Latif Yahia

Anonymous claims Stratfor spied on OWS.

Latif Yahia — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:32:21 +0000

Anonymous claims Stratfor spied on OWS.

Protesters affiliated with Occupy Wall Street demonstrate during an Occupy the Courts protest outside Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse on January 20, 2012 in New York City

Anonymous promised that after hacking the intelligence firm Stratfor, called by some a “shadow CIA,” they’d prove that they were more than just a consulting firm.
Now it looks like the private company worked along with law enforcement in attempting to bring down the Occupy movement.
In some of the latest pieces of correspondence made public, however, information that many had already suspected about the role law enforcement played in infiltrating the Occupy Wall Street movement is brought to light. In an exchange of emails between Stratfor executives that has been published by hackers involved in the matter, employees of the firm go back-and-forth with one another in detail over information that Texas law enforcement supplied the firm after investigating an Austin Occupy meet-up.
In the emails, Strafor employees discuss intel about the Occupy movement that was supplied to them by a “Texas DPS agent,” or an officer within the ranks of the Lone Star State’s Department of Public Safety. The DPS is a state-wide law enforcement agency that investigates suspicious activity and allegations of terrorism within Texas. The question of why state law enforcement shared that email with a private intelligence firm is open to interpretation, but certainly suggests that attempts to understand and perhaps undermine the local OWS chapter was more than just a minor operation.
According to the documentation, which includes correspondence from late 2011, Stratfor employees discuss both Occupy Austin and the Deep Green Resistance, or DGR. While DGR is not directly affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, it is a similar movement — to a degree — that encourages environmental activism that isn’t present in more mainstream campaigns. In a press release, the DGR attacks both Texas authorities and Strafor for their newly revealed roles.
“Deep Green Resistance condemns the surveillance and infiltration of activist groups by law enforcement and private corporations and calls on activists and their allies to expose and protest this violation of all of our constitutional rights,” the group says in a statement published Thursday.
Rachel Meeropol, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, adds that she is outraged over how Stratfor and the DPS were in cahoots over infiltrating Occupy Austin.
“Law enforcement sharing information about local activism with private intelligence firms should be a huge scandal,” writes Meeropol in Thursday’s statement. “Privately funded surveillance and infiltration of activist groups is especially chilling, as time and again we see such corporations operate as if they are above the law and accountable to no one.”
In the emails, Stratfor staffers discuss how one of their own men went undercover to an Occupy Austin General Assembly and attempted to gain insight into how the group operates. Stratfor’s Scott Stewart writes that the movement is considered by some to be “a terrible threat to corporations,” but adds, “in reality, due to the history of anarchists, animal rights, anti-war and anti-globalization protesters, companies are well prepared for such hippy hijinks.” As the Occupy movement continues to thrive more than three months after Stewart shared such words with other Stratfor employees, it is clear that that isn’t the case.
In a separate email sent a month later in November, Korena Zucha of Stratfor writes that a Texas DPS agent has shared information about both movements. In it, Deep Green is linked with Occupy Austin, which DGR shrugs off as speculation. Representatives for DGR believe that the correspondence suggests that surveillance of both groups was ongoing.
In the back-and-forth, Stratfor staffers suggest that sources within Occupy Austin describe some of the DGR members as crazy, to which one adds, “that bothers me, because these Occupy people will tolerate just about anything.”
Stratfor’s Marc Lanthemann, who signs his email as a “Watch Officer” for the firm, suggests that coordination between the DGR and Occupy movement could have dire consequences. Lanthemann writes in one email that he thinks Deep Green is an “eco-terror group is focused on creating a situation where violent confrontation will be the ultimate outcome.”
“It doesn’t require an agent to get simple facts correct. Both of these assertions are just plain false,” responds DGR.

Inside the Iraq War.

Latif Yahia — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:16:03 +0000

For most of the last decade, Iraq occupied center stage in the Arab world, as it was swiftly invaded and occupied by American forces in March 2003 before being wracked by the insurgency that sprang up in opposition and then by waves of sectarian killing that grew into something close to a civil war.
Since the bloodshed peaked in 2006, order was gradually restored, though violence remained high by any but wartime standards. The fairest elections in the country’s history in March 2010 led to the creation of a government of national unity, although after eight months of political stalemate that played out mostly along sectarian lines.
On Dec. 15, 2011, the American military formally ended its mission in Iraq, one that cost the lives of 4,487 service members, with another 32,226 wounded in action; more than one million service members served in Iraq during the course of the conflict. Tens of thousands of Iraqis died in the fighting that followed, although there are no firm estimates.
The closing ceremony in Baghdad sounded an uncertain trumpet for a war that was started to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction it did not have. It ended without the sizable, enduring American military presence for which many officers had hoped, and with the country facing a political crisis.
Even after the formal withdrawal, the military still has two bases in Iraq and roughly 4,000 troops. At the height of the war in 2007, there were 505 bases and more than 170,000 troops. More than one million service members served in Iraq during the course of the conflict.
The end of America’s military involvement reflected the messy, sectarian state of Iraqi politics — both in terms of the political forces that led to America’s withdrawal and in the sectarian political strains that boiled over as soon as the last troops had left.

Rising Strife Threatens Tenuous Stability:

Violence and political instability have escalated across Iraq since the withdrawal of American forces, as political and sectarian factions have fought for power and influence in a struggle that, within weeks, threatened to undo the stability that allowed the pullout in the first place.
In January 2012, a Shiite governor threatened to blockade an important commercial arterial road from Baghdad to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north if Kurdish officials did not hand over Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi to government authorities. The Shiite-led national government has accused Mr. Hashimi, a Sunni, of running a sectarian death squad.
On Jan. 22, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the Americans had left behind a “budding police state,” with the country’s Shiite leadership increasingly ruling by force and fear. Insurgent attacks have surged across the country, and security forces loyal to the Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, have pressed a campaign against Sunni politicians.
The turmoil has come at a time when Iraqis had hoped their leaders would be emboldened by their new independence to tackle the nation’s multitude of problems — finally confronting the social, economic and religious divisions that were papered over by the presence of American troops.
But while there remains hope that Iraqis can still unite, the country is far from the “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” place that President Obama described at the time of the American military withdrawal.
The criticisms from Human Rights Watch were released in their annual report on human rights in various countries. The group said that the Iraqi government had significantly restricted freedom of expression in the nation over the past year and that security forces had intimidated, beaten and detained activists, demonstrators and journalists.
“After the formal withdrawal last month, the political clampdown has intensified, and Maliki has threatened his political opponents with jail,” the group’s Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in an interview.
At the same time, Al Qaeda has increased its attacks. On three different days in the month since the withdrawal, the daily death toll rose past 60, and on more than a dozen days the toll was more than 10. Without the help of American Special Operations forces, the Iraqi military and police forces have appeared unable to curb attacks on religious pilgrims, civilians and security officers.
As problems have persisted inside Iraq, its leaders have struggled to deal with neighbors, including Turkey, one of the largest foreign investors.
According to members of Mr. Maliki’s bloc, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called Iraqi politicians in mid-January and told them that they should peacefully deal with one another as they try to resolve their differences.
Around the same time, Mr. Erdogan called Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to express his concern about the tensions between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, warning that the crisis could lead to a sectarian war.
The calls angered Mr. Maliki because he felt that Mr. Erdogan, a Sunni, was criticizing how he was dealing with the country’s affairs. In a television interview, Mr. Maliki said that Mr. Erdogan was acting as though he controlled Iraq, and said that Mr. Erdogan should stop meddling.
The issue has lingered. Soon after, the head of Iran’s Quds Force was reported to have said that Iraq and southern Lebanon were under Iranian control. In response, top Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite politicians in Iraq called on Mr. Maliki to reprimand the Iranians as he had the Turks.

