It could be true; Iraq's incoming prime minister is also worried.
The skyrocketing attacks are blamed on an insurgency believed largely made up of members of Iraq's Sunni minority, who dominated for decades under Saddam Hussein but were excluded from meaningful positions in a partial new Cabinet announced Thursday. #msg-6215345
This would put the Saddam/dictator factor out of the picture as a valid reason to invade Iraq and would leave us only with a bogus democracy motive for the war.
This should incense every American of moral character.
This is interesting because a secret meeting with opposition groups was recently reported. The freeing of Saddam attempt is starting to look true albeit it will be denied.
Thanks for the text.
-Am
Rumsfeld: Enough of the past. We are reassessing our positions towards you and towards a number of powers that have been hostile to us in the past. We have decided to hold dialogue with moderate Islamicists and we have no objection to their coming to power through the ballot box. More important than that we have decided to open channels for dialogue with ‘terrorist’ organizations like Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and Hizb Allah, which is pro-Iranian, and also with other fundamentalist organizations in the whole world. We even have a plan for contacting the Taliban movement in Afghanistan to study the possibility of their participation in power, in exchange for their giving up arms. #msg-6218646
Western officials secretly met with Arab opposition 4/29/2005 2:00:00 PM GMT
Secret meetings between Arab opposition groups and U.S. and EU officials were held in Morocco
U.S. and European officials held secret meetings with opposition groups from eastern Arab countries in Morocco, official sources said.
The meetings started on April 17 and ended on April 21, the sources said, adding that the media was banned from covering the talks.
The sources, who demanded anonymity, refused to identify the U.S. or the European officials who participated in the talks, but said that they are influential figures, including researchers, politicians and reporters.
"This Arab-American-European dialogue was attended by men of integrity from the two sides with the objective of building bridges and pushing forward dialogue among civilizations, besides making efforts to ease the tense atmosphere between the East and the West," one source said.
The official added that the talks were also aimed at trying to understand the decision-making process of the two parties.
"This does not mean that either side accepts the decision," he said.
The sources said that both sides discussed a number of regional and international issues, including the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the situation in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.
They also discussed issues related to culture and human rights, according to the sources.
Last week, reports said that the Bush administration is trying to reach out to the Syrian opposition over the growing fears that the political unrest in Lebanon could spill over and suddenly destabilize Syria, which borders four countries pivotal to U.S. Middle East policy -- Israel, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey, U.S. and Syrian sources said.
In a recent interview Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. is talking to "as many people as we possibly can" about the situation in Syria, as well as in Lebanon, to ensure that Washington is prepared in the event of yet another abrupt political upheaval.
"What we're trying to do is to assess the situation so that nobody is blindsided, because events are moving so fast and in such unpredictable directions that it is only prudent at this point to know what's going on," Rice said.
Rice also cited "the possibility for what I often call discontinuous events, meaning that you were expecting them to go along like this and all of a sudden they go off in this direction, in periods of change like this.
“So we're going to look at all the possibilities and talk to as many people as we possibly can,” she said.
WOW! Great post. With the several sources that Am listed and now this I have to assume for the moment that this is not a hoax. There is something to it.
HMmmmm... let see.. I cannot wait to see the apologies the Pro War camp makes for this.
What will Dean and Kerry say?
Rumsfeld goes to Iraq and offers Saddam generous amounts of money and freedom in civilian life if he simply makes a statement on TV telling the terrorists to stop.
Just a statement. Wow!
Saddam? The guy who was so evil we are now going to set free just for making a TV appearance asking the "terrorists" to stop
Saddam? The guy who was so evil we Americans justified dropping bombs on civilian populations. Dropping bombs on children. Dropping bombs on Grandmothers and Grandfathers.
How many Americans have died? How many Iraqis have died?
Rumsfeld offers Saddam freedom for this small TV appearance and Saddam has a dignified response and refuses the offer. Wow!
NOW THAT THIS SEEMS TO BE CREDIBLE THE TIMING OF THIS HAS OMINUS IMPLICATIONS:
One week Moscow makes an Arms deal with Syria offering missiles that can hit any target in Israel with an accuracy of 20 meters.
