Sectarian killer running for Iraqi office

Hakim al-Zamili earned the moniker "the shredder" during the worst years of sectarian violence.

While Deputy Minister of Health he was accused of kidnapping and murder. Now he's running for Parliament in Iraq's national elections slated for March 7th.

Mr. al-Zamili has been accused by eye witnesses of orchestrating the infiltration of the Mehdi Army militia into the Ministry of Health (MoH) , complete with use of ambulances as kidnapping machines and ministry facilities as torture chambers. All while funneling millions of dollars in donor assistance back to the Mehdi Army and to himself.

Iraqi blogs and new sources say that Zamili tortured Sunni patients in hospital wards, and many Sunni's disappeared from hospitals in medical city, close to the Ministry of Health. That he participated in killing a pharmacist who witnessed a $6 million bribe from a medical supply company to the inspector general of the MoH.

It's common knowledge that he's ferried $60 million out of Iraq into a personal account, once kidnapped a Sunni rival vying for his position as Deputy Minister, and helped hide leaders of the Mehdi Army in a special ambulance.

It would all sound like the most incredible slander if one didn't know how bad sectarian killings were in 2005-'07 and how sectarian armies used government ministries as shadow institutions and arms of their own reprisals.

Bad man caught and released

Mr. al-Zamili became so synonymous with sectarian disappearances that when he was finally apprehended by coalition forces in 2008, families of Iraqis who'd long disappeared, hoped that they'd finally get some answers.

He was the first senior official charged with terrorism since the invasion, according to a Reuter's Feb. 17 2008 article. The arrest was seen as evidence that Prime Minister al-Maliki's government would no longer stand by while fellow Shiites propagated a sectarian war against minority Sunnis.

But in March of 2008, a three-judge Iraqi panel acquitted al-Zamili and the head of security on all charges, according to the AFP. Several key witnesses had received death threats and refused to testify. Mr. al-Zamili reportedly set up a tent outside his house in Sadr city to greet well wishes once he was freed.

Popular killer

He may be a killer, but he's a popular killer. Some would say he's a defender of his people, murder for murder. Now he's running as part of the Sadr block in the Iraqi National Alliance, the only other Shia coalition that could trump Maliki's Rule of Law Party.

Not to paint a broad stroke over all Shiite candidates in the Alliance as Islamist extremists. Iyad Jamal Al-Din, a Shia cleric and member of Parliament and also running under the Iraqi National Alliance, advocates a separation of church and state.

According to Al-Din's Wikipedia page, he's "on record as saying that his mission is to see an end to the corruption that has seen politicians subvert religion to their own needs, and use their sects to determine their success."

De-Baathification: the Swift Boating of secular electoral alliances

The word De-Baathification has subsumed all meaningful political dialogue in these upcoming national elections.

The Iraqi courts have blocked key Sunnis, labeled Baathists, from participating: a Feb. 25 International Crisis Group report characterizing it as, "...A naked power play with sectarian overtones in that its most prominent victims are Sunni Arabs, it also reopened old wounds and cast a troubling light on Maliki who only a year ago had won votes by eschewing sectarian rhetoric and has pledged to stitch together a broad non-sectarian electoral alliance."

But who's gonna vote?

According to the same ICG report, if the 2009 provincial elections had anything to teach, it's that Iraqi voters were more interested in security and keeping the lights on than in sectarian or Islamist candidates.

Shatha al-Abbousi, one of its parliament members, said: "The problem with the Islamic parties is that they failed. Since many people turned against them, they began to change, like Maliki, who now calls himself a nationalist. I am from a religious party, but I don’t like that name, “religious”. We are human beings, not angels. We make mistakes. When parties that call themselves Islamic are corrupt, it sends a very bad message. We are learning this in a very hard way."

What 2009 provincial elections results have taught:

--"About half of the registered voters went to the ballots, or 7.5 million Iraqis.

--Out of 418 lists only sixteen won seats... This means that 5 million Iraqis voted for nationalist lists and only 2.5 million for religious lists."