Widening Sectarian and Political Conflicts:

Within days of the departure of the last American convoy, the country was in political turmoil that was extreme even by its own standards. The Shiite-dominated government issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, one of the country’s most prominent Sunni leaders, accusing him of running a personal death squad that assassinated security officials and government bureaucrats. Mr. Hashimi denied the charges and accused Mr. Maliki’s government of using the country’s security forces to persecute political opponents, specifically Sunnis.
Almost as significant as what Mr. Hashimi said was where he said it: in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous northern region of Kurdistan. Because of the region’s autonomy, Mr. Maliki’s security forces cannot easily act on the warrant. Mr. Hashimi said he would not return to Baghdad, effectively making him an internal exile
The following day Mr. Maliki threatened to abandon the American-backed power sharing government created a year previously, and ward Kurdish leaders that there would be “problems’’ if they did not hand over Mr. Hashimi.
On Dec. 26, 2011, a powerful political group led by the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr called for Parliament to be dissolved and early elections to be held, the first open challenge to Mr. Maliki from within his Shiite coalition. The move by the Sadr bloc is not enough to immediately bring down the Maliki government. But even the prospect of a new vote adds more uncertainty to Iraq’s fragile political landscape, possibly setting the country’s main factions — Shiites, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds — and its byzantine networks of political allies scrambling for turf, influence, money and votes.
Less than two weeks later, Mr. Maliki’s government indicated that it was welcoming an Iranian-backed militia, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, into Iraq’s political system. The Shiite-led government’s support for the militia, which had only just sworn off violence, opened new sectarian fault lines in Iraq’s political crisis while potentially empowering Iran at a moment of rising military and economic tensions between Tehran and Washington. It could also tilt the nation’s center of gravity closer to Iran.
Asaib Ahl al-Haq — the name translates as League of the Righteous — broke away from the militia commanded by Moktada al-Sadr. The American military has long maintained that the group, led by a former spokesman for Mr. Sadr, Qais al-Khazali, was trained and financed by Iran’s elite Quds Force — something that Iran denies.
One of the deadliest insurgent groups operating in Iraq, Asaib Ahl al-Haq bombed American military convoys and bases, assassinated dozens of Iraqi officials and tried to kidnap Americans even as the last soldiers withdrew. Military officials said the group was responsible for the last American combat death in Iraq, a November 2011 roadside bomb attack in Baghdad.
Thousands of other militants, both Sunni and Shiite, cut deals with the government to stop fighting, and few officials see a meaningful peace in Iraq that does not include reconciling with armed groups. Yet critics worry that Mr. Maliki, facing fierce challenges to his leadership from Sunnis and even his fellow Shiites, may be making a cynical and shortsighted play for Asaib’s support. They say Mr. Maliki may use the group’s credentials as Shiite resistance fighters to divide challengers in his own Shiite coalition and weaken Mr. Sadr’s powerful bloc, which draws its political lifeblood from the Shiite underclass.
By doing so, Iraq’s government could embolden a militia with an almost nonexistent track record of peace while potentially handing Tehran greater influence in a country where the United States spent billions of dollars and lost nearly 4,500 American soldiers in nearly nine years of war.
Moreover, some American and Iraqi officials are leery about whether Asaib Ahl al-Haq is truly ready to forswear violence, especially with thousands of American diplomats and security contractors still in the country. Mr. Maliki’s attempts to marginalize the country’s Sunni minority and consolidate power have amplified their fears and, not coincidentally, precipitated a political crisis.
The arrest warrant for Mr. Hashimi that ignited the first spark of the the political crisis followed a near breakdown of relations between Mr. Maliki, a religious Shiite, and his adversaries in the Iraqiya coalition, a large political bloc that holds some 90 seats in Parliament and is supported by many Sunni Iraqis. Members of the Iraqiya coalition walked away from Parliament, accusing Mr. Maliki of seizing power and thwarting democratic procedures through a wave of politically tinged arrests.
In calling for the Kurds to turn over Mr. Hashemi, Mr. Maliki risked alienating a powerful minority that operates in its own semi-autonomous region and whose support he would need to form a new government without the support of the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya. While in the north, Mr. Hashemi is largely out of reach of Mr. Maliki’s security forces, and from there could easily flee the country.

A New Level of Insurgent Violence:

After the American military withdrawal, a fierce string of attacks occurred at the end of 2011 and continued into the new year, adding a new level of violence to the political and sectarian feuds.
In late December, the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq killed more than 63 people in a series of explosions that ripped through Baghdad, transforming the morning commute into a bloodbath. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been accused of trying to plunge the country back into a sectarian conflict by pitting Sunnis and Shiites against one another.
On Jan. 5, 2012, insurgents launched a series of bombings against Shiite pilgrims making their way to the holy city of Karbala for Arbaeen, one of the holiest Shiite holidays. According to security officials, 68 people were killed in the attacks and more than 100 wounded.
On Jan. 14, insurgents mounted another attack against Shiites, as an explosion in the southern city of Basra killed 64 pilgrims traveling to a mosque in the city of Zubayr, just west of Basra, to commemorate the last day of Arbaeen.
The next day, in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, insurgents detonated car bombs, and gunmen dressed as police officers wearing vests filled with explosives attacked a police compound where a top insurgent leader was being held, security officials said. Nine people, including five police officers, were killed; six insurgents, including three who detonated their explosives, also died.
No group claimed responsibility for the Jan. 14 or Jan. 15 attack, which appeared similar to others carried out by Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Crackdown on Foreign Contractors:

In the weeks following the military withdrawal, Iraqi authorities detained a few hundred foreign contractors, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty since American troops pulled out of the country in December 2011.
The detentions occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges were filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.
The crackdown came amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the U.S. military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of U.S. military operations for much of the war.
Just after the last American troops left in December, the Iraqis stopped issuing and renewing many weapons licenses and other authorizations. The restrictions created a sequence of events in which contractors were being detained for having expired documents that the government would not renew.
The Iraqi authorities have also imposed new limitations on visas. In some recent cases, contractors have been told they have 10 days to leave Iraq or face arrest in what some industry officials call a form of controlled harassment.

Negotiations and an Exodus:

In 2008, Iraq and the United States signed a status of forces agreement, negotiated in the last days of the Bush administration, that called for the withdrawal of all American troops by the end of 2011. But the agreement was reached with a wink-and-nod understanding that a politically palatable way would be found to keep a substantial American troop presence in the country after that date.
But a number of Iraqi political factions publicly resisted the idea of a continued American military presence — notably the Sadrists, led by Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric who has called on his followers to attack American forces if they remain after the deadline. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had gained a second term only when Mr. Sadr through his support behind him after indecisive parliamentary elections in 2010.
The departure of American troops had coincided with rising concerns — in Iraq and in Washington — over Mr. Maliki’s increasingly aggressive use of power. Frequent raids in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and the arrest of 600 former Baathists in November 2011, purportedly to head off a coup, fanned fears that Mr. Maliki will use the threat of terrorism and unrest as a pretext to strike political foes — and over whether Iraq’s fragile democracy will slide into a return to one-man rule.
Negotiations regarding American troops will continue. Possibilities being discussed are for some troops to come back in 2012, an option preferred by some Iraqi politicians who want to claim credit for ending what many here still call an occupation, even though legally it ended years ago. Other scenarios being discussed include training in the United States, in a neighboring country such as Kuwait or having some American troops come back under the auspices of NATO.
In the meantime, an agreement is in place to keep more than 150 Defense Department personnel, both military and civilian, in Iraq to secure the American Embassy, manage military sales and carry out standard duties of a defense attaché and office of security cooperation. They will operate under the authority of the State Department, which will be taking the leading role in Iraq.
Leaders among the Kurds and Sunnis would like some American troops to stay as a buffer against what they fear will be Shiite political dominance, coupled in turn with the rising influence of neighboring Iran. And the senior American commander in Iraq, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, had proposed keeping as many as 14,000 to 18,000 troops there.
Even as the military reduces its troop strength in Iraq, the C.I.A. will continue to have a major presence in the country, as will security contractors working for the State Department.

No Iraqi Spring:

The one kind of turmoil Iraq has seen little of is the pro-democracy movement that sprang to life in early 2011 across the region, the so-called Arab spring. In February, demonstrators turned out, not seeking to topple their leaders but demanding better government services after years of war and deprivation. But security forces responded with a heavy hand.
In a country where the demographics skew even younger than in places like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, the wave of political change in the region has laid bare a generation gap split by old resentments nurtured by dictatorship and war and a youthful grasping for a stake in the new Iraq. But the forces of youth are blunted by the same forces that have robbed Iraqi society of so much for so long — violence, a stagnant economy, zero-sum politics and sectarianism — and that have prevented a new political class from emerging to take Iraq into a new democratic future.

