30 October 2005

Iran 'sponsors assassination' of Sunni pilots who bombed Tehran
Iraqi president offers airmen protection in his native Kurdistan, where some dropped chemical weapons

By Toby Harnden in Suleimaniya , Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Colin Freeman

IRAN is backing a Shia insurgent campaign of systematically assassinating former elite Iraqi air force pilots as part of a covert sectarian war against Sunnis, according to senior politicians in Baghdad.

The spate of murders of pilots has prompted an intervention from Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, who has offered them safe haven in his native Kurdistan even though some of them may have been involved in dropping chemical weapons there.

Alleged Iranian involvement in the killings has heightened sectarian tensions in Iraq and could increase diplomatic pressure on Tehran, already accused by Tony Blair of involvement in killing British soldiers and facing isolation over its nuclear ambitions.

Former senior military officers, overwhelmingly from Saddam Hussein's favoured Sunni sect, are among the most alienated groups in Iraq and form a key element of the Arab nationalist section of the insurgency.

In an effort to woo these officers away from their alliance of convenience with Islamist foreign fighters, Mr Talabani, a Kurd, held a meeting with more than 1,000 in Baghdad.

Afterwards, according to coalition sources, several Kurdish officials entered the room and set briefcases down on tables. The briefcases were opened to reveal wads of new $100 bills. Each officer was then given $1,000 as compensation for the loss of his pension.

Mr Talabani told The Sunday Telegraph: "I openly called in a meeting I had with 1,000 Arab Sunni former high-ranking officers for them to come to Kurdistan and live in peace.''

He said he was unsure who was behind the murders of the pilots but suggested they were reprisals for possible war crimes. "I don't know whether it is revenge for bombing civilians, for bombing Iran, for bombing Kurdistan.''

An estimated 300,000 Kurds died in the Anfal campaign of 1988 in which chemical weapons were dropped on Kurdistan and mass executions carried out. Among the atrocities was the massacre at Halabja, on the Iranian border, in which Iraqi pilots killed around 5,000 Kurds with poison gas bombs. But in an extraordinary expression of mercy, Mr Talabani has forgiven the perpetrators, though not those who planned the genocide.

"They [the pilots] were ordered by military commanders,'' he said. "During the time of Saddam, anyone who refused orders was killed. And not everyone was ready to take his aircraft and fly to London or some other place and ask to be a refugee because Saddam would have killed their family.''

One of the pilots assassinated was Ismael Saeed Fares, 48, known as "the Hawk of Baghdad'' because of his legendary exploits. A series of daring raids at the end of the eight-year war with Iran, including an attack on Teheran, earned him many medals and the admiration of millions. They also earned him 24 bullets in his chest, fired at point-blank range by a gunman who struck as he sat with a neighbour in the garden of his home in north Baghdad earlier this year.

Scores of others are believed to have been murdered, although precise figures are not available. There is no suggestion that Mr Fares was involved in the anti-Kurdish atrocities of the Anfal campaign.

The organised manner in which the murders have been carried out, each with multiple shots fired from an AK47, has fuelled suspicions that elements within Iraq's Iranian-linked government are behind them. "Many of my father's friends have left Iraq because they received written death threats,'' said Mr Fares' son, Wisam, 21. "I remember my father as a very good man and a hero. Nobody else would have wanted to kill him except Iranians.''

Victim's families suspect their names and addresses have been taken from old records at Iraq's ministry of defence. They claim that the killings are the work of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two main Shi-ite parties that dominate Iraq's new government. Although the brigade has officially disarmed, it has recently been blamed for the killing of scores of Sunni clerics in revenge for massacres of Shias by Sunni-backed insurgents.

In another sinister development in Iran, tens of thousands of ethnic Ahwazi Arabs, who populate the area bordering southern Iraq, are expected to be displaced to make way for an expanded military complex in an area known as the Arvand Free Zone. The zone will cover 60 square miles around the border cities of Abadan and Khorramshahr.

The British Ahwazi Friendship Society, a British-Iranian human rights group, claims it will help Iran's Revolutionary Guard militias to influence Shia areas of Iraq.

A BAFS spokesman said: "Apart from being a serious human rights issue, any development that involves people being displaced by force obviously has a security element to it as they clearly do not want people being too near.

"The fact that they are deciding to put this huge complex right up against the border is significant. We think this is to enable them to train and send militias over the border.''

23 October 2005

Iraqi president’s plea to Britain: “Don’t let the blood of your sons be for nothing.”
By Toby Harnden at Qolat Cholan, north-west Iraq

IRAQ ’S PRESIDENT pleaded yesterday for Britain to keep its troops in the country to ensure that "the blood of your sons, which was the price of freedom you bought for our people" was not squandered.

"You liberated 50 million Muslims from Afghanistan to Iraq," said President Jalal Talabani, a former Kurdish guerrilla leader. "This was a noble goal. If your troops left tomorrow, all their blood and sacrifice would be wasted.

"In Iraq, there would be chaos and perhaps be civil war. There would be foreign intervention - our neighbours [ Iran, Syria, Turkey] would come in."

Mr Talabani was talking to The Sunday Telegraph at Qolat Cholan, the compound near the town of Suleimaniya in Kurdish north-west Iraq that used to be his military stronghold.