--"The scope of the prime minister's victory should not be exaggerated , however. His State of Law list won only 15.1 percent of votes nationwide... It can hardly be read as popular mandate."

Which leads us into these 2010 elections-

Maliki seems to have lost more credibility with the spate of recent bombings. Also, the secular strong man, Ayad Allawi-led Iraqiya party and the former ISCI and Sadrists coalesced into the Iraqi National Alliance Party, will split his votes.

Despite Al Qaeda' s threats, Sunnis say they will vote, but in what numbers is to be determined. This landscape combined with a strong Iraqi sentiment that the vote is fixed anyway and that all politicians are corrupt and detestable, will cause many to stay home on March 7th.

Who's gonna decide if the count gets close?

The fact that Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) immediately adopted the Accountability and Justice Commission' s decision to disqualify 511 candidates, forecasts problems if the March 7th vote is close.

The IHEC will be the arbiters of this election, and it's hoped that they aren't as beholden as Pres. Karzai's "independent election commission", and also that there will actually be international election monitors in problematic areas to prevent wholesale ballot stuffing and voter intimidation like in Afghanistan.

But voter intimidation has already started. Yesterday, March 3, a triple bombing in Baquoba killed 32, with the final bomber posing as a victim and riding the ambulance of wounded straight to the hospital only to pull his suicide vest inside, killing scores more. Today in Mansour neighborhood, we heard the blast from Baghdad's second attack of the day. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest near a group of soldiers proudly lining up to vote at a nearby polling station, killing six people according to the AP.

Deeper Analysis

Reidar Visser, the Editor of the Iraq-focused website Historiae.org, has some serious stuff to say about the current political process, and the power struggle between Iran and the U.S. over Iraq's future in a Foreign Affairs interview.

Visser says the U.S. has done relatively little to address the de-Baathification of candidates.. "The U.S. still possesses some leverage related to Iraq's debt to Kuwait and the Iraqi governments's desire to obtain U.S. military hardware; if used wisely, that leverage could be used to achieve institutional national-reconciliation aims in Iraq -- such as a revised constitution -- that in turn could help limit Iranian influence."

In the March 4th interview, Visser says Iranian influence has clearly been seen in the all-Shiite Iraqi National Alliance and the de-Baathificiation issue defining this election, which has prevented the al-Maliki's administration from forming a stronger bond with the nationalist and secularist parties. He sums Iraq's fledgling democracy soberly, "There is nothing to suggest that the political process in Iraq is 'on track' if you take a more detailed look. The widespread violations of the principal of due process in the exclusion of candidates under the pretext of de-Baathification are perhaps the best indicator of a political system in deep crisis. Only the most superficial analysis of what is going on would conclude that the current situation is democracy in progress."

Blackwater kicked out but not forgotten

(Photo: Private security groups say Iraqi Police and Army have treated them with more disdain at checkpoints since the 2007 Blackwater incident.)

They are perhaps the most hated Americans in Iraq.

Blackwater private security has long come to both represent the worst of American wanton destruction, and immunity to Iraqi law.

Most of the anger stems from the Blackwater guards accused in the 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square. A U.S. judge recently dismissed criminal charges against five of the guards based on testimonies of the incident that were given under immunity.

Scott Horton, an international legal expert, theorized the State Dept. deliberately sabotaged its own investigation by gathering the shooters statements under immunity and then allowing it to be used as testimony in criminal charges against them. The idea being, none of the powers in the Justice Dept. wanted these guys tried in U.S. courts.

Iraqis are furious with this whole show, obviously. Even after VP Biden personally flew here to vow to the Iraqi government that U.S. courts will appeal the decision, it all smells of stalling. And the Maliki administration, never above bringing whatever impassioned issue it can into the national elections, has ordered all private security guards who formerly worked with Blackwater to leave the country or face arrest, the Wash Post reported today.

"It applies to about 250 security contractors who worked for Blackwater in Iraq at the time of the incident," Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told the Associated Press.

But there are no former Blackwater left in Iraq, say private security who guard the same State Dept. clients as Blackwater used to. They say the security world in Iraq knew this order was coming months ago, and even the Blackwater helicopter teams have been cleared out by now.

