Parliament in a mess over election law

'Hopes for a January election in Iraq faded today after Shiite Muslim and Kurdish legislators teamed up to vote for a new version of an election law that in effect takes seats away from Sunnis and is almost certain to draw another veto from the country's Sunni vice president.

Parliament then adjourned for a holiday until Dec. 8, leaving in limbo the fate of the law that is needed if the crucial election is to go ahead by the end of January, as mandated by Iraq's constitution. The withdrawal of U.S. forces has been pegged to the timing of the poll, and a delay could jeopardize President Obama's promise to bring all combat troops home by August 2010.

The head of Iraq's election commission told the Associated Press that he doubted there was now enough time to hold the poll by January. "Most probably, it might be moved to February," Faraj Haidari said.

Though that would violate the terms of Iraq's constitution, lawmakers seemed unconcerned by the prospect of a constitutional crisis.

"Nobody's applying the constitution anyway," said Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman, who predicted the election would be delayed. "We are in a mess now, so it doesn't make a lot of difference." '

Mobile phones are biggest benefit of US invasion

'ASKED to name the single biggest benefit of America’s invasion, many Iraqis fail to mention freedom or democracy but instead praise the advent of mobile phones, which were banned under Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis seem to feel more liberated by them than by the prospect of elected resident government.

In the five years since the first network started up, the number of subscribers has soared to 20m (in a population of around 27m), while the electricity supply is hardly better than in Mr Hussein’s day. That is double the rate for Lebanon, where a civil war ended two decades ago and income per head is four times higher.'

No peace in Iraq since 1970s

I have been thinking about this post for a few days and I thought about titling it “Ugly Peace in Iraq since 1980”. Some Iraqis (especially Kurds) would argue that even in the 1970s Iraq did not have real peace.

Recently I have read a few articles that have tried to summarize the last six years in Iraq and the surge in particular.  Some authors have attributed the reduction in violence in Iraq more to Iraqis than to Americans. Part 1 of Nir Rosen’s “Ugly Peace” focuses on Washash, a Shia-majority district of Baghdad that saw its Sunni Arab residents expelled by Shia militias in 2006. Rosen got the "ugly" part right, but I'm not sure about the peace. He seems to minimize and even disregard the worst violence committed by Sunni extremists, which is ongoing. It seems that not only Rosen but many fine journalists have been ignoring or minimizing the events of 2004 and 2005, when Sunni extremists attacked Shia all over Iraq in the most brutal ways.

Rosen exposes the injustices committed by Shia militias, as every journalist should, and I'm glad he makes a distinction between criminal elements of Jaish al Mahdi and those who only wanted to protect Shia from Sunni extremists, but he writes as if Shia militias started the sectarian violence after the bombing of the Askari shrine in Samarra in 2006. He explains that after the Samarra bombing, JAM began killing innocent Sunni Arabs, without really explaining what happened to the Shia in 2003, 2004, and 2005.
 
Rosen summarizes the explanation for the fall in violence: “the increasing calm stemmed from the ‘exhaustion of sectarian violence’ and a ‘Sunni return to politics,’ among other factors.”
 
Sounds like good news, but I do not know what Rosen means by “exhaustion of sectarian violence”. Maybe he means Shia militias stopped attacking Sunni Arabs. Sunni extremists continue to attack Shia. Maybe he did not read about the dozens of suicide bombings that have been carried out this year by AQI, which has always been the worst of the sectarian militias.

Nir Rosen:

“One explanation that few are prepared to discuss openly is that Iraq’s civil war ended because Shias won: violence against Sunnis ceased after Sunnis were brutally cleansed from Basra and large swaths of Baghdad, and Shias gained firm control of government ministries and local police. Sunnis knew they were defeated and Shias no longer worried that Ba’athist oppression would resume. With no external enemy, Shia militias began to fight each other and turned into criminal gangs terrorizing their own communities. The defeat of the Sunnis and divisions among Shias created space for new possibilities, and the government and American forces occupied that space.”

The Sunnis were “brutally cleansed” from Baghdad, as if Shia were not treated brutally before Shia militias began their murderous rampages. It is as if all of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs have been kicked out of Iraq, as if they have no representation in the Iraqi government. The violence stopped because there are no Sunnis left to kill, and hence the "ugly peace".

