The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has organised the first historical visit of Mithal Al-Alusi, President of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation and former director general of the Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification of Iraq as well as member of the IFIMES International Institute, to Israel. During his visit to Israel, President Al-Alusi took part at the ICT - 4th International Conference on the Impact of Global Terrorism (11-14 September 2004) as guest speaker and his remarkable speech met with loud applause. The Conference was attended by leading anti-terrorist experts from 33 countries, while the representatives of the Israeli politicians were Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, General of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya'alon, Otto Schilly, Germany's Minister of the Interior and other. Below is Mr. Mithal Al-Alusi's complete speech in which he presented the current situation in Iraq.
There might be a trust crisis between the politicians and the public in many countries of the world yet in Iraq it is a chronic crisis limitative and sceptical to the extreme. It is wrong if we throw this ill status only on Saddam's dictatorship regime and on the Baath and it's rejection of the sacred values, legality and humanity. Yes, the Iraqi people were buried alive, women were raped in front of their husbands and when an Iraqi was exposed of working for his freedom his family was executed even to his fourth kin.
Not only chemical weapons were used to exterminate the town of Helbecha but also the banned dirty weapons were used in more than 80 (eighty) Iraqi villages to spread fear and terror in the Iraqi soul in order give up and submit to the crimes of Saddam and the Baath. It's true that the Baathis have killed many Iraqis only because their religion was Judaism or because they were rejected by other races but the Baath and it is ill call. It is true that they ignited wars and true that Saddam's Baath killed hundreds of thousand not only in the wars but in the concentration camps and mass graves. All this is part of painful and bitter truth which can be compared to Nazism and Fascism, as if the world was still evaluating the human being not as an individual but on the basis of religion and colour of skin. Saddam's crimes were draconian and it is difficult to believe that something like that still exists today.
But are these crimes alone the source of mistrust between the Iraqis and the politics in Iraq? After 9th of April 2003 the Iraqis saw hope and dreams as they were witnessing the end of the Baathi Saddamist gangs. They welcomed the American soldiers and thanked them for weeks for bringing them freedom and rescuing their dreams. The Iraqis started to feel the freedom, pride and prosperity, the hope and the lucidity. The American administration and Bush succeeded in their war and the Iraqis understood it as a war against Saddam and the Baath. The surprise came when the Iraqis heard the American voice saying that it was invasion and a war against Iraq. The shock became greater and impeaching when the Bush administration agreed to name the American troops in Iraq not the liberators and advocators of freedom but the occupying troops enforcing foreign will which was, although salutary, still foreign enforcement.
The episodes of the catastrophe were completed by onerous mistakes of the civil administration of Garner or Bremer. The Iraqi law was revoked and they treated the Iraqi politicians as low rank employees and Iraq as disturbing inheritance. All those mistakes would have been normal in comparison with the terrifying disasters and the destructive inheritance left by the former Baathi Saddam regime because the Iraqi would have agreed to anything to be rescued from Saddam and the Baath. But what is happening is strange and no sensible Iraqi can accept it. The Baath criminals are walking around freely and impudently. And after a Baath leader was arrested the American authority released him and even allowed him to leave Iraq to enjoy all his stolen property freely despite the atrociousness of his crimes. The victims are awaiting someone who would give them justice, but the criminals are vaunting over their crimes. The Iraqis wonder what is happening. Some of the Iraqi parties blessed by the American administration are re-uniting with the Baathi well known killers while others profaned every public property and in weeks practice what Saddam's followers and Baathis used to do from stealing public property and take hostages for big handsome non the less the assassinations. We can say that the big vacuum that resulted from the removal of the a tyranny like Saddam's and a brutal regime as the Baathis generates mistakes and mistakes are in human nature.
If it was normal that Iraqis make mistakes, the question is to what extent it is allowed for professional strategists and politicians to make mistakes? And what is the extent of the negative effects of the professionals' mistakes? Despite the complexity of the issue, in order to comprehend the answer we have to deal with the most important question which is: What pushed the United States of America to exert all of it's diplomatic, military and strategic capacity and unbelievable funds, to lay out all the American capabilities at highest alertness, to sacrifice military and human casualties and accept the news informing us every day of the killing of many American young men in the Iraqi holocaust made by Arabic, Islamic and Fascistic terrorists?
It is naive to imagine that the Americans' aim is limited to protecting America from the terrorist Baathi Saddamist danger through abolishing the dictator regime in Baghdad, because abolishing Saddam and the Baath regime was possible through several other less costly means instead of defying the American administration public answer even before the operations. Do they want to make Iraq a democratic model in an aim to democratise the Middle East?
Once again we stand before the general answer which has a lot of shallowness which doesn't represent the professionals. Does democracy mean opening the door to implement the political game by choosing the leader, and what leader will it bring?
