.S. military security team on civilian cargo ship fired on approaching boat
* Warning shots accidentally hit man on boat, U.S. Navy says
* U.S. initially said no one died; it vows to help take care of victim's family
*
* Small boats often approach civilian ships, avoid warships, source tells AP
(CNN) -- The U.S. Navy on Wednesday admitted an Egyptian was killed this week when shots were fired from a military-contracted cargo ship at a boat near the Suez Canal.
art.global.patriot.ap.jpg
The U.S. military-contracted cargo ship Global Patriot moves through the Suez Canal on Tuesday.
art.egyptian.killed.ap.jpg
Mohammed Fouad, a 27-year-old father of three, was killed in Monday's shooting incident.
"We accept responsibility for actions that apparently resulted in this accidental death. This situation is tragic, and we will help take care of the victim's family," said Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
Cosgriff said the fleet is cooperating with Egyptian authorities in their investigation.
The United States originally said no one died in Monday's encounter between the cargo vessel Global Patriot and three small boats near the Suez Canal, a 100-mile waterway that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea.
When the boats approached the Global Patriot, a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn warned the vessels to turn away, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, said.
"A warning flare was then fired," the embassy said in a statement. "One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots."
The embassy said Wednesday it appears that one of the warning shots killed an Egyptian on the approaching boat.
The embassy did not mention anyone being wounded. Egyptian media reports said two people were wounded in addition to the death.
"We express our deepest condolences to the family of the deceased," the embassy said.
A senior U.S. military official said an armed military security team was on board for the canal transit.
Abbas al-Amrikani, the head of the Suez seaman's union, told The Associated Press the dead man was Mohammed Fouad, a 27-year-old father of three.
"The bullet entered his heart and went out the other side," the AP quoted al-Amrikani as saying.
An Egyptian security official, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity, said merchants often use small boats to try to sell cigarettes and other items to ships transiting the Suez Canal.
The merchants know not to approach military vessels, he told the AP, but the fact that the Global Patriot was a civilian vessel may have led to confusion.
The U.S. State Department said the U.S. Department of Defense had contracted the vessel to carry department materials
Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
BBC News
Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 09:47 GMT
US admits to Suez canal killing
The Global Patriot (image from Global Container Lines website)
The ship was reportedly carrying used military equipment
US officials have said an Egyptian was killed when a ship contracted to the US navy fired warning shots at approaching boats in the Suez Canal on Monday.
US officials had previously maintained that there were no casualties.
Mohammed Fouad was buried on Tuesday amid expressions of anger against the Egyptian government and the US.
A US embassy statement issued on Wednesday said: "It appears that an Egyptian in the boat was killed by one of the warning shots."
According to the US account of the incident, the Global Patriot - on short-term charter to the US military - was approached by several boats as it prepared to enter the Suez Canal after dark on Monday.
Map
Warning shots were fired from the ship.
"The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired," the embassy statement said.
"One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow."
Egyptian officials and witnesses say that two others were injured in the shooting.
Hawkers
According to the US Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC), the Global Patriot is a US-flagged roll-on, roll-off container ship chartered from Global Container Lines.
In is used by the MSC to transport US military equipment around the world.
The BBC's Heba Saleh in Cairo says fisherman and small boats carrying hawkers ply the waters of the canal trying to sell cigarettes and other local products to ships passing through.
Al-Qaeda militants have in the past used small motorboats to attack US military and other foreign vessels in waters off the coast of Yemen, our correspondent adds.
Some 7.5% of world sea trade passes through the Suez Canal, which is 190km long (118 miles) and 120m wide (395ft) at its narrowest point.
THE REAL STORY OF ‘CURVEBALL’ - How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq
THE REAL STORY OF 'CURVEBALL'
How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq
Erich Follath, John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark, Spiegel
March 24, 2008
Five years ago, the US government presented what it said was proof that Iraq harbored biological weapons. The information came from a source developed by German intelligence -- and it turned out to be disastrously wrong. But to this day, Germany denies any responsibility.
If you're looking to hide out from the rest of the world, the grayish white residential block in this southern German city would be a good place to be. Six families live here, most of them with children, and the building blends inconspicuously into the dull suburban skyline. A green toy tractor is parked out front, the bicycles have baby trailers, one of them complete with an American flag fluttering in the breeze. On a mailbox hanging outside the building's entrance, the name Rafed has been scrawled in pale green handwriting -- difficult to read, but decipherable from up close.
There are many the world over who would love a chance to chat with the man whose mail lands in this post box. The US Congress is desperately interested in him, and the White House once even expressed an interest in trotting him out on primetime television. A book has been written about him and Hollywood is currently working on a motion picture documenting his life.
The man's codename is "Curveball." And in an earlier life, he played a crucial role in the geo-politics at the beginning of this decade: He was the man who provided vital "evidence" that ultimately contributed to the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies. But that role has since turned into his greatest problem: Everything he claimed to know about Iraq's weapons program, all the proof he presented, was fabricated. His lifeline, though, has yet to be cut: Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), remains loyal to their source. They keep him under cover and protect him from uncomfortable questions -- here in southern Germany.
Blown Cover
At first, there are no signs of life from "Curveball's" ground-floor dwelling in the drab apartment building. The doorbell has a bad contact, the neighbors said; you have to hold the button down for a long time. Children’s shoes and men’s sandals are arrayed in front of the door; a German forest landscape hangs on the wall. And then, after a long wait, the door swings open. A stocky man with a full shock of black hair and a stubbly beard stands in the doorway. He is wearing an orange T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Still groggy from sleep, he blinks out at his unexpected visitor. "Rafed?" -- "Yeah, that’s me," he says. It is the moment when Rafed knows his cover has been blown.
The source known as "Curveball" lives under BND protection in southern Germany.The source known as "Curveball" lives under BND protection in southern Germany.
In baseball, a curveball is pure deception. It spins quickly, and changes direction, making it very difficult for the batter to make contact. A curveball lures the batter to swing at a ball that is no longer there.
Rafed's deceptions unleashed their full power on Feb. 5, 2003 at the United Nations building in New York City. It was the day that US Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the UN Security Council in an effort to convince the world that an invasion of Iraq was an absolute necessity.
It was 10:30 a.m. local time, when Powell launched into his lecture, and it immediately became clear that he was playing to an audience larger than the UN representatives gathered before him. He was speaking to the world. "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources," he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." As Powell moved through his 76-minute-long presentation, a horror scenario unfolded. Baghdad, he said, was still in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, including atomic, chemical and biological devices. That pursuit, Powell made clear, was in violation of UN sanctions.
The climax of the lecture came when he told his audience about the mobile biological weapons laboratories -- mini factories mounted on the back of trucks churning out some of the most dangerous diseases known to mankind. That was the "most dramatic" part of the presentation Powell says today.
But there was drama right from the beginning. Early on, the Secretary of State held up a small vial containing white powder -- meant to represent anthrax spores. Saddam Hussein, he said, "could have produced 25,000 liters" of the stuff. Saddam Hussein spins a "web of lies" Powell said and spoke of "one last chance" which Iraq had chosen not to take advantage of. The country harbors a "deadly network of terrorism," he said, and as a result, the world "must not shrink from whatever is ahead."
The response to the speech, broadcast as it was to the entire world, was overwhelming. On the following day, the US Secretary of State could be seen with the anthrax vial on the front page of newspapers from Sydney to Sao Paolo, from Paris to Beijing. "We love him," rejoiced the Jerusalem Post, hardly a Powell-friendly paper until then. Everyone was suddenly talking about biological weapons -- about the "trailers of death" and "hell on wheels."
Above all, however, Powell was able to convince many of his fellow Americans who had harbored doubts about the need to go to war in the Middle East. Following Powell's appearance, surveys revealed that half of all US citizens supported a war on Iraq. And the Secretary of State himself was delighted with his performance. He had small plaques made for everyone who had helped prepare the speech. But those he convinced that winter day in 2003 would come to regret it. As the world came to discover, nothing of what he said was truthful. There were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction at the time Powell made his presentation. There were no mobile biological weapons laboratories. And there were no connections between Iraq and the terrorist organization al-Qaida.
An 'Invaluable Asset'
The reactions around the UN Security Council table on that day just over five years ago were primarily characterized by diplomatic reserve -- including that of the man who chaired the fateful session: Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister at the time. The German delegation had set up a secure line from New York directly to the BND intelligence offices in Berlin, where the agents followed Powell's speech on a big screen.
Like Powell, who made certain that then-CIA Director George Tenet was visible behind him on the world's TV screens, Fischer had also brought along an important intelligence official. But Hans Dieter H., the BND's proliferation expert, was not seated near the foreign minister. Rather, he was positioned diagonally behind Tenet and Powell. The seating was little more than chance; the UN had to set up several additional rows of chairs to accommodate the large audience. The result, though, was that Germany's intelligence representative was seated together with those who supported the war.
As is now clear, the seating was auspicious. The German secret service actually had more to do with providing justification for the US invasion of Iraq than it would now like to admit. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder -- like his colleagues in Paris and Moscow -- was a vehement opponent of the war. But of all people, his own agents provided Washington with the key bit of "evidence" which helped fuel the war hysteria: the story about the mobile biological weapons laboratories. It was information that helped justify a war that has cost more than 500,000 lives and plunged the Middle East into chaos. And this information came from just one man: "Curveball."
He was, as Tenet said then, an "invaluable asset." Today, it is clear that "Curveball" is an imposter, a fabulist, a man who, in the US, is referred to as the "con man who caused the war." "Curveball," writes spy-thriller author Frederick Forsyth, is responsible for the "biggest fiasco in the history of secret intelligence."
Germany's BND is the agency responsible for this man. And the most important question surrounding "Curveball" still hasn't been answered to this day. Why does German intelligence remain loyal to its source?
German Intelligence Finds a Source
Rafed was brought up often in high level meetings between intelligence community leaders and the chancellery of Gerhard Schröder to discuss how to handle his information. Both current Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmeier and current BND President Ernst Uhrlau had high level positions under Schröder. The chancellery even coordinated its efforts with the Foreign Ministry under Joschka Fischer and the Ministry of Defense under Peter Struck. Serious doubts were expressed, but nobody pulled the emergency break.
But how is such a dramatic intelligence disaster possible? And who should take the political responsibility?