History of the Invasion of Iraq:
Almost immediately after ousting the Taliban from power in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — some argue, even before — President George W. Bush began to press the case for an American-led invasion of Iraq. He cited the possibility that Saddam Hussein still sought nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in defiance of United Nations restrictions and sanctions. Mr. Bush and other senior American officials also sought to link Iraq to Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Both claims have since been largely discredited, though some officials and analysts continue to argue otherwise, saying that Mr. Hussein’s Iraq posed a real and imminent threat to the region and to the United States.
In his State of the Union address in 2002 , Mr. Bush linked Iraq with Iran and North Korea as an ” axis of evil. ” In his 2003 address , Mr. Bush made it clear the United States would use force to disarm Mr. Hussein, despite the continuing work of United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, and despite growing international protests, even from some allies. A week later Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made the administration’s case before the United Nations Security Council with photographs, intercepted messages and other props, including a vial that, he said, could hold enough anthrax to shut down the United States Senate.
The invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003 — the early hours of March 20 in Iraq — when Mr. Bush ordered missiles fired at a bunker in Baghdad where he believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding. Within weeks, with a “coalition of the willing” and disputed legal authority , the United States quickly toppled Mr. Hussein’s government, despite fierce fighting by some paramilitary groups. The Iraqi leader himself reportedly narrowly avoided being killed in the war’s first air strikes. The Army’s Third Infantry Division entered Baghdad on April 5, seizing what was once called Saddam Hussein International Airport. On April 9, a statue of Mr. Hussein in Firdos Square was pulled down with the help of the Marines. That effectively sealed the capture of Baghdad, but began a new war.

Chaos and Insurgency:
The fall of Iraq’s brutal, powerful dictator unleashed a wave of celebration, then chaos, looting, violence and ultimately insurgency. Rather than quickly return power to the Iraqis, including political and religious leaders returning from exile, the United States created an occupation authority that took steps widely blamed for alienating many Iraqis and igniting Sunni-led resistance. They included disbanding the Iraqi Army and purging members of the former ruling Baath Party from government and public life, both with consequences felt to this day. On May 1, 2003, Mr. Bush appeared on an American aircraft carrier that carried a banner declaring ” Mission Accomplished ,” a theatrical touch that even the president years later acknowledged sent the wrong message.
In the security and political vacuum that followed the invasion, violence erupted against the American-led occupation forces and against the United Nations headquarters, which was bombed in August 2003, killing the body’s special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 — the former leader was found unshaven and disheveled in a spider hole north of Baghdad — did nothing to halt the bloodshed. Nor did the formal transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people in June 2004, which took place a few months after the publication of photographs showing the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib had further fueled anger and anti-American sentiment.
In January 2005, the Americans orchestrated Iraq’s first multi-party elections in five decades, a moment symbolized by Iraqis waving fingers marked in purple ink after they voted. The elections for a Transitional National Assembly reversed the historic political domination of the Sunnis, who had largely boycotted the vote. A Shiite coalition supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric, won a plurality, and put Shiites in power, along with the Kurds. Saddam Hussein stood trial, remaining defiant and unrepentant as he faced charges of massacring Shiites in Dujail in 1982.
A new constitution followed by the end of the year, and new elections in January 2006 cemented the new balance of power, but also exposed simmering sectarian tensions, as many Sunnis boycotted. In February 2006, the bombing of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra, one of the most revered Shiite shrines, set off a convulsion of violence against both Sunnis and Shiites that amounted to a civil war. In Baghdad, it soon was not unusual for 30 bodies or more to be found on the streets every day, as Shiite death squads operated without hindrance and Sunnis retaliated. That steady toll was punctuated by spikes from bomb blasts, usually aimed at Shiites. Even more families fled, as neighborhoods and entire cities were ethnically cleansed. Ultimately, more than 2 million people were displaced in Iraq, and many of them are still abroad to this day, unable or too afraid to return.
Arab and Kurdish tensions also ran high. In Mosul, a disputed city in the north, Sunni militants attacked Kurdish and Christian enclaves. The fate of Kirkuk, populated by Arabs, Kurds and smaller minority groups, remains disputed territory, punctured routinely by killings and bombings. After a political impasse that reflected the chaos in the country, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a little-known Shiite politician previously known as Jawad al-Maliki, became Iraq’s first permanent prime minister in April 2006.

At Home:
The messy aftermath of a swift military victory made the war in Iraq increasingly unpopular at home, but not enough to derail Mr. Bush’s re-election in November 2004. Almost immediately afterwards, though, his approval rating dropped as the war dragged on. It never recovered. By 2006, Democrats regained control of Congress. Their victory rested in large part on the growing sentiment against the war, which rose with the toll of American deaths, which reached 3,000 by the end of the year, and its ever spiraling costs. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death just before the Congressional elections, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned the day after the vote, widely blamed for having mismanaged the war.

In the face of rising unpopularity and against the advice of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of prominent Americans, Mr. Bush ordered a large increase in American forces, then totaling roughly 130,000 troops.
The “surge,” as the increase became known, eventually raised the number of troops to more than 170,000. It coincided with a new counterinsurgency strategy that had been introduced by a new American commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the flowering of a once-unlikely alliance with Sunnis in Anbar province and elsewhere. Moktada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric, whose followers in the Mahdi Army militia had been responsible for some of the worst brutality in Baghdad, declared a cease-fire in September. These factors came together in the fall of 2007 to produce a sharp decline in violence.
Political progress and ethnic reconciliation were halting, though, fueling calls by Democrats to begin a withdrawal of American forces, though they lacked sufficient votes in Congress to force one. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, an early opponent of the war, rose to prominence in the Democratic race for the nomination in large part by capitalizing on the war’s unpopularity. But by the time Mr. Obama defeated Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination in 2008 and then the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, Iraq hardly loomed as an issue as it once had, both because of the drop in violence there and because of the rising economic turmoil in the United States and later the world.

Bush Reaches for an Agreement:
At the end of 2007, Mr. Bush and General Petraeus had succeeded in maintaining the level of American forces in Iraq above what it was before the “surge” began. Mr. Maliki’s government, increasingly confident of its growing military might, expanded operations against insurgents and other militants that had once been the exclusive fight of the Americans. The militias loyal to Mr. Sadr, who had gone into exile, were routed in a government-led offensive in southern Iraq, though significant assistance from American forces and firepower was needed for the Iraqis to succeed. By May, the offensive extended to Sadr City in Baghdad, a densely populated neighborhood that had been largely outside of the government’s control.
American and Iraqi officials spent most of 2008 negotiating a new security agreement to replace the United Nations mandate authorizing the presence of foreign troops. Negotiations proceeded haltingly for months, but Mr. Bush, who for years railed against those calling for timetables for withdrawal, agreed in July 2008 to a “general time horizon.” That ultimately became a firm pledge to remove all American combat forces from Iraqi cities by the end of June 2009 and from the whole country by 2011. He also agreed to give Iraq significant control over combat operations, detentions of prisoners and even prosecutions of American soldiers for grave crimes, though with enough caveats to make charges unlikely.

Plans for Withdrawal:
The American military returned control of military operations to Iraq’s military and police on Jan. 1, 2009. The American combat mission — Operation Iraqi Freedom, in the Pentagon’s argot — officially ended on Aug. 31, 2010.
President Obama marked the date with a prime-time address from the Oval Office, saying that the United States had met its responsibility to Iraq and that it was time to turn to pressing problems at home.
The mission’s name changed from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn, and the 50,000 remaining transitional troops were scheduled to leave by the end of 2011.
At the end of June 2009, also in keeping with the security agreement, the vast majority of American troops withdrew from Iraq’s cities, garrisoning themselves on vast bases outside. Mr. Maliki declared June 30 a national holiday, positioning himself as a proud leader who ended the foreign occupation of Iraq. But Mr. Maliki’s fanfare about ending the occupation rang hollow for Iraqis who feared that their country’s security forces were not yet ready to stand alone. A series of catastrophic attacks in August, October, December and January 2010 — striking government ministries, universities, hotels — only heightened anxiety and suspicion among Iraqis.