Once a mountain retreat for Saddam's Hussein's cronies, it became a base for resistance against the tyrant and a haunt of CIA agents when Kurdistan was granted semi autonomy after the 1991 Gulf war.

Despite the growing disquiet in Britain over the roadside bombing campaign against troops in southern Iraq, Mr Talabani said that withdrawing British forces would hand the terrorists a propaganda victory.

"We are now fighting a world war launched by terrorists against civilisation, against democracy, against progress, against all the values of humanity," he said. "If British troops withdrew, the terrorists would say, 'Look, we have imposed our will on the most accomplished armed forces in the world and terror is the way to oblige the Europeans to surrender to us'.''

Mr Talabani, whose fellow Kurds were among the worst-persecuted under Saddam, hailed the start of the former dictator's trial last week as a watershed for Iraqis.

"Those who thought that one day he would be pardoned or he would come back will be sure he is finished," he said. He laughed aloud when reminded of Saddam's claim on the opening day of the hearing that he was still the real president of Iraq. "I am now the President," he said.

Surprisingly, however, Mr Talabani believes that Saddam's life, which he would have gladly ended during his guerrilla days, should be spared - although as an additional punishment rather than an act of mercy.

"It would be better to treat him like Rudolf Hess, to put him in prison and show him how Iraq is developing without him. This would be a kind of death for him every day.

"But most people here disagree with me. Being against the death penalty is difficult in the Islamic world because it is guaranteed by the Koran."

As President, his would be one of the three signatures on Saddam's death warrant but the assent of his two vice-presidents would be legally sufficient.

"I will not prevent the sentence of the judges being carried out. I will be absent the day they discuss this."

He said he was "certain" that last week's referendum on the Iraqi constitution had resulted in a Yes, although the official result has not yet been announced.

In his view, this was another turning point for Iraq and the record turnout of up to 68 per cent was a sign of the country coming together.

A genial, avuncular man, Mr Talabani said his career as a fighter, which began in 1961 when Kurds rose up against the Iraqi monarchy, was over.

"I commanded people who fought and killed. I planned many battles. But we never carried out terrorist attacks or used car bombs or violence against civilians. We treated Iraqi prisoners as our brothers.

"I believe in popular war and I believe in partisan war. But my revolutionary opinion is that in the 21st century this is finished. Now is not the time of Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. It's a new era... The time for armed struggle has passed."

With its thriving trade, colourful, bustling streets and peshmerga checkpoints that ensure insurgents cannot operate, Kurdistan is a vision of what the rest of Iraq might be. Mr Talabani, who insists the situation in Iraq is improving every day, believes that time is now within sight.

"Iraqis have started to hate these killers and butchers and they are isolated from the people. In certain areas, even some tribes are ready to co-operate with the government and coalition forces to fight against terrorists."

British troops, he said, had helped to create such conditions for Iraqis, including Kurds, who under the federalism enshrined in the new constitution will be guaranteed regional autonomy. A country which had been "a concentration camp built on top of a mass grave" under Saddam was being slowly transformed.

"If terrorism is not controlled, it will increase and spread all over the world. Now you are fighting the terrorists here in their own place. If you stop doing this then you will be fighting them in your own cities and towns. You are our partners in this."

23 October 2005

Death threats to witnesses halt Saddam trial
By Toby Harnden in Baghdad and Aqeel Hussein in Dujail

THE TRIAL of Saddam Hussein is in danger of collapsing because dozens of witnesses are refusing to testify against him after being told the former dictator had issued death threats from his cell.

More than 40 people inside a special compound in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone had been due to give evidence of Saddam's alleged crimes against humanity.

But his trial, in which he and seven others are accused of massacring 143 Shia men and youths from Dujail after a failed assassination attempt against him in 1982, was adjourned for 40 days, partly because the witnesses were unwilling to take the stand.

The belief that Saddam personally issued a threat to order a second act of mass murder in Dujail and to have the town razed afterwards illustrates the level of fear that the deposed president can still inspire among the subjects he oppressed for 25 years.

"We want Saddam to be held to account for his evil crimes and eagerly await the day when his lifeless body will swing from a rope,'' said Hatem, a farmer from Dujail whose brother Ali is one of the witnesses fearful to testify.

"There is almost nothing we won't do to hasten this day, but Saddam is very powerful. He has his agents everywhere. So when the message came that we would be liquidated if we took part in his trial we had to think of our families.''

Some witnesses received calls on their mobile telephones in which a voice warned them: "Testify before the sham court and you will be signing your own death warrant. Dujail will be destroyed.'' After that, rumours spread through the town and soon it was being said that Saddam himself had ordered retribution via a coded communication from his cell.

The climate of fear surrounding the trial was heightened by the murder of a lawyer involved in it. Sadoun al-Janabi, who was acting for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former judge, was seized by gunmen on Thursday and his body was found, shot in the head, the next day. Some of his colleagues are now asking for American protection after deciding that their Iraqi guards cannot be trusted.

Badie Izzat Aref, a lawyer for Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, said: "If they can't protect lawyers, how are they going to defend their clients, and how will witnesses dare to come before the tribunals?''

American officials said there was no possibility that Saddam could threaten prosecution witnesses from the confines of Camp Cropper, the facility near Baghdad Airport where he is held in isolation from other prisoners.

