Fallujah: Civilian casualties mount, aid groups barred

Compiled by Willy Rosencrans

Nov. 17 (AGR) — Local opposition to the war in Iraq has continued to build steam as US forces battle insurgents in Fallujah and Mosul, and international aid groups described Fallujah as a humanitarian “catastrophe.”

Iraq’s most influential Sunni group withdrew from the govermnment last week and urged a boycott of the upcoming January elections. On Nov. 11 US troops raided the homes and offices of two prominent Sunni clerics after both men made fiery public speeches condemning the offensive in Fallujah and voicing their support for insurgents.

Three days later US forces surrounded the village where one of the men, the Secretary-General of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), lives; as of press time no further developments have been reported. The group said three of their most prominent imams (religious figures) have been arrested in two other cities.

On that same day Baghdad’s highest Shia authority, Shaikh Muhammed Mahdi al-Khalissi, also denounced the military assault on Fallujah and called on all Iraqi religious authorities to “support the Iraqi people.”

US military officials said that at least 200 Iraqi troops deserted their posts in the Fallujah attack; other estimates put the number as high as 500, almost a battalion.

“Those who kill Iraqis are not Iraqis,” said the AMS’s Shaikh Mohammed Bashar al Faidhi. “We told them [collaborators]: You made a terrible mistake in Najaf. Be careful not to repeat this experience because the occupier will leave one day, but the people will stay.”

Phantom Fury vs. the Night of Power

On Nov. 11, two days after Washington said its offensive – codenamed Phantom Fury – had destroyed rebel control in Fallujah, forces there

braced for a significant counteroffensive by Iraqi insurgents — an effort coinciding with the “Night of Power,” an annual Islamic holy day marked by intense spiritual devotion, which is said to cleanse sins and determine destiny.

One armored unit was ambushed by militants who struck with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Those involved in the ambush said a trap had been laid, and that the area was marked with earth berms in defensive posture, and metal-box firing positions.

US forces entered central Fallujah but were fiercely attacked by fighters and withdrew from the area after half an hour, heading for their positions in the northern parts of the city.

Backed by tanks and artillery fire, US troops launched a major attack on Nov. 13 against insurgent holdouts; all of Falluja appeared engulfed in thick, black smoke as the attack began.

The US continued to insist it had taken full control of the city on Nov. 15, a week after the attack began, as US warplanes, artillery and mortars attacked areas across Fallujah.

US military spokesmen said that the assault had claimed the lives of 1600 insurgents as of Nov. 17. US artillery continued to pummel Fallujah and troops hunted guerrillas throughout the day; mortar fire and heavy explosive rounds crashed on areas where insurgents were believed still to be holding out.

‘These children are not terrorists’

The city’s main hospital was the first target captured in the operation; two clinics were subsequently bombed. Once the attack began, power was cut off to the city and some residents said the water supply had also been cut.

An estimated 60,000 civilians remain in the city, including “at least 157 families… who need our help,” said Fardous al-Ubaidi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. At least 2,200 other families fled to neighboring towns, where they are struggling to survive without enough food, water, or medicine, she said.

But the biggest concern is people in and around Falluja itself -– they cannot be reached because of a wide cordon around the city to prevent anyone from entering and any insurgents from fleeing.

Rasoul Ibrahim, a father of three, fled Fallujah on foot, arriving with his wife and children on Nov. 12 in Habbaniya, 12 miles to the west. “There’s no water [in Fallujah],” he said. “People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying. People are eating flour because there’s no food.” Around 10,000 people have taken shelter in Habbaniya.

Al-Ubaidi said her organization had asked permission from the Iraqi government to deliver aid supplies to people in the city but the request was turned down.

“When we asked for permission, we were only allowed to approach the Fallujah outskirts but had no access to Fallujah itself,” she said. She hoped that the military would make an exception to a no-entry rule when the trucks were allowed as far as the Fallujah general hospital, she said on Nov. 13.

Later that day, the town of Amiriyat al-Falluja — hosting about 4,000 families fleeing Fallujah — was struck by a US aerial assault, which killed five people.

On Nov. 14 US troops directed the Red Crescent convoy into the Fallujah hospital on the outskirts of town, away from the reach of local citizens. US Marine Col. Mike Shupp said he had not heard of any Iraqi civilians being trapped inside the city and did not think that was the case.

Lying next to each other in a hospital in Baghdad on Nov. 16 were Ala’a Farhan, 11, and his brother Nafar, seven. The younger child was missing the lower part of his left leg. He lay on a hospital bed still dressed in a jumper and trousers, watching as blood seeped through the dressing on his leg.

The boys’ father, Farhan Khalaf, said his sons had been injured in a strike on the city in the days before the ground assault began. It came just as the family was preparing to flee to the nearby village of Saklawiya, where many other refugees are sheltering.

His cousin, Falah Hassan, was killed and his two children were badly injured; they were recovering in the same hospital.

“We pray that the government will see all this and do something about it,” said Khalaf. “These children are not terrorists, they are not al-Qaida.”