Iraq’s Fractious Postwar Politics:
Iraq’s latest parliamentary election was originally scheduled for December 2009, but was delayed for months by political bickering. A parliamentary commission with disputed legal standing disqualified more than 500 candidates on the grounds they were former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party or remained sympathetic to it.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, hoping to build on his success in the 2009 provincial elections, sought to form a broader, cross-sectarian coalition that would include Sunnis, Kurds and other minority groups. Other parties followed suit, appealing for “national unity” in a country where it has rarely before existed, and only then a unity ruled by an iron hand.
They faced a formidable challenge from a coalition led by Ayad Allawi, a Shiite who served as interim prime minister before the 2005 elections. Mr. Allawi’s alliance, called Iraqiya, drew broader support across the country’s sectarian lines.
The pre-election turmoil unfolded against a backdrop of violence and intimidation, and a steady withdrawal of American troops. On Feb. 12, 2010, the Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent group that now includes the remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, vowed to disrupt the elections. While the level of violence plunged from the shocking carnage of 2006 and 2007, suicide bombers continued to attack, seemingly at will, plunging Baghdad into chaos on a regular basis and undercutting Mr. Maliki’s claims to have restored security. Political disputes between Arabs and Kurds in the north continued to fester, prompting the Americans to intervene. Mr. Maliki’s use of the military and security forces to settle political disputes also raised alarms, and put the Americans in the awkward middle.
Election Day in March 2010 was marked by violence that left at least 38 dead, but that did not dissuade voters from turning out in large numbers. The vote counting process proved to be more chaotic than expected, with accusations of fraud by leading parties, divisions among highly politicized electoral officials and chaos in disclosing the results.
The initial results showed the coalition led by Mr. Allawi taking a slim lead over the slate of Mr. Maliki. Mr. Allawi, although himself a Shiite, benefited from a surge in voting by Sunnis, many of whom boycotted earlier elections.
Mr. Maliki vigorously challenged the results, but Mr. Allawi’s narrow lead survived a recount. Mr. Maliki also forged an alliance between his coalition and the other major Shiite bloc, a move that cleared the way for a Shiite-dominated government for the next four years. Together they were only four votes short of a majority, leading many in Iraq to expect that a deal could be reached with Kurdish parties, once the Kurds extract new promises of expanded autonomy.
But as weeks dragged on, the Shiite alliance had not agreed on a candidate for prime minister, as many of its members strongly oppose giving Mr. Maliki a second term. The leader of one Shiite faction, Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric, even met with Mr. Allawi in an apparent effort to increase pressure on Mr. Maliki to step aside. American efforts to have the two men share power also failed to resolve the issue.
On October 1 it was announced that Mr. Maliki’s party, State of Law, and another Shiite party with ties to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr shut out a third, the Iraqi National Alliance, and its contender, Adel Abdelmehdi, in negotiations within the Shiite bloc.
The Kurds, with 57 seats in the new 325-member Parliament, emerged as powerbrokers in the final talks, throwing their support behind Mr. Maliki in exchange for holding onto the presidency.
The Obama administration had for months urged Iraq’s quarreling factions to create a government that included all major ethnic and sectarian groups, lest the country descend into the chaos that consumed it in the worst years after the invasion of 2003.
Under the new pact, the county’s current president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, remaiedn as president, solidifying the role of Iraq’s Kurds. The new government that will oversee the withdrawal of American troops on paper looked much like the one that has governed in the past four tumultuous years. But Mr. Allawi’s role in the new government was ill-defined.
Mr. Maliki was formally granted a second term on Dec. 21, when Parliament unanimously voted to accept the cabinet he had painstakingly assembled.
By the following summer, feuding between the two men had brought the government into a state of paralysis. Mr. Maliki and Mr. Allawi, who still refused to speak to each other, had not even been able to agree on choices for the two most important ministries, defense and interior.
Deadly attacks in August 2011 heightened political tensions as Mr. Maliki appointed a member of his governing coalition as acting defense minister. Sunni leaders criticized the appointment as reneging on the earlier political deal.

The Drawdown:
The protracted election turmoil, and the strengthened position of the fiercely anti-American Mr. Sadr, cast doubt on establishing any enduring American military role in Iraq after the last of nearly 50,000 troops withdraw. Given Iraq’s military shortcomings, especially in air power, intelligence coordination and logistics, American and Iraqi officials had long expected that some American military presence, even if only in an advisory role, would continue beyond 2011.
But strong opposition, especially from Mr. Sadr, complicated the question. Militias linked to Mr. Sadr produced a burst of violence against American forces in the spring of 2011, and he gave hints that he might renew such attacks if troops stayed on past the deadline.
Military experts and some Iraqi officials had said that U.S. forces should stay to help with tasks that included training Iraqi forces to operate and logistically support new M-1 tanks, artillery and F-16s they intend to acquire from the Americans; protecting Iraq’s airspace until the country can rebuild its air force; and perhaps assisting Iraq’s special operations units in carrying out counterterrorism operations.
But with the year-end deadline looming large because of the lead time the Pentagon needs to withdraw forces from Iraq, the combination of the political and logistical questions led to Mr. Panetta’s proposal for a 3,000-member training force, which analysts called a bare-bones approach.
But even that foundered in the face of the Iraqi decision to revoke legal immunity.
The departure of the soldiers is by no means the end of a large American presence. The administration had already drawn up plans for an extensive expansion of the American Embassy and its operations, bolstered by thousands of paramilitary security contractors. It also created an Office of Security Cooperation that, like similar ones in countries like Egypt, would be staffed by civilians and military personnel overseeing the training and equipping of Iraq’s security forces.
And the State Department was to assume responsibility for training the Iraqi police, a task that will largely be carried out by contractors. With no American soldiers to defuse sectarian tensions in northern Iraq, it will be up to American diplomats in two new $100 million outposts to head off potential confrontations between the Iraqi Army and Kurdish pesh merga forces.

Collapse of the Celtic Tiger

Latif Yahia — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:20:10 +0000

A look at how a former beacon of booming development and social prosperity has been plunged into economic desperation.

Ireland has been one of the largest casualties in the global financial crisis, which began during the banking collapse of 2008 and has continued to impact markets and destabilise the developed world ever since.
Following a government guarantee to underwrite the country’s six major banks shortly after the crisis broke, Ireland’s population of 4.5 million was shouldered with an enormous debt of €400bn ($515bn), proportionately the highest per capita commitment in the world.
Yet with bank liabilities accounting for an eye watering 309 per cent of GDP, it quickly became apparent that Ireland would fail to find its own way out of the economic downturn. As a consequence, in 2010, the EU and IMF stepped in to offer Ireland a rescue package worth €85bn ($109bn) – then one of the largest bailouts in history.
How different it had been only a couple of years earlier. Then the country was riding high, revelling in its reputation as the ‘Celtic Tiger’.
With low interest rates, upwardly spiralling property values and seemingly inexhaustible lines of credit available from the banks, for a decade the Irish economy had seemed to be a pin-up for the new age of market deregulation. With money so easy to borrow and fantastic returns apparently offered by even the most speculative investments, property developers became the new heroes of the economy – lauded for their ability to magic profits out of thin air.
According to one of them, Simon Kelly: “We didn’t think we were borrowing it, we thought our businesses were borrowing it for the purposes of owning buildings or building hotels or doing commercial activities, which we all did.”But it was not just the developers who were enjoying the boom; the country’s rapidly expanding middle classes felt richer too and enjoyed spending the money that seemed to flow so easily into their hands. With more consumers came more retail outlets, more hotels, more developments ….
Of course, like all bubbles, it had to burst eventually. And when it did the liabilities of Irish banks were so huge they threatened to take the whole economy with them – hence the government’s decision to prop them up.
The problem is that all this debt now has to be paid for, by higher taxes, reduced pensions and a shrinking public budget for things like social security, education, health and jobs.
The EU and IMF loans required the Irish government to hack public spending to the bone – by €12bn ($15bn) over the next three years. That may not sound like a huge sum of money in these days when international financial commentators talk blithely of trillions and quadrillions of dollars, but for a small country, with a population of only 4.5 million it is a huge sum.
And as the public sector has tightened its belt to meet these cuts, so the public sector has felt the pain too – businesses have closed, jobs have been lost and unemployment has soared. And inevitably the public mood has soured too.
In 2011, the Fianna Fail ruling party was comprehensively crushed in a general election dominated by angry recriminations over who was responsible for the crisis. But the problems facing Ireland have not gone away and as the years of austerity and cutback stretch out ahead, increasing numbers of young people are emigrating overseas, something that earlier generations of the Irish had been forced to do but which during the boom years had never seemed necessary.
Against this background, filmmaker Sinead O’Shea investigates how Ireland, once a beacon of booming development and social prosperity, could have reached such a point of economic desperation and asks whether the country can ever turn its fortunes around.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free.

