In this issue:

Iraq Invasion Creates Massive Humanitarian Crisis; U.S. Responsible for Civilians

Medical Disasters in Iraq

Iraqi War Far From Over, and What 'Humanitarian' Problems the U.S. Now Faces

Bush, Still in Claws of Chickenhawks, Bashes Syria

Mubarak Calls for Establishment of Transitional Government in Iraq

After IDF Shoots U.S.-U.K. Peace Observers, Their Governments Do Nothing

From Volume 2, Issue Number 15 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published April 14, 2003
Mideast News Digest

Iraq Invasion Creates Massive Humanitarian Crisis; U.S. Responsible for Civilians

A European-based Arab source has reported to EIW that the Western media and government coverage is failing to report the massive humanitarian crisis, and the threat to civilians in occupied Iraq. The source said that Middle East media have been showing footage, and discussions with families of refugees and people still in Iraq indicate that food shortages are everywhere, there is lack of safe water, and any water, and the hospitals are operating with no electricity, without medicines, and are overflowing with the wounded. Hospitals were not protected when the looting began after the fall of Saddam.

From the very outset of the crisis, even before the invasion of Iraq, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan had warned both the U.S.-United Kingdom coalition and the Iraqis, that the responsibility for the protection and well-being of civilians falls on combatants, but once an area is occupied, the responsibility falls on the side which is occupying an area under international law. President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and French President Jacques Chirac also noted, when the three met in St. Petersburg, Russia, last week, that the "occupiers" are responsible for immediately dealing with the humanitarian catastrophe (see RUSSIA DIGEST).

A well-placed Washington intelligence source told EIW that the U.S. military has been totally unprepared for the humanitarian catastrophe, the food/water chaos, and the breakdown of law and order. The source blamed this on the Perle-Feith-Wolfowitz "Chickenhawks," who persuaded Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to overrule military judgments, and refuse to consider reality in war. The source said that the Chickenhawks had two years to plan for the occupation—and do have plans, but the humanitarian forces involved have still not left Kuwait. The Chickenhawks forced through the idea that there would be no resistance to the invasion, and that the regime would "roll over" and the Americans could "just take over" with the Iraqi exiles who have not been in the country for decades.

The source noted that Rumsfeld lost his temper at the Pentagon briefing on Friday, April 11, and is furious over the reports of the looting and chaos—not at the Chickenhawks for their misevaluations, but at critics who are noting that Rumsfeld angrily "shot down" warnings from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that 250,000 troops might be needed to secure the areas—for fighting and holding areas, for protecting and delivering services to the civilians, and for maintaining logistics.

As EIW reported, one of the critics of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz is Army Chief of Staff Gen. Erik Shinseki. On March 13, Gen. Shinseki repeated his estimate that "several hundred thousand" troops may be needed for a postwar occupation of Iraq, at a House Subcommittee hearing. After Shinseki had made a similar statement during Senate testimony last month, Rumsfeld declaring it to be "far off the mark." Syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported in this context that the civilian Secretary of the Army, retired General Thomas White, was on the chopping block because he refused to join the Pentagon's civilian leadership (Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz, et al.) in denouncing Shinseki.

Medical Disasters in Iraq

According to Agence France Presse of April 10, there is widespread looting of unknown origin against stores, museums, all government ministries, and most critically, against medical facilities. Virtually destroyed is the ability of Iraqi doctors to provide health care because of the looting of hospitals. In interviews with doctors at the Al-Kindi hospital in Baghdad, and the Basra hospital, the April 10 issue of the Times of London documents the catastrophic condition they face. Armed bands of thugs have descended on the hospitals, where they take everything from furniture to medical supplies, surgical instruments and medicine. Dr. Al Fadali in Baghdad said that, as a result, it was becoming impossible to treat patients. Clean water is also running out. And, according to AFP, doctors at the Al-Kindi hospital have armed themselves with Kalishnikovs, in an attempt to protect what's left, and their patients.

What is not reported in the article, but is visible in Arabic TV coverage, is the fact that there is one ministry in Baghdad being guarded by armored vehicles and tanks: the Oil Ministry.