Germany's secret service ignominy got its start in the winter of the year 1999, in a camp for asylum seekers known as Zirndorf. The man from the Sunni heartland of Iraq was 32 years old when he arrived in the barracks just outside of the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. The pale, low-slung buildings surrounded by barbed wire were hardly how he had envisioned freedom. Anyone who wanted to leave the premises for a visit to Nuremberg needed written permission; the camp was designed to protect the persecuted, but its resemblance to a prison was difficult to ignore. Anyone who landed here wanted just one thing -- to get out again as quickly as possible.
Among the numerous Iraqis in the camp, the rumor was making the rounds that one easy way out was via the branch office of the German secret service located just outside the Zirndorf gates. The agents there routinely questioned asylum seekers from Iraq.
An Ambitious Doctor
When Rafed walked into the interrogation office, the agent in charge wasn't alone. Rather, he was joined by an experienced Arabic interpreter, a man in his mid-sixties with gray hair who has already put in decades working at Zirndorf. The two were not interested in the stories of suffering the asylum seekers had to tell. They were looking for information about Saddam’s ruling clique, his military and, above all, his alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In Arabic, Rafed told the agents about his chemical engineering studies at Baghdad Technical University, and about his first job in the so-called "Military Industrialization Commission" -- that part of Saddam’s regime responsible for the development of new weapons systems. The translator and the BND agent pricked up their ears, but soon they were no longer able to follow. Rafed began speaking about his work in the "Chemical Engineering and Design Center" (CEDC) -- and he spoke about bioreactors.
But if the agents in Zirndorf lacked the specialist knowledge necessary to understand what Rafed was telling them, when his dossier landed on an expert's desk at intelligence headquarters in Pullach, located not far from Munich, the agent there immediately knew he had something. He was a wiry man in his forties who had gone prematurely gray, not at all the secret agent cliché. When it came to Rafed’s case, he was simply referred to as the "Doctor." Colleagues describe the "Doctor" as open and pleasant, but also as "very ambitious."
His nickname came from his having earned a doctorate in biology, and by the time Rafed's story appeared in his in-box, the analyst had been with German intelligence for more than 12 years. Nobody at the BND was better acquainted with the abbreviation CEDC -- the key front for Saddam's secret weapons program -- than the "Doctor." Indeed, he was apparently so excited after reading Rafed's dossier that he wanted to meet the Iraqi asylum seeker personally. Not long after, the two got together for their first tete á tete at a secret BND property in Nuremberg known as the "Burgzinne" -- the battlements.
Protective Metal Coffins
Participants to those meetings recall that it was not long before the general impression emerged that the young Iraqi knew quite a lot. "He appeared to be shy, almost timid. He was not at all the typical boastful type that we often experience," said one person who became acquainted with Rafed during this period.
International politics were never far from the agents' minds as they continued interviewing Rafed. Secret service agencies across the Western world were working on the biggest intelligence challenge of the day: the question as to whether Saddam Hussein still maintained an arsenal of monstrous weapons. Anyone able to provide an answer could expect to rapidly climb the career ladder.
Rafed was able to provide the "Doctor" with a plausible explanation as to why UN inspectors had failed to find anything thus far: The biological weapons program, he said, was mobile. The laboratories, he claimed, were mounted on truck trailers so they could be easily hidden from inspectors. One of these mini germ factories was up and running when he left Iraq, Rafed said, and six others were being built. Another detail sounded particularly alarming: He said he knew of a 1998 accident that resulted in 12 casualties. The contaminated corpses, he said, were buried in protective metal coffins.
It wasn't long before Rafed's claims rose up the chain of command -- onto the desk of the BND president, inside the German Foreign Ministry, into the chancellery, and even across the Atlantic to the White House. The interest in such information had been high throughout the decade. Since 1991, the UN had been attempting to find out whether Saddam still hoarded weapons of mass destruction, and for years a special UN commission, consisting of hundreds of experts, had been scouring Iraq for deadly weapons.
Amorous Adventures
One year before "Curveball" appeared on the scene, Saddam threw the inspectors out of the country. But did he really destroy all of his weapons? That was the claim made by Hussein Kamil Hassan, Saddam's son-in-law who had defected to Jordan in 1995. The BND also interviewed Kamil, and was told that there was "nothing, absolutely nothing left at all." But the agents in Germany refused to believe a single word of Kamil’s account. The "Doctor" was particularly skeptical. Indeed he was well known in the BND for his conviction that Saddam was still producing weapons of mass destruction.
"Curveball" was, for the "Doctor," flesh and blood validation for his deep-seated doubts. Rafed could not only map out every single office in the secret fifth floor of the Baghdad CEDC Center and say who worked in them, but he even chatted away about the amorous adventures of his superiors.
In the secret service business, refugees are generally not considered to be the most reliable of sources. They often overstate things because of bitterness harbored toward the countries they left or to try and inflate their own importance. But Rafed remained perennially calm and reserved -- which is precisely why he was believed. The BND, so they thought, had stumbled across a real blue-chip source.
And Rafed delivered detail after detail. The meetings were usually held on Saturdays, in the relaxed atmosphere of various dwellings belonging to German intelligence. On one occasion, Rafed stood up, walked over to the wall and flipped over a pin-up calendar. The naked women seemed to bother him. Although he could not have been described as a strict believer, he identified himself as a Muslim. He didn't, though, take time out for prayer during the interminable interrogations. Nevertheless, he was careful to avoid eating pork at the regular joint dinners. Eventually, by the beginning of the year 2003, the BND had prepared some 100 top secret reports on these meetings and send them to Washington. The British, the French and the Israelis were also kept in the loop.
Intelligence experts and UN inspectors had long considered mobile weapons laboratories to be a possible explanation for the fact that nothing could be found. It was once claimed that the stuff was hidden in the trucks of an ice cream company. On another occasion, American U2-spy planes flew special missions in search of mobile laboratories -- with no success. The UN inspectors were so taken with the idea that they seriously considered erecting surprise road blocks -- and even wanted to use helicopters to spray special foam on the roads to force suspicious trucks to stop.
Still, soon after the initial enthusiasm for "Curveball," the first doubts began to surface. US intelligence aimed a spy satellite at one of the filling stations that Rafed had described in great detail. On the crystal clear photos, a solid wall could be seen where, according to Rafed's account, the entrance to the compound should have been. But both the Americans and the Germans wanted to believe their new source and pushed their doubts aside. The wall, surely, was only a fake.
Rafed was allowed to leave the Zirndorf camp for good after just a three week stay, and two months later he had his own apartment in Erlangen. He was granted political asylum soon thereafter. His Iraqi acquaintances who visited him from Zirndorf were envious. Rafed now wore suits. There was whiskey in the cupboard, and a television and stereo system in the living room. The BND arranged for more than 50 meetings, after which it seemed there wasn't a detail Rafed hadn't already mentioned. The "Doctor" met with him for the last time in the summer of 2001.
Then came September 11.
Justification for the American War
It was only a few days after the attacks in New York and Washington that the White House made the preliminary decision to go to war – and the focus was not just to be on Afghanistan. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the administration's hawks, also wanted to go after Iraq. But for that to come to pass, a doubting global community would have to be convinced that it was necessary. Saddam must be made to appear as dangerous as possible.
This marked the beginning of Rafed’s second career -- "Curveball" and the warmongers in Washington were a perfect match. The result of their collaboration was like a Hollywood film script, with the climax coming in the form of a dramatic appearance before the UN performed by lead actor Colin Powell.
The first draft of the Powell presentation was produced by the neoconservatives Cheney had surrounded himself with. The section on weapons of mass destruction -- closely written sheets oozing with accusations -- took up a total of 48 pages. Powell’s closest advisors, including his chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, moved into CIA headquarters in Langley for several days and nights. It didn’t take long, however, before the Cheney draft was tossed into the trash can.
An official intelligence assessment from October 2002 became the basis for the new draft. That assessment was the product of a White House order and saw US intelligence scraping together any charges against Saddam's regime they could find. But apart from an airy story about alleged nuclear weapons research and purported connections between the government and al-Qaida, only the material from Germany remained.
The 'Crown Jewel'
"Curveball" was suddenly the man of the hour -- more than a year after Germany's BND had deactivated him as a source. Rafed, the biological weapons snitch who had come from Iraq to southern Germany suddenly became the "crown jewel," says Wilkerson today. "The file was so thick that the whole story just couldn’t be wrong."
President Bush was likewise triumphant in the knowledge that he now had a key witness against Saddam. The president knew the story of "Curveball" from his CIA head George Tenet. Tenet's job involved briefing the White House every day on intelligence developments in addition to a personal meeting with Powell.
The mobile biological laboratories, Tenet insisted, represented iron clad information. There was just one hitch: The material came from a country which, together with France and Russia, formed the core of war opposition. More than 80 percent of the German population opposed a military campaign against Baghdad. Heading up the skeptics was German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who had won re-election in 2002 on the strength of his anti-war rhetoric. On the other side of the aisle was then-opposition leader Angela Merkel. She insisted that the option "to use military means as a last resort" had to be kept open.
August Hanning -- then BND president and today a deputy in the Interior Ministry -- had already committed himself in public on one point. On Nov. 7, 2002 he asserted that German intelligence had "no independent information" indicating that Saddam Hussein had provided support to al-Qaida. Even the constantly repeated warning from the US government that Saddam was attempting to acquire nuclear weapons fell on deaf ears in the BND. On that point, Germany's intelligence community could hardly be counted among the warmongers.
'In a Position to Prove All of This'
What the BND did believe, however, was discussed behind closed doors at 8:30 a.m. on a foggy Wednesday morning. It was Nov. 13, 2002 and the German parliament's foreign affairs committee met in room 2.800 on the second floor of the Paul-Löbe-Haus, a building in Berlin's new government quarter. Not even a refreshment cart was allowed in for the top secret meeting that morning.
BND President Hanning opened the proceedings, speaking in a calm voice with his hands folded in front of him. Initially, he spoke in generalities about Saddam's aspirations to obtain weapons of mass destruction and said there were indications that Iraq was hiding biological and chemical weapons that had proven difficult for the inspectors to locate. He then turned the proceedings over to his specialist, Hans Dieter H.
H., a small, stout man with wavy, gray hair, enjoyed great respect among experts for his cool and incisive analysis. "Iraq has purportedly manufactured seven mobile B-weapons systems," H. told the committee. He had brought along an overhead slide, a simple drawing of the alleged mobile laboratories -- a preliminary taste of what Powell would later present to the Security Council. This information, H. said, is based on a "secret source," but one whose claims have not been verified.