Latif Yahia — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:07:17 +0000

By Jonathan Turley, Published: January 13

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rightsin other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

U.S. President Barack Obama supports the killers in Iraq.

Dirty Tricks and media manipulation.

Latif Yahia — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:10:31 +0000

Mostly when I write my articles they come easily, except the ones like Pass me the spinach where I bare a little more of my soul than I would really like to, but find that it’s just got to be done for clarity and maybe just a little closure. Some people can go through life happily with the usual milestones, birthdays, Christmases, engagement, marriage and of course children, but for whatever reason – I could get very philosophical here -that life just wasn’t meant for me. I have a very different life to many people, it’s not always been one of my choosing but it’s what I have lived and unless someone invents a time machine in the very near future, there’s no way that I can change what has already happened. But if they do invent a time machine and I can go back and avoid certain parts of my life in Iraq, believe me it will be the first thing I do. If however I am unable to change the facts of my life but just revisit as some sort of observer, I will do my utmost to get a signed, sworn statement from Uday Hussein and his father Saddam, attesting to the fact that I was Uday’s fidai/body double, because after 20 years suddenly my story is at worst, fabricated and at best, highly exaggerated according to certain journalists. It really makes me smile! Of course I made it all up! Uday was a great guy! all the women loved him, he was such a looker that I had to pretend to be him to pick up chicks! NOT! He was an angel and anyone who ever sought refugee status outside of Iraq because he tortured them, raped them or murdered a member of their family is a liar! He was so innocent that the American soldiers who shot him, his brother and nephew to death at the villa in Mosul should all be court-martialed. I am of course being sarcastic, It’s true I would have preferred to have seen Uday in court for his crimes and see him try to deny my story, but more on that at another time.

You see, when I first left Iraq in 1992 and up until 2003 I was considered useful, whether I wanted to be or not, or whether I co-operated or not- which I didn’t- my story backed up the American administrations desires to invade Iraq, unintentionally by writing my book in 1992 -the original Arabic manuscript- I gave them all the ammunition they needed to invade Iraq -except for W.M.D’s I never had clearance for that kind of information- but they couldn’t act on it then, they had to wait for the right time.
On September 11th 1991 George Bush Senior, then President of the United States of America gave his State of the Nation speech declaring his New World Order it took another ten years and a rigged election for his son George W. Bush to become President and the tragedy of the Twin towers for the dominoes to start falling.

George W. Bush

What surprised everyone was that I was not a supporter of the war on Iraq, I was against the regime but I didn’t want an invading force tearing my country apart, to this day I can’t understand why people don’t understand that.
I had always had a strained – we’ll call it a- relationship with the CIA, they’d say ” work for us”, I’d say “NO”, they’d say “we’ll make your life hell!” I’d say “fuck you! do what you want!” and they have, I’ve been held in a covert prison, beaten and tortured, I have yet to attain citizenship from any country even though I lived in Europe for the past 20 years, Ireland for 15 of them, the last two of those I spent dying slowly while waiting on a hospital bed -I’m still waiting- so I could be fully diagnosed with whatever neurological disorder I have – it’s “probable Multiple Sclerosis” but apart from the Brain lesions and the plaque on my spine ( which the Irish doctors tried to tell me and my wife “are within normal parameters”) my neurologist here is not finding things he thinks he should- still, at least I am getting treatment here, in Ireland it was left to my G.P. he did his best, but really all he could do for me without a diagnosis was just pain management. Strangely certain blood tests that he sent to the lab came back, destroyed/lost not once or twice or three times but four! Since leaving Ireland I have been diagnosed as a diabetic also, it seems that if I had stayed in Ireland much longer I may not have lasted much longer, maybe that was the idea?! Call me paranoid if you want, but when you have lived my life you know that there are no coincidences.
So where am I going with this? Well how do you silence a person like me? I blog, I write books, I have my own website, I have my Youtube and Vimeo and now there’s a movie based on my life story. These are all the ways people find me, with the birth of the internet the world opened up and you can find just about anyone, anywhere and because of this I have a loud voice in the world. What concerns the CIA is the support that people give me, they follow me on twitter, they are my facebook friends and they think about what I say, especially about the American administration, the CIA and Iraq, people ask me questions and are free to believe or not as the case may be. That’s dangerous, they have spent the better part of the last decade trying to make sure that we only know what they want us to know and think what they want us to think on any given subject. So what are they going to do about me? They are going to try and discredit me, make me out to be some “Walter Mitty” figure -and that term has been used- they are going to try and convince you that I made it all up or that I have exaggerated my story -the truth of the matter is I haven’t even told one tenth of my story- they want you to believe that I am telling you lies before I even open my mouth.

Wikipedia

How do they do this? because there is no oversight in journalism anymore, people who call themselves journalists write articles, they don’t really need any proof, they can use words like “source” “close aide to…” or “member of the Hussein inner circle” and try to make you believe that this person has “spilled the beans on me”, ask yourself this, why now? Why after 20 years? More and more people are listening to me and less and less people are believing the shit that they are trying to feed us. They will try and imply that I have some sort of mental illness or syndrome, ironically, because let’s face it how could I suffer from post-traumatic stress if I wasn’t tortured?? If you need evidence of any of this just check out the Wikipedia page about me, I didn’t set it up someone else did a few years ago, but just look at it… all you will find there is a brief history and then the allegations, backed up by the same two articles tagged repeatedly. Other editors have tried to remedy this by adding other articles by respected journalists like Marie Colvin, John Simpson, David Frost and Ed Bradley of CBS (RIP) to name a few, only to have those revisions deleted. Wikipedia is supposed to be balanced, my page is not! I happen to like Wikipedia, I find it useful but Wikipedia only works when the people who upload and edit the material are completely unbiased, this cannot be said about my Wiki page and if you go into talk you will see the “chat” between two editors, one talks more than the other, interestingly the one who chats the most says ”I left the page up only for the sake of poor saps who may be pulled in by this nonsensical claimsmaking in the future.” I don’t have a problem with additions to my Wiki page if they are accurate and balanced, everyone is entitled to their opinion but Wikipedia is not a place for opinion, it’s a place for fact. Not one person in this world is liked by everyone that is a fact, I don’t expect everyone to believe me either, but if you want to try and disprove my story bring me more than pimps who used to work for Uday, an ex- surgeon who was fired because it was found that he was stitching girls Uday had has his way with and who I had refused to help with his book and an ex- who hates my guts. You see that’s all that they have, even after the fall of Saddam no-one found one document disproving that I was the double of Uday Saddam Hussein.

Dhafir Mohamed Jabir

There are no photographs of Haytham Adjmaya or Dhafir Jabir the “sources” in Ed Caesar’s article because these guys know what they did when they were with Uday and know what would happen to them by the hands of Iraqis inside or outside Iraq if they were recognised.
A third Iraqi quoted as being one of “Saddam’s bodyguards for several years” has also said that Uday didn’t have a double, well, this “bodyguard” is none other than the guy who gave Saddam up, he gave Saddam Hussein his President up to the Americans for the 25 Million dollar ransom, to this day he hasn’t received a penny of it! You see nobody likes a snitch, the Americans kicked his ass to Jordan and from there he was taken to the UK and now lives under protection, but is dragged out every now and then to ‘make statements’ I can only presume that he goes along with it in the hopes that if he’s a ‘good boy’ he’ll eventually get his money. Betrayal runs in his family, his cousin Fetah Al-Sheikh was in command of the interrogation of the suspects of the assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein in 1984 and Al-Djeil he killed 28 people during his interrogations but after the invasion of Iraq and his cousins handing over of Saddam, the Americans made him an offer. They told him he had two choices, he could be tried for the murder of the 28 people OR he could make a statement saying that Saddam had ordered the execution of the 28 and he was offered the position of Interior Minister in the post Saddam government, Fetah chose to become a witness against Saddam Hussein. During the trial of Saddam it was found that Fetah had cancer, knowing he would never make it to the courtroom a video tape was made of his evidence from his hospital room, it was shown on a big screen at the trail, Fetah’s oxygen and medical equipment there for all to see.