According to AFP of April 10, there is widespread looting throughout other towns and cities—especially those reported to be under U.S.-U.K. occupation—including Basra, Kirkuk, Mosul, and Baghdad. In Baghdad, five state ministry buildings were on fire: the Oil Ministry was one of the few exceptions.

In Kirkuk and Mosul, which were "liberated" by the Kurds with U.S. Special Forces, massive looting has been going on, conducted by the Kurds themselves. TV coverage shows trucks with Barzani's party flags waving, driving up to buildings to be looted. The Kurdish forces are estimated to be 20,000 strong, which should suffice to prevent looting.

The genocidal conditions being created by this looting is shown in British-occupied Basra, where Novosti of April 11 reports from Al Sharq al-Awsat, that "Crowds of marauders have robbed all the shops and storehouses. During a single day spent in the city, the correspondent saw 12 people killed in street fights. Five more perished when the crowd was trying to take a bank by storm, but it proved to be mined." Prices of gasoline and food have trebled and doubled, but the only things easy to buy, are weapons: an automatic rifle costs $1, a pistol $3, and five hand grenades $2. According to the Al Sharq al Awsat correspondent, "there are up to five weapons in every house now, and a total of 5 million weapons have been taken away from the depots."

According to the official Iranian news agency of April 11, this idea of "war crimes" is broadly percolating through institutions. The Red Cross has denounced the refusal by the U.S.-U.K. to intervene to prevent anarchy and chaos. Also, the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (UNOHCI) stated: "The coalition forces seem to be unable to restrain the looters or impose any sort of controls on the mobs that now govern the streets.... This inaction by the occupying powers is in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly state that medical establishments must be protected, that the wounded and sick must be the object of particular protection and respect...." The UN denunciation comes amid reports that the British are pulling out 550 medical personnel, who are not needed because of light casualties to troops, who might otherwise treat the Iraqi wounded. Obviously, the U.S. and U.K. coalition forces are not out to win "the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people.

Iraqi War Far From Over, and What 'Humanitarian' Problems the U.S. Now Faces

Lt. Col. Dale R. Davis (USMC-ret.), who is Director of International Programs and Lecturer of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Virginia Military Institute issued a paper on April 8 which, although now somewhat dated, makes important points for EIW readers. LTC Davis had served in the Marine Counterintelligence Corps, and is circulating among colleagues a declassified assessment of the Iraq war that focusses on the terrible challenges the U.S. military is facing in the next phase of the war. Davis starts the paper by warning that the combat phase of the war is not yet over.

He notes, "a great deal of fighting remains in Iraq. Baghdad is far from secure, Mosul and Kirkuk remain under tenuous regime control and, of course, Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral home, looms as a potential final bastion of regime defiance." Nevertheless, he warns that the war is now moving into a new phase of "much more politically complicated and culturally nuanced tasks of providing security, stability, humanitarian aid and assistance, and necessary basic services to the Iraqi people."

The new focus will be on "human intelligence, security, civil affairs, civil engineering, power generation, water purification, and medical services.... Occupying and managing entire cities are a completely different story, greatly complicated by lack of cultural awareness and linguistic capability on the part of U.S. forces."

Davis warned of the mounting likelihood of "serious misunderstanding and subsequent tragedy." "A 19-year-old Marine from Southwest Virginia," he noted, "may be a fearless warrior, but is sorely unequipped to walk a beat in Nasiriyah or Basra." He further developed the dilemma facing U.S. commanders, who must now decide between administering essential services and moving into "de-Baathification." "If, as some in the Iraqi opposition wish, the coalition attempts to completely eradicate the Ba'ath Party leadership and marginalize even the most insignificant party member, then the vast burden of governance will fall on the occupying forces. Such an outcome will, of course, lend credence to Arab assertions that the liberation of Iraq is simply a manifestation of U.S. imperialism or neo-colonialism."

Davis concludes: "Faced with the growing number of political challenges of governance, coalition generals will soon wax nostalgic about the simplicity of liberating Iraq." Another VMI faculty member, who is circulating the Davis paper, observed that this is typical of the kind of discussion taking place among many American military traditionalists, who are deeply worried that the Iraq action is jeopardizing the fundamental national character of the United States.