Here is a map of Baghdad in mid 2008, showing many districts dominated by Sunnis:

 

In his article Rosen summarized some of the violence of 2003 and 2004, but he did not elaborate on the incredible violence aimed at Iraq’s Shia, except to call it simply a civil war and to write “by the middle of 2005 sectarian violence was endemic”, hinting that Shia too were innocent victims. But he does not go into detail about the ugly crimes of Sunni extremists. Instead he emphasizes the brutality of the Mahdi Army and gives examples of evidence of their crimes in Washash and other areas.

Here he details the violence aimed at Sunnis in 2003 and 2004, as if to rationalize subsequent Sunni attacks on Shia:

“In October 2003 a Sunni Sheikh, his brother, and a teenage assistant were riddled with bullets as they walked home from mosque. In August 2004 a police chief and a patrolman were killed in an explosion. In December 2004 several members of a Sunni Salafist group were killed. Sunni and Shia clerics issued a futile joint edict banning sectarian fighting, and by the middle of 2005 sectarian violence was endemic.

American soldiers raiding a house in 2006 found evidence that Shia militias were cleansing Sunnis from Washash. There was a list of nearly 70 homes where Sunni families were expelled and a list of “good” families who were not be disturbed. There were letters threatening Sunnis, as well as copies of a DVD with a message from the Mahdi Army: images of exploding houses.”

 
Not a single mention of the Sunni violence that was intended to destroy the new Iraq from the very beginning. No mention of the hundreds of Sunni suicide bombers who targeted Iraq’s security forces and ordinary Shia between 2003 and the 2006 bombing of the Askari shrine.  Suicide bombings are a good indication of violence perpetuated by Sunni extremists; Shia do not participate in suicide bombings that target Iraqi civilians or security forces. The largest number of suicide bombings in the war occurred in 2005:
 

 
There have been more than 1700 suicide bombings in Iraq, many involving more than one bomber. This extraordinary statistic, which is symbolic of the violence perpetuated by Sunni extremists and is unprecedented in the history of the world, does not receive mention in Nir Rosen’s “ugly peace” analysis. Instead Mr. Rosen highlighted the crimes of the Shia militias and ignored the mostly one-sided sectarian violence aimed at Iraq’s Shia before 2006.
 
My uncles who lived most of their lives in Amriya, a neighborhood of western Baghdad, were expelled from their homes in the summer of 2005.  From my perspective, it was Sunni extremists who began expelling Shias from their homes in Sunni-dominated neighborhoods and even turned Amriya, which according to Columbia University had a Shia majority in 2003 (I will call it “mixed” in 2003), into a Sunni majority district by 2006.

Maybe I should not be so critical of Nir Rosen, who is an excellent journalist and with “Ugly Peace” he has shed some light on the sectarianism that is the root of Iraq’s political problems. It’s just sad for me, as a liberal Iraqi American, to see liberal journalists seemingly taking sides and ignoring history.

Nir Rosen is not the only one who seems to be biased. Even in the documentary “Understanding the Surge”, which I posted last week, it is suggested that Iraq’s Sunni Arabs turned to Al Qaeda because Shia militias were expelling Sunnis from their homes, implying that Sunni Arabs allied themselves with AQI in 2006, after the Samarra bombing.  Sunni militia actually began joining forces with AQI in 2004, after Saddam was captured, when it became clear that the US was determined to prevent hardcore Baathists from regaining power and to ensure a democratic government was established in Baghdad.

People who insist that Baathists, being secular, could not possibly ally themselves with Salafi (fundamentalist) groups should remember Saddam’s alliance with Saudi Arabia in the 80s and they should understand that hardcore Baathists would do anything to gain and retain power. Saddam and his cronies were experts at manipulating Islam for political gain. They called their attempt to exterminate Iraq’s Kurds the “Anfal”, a Qur’anic term that refers to the spoils of war belonging to Allah and his messengers. Saddam and his henchmen played God and the Wahhabi Arabs supported them in the 80s, so why would one be surprised by an alliance between Baathists and Salafi groups today? In the 1980s Saddam's regime also expelled tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia - today this is known as "ethnic cleansing", so they already had experience in that area too. Some might even dare to call it "sectarian violence". But in the eyes of many journalists, it seems that "sectarian violence" happens only when Shia militias attack innocent Sunnis.
 