With that, the foreign affairs committee was made aware of the testimony from "Curveball." But while H. was, on the one hand, unambiguous, he was also cautious. "We know nothing about production in these facilities," he added. The expert also reported on Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program and on Scud missiles that would be operational within two to three years. The report ended with a memorable sentence: "We are in a position to prove all of this."
Volker Rühe, the chairman of the committee from the conservative Christian Democrats, then remarked on the "enormous discrepancy between the public statements made by the government and the knowledge it had in its possession." An astonished Guido Westerwelle, head of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) commented that "the actual threat looks different" from what had been publicly stated. Both Hanning and H. were themselves clearly convinced of the danger. In a highly publicized move, the German government had procured €60 million worth of smallpox vaccine as early as the autumn of 2001 -- one of the responses to the testimony provided by "Curveball."
No Television Appearance for 'Curveball'
To this day, the German government maintains secrecy with regard to what was discussed in room 2.800. There are not even official minutes from the meeting. But on the basis of tape recordings, the BND later reconstructed what Hanning and H. said in order to be able to deflect any possible criticism.
Not long after the Berlin meeting, Tenet came to his German colleagues with a request that was as unusual as it was delicate. The CIA head politely asked Hanning whether he thought there was any possibility that "Curveball" could appear on American television for Bush’s annual State of the Union address. Barring that, the US wanted to finally have an opportunity to question "Curveball" itself. In addition, Tenet wanted German permission to make public use of BND information -- a quasi admission that the US thought the information was accurate.
Tenet's role had transformed into that of a public prosecutor in search of witnesses willing to go public -- far from the traditional task of a secret service professional obsessed with protecting his sources. He even gave the Germans a deadline: He needed an answer within 48 hours, he said.
The BND was alarmed. It was immediately clear to Hanning that the issue had become highly political -- and that it was up to the chancellor to make a decision on what to do.
The plenary hall in the Bundestag was largely empty during a Friday session just before Christmas 2002, with many parliamentarians having already headed home for the holidays. And it was about to become emptier. In the middle of the session, Chancellor Schröder suddenly summoned Defense Minister Struck, chancellery chief of staff Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to his office. Ernst Uhrlau, secret service coordinator, was already there. Of the so-called "security cabinet," only Interior Minister Otto Schily couldn't make it.
The meeting that morning in Schröder's office lasted for an hour and the government's general position on the impending war in Iraq was discussed. The main topic, though, was "Curveball" and how Berlin should respond to the US request. Rafed’s core allegations against Saddam’s regime were once again recapitulated, but so too were his story's weaknesses. Of particular concern, the decisive criteria for reliable intelligence was far from being fulfilled: Instead of three independent sources, they only had one. A television appearance? Under no circumstances. Questioning by the CIA? Best avoided.
Germany Compromises on 'Curveball'
The government officials, though, were united in their fear that a categorical refusal of the US request would be seen as an affront. After all, German-American relations had already been shaken by Schröder's anti-war stance during his 2002 re-election campaign. Furthermore, the chancellor and his foreign minister feared what would happen if it turned out that Saddam really did have weapons of mass destruction. Germany would be a sitting duck for accusations that it had concealed its knowledge for political reasons. Should American soldiers lose their lives as a result, Fischer feared, it would be a diplomatic and public relations disaster.
Thus, Schröder's cabinet opted for a compromise. The government decided to send special armored reconnaissance vehicles capable of detecting chemical and biological agents to Kuwait and to grant the US military flyover rights during the war. They also extended the times during which American soldiers could engage in target practice on bases in Germany -- so that the US troops could be as prepared as possible for the war. One of those present later put the diplomatic balancing act into a nutshell: "We were against the war, but we wanted to be good allies."
As far as "Curveball" was concerned, the government wanted to give Washington permission to use Rafed’s statements but, at the same time insisted on a few qualifications. "We didn’t trust the Americans," said one meeting participant. "But we didn't want to withhold any information."
Carte Blanche
Hanning was charged with transforming the compromise agreement into an official reply to the Americans. And the head of German intelligence carefully considered each and every word that went into his Dec. 20, 2002 letter.
The BND, Hanning wrote, had consulted with the CIA, the Israelis and the British "in order to evaluate the indications made by our source with regard to mobile facilities for the production of warfare agents." According to Hanning, "the information was in essence judged as plausible and convincing, but it couldn't be confirmed." For this reason the BND wanted to approach the UN inspectors once again "in order to enable immediate on-site clarification." If Tenet should nevertheless "be inclined to use the reports and the results of the joint appraisal on mobile biological warfare facilities in Iraq publicly, then I would allow this procedure in the expectation that protection of our source, which makes our work possible, be guaranteed." Translated from the bureaucratese, the message was: Do whatever you want, but it’s your responsibility.
Even today, that letter remains exhibit "A" for then BND and German government leaders when it comes to discussions about Germany's responsibility for the pre-Iraq intelligence debacle. Gunter Pleuger, for example, Germany's UN Ambassador at the time, says: "For me it was a perfectly clear warning, and I assumed that the information provided by 'Curveball’ would no longer be used by the Americans."
Today, though, the BND apparently no longer sees the letter as an adequate exculpation. The secret service now points to a Washington meeting in the autumn of 2002, shortly before Hanning's letter, whereby the then-BND agent in Washington met with Tyler Drumheller, CIA operations leader for Europe, for a lunch meeting in a restaurant called Sea Catch. Drumheller recalls that the BND agent warned that "Curveball" was psychologically unstable and likely a fraud. The BND has now, for the first time, officially confirmed this account.
According to Tenet, the CIA even specifically asked the BND contact what he thought of "Curveball" after the war began. In response, though, the BND agent didn't specifically call "Curveball" a "fabricator," Tenets says. Rather, he spoke of a "single source" whose information couldn't be independently confirmed -- the same watered-down formulation that found its way into the Hanning letter. Former highly-placed BND agents confirm this account.
In any case, the CIA and the White House interpreted Hanning's response as carte blanche. Five weeks after receiving Hanning's letter, the US president announced in his State of the Union address that Saddam possessed "several mobile biological weapons labs" and further that "he has given no evidence that he has destroyed them."
But as confident as President Bush seemed, the US intelligence community was divided into two camps. The majority followed the war drums of the hawks. But there were also critics who warned against going to war. The CIA's Drumheller was one of them, and he mentioned his reservations to John McLaughlin, second in command at the CIA. On the night before Powell's Security Council presentation, he even telephoned with George Tenet himself. "Hey, boss," he recalls saying. "Be careful with that German report. It's supposed to be taken out. There are a lot of problems with that."
Six-Thousand Kilometers Away
Tenet would later deny that Drumheller's warning took this form. He also later claimed that the explosive letter, which he had requested from Hanning, reached the CIA but never landed on his desk. In any case, the Drumheller initiative, if it happened at all, bore no fruit. The allegations leveled by "Curveball" made it into Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 appearance.
Six-thousand kilometers away, a man was sitting in front of his television watching Powell's presentation and knowing full well what was going on in New York -- "Curveball" himself. He quickly packed his things and tried to disappear. He was horrified, and knew that there was no turning back from what he had set in motion. It took a lot of effort on the part of the BND to calm him down again.
One week after Powell’s presentation, BND head Hanning once again made an appearance before the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, and the gathered parliamentarians wanted to know what to think about the evidence presented by the US Secretary of State. Powell confirmed "his own assessment of the situation up to now," replied Hanning. "We knew about the locations which he specified." Hanning warned against war, and he reminded his audience that there were indications "but no proof." However, the BND assumes that Iraq has both "B and C weapons," both residual quantities and newly produced material, Hanning continued. He did nothing to dissociate himself from Powell. H., who was present once again, didn't either. On the contrary. "Even more worrisome are indications about mobile biological weapons labs," H. remarked, "which at any time could secretly produce reagents for B weapons such as anthrax and botulinus and can quickly be relocated."
The BND, evidently, still believed in its source.
The UN weapons inspectors in Iraq remained skeptical and the Russian government also expressed doubt immediately following Powell’s appearance. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on Feb. 8, 2003 -- just three days after Powell's presentation -- a column of white jeeps headed out from the UN Disarmament Commission headquarters in Baghdad's Canal Hotel. The biological weapons experts working for chief inspector Hans Blix had been charged with finding the mobile laboratories mentioned by "Curveball." Blix had already seen them at least once -- on paper. "The BND showed me and my staff impressive sketches and diagrams about Iraqi biological weapons," said Blix.
The inspectors were on their way to Djerf al Naddaf, the place that Rafed had described to German agents over and over again. Rocco Casagrande, a young American scientist, was also along for the ride.
Casagrande roamed through the abandoned buildings in the small town for hours, collecting minute samples. More than anything, though, he wanted to find the opening in the wall described by "Curveball," through which the trucks entered and left. After three and a half hours of searching, Casagrande decided enough was enough. The story was completely wrong, he recalls thinking.
The Fruitless Hunt for WMDs in Iraq
The bombardment of Iraq began on March 19, 2003 at 5:36 a.m. local time, and the government quarter in Baghdad was soon engulfed in flames. Just weeks later, the regime disintegrated and, at Firdos Square in Baghdad, a statue of Saddam was pulled from its pedestal in front of gathered television reporters. On May 1, a triumphant US President Bush, decked out in a pilot's jacket and sunglasses, appeared on the deck of an aircraft carrier with the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging behind him. Not long later, US Special Forces began looking for weapons of mass destruction.
The 1,400-strong group responsible for that search -- which later came to be known as the Iraq Survey Group -- took its marching orders from the CIA. And its mission was clear. They were to seek out, defuse and the present Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the world with the greatest publicity possible. The Bush administration didn't just want to win the war -- it wanted to prove that the invasion had been justified. The experts, though, found nothing.
If there was one man who wanted to believe "Curveball" at this time, then it was David Kay. The Texan was a contentious figure -- not known for shying away from conflict -- and had been in Iraq at the beginning of the 1990s as a UN weapons inspector. He fervently believed that Saddam had retained his weapons of mass destruction, convinced that the dictator would never have surrendered this horrific trump card.
A Jubilant President
When the search for Saddam's alleged weapons got underway, Kay was working as an expert for the American TV network NBC and he was allowed by the military to see one of two suspicious trucks which, the Americans hoped, might have played a role in the production of biological weapons. Kay stepped in front of the camera and said that, other than producing weapons, "there is nothing else you would do" with the mobile units. For a moment it appeared as though the White House had won the propaganda battle.