Bush, Still in Claws of Chickenhawks, Bashes Syria

On April 11, during a visit to wounded Iraq war soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland, President Bush joined in the saber-rattling against Syria. "We strongly urge them not to allow for Ba'ath Party members or Saddam's families or generals on the run to seek safe haven and find safe haven there," he told reporters, according to the April 12 Washington Post. "We expect them to do everything they can to prevent people who should be held to account from escaping in their country. And if they are in their country, we expect the Syrian authorities to turn them over to the proper folks."

During a Congressional appearance on April 10, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, head of the Leo Strauss neo-conservative cabal in the Administration, had already upped the ante against Syria, telling Congress, after discussing regime change in Baghdad, that there needs to be "change in Syria as well." And Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has made a series of threatening statements directed at the regime in Damascus over the past week. In the July 1996 "Clean Break" document, prepared by Richard Perle, Doug Feith, David Wurmser, and Wolfowitz protégé Charles Fairbanks, for then-Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Syria had been the number-one focus of wrath—beyond even Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

On April 12, Wolfowitz's sidekick, Chickenhawk Richard Perle, kicked off the propaganda campaign against Syria, warning "that the United States would be compelled to act if it discovered that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have been concealed in Syria," in an interview in the International Herald Tribune. He said if such a thing came to light, "I'm quite sure that we would have to respond to that." "It would be an act of such foolishness on Syria's part," he continued, "that it would raise the question of whether Syria could be reasoned with. But I suppose our first approach would be to demand that the Syrians terminate that threat by turning over anything they have come to possess, and failing that I don't think anyone would rule out the use of any of our full range of capabilities."

Mubarak Calls for Establishment of Transitional Government in Iraq

Following a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal on April 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was said by the International Herald Tribune to have called for a speedy installation of a transitional government to bring order to Iraqi cities. He said a delay in providing water, food, and law enforcement will cause "unimaginably dangerous consequences." Mubarak is expected to meet Saudi Prince Abdullah April 11.

The Egyptian state-owned daily Al Gomhouriya, in a commentary by its editor, Sami Ragab, said: "Despite everything, the United States will make a grave mistake if it labors under the illusion that it has reigned supreme. Removing Saddam may make a catchy headline, but the consequences of the war, which was not endorsed by the United Nations, will be hard to stave off." Al Gomhouriya went on to say that the U.S. created a new "terrorism."

The Saudi daily Ar Riyadh (which has published statements by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.) warned: "If this army treats the Iraqis like an army of occupation, then it will be faced with resistance."

After IDF Shoots U.S.-U.K. Peace Observers, Their Governments Do Nothing

The following two items are updates on the pattern of right-wing Israeli terrorists' attacks on Palestinian children, and of the IDF assaults on civilians. For a full report, this week's INDEPTH section.

On April 11, according to Ha'aretz, the Israel Defense Forces shot 21-year-old British peace activist Thomas Hurndall, was as he was trying to help children to safety. According to witnesses, Hurndall was part of a group of activists who were trying to set up a peace tent on a road used by the Israel military for conducting attacks on Gaza. The road is patrolled by tanks every day. One such tank saw the activists from a position 200 meters away. Some children joined the group, at which point, the tank began firing its machine guns. They hit Hurndal in the head, just as he was trying to help the children. Hurndal was declared brain-dead shortly after his arrival at a hospital in Gaza.

This move follows the March 16 killing of American activist Rachel Corrie, age 23, also in Gaza, and the critically wounding of another American, Bryan Avery, age 24, just last week. In the case of Rachel Corrie, the Bush Administration asked the Israeli government to investigate this clear case of murder, even though the Israelis called it an "accident."

Israeli Police Make Another Arrest in Settler Plot To Blow Up a Palestinian Girls' School

On April 10 Ha'aretz reported that the Israeli police arrested Amiur Tsuriel, a member of the Jewish terror cell accused of planting a bomb a Palestinian girls' school in East Jerusalem in April of last year. Five others are now on trial for this crime from the outlawed Fascist Kach movement, whose affiliated Kahane Chai is on the State Department Terrorist List, and they include Kach leader Noam Federman, as well as Yarden Morag and Ofer Gamliel.

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