Iraqi police under fire in Mosul

In the wake of the Fallujah offensive insurgent efforts have redoubled elsewhere, in Samarra, Beiji, Baquba, Tikrit, Ramadi, Hawija, and particularly Mosul.

On Nov. 10, in Mosul, gunmen attacked a convoy of civilian four-wheel-drive vehicles of the kind used by foreign security contractors. The convoy went to a nearby police station, where a gunbattle ensued between insurgents who surrounded the building and Iraqi and US forces. Gunmen also attacked at least one other police station, and fighting spread across much of the city.

A curfew was imposed and all bridges were closed, but insurgents defied the curfew, attacking or setting fire to at least seven police stations as well as government buildings by Nov. 12.

Masked gunmen stole bullet-proof jackets and Kalashnikov rifles from police stations and roamed the city center setting fire to police cars and taking control of bridges.

At one stage a group tried to storm an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two major Kurdish parties, and fought gunbattles with Kurdish guards. The US military admitted the Iraqi police were unable to handle the crisis. Soldiers from the US 25th Infantry Division and a team of Iraqi national guardsmen were called in to launch “offensive operations.”

On Nov. 14 gunmen took over banks and government buildings without interference from either US forces or Iraqi government troops. US warplanes had bombed the city 24 hours earlier and the police chief had been sacked after being accused of colluding with rebels. But there were reports of policemen changing into civilian clothes and joining the insurgents. In other districts, vigilantes set up roadblocks and patrolled neighborhoods.

US forces launched a major assault against Mosul on Nov. 16. Around 1,200 US soldiers were involved in an operation to recapture about 12 police stations that had been abandoned by Iraqi officers. Three police stations under the control of insurgents were blown up before the militants fled.

As the US assault on Mosul was underway, resistance intensified in several other towns.

Fighters in Baquba attacked US forces near a police station and later from a mosque. US troops then called in airstrikes; two 500-pound bombs were dropped. The following day rebels kidnapped 31 policemen and launched bomb and rocket attacks on British and Iraqi forces in Kerbala.

On Nov. 17, as many as 60 Iraqi police recruits were abducted as they returned from training in Jordan. If true, the abduction would be the insurgents’ biggest seizure of US forces. US troops were reclaiming police stations in Mosul at the time.

Sources: Agence France-Presse, Aljazeera, Associated Press, BBC, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian (UK), The Independent (UK), Inter Press Service, Knight-Ridder, The New York Times, The Observer (UK), Reuters

Haiti: Latortue orders arrest warrant for Aristide

Compiled by Jodi Rhoden

Nov. 17 (AGR) -- Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has ordered that an international arrest warrant be issued against ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Latortue, installed as the head of an interim government after a bloody coup where Aristide was abducted by US forces and taken out of the country in February, made the announcement on Nov. 11 as he formed a committee to investigate misappropriation of public funds by the deposed government.

Latortue and other Haitian officials have publicly accused Aristide of corruption, but no charges have been filed and no evidence against the former president made public.

Aristide is in exile in South Africa.

Also on Nov. 11, human rights group Amnesty International condemned what it said were summary executions by police, serious human rights abuses and an alarming number of illegal detentions in Haiti. After an 18-day visit, Amnesty called on the interim government to investigate the police, and urged it and a UN peacekeeping force to carry out a program of disarmament.

Amnesty officials said they feared the return of death squads, which rights groups blamed for thousands of deaths from 1991 to 1994, when Aristide was exiled during his first term as president and Haiti was ruled by a military junta.

On Nov. 14, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin met with Latortue, President Boniface Alexandre, and leaders of 14 political parties including Aristide’s Lavalas at the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Martin said regarding the upcoming elections that “I think it is absolutely necessary that the opposition party Lavalas participate in the election. You cannot have democratic elections if, really, a substantial portion of the population boycotts it.”

A boycott may be inevitable, however, in light of the recent scandals involving the panel organizing the elections next year to replace ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The head of the panel, Roselor Julien, has resigned, warning that other panel members were trying to rig the ballot.

Julien said the council was not capable of ensuring the 2005 election would be free and fair. “I resign because I am not ready to condone an electoral farce, nor am I ready to support an imposture,” she said on Nov. 8.

“I promised to my mother to prefer death to shame and to my pastors not to lose my soul at the council,” said Julien, a Catholic, denouncing threats against her life.

On Nov. 12, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) sent a letter to President Bush, urging him to take action to protect Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert and other Lavalas supporters whose lives appear to be in danger in Haiti. Copies of the letter were sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

But the administration remains close to the Latortue Government.

As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with Latin American defense chiefs, the US government prepares to share surveillance information with UN peacekeepers in Haiti, an US official said Nov. 16.

Washington announced its aim to “improve the situational awareness’’ of the peacekeepers in Haiti, the official added in a reference to surveillance sharing. “We can certainly provide them more information than they are getting now.’’

In an earlier meeting, Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutiérrez and Defense Minister Nelson Herrera told Rumsfeld they were considering contributing 400 more soldiers to the Haiti force.

Also, a 250-strong Pakistani police unit has arrived in Haiti to join the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) there as the operation’s military presence increases. The latest contingent, together with 160 Moroccan soldiers who arrived earlier in the week, brings the force’s total to some 4,750.