Bush was jubilant. "You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world," he asked in a television interview, before boasting: "Iraq has got … mobile labs to build biological weapons…. We've so far discovered two." Powell was likewise relieved, and claimed that the trucks had been found. The Germans also saw the apparent evidence as vindication of their efforts and of their source. The BND showed "Curveball" photos of the trucks. He claimed to recognize elements of the contraption.
Kay’s TV appearance made such an impression at the White House that the former weapons inspector was soon asked to become the head of the Iraq Survey Group and he was charged with seeking out Saddam's remaining arsenal. The Texan agreed, and was granted extraordinary powers. He was given a salary equivalent to that of a four-star general, was allowed to hand out coveted Green Cards to Iraqi informants, and was granted a secret budget of $10 million to pay off those willing to snitch.
Before Kay got going, he studied all of the relevant documents, including those from Germany. When he saw that the entire biological weapons claim was based on just one source, he gave it top priority. Two of his staff members were tasked with finding Rafed’s family.
His family lived in a white single family home in Baghdad, and Rafed’s mother and older brother were at home when the Americans came calling. It was the first time that the life story "Curveball" had presented to his German handlers was looked into.
Lies and Half-Truths
Rafed had said that he was first in his class. His mother, though, told Kay’s inspectors a slightly different story. She said that her son had been a good pupil, but that he had run into some difficulties. Indeed, she reported, he had barely managed to finish school with a "D" average -- just 60 out of 100 possible points. Rafed’s best subject, in which he received 76 points, had remarkably little to do with his subsequent major of engineering: "Culture and the History of Iraq."
And so the story continued. No matter what the inspectors asked about, they stumbled across a mixture of lies and half-truths told by Rafed. He hated America, Rafed had told a German intelligence agent. But posters of American pop groups hung in his room, which his mother had left undisturbed. Indeed, she explained, Rafed had wanted to emigrate to the US.
One of the central premises in the story Rafed told German intelligence officials was that he had worked in Saddam's weapons program until 1998 -- the only way he could have learned about the alleged deadly accident which supposedly took place that year. Kay recalled that on this point, Rafed's mother was almost embarrassed. To her knowledge, she said, her son Rafed had worked for the CEDC only until 1995. Even worse, his relatives told Kay that Rafed was no longer even in Iraq in 1998.
With the help of the family, Kay’s men -- including a CIA operative of many years named "Jerry," who had constantly defended "Curveball’s" reliability -- now began a frantic search for old friends and superiors, for men such as Basil Latif and Hilal Freah.
Freah, 42, is a tall, heavyset man with a gray beard and penetrating eyes. It is a mild day at the beginning of December 2007 and Freah is sitting in the cigar lounge of Regency Palace Hotel in the Jordanian capital Amman. He wants nothing to eat and he orders nothing to drink. Five years after the start of the war, Hilal Freah only wants to talk. He knew the man who became "Curveball" better than almost anyone else. "Rafed, of all people," he groans. "Everyone who knows him knows that he is a born fraud."
The Incident with the Lambs
Freah was his immediate superior at CEDC, Saddam’s research center in Baghdad. But more than that, he was also something of a foster parent to Rafed. He knew Rafed's family well -- that his older brother once served with Saddam’s Republican Guard and that the younger one ran a corner shop in Baghdad. One sister was an employee at the national railway administration, and the other studied psychology. Rafed even went to Freah's wedding -- and a few weeks later Freah attended Rafed's as well, when he married another young CEDC employee in a lavish celebration in a Baghdad officers club.
Although his English was mediocre, and his knowledge of chemistry and biology average at best, Rafed made a modest career for himself. As a result of his "communications skills" he was employed twice by Freah as an on-site project manager: first at an oil refinery, where Rafed supervised the building of 11 cooling towers. And then in Djerf al-Nadaf, a project focusing on the development of seeds -- which later became ground zero for the mobile biological weapons labs in Rafed's narrations.
For the Djerf project, he was even chauffeured the 40 kilometers from Baghdad, past date plantations and over the Tigris River. Once at work Rafed sat in an office container, bent over sketches and drawings. But, remembers Freah, "he always came late."
That, though, wasn’t the half of it. The first real trouble started when Freah noticed that Rafed was cheating with the invoices of a local company in Djerf. He tried to do the same with other equipment necessary for the project. And then there was the incident with the lambs.
It was the grand opening of the seed factory, and Basil Latif, the head of CEDC and even Hussein Kamil, Saddam’s son-in-law, were there to cut the red ribbon. To celebrate the occasion Rafed purchased three lambs from a neighboring farmer, allegedly for 30,000 dinar apiece. By chance, a colleague spoke with the farmer not long later and complained about the high price. But, the farmer protested, he had received just 20,000 dinar per sheep. Rafed had apparently pocketed the difference. "That is why I fired him in 1995," Hilal Freah explains.
Freah, though, decided to give Rafed a second chance in private industry. With a friend of Rafed’s they founded a cosmetics company named "Ranh." Rafed was supposed to procure shampoo bottles -- and he cheated again with the same trick. This time Freah broke off all contact. In Iraq he had been a member of the Baath Party and Rafed’s behavior severely incriminated him. Even worse, after the Iraq invasion, teams of CIA agents appeared in front of Freah's apartment and dragged him off in handcuffs for interrogation.
Only One Winner
What would he say to Rafed today? "I'd like to kill him twice for what he did to the Iraqi people," Freah answers coldly. Freah's report is confirmed by Basil Latif, general manager of CEDC at the time, who lives today as a wealthy businessman in Oman. "Rafed was a nice guy," he says, "but he was not a particularly good engineer and even back then he was a dishonest man who deceived us several times."
Kay and his team of inspectors heard such stories whenever they asked about Rafed in Baghdad and its surroundings. It was a perfect disaster. Kay first sent warning messages to Washington and then flew to CIA headquarters to deliver the bad news himself. "We were all wrong," was the message he had to deliver.
In Berlin, a parliamentary committee of inquiry is currently looking into the question as to whether German intelligence engaged in inadmissible cooperation with the Americans in the fight against terror. The questions have to do with the US prison at Guantanamo, with torture and with illegal interrogations. It does not, however, concern one of the biggest debacles in the history of the German secret service. The case of "Curveball" has not been re-examined and the political responsibility remains unclear.
'Fundamental Considerations'
Even today, the BND has yet to admit to its own mistakes. The agency, now under the leadership of then-secret service coordinator Ernst Uhrlau, is unwilling to even answer questions about the case -- due to "fundamental considerations," as the service dryly informed SPIEGEL in response to a request.
There is an unspoken rule in the world of intelligence: The more important a case and the greater the possible consequences, the more reliable the source should be. In the case of "Curveball," the rule was flip-flopped. The statements made by Rafed were considered plausible precisely because they were so difficult to check. Global policy was shaped using the story "Curveball" told. The analysis of his statements was totally bush league.
German intelligence did not, as is common practice, assign one agent to interview "Curveball" and a separate agent to evaluate and analyze what "Curveball" was telling them. The BND placed both duties into the hands of the "Doctor," precisely because the source was so difficult.
Above all, however, the spymasters failed to do what is indispensable in the intelligence business: They did not sufficiently examine "Curveball’s" personal record. Perhaps they could have learned early on that, for a time, Rafed tried to make a go of manufacturing eye shadow. Later he stole 1.5 million dinar-worth of gear from the partially state-owned film and television company Babel TV, where he was responsible for equipment maintenance. A warrant for his arrest had been issued as a result -- the real reason why he bolted from Iraq in 1998.
The BND would not even have had to go to Iraq to learn about Rafed's real character -- he remained true to form in Germany as well. Despite an explicit ban by BND authorities, Rafed worked for a time in a Chinese restaurant, and even behind the counter at a Burger King restaurant. He quickly attracted attention to himself. Several Iraqis described him to SPIEGEL as a "crackpot" and "con man."
Still, the intelligence service believed in its source to the very end. The British secret service had expressed its doubts openly as early as 2001, after an expert from MI6 used a pretext to arrange a meeting with "Curveball." He came to the conclusion that elements of "Curveball's" behavior "strike us as typical of fabricators."
'Dishonest, Unprofessional and Irresponsible'
An American physician from the US Defense Department, who had briefly come into contact with Rafed in the course of an investigation in 2000, sent e-mails for years warning as many as he could within the US intelligence community. "Curveball" had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath, he said, and his BND agent seemed to "have fallen in love" with his informant.
In March 2004, the CIA was finally, over a period of two days, able to question "Curveball" directly. The Americans were horrified, and they quickly became convinced that the Iraqi invented the whole story. In June, Rafed was officially classified in the US as a "fabricator."
David Kay, the American specialist assigned with searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is harshly critical of German intelligence. He says it is shocking that the BND did not "make all the appropriate efforts to validate the source," and that, by its refusal to let "Curveball" be interrogated by the CIA, German intelligence also prevented others from seeing him for what he was. "That was dishonest, unprofessional and irresponsible," he says.
Colin Powell’s chief of staff Wilkerson also feels that the Germans "share in the responsibility." He says "they did not just send their information about Curveball as a chance operation. It was carefully considered what they sent to us, each and every word was weighed very carefully." He adds: "I can’t exclude the Germans completely here from their share of guilt."
But the BND still takes a different view. "If the US government builds its house on shifting sands, we are not to blame," says a high-ranking German intelligence official. "We simply passed on information, no evaluations." And: "The US bears responsibility for what happened at the Security Council."
In the end it is a story that only has losers.
Today, Colin Powell, Bush’s retired secretary of state, calls his Security Council presentation the worst moment of his career. He left government service long ago and has worked since July 2007 as a partner in a venture capital company. Powell’s chief of staff Wilkerson also speaks of the "lowest point of my professional life." Today he teaches at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
'I Am Not to Blame'
The "Doctor" left the BND and is now self-employed. David Kay earns his money as a consultant. Hans Blix is working again for the Swedish government. He thinks he has an explanation for the dynamics that fed the disaster. "Intelligence services know that they will be punished if they fail to come up with something," he says. "They are not punished if they overdo things. Therefore they are inclined to exaggerate."
In 2004, George Tenet tendered his resignation from the CIA -- only days after "Curveball" was officially branded as a fraud -- and is now in retirement. "We allowed flawed information to be presented to Congress, the President and the whole world," Tenet wrote in his memoirs. "That never should have happened."