Rosen did offer this bit of truth about the pre-2006 violence aimed at Shia, quoting an Iraqi Army Captain who commented on the security situation in 2004: 

“At the time,” he told me, “there was only al Qaeda, not the Mahdi Army. We confiscated a lot of weapons and car bombs. This was before the sectarianism started.”

 
I should thank Rosen for quoting the Iraqi Army Captain who said there was only Al Qaeda in 2004 and no JAM. He also mentioned Baathist oppression, but he does not mention the expulsion of Shias from Sunni neighborhoods before the spike in sectarian violence of 2006.  Perhaps he did not know about the expulsion of Shias from Sunni neighborhoods before 2006, or maybe I'm taking this too personally, or maybe with “Ugly Peace” he wanted to focus only on the sectarianism in Washash. Maybe Part 2 of "Ugly Peace" will be different from Part 1.
 
Rosen also quoted another Iraqi who said this: “most Sunnis supported al Qaeda and turned on them because of pressure from the government.”
 
So Rosen did offer bits of truth about the violence aimed at Shia before the Samarra bombing, but in the entire article he did not elaborate on the violence directed at Shia except to quote an Iraqi who said that there was only AQI in 2004. What did AQI do in 2004? What did Saddam's ousted leaders do? I suppose it is not worth mentioning or researching, or it would have made the article too long to read.

Many journalists’ accounts of recent history in Iraq read as if Iraqi Baathists were fighting a legitimate war against occupation, as if Baathists did not engage in sectarian violence against Iraqis. It is as if Rosen is afraid or unwilling to put Iraq’s Sunni Arabs in a bad light.  The people who expelled my Shia relatives from Amriya in 2005 may not have been Iraqi, but the people who committed those crimes could not have known where the Shia lived in Amriya if they had not received help from locals, from Iraqis.

It seems that this Wikepedia entry, also the source for the numbers of suicide bombings since 2003, has it right:
 

‘A 2005 Human Rights Watch report analysed the insurgency in Iraq and highlighted, "The groups that are most responsible for the abuse, namely al-Qaeda in Iraq and its allies, Ansar al-Sunna and the Islamic State of Iraq, have all targeted civilians for abductions and executions. The first two groups have repeatedly boasted about massive car bombs and suicide bombs in mosques, markets, bus stations and other civilian areas. Such acts are war crimes and in some cases may constitute crimes against humanity, which are defined as serious crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population."[2]
 
A 2008 RAND Research Brief Counterinsurgency in Iraq: 2003 - 2006 depicts a chart that shows in June and July 2004, Iraqi insurgents began to shift their focus away from attacking U.S. and coalition forces with roadside bombs and instead began targeting the Iraqi population with suicide bombers and vehicle-borne IEDs. By increasing the number of suicide bombings against civilians and accepting their targeting in retribution, the insurgents sought to expose the weakness of the coalition-Iraqi security and reconstruction apparatus, threaten those who collaborated with the government, generate funds and propaganda, and increasingly enact sectarian revenge. The U.S. failure to adapt to this shift had dramatic consequences. By June 2004, U.S. deaths represented less than 10% of overall deaths on the battlefield and Iraqi deaths represented more than 90% - a figure that remained constant for the next 18 months of the War.’

From my perspective based on my experiences and what I have heard and read, the truth about Iraq that most people seem to avoid is the fact that Iraq has been in a state of ethnic and sectarian conflict since 1980. There was a relative peace after the end of the war with Iran 1988, but it lasted only two years. The Arabs don’t like talking about it, but in general the Arabs have seen Iran as an enemy for decades, and Saddam used Iraq to fight that war that Sunni Arab states supported financially. That war with Iran, which Saddam always saw as an extension of the ancient war between Mesopotamia and Persia, continues today.

The war of 1991 and the following Shia rebellion against the dictator resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Approximately half of my relatives fled Iraq in the 80s and 90s. Journalists did not seem as concerned about those Iraqi refugees. In 2003, after the Liberation, two more of my relatives left Iraq because they finally could without risk of harm to their families. Many Iraqi Shia fled Iraq after 2003, even after they “won”.

There have been 76 suicide bombings in Iraq this year. I consider that to be sectarian violence. Sunni extremists continue to attack the Iraqi government and its security forces, even attacking police in Sunni towns, but primarily targeting the Shia-led government.

