The Final Move Beyond Iraq: The Final Solution While the World Sleeps (28 page)

Said Karim, “Your army is in a holy war with jihadists worldwide. Thousands of Iraqi fanatics lived in Iran and returned home as agents with the full support of Iran. Remember, the Iranian revolution was planned in al Najaf by Ayatollah Khomeini. Al Najaf knows well how to plan Islamic revolutions. The only reason they are not attacking you in America is because you invited them to attack you in Iraq.”

I think about the words of Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, saying that the United States should not use Iraq for a confrontation with Iran. This is another sick joke. Al Qaeda has between four thousand and five thousand terrorists in Iraq. If we leave, the danger will be a thousand times greater—but in the United States, not in Iraq. The terrorists will take the battle to the streets of America. The only restraining factor is the U.S. troops. We keep the terrorists occupied by fighting them in Iraq. I was told that if we leave Iraq, all of the Arab countries will run away from the experiment in democracy and that the entire region will explode.

Karim further opined, “Saudi Arabia is so convinced that Iran is coming, they are building a four-hundred-mile wall at the cost of thirteen billion dollars to keep them out. Saudi is panicking because 50 percent of their population is Shiite and the oil region is in the Shiite area of Saudi. They know a nuclear Iran could mean their end. They pray that the U.S. or Israel will stop them.”

I have been told that over five hundred thousand Shiite “missionaries” are gathered in Saudi Arabia with one goal: converting Sunnis.

This conversation with Karim was taped as one of the last segments of the prime-time special based on this book. Later on, at the studios of the state television station, our team (I’m traveling with a U.S. military officer, security, and a camera crew) was given classified footage never shown on U.S. television or anywhere else. I saw images of Saddam’s flag being planted in each village after the gas canisters were dropped. At first, gas that stayed low to the ground was used. When the people fled to the mountains, canisters containing poison gas that rose in the air was dropped in order to kill those fleeing. Later, I was shown footage of Saddam’s death squads exterminating multitudes, including Islamic Fascists beheading Americans. It was the most unspeakably horrific sight I have ever seen.

It was a shock to see the face of Ali Hassan al-Majid on Iraqi television. He was standing trial for genocidal crimes against humanity. “I am not apologizing,” he said. “I did not make mistakes. I am the one who gave the orders to the army to use WMDs against one hundred thousand Iraqi Kurds.”

We were cleared by the government to see and have access to the footage. Some of it will be incorporated into the television special
The Final Move Beyond Iraq.

T
HURSDAY,
F
EBRUARY
1, 2007

At 5:30 a.m., we began the drive northeastward toward Iran and the torture chamber of Chemical Ali. The road was dangerous. An Iranian terror organization inhabits that mountainous region; I had been up most of the night to do some serious praying for safety.

Kurdistan encompasses over one-third of the populated area of Iraq. It has the largest oil field in the world, Kirkuk. It reaches from Khanaqin in the east and stretches along the Iranian border to Sinjar in the west, taking in the Valley of Nineveh. Our first destination was Sulaymaniyah. I learned that the Iranians are smuggling heroin, opium, and hashish into Iraq. The border is open for more than four hundred miles and is controlled by the Mahdi army and the Bader Brigade, both pro-Iranian Shiite organizations.

Our first meeting in Sulaymaniyah was with Gen. Sheikh Ja’affra, a small man with a large black mustache who happens to be the minister of Peshmerga affairs. (Peshmerga are armed Kurdish fighters.) He was so thankful to the Americans for liberating his people. “If you withdraw now,” he said, “you can be sure the terrorists will come to America. It’s quite simple; you asked them to fight you in Iraq, and they did. If you leave, they will consider that you have been defeated and will take the fight to you.

“The Mahdi army is trained in Iran and is modeled after Hezbollah. Their terror equipment comes from Iran. And yes, it was responsible for the attack in al Najaf as well as all the attacks in the south. The suicide bombers are coming from Al Qaeda camps in Iraq and are being replenished from Afghanistan. They are moving Afghan drugs into Lebanon to sell throughout Europe. Iran is behind all the attacks in Iraq in one way or another.”

He continued, “To win the war, the borders must be closed and monitored by troops that are not loyal to Iran—troops that can be monitored. Most of Iraq is controlled by the Shiites, and for that to change, a new Iraq must be built from Kurdistan southward. Our region is a model of democracy and stability. It is not necessary for U.S. troops to die here; we can stop the terror in these cities if you will let us. So far, your government has said, ‘No.’”

Over lunch we met with Vice President Kosrat Rasul Ali. He invited me to come back and meet with him and President Barzani and Abdul Abdulbari Alzebari, a member of the Iraqi Congress. Mr. Ali said to me, “We have two hundred thousand soldiers; you have three hundred thousand. You don’t need military in harm’s way; work with us, and we will control all of the ground in Iraq. If you will let us, we will shut down Iran. Now 60 percent of Iraq is controlled by Iran; we will see that the number is 0 percent.”

Following lunch, we visited the Red House, Saddam Hussein’s headquarters in Sulaymaniyah, and the site of his torture chambers. A precious man, Kiowa, took us to the torture chambers where he was victimized. He was hanged from meat hooks from his chest while his arms were tied behind his back. At the same time, electrical shocks were applied to his body parts. I could see the terrible pain in his eyes as he repeated his story.

I was stunned to learn that Iranians are buying property in Iraq and pouring a fortune into the fundamentalist mosques. Most who escaped to Iran during Saddam’s regime are back in Iraq and strongly support Iran. They have made trade agreements and are pouring money into Iraq. There is an embassy in Baghdad and consulates in almost every region. Tourism agreements allow millions of pilgrims to visit Karbala and al Najaf. This is a boon for terrorists who enter the country, along with the pilgrims.