(Photo: Iraqi Police in Ramadi. Police are known to give private security a hard time at checkpoints. A few months ago, a stand off at one of the entrances to the International Zone resulted in the capture of a security team and allegations of Iraqi forces beating them, before they were released.)

Back story of Nisour Square incident

The untold story is- the Blackwater team was actually leaving a USAID project compound headed towards the International Zone, on Sept. 16 2007 minutes before the shooting began.

I have lived on this compound on and off for a year. The private security company here is an American company, as the State Dept. requires, but the personnel are almost entirely South African and proud of it. They considered Blackwater a bunch of yahoos even before the incident.

(Diagram of the Nisour shooting.)

As more than one of these guys have said, the day of the incident, the South Africans told the Blackwater team repeatedly that it wasn't a good time to travel off the compound. A bomb had just detonated by the gargantuan unfinished mosque across the street.

The story goes the Blackwater team brushed off the warnings and offers to stay put, and road out the compound gates towards Nisour Square, that this hubris sealed their fate- sinking the company's billion dollar contract in Iraq and senselessly killed 17 people, where it has been proven time and time again no shots were fired at them.

(I haven't been able to confirm this compound story with the official reports. Other security teams confirm it's true. Some official reports say the Blackwater team was headed from the Green Zone towards the compound, instead of away from it. The NYT confirmed the bombing by the Rahman mosque.)

Blackwater penance?
Meanwhile, journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed the father of a 9-year old victim of the Blackwater shooting. The father- Mr. Kinani recalls opening the back door to his car after the shooting stopped, only to see his son's head slump over and watch his brain spill out onto the ground.

(Ali Kinani, age 9, killed in the Nisour Square shooting. See video.)

He also said the State Dept. offered him a $10,000 condolence payment, which he took, then donated $5,000 to a family of a U.S. soldier who'd been killed in Iraq. He said he always supported the U.S. Army's ouster of Saddam, and couldn't understand why Blackwater claimed his son may have been killed by a stray Army bullet.

A few years later a Blackwater country manager offered Mr. Kinani a $20,000 payment, and he refused to take it, saying all he wanted was a public apology from Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, for the death of his son.

"We don't apologize," the country manager said. Mr. Kinani is currently suing Blackwater and the shooters involved in U.S. courts.

Second American reportedly kidnapped in Baghdad, maybe

Baghdad- Another American was reportedly kidnapped in Baghdad yesterday according to unnamed U.S. Gov't. sources, but yet to be confirmed.

The source says the American was snatched from the International Zone, where most of the rumored kidnappings take place, making contractors and aid folks all the more fearful to leave the safety of their convoys, and more likely to pass the story on.

This follows the confirmed kidnapping of an Iraqi-American with the release of a grim terrorist-produced video, the likes of which we haven't seen for several years.

Apparently the man, a U.S. military interpreter, was visiting family in the Karada, a wide-laned shopping district, when he was snatched and put to use denouncing the American occupation and demanding justice for the victims of the Blackwater massacre in Nisoor Square.

(Issa Salomi, 60, shown in this video on Feb. 6. The first kidnapping of an American in Iraq since summer of 2008, according to Wash Post.)

The fact that the 60-year old man was last seen on Jan. 23 and the Pentagon didn't released the first official news of his disappearance until 12 days later, indicates there may not be any official confirmation of this second kidnapping for some time, if ever.

Want to believe it

Of course the second kidnapping could likely be a case of hysteria, following the confirmed one. But sometimes the sickness known as expat-ness in Baghdad- or the condition of being walled off from any sense of Iraqi reality while working for the State Dept. or USAID, makes one want to believe in the worst.

The resentment over the stovepipe existence and armored convoys that exemplify life on AID compounds and the Green Zone, have led to a deep cynicism about the future of Iraq, and a need to justify all these security measures, and therefore prove it still could be a very bad day out there for someone who looks North American, European or an Iraqi who just happens to have a U.S. Passport.