Discussing last month's bombings of three Shia-dominated Ministries,

'The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, told a news conference last week that he believed a number of insurgent groups, including Baathists and al-Qaida in Iraq, were behind the bombings.

"This is a very complex issue. It's not black and white," he said.'

I would not call the situation in Iraq an “ugly peace”. It is no peace at all. Iraq has been in sectarian conflict since 1980, and the sectarian conflict continues, even as democracy sprouts in Iraq.

The criminal actions of AQI and the Baathists who supported them have shown that democracy and security in Iraq are very difficult to achieve. The hardcore Baathists will always attack the Iraqi government until they become the government. Baathists used violence to gain power in the first place, and they used violence to retain power for three decades.

Even as some of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs continue to support violent attacks against the Iraqi government and security forces, many Iraqi Sunni Arabs are participating in government, showing off their political strength. Tareq al Hashemi, one of Iraq’s Vice Presidents, has vetoed the recently passed election law, which the Iraqi parliament had been arguing about for weeks, because he said it does not include enough parliamentary seats for Sunni Arab refugees. This would be like a Shia VP of Saudi Arabia vetoing an election law because he believes it does not provide enough seats in the Saudi parliament for Saudi Shia (there are no elections and no Shia ‘VP’ in KSA). Like in war, in politics Iraq’s Sunni Arabs are playing hardball.

Even in a state of war, Iraq seems to be more democratic than most Arab countries. And Iraqis want better. Most Iraqis I know are tired of Maliki’s government, and they want to see big changes. I hope Iraqis will vote secular this time, and I hope the outcome of the election will result in true peace in Iraq, not just an “ugly peace”.

Iraqis must resolve their differences, and when they do so, hopefully they will also bring peace, justice, and prosperity to all of Iraq’s districts. Iraqis are making progress towards reconciliation without government efforts. One of my uncles who was expelled from his home in Amriya in 2005 was able to visit that house a few weeks ago and he found living in it a Sunni family, who graciously agreed to pay rent to my uncle. I have also read about Shia families being invited back to Adhamiya. I think that getting the history right, as difficult as it may be, may also contribute to the healing.

The Shia did not “win” in Iraq by expelling Sunni Arabs from Basra and Baghdad. The Shia sorta won by establishing a democracy, or at least a semblance of one, with the help of Americans. Clearly there are hurdles to overcome, and Baghdad is more segregated along sectarian lines than ever before. But there are still large numbers of Sunni Arabs in Baghdad, and it seems the Shia militias' "cleansing" and killing of innocent Sunni Arabs ended many months ago. Iraq’s Shia, after all their struggles, have not won a huge victory, and they will not be victorious until all of Iraq is truly peaceful, like it was before 1980. Real democracy in Iraq, and therefore victory, will be realized when power is passed peacefully from Nouri al Maliki to an Iraqi who will end the era of corruption and sectarianism and lead Iraq to a real peace.

January 31 election deadline "impossible"

'A senior Kurdish leader on Friday moved to defuse the latest threat to Iraq's imperiled elections – a possible Kurdish boycott – saying ongoing discussions with Iraqi leaders and political party blocs were close to resolving their differences.

"I am cautiously optimistic there will be a resolution," says Barham Saleh, prime minister of the Kurdish regional government.

Also to be resolved is the opposition of Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who on Wednesday vetoed the election law passed last week, arguing that it did not allow for enough participation by Iraqi expatriates – a majority of whom are Sunni Arab.

A vote on the law is scheduled for Saturday. But the country's top election official said that even if lawmakers resolved all their differences, it would be impossible to hold elections in January.

"We have already stopped all our work," says Faraj al-Haydari, the head of Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC). Both IHEC and United Nations officials have said they need at least 60 days to prepare for a credible election. The poll would have to be held before the last week in January – the start of some of the holiest days on the Shiite calendar.'

The sectarian segregation of Baghdad

Baghdad has been increasingly segregated by sect over the last six years as a result of the conflict. I read Joel Wng's post in which he mentioned that Amriya was listed as Shiite-majority in 2003, which struck me as odd. My uncles moved to Amriya with my grandparents in the late 60s and my impression was that Amriya was always a Sunni majroity neighborhood, especially after my uncles were evicted from their homes in 2005. But in reality Amriya must have been a mixed neighborhood, because other distant relatives of mine, also Shia, lived there and prospered there for many years.