Saddam Hussein was hanged. More than a year before the noose was placed around his neck, an American government report came to the conclusion that Iraq had destroyed all of its biological pathogens directly after the Gulf War in 1991 and ceased development of the disputed program. Saddam’s refusal to admit that he no longer had any more weapons of mass destruction came out of a fear of Iran.
Only one person can feel like a winner: "Curveball." In September 2007, the German authorities agreed in principle to his naturalization. And "Curveball" remains protected by the BND to this day.
In the US, such fabricators are dishonorably dismissed, they don’t get a single penny and every government agency is warned about them. In Germany things are dealt with differently. In all, "Curveball" is said to have been paid hundreds of thousands of euros. And the BND may now have to cough up once again. The intelligence service is considering giving "Curveball" yet another new identity, as well as one for his second wife from Morocco and for his son, who was born in Erlangen.
Rafed does not want to say anything about the accusations leveled against him while standing on the street in front of his house, saying he is afraid. But a few days later he opens up on the telephone. After eight years in Germany his German is fairly good and he laughs a lot during the conversation.
"I am not to blame," says Rafed. "I never said that Iraq had weapons for mass destruction. Not at all. Not in my entire life." Rafed says the Americans, "know precisely that it is all untrue." He will tell his story again, but not in Germany, where he was "treated poorly." For the kind of information that he supplied, he says, he should be "living like a king." And then Rafed wants to hear an offer. A new offer for his story. He wants to sell it -- again.
The American commission that was supposed to evaluate the job done by the intelligence community leading up to the war wrote a tellingly incisive sentence in its final report: "Worse than having no human sources is being seduced by a human source who is telling lies."
:: Article nr. 42383 sent on 25-mar-2008 08:47 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=42383
Link: www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-542840,00.html
How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq
Erich Follath, John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark, Spiegel
March 24, 2008
Five years ago, the US government presented what it said was proof that Iraq harbored biological weapons. The information came from a source developed by German intelligence -- and it turned out to be disastrously wrong. But to this day, Germany denies any responsibility.
If you're looking to hide out from the rest of the world, the grayish white residential block in this southern German city would be a good place to be. Six families live here, most of them with children, and the building blends inconspicuously into the dull suburban skyline. A green toy tractor is parked out front, the bicycles have baby trailers, one of them complete with an American flag fluttering in the breeze. On a mailbox hanging outside the building's entrance, the name Rafed has been scrawled in pale green handwriting -- difficult to read, but decipherable from up close.
There are many the world over who would love a chance to chat with the man whose mail lands in this post box. The US Congress is desperately interested in him, and the White House once even expressed an interest in trotting him out on primetime television. A book has been written about him and Hollywood is currently working on a motion picture documenting his life.
The man's codename is "Curveball." And in an earlier life, he played a crucial role in the geo-politics at the beginning of this decade: He was the man who provided vital "evidence" that ultimately contributed to the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies. But that role has since turned into his greatest problem: Everything he claimed to know about Iraq's weapons program, all the proof he presented, was fabricated. His lifeline, though, has yet to be cut: Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), remains loyal to their source. They keep him under cover and protect him from uncomfortable questions -- here in southern Germany.
Blown Cover
At first, there are no signs of life from "Curveball's" ground-floor dwelling in the drab apartment building. The doorbell has a bad contact, the neighbors said; you have to hold the button down for a long time. Children’s shoes and men’s sandals are arrayed in front of the door; a German forest landscape hangs on the wall. And then, after a long wait, the door swings open. A stocky man with a full shock of black hair and a stubbly beard stands in the doorway. He is wearing an orange T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Still groggy from sleep, he blinks out at his unexpected visitor. "Rafed?" -- "Yeah, that’s me," he says. It is the moment when Rafed knows his cover has been blown.
The source known as "Curveball" lives under BND protection in southern Germany.The source known as "Curveball" lives under BND protection in southern Germany.
In baseball, a curveball is pure deception. It spins quickly, and changes direction, making it very difficult for the batter to make contact. A curveball lures the batter to swing at a ball that is no longer there.
Rafed's deceptions unleashed their full power on Feb. 5, 2003 at the United Nations building in New York City. It was the day that US Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the UN Security Council in an effort to convince the world that an invasion of Iraq was an absolute necessity.
It was 10:30 a.m. local time, when Powell launched into his lecture, and it immediately became clear that he was playing to an audience larger than the UN representatives gathered before him. He was speaking to the world. "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources," he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." As Powell moved through his 76-minute-long presentation, a horror scenario unfolded. Baghdad, he said, was still in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, including atomic, chemical and biological devices. That pursuit, Powell made clear, was in violation of UN sanctions.
The climax of the lecture came when he told his audience about the mobile biological weapons laboratories -- mini factories mounted on the back of trucks churning out some of the most dangerous diseases known to mankind. That was the "most dramatic" part of the presentation Powell says today.
But there was drama right from the beginning. Early on, the Secretary of State held up a small vial containing white powder -- meant to represent anthrax spores. Saddam Hussein, he said, "could have produced 25,000 liters" of the stuff. Saddam Hussein spins a "web of lies" Powell said and spoke of "one last chance" which Iraq had chosen not to take advantage of. The country harbors a "deadly network of terrorism," he said, and as a result, the world "must not shrink from whatever is ahead."
The response to the speech, broadcast as it was to the entire world, was overwhelming. On the following day, the US Secretary of State could be seen with the anthrax vial on the front page of newspapers from Sydney to Sao Paolo, from Paris to Beijing. "We love him," rejoiced the Jerusalem Post, hardly a Powell-friendly paper until then. Everyone was suddenly talking about biological weapons -- about the "trailers of death" and "hell on wheels."
Above all, however, Powell was able to convince many of his fellow Americans who had harbored doubts about the need to go to war in the Middle East. Following Powell's appearance, surveys revealed that half of all US citizens supported a war on Iraq. And the Secretary of State himself was delighted with his performance. He had small plaques made for everyone who had helped prepare the speech. But those he convinced that winter day in 2003 would come to regret it. As the world came to discover, nothing of what he said was truthful. There were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction at the time Powell made his presentation. There were no mobile biological weapons laboratories. And there were no connections between Iraq and the terrorist organization al-Qaida.
An 'Invaluable Asset'
The reactions around the UN Security Council table on that day just over five years ago were primarily characterized by diplomatic reserve -- including that of the man who chaired the fateful session: Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister at the time. The German delegation had set up a secure line from New York directly to the BND intelligence offices in Berlin, where the agents followed Powell's speech on a big screen.
Like Powell, who made certain that then-CIA Director George Tenet was visible behind him on the world's TV screens, Fischer had also brought along an important intelligence official. But Hans Dieter H., the BND's proliferation expert, was not seated near the foreign minister. Rather, he was positioned diagonally behind Tenet and Powell. The seating was little more than chance; the UN had to set up several additional rows of chairs to accommodate the large audience. The result, though, was that Germany's intelligence representative was seated together with those who supported the war.
As is now clear, the seating was auspicious. The German secret service actually had more to do with providing justification for the US invasion of Iraq than it would now like to admit. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder -- like his colleagues in Paris and Moscow -- was a vehement opponent of the war. But of all people, his own agents provided Washington with the key bit of "evidence" which helped fuel the war hysteria: the story about the mobile biological weapons laboratories. It was information that helped justify a war that has cost more than 500,000 lives and plunged the Middle East into chaos. And this information came from just one man: "Curveball."
He was, as Tenet said then, an "invaluable asset." Today, it is clear that "Curveball" is an imposter, a fabulist, a man who, in the US, is referred to as the "con man who caused the war." "Curveball," writes spy-thriller author Frederick Forsyth, is responsible for the "biggest fiasco in the history of secret intelligence."
Germany's BND is the agency responsible for this man. And the most important question surrounding "Curveball" still hasn't been answered to this day. Why does German intelligence remain loyal to its source?
German Intelligence Finds a Source
Rafed was brought up often in high level meetings between intelligence community leaders and the chancellery of Gerhard Schröder to discuss how to handle his information. Both current Foreign Minster Frank-Walter Steinmeier and current BND President Ernst Uhrlau had high level positions under Schröder. The chancellery even coordinated its efforts with the Foreign Ministry under Joschka Fischer and the Ministry of Defense under Peter Struck. Serious doubts were expressed, but nobody pulled the emergency break.
But how is such a dramatic intelligence disaster possible? And who should take the political responsibility?
Germany's secret service ignominy got its start in the winter of the year 1999, in a camp for asylum seekers known as Zirndorf. The man from the Sunni heartland of Iraq was 32 years old when he arrived in the barracks just outside of the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. The pale, low-slung buildings surrounded by barbed wire were hardly how he had envisioned freedom. Anyone who wanted to leave the premises for a visit to Nuremberg needed written permission; the camp was designed to protect the persecuted, but its resemblance to a prison was difficult to ignore. Anyone who landed here wanted just one thing -- to get out again as quickly as possible.
Among the numerous Iraqis in the camp, the rumor was making the rounds that one easy way out was via the branch office of the German secret service located just outside the Zirndorf gates. The agents there routinely questioned asylum seekers from Iraq.
An Ambitious Doctor
When Rafed walked into the interrogation office, the agent in charge wasn't alone. Rather, he was joined by an experienced Arabic interpreter, a man in his mid-sixties with gray hair who has already put in decades working at Zirndorf. The two were not interested in the stories of suffering the asylum seekers had to tell. They were looking for information about Saddam’s ruling clique, his military and, above all, his alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In Arabic, Rafed told the agents about his chemical engineering studies at Baghdad Technical University, and about his first job in the so-called "Military Industrialization Commission" -- that part of Saddam’s regime responsible for the development of new weapons systems. The translator and the BND agent pricked up their ears, but soon they were no longer able to follow. Rafed began speaking about his work in the "Chemical Engineering and Design Center" (CEDC) -- and he spoke about bioreactors.
But if the agents in Zirndorf lacked the specialist knowledge necessary to understand what Rafed was telling them, when his dossier landed on an expert's desk at intelligence headquarters in Pullach, located not far from Munich, the agent there immediately knew he had something. He was a wiry man in his forties who had gone prematurely gray, not at all the secret agent cliché. When it came to Rafed’s case, he was simply referred to as the "Doctor." Colleagues describe the "Doctor" as open and pleasant, but also as "very ambitious."