The next week Putin makes a historic trip to Israel. The first time a Kremlin leader ever visits Israel.
The week after Putins visit to Israel we offer to set Saddam free? Talk about an Ominus page of history unfolding before our eyes!
The implications of this are huge. I need cup of coffee.
I was listening to Ralph Schoenman who is always up on what is going on with Saddam and the middle east. So the reports are true. Saddam was reported to tell rummy Bush should be arrested...another words ...Saddam to Rummy.... pack sand!
If Zarqawi is captured, incapacitated or killed, the problem could be a little more manageable for the Americans in Iraq, but blood will continue to flow unless and until they succeed in pacifying the Sunni Arabs. It is doubtful whether they will be able to do this without the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, now in custody pending trial for crimes against humanity.
A big reason that Rumsfeld did make some kind of offer to Saddam. #msg-6218646
-Am
Move over Zarqawi By B Raman
May 27, 2005
There has been speculation galore regarding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, ever since the US Marines conducted a flushing-out operation to smoke out foreign terrorists allegedly operating from the Sunni stronghold of Qaim, which is located in a desert area where the Euphrates river crosses from Syria into Iraq.
The operation, which was code-named Operation Matador, was carried out between May 8 and 15. It had two main objectives. First, to flush out the terrorists and resistance fighters operating in the rest of Iraq from sanctuaries in Iraqi territory in the Qaim area. Second, to convey a message to Damascus about the possibility of a more vigorous US operational policy in the areas near the Syrian border if it provided sanctuaries and other assistance to the resistance. The message was particularly meant to stress the dangers of hot pursuit by US troops into Syrian territory.
The operation was essentially provoked by the escalation in the violent activities of the resistance ever since the formation of the new government headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shi'ite reported to be close to Teheran, on April 28. However, it was also triggered by US suspicion that Zarqawi's headquarters were located in this area. US officials projected the operation as a major success, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of foreign terrorists, though Zarqawi himself could not be found. But other independent sources played down the American claims and asserted that while hundreds were killed, they were not all from the resistance. According to them, many were civilians who fell victim to excessive use of force by the Marines.
Moreover, violence has continued unabated in different parts of central and northern Iraq, particularly in Baghdad and other areas of the Sunni Triangle, even after Operation Matador. Not only hundreds of Iraqis have died, many of them Shi'ite and Kurd members of the security forces and governmental agencies associated with the post-election government, but even Americans continue to die, though in smaller numbers. According to the latest estimates, 60 American soldiers have died so far since May 1. This shows that Operation Matador has not had any major impact - at least until now - on the morale, motivation and determination of the resistance.
Interestingly, the operation has given rise to a plethora of speculation regarding Zarqawi. Most of the speculation has been the outcome of five reports originating from different sources. The first report was given currency by llen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post. Reporting from the al-Asad American air base in Iraq on May 5, this journalist said: The US military is examining reports that insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi was present last week at a hospital in Anbar province and the possibility that he may be ill or wounded, officials said Wednesday. US officials gave no details as to why they believe Zarqawi may be sick or injured. But US military authorities were quoted this month as saying that Zarqawi had left medical information about himself on a laptop computer that was seized February 20 in his closest known call with American pursuers. When his car was pulled over at a checkpoint outside Ramadi, Zarqawi fled on foot, leaving behind the laptop, photos of himself and contacts, officials said. It was not clear whether suspicions about his health were linked to the seizure of the computer or grew directly out of Zarqawi's reported presence last week at a hospital in Ramadi, the capital of restive Anbar province. Zarqawi's group asserted in a written statement posted at two mosques, one of them in Ramadi, that the Jordanian-born militant was at the hospital last Thursday during a raid by US forces, but that the Americans missed him. An inexplicable part of the report was why should the Zarqawi group reveal that he was present in the hospital and that a raiding American party missed him? Was it true or was it trying to mislead the Americans about the exact whereabouts of Zarqawi by giving the impression that he was in Ramadi whereas he was elsewhere.