I wrote this in March 2007: 'In the 1960s my grandparents moved from Nejef to Amriya, a neighborhood in western Baghdad. After my grandparents died, two of my uncles continued to live in their parent's house without problems until 2004, when 'mujahideen' started taking over the neighborhood. In the summer of 2005 my uncles received a letter telling them to leave or they would be killed. Fearing for their lives, my uncles took their wives and kids to Nejef, where they are lucky to have places to stay. I don't think any Shia live in Amriya anymore.'

For this reason I thought Amriya was a Sunni neighborhood, but according to a map by Dr. Michael Izady of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Amriya was a Shia-majority neighborhood in 2003.

Baghdad by sect in 2003:



By 2006, Amriya was turned into a Sunni-majority neighborhood:



In late 2006 Zeyad of Healing Iraq also showed Amriya as a Sunni district.

How the hell did Armiya go from a Shia-majority district to a Sunni-majority district in three years? Here are some clues:

'Al Amriya is considered amongst most sect-driven areas in the capital and the Takfiris - with short dishdash and Afghan style dreadlocks were quite active and until one month ago.

Before, the Takfiris were usually seen in the streets shooting at any unidentified passersby and would slaughter - with the literal meaning of the word, anyone in its home if they ‘deem’ that he/she worked for the invaders authority. Also, they would target the police forces (mainly Shiites) and abduct cops and later would chop their heads off and dumb them in the trash. And they too planted road bombs to get the invaders forces.'

This explains how many Shia, including my two uncles and distant relatives, were expelled by violence and threats of violence in Amriya.

Is global warming irreversible?

Listen to this very interesting interview with Professor Stephen Salter at his lab in the University of Edinburgh. Professor Salter invented a system by which wave energy is transferred to electricity.

'Thirty years after inventing a way to turn wave power into electricity, the professor fears it's now too late to rely on renewable energies to help cut global carbon emissions and prevent the melting of the arctic caps.

"We've wasted so much time not getting Ducks built when we could have been doing it properly that renewables are going to be too late," he says, looking out across the giant wave tank that dominates his university laboratory.

The first Salter Duck, created in 1973, was a rather simple teardrop design made from balsa wood. Today, the latest incarnation is a far more complex construction made from steel. But he warns, "I don't think we have time to get them working in big enough numbers in order to prevent something nasty happening to the arctic ice." '

Saddam's conversation with the FBI

According to Saddam, James Baker told Saddam that Iraq would be taken back to the pre-industrial age of if he did not comply with US conditions. After 40 consecutive days and nights of bombing, the former Secretary of State fulfilled his promise.

'He takes personal responsibility for ordering the launching of SCUD missiles against Israeli targets during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, because he blamed Israel and its influence in the U.S. for “all the problems of the Arabs”, but denies that his purpose was to draw that country into the conflict and to divide Washington from its Arab allies. He provides details on the lead-up to the war, reporting that during a January 1991 meeting former Secretary of State James Baker told Saddam’s foreign minister that if Iraq did not comply with U.S. conditions “we’ll take you back to the pre-industrial stage.”

Saddam’s historical recollections include his ascendancy within the Ba’athist party in 1968 and 1969; his disappointment after the Iran-Iraq war with Arab governments for their lack of gratitude for Iraq’s “saving all of the Arab world” from occupation by Iran; details about the 1991 Persian Gulf war; and the post-war Shi’a uprising in Iraq’s south, which he characterizes as “treachery” instigated by Iran.

Not included in these FBI reports are issues of particular interest to students of Iraq’s complicated relationship with the U.S. – the reported role of the CIA in facilitating the Ba’ath party’s rise to power, the uneasy alliance forged between Iraq and the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war, and the precise nature of U.S. views regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons policy during that conflict, given its contemporaneous knowledge of their repeated use against Iranians and the Kurds.

This series of interviews also does not address chemical warfare in Kurdish areas of Iraq in 1987-1988, although an FBI progress report says Saddam was questioned on the topic. One interview, #20, is redacted in its entirety on national security grounds, although it is not clear what issues agents could have discussed with Saddam that cannot now be disclosed to the public.'

Hat tip to Iraq Slogger.

