Mother Jones Daily: War Watch

April 14, 2003

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		"People started to throw stones, then the Americans fired at them." -- Ayad Hassun, an Iraqi resident of Mosul, describing the bloodshed there.

		Antiwar Watch: Ballots Can Stop Bullets (TomPaine.com); NYPD Admits to Keeping Protester Database (Reuters) Coalition Watch: The Fork in the Road for Bush and Blair (The Independent); Looters Ransack Baghdad's National Library (Associated Press); John Nichols: Treasures Looted? 'Stuff Happens' (The Capital Times); (De)liberation (Al Ahram) Money Watch: Bush's Favored Few Share in the Spoils (The Sydney Morning Herald); More for Iraq, Less for Africa? (The Boston Globe); Aid and AIPAC: Embezzlement as Policy (CounterPunch) Weapons Watch: Banned Weapons: Where Are They? (BBC); WMD, MIA? (Salon)

Troubles in the North
Their stories may conflict, but there's no doubt about who Iraqis in Mosul blame for shooting 10 people to death at a rally.

Troubles in the South
Washington's bid to remake Iraq gets off to a bad start, marred by boycotts, protests, and fears of sectarian bloodshed.
Troubles in the North
War party pundits, soaring on the rhetorical updraft generated by coalition gains in Iraq, may want to come back to earth. Skeptics have for weeks warned that the risky job of occupying and rebuilding the stricken country could pose more dangers than the invasion. Tuesday, the extent of the challenge became disturbingly clear.

In Mosul, at least 10 Iraqis were shot dead and scores were wounded when US troops reportedly opened fire after a rally intended to introduce the American-installed "governor" turned angry. Local witnesses claimed the US soldiers fired into the crowd. US military spokespeople quickly denied the allegation, claiming the soldiers were firing in self-defense after coming under attack from unidentified gunmen in a nearby building.

The stories told by eyewitnesses interviewed at Mosul's hospital were inconsistent, even contradictory. But, in reading the report filed by The Associated Press, two things seem certain: Just about everyone in Mosul today blames the Americans for the bloodshed; and Mashaan al-Juburi, the opposition leader installed as Mosul's new leader, is considered guilty by association.

"'Juburi said the people must cooperate with the United States. The crowd called him a liar, and tempers rose as he continued to talk. They threw objects at him, overturned his car which exploded,' said Dr. Said Altah. 'The wounded said Juburi asked the Americans to fire.'

Ayad Hassun, 37, another witness, said the trouble broke out after the crowd interrupted Juburi's speech with cries of, 'There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet.'

...

'They (the soldiers) climbed on top of the building and first fired at a building near the crowd, with the glass falling on the civilians. People started to throw stones, then the Americans fired at them,' Hassun said."

Another witness, interviewed by The Guardian, suggests that several people in the crowd began throwing stones at Juburi midway through his speech, while one tried to attack the opposition figure with a knife. As the rally descended into mayhem, the witness claims, Juburi's car was overturned and set ablaze and one or more gunmen opened fire from atop a nearby building.

"Some witnesses claimed the US soldiers had lost their cool and began firing into the crowd. Others said the killing had taken place after the American unit withdrew and a gunfight broke out between Mr Juburi's supporters and his opponents."

Already, unidentified US officials are blaming the bloodshed on Saddam loyalists intent on undermining the Bush administration's reconstruction agenda. But Patrick Cockburn of The Independent notes that, in Mosul and the surrounding region, Arab Iraqis were already seething over the sacking of the city. And while most blame the attack on Kurdish forces, Cockburn reports, they hold the Americans accountable, angry that the US sent most of its troops to secure the oilfields of Kirkuk and had none available to stop the riots and looting in Mosul.

"The American forces in northern Iraq appear to have been taken unawares by the rapidly changing political situation -- last week, one Kurdish party sent its forces to capture Kirkuk, also in the north, contrary to previous agreements. They also appear to have believed that hostility to President Saddam by Iraqis automatically implied that they were pro-American. The Kurds, though dependent on their alliance with the United States, are struck by the Allied forces' inability to help restore essential services such as electricity and water supplies."

The sacking of Mosul comes on the heels of reports that Kurdish troops were forcing Arabs from their homes in villages across northern Iraq. Kurdish leaders have denounced such actions, and insist their troops were not involved in looting in either Mosul or Kirkuk. But at least one Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic party, says the US needs to be more sensitive to Iraqi anger. And Barzani told the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat that American officials need to turn over control of the country to Iraqis quickly, or face increasing resistance and ire.

"No people in the world want to remain occupied...If they stay for a long time and act like occupiers, then they will face resistance."

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Troubles in the South
The other rude awakening for the occupying allies came in the south, where the US convened a meeting of various Iraqi opposition leaders billed as the first step in the formation of a future government. Clearly hoping to strike an historical note, the boys from Washington held the gathering at a makeshift air base beside the remains of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur, erecting a massive white tent next to a weathered ziggurat.

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But even before the meeting began, it was badly undermined, as several of the most significant opposition leaders opted to stay away. And then the occupiers got a taste of the challenge to come, as thousands of Iraqis rallied in nearby Nassiriya, protesting that they do not need American help. As Reuters reports, the crowd took up a refrain which may come to haunt the occupation.

"'No to America, No to Saddam,' chanted Iraqis from the Shia Muslim majority long oppressed by Saddam, who is from the rival Sunni sect. Arabic television networks said up to 20,000 people marched."

Iraqi Shiites have already delivered one of the most telling setbacks for the Bush administration's neoconservative hawks, refusing to rise up as predicted by Washington when US and British troops rolled across Iraq's border. Now, the leaders of the largest Shiite opposition group are refusing to take part in the Bush administration's effort to build a new Iraqi government. The group, The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, boycotted the Nassirya meeting. Abdul Aziz Hakim, a leader of the Iran-based group, declared: "the Iraqi people won't accept preparations for an administration imposed by foreigners."

It would be one thing if the group's boycott was the only problem facing US officials in southern Iraq. But, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports, the SCIRI, as the group is known, has a small army of armed militants, knowns as the Badr Corps. Hakim says the Badr Corps' fighters have been told to avoid clashes with coalition troops, but he qualified that assurance, adding "for the time being."

"Asked whether he would send Badr Corps fighters into Iraq, Hakim said: 'We have troops inside Iraq, 10 times more than we have in Iran. We don't need to send any troops across the border.'"

Sandra Laville of The Telegraph also reports on the Nassiriya protests. In one sense, she notes, the march was a perfect expression of Washington's desires -- a free expression by a people no longer prevented from voicing their desires and concerns. But she writes that the demonstration -- at which some marchers called for the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in Iraq -- also shows the fragility of Washington's promise to produce a democratic Iraq.

"Taleb, a theatre director watching from the pavement, was one who dared to offer a different view. 'The people of Iraq do not want Islamic rule. For 35 years we have lived with no freedom, and these religious leaders are not offering us freedom.'

Reporters who took down his words were ordered to erase them as Taleb was muscled off the street to shouts from the crowd. Those who marched saw no irony in acknowledging that without the American war they would not have such freedoms.

Notably absent from the chanting masses were the women of Nasiriyah. "There are no women here," said Kazem Alssafi. 'Under Islamic law they cannot be here. They should remain in the home.'

As the demonstration ended at the bombed-out Ba'ath Party headquarters, Shia students bellowed through a loudspeaker their demands for representation in any government. 'It is unreasonable to ignore a majority of more than three quarters of Iraq,' they said."

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