Anyone who wishes to believe that I made this story up to sell books or make a movie – that would mean the I’ve spent the last 20 years waiting to make money that I’m donating to charity – here’s a piece of advice, don’t buy the books, don’t go to see the movie or buy the DVD, everything I do is free of charge, you can read it here and make your mind up, if you don’t believe me at least you may be entertained!

Eoin Butler

My body carries the scars and my mind carries the memories of the atrocities that I have witnessed and endured. In the past twenty years the only weapon that anyone has been able to wield against me has been the word of pimps and an ex, I especially liked the comment on Eoin Butler’s – who wrote the article in The Guardian – website that accused me of being Bi-polar, something that my ex has been diagnosed with. Unlike Ed Caesar’s article Eoin Butler’s pieces are filled with his “opinions” and “gut feelings” he may not like me, that’s his prerogative, but he really makes me laugh when he accuses other more respected and renowned journalists of not doing their jobs properly, his greatest coup was when my ex contacted him! His article in The Guardian is a prime example.
Ed Caesar wrote his article put it on his blog and left it at that, Eoin Butler on the other hand wrote an article about me in 2007 for a little known Irish magazine called Mongrel that was owned by an Irishman and a Palestinian, the Palestinian -who holds Irish citizenship- also worked supplying intelligence about other Arabs to the Irish Secret Service -there are only 11 people working in the Irish Secret Service, they need all the help they can get- Eoin then set about adding the article about me to his website, but he kept revising it, so what you read now is not the originally published article, he then continued writing articles about me, so far he has made me a weapons dealer, human trafficker, he has cast doubt on my education and generally called me a liar. Why have I not sued him? Well, you can’t get something from nothing and really he’s not worth any more of my time than what I am writing here. Eoin usually writes “fluff pieces” for whatever paper takes his work, the Irish Times and The Guardian being two, but his favourite subject is me and it’s usually the stories about me that get him published, investigative journalist he’s not, well maybe he is, he investigates pubs. Eoin’s greatest achievements are going for Mayoman of the Year, trying his hand at stand-up comedy and sticking links to his articles especially The Guardian one everywhere so that hopefully someone will actually read them. Eoin thinks he’s a journalist when really he is just another tool of the system.

No matter how many people are bought, I will never give up fighting for my rights in this world against corrupt governments, the Irish department of Injustice and the CIA.

This is Eoin Butler doing his stand-up comedy, I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to subtitle it in English.

Bearing witness to brutality in ‘Devil’s Double’

Latif Yahia — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:57:21 +0000

Double trouble: Actor Dominic Cooper plays both Uday Hussein and his body-double, Latif Yahia, in “The Devil’s Double.” Below: Uday Hussein was notorious for his mistreatment of women while his father, Saddam, ruled Iraq. Uday (along with his brother Qusay, and Qusay’s son Mustapha) was killed by U.S. forces in a house in Mosul, Iraq, on July 22, 2003. (C) FILMFINANCE VI 2011 — ALL RIGHTSRESERVED

Author Latif Yahia sends a warning to the West

Bearing witness to brutality in ‘Devil’s Double’

Friday, Jan. 13, 2012

By GIOVANNI FAZIO

Special to The Japan Times

“Should I ask him whether it’s true or not?” That’s the question I had for my editor regarding my interview with Latif Yahia, the Iraqi exile whose story about being the lookalike body-double for Saddam Hussein’s psychotic son Uday has been parlayed into a best-selling book and a movie. “Probably,” said the desk, “since there’s been some controversy around that.”

I needn’t have bothered asking. The first thing Yahia says as he eyes me warily — even before he lights up the first of many chain-smoked cigarettes — is that he’d done some research, and why did The Japan Times run a piece in which it printed that he “claimed” to be Uday’s body-double? What follows is a long diatribe against the pimps, paid agents, bitter ex-girlfriends, security services, and various other nefarious forces out to sully his reputation — which sounds quite paranoid unless, of course, you’re in Yahia’s shoes.

Allow me to back up a bit. Yahia, who fled Iraq in 1992, is back in the news because “The Devil’s Double,” a feature film based on his time living amid the Husseins as Uday’s body-double, is in the theaters. The film is directed by Lee Tamahori, best known for his explosive urban Maori film “Once Were Warriors” in 1994. It features an impressive dual performance by Dominic Cooper, who plays both Yahia and Uday. The film chronicles the impunity with which Uday could rape newlywed brides and torture men on cocaine-fueled whims, while Yahia had to stand by stoically, and worse, pretend to be this monster in the eyes of others. Saddam’s family hired many of these body-doubles for security reasons.

On the one hand, the release of the movie is a long-awaited achievement for Yahia, who was offered a deal from U.S. cable-TV network HBO in 1996, but declined because he insisted on no American financing for any film. As he puts it, “I don’t want people to think I sold myself to America.”

While “The Devil’s Double” has brought Yahia’s tragic story to a wider audience, it has also raised doubts. British journalist Ed Caesar, in particular, has questioned whether any of Yahia’s story is true, and other journalists have repeated those claims verbatim; Yahia is clearly on the defensive these days.

While any movie “based on real events” obviously takes its fair share of poetic license, I ask Yahia how much of the film rang true for him. “Maybe 60 or 70 percent,” he replies, “but like you said, it’s a movie.” Despite the fact that the English-language production must have distanced it from any real events to some extent, Yahia recalls how “the first time I watched it I took six or seven tabs of Valium to calm down, and I still smashed the bottle of water I had. My wife was sitting beside me and she said, ‘Calm down, it’s only a movie.’ And I said ‘No, I feel the torture. I still carry the scars from that.’ After that, for three days, I didn’t sleep.”

Wouldn’t it be better, I suggest, to put these traumatic experiences behind you at some point, and move on, rather than re-living them in books and films?

Living witness: Latif Yahia wrote “The Devil’s Double” in 1992 about his experience living life as a body-double for the son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. (C) FILMFINANCE VI 2011 — ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

“I can’t dismiss it,” says Yahia. “It’s a part of my life, and a hard part; it’s not like I can choose to just press delete. It’s still in my head; still I’m carrying the scars. To forget that … no way, I’ll take this with me to the grave.”

Yahia goes on to describe how, when he originally wrote his book (in Arabic) in 1992, “I didn’t write it as a book, just as memories, all these things, so I don’t forget it. Names, dates, all that. I never thought it would be a story that I’d carry up to this day I am sitting with you.”

Note: 1992. And in Arabic. And certainly not as a screenplay. Those are points worth remembering, says Yahia, when detractors like Caesar accuse him of making up the story for personal profit, which sort of assumes ex post facto that this personal memoir was always destined to be a cinematic cash-cow. Yahia bristles at the suggestion, saying “I didn’t do this story to sell it. I did it for a couple of reasons: One, to tell what’s happened to me as a human being. Two, to tell Western governments to stop supporting all these dictators. Three, to tell everyone, don’t let anybody rule your life.

“I’ve been victimized by Saddam’s regime; I don’t want somebody else to go through that. Maybe now we’ll start hearing stories similar to mine from Libya, from Tunisia, from Syria. All these sons of the presidents and kings behave like Uday.”

He continued: “People accuse me of making money, say that I’m a multimillionaire because of the book. But if you read my book, what do you see?” He proffers a copy, and sure enough, the front page states that all profits will go to a children’s charity.