The second report, which was dated May 11, emanated from Elaph, a popular Arab website. It quoted one Colonel Fouad Hani Hassan, described as the commander of the fifth division of the newly raised Iraqi army, as saying that Zarqawi "is seriously injured, possibly dead". This report, which did not indicate how this Iraqi officer came to this conclusion, lacked credibility.
Mohamad Bazzi, a Beirut-based journalist, whose reports are carried by some online news websites, was the author of the third report. He reported on May 20, "Zarqawi was injured and almost captured during a recent US offensive near the Iraqi-Syrian border, according to Iraqi security officials. Zarqawi was not badly wounded, and he managed to escape during the weeklong US siege of the town of Qaim, said two senior security officials who spoke by phone from Iraq and asked not to be named. The officials said their information is based on interrogations of insurgents captured in the area."
According to one official, Zarqawi was hiding out in Qaim or in the surrounding regions. "He was apparently surprised by the American operation."
US intelligence officials say they have heard reports about Zarqawi being injured, but they have been unable to confirm them. "We don't rule it out," said a US official familiar with the Central Intelligence Agency's reporting on the issue. "The guy is racing around and is in harm's way, so you can't rule out the possibility ... It's hard to corroborate when the guy is a ghost running around out there somewhere. We try to track him as best we can."
The fourth report came on Wednesday from John F Burns and Terence Neilan of The New York Times. They said: An Internet site used by al-Qaeda in Iraq said Tuesday that its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded, and it asked for Muslims to pray for his recovery. "Let everybody know that the injury of our leader is an honor, and causes us to surround our enemy tighter," the statement said, in a translation by the Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute (SITEI) in Washington. The institute monitors Islamic websites.The wording of the six-paragraph statement, issued by the "information section" of the group, al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers, sounded as if Zarqawi has been badly hurt, and that his supporters were probably being prepared for his death. There was no way to assess the veracity of the statement or to determine whether it might even be a ploy to dilute the pursuit of Zarqawi, the American military's "most wanted man" in Iraq with a $25 million bounty on his head. Other newspapers and agencies also disseminated the translation by the SITEI. Reuters quoted Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a US spokesman in Baghdad, as saying that he could not assess the report's credibility. "We have no information on whether he's wounded or what the state of his health is," he said. "He's still our No 1 target to be captured or killed and until that happens, the hunt is still on."
The same day, the Northeast Intelligence Network, an online terrorism analysis group in the US, put out a different interpretation of the statement, which was in Arabic, purported to have been issued by the information section of the Zarqawi group.
Its interpretation, which was titled "Zarqawi Injured, Status Questionable At Best: Single Statement, One Analysis Does Not Make It Fact", said: A message from the terrorist organization al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers via spokesman/poster Abu Maysara al Iraqi, was posted yesterday [Tuesday] about the alleged wounding of the most hideous of Islamic terrorists, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "The wording of the six-paragraph statement, issued by the information section of the group al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers, sounded as if Zarqawi has been badly hurt, and that his supporters were probably being prepared for his death." This analysis is attributed to the SITE Institute and was quickly parroted by major media - which begs the question - has anyone bothered to actually read and analyze the statement? Does anyone consider the references to Islamic history within these statements? This statement follows last week's extensive message from Zarqawi himself, which not only calls for an increase in attacks in Iraq, but legitimizes the killing of Muslim women and children in the advancement of jihad. He cites Koranic references to drive home the point that anyone not supportive of jihad are themselves "cannon fodder". The latest statement, however, drawing sympathy from Muslim supporters worldwide, could be a ruse designed, in part, to incite violence against US forces in Iraq. Be careful of the information you receive, as it might be designed to deceive. The Northeast Intelligence Network also gave its own English translation of the Arabic statement, which is annexed below. A careful reading of the translation shows, firstly, there is no reference to Zarqawi by name. It merely talks of a "sheikh", which has been presumed to be a reference to Zarqawi. Why can't it be a reference to Osama bin Laden, who is also referred to by his followers as a sheikh. The statement, according to this translation, does not say that the sheikh is injured, so pray for him. It says should the sheikh be injured, pray for him. Why should the information section put out a statement that all Muslims should pray if their sheikh is injured? This is inexplicable unless the poster has no personal information on Zarqawi and had made his posting on the basis of the reports discussed above which speculate about the possibility of Zarqawi having been injured.