His nickname came from his having earned a doctorate in biology, and by the time Rafed's story appeared in his in-box, the analyst had been with German intelligence for more than 12 years. Nobody at the BND was better acquainted with the abbreviation CEDC -- the key front for Saddam's secret weapons program -- than the "Doctor." Indeed, he was apparently so excited after reading Rafed's dossier that he wanted to meet the Iraqi asylum seeker personally. Not long after, the two got together for their first tete á tete at a secret BND property in Nuremberg known as the "Burgzinne" -- the battlements.
Protective Metal Coffins
Participants to those meetings recall that it was not long before the general impression emerged that the young Iraqi knew quite a lot. "He appeared to be shy, almost timid. He was not at all the typical boastful type that we often experience," said one person who became acquainted with Rafed during this period.
International politics were never far from the agents' minds as they continued interviewing Rafed. Secret service agencies across the Western world were working on the biggest intelligence challenge of the day: the question as to whether Saddam Hussein still maintained an arsenal of monstrous weapons. Anyone able to provide an answer could expect to rapidly climb the career ladder.
Rafed was able to provide the "Doctor" with a plausible explanation as to why UN inspectors had failed to find anything thus far: The biological weapons program, he said, was mobile. The laboratories, he claimed, were mounted on truck trailers so they could be easily hidden from inspectors. One of these mini germ factories was up and running when he left Iraq, Rafed said, and six others were being built. Another detail sounded particularly alarming: He said he knew of a 1998 accident that resulted in 12 casualties. The contaminated corpses, he said, were buried in protective metal coffins.
It wasn't long before Rafed's claims rose up the chain of command -- onto the desk of the BND president, inside the German Foreign Ministry, into the chancellery, and even across the Atlantic to the White House. The interest in such information had been high throughout the decade. Since 1991, the UN had been attempting to find out whether Saddam still hoarded weapons of mass destruction, and for years a special UN commission, consisting of hundreds of experts, had been scouring Iraq for deadly weapons.
Amorous Adventures
One year before "Curveball" appeared on the scene, Saddam threw the inspectors out of the country. But did he really destroy all of his weapons? That was the claim made by Hussein Kamil Hassan, Saddam's son-in-law who had defected to Jordan in 1995. The BND also interviewed Kamil, and was told that there was "nothing, absolutely nothing left at all." But the agents in Germany refused to believe a single word of Kamil’s account. The "Doctor" was particularly skeptical. Indeed he was well known in the BND for his conviction that Saddam was still producing weapons of mass destruction.
"Curveball" was, for the "Doctor," flesh and blood validation for his deep-seated doubts. Rafed could not only map out every single office in the secret fifth floor of the Baghdad CEDC Center and say who worked in them, but he even chatted away about the amorous adventures of his superiors.
In the secret service business, refugees are generally not considered to be the most reliable of sources. They often overstate things because of bitterness harbored toward the countries they left or to try and inflate their own importance. But Rafed remained perennially calm and reserved -- which is precisely why he was believed. The BND, so they thought, had stumbled across a real blue-chip source.
And Rafed delivered detail after detail. The meetings were usually held on Saturdays, in the relaxed atmosphere of various dwellings belonging to German intelligence. On one occasion, Rafed stood up, walked over to the wall and flipped over a pin-up calendar. The naked women seemed to bother him. Although he could not have been described as a strict believer, he identified himself as a Muslim. He didn't, though, take time out for prayer during the interminable interrogations. Nevertheless, he was careful to avoid eating pork at the regular joint dinners. Eventually, by the beginning of the year 2003, the BND had prepared some 100 top secret reports on these meetings and send them to Washington. The British, the French and the Israelis were also kept in the loop.
Intelligence experts and UN inspectors had long considered mobile weapons laboratories to be a possible explanation for the fact that nothing could be found. It was once claimed that the stuff was hidden in the trucks of an ice cream company. On another occasion, American U2-spy planes flew special missions in search of mobile laboratories -- with no success. The UN inspectors were so taken with the idea that they seriously considered erecting surprise road blocks -- and even wanted to use helicopters to spray special foam on the roads to force suspicious trucks to stop.
Still, soon after the initial enthusiasm for "Curveball," the first doubts began to surface. US intelligence aimed a spy satellite at one of the filling stations that Rafed had described in great detail. On the crystal clear photos, a solid wall could be seen where, according to Rafed's account, the entrance to the compound should have been. But both the Americans and the Germans wanted to believe their new source and pushed their doubts aside. The wall, surely, was only a fake.
Rafed was allowed to leave the Zirndorf camp for good after just a three week stay, and two months later he had his own apartment in Erlangen. He was granted political asylum soon thereafter. His Iraqi acquaintances who visited him from Zirndorf were envious. Rafed now wore suits. There was whiskey in the cupboard, and a television and stereo system in the living room. The BND arranged for more than 50 meetings, after which it seemed there wasn't a detail Rafed hadn't already mentioned. The "Doctor" met with him for the last time in the summer of 2001.
Then came September 11.
Justification for the American War
It was only a few days after the attacks in New York and Washington that the White House made the preliminary decision to go to war – and the focus was not just to be on Afghanistan. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the administration's hawks, also wanted to go after Iraq. But for that to come to pass, a doubting global community would have to be convinced that it was necessary. Saddam must be made to appear as dangerous as possible.
This marked the beginning of Rafed’s second career -- "Curveball" and the warmongers in Washington were a perfect match. The result of their collaboration was like a Hollywood film script, with the climax coming in the form of a dramatic appearance before the UN performed by lead actor Colin Powell.
The first draft of the Powell presentation was produced by the neoconservatives Cheney had surrounded himself with. The section on weapons of mass destruction -- closely written sheets oozing with accusations -- took up a total of 48 pages. Powell’s closest advisors, including his chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, moved into CIA headquarters in Langley for several days and nights. It didn’t take long, however, before the Cheney draft was tossed into the trash can.
An official intelligence assessment from October 2002 became the basis for the new draft. That assessment was the product of a White House order and saw US intelligence scraping together any charges against Saddam's regime they could find. But apart from an airy story about alleged nuclear weapons research and purported connections between the government and al-Qaida, only the material from Germany remained.
The 'Crown Jewel'
"Curveball" was suddenly the man of the hour -- more than a year after Germany's BND had deactivated him as a source. Rafed, the biological weapons snitch who had come from Iraq to southern Germany suddenly became the "crown jewel," says Wilkerson today. "The file was so thick that the whole story just couldn’t be wrong."
President Bush was likewise triumphant in the knowledge that he now had a key witness against Saddam. The president knew the story of "Curveball" from his CIA head George Tenet. Tenet's job involved briefing the White House every day on intelligence developments in addition to a personal meeting with Powell.
The mobile biological laboratories, Tenet insisted, represented iron clad information. There was just one hitch: The material came from a country which, together with France and Russia, formed the core of war opposition. More than 80 percent of the German population opposed a military campaign against Baghdad. Heading up the skeptics was German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who had won re-election in 2002 on the strength of his anti-war rhetoric. On the other side of the aisle was then-opposition leader Angela Merkel. She insisted that the option "to use military means as a last resort" had to be kept open.
August Hanning -- then BND president and today a deputy in the Interior Ministry -- had already committed himself in public on one point. On Nov. 7, 2002 he asserted that German intelligence had "no independent information" indicating that Saddam Hussein had provided support to al-Qaida. Even the constantly repeated warning from the US government that Saddam was attempting to acquire nuclear weapons fell on deaf ears in the BND. On that point, Germany's intelligence community could hardly be counted among the warmongers.
'In a Position to Prove All of This'
What the BND did believe, however, was discussed behind closed doors at 8:30 a.m. on a foggy Wednesday morning. It was Nov. 13, 2002 and the German parliament's foreign affairs committee met in room 2.800 on the second floor of the Paul-Löbe-Haus, a building in Berlin's new government quarter. Not even a refreshment cart was allowed in for the top secret meeting that morning.
BND President Hanning opened the proceedings, speaking in a calm voice with his hands folded in front of him. Initially, he spoke in generalities about Saddam's aspirations to obtain weapons of mass destruction and said there were indications that Iraq was hiding biological and chemical weapons that had proven difficult for the inspectors to locate. He then turned the proceedings over to his specialist, Hans Dieter H.
H., a small, stout man with wavy, gray hair, enjoyed great respect among experts for his cool and incisive analysis. "Iraq has purportedly manufactured seven mobile B-weapons systems," H. told the committee. He had brought along an overhead slide, a simple drawing of the alleged mobile laboratories -- a preliminary taste of what Powell would later present to the Security Council. This information, H. said, is based on a "secret source," but one whose claims have not been verified.
With that, the foreign affairs committee was made aware of the testimony from "Curveball." But while H. was, on the one hand, unambiguous, he was also cautious. "We know nothing about production in these facilities," he added. The expert also reported on Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program and on Scud missiles that would be operational within two to three years. The report ended with a memorable sentence: "We are in a position to prove all of this."
Volker Rühe, the chairman of the committee from the conservative Christian Democrats, then remarked on the "enormous discrepancy between the public statements made by the government and the knowledge it had in its possession." An astonished Guido Westerwelle, head of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) commented that "the actual threat looks different" from what had been publicly stated. Both Hanning and H. were themselves clearly convinced of the danger. In a highly publicized move, the German government had procured €60 million worth of smallpox vaccine as early as the autumn of 2001 -- one of the responses to the testimony provided by "Curveball."
No Television Appearance for 'Curveball'
To this day, the German government maintains secrecy with regard to what was discussed in room 2.800. There are not even official minutes from the meeting. But on the basis of tape recordings, the BND later reconstructed what Hanning and H. said in order to be able to deflect any possible criticism.
Not long after the Berlin meeting, Tenet came to his German colleagues with a request that was as unusual as it was delicate. The CIA head politely asked Hanning whether he thought there was any possibility that "Curveball" could appear on American television for Bush’s annual State of the Union address. Barring that, the US wanted to finally have an opportunity to question "Curveball" itself. In addition, Tenet wanted German permission to make public use of BND information -- a quasi admission that the US thought the information was accurate.
Tenet's role had transformed into that of a public prosecutor in search of witnesses willing to go public -- far from the traditional task of a secret service professional obsessed with protecting his sources. He even gave the Germans a deadline: He needed an answer within 48 hours, he said.