The doomsday scenario is fast approaching according to this mentality. And these past months have been brewing the perfect storm in Baghdad- coordinated mega-bombs, evidence that Al Qaeda or whoever, is again pulling the strings of misery, and the seeming improbability of an election made up secular, non-sectarian parties.

(Ceerwan Aziz Reuters Feb. '05- Pilgrimage to Karbala marked by self-inflicted blood and suicide attacks.)

Election flip floppage

It is a sketchy time in Iraq by any account- the bloody trail to Karbala last week, of pious zealots being blown up by nihilistic zealots; of coordinated hotel bombings that killed regular Iraqis instead of foreign journalists; of some 500 Sunni candidates thrown out of the March elections for supposed connections to Baathists, then reinstated by the higher courts, which drew howls of protest from PM Maliki's Dawa Party and accusations of the U.S. interfering. All American channels seem to support Maliki's main rival, ex-PM Ayad Allawi.

Now the courts will review reinstatements on a case by case basis, meaning more chances for Sunni disenfranchisement and sectarian violence.

"Why don't they let the people chose?" an Iraqi colleague said, disgusted with the throwing out of key Sunni candidates who would most challenge Maliki in the March 7th vote. It is perhaps the best summation of the populace's desire for a real, democratic election.

League of the Righteous

Back to the kidnappers. Naming themselves the League of the Righteous, a splinter group of al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, they were supposedly the same ones who carried out the brazen daylight kidnapping of the Brit consultant Peter Moore from the Finance Ministry in 2007 while disguised as policemen, later murdering four of his bodyguards who probably weren't deemed valuable enough to ransom.

Moore was released late last year, coincidentally with the transfer of their militant leader from U.S. custody to Iraqi custody. No wonder they're now back in business.

Beyond the obligatory U.S. troop withdrawal, this League of the Righteous is demanding the prosecution of Blackwater security guards involved in the 2007 shootout, and a compensation to the family of the 17 Iraqi civilians killed.

Video captures security fleeing seconds before Baghdad bombing

Baghdad- The Hamra Hotel, used by many foreign journalists, was one of three hotels hit in a coordinated bombing on January 25th. Sixteen Iraqis were reported killed and 33 wounded.

(As always, Baghdad is rife with rumors about the perpetrators and collaborators of these horrific attacks. This video leads an outsider like me to more questions rather than answers, but it does show what others are merely saying.)

This surveillance video, captured from a nearby hotel camera, was used by local police to analyze how Hamra security failed. The video shows what appears to be an initial distraction of the security guards, followed by the immediate failure on the part of the same guards to man the gates and/or block the passage of the bomb-laden vehicle.

The details- 00:40 Policemen can be heard analyzing the security camera video projected on a slide screen. First, they say- "They're shooting at them" (at the hotel guards)... we see the guards gathered towards the far left gate... "Here comes Abu Akhmed (head of security, dressed in black)... "It's calm after the firing"... "Here comes the Peshmerga (the Kurdish guards guarding the President's residency across the street." (who ask why the guards were shooting, the guards respond they were being fired upon.)

It appears that unknown gunmen started shooting to distract the guards, and possibly to waste their ammunition, then the Peshmerga arrive from the far left. Next, the first vehicle, the minibus, 1:05, to arrive at the gates is the bomber. The police ask the video to pause here to try to make out the license plate, which they cannot. The police ask why the normal rolling barrier isn't in place. (Some suspect an early video shows the outside gunmen actually opening the barrier). The guards claim the wheel on the barrier was broken and the hotel ownership refused to fix it.

Guards fleeing just before explosion- The bomber bus goes through unimpeded, 1:20 and immediately after it passes several guards begin running away from the checkpoint. The police say, and so it appears, they were warned by the driver, as in "I'm going to blow up the hotel..."

Rather than trying to stop or shoot him, they immediately begin running for cover. At least four of the guards have been arrested and are being held by the government.

The NYT reported the bomb left a crater 12 feet wide and 6 feet deep about 50 feet from the hotel. A nearby day laborer said he saw men in a car exchange gunshots at the checkpoint outside the compound and watched a second car speed through... but neither of the cars on the video appear to have been shot at.