Iran’s goal of achieving instability in Iraq is succeeding. The Holy Grail of understanding is that the U.S. battle in Iraq is between stupidity and stability. America’s liberal, antiwar Left is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The cries of “We’re losing the war; they’re winning” emboldens an enemy that has a 9/11 ideology. As I looked at footage of terrorist attacks on U.S. troops, I became angry. To think that 9/11 terrorists have come to Iraq from around the world to fight us, while the liberals in the United States scream, “Get out!” This is insane. How can you make Iraq the central front on the war on terrorism and not have a mess on your hands?

To have uncapped the genie of Shiite fundamentalism in Iraq with a Shiite superstate next door was a prescription for disaster. One cannot find one Arab out of one thousand that does not believe the United States invaded Iraq over oil. To try to convince them otherwise is an exercise in futility.

While we outwardly threaten Iran for their interference in Iraq, we close our eyes to the fact that there are Iranian agents behind virtually every rock. The embassy and consulates of this member of the axis of evil are nothing more than war rooms to fund and plan the battles against U.S. troops.

I am certain that if the United States provided the tools for the Iraqi Kurds to fight the war and simply controlled the skies and provided backup, U.S. deaths would drop and victory would come in time. The liberal media, however, will have to be put into press pools and monitored; they are doing more to undermine a victory in Iraq than the enemy.

“Ali Baghdad” and his forty thieves that pillaged the banks in Iraq are out of their cage like a wild bird. They have migrated to the Middle East, their souls filled with hatred and their pockets filled with U.S. dollars. If an Iranian-style Islamic revolution happens in Iraq, the fire could jump across the Middle East.

F
RIDAY,
F
EBRUARY
2, 2007

While waiting in the airport this morning for our flight out of Iraq, I have just watched a news report about a Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down in al Najaf last Sunday, the fourth in two weeks. Intelligence officers told me that the helicopter attacks are carried out with Iranian missiles. Nine more U.S. soldiers have been killed just in the past forty-eight hours.

I was just told by three different airport agents that our flight will not leave for Jordan this morning. Why? There is no jet fuel. Iranian proxies are blowing up the oil trucks as they head toward Kurdistan, and the Turks will not allow oil to be transported into Iraq.

Without morality, democracy is one of the worst forms of government. The world found it to be so during the French Revolution and during Hitler’s day. No power on earth can ignore the Kurdish dilemma indefinitely. Thirty million living Kurds and the blood of a multitude of the dead cry out for justice.

Democracy literally means “rule by the people.” The only people group supporting democracy is the Iraqi Kurdish people. It’s a fantastic success. Everything President Bush wanted to see in Iraq is present in Kurdistan. Erbil is the fourth largest city in Iraq, with Baghdad first, Kirkuk second, and Mosul third.

The headlines today are gut-wrenching. A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives killed 135 in Iraq’s deadliest bombing since 2003. Shiite Prime Minister al-Maliki blamed Saddam Hussein supporters. An Iraq-born Israeli official tells me that it was Sunni Al Qaeda members. The problem lies with al-Maliki and his political ally, Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army of over sixty thousand terrorists.

I am so glad I came to Iraq, and especially Kurdistan, in order to tell the world the story of democracy at work in at least a region of Iraq.

Maybe President Bush is right about fighting the global war from Iraq. If he does that, he must surely fight the war with America’s allies—meaning, the 200,000-strong Kurdish army, not with those who would be enemies of America. The words of Christopher Columbus may very well describe the President’s war on terror with Iraq as the central front:

May 9, 2006

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

Mr George Bush,

President of the United States of America,

For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena—which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hope that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH) [Peace Be Upon Him], the great Messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make “War on Terror” his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community—a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy (are) set ablaze.

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps 50 years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women—as occupation troops—put in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families.

On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.

Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal; nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West.

Mr. President,

You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can these actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness?

There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.

European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH), human rights and liberal values.

Young people, university students, and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.

Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times. Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel. I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?

Mr. President,

I am sure you know how—and at what cost—Israel was established:

—Many thousands were killed in the process.

—Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.

—Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.

This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now. A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique—or at the very least extremely rare—in recent memory.

Another big question asked by the people is “why is this regime being supported?” Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH) or Moses (PBUH) or liberal values? Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands—inside and outside Palestine—whether they are Christian, Moslem or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum?

The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent observers have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognize the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government. If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also asking “Why are all UNSC resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?”

Mr. President,

As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them—many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies.

It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well.

Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations?

You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc., must be opposed.

Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.

Mr. President,

Don’t Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, Why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear?

The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don’t they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth—including minerals—is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?

Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights?

The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.

Mr. President,

September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.

All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems—and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services—or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren’t those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?

All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbors of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people—who had been immensely traumatized by the attacks—some Western media only intensified the climate of fear and insecurity—some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?

American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?

Some believe that the hype paved the way—and was the justification—for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media.

In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly—for the public to finally believe—and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.

Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate?

Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?

Mr. President,

In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them.

The question here is “what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?”

As Your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist—to a larger or lesser extent—in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign—paid from the public treasury—be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?

What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention—which I am hoping you will agree to some of it—is:

Those in power have a specific time in office and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures.

The people will scrutinize our presidencies.

Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment?

Did we intend to establish justice or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful—thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs?

Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them?

Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them?

Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats?

Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it?

Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors?

Did our administrations set out to promote rational behavior, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns, intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people’s rights?