"There is rampant paranoia about Saddam,'' one said. "He is a broken man who will soon be begging for his own life. All he thinks about now is himself and he has had no connection with the insurgency since we captured him in late 2003. I don't underestimate the evil that is inside him or the magnitude of his deeds. But as a tyrant, he is finished, impotent. And Iraqis need to realise this.''

Last week, security was at an unprecedented level in Dujail, with cars having to drive through 17 separate checkpoints to get into the town. There were so many Iraqi and United States troops there that an attack would have been virtually impossible.

People were relaxed. On the day of the trial US military policemen danced with locals in the streets and took impromptu Arabic lessons. Posters pasted on walls declared "Death to Saddam'' and "The hangman will deliver justice for Saddam''.

The desire for vengeance was everywhere. Abu Raheem, 39, a supermarket owner, said: "If Saddam is not executed then we will take our revenge on his family, just as he punished us for the actions of our noble sons who tried to rid Iraq of this monster. His daughters may be in Jordan but we will seek them out. We are told that his wife is in Qatar. We will find her also.''

American and Iraqi officials are confident that the witnesses will testify next month. Their identities may be kept secret, their evidence given from behind a screen. Afterwards they would probably be allowed to enter a witness protection scheme. Although even this might not be enough to make Hatem's brother Ali take the stand.

"The soldiers will leave our town one day soon,'' he said. "Then we will be left to pay the price for being chosen to be the accusers. Even if Saddam has gone, the Ba'athists will live on.

"It might not be this year or even next, but we know that he can have his revenge. He abused us for so long and our fear is he will continue to do this, even from his grave.

"Even if Saddam is dead, he will live on in our nightmares and in the dark side of our souls.''

The Spectator
22 October 2005

Civil wars happen

It's been a good week in Iraq: a successful election was followed by the start of the trial of Saddam. But, says Toby Harnden, there is naked hatred between Sunnis and Shias

BAGHDAD . My driver slammed on the brakes just as we were about to enter the roundabout encircling Firdaus Square. It was the eve of the referendum at the site of that great televisual moment when Iraqis cheered as the towering statue of Saddam was pulled down by a US Marine Corps M88 tank. Ahead of me was the ugly abstract sculpture of a family holding a crescent moon that now occupies the plinth. But my eyes were focused on something else entirely — the man wearing a balaclava and camouflaged fatigues who was leaning out of a truck ten feet away and waving his AK-47 at us.

It happened too quickly for me to take it all in. There wasn't enough time for fear or evasive action. 'This is it, ' I thought, almost with detachment. 'We're being kidnapped.' My driver had frozen and there was nothing I could do.

Then I spotted a Land Cruiser speeding through the square, and other vehicles with gunmen leaning out. This was an Iraqi security convoy, probably protecting government officials, rather than a group of marauding insurgents encouraged by the multimillion dollar ransoms paid by the French and Italians to go out trawling for another Western hostage.

My driver was furious. 'F***ing CIA, ' he screamed, drawing on the American English he had picked up since the 2003 invasion. 'F*** you and your mothers.' It probably wasn't the CIA, I suggested, and giving them the finger wasn't a good idea.

Back inside the concrete cocoon of the AlHamra hotel, my translator agreed that the Central Intelligence Agency probably hadn't been involved, at least not directly. 'It was the Iranians, ' he said gravely. 'Those dogs in our government are in league with the CIA and Hezbollah and the Zionists to destroy Iraq.

They want to kill every good man in this country and put a Shia from Tehran in his place.' Both my driver and translator are Sunnis, part of the minority sect that makes up perhaps 20 per cent of the country (though they themselves believe they are 50 per cent, and therein lies part of the problem) and were favoured by Saddam.

Knocked off their pedestal of privilege just as the dictator's bronzed image was toppled in Firdaus Square, the Sunnis are still reeling. Emotionally, at least, many support the insurgency. Having not participated in the January elections, they have been ruled since then by a coalition dominated by religious Shia who were powerless under Baathist rule and spent years in exile in Shia Islam's homeland of Iran.

This is the Middle East, so the chaos and confusion in Iraq have created fertile ground for baroque conspiracy theories to replace the once pervasive notion that Saddam was propped up by America. Before the invasion, wrote Robert Baer, a former CIA operative, Iraqis invariably believed 'that dark unseen forces ran the world and history could be reduced to a series of conspiracies, interconnected by an overarching design known only to a few'. That much is the same.

Unfortunately, there is enough reality here partly to justify the myths and paranoia.

Score settling and sectarian killings are on the increase — 450 people were murdered in Iraq in the 19 days before the referendum.

Just before dawn on the day after the vote, a car pulled up outside a school in Baghdad's al-Jamia neighbourhood and a body was hauled out and dumped on the steps. Ali alMusawi's throat had been slit after he had been abducted outside his home as he was summoned to the al-Zahra mosque by the muezzin's call to prayer.

The corpse of the devout Shia was still there as the first children arrived for lessons.

