- BAGHDAD -- A senior Iraqi
official lashed out at the United States yesterday after a spectacular
assassination in Baghdad, saying a deal with insurgents has turned the
city of Fallujah into a staging ground for attacks on the capital.
-
- "The number of car bombs in Baghdad has gone up
dramatically since the peace agreement in Fallujah," Defence Minister
Ali Allawi told The Globe and Mail, hours after a suicide bomb blast killed
Iraqi Governing Council president Izzadine Saleem.
-
- Mr. Allawi said Fallujah, a city of 400,000 people 50
kilometres west of Baghdad, has become a haven for insurgents since the
April 28 agreement between U.S. Marine commanders and rebel leaders that
ended the siege of the city.
-
- "They are forming a network, supported by guns and
money, connected to insurgents in other parts of Iraq," he said. "And
they are making a serious bid for power."
-
- Mr. Saleem died in a massive car bombing that killed
eight other people, including the bomber.
-
- The blast occurred as Mr. Saleem's vehicle waited at
a checkpoint to enter the Green Zone, headquarters of the council and the
U.S.-led military coalition.
-
- Mr. Saleem was the highest-ranking Iraqi to be killed
since the U.S. occupation began more than a year ago. He held the rotating
presidency for the month of May on the 25-member council, which was hand-picked
by U.S. authorities.
-
- The Fallujah deal led to the formation of the Fallujah
Brigade, a security force composed largely of insurgents who had been fighting
the coalition - including many who had served as senior military officers
in the army of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.
-
- The brigade brought a measure of peace to Fallujah -
but also strengthened the hand of terrorists, according to Mr. Allawi and
other council members.
-
- "The poachers have become the gamekeepers,"
Mr. Allawi said. "It is allowing that town to turn into a kind of
springboard for action outside Fallujah - paradoxically, under the control
of the U.S. Marines."
-
- He said he has counted five or six car bombs in Baghdad
since the deal was struck, although none occurred in the weeks beforehand,
when the city was surrounded.
-
- Ahmed Chalabi, a prominent member of the Governing Council
and former close ally of Washington, was also sharply critical of the Fallujah
deal.
-
- "The allies of the U.S. are hampered from protecting
ourselves, but the terrorists are free to roam around," Mr. Chalabi
said. "They have been given sanctuary in Fallujah. We are all threatened.
Drastic action is necessary."
-
- The United States is expected to maintain control of
security policy in Iraq after the official handover of sovereignty to a
transitional Iraqi government on June 30. But after yesterday's car bombing,
many members of the Governing Council said the U.S. should recognize its
security failures and transfer responsibility to the Iraqi government.
-
- "In the last year, the Americans were responsible
for security and they failed," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish leader
and Governing Council member. "They should have toppled Saddam and
then let the Iraqis have our own government. I think security should be
in Iraqi hands."
-
- Songul Chapuk, a female member of the Governing Council,
stood with a bodyguard close by as she criticized U.S. policy. "We
need security to be in Iraqi hands, with Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police
and Iraqi intelligence," she told reporters. "We don't need foreigners.
The streets of Iraq are not safe. We want all security in Iraqi hands."
-
- A senior assistant to Baghdad's police chief said the
assassination was evidence of the strength of the insurgent forces.
-
- "These terrorists are very intelligent, very smart
people, and they have spies inside the Green Zone," he said. "They
are getting information leaked to them. The Governing Council will keep
being attacked because nobody likes them. They haven't done anything for
the people. They are only U.S. puppets."
-
- At a news conference yesterday, coalition spokesmen were
confronted by repeated questions from Iraqi journalists who wanted to know
when the coalition would allow the Iraqis to gain control of their own
security. Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said
the coalition is training and equipping the Iraqis to allow them to take
over security matters as quickly as possible. "We would love to speed
it up," he said.
-
- At the same time, he warned of the danger of "warlordism"
if the new Iraqi political parties - each of which has its own militia
- are empowered to take control of security policy. Asked about the complaints
from the Governing Council, Mr. Senor said the members were feeling "high
emotions" yesterday. He said the United States has done everything
possible to train and equip council members' bodyguards, but noted that
Mr. Saleem had preferred to hire his own nephews and cousins as security
detail, even though none of them had received any U.S. training.An obscure
Islamic group has claimed responsibility for the assassination, but Brigadier-General
Kimmitt said the bombing had all the "classic hallmarks" of Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda-linked network: a spectacular attack causing
a large number of civilian deaths; proximity to the Green Zone; and a symbolic
target and location.
-
- - Orly Halpern is a freelance correspondent based in
Baghdad.
-
- © Copyright 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RT
GAM.20040518.wxiraq0518/BNStory/International/
|
