Political MoJo

The British Prospect this month has an interesting article by a former deputy governor of two southern Shiite provinces in Iraq, Rory Stewart. Here's his description of the new Iraq—and for context, these are the most stable bits of the country:

Despite their intolerance and violent methods, the new politicians are often young technocrats with a confident and articulate programme of anti-corruption and economic development. Their religious beliefs can be an important moderating influence in Shia society. So too are wider mechanisms of social control, confidence and moral concern. Thousands of Shia have been killed by Sunni terrorists in Iraq but the Shia community has generally refused to retaliate. Restraint has been shown not only by Sistani but also by political leaders at a district level. The leaders I met on my last visit had stopped complaining that they were the victims of a Zionist plot and seemed realistic, tolerant and humorous about progress. They had begun to find the capacity to co-operate with each other and lay the foundations for government and security.

The new order in southern Iraq is, in short, hard to define. It is an improvement on the political exclusion and sadistic inhumanity of Saddam and has a great deal to teach the Sunni areas about prosperity, security and politics. But it is also reactionary, violent, intolerant towards women and religious minorities and uncooperative with the coalition. The new leaders have dark histories and dubious allies; they enforce a narrow social code and ignore the rural areas.

Southern Iraq is a democracy but we should not assume that this or any of the other terms which we deploy frequently about Iraq—insurgency, civil society, civil war, police force or even political party— mean what they do in Britain. There have been elections, but the government is not responsive to or respectful of human rights. In many ways it resembles Iran, but it is not governed by clerics. Its militias are not infiltrators, they are an integral element of the elected parties. The new government is oppressive, but has a popular mandate; it is supported by illegal militias, but it has improved security.It's a good piece all around, not much of a screed either way. From all accounts, meanwhile, the southern provinces are strongly anti-occupation (see also this poll)—they're grateful that the U.S. toppled Saddam's regime, but not much else—and would happily prefer to see American troops leave if not for concerns that the occupation is the only thing deterring a full-blown civil war in Iraq.

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Laura Rozen's story in the American Prospect today, about Italian intelligence and Niger uranium forgeries, has a lot of twists and turns, but here's the quick version. In late 2001 the CIA had rejected as "suspect" memos peddled by Italian intelligence, SISMI, that suggested that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. (The memos are now known to be forgeries.) The Italian government, desperately trying to prove its relevance to the U.S., then tried to get these memos directly to the White House. In September 2002, SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari met with Stephen Hadley, then assistant to Condoleeza Rice and now Bush's National Security Adviser, in Washington. The Niger memos showed up in the U.S. one month later. Rozen gets at why this all matters:

What may be most significant to American observers, however, is the newspaper's allegation that the Italians sent the bogus intelligence about Niger and Iraq not only through traditional allied channels such as the CIA, but seemingly directly into the White House. That direct White House channel amplifies questions about a now-infamous 16-word reference to the Niger uranium in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address -- which remained in the speech despite warnings from the CIA and the State Department that the allegation was not substantiated.

According to the Repubblica account, Martino was a former carabinieri officer and later a Sismi operative who by 1999 was making his living based in Luxembourg, selling information to the French intelligence services for a monthly stipend. The story goes on to explain how Martino renewed his contacts with Sismi officer Antonio Nucera, an old friend and former colleague, who was a Sismi vice-captain working in the intelligence agency's eighth directorate, with responsibilities involving weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation.

Precisely how Nucera, Martino, and two employees of the Niger embassy in Rome came together sometime between 1999 and 2000 to hatch the Niger forgeries plan is still somewhat mysterious. The newspaper's reports that Nucera introduced Martino to a longtime Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome, a 60 year-old Italian woman described in La Repubblica only as "La Signora." Sismi chief Pollari, who granted the newspaper an interview (as he tends to do when he fears that breaking news could taint his agency), suggests that Nucera simply wanted to help out Martino, his old friend and colleague. See here and here for more.