His blood had coagulated in the dust; the black turban denoting that he was descended from the Prophet Mohammed swathed his lifeless head. 'Terrorists from there did this, ' said Abu Mustafa, a Shia man, jerking his finger at the al-Hassan al-Zaki mosque, where Sunnis were praying. 'They have been picking us off one by one.' Most of the sectarian murder has been Sunni against Shia, much of it part of the strategy of Abu Musab alZarkawi, the Jordanian fundamentalist who leads al-Qa'eda's wing in Iraq, to foment ethnic strife. It seems to be paying off.

But now ordinary Sunnis are dying too. A few miles away across the Tigris, in the alAdamia district, a grenade was thrown at Mauayab al-A'adami, a Sunni cleric, wounding his son of 12. Locals blamed Shia militiamen from the Badr Brigades who had infiltrated the police with the blessing of the Iraqi government, led by members of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). 'Badr are working under cover within the police to slaughter us like animals, ' said Reyad Abdul Khaleq, 19. 'We are stalked by elements from the shadows sent by corrupt officials from the ministry of the interior. They do not want us to be an Arab nation. They send out death squads in uniforms to kill us.'

A Western diplomat with 30 years' experience of the Middle East acknowledged last week that sometimes perception, especially in a place like Iraq, can be as important as reality. 'There's a perception that Sunnis get lifted and the next thing is they're found floating down the Tigris with a bullet in the back of the head, ' he told me. 'We need to address that.'

After a nine-month absence from Iraq, I returned a couple of weeks ago to find there was much that had not changed. The US Marines were still fighting with great bravery and effectiveness in Anbar province, alZarkawi's seat of operations, and losing men every day. There were queues for petrol, frequent blackouts and a chronic lack of foreign investment. The sound of a suicide bomb going off a few miles away still did not stop a conversation. And in the parallel universe that is the Green Zone, the prattle of happy talk from middle-ranking American officials continued unabated.

But what was different — and truly shocking — was the naked hatred between Sunni and Shia which is fuelled by the grubby backstreet killings that scarcely rate a mention even in the Baghdad newspapers. Rather than blaming foreigners for the violence — every act, it once seemed, was the work of an outsider — they are ascribing it to the opposing sect. Foreign bogeymen are still cited — as in the case of my driver in Firdaus Square — but when Sunnis talk about Iranians they mean Shia, and when Shias talk about Saudis, Syrians and Jordanians they mean Sunnis.

Of course, the sectional differences were always there. They were exacerbated by Saddam's perverted system of promoting Sunnis while at the same time, with diabolical cleverness, using terror to keep a lid on ethnic strife. American and Iraqi mistakes have been legion, but much of what is happening now is Saddam's legacy.

In January many drew hope from a successful election when 58 per cent of voters defied the insurgency and confounded the sceptics by flocking to the polls. Sunnis, however, stayed at home, either as part of a boycott or because of intimidation, and the Shia who won took the opportunity ruthlessly to pursue their own agenda. The result was a constitution that was anathema to most Sunnis because it replaced the tyranny of a minority with the untrammelled supremacy of the previously oppressed majority.

It was this travesty that prompted so many Sunnis to vote last Saturday – an engagement in the political process that was certainly welcome and could lead to a split between alZarkawi and the Sunni nationalists who make up the bulk of the rest of the insurgency.

Certainly, a No vote might have been disastrous, creating another year of political instability while bickering continued over a new draft constitution. The tragedy, however, is that a Yes vote might be equally dangerous, particularly because so many Sunnis voted No and feel cheated. The passage of time and many wrong turns along the way have meant that we may be past the point where success is achievable. Like a Rubik's Cube, every time one side of the puzzle of Iraq is lined up, on another side what had seemed OK is scrambled.

Reports of 99 per cent Yes votes in some provinces and the announcement that the result would be delayed did not help to assuage Sunni doubts. Nor did the ill-advised pronouncement of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, that the constitution would 'probably pass', even though initial counting was not over.

'Why do they tell us to vote if the Americans choose who wins anyway?' asked Loay Hamed, 29, a Sunni who served in Saddam's army. 'The puppeteers occupy our land and on Saturday they gave us a show of what their democracy means. They tricked us into legitimising a document that will be a boot on our necks.' Sunni tales abound of thousands being arrested so they could not vote, or ballot papers going missing.

Sunni angst has also been exacerbated this week by the start of Saddam's trial.

Privately, American diplomats fear that the court will dispense victors' justice, sending the deposed tyrant swiftly to the scaffold based on the 'satisfaction' of the judges rather than the Western standard of reasonable doubt. While the majority of Sunnis hate Saddam, many also love him at the same time — a kind of national Stockholm Syndrome that he bequeathed.

There are still reasons for optimism, however. A Yes vote might persuade the Sunnis to redouble their efforts in the December parliamentary elections and get their people into the new national assembly so that the constitution can be modified. This might further split the insurgency, even prompting the Iraqi nationalists to turn on the foreign Islamists and drive them beyond the land of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Ethnic divisions might be counterbalances, preventing the ascendancy of any one group. 'My brother and me against my cousin, my cousin and me against the stranger, ' is an old Arab proverb. The spirit of this could push Shia and Sunni to band together to hasten a political end to the US occupation, or to keep the Kurds in check.

Now that the Shia have had a taste of what they can do alone, however, they might be reluctant to bring the Sunnis back into the fold. Iyad Allawi, the former interim prime minister and, as a pragmatic secular Shia respected by Sunnis, the kind of man who might have helped save Iraq, told me last week that a civil war had already begun.