The BND was alarmed. It was immediately clear to Hanning that the issue had become highly political -- and that it was up to the chancellor to make a decision on what to do.
The plenary hall in the Bundestag was largely empty during a Friday session just before Christmas 2002, with many parliamentarians having already headed home for the holidays. And it was about to become emptier. In the middle of the session, Chancellor Schröder suddenly summoned Defense Minister Struck, chancellery chief of staff Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to his office. Ernst Uhrlau, secret service coordinator, was already there. Of the so-called "security cabinet," only Interior Minister Otto Schily couldn't make it.
The meeting that morning in Schröder's office lasted for an hour and the government's general position on the impending war in Iraq was discussed. The main topic, though, was "Curveball" and how Berlin should respond to the US request. Rafed’s core allegations against Saddam’s regime were once again recapitulated, but so too were his story's weaknesses. Of particular concern, the decisive criteria for reliable intelligence was far from being fulfilled: Instead of three independent sources, they only had one. A television appearance? Under no circumstances. Questioning by the CIA? Best avoided.
Germany Compromises on 'Curveball'
The government officials, though, were united in their fear that a categorical refusal of the US request would be seen as an affront. After all, German-American relations had already been shaken by Schröder's anti-war stance during his 2002 re-election campaign. Furthermore, the chancellor and his foreign minister feared what would happen if it turned out that Saddam really did have weapons of mass destruction. Germany would be a sitting duck for accusations that it had concealed its knowledge for political reasons. Should American soldiers lose their lives as a result, Fischer feared, it would be a diplomatic and public relations disaster.
Thus, Schröder's cabinet opted for a compromise. The government decided to send special armored reconnaissance vehicles capable of detecting chemical and biological agents to Kuwait and to grant the US military flyover rights during the war. They also extended the times during which American soldiers could engage in target practice on bases in Germany -- so that the US troops could be as prepared as possible for the war. One of those present later put the diplomatic balancing act into a nutshell: "We were against the war, but we wanted to be good allies."
As far as "Curveball" was concerned, the government wanted to give Washington permission to use Rafed’s statements but, at the same time insisted on a few qualifications. "We didn’t trust the Americans," said one meeting participant. "But we didn't want to withhold any information."
Carte Blanche
Hanning was charged with transforming the compromise agreement into an official reply to the Americans. And the head of German intelligence carefully considered each and every word that went into his Dec. 20, 2002 letter.
The BND, Hanning wrote, had consulted with the CIA, the Israelis and the British "in order to evaluate the indications made by our source with regard to mobile facilities for the production of warfare agents." According to Hanning, "the information was in essence judged as plausible and convincing, but it couldn't be confirmed." For this reason the BND wanted to approach the UN inspectors once again "in order to enable immediate on-site clarification." If Tenet should nevertheless "be inclined to use the reports and the results of the joint appraisal on mobile biological warfare facilities in Iraq publicly, then I would allow this procedure in the expectation that protection of our source, which makes our work possible, be guaranteed." Translated from the bureaucratese, the message was: Do whatever you want, but it’s your responsibility.
Even today, that letter remains exhibit "A" for then BND and German government leaders when it comes to discussions about Germany's responsibility for the pre-Iraq intelligence debacle. Gunter Pleuger, for example, Germany's UN Ambassador at the time, says: "For me it was a perfectly clear warning, and I assumed that the information provided by 'Curveball’ would no longer be used by the Americans."
Today, though, the BND apparently no longer sees the letter as an adequate exculpation. The secret service now points to a Washington meeting in the autumn of 2002, shortly before Hanning's letter, whereby the then-BND agent in Washington met with Tyler Drumheller, CIA operations leader for Europe, for a lunch meeting in a restaurant called Sea Catch. Drumheller recalls that the BND agent warned that "Curveball" was psychologically unstable and likely a fraud. The BND has now, for the first time, officially confirmed this account.
According to Tenet, the CIA even specifically asked the BND contact what he thought of "Curveball" after the war began. In response, though, the BND agent didn't specifically call "Curveball" a "fabricator," Tenets says. Rather, he spoke of a "single source" whose information couldn't be independently confirmed -- the same watered-down formulation that found its way into the Hanning letter. Former highly-placed BND agents confirm this account.
In any case, the CIA and the White House interpreted Hanning's response as carte blanche. Five weeks after receiving Hanning's letter, the US president announced in his State of the Union address that Saddam possessed "several mobile biological weapons labs" and further that "he has given no evidence that he has destroyed them."
But as confident as President Bush seemed, the US intelligence community was divided into two camps. The majority followed the war drums of the hawks. But there were also critics who warned against going to war. The CIA's Drumheller was one of them, and he mentioned his reservations to John McLaughlin, second in command at the CIA. On the night before Powell's Security Council presentation, he even telephoned with George Tenet himself. "Hey, boss," he recalls saying. "Be careful with that German report. It's supposed to be taken out. There are a lot of problems with that."
Six-Thousand Kilometers Away
Tenet would later deny that Drumheller's warning took this form. He also later claimed that the explosive letter, which he had requested from Hanning, reached the CIA but never landed on his desk. In any case, the Drumheller initiative, if it happened at all, bore no fruit. The allegations leveled by "Curveball" made it into Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 appearance.
Six-thousand kilometers away, a man was sitting in front of his television watching Powell's presentation and knowing full well what was going on in New York -- "Curveball" himself. He quickly packed his things and tried to disappear. He was horrified, and knew that there was no turning back from what he had set in motion. It took a lot of effort on the part of the BND to calm him down again.
One week after Powell’s presentation, BND head Hanning once again made an appearance before the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, and the gathered parliamentarians wanted to know what to think about the evidence presented by the US Secretary of State. Powell confirmed "his own assessment of the situation up to now," replied Hanning. "We knew about the locations which he specified." Hanning warned against war, and he reminded his audience that there were indications "but no proof." However, the BND assumes that Iraq has both "B and C weapons," both residual quantities and newly produced material, Hanning continued. He did nothing to dissociate himself from Powell. H., who was present once again, didn't either. On the contrary. "Even more worrisome are indications about mobile biological weapons labs," H. remarked, "which at any time could secretly produce reagents for B weapons such as anthrax and botulinus and can quickly be relocated."
The BND, evidently, still believed in its source.
The UN weapons inspectors in Iraq remained skeptical and the Russian government also expressed doubt immediately following Powell’s appearance. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on Feb. 8, 2003 -- just three days after Powell's presentation -- a column of white jeeps headed out from the UN Disarmament Commission headquarters in Baghdad's Canal Hotel. The biological weapons experts working for chief inspector Hans Blix had been charged with finding the mobile laboratories mentioned by "Curveball." Blix had already seen them at least once -- on paper. "The BND showed me and my staff impressive sketches and diagrams about Iraqi biological weapons," said Blix.
The inspectors were on their way to Djerf al Naddaf, the place that Rafed had described to German agents over and over again. Rocco Casagrande, a young American scientist, was also along for the ride.
Casagrande roamed through the abandoned buildings in the small town for hours, collecting minute samples. More than anything, though, he wanted to find the opening in the wall described by "Curveball," through which the trucks entered and left. After three and a half hours of searching, Casagrande decided enough was enough. The story was completely wrong, he recalls thinking.
The Fruitless Hunt for WMDs in Iraq
The bombardment of Iraq began on March 19, 2003 at 5:36 a.m. local time, and the government quarter in Baghdad was soon engulfed in flames. Just weeks later, the regime disintegrated and, at Firdos Square in Baghdad, a statue of Saddam was pulled from its pedestal in front of gathered television reporters. On May 1, a triumphant US President Bush, decked out in a pilot's jacket and sunglasses, appeared on the deck of an aircraft carrier with the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging behind him. Not long later, US Special Forces began looking for weapons of mass destruction.
The 1,400-strong group responsible for that search -- which later came to be known as the Iraq Survey Group -- took its marching orders from the CIA. And its mission was clear. They were to seek out, defuse and the present Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the world with the greatest publicity possible. The Bush administration didn't just want to win the war -- it wanted to prove that the invasion had been justified. The experts, though, found nothing.
If there was one man who wanted to believe "Curveball" at this time, then it was David Kay. The Texan was a contentious figure -- not known for shying away from conflict -- and had been in Iraq at the beginning of the 1990s as a UN weapons inspector. He fervently believed that Saddam had retained his weapons of mass destruction, convinced that the dictator would never have surrendered this horrific trump card.
A Jubilant President
When the search for Saddam's alleged weapons got underway, Kay was working as an expert for the American TV network NBC and he was allowed by the military to see one of two suspicious trucks which, the Americans hoped, might have played a role in the production of biological weapons. Kay stepped in front of the camera and said that, other than producing weapons, "there is nothing else you would do" with the mobile units. For a moment it appeared as though the White House had won the propaganda battle.
Bush was jubilant. "You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world," he asked in a television interview, before boasting: "Iraq has got … mobile labs to build biological weapons…. We've so far discovered two." Powell was likewise relieved, and claimed that the trucks had been found. The Germans also saw the apparent evidence as vindication of their efforts and of their source. The BND showed "Curveball" photos of the trucks. He claimed to recognize elements of the contraption.
Kay’s TV appearance made such an impression at the White House that the former weapons inspector was soon asked to become the head of the Iraq Survey Group and he was charged with seeking out Saddam's remaining arsenal. The Texan agreed, and was granted extraordinary powers. He was given a salary equivalent to that of a four-star general, was allowed to hand out coveted Green Cards to Iraqi informants, and was granted a secret budget of $10 million to pay off those willing to snitch.
Before Kay got going, he studied all of the relevant documents, including those from Germany. When he saw that the entire biological weapons claim was based on just one source, he gave it top priority. Two of his staff members were tasked with finding Rafed’s family.
His family lived in a white single family home in Baghdad, and Rafed’s mother and older brother were at home when the Americans came calling. It was the first time that the life story "Curveball" had presented to his German handlers was looked into.
Lies and Half-Truths
Rafed had said that he was first in his class. His mother, though, told Kay’s inspectors a slightly different story. She said that her son had been a good pupil, but that he had run into some difficulties. Indeed, she reported, he had barely managed to finish school with a "D" average -- just 60 out of 100 possible points. Rafed’s best subject, in which he received 76 points, had remarkably little to do with his subsequent major of engineering: "Culture and the History of Iraq."