Iraq war and nation-building have been expensive

The war has been huge for Iraqis, especially in terms of lives lost and forever changed by violence. For America the war in Iraq has also been very expensive. America's increased debt as a result of the war will only help China and other US creditors, whose US treasury bonds will no doubt be repaid with interest by our (Americans') kids and grandkids. The deaths of 4,365 American soldiers and tens of thousands of wounded understandably compels ordinary Americans to question whether the war in Iraq was worth it. In terms of financial costs alone, this war has been very different from the war of 1991, which was paid for by the Saudis and Kuwaitis.

Jake Armstrong of the Pasadena Weekly does The Count:
'
4,365

American military service members — 3 more than last week — have died since the war began in 2003, according to the US Department of Defense. A total of 13,883 have suffered injuries serious enough to keep them from returning to duty.

$8.5

billion is the cost of food and other products Kuwait-based contractor Public Warehousing Co. KSC delivered to US and coalition soldiers in the past 6 years, allegedly under fraudulent, inflated bills and false claims on contracts, according to a criminal indictment handed down Monday, the Washington Post reported.

1.5

is the rating Iraq received on a scale of 10 in Transparency International’s annual corruption report, putting the war-torn country in a dead heat with Sudan for the fourth-most corrupt nation, Voice of America reported Tuesday.

$333.4

million is how much Pasadena taxpayers have contributed to the Iraq war since it began, enough to fund 998 affordable housing units, according to the National Priorities Project.'

Al Qaeda in Iraq becoming less foreign

'Al Qaeda in Iraq is becoming more Iraqi and less dominated by foreigners as the insurgent group increasingly joins forces with Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party, the commander of U.S. forces said on Wednesday.

Investigations into massive suicide bombings in Baghdad on Oct. 25, in which more than 150 people died, indicated that explosives or fighters were coming across from Syria, U.S. General Ray Odierno also said.

The U.S. commander's comments reinforced accusations by the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that al Qaeda and former Baathists were working together to undermine improved security and elections expected to be held in January.

Maliki's government has also accused neighbouring Syria of giving a safe haven to Baathists plotting attacks in Iraq.

"Al Qaeda in Iraq has transformed significantly in the last two years. What once was dominated by foreign individuals has now become more and more dominated by Iraqi citizens," Odierno told reporters at the U.S. military's main base in Baghdad.

"There's still a small foreign element to al Qaeda, there are some who used to be Sunni rejectionists or ex-Baathists who are involved in this because of course they don't want the government to succeed."

Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply in the past 18 months and November so far has experienced one of the lowest civilian casualty levels since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But attacks by suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents like al Qaeda remain common.

The twin suicide bombings in Baghdad on Oct. 25 devastated the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad governorate headquarters, while two similar suicide bombings on Aug. 19 killed almost 100 people at the foreign and finance ministries.'

Hashemi vetoes election law

'One of Iraq's vice presidents vetoed the country's new election law today, throwing into fresh doubt the feasibility of holding crucial national elections in January and possibly disrupting the withdrawal next year of U.S. troops.

Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni, carried out his threat to veto the law because, he said, it does not provide for enough seats to represent Iraqi refugees who fled the violence of recent years and are living mostly in Syria and Jordan. A majority of the refugees are Sunnis.

Iraqi law gives the nation's two vice presidents as well as its president the power to veto legislation.'

Washington criticizes Israeli expansionism in East Jerusalem

'An unusually harsh White House statement on an Israeli settlement construction project suggests both a widening rift between the White House and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a deep freeze of the Obama administration's Mideast peace initiative.

The White House Tuesday lost no time in expressing its "dismay" at Israeli approval earlier in the day of a 900-unit expansion of the Gilo settlement in Jerusalem. The housing for Jewish residents would be built on West Bank land Israel occupied in 1967 and subsequently annexed to Jerusalem.'

Corruption in Iraq leads to terrorism

'Our country is now ranked by the global corruption monitor, Transparency International, as the third most corrupt in the world - and sadly for all of us this is not a statistic - It is a fact of life!

Our security is undermined because checkpoint guards are bribed. Our electoral commission is corrupted because the sects divide up offices of power amongst themselves so that their will, rather than the people’s, is ensured.

If you want a job to feed your family and have a roof over your head then you are expected to pay cash for the privilege of a government post. People in desperation feel that they have no alternative than to give corrupt officials a bribe.

People even have to pay to have their garbage collected. If they don’t pay they risk having garbage pile up in the streets. What sort of life is this for our families?