Having looked into the abyss, Iraqis could decide to step back. But the stench of death and the whiff of paranoia on Iraq's streets makes a much more ominous scenario just as likely. The Americans might be winning the war against the insurgency and could well succeed in introducing a kind of democracy, but to what end? The Iraqis are killing one another, and the bloodshed looks set to continue.

16 October 2005, Baghdad

Record turnout in Iraq's constitutional referendum

IRAQIS flocked to the polls in record numbers yesterday to take part in a referendum that the British ambassador in Baghdad said was a "sea change'' for Iraq.

The Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq said last night that at least 61 per cent of Iraqis had voted, an increase of three per cent on the historic parliamentary elections in January, the first democratic election since 1953.

There were no major acts of violence on the day. William Patey, British ambassador to Iraq, told The Sunday Telegraph that he heard gunfire from outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the British embassy is situated, shortly after polls closed at 5pm. "I thought it was an attack at first but it seems it was celebratory gunfire from people happy about the referendum,'' he said.

“Although it’s still dangerous, we can see it as a good sign. That was the only shooting I heard all day.”

He said there had been a two-thirds turnout in many Sunni areas, including Anbar province where "hardly anybody voted in January''. Mr Patey said: "Whatever way they vote, and people expect a majority to vote No in Anbar, it is a sign of engagement in the political process, which we expect to carry over to the elections in December.''

As part of a deal struck last week, the new parliament will have a four-month period in which to make amendments to the constitution. This was a key concession to the minority Sunnis who had strong reservations over the draft constitution, written principally by the majority Shia and their Kurdish allies.

Mr Patey predicted that elements of the insurgency could wither away as the result of Sunni political engagement. “There are parties in this process who have close links to the insurgents.

The justification for continuing with the insurgency in the face of a political process in which Sunnis are encouraged to take part will diminish over time,'' he said.

16 October 2005

IRAQ ’S minority Sunnis, who largely boycotted the country's election in January, turned out in force for yesterday's vote on the constitution as hopes grew that some insurgent groups were finally entering the troubled political process.

Polling centres across the country had reported no major attacks by late afternoon and violence overall was notably low by current Iraqi standards. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed by a bomb near the northern city of Kirkuk and four polling stations were attacked in Baghdad, wounding seven.

William Patey, Britain's ambassador to Baghdad, said: "Where we are now is a huge advance on January. We have got Sunnis involved. Even saying No is political engagement and a very significant development."

In the Iraqi capital, there was a noticeably more relaxed atmosphere than in January, when there was a 58 per cent turnout despite more than 300 attacks.

Many parents brought young children as they went to the polls to vote in the referendum on the new constitution. They praised the massive Iraqi-led security operation, in which borders were closed and private vehicles ordered off the roads.

Sheikh Suhail al-Jumailyi, arrested by US forces three times for his support for the Sunni insurgency, went to the polls in the al-Jihad neighbourhood accompanied by five guards. "We voted Yes because now we have got an agreement that we can have our rights as Sunnis," he said.

Abu Neama, a former Ba'athist and Saddam Hussein supporter, said he had voted No because it "will make us a Persian nation ruled by Iran and not an Arab country".

But if the constitution were approved, he said, he would vote again in December's parliamentary polls in the hope that it could be amended.

The signs of a large Sunni turnout will bolster the belief among American and British officials that the Sunni-led insurgency is now split. Islamic fundamentalists are thought to be vowing to fight on, while those of a secular Arab nationalist persuasion are anxious to make a pragmatic bid for political power.

One senior Western diplomat cautioned, however, that achieving stability was a "five- to 10-year project" and many problems, including rampant sectarianism, remained. "The insurgency is a phenomenon that will take some time to weaken and defeat," he said. "I don't expect the referendum to have an immediate impact on it."

With more than 60 per cent expected to vote, slightly more than in the landmark poll nine months ago, the constitution appeared likely to be passed overwhelmingly. Shia voters turned out in massive numbers, as they did in January, after Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's leading Shia cleric, declared it a religious duty to support the document. In Baghdad's al-Jadriyah district, Mohammed Abbas, 47, said: "Of course, I am voting Yes because it was ordered by the grand ayatollah himself."

As part of a deal last week, the draft constitution, drawn up mainly by religious parties representing the majority Shia and their Kurdish allies, can be amended by a new parliament during a four-month review process. The last-minute agreement was a concession to the minority Sunni community, who feel that the existing draft cedes too much power to Shia- and Kurd-dominated regions.

Those Sunnis who still oppose the document need a two-thirds No vote in at least three of the country's 18 provinces to get it vetoed.

In a sign of the continuing distrust between Iraq's two religious communities, some even drew sinister interpretations from the absence of violence yesterday.

"Why are there no explosions here?" asked Fouad al-Khafaji, a Shia coffee shop owner in Baghdad's Amil district.

"The simple answer is the Sunni have decided to vote today - whether to say Yes or No I don't know, but they came - and they don't want to kill their own families. This is evidence the terror is coming from the Sunni people."

16 October 2005, Baghdad

We have civil war, says ex-PM

IRAQ has been plunged into the “early stages of civil war” by its government’s policy of allowing armed Shia militias to infiltrate the security forces amid spiralling sectarian killings, according to the country’s former prime minister.