Since the book was conveniently bandied about as anti-Saddam propaganda in the runup to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, one may wonder why it’s only now that Yahia’s crediblity is being questioned. Yahia claims that he was recruited by Western intelligence services and asked to train with Iraqi opposition forces in exchange for a British passport. He refused, and when he spoke out against the invasion, his troubles began. The cake-taker seems to have been an interview with a British daily right after Saddam had been captured. “The reporter asked me, what do you think Saddam would be thinking, sitting in his cell now? I said his cell is missing two people: Tony Blair and George Bush. Because the three of them are murderers of the Iraqi people. The day it was published, five hours later, I was deported.”(Yahia currently lives in Ireland.)

The case against Yahia, as presented by Caesar, is based on the testimony of some dodgy members of Hussein’s inner circle. They claim that Yahia was never Uday’s body-double, but merely an opportunist who used his resemblance to Uday to impersonate him, in order to pick up women and gain favors. After being caught out, this version has it that Yahia was imprisoned by Uday, before somehow managing to flee the country.

We’re entering “Rashomon” territory here (crossed with the film “Kagemusha,” no less), but this version has a few problems and Yahia is quick to point them out. For one, not many people who crossed the Hussein regime lived to see the light of day again after being jailed. Furthermore, Yahia’s book contains details that only a palace insider could know, many of which were confirmed after U.S. forces occupied the palace. “Was I psychic?” asks Yahia sarcastically. “How did I know these details if I wasn’t one of them? Even the paintings, or what the rooms looked like.” Yahia goes on to accuse his main detractor as being one of Uday’s pimps, a man who will do anything for money, and who has been paid to smear him because of his vocal antiwar views.

And vocal they are. Despite his hatred of the Hussein regime, Yahia — like many Iraqis — is equally angry about the war that has ruined his homeland. “Saddam, you know, he didn’t kill 1.5 million people in 35 years, but since the invasion up till now we have had 1.5 million killed. And 5 million refugees left Iraq. George Bush and Tony Blair must be hanged exactly where Saddam was hanged … I was laughing the other day when (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri) al-Maliki was in Washington meeting with (U.S. President Barack) Obama. How can the president stand in front of the media and say ‘We leave Iraq with our heads held high and we leave Iraq as an established country with an elected government.’ Is he on drugs or something? I’ll send him a private plane and tell him to go to Baghdad for two hours, free. Good luck.” [Note: the antiwar group Iraq Body Count put the total number of casualties from the war at 114,236 as of Jan. 2, 2012.]

One thing neither his success as an author nor the overthrow of Saddam has brought him is a ticket home. When I ask Yahia whether he ever hopes to return to his homeland some day, he laughs bitterly: “I am in a lose-lose situation. During Saddam’s time, I was a traitor. And now during this puppet-government time, I am a collaborator. I love my country, I love my people, but I don’t want to return to a country that has been completely damaged, where the people have completely changed, y’know? And even if I die, I told my wife, don’t bury me in Iraq.”

“The Devil’s Double” is now playing in theaters nationwide. Read Giovanni Fazio’s review on today’s Re: Film page.

THANK YOU AMERICA!

Latif Yahia — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:04:10 +0000

There have been a lot of people over the last twenty years of my life who have told me that I should say those words, others only hoped I would and more still believed that I never would. But here I am with them writ large as the title, you see, they are just words and it will only become clear as you read through this exactly how I mean them. Let me just say for clarification,( because I’ve had a few people recently tell me that I tar all Americans with the same brush, which I don’t) that when I say America, I do not mean every man woman and child that lives on the continent of America, I mean the Administration (and whomever happens to be the picture in front, presently it’s Obama) with special mention to it’s foreign policy. As the last troops pull out of Iraq to KUWAIT (so far away) but leave behind the biggest US Embassy in the world in Baghdad, you can’t help but see that it’s all just words. Recently when the Iraqis made comment about the 3,000 staff and 21,000 security that the American Administration were leaving in the Embassy in Baghdad they were told that if they didn’t like the US Army as security for the Embassy they (the US) could replace them with civilian staff (mercenaries). Somehow, somewhere, someone misinterpreted the whole idea of “leaving”. Leaving is everybody leaving, not 24,000 staying. But then, I have said it before, America never goes somewhere and leaves, look at Germany and Japan for instance it’s 66 years since the end of the Second world war yet they still have a presence in those countries. Sometimes I really do just sit and wonder, this isn’t news, so why do we not care? Why is it okay for America to get on it’s high horse about Human rights in other countries when compared to Europe for instance it doesn’t really have any and the great irony is that America never signs into Human rights legislation. Why have we let America become the police of the world? Historically America has never attacked a country that it knew could really fight back, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, it’s military capabilities and population were severely weakened after 13 years of sanctions, Iraq was a soft target, but I am proud to say not as soft as the American’s first thought. So after 8 years in Iraq they are “leaving” they have “installed a democracy” that’s a misnomer in itself and after all their drum beating about Iran have left them in charge of Iraq! If you don’t believe me, just the other week when Noori al-Maliki visited the graves of US soldiers, something I might add that he has never done for the soldiers of Iraq, instead of flying straight back to Baghdad he flew to Tehran to discuss what he did in the States and get the “Okay”. So Thank You America for getting rid of Saddam Hussein and replacing him with an Iranian government, and 300 members of Parliament who all want to be Saddam and act accordingly. Thank You America for finding, training and supporting Saddam Hussein in Egypt in 1958 just so you could oust the socialist President of Iraq. Thank You America, for being in Iraq for 8 years, leaving 24,000 soldiers and staff behind at your embassy and moving next door to Kuwait. Thank You America for not rebuilding Iraq, leaving it to the new assholes in charge who haven’t built a wall, let alone an infrastructure, Iraqis are very happy that they don’t have water, electricity or proper sewerage. Thank You America, because of the invasion of iraq in 2003 there are nearly 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, Saddam didn’t manage that in 35 years. We have 5 million refugees around the world of which only a few thousand are actually in America because America only takes the Iraqis who worked for them in Iraq as refugees, Europe has taken the brunt. We have over 1 million widows and orphans, another 3 million refugees inside Iraq’s borders because of the civil war that no-one acknowledges because it would “look bad” on America. Thank You America, for bringing democracy in the shape of men who sat in the UK , US, Canada, Sweden, France, Germany, Ireland and other countries, lived on social welfare, swore allegiance to that country and upon their return to Iraq bought votes with blankets, generators and white goods. Thank You America, for finding the weapons of mass destruction that were such a threat to your homeland that you needed to travel halfway around the world to defend yourself. Thank you America for showing me the true meaning of “Human rights” when the CIA had me imprisoned and tortured for ten and a half months in Vienna because I wouldn’t co-operate. Thank you America for making sure that I have remained stateless since my flight from Iraq in 1991. Just like you promised, you’re certainly true to your word in this case. Thank You America for letting Al-Qaeda into Iraq, we never had them before. Thank You America for supporting and training Osama Bin Laden, he did a great job against those Russians in Afghanistan, it makes you wonder why he turned against you? Thank you America for making Terrorism the disease of this century, you will have plenty of “terrorists” to fight as you have created laws that make people who speak out against “America” terrorists, what happened to the “freedom of speech and Democracy” that you go around liberating other countries in the name of? Thank You America for getting the media so “on-side” that we only really see and hear what you want us to, the only Free speech is the speech you decide is Free. Thank You America for dragging the rest of the world into economic chaos, you try to arrest the 99% and leave the 1% free to do as they please that’s definitely democratic. More liberties are lost through the ballot boxes than they are by tanks! Thank You America for creating all the Dictators of the last century and today, we know you’ve been having great fun going around liberating us. Thank You America, you’ve really outdone yourself this time! A special thanks to Mr. Obama the President of America, during his speech in the White House with Noori al-Maliki who was visiting, he said the following:

The Devil’s Double has been released.

Latif Yahia — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:24:29 +0000

The Devil’s Double €19.99 in stoc

Dear friends,

I have just been informed by the publisher that they have cleared all of the pre-orders! Thanks to all of my friends and family who have supported me. Thanks also to everyone who bought a copy of the Devil’s Double I hope you enjoy reading it, if you did, why not leave a comment on Arcanum’s website? www.arcanummediagroup.com
Best regards to all,
Latif Yahia

I want your opinion!!