The fact is that the Iraqi political parties which are acting under the American umbrella now are of majority that possesses extreme ideologies and comprehends democracy as a means to reach authority. All these credos prevent freedom and refuse the logic of dialogue between the nations, because they see in Israel the main enemy with whom the final battle has to be fought. Here the Shiite and Sunnite Islamic parties and the national Arab parties share one goal, the bargaining and the weapon to win among other their instant political battles. The question which arises is whether the Baath and Saddam regime was removed so that another regime comes with the same extremist mentality calling for wars, though with the legitimacy of a democratic regime. Is this the goal? Is the goal to create legitimacy that calls for the removal of Israel or in other words to ignite the region and create the elements of terrorism and activate it under the veil of democracy, with American efforts, support and casualties?
The anti-Semite pivot in Iraq has on its side the classic Shiite and Sunnite parties and also the parties with Baathi origin which points to the striving of the prime minister of the interim government for the accord movement, in an ambition to satisfy the Baathists and gain them as an electoral and organisational base. Even the liberals like the accord movement and the national conference seeks to again the religious parties like shiaat and as it is with Chalibi and Allawi both are prisoners satisfying and gaining a larger share of the Iraqi street. In other words, they satisfy the fury caprice existing in the current Iraqi dual personality on the account of building an objective realistic policy, declaring its objectives for building a democratic Iraq far from the nervous fury. That calls for peace and sees the Hebrew state as a strategic and geographic neighbour and a partner in the formation of life in the region.
During my visit as the first Iraqi official on an unofficial visit to Israel I have noticed sharp features revealing the actual danger, an absolute and evident threat for the future. All Iraqi Arab and Kurd parties took the position of constant fight against any attempt not only that to fury attack because Israel visit meant to them the betrayal of principle. What peace will come through these parties and this democracy? As I member the Chalabi and the Shiaat parties ordered to discharge me from being the general director of the Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification and the government bidding come in when the intelligence apparatus in the new democratic state gave to the ministry of the interior a criminal manifest and the ministry requested from the central criminal court to incriminate me for visiting the enemy country. All my personal security was dismissed. Before the visit I had more than seven guards because the state recognised the dangerous nature of my duties and because I was a target for terrorists, while after the visit I was deprived of all the weapons and security and offered to the terrorist on a golden plate to kill me. In other words, every body is co-operating to disable the call for dialogue and peace. But we can oppose this conspiracy by the support of the intellectuals and a large number of Iraqis. But they can see and feel the danger because the war against Alusi is meant as an example for the people. This war is meant to arouse great fear of the traditional national and religious parties and also to present the reality of the possibility of building on the free Iraq desire, realising that the stability and progress of Iraq and to be in position with the developed nations means taking America a strategically and to adopt the logic of communalism and peace within and with Iraq and Israel as the foundation stone in the winning equation in Iraq future and the American interest in the region. This is also a means of speeding up the process of creating agreements for mid–term contracts for the American military existence in Iraq through rented bases through clear Iraqi sovereignty and interest translated to the Iraqi citizen in away that he can accept and feel the benefits. On the other hand, continuation of the current vague situation would mean provoking the state and creating a tense enemy to all attempts to vise with Iraq.
Dualism is a Middle East characteristic and political illnesses particular of Iraq. It can be explained through the lack of rational knowledge and more than three decades of undergoing oppression and terrorising exerted by the Baathi fundamentalists. Abolishing the Baath regime and Saddam does not mean that the Iraqi were freed from the dual personality and here is the actual battlefield for America to obtain the fruits of the victory and to transform Iraq into a state able to capacitate the strategic duties and the importance of regional alliance. Namely, Turkey, Iraq and Israel are ready, on the grounds of their geography, human and scientific resources, to create a Middle East axis to promote and work for peace and also to promote the security and economic natural growth. Such useful ambition and thought cannot be achieved unless by supporting the birth of the Iraqi pivot, that believes in objective reasonable politicsconsidering Israel a major key that has to be counted when reconsidering the region currently and in the future. The actual battle is between the forces of evil and god, between the supporters of objectiveness and peace on one hand and the supporters of war and stiffness on the other hand. The battle has be shifted to the Iraqi personality and the contradicting feature in the Iraqi duality has to be shaped. By speeding the process of accomplishing the daily needs of Iraqi citizens and envisaging the future, the Iraqi political guidelines should in a way guarantee the dignity and the Iraqi interest and build the Iraqi entity independent of the Arab nationality or regional Islamic caprice. The Iraqi personality possesses great capability to accept all that is new and useful and to build trust bridges between the Iraqis and the free world, especially America. This is one of the most urgent objectives.
The policy that America is following as an attempt to absorb the thoughts and extreme caprice has to be balanced with seriously supporting peace advocators and practical policies, because between the evil and the god there is a big gelatinous cut awaiting the victory of either pole.
The attempt to deny and ignore the possibility of direct peace between Iraq and the world and of making Iraq a normal state which would belong to the democratic nations including Israel is a terrible mistake that the Semites will pay the Jews or Iraqis.