Iyad Allawi, prime minister in Baghdad from when the US government transferred power to an interim Iraqi government last year until national elections were held in January, gave a starkly bleak assessment of a worsening situation in Iraq that could lead to a “catastrophe”.

He accused Iran and Syria of interfering in Iraq’s affairs and assisting an insurgency that was “getting more sophisticated”. The policies of his successor Ibrahim al-Ja’afari, he said, could well result in the bloody break-up of Iraq into a Shia south, Kurdish north and Sunni central region.

Closely allied to the US and British governments, Mr Allawi is the most senior Iraqi politician to have said that civil war has become a reality and his comments, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, will cause deep concern in Washington and London

“This is one of the stages of civil war we are right in now,” he said. “Definitely, what you have is killings, assassinations, militias, a stagnant economy, no services. With the help of the world, we must try to avert moving further and deeper into these stages.”

He argued that while suicide bombs grab the headlines, the murders of Sunnis by Shia groups and vice versa was more significant and ominous. ““On a daily basis there are assassinations and liquidations.

“In Jordan I was told that the official figures of Iraqi students trying to move to Jordanian universities is 14,000. We have an exodus of doctors leaving Iraq. These are all the ingredients of much wider problems.”

US State Department officers and Foreign Office mandarins have studiously avoided even hinting that civil war – referred to by some officials as “the c-word” - is a possible outcome in Iraq. But diplomats are now privately conceding that a violent fragmentation of Iraq could take place.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable or even likely that we’re seeing a descent into civil war or chaos of the type seen in Somalia or Lebanon,” said a senior Western diplomat in Baghdad. “But you’d be a fool to rule it out.”

The diplomat said that Mr Allawi, a secular Shia who is respected by many Sunnis, could be prime minister again by January. “He’s probably the only credible candidate with national standing who could front a nationalist, centrist coalition.”

Mr Allawi, 60, backs a Yes vote in today’s referendum and although he has major reservations about the draft he believes its passage and the December elections signify that Iraq could be “moving in the right direction at last”.

But situation in Iraq was “very dangerous” because Mr Ja’afari’s government, widely perceived to have close links to Iran, had allowed members of Shia militia groups such as the Badr Brigades and the Mehdi Army to join the security forces without setting aside their sectarian loyalties.

“There are a lot of groups that have been integrated into the security forces, particularly by the Ministry of Interior,” said Mr Allawi, whose office is in a heavily-fortified street guarded by Iraqi security guards and American soldiers. “Sectarianism has increased. The role of militias has increased.” Every male member of his staff has a pistol.

Bayan Jabr, the Interior Minister, like Mr Ja’afari a former exile in Iran during the Saddam Hussein era, is a hate figure for many Sunnis, who believe he is in the pocket of Tehran and has allowed Shia murder gangs to join the police.

“Insurgency feeds on an unhealthy political environment,” said Mr Allawi. “The worse the unemployment and health services and water supply, the more their evil ambitions grow. They feed on this and are expanding and getting more active.”

Mr Allawi said he had been the victim of a “smear” campaign that resulted in several of his former ministers being named by Mr Ja’afari’s government as having been involved in corruption and misappropriating billions of dollars.

“You would need ships to carry this kind of money away from Iraq,” he laughed. “Their aim is to attack me personally. It’s unfair and it’s baseless.”

16 October 2005

Plea deal will see Aziz walk free in exchange for his testimony on Saddam atrocities

TARIQ AZIZ, once Saddam Hussein's most trusted lieutenant, has agreed to testify against the ousted dictator during his forthcoming trial for war crimes, according to his lawyer and American officials.

In return for his co-operation, Aziz, 69, Iraq's foreign minister during the Gulf war and deputy prime minister throughout Saddam's 24-year rule, will have the most serious charges against him dropped and be allowed to spend his dotage in exile.

The outline plea agreement, under which he will plead guilty to minor charges, was reached after more than two years of delicate negotiations during which Aziz also revealed important intelligence information. It could mean him walking free almost as soon as the trials of Saddam and his cohorts are over.

The man regarded as the Ba'athist regime's chief mouthpiece to the outside world will not, however, be called to give evidence against his former master this week. The deposed Iraqi leader is due in court in Baghdad on Wednesday accused of murdering 143 Shias in the town of Dujail, north of the capital, after a failed assassination attempt in 1982.

Saddam, 68, who is in American custody in Baghdad, has been linked to hundreds of thousands of killings but the Dujail case is being heard first because prosecutors believe it will be simple to link him directly to acts of murder.

He will eventually be tried on further charges of crimes against humanity, for which he will be sentenced to death if found guilty. It is in these more complex cases - involving the sanctioning of mass executions - that Aziz's evidence could prove crucial.

Badie Izzat Arief, Aziz's lawyer, said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that his client had "given them facts, well known facts" during more than 300 interviews with United States officials, including, he suggested, members of the CIA and FBI.

During the interviews, Aziz was questioned repeatedly about whether Saddam had signed execution orders. "They asked him whether the executions were decided by Saddam Hussein or the court," said Mr Arief. "He said that Saddam had the right to ratify or not. It depended on him." His client, he confirmed, would be prepared to state "facts" in his own trial and those of other senior regime figures.