Latif Yahia — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:14:11 +0000

A few months ago as you can see from the first date on his messages befriended me on Facebook, I get a lot of requests and added him. After I did he sent me the first message. I didn’t reply to it for two reasons, firstly Iw as very busy and secondly I don’t give out that kind of information to people that I do not know personally or have dealings with, you just don’t know who they are not matter what they tell you on Facebook!

What I want or should I say would like is for you to read everything and give me your opinion.
Here are his messages and my answer

Elliot Collier

Elliot Collier lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA.
• Al-Rashid 8/March/2011

Mr Yahia,  I hope this message finds you and is not dismissed by an assistant. My name is Elliot Collier; back in 2005 and 2006 I lived at the former Al-Rashid training facility in Baghdad described in your book (I was not a soldier). I am writing to inquire if you would be willing to provide some basic information about the facility such as former uses of the various buildings and things of that nature. If so I have several maps I can send for reference. I appreciate you taking the time to read this, I am a big fan of your books and blog, and I would be honored to have your assitance in this matter.   Sincerely, Elliot Collier  PS: I have also sent a request through your website via Mr. Rolls.

After I posted a photo on my Facebook page and on Twitter that I received from a Solider in the American Army today, he sent me this message.

I’m ashamed of you Mr. Yahia. I sympathized with your past experiences, but even still, how can you of all people attack America like this without pause? You know better than anyone that the actions of certain leaders, agencies, or persons are not a reflection of their country. Look at the atrocities committed by Iraqis, Afghanis, Iranians, and other people in the middle east; yet you are not posting pictures of their soldiers with dead bodies or slamming their governments. Why are you not outraged about insurgents decapitating civilians? Why are you not protesting Al-Jazira for broadcasting these murders? These pictures and videos do exist… why are you not posting them and condemning the terrorists? Why are we not to assume all Iraqis are murderous, barbaric monsters because of what Uday did? You criticize the US for invading Iraq but might I remind you if we hadn’t Saddam would still be in power, and Uday would still be alive. You claimed it was Iraq’s war to fight and the US shouldn’t have been involved, but do you really think anything would have happened? Who would have stepped up to challenge his power? I will admit war crimes were committed, on both sides; but these are not the actions of a whole people. I spent a year being shot at (by whom?) in Iraq yet never fired a shot myself. We were all taught to take the diplomatic approach first. I have befriended many Iraqis and even assisted several in immigrating to the United States. Does this place me in the same lot as the man in that picture because of our birthplace? Not all Americans are evil, just as not all Iraqis are terrorists. You cannot judge a country based on the perverse actions of a few deranged individuals (which again, exist on BOTH sides). Your hatred and negativity is what is preventing you from finding asylum in another country. Who would want a man who continually spouts off hatred at every government he does not agree with? Yes, you’ve been through some terrible situations that I personally cannot even imagine, but positive actions will carry you a lot further in life. You claim that out of you, Saddam, and Uday, you were the only one left standing… but are you? You claim to support peace, but nothing you do supports this claim. You are a bitter, resentful man that has no future if you don’t follow your own teachings and start practicing tolerance and not hatred. You are different than Uday… but are you any better?

Here is my answer to Mr. Collier.

I am ashamed of you Mr. Collier. To spout off at me with no regard or understanding of what I am saying to you or the world except your own vision, that I am attacking all the people in America. If you had truly read anything that I have written you would know that I continually repeat that I am not against American people, but I am most definitely against American foreign policy.
You say that you have been shot at yet did not return fire, that is because you are not a soldier, but I ask the question what were you doing in Iraq? Why would you risk your life in a barbaric country like Iraq, if it were not for the love of your country or maybe the huge wage that you were being paid to be there, I guarantee it was not because you loved Iraq, the Iraqi people or wanted to see us a free nation. Ask yourself this, how can we be a free nation when we were invaded by a foreign force without provocation?
Yes, it was for Iraqi people to depose Saddam, how can you tell me that we would not have had an “Arab Spring” ? Who would have thought that Mubarak would have been brought down by his own people? I cannot say the same for Libya as we all know foreign hands were a part of that also.
If America had not invaded and Saddam was still in power there would not be Sunni on Shia killings, people would not be being beheaded, murdered or paid to change their name from Sunni to Shia, Under Saddam no matter how much I hated his regime, people had electricity, clean water and medicines, the only time that they did not was under sanctions, yet another weapon used by foreign hands against the people of Iraq.
You accuse me of being bitter etc. I am not bitter, I am telling the truth, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that I am wrong and maybe you should take your own advice. As for the people you helped to Immigrate to America, well done to you I hope that they make you proud.
As for Al-Jazeera TV if you don’t know who is behind them and paying their wages ask your government. All of these insurgents and militias were made after America invaded.
Ask yourself this, if I had posted a picture of Iraqis standing with “job well done” smiles outside of a car with dead Americans inside how would you feel?, no matter what your politics or feeling for your government? Why is it that every other life has more value and is entitled to more feelings of outrage than an Iraqis?? Also if I had posted that type of picture you would have accused me of being a supporter of the insurgents, so really it’s a no win situation for me isn’t it? the best example would have been the photos that were put on the internet of insurgents who had killed Mercenaries in Fallujah, what did the American army do to Fallujah? They fired everything legal and illegal at it until it was not much more than powder in the ground, anyone who survived will see generations of their children disfigured and deformed from the chemical weapons that were used and until now Fallujah has the highest cancer level in Iraq. Those mercenaries were not even American or legally attached to the US forces. So again many were killed for a few.
So I stay true to myself Mr. Collier no matter what you think of me.
If you want to tell me that Iraq is safer today under the puppets that have been installed by America and it is not controlled by Iran then I think you need to take a step back and let yourself see things clearly.
Where do you think that I get these photos? I get them from other Americans who disagree with what is going on with their own people but are not in a position to do anything about it.
This is a quote from your message above:

“Your hatred and negativity is what is preventing you from finding asylum in another country. Who would want a man who continually spouts off hatred at every government he does not agree with?”

Firstly I am not seeking asylum, I have lived 20 years in the west and what I am seeking is Citizenship which I am entitled to by law. I do not spout off hatred at governments and even if I did what about freedom of speech or is that only for Western people? And if so, what is the point of bringing Democracy to the middle east if we are not truly allowed to practice it? Your words prove that anyone who had some sort of authority in Iraq be you a soldier/fireman etc (because let’s face it anyone who went to Iraq had authority over the Iraqi people) believes that anyone who had an opinion different to your American one is wrong! You see what I have learned in my 20 years in the West is that it is fine to criticize dictators, despots and tyrants but not democracies, which is strange because that is truly what democracy is all about isn’t it? So, although I understood perfectly well before, I am thankful that somebody finally said it out loud. It is more than clear now why people like Uday’s pimps, murderers from militias etc have attained Citizenship in the West, they are able to put their heads down and say Yes, yes, yes, that is until they get the citizenship and then you see them on Arabic TV (because after years they still can’t speak the language of their new country) saying things like “Uday was a Martyr” and “down with America”. What you see is what you get with me, I am not two faced.
As I said earlier, I HOPE THE IRAQIS THAT YOU HELPED TO IMMIGRATE TO THE US DO YOU PROUD.

As Mr. Bush, your President who began all of these invasions around the world said himself;

“If my country was invaded, I would be the first one to fight against the invading force.”

” They’re occupied (Iraq), they’re not happy about it”

Good day Sir.

I was Saddam’s Son

Latif Yahia — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 12:06:51 +0000

Latif Yahia

Anonymous claims Stratfor spied on OWS.

Inside the Iraq War.

Collapse of the Celtic Tiger

A look at how a former beacon of booming development and social prosperity has been plunged into economic desperation.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free.

By Jonathan Turley, Published: January 13

U.S. President Barack Obama supports the killers in Iraq.

Dirty Tricks and media manipulation.

Bearing witness to brutality in ‘Devil’s Double’

Author Latif Yahia sends a warning to the West

Bearing witness to brutality in ‘Devil’s Double’

THANK YOU AMERICA!

The Devil’s Double has been released.

I want your opinion!!

I was Saddam’s Son

This is a Teaser for the forthcoming documentary I was Saddam’s Son. The documentary is set for release in 2012.