Where are we after reading and analyzing all these reports and comments on them by various analysts? Nowhere. We are as much in a state of confusion as we have always been since the US-led coalition invaded and occupied Iraq. All that one knows for certain is:
More than two years after the occupation, the Arab Sunni resistance to the US-led occupation shows no signs of abating. There has been an unending flow of volunteers - from Iraq as well as outside - for the resistance movement, with many of them volunteering themselves for suicide missions. Iraqis - many of them from deposed president Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party and armed forces - and Saudis, recruited by al-Qaeda, spearhead the resistance movement. The Iraqi resistance has shown remarkable coordination, even if it has been operating separately. There is a common brain behind all the anti-American operations in Iraq.
The Americans project Zarqawi's as that common brain, but their evidence in this regard is far from conclusive. The Americans, with their penchant for demonization and dramatization, have made Zarqawi appear as the source of most of what has been happening in Iraq, just as, post-September 11, they had made bin Laden appear as the source of most of the anti-Western jihadi terrorism taking place in the Islamic world.
Even if one leaves aside the over-projection of Zarqawi by the US, certain conclusions are inescapable:
Unlike bin Laden, who does not get involved in the micro-management of the global jihadi operations of al-Qaeda, the nuts-and-bolts involvement of Zarqawi in the operations of the foreign terrorists of al-Qaeda in Iraqi territory has been more intense and personal. Whereas the incapacitation or capture or death of bin Laden may not have any lasting impact on the activities of al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front in the rest of the world, that of Zarqawi is likely to have a greater impact on the operations of foreign terrorists in Iraq. But it is unlikely to have any significant impact on the operations of the Arab Sunni resistance-fighters. If Zarqawi is captured, incapacitated or killed, the problem could be a little more manageable for the Americans in Iraq, but blood will continue to flow unless and until they succeed in pacifying the Sunni Arabs. It is doubtful whether they will be able to do this without the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, now in custody pending trial for crimes against humanity.
De-demonizing Saddam and his followers and making amends for the wrongs done to them in the past are as important as neutralizing Zarqawi - if not more important - if the Americans are to extricate themselves from Iraq.
Annexure Translation of the web posting of the so-called "information section" of al-Qaeda, Iraq. In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
If a wound has touched you, know that a corresponding wound has touched the others. Such days we give to men and men in turn; that Allah may know those who believe, and that He may take to Himself from your ranks Martyr-witnesses. And Allah loves not those that do wrong. Koran Surah The Cow, verse 140.
O Allah! Make our shots hit their targets and hold us firmly in place.
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Final victory is on the side of the believers, and no aggression except on those who transgress all bounds. Peace and prayers to the Imam of the mujahideen, our Prophet, Mohammed, and to his family and his companions.
Oh my Islamic nation [ummah], oh brothers of unity, pray for our sheikh so that Allah will heal him should he be injured fighting in the name of Allah! May Allah heal you, our beloved mujahid. May Allah help you stand firm, both you and those who accompany you.
The messenger of Allah was wounded and one of his teeth was broken in the battle of Uhud. You have indeed in the messenger of Allah an excellent example for he who believes in Allah and the Day of Judgment, and who think of Allah.
Those near and far should be aware that any injury to our sheikh will cause us to become more steadfast against the enemies of Allah, and will bring a huge increase in attacks against them. Our sheikh has taught us that everything of value loses its value when the religion and the unity are at risk.
Our sheikh has taught the youth to follow the religion of Abraham, to forsake evil, and to put our faith and trust in Allah.
We say to you: if you are suffering from difficulties, the enemy will also suffer. But your reward is from Allah, and they do not have this. Allah knows all.
O Allah, ease the pain and replace the pain with healing, for there is no healing except through your will.
God is the Greatest! God is the Greatest! God is the Greatest!
Praise be to Allah, to his messenger, and to the mujahideen.
Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers Tuesday, 16 Rabea al-Thani 1426 May 24, 2005
B Raman is additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat, government of India, New Delhi, and, presently, director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow and convener, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. Email: itschen36@gmail.com
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