He said that Aziz, who was "tired" and suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, was kept in a 12ft by 12ft cell and now wore a tracksuit. He had expressed a desire to move to Europe and to write an autobiography. Mr Arief expected the former Iraqi foreign minister to be sentenced to "time served" - about three years - and freed.

"He told me, 'If I am released, please take me straight to the airport' and, 'When I'm free I will write a book about the whole matter'. For humanitarian reasons he should be granted a visa in Europe because he has been attacked many times by the Iraqis now ruling this country."

Aziz, a Chaldean Catholic, changed his name from Michael Yuhanna to Tariq Aziz, which means "Venerable Path" in Arabic, at the outset of his political career. He has been viewed with suspicion by Sunni rejectionists since he surrendered to US forces following the invasion and formally identified Saddam after his capture in December 2003.

"Saddam should never have put a Christian in his government," said Saddoun Hail al-Aani, a former Iraqi army colonel who remains loyal to the former dictator. "He made a dirty deal with the Americans because he is a crusader like them. He is a spy, a traitor and a servant of the occupiers."

Aziz has long been courted by American lawyers and their Iraqi counterparts. Evidence from such a senior figure would add powerful legitimacy to any conviction.

A US official cautioned, however, that Aziz might change his mind. "Things are very delicate and a plea bargain is never sealed until the witness takes the stand and delivers his side of the deal." Aziz's son Zayad, in exile in Jordan, said his father would not give evidence. "He will not be a witness against anyone. He had no connection with the crimes alleged to have been committed by the military people."

Unprecedented security will be in place for the trial, which could last months. At least one new purpose-built courtroom has been set up in Baghdad, its precise location, for the time being, a closely guarded secret.

Saddam will be defended by a team led by Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi, but several international lawyers are expected to assist in an opening argument over whether the court has jurisdiction over the case.

Anthony Scrivener QC, who has condemned the proceedings as "a promising theatrical farce", and Desmond Doherty, who once worked on the Bloody Sunday case, have been invited to take part.

One defence argument is likely to be that the executions Saddam ordered in Dujail were no different in law from the 152 that George W Bush approved while he was Texas governor.

AMERICAN soldiers christened it Purple Heart Boulevard, in grim recognition of the tens of dozens of troops who earned that decoration by being killed or wounded there. Iraqi troops called it Death Road.

It was beneath a bridge next to the two-mile long street in January that three Iraqi election officials were dragged from their car in broad daylight by pistol-wielding insurgents and summarily executed shortly before the country's first democratic elections.

Today, however, Haifa Street is at peace. Along the pavements where a year ago no sane Westerner would dare tread, children play on bicycles and men carry watermelons home to their wives.

It is a small, but potentially significant, sign, and not the only one. Across Baghdad, the chronic traffic jams have eased after the government ordered, to the chagrin of taxi drivers, that only cars with number plates beginning with an odd number could operate on one day and even numbers the next. The Iraqi mobile telephone network is working and hotels have wireless internet connections.

"Life is much better," said Ahmed Mahmoud, 40, the owner of a supermarket on Haifa Street. "A year ago, most of my customers were either dead or too afraid to venture out. Things are still very bad in Iraq but I am beginning, slowly, to have hope once again."

Iraqis are preparing for a second exercise in democracy, when they vote on a new draft constitution this Saturday. If it passes, there will be an election in December for a parliament that will sit for four years. A No vote will mean an election for a one-year assembly whose task will be to come up with a new constitution.

Not all, of course, is going as well as Haifa Street suggests. There is growing tension, fuelled by fear, distrust and paranoia, between the minority Sunnis and the majority Shia, whose mass turnout in January's elections established a government that American diplomats fear is at least partially in thrall to Iran's Shia leaders.

A senior figure in Iraq's Interior Ministry spoke last week of an "undeclared civil war" between the rival Muslim groups. Opponents of the Iraq invasion often cite fears that it is a new Vietnam but senior coalition figures speak of an equally ominous comparison - Lebanon in the 1980s. Sucicide bombings make the headlines but more terrifying for ordinary Iraqis is the sectarian slaughter that takes place daily.

There are certainly Beirut-style signs on Haifa Street. Bullet holes pock the apartment buildings from where Saddam Hussein used to dispense patronage to Ba'ath party officials and members of his Sunni minority sect, and the stumps of palm trees hit by rocket-propelled grenades bear testament to the fierce fighting that took place there.

Over the course of a year, more than 160 Purple Hearts were awarded to members of the US Army's 1st Battalion of the 9th Cavalry while it was based in the formerly prosperous suburb favoured by the Sunni elite but fringed by poor areas inhabited mainly by downtrodden Shia.

Significantly, peace has been brought to Haifa Street by members of the Iraqi Army, given their own "battle space" there as part of the US strategy to prepare indigenous troops to take control when the Americans eventually leave.

"We lost many brave men here," said Capt Talib al-Qubaisi, leading an Iraqi patrol there last week. "But we drove the terrorists out. The people trust us, unlike the Americans, so we get information. If there is an attack being planned, we hear about it." He pulled out his Nokia phone and showed a photograph of a remote control device recovered a few days ago. "We used a controlled explosion to blow up the bomb after local people came to warn us." he said.