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As reported previously, the White House is now actively trying to put loopholes into the McCain amendment that would try to prevent detainee abuse and regulate interrogation tactics, by exempting the CIA from all regulations:

Stepping up a confrontation with the Senate over the handling of detainees, the White House is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from a proposed ban on abusive treatment of suspected Qaeda militants and other terrorists.

A 27-year-old Iraqi male died while being interrogated by Navy Seals on April 5, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq. During his confinement he was hooded, flex-cuffed, sleep deprived and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and hood. The exact cause of death was "undetermined" although the autopsy stated that hypothermia may have contributed to his death. Notes say he "struggled/ interrogated/ died sleeping."

An Iraqi detainee (also described as a white male) died on January 9, 2004, in Al Asad, Iraq, while being interrogated by "OGA." He was standing, shackled to the top of a door frame with a gag in his mouth at the time he died. The cause of death was asphyxia and blunt force injuries. Notes summarizing the autopsies record the circumstances of death as "Q by OGA, gagged in standing restraint."

A detainee was smothered to death during an interrogation by Military Intelligence on November 26, 2003, in Al Qaim, Iraq. A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of General Mowhoush, lists "asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression" as the cause of death and cites bruises from the impact with a blunt object. New documents specifically record the circumstances of death as "Q by MI, died during interrogation."

A detainee at Abu Ghraib Prison, captured by Navy Seal Team number seven, died on November 4, 2003, during an interrogation by Navy Seals and "OGA" A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of Manadel Al Jamadi, shows that the cause of his death was "blunt force injury complicated by compromised respiration." New documents specifically record the circumstances of death as "Q by OGA and NSWT died during interrogation."Maybe this is what Dick Cheney meant when he told John McCain that the president needs "maximum flexibility" for dealing with suspected terrorists. No doubt those detainees all gave quality information after being killed.

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To follow up on Melanie's post below, Josh Landis notes that senior Bush administration officials already seem to be preparing for various degrees of regime change in Syria. Among other things, Stephen Hadley has reportedly discussed possible successors to President Assad with Italian sources. By all accounts, this is a bit crazy. As Mark Levine noted at HNN, the Assad clique has been running Syria—and by extension, Lebanon—like the Mafia for years, and no one would cry to see them go. On the other hand, après lui, le deluge and all that; Syrian's liberal democrats are an underdeveloped force, to say the least, and a clumsy ouster of Assad's regime, provided he's not quickly replaced by a somewhat more Western-friendly thug, could throw the country into factional infighting and chaos. The question here isn't whether the world would be better off without Assad's family in charge of Syria—of course it would—but whether getting rid of him would actually be a smart idea, and more importantly, how the Syria hawks actually plan on doing it.

It's also worth noting, though, that with the release of the Mehlis report, there's much, much more to this story than U.S.-Syria relations—the pressure against Syria isn't just a plot hatched by lunatic neoconservatives, and the Bush administration may choose Libya-style multilateral pressure on Syria rather than violent regime change. Indeed, the administration, John Bolton especially, has been surprisingly careful to let the UN take the lead in this whole Lebanon investigation. Now the UN is presumably going to demand a trial over the Hariri killing—as noted below, even France has stuck to its guns here—and presumably Assad isn't about to fork over his brother and brother-in-law, the latter of whom is perhaps the second-most powerful Syrian in the government, to the Hague. It's hard to see the Security Council putting up with that sort of slap in the face. Much of the important pressure, then, will likely come from the international community rather than the White House alone.

In the Washington Post on Saturday, Anthony Shadid outlined one likely Syrian strategy: "[O]ffering enough gestures to fend off international pressure but making no concessions that might imperil a government that already feels besieged." Or, as Shadid reported the following day, Syria "has promised to cooperate, within limits." Indeed, Syria's taken this route to good effect before, but it's not clear that it will work this time, even if Europe is wary of destabilizing Syria. And the latter might well come to pass sooner rather than later. David Ignatius last week suggested one possible outcome to all this: "If Assad's grip weakens and he can't or won't clean house in Damascus, the season of coup and counter-coup will begin for real."

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