And so the story continued. No matter what the inspectors asked about, they stumbled across a mixture of lies and half-truths told by Rafed. He hated America, Rafed had told a German intelligence agent. But posters of American pop groups hung in his room, which his mother had left undisturbed. Indeed, she explained, Rafed had wanted to emigrate to the US.
One of the central premises in the story Rafed told German intelligence officials was that he had worked in Saddam's weapons program until 1998 -- the only way he could have learned about the alleged deadly accident which supposedly took place that year. Kay recalled that on this point, Rafed's mother was almost embarrassed. To her knowledge, she said, her son Rafed had worked for the CEDC only until 1995. Even worse, his relatives told Kay that Rafed was no longer even in Iraq in 1998.
With the help of the family, Kay’s men -- including a CIA operative of many years named "Jerry," who had constantly defended "Curveball’s" reliability -- now began a frantic search for old friends and superiors, for men such as Basil Latif and Hilal Freah.
Freah, 42, is a tall, heavyset man with a gray beard and penetrating eyes. It is a mild day at the beginning of December 2007 and Freah is sitting in the cigar lounge of Regency Palace Hotel in the Jordanian capital Amman. He wants nothing to eat and he orders nothing to drink. Five years after the start of the war, Hilal Freah only wants to talk. He knew the man who became "Curveball" better than almost anyone else. "Rafed, of all people," he groans. "Everyone who knows him knows that he is a born fraud."
The Incident with the Lambs
Freah was his immediate superior at CEDC, Saddam’s research center in Baghdad. But more than that, he was also something of a foster parent to Rafed. He knew Rafed's family well -- that his older brother once served with Saddam’s Republican Guard and that the younger one ran a corner shop in Baghdad. One sister was an employee at the national railway administration, and the other studied psychology. Rafed even went to Freah's wedding -- and a few weeks later Freah attended Rafed's as well, when he married another young CEDC employee in a lavish celebration in a Baghdad officers club.
Although his English was mediocre, and his knowledge of chemistry and biology average at best, Rafed made a modest career for himself. As a result of his "communications skills" he was employed twice by Freah as an on-site project manager: first at an oil refinery, where Rafed supervised the building of 11 cooling towers. And then in Djerf al-Nadaf, a project focusing on the development of seeds -- which later became ground zero for the mobile biological weapons labs in Rafed's narrations.
For the Djerf project, he was even chauffeured the 40 kilometers from Baghdad, past date plantations and over the Tigris River. Once at work Rafed sat in an office container, bent over sketches and drawings. But, remembers Freah, "he always came late."
That, though, wasn’t the half of it. The first real trouble started when Freah noticed that Rafed was cheating with the invoices of a local company in Djerf. He tried to do the same with other equipment necessary for the project. And then there was the incident with the lambs.
It was the grand opening of the seed factory, and Basil Latif, the head of CEDC and even Hussein Kamil, Saddam’s son-in-law, were there to cut the red ribbon. To celebrate the occasion Rafed purchased three lambs from a neighboring farmer, allegedly for 30,000 dinar apiece. By chance, a colleague spoke with the farmer not long later and complained about the high price. But, the farmer protested, he had received just 20,000 dinar per sheep. Rafed had apparently pocketed the difference. "That is why I fired him in 1995," Hilal Freah explains.
Freah, though, decided to give Rafed a second chance in private industry. With a friend of Rafed’s they founded a cosmetics company named "Ranh." Rafed was supposed to procure shampoo bottles -- and he cheated again with the same trick. This time Freah broke off all contact. In Iraq he had been a member of the Baath Party and Rafed’s behavior severely incriminated him. Even worse, after the Iraq invasion, teams of CIA agents appeared in front of Freah's apartment and dragged him off in handcuffs for interrogation.
Only One Winner
What would he say to Rafed today? "I'd like to kill him twice for what he did to the Iraqi people," Freah answers coldly. Freah's report is confirmed by Basil Latif, general manager of CEDC at the time, who lives today as a wealthy businessman in Oman. "Rafed was a nice guy," he says, "but he was not a particularly good engineer and even back then he was a dishonest man who deceived us several times."
Kay and his team of inspectors heard such stories whenever they asked about Rafed in Baghdad and its surroundings. It was a perfect disaster. Kay first sent warning messages to Washington and then flew to CIA headquarters to deliver the bad news himself. "We were all wrong," was the message he had to deliver.
In Berlin, a parliamentary committee of inquiry is currently looking into the question as to whether German intelligence engaged in inadmissible cooperation with the Americans in the fight against terror. The questions have to do with the US prison at Guantanamo, with torture and with illegal interrogations. It does not, however, concern one of the biggest debacles in the history of the German secret service. The case of "Curveball" has not been re-examined and the political responsibility remains unclear.
'Fundamental Considerations'
Even today, the BND has yet to admit to its own mistakes. The agency, now under the leadership of then-secret service coordinator Ernst Uhrlau, is unwilling to even answer questions about the case -- due to "fundamental considerations," as the service dryly informed SPIEGEL in response to a request.
There is an unspoken rule in the world of intelligence: The more important a case and the greater the possible consequences, the more reliable the source should be. In the case of "Curveball," the rule was flip-flopped. The statements made by Rafed were considered plausible precisely because they were so difficult to check. Global policy was shaped using the story "Curveball" told. The analysis of his statements was totally bush league.
German intelligence did not, as is common practice, assign one agent to interview "Curveball" and a separate agent to evaluate and analyze what "Curveball" was telling them. The BND placed both duties into the hands of the "Doctor," precisely because the source was so difficult.
Above all, however, the spymasters failed to do what is indispensable in the intelligence business: They did not sufficiently examine "Curveball’s" personal record. Perhaps they could have learned early on that, for a time, Rafed tried to make a go of manufacturing eye shadow. Later he stole 1.5 million dinar-worth of gear from the partially state-owned film and television company Babel TV, where he was responsible for equipment maintenance. A warrant for his arrest had been issued as a result -- the real reason why he bolted from Iraq in 1998.
The BND would not even have had to go to Iraq to learn about Rafed's real character -- he remained true to form in Germany as well. Despite an explicit ban by BND authorities, Rafed worked for a time in a Chinese restaurant, and even behind the counter at a Burger King restaurant. He quickly attracted attention to himself. Several Iraqis described him to SPIEGEL as a "crackpot" and "con man."
Still, the intelligence service believed in its source to the very end. The British secret service had expressed its doubts openly as early as 2001, after an expert from MI6 used a pretext to arrange a meeting with "Curveball." He came to the conclusion that elements of "Curveball's" behavior "strike us as typical of fabricators."
'Dishonest, Unprofessional and Irresponsible'
An American physician from the US Defense Department, who had briefly come into contact with Rafed in the course of an investigation in 2000, sent e-mails for years warning as many as he could within the US intelligence community. "Curveball" had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath, he said, and his BND agent seemed to "have fallen in love" with his informant.
In March 2004, the CIA was finally, over a period of two days, able to question "Curveball" directly. The Americans were horrified, and they quickly became convinced that the Iraqi invented the whole story. In June, Rafed was officially classified in the US as a "fabricator."
David Kay, the American specialist assigned with searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is harshly critical of German intelligence. He says it is shocking that the BND did not "make all the appropriate efforts to validate the source," and that, by its refusal to let "Curveball" be interrogated by the CIA, German intelligence also prevented others from seeing him for what he was. "That was dishonest, unprofessional and irresponsible," he says.
Colin Powell’s chief of staff Wilkerson also feels that the Germans "share in the responsibility." He says "they did not just send their information about Curveball as a chance operation. It was carefully considered what they sent to us, each and every word was weighed very carefully." He adds: "I can’t exclude the Germans completely here from their share of guilt."
But the BND still takes a different view. "If the US government builds its house on shifting sands, we are not to blame," says a high-ranking German intelligence official. "We simply passed on information, no evaluations." And: "The US bears responsibility for what happened at the Security Council."
In the end it is a story that only has losers.
Today, Colin Powell, Bush’s retired secretary of state, calls his Security Council presentation the worst moment of his career. He left government service long ago and has worked since July 2007 as a partner in a venture capital company. Powell’s chief of staff Wilkerson also speaks of the "lowest point of my professional life." Today he teaches at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
'I Am Not to Blame'
The "Doctor" left the BND and is now self-employed. David Kay earns his money as a consultant. Hans Blix is working again for the Swedish government. He thinks he has an explanation for the dynamics that fed the disaster. "Intelligence services know that they will be punished if they fail to come up with something," he says. "They are not punished if they overdo things. Therefore they are inclined to exaggerate."
In 2004, George Tenet tendered his resignation from the CIA -- only days after "Curveball" was officially branded as a fraud -- and is now in retirement. "We allowed flawed information to be presented to Congress, the President and the whole world," Tenet wrote in his memoirs. "That never should have happened."
Saddam Hussein was hanged. More than a year before the noose was placed around his neck, an American government report came to the conclusion that Iraq had destroyed all of its biological pathogens directly after the Gulf War in 1991 and ceased development of the disputed program. Saddam’s refusal to admit that he no longer had any more weapons of mass destruction came out of a fear of Iran.
Only one person can feel like a winner: "Curveball." In September 2007, the German authorities agreed in principle to his naturalization. And "Curveball" remains protected by the BND to this day.
In the US, such fabricators are dishonorably dismissed, they don’t get a single penny and every government agency is warned about them. In Germany things are dealt with differently. In all, "Curveball" is said to have been paid hundreds of thousands of euros. And the BND may now have to cough up once again. The intelligence service is considering giving "Curveball" yet another new identity, as well as one for his second wife from Morocco and for his son, who was born in Erlangen.
Rafed does not want to say anything about the accusations leveled against him while standing on the street in front of his house, saying he is afraid. But a few days later he opens up on the telephone. After eight years in Germany his German is fairly good and he laughs a lot during the conversation.
"I am not to blame," says Rafed. "I never said that Iraq had weapons for mass destruction. Not at all. Not in my entire life." Rafed says the Americans, "know precisely that it is all untrue." He will tell his story again, but not in Germany, where he was "treated poorly." For the kind of information that he supplied, he says, he should be "living like a king." And then Rafed wants to hear an offer. A new offer for his story. He wants to sell it -- again.
The American commission that was supposed to evaluate the job done by the intelligence community leading up to the war wrote a tellingly incisive sentence in its final report: "Worse than having no human sources is being seduced by a human source who is telling lies."
:: Article nr. 42383 sent on 25-mar-2008 08:47 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=42383
Link: www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-542840,00.html
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