American officials hold up Haifa Street as an example of what can work in Iraq. Some talk optimistically of how the area has benefited from a $20 million (£11.3 million) programme to improve electricity, sewage and other public services, of having more trained Iraqi troops available all armed with better equipment as part of a £2.8 billion US-funded project.

They concede, however, that Haifa Street is an isolated example and possibly even an aberration. Gen George Casey, who commands US troops in Iraq, admitted to Congress recently that only one Iraqi army battalion could operate on its own and that the force "will not have an independent capability for some time". Many of the fighters based in Haifa Street were common criminals rather than the fanatical Islamists or dedicated soldiers from Saddam's forces who form the two most virulent strands of an insurgency that has claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 American soldiers and scores more Iraqi troops and civilians.

Some insurgent leaders in Haifa Street, like Abu Sa'ad, were assassinated in their beds by an undercover Iraqi army unit trained by US Special Forces. Many, however, fled to the western Anbar province, where Sunni insurgents continue to kill American troops daily. "Just like a balloon, you press on one part and it fills up with air until you put a pin in it and blow the whole thing up," said a US military intelligence officer. "You put a tight squeeze on one area and you force the resistance to another."

There is also a recognition that military victories, such as those in Najaf, Fallujah and Samarra last year, are nothing without a working political system. "This really is a political problem," said Mehdi Hafedh, a secular Shia and former Iraqi planning minister.

"You can achieve a security success here or there but unless there is a political solution the troubles will come back again." Whether the new constitution will represent a step forward towards a solution is doubtful. Although Shia and Kurds are likely to turn out in overwhelming numbers to ensure a Yes vote, many Sunnis are threatening to stay away or vote No.

Mr Hafedh, an exemplar of the educated, moderate centre of Iraqi politics, is deeply critical of the draft document, though he urges a Yes vote on pragmatic grounds. "The religious Shia parties [which formed the bulk of the Iraqi government after Sunnis failed to vote in January because of threats or a boycott] want to divide Iraqi society. They see us as Shia in the south, Sunni in the centre and Kurds in the north. This is very dangerous. You have to handle Iraq as one entity [otherwise] it institutionalises sectarianism."

He advocates the constitution being revised after the referendum as part of a "future battle" among politicians. "The people are really fed up. They are not in a mood to discuss this matter thoroughly. There is no security or stability and the issue is one of daily survival. They want this debate to be ended to pave the way for elections and normality."

Some American officials, however, are privately hoping for a No vote. "The Sunnis didn't have a chance to work on this document," said one long-time US adviser in Iraq who is a passionate believer in the Iraq project.

"The Sunnis involved in drafting it were not elected and therefore had no authority. A No vote would show ordinary Sunnis that the system can work and they do have a voice."

A two-thirds No vote in three of the 18 provinces would sink the constitution. But even a high turnout among Iraq's 20 per cent Sunni population, most of whom would vote No, might not be enough.

Such a high Sunni turnout, yet still a Yes victory, could lead to an increased sense of disenfranchisement, while a Sunni boycott and a Yes would strip the result of any legitimacy. "Either way it's not good," said the US official. "The Shia manoeuvring on this has been outrageous."

Distrust within Iraqi society appears to be increasing as sectarian killings rise. "The Americans are better than our government," said Tariq al-Juburia, a muezzin whose call to prayer summons Sunnis to the al-Jenabi mosque in Baghdad's Bayaa neighbourhood.

"Our government is torturing and killing Sunnis. The Americans would come and laugh with us and ask permission to enter. But the Iraqi Army kicks in the door and detains people for no reason. The government is working for Iran." A short distance away at the al-Sadiq mosque, where Shia worship, Sheikh Shakar al-Malmusawi, was incensed by these allegations. "If we are working for Iran then they [Sunnis] are working for Syria and Jordan," he shouted.

"These raids are because the Sunnis support the terrorists. How can we trust them? If these people continue to help the terrorists then the American occupation will continue and, yes, we will have a civil war."

Many Iraqis blame the Americans for a fixation on ethnicity. "From the beginning they were talking about Sunni, Shia and Kurd," said Dr Hafedh. "But Iraqis were not for this logic at all." Sgt Anwar Majid Hanoon, an Iraqi soldier who fought and was badly wounded on Haifa Street in March, said he was dismayed when he received US Army-issued dog tags with "Shia" stamped beneath his name.

"Before a raid, the Americans would choose only Shia to go with them. They did not trust the Sunnis because they had been for Saddam." Given the artificial Sunni hegemony maintained by the dictator, however, ethnic strife after his fall was, arguably, inevitable.

Baghdad is in danger becoming "Balkanised" as Shia move out of Sunni areas and vice versa. Even around quiescent Haifa Street, Shia are said to be trickling away. "There is more and more suspicion," said Husan abu Haider, 24, a Sunni whose Shia wife, Zaman, is expecting twin sons next month.

"When we met at university, the fact we were Sunni and Shia was not an issue." Today their mixed marriage means that their lives together and their future is uncertain, but he insisted that all was not lost for Iraq.

"To us, our love is what counts. If there is a civil war we will be together even if we die here. And we are calling our sons Haider and Abdullah - one Sunni name and one Shia. But what really matters is that they will both be Iraqi."