Sources: Agence Haitienne de Presse, Alterpresse, Boston Haitian Reporter, Haiti Information Project, Haiti Press Network, Haiti Progres, Miami Herald, Reuters

White House orders purge of CIA ‘liberals,’ sources say

Compiled by Shawn Gaynor

Nov. 17 (AGR) — The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter J. Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to sources who spoke with the Baltimore Sun.

“The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,” said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. “Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president’s agenda.”

The former officials described morale within the directorate of operations [the CIA’s most powerful division, who oversees foreign operations] as at the lowest point since the late 1970’s, when Stansfield Turner, the Director of Central Intelligence under President Jimmy Carter, imposed changes that forced many officers at the directorate to retire. They expressed concern that an atmosphere of ill will and apprehension could distract the agency from its work in the fight against terrorism.

One of the first casualties appears to be Stephen R. Kappes, the Deputy Director of Operations. The Washington Post reported Nov. 11 that Kappes had tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Goss’ chief of staff, Patrick Murray.

Murray, who worked at the Justice Department and under Goss during his time in Congress, has a reputation for being highly partisan. When senior managers have gone to Goss to complain about Murray’s actions, one CIA officer said, Goss has told them: “Talk to my chief of staff. I don’t do personnel.”

On Nov. 12 the CIA’s number two officer, Deputy Director Central Intelligence John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year veteran of the intelligence division who served as acting CIA director before Goss took over, announced that he was retiring. The spokesman said that the retirement had been planned and was unrelated to the Kappes resignation or to other morale problems inside the CIA.

But according to an anonymous officials sited by the Washington Post, McLaughlin’s resignation came after he warned that Murray was treating senior officials disrespectfully and risked widespread resignations.

Several other senior intelligence service officers are threatening to leave, current and former agency officials said.

“There’s confusion throughout the ranks and an extraordinary loss of morale and incentive,” said one former senior official with knowledge of the events.

Another former CIA official who retains good contacts within the agency said that Goss (a former congressman from Florida, who chaired the House intelligence committee before recently being appointed Director of Central Intelligence), and his top aides (including Murray), who served on his staff when Goss was chairman of the House intelligence committee, believe the agency had relied too much over the years on liaison work with foreign intelligence agencies and had not done enough to develop its own intelligence collection system.

“Goss is not a believer in liaison work,” said this retired official. But, he said, the CIA’s “best intelligence really comes from liaison work.”

Goss had promised during his confirmation hearing to set aside partisan politics and work to strengthen the CIA clandestine service. But current and former officials have said that his plans have been unclear to the senior clandestine service officials who would be responsible for carrying them out.

Whistle blower leaves agency to expose failures

Some of the most damaging leaks that have lead up to the purge came from Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, who wrote a book anonymously called “Imperial Hubris” that criticized what he said was the administration’s lack of resolve in tracking down the al-Qaida chieftain and the reallocation of intelligence and military manpower from the war on terrorism to the war in Iraq.

In a statement, Scheuer said the CIA had not forced him to resign, “but I have concluded that there has not been adequate national debate over the nature of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and the forces he leads and inspires, and the nature and dimensions of intelligence reform needed to address that threat.”

Current C.I.A. officials are prohibited from talking to reporters without explicit authorization. The former intelligence officials who agreed to discuss the matter in recent days and weeks would do so only on the condition of anonymity, saying that they did not want to inflame the situation further by speaking for the record.

Scheuer was chief of the CIA Counterterrorist Center’s unit which focused on bin Laden from 1996 to 1999 and remained a CIA analyst after that.

His book said the United States was losing the war against terrorism and that sticking to current policies would only make its enemies in the Islamic world grow stronger.

One whistle-blower expert said that Scheuer’s decision to publicly defy the CIA was unprecedented.

“I’ve never seen someone at that level come forward in the way that he has. It just doesn’t happen,” said Kris Kolesnik, executive director of the National Whistleblower Center.

In a letter obtained by the New York Times, Scheuer alleged that the CIA’s Bin Laden unit had acquired detailed information in 1996 about “the careful, professional manner in which Al Qaeda was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.” Those findings were suppressed within the CIA, and only disseminated after protest forced an internal review.

Scheuer also told panel members that the unit repeatedly was rebuffed in seeking special operations troops to plan moves against Bin Laden, was denied requests for verbatim transcripts of National Security Agency intelligence and was briefly disbanded in spring 1998.

He also told them that CIA officers gave the government “about 10” opportunities to capture or kill Bin Laden and that the main U.S.-based Bin Laden unit had fewer experienced Al Qaeda experts today than it had on Sept. 11, 2001.

And although the CIA has corrected staffing shortages at its Bin Laden unit, it will take several years to train the new agents and make them effective in the hunt for Al Qaeda, Scheuer says.

“What we are doing now is what we should have been doing since Sept. 12. We’re three years behind the curve,” Scheuer said.

Many intelligence officials believe the C.I.A. has been unfairly blamed by the White House and Congress for what now appear to have been exaggerated prewar depictions of Iraq’s arsenals.

Sources: Baltimore Sun, LA Times, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post

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