The corruption can be seen at every level of our society. At the highest level we have seen ministers of this government personally profit to the tune of millions of dollars. Funds meant for much needed electricity and water services are siphoned off and used to benefit ministers and their cronies and families.

Billions of dollars provided by countries that want to help our people are wasted or worse still stolen. Yet our current politicians and parties do nothing to deal with these problems because they are the very reason for them. We must have change. And we need bold change and an end to the cosy deals between sects and the current politicians who have brought our country to this.'

Iraq must protect its Christians

'Before the war, Christians were a learned, professional class that enjoyed civilian jobs and some deference from former dictator Saddam Hussein. But like Kassab himself, many fled during the 1980s to avoid conscription into Saddam’s Ba’ath Party, and the dictator’s treatment of Christians became increasingly erratic and brutal as he became more paranoid and unstable through the 1990s. "He prevented newborn babies to be given Biblical names, and [he] nationalized our institutions," says Kassab.

But nothing could prepare his people for what was to come after Saddam fell. Out-of-work Ba’ath soldiers became armed brigands. Sunnis and Shi’ites roamed the streets, seeking scapegoats. Churches were targeted. Christians who had lived in relative harmony with their Muslim neighbors before were now branded traitors and accused of colluding with the Americans, of being "infidels" and "crusaders."

"The whole situation in Iraq led very frail communities in Iraq, like the Christians, to be hurt first and foremost. They don’t have tribal people to help them, they are small. People were kidnapped and killed right in front of their neighbors and families. We’ve had people crucified. Some women have had acid tossed in their faces."

And it all happened with seemingly little rhyme or reason, other than to punish arbitrarily – whether it be the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, who was found in a shallow grave after he was kidnapped in March 2008, or the 5-year-old boy who was kidnapped and killed, his small body found partially eaten by wild dogs, in a small village outside Mosul in May of this year.

The Shia-dominated government in Iraq, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has made many promises to stop the violence, but so far, has not come through, says Kassab. Meanwhile, with only two Christian members of parliament, it is extremely difficult to exert political pressure internally. In November, one of the parliamentarians, Yonadam Kanna, called for a formal inquiry into the recent killings.

"We definitely get sweet words [from the government], no doubt about it, and a lot of sympathy," says Kassab, "but not all the action." '

Muslim perceptions of crusaderism re-emerged in colonial period

'Today the crusades are seen by many Muslims as evidence of unceasing Western aggression against their faith. But for centuries they saw them in a rather different light.

"You often hear people say there has been an abiding resentment amongst Muslims of the crusades," says Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith of Cambridge University. "Nothing could be further from the truth. They thought they had won."

Muslims believed they had emerged victorious because once the Christian fighters stopped coming from the West, the Muslims were left in control of Jerusalem for several centuries.

The revival of the idea of crusaderism as representing an innate Western desire to gain control of the Muslim lands only re-emerged during the colonial period. But since that time it has had great resonance. Today Osama bin Laden uses the term to motivate young Muslims to attack Western targets.

"It has become crystal clear that the West in general, led by America, harbours a crusader hatred against Islam which is beyond words" he said shortly after 9/11.'

13 Sunni Arab men murdered

'In a massacre that revived memories of Iraq's worst years of sectarian bloodshed, assailants dressed in Iraqi army uniforms savagely killed 13 men and boys late Sunday near the restive city of Abu Ghraib, according to Iraqi officials and villagers.

Most of the victims - some of whom reportedly were beheaded, while others were shot and then mutilated - were members of the Awakening, a Sunni Muslim movement that with U.S. backing and funding has fought the terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq.

Residents and security officials said that shortly before midnight, armed men in civilian vehicles raided two villages near Abu Ghraib - a city to the west of Baghdad that houses a major prison - took captives to a nearby cemetery named Seyid Mhimmed and killed them.

"I believe they were targeted because they formed Sahwas (Awakening councils) in the area and fought back al-Qaida," said Ibraheem Ismail, who described himself as a first cousin of seven of the victims and more distantly related to the rest.

Among the dead were a father and two sons, three brothers and several local leaders, including the sheik of the local mosque, who was a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni political group.'

Update: 'The mayor of Abu Ghraib, Shakir al-Zubaie, told The Associated Press that none of the people killed in the nearby village of al-Saadan were members of the local Awakening Council, but said some had fought against al-Qaida for a short time in early 2008.'