Ba'athist rejects Iraq's bomb claims
By Stephen Starr
DAMASCUS - From a dated cafe in downtown Damascus, Iraqi Ba'ath party member
Nizar Samarai is defiant.
"What happened on March 20, 2003, was a major assault on the Ba'ath party, 2003
was a hard year for us, but now, we have started to recover."
Samarai was general director of the Presidential Office and an advisor to
president Saddam Hussein until Baghdad fell to coalition troops that March. He
then went into hiding. Asked what he does in Syria, he says, "The government
doesn't allow me to
work. If they did, you wouldn't be getting this bill!" he joked, avoiding the
question.
The bombings of government buildings in Baghdad on August 19, in which at least
95 people were killed and hundreds wounded, sparked a major row between Syria
and Iraq.
Turkey and the Arab League have been drawn into the issue, attempting to bridge
the mounting tension between Damascus and Baghdad which has come despite ties
improving significantly in the months before the attack.
Friends become enemies
Commentators interviewed for this article said that in a meeting the day before
the bombings, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad for the names of 179 Ba'ath members thought to be hiding in Syria,
accusing them of being involved in attacks across Iraq.
Assad asked for evidence that the named men were indeed guilty of organizing
the attacks. Maliki presented none and left Damascus prematurely, apparently
fuming. The next day, one of the worst attacks Iraq has seen since the
occupation took place.
Syria, for its part, has said all allegations by the Iraqi government are
entirely false. "For Syria to be accused of killing Iraqis while it houses some
1.2 million Iraqi refugees is an immoral and politically motivated accusation,"
said Assad. Since then, Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem has met with
his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari in Cairo, but he said no evidence had been
presented to back up Baghdad's claims. A four-way meeting in Istanbul last week
also failed to resolve the two sides' differences.
Shortly after the attacks in Baghdad, an alliance of Shi'ite political groups
and figures was convened, which may well undermine Maliki's political
legitimacy in Iraq. Included in the "Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq" are
prominent cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Fadhila Party, and former prime minister
Ibrahim al-Jafari, among others. As politicians ready for national elections
expected to be held in January, personal weaknesses are being targeted.
Fadhil Rubayieh, an Iraqi researcher and author who writes for al-Arabi
al-Qatari and al-Jazeera.net, has doubts about Ba'athist involvement in the
attacks. "I don't think any Iraqi Ba'athist people were responsible for the
bombings - there's no way they could have pulled off something as big as that.
[It was] the biggest [bombing] in Iraq for six years."
Rubayieh looks to the past for pointers on the current crisis. "The same date
30 years ago - in the summer of 1979 - Syria's president was in Iraq to sign a
Pan-Arab agreement; within 48 hours, Iraqi president Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr
announced a conspiracy to change the Iraqi regime. Iraqi is again trying to
show it can stand up for itself."
A report by the Jamestown Foundation said members of the Iraqi Ba'ath party
based in northeast Syria would end their support for the insurgency in Iraq in
return for permission to participate in the political process. "Maliki does not
want to see the Ba'athists succeed in regaining any sort of political
legitimacy, and as such, blamed them for the bombing," said Rubayieh.
Reports say that during Maliki's visit to Damascus - the day before the bombing
- Assad pressured him to engage with Ba'athist elements, several of whom
operate in Syria.
Maliki makes Damascus a scapegoat
However, Maliki has plenty of reason to cast blame abroad. With coalition
troops having pulled back to military bases on June 31, the Iraqi government
has had its first real opportunity to show the international community it can
assert control over its own internal security. What followed were several
devastating bombings in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul, shaking the country's
confidence in the government.
Samarai is convinced his party had nothing to do with "Black Wednesday".
"Of the three branches of al-Qaeda operating in Iraq, I think the one allied to
Iran was most likely to have carried it out - a ton of C4 explosives and
$10,000 could only have come across the Iranian border and nowhere else."
Analyst Rubayieh says Maliki's accusations fail to stand up to scrutiny.
"Accusing Satham Farham [one of the two men named as having masterminded the
August 19 bombings] was a very strange move. Farham is a teacher with no
political tendencies or military links. As for Younis al-Ahmad, this man was
seeking to engage politically with the Iraqi government and it looks like
Maliki has finished him with this accusation. I think this may do more harm
than good for Maliki," he said. "It's clear Maliki wants to make this worse."
On the day of the bombs, Iraqi security forces say they caught suspects and,
within four days, they had extracted a confession from one, a former police
officer, that he had jointly masterminded the explosion with "Iraqi Ba'athist
colleagues based in Syria". The Iraqi government angrily and publicly demanded
Syria stop its support for "terrorist groups" and withdrew its ambassador.
Damascus responded in kind.
With Iraq sending thousands of troops to its border with Syria, and Maliki
claiming that "right from the start, we expected the Syrian side would not
respond positively to the evidence and demands from Iraq, and now we are almost
hopeless on this issue", relations between the two appear set for a freeze,
with this, Iraq's own security situation will likely remain precarious.
Samarai, who fled to Syria in November 2006, refused to give the names of other
members of the outlawed Ba'ath party hiding in Syria, but said that about once
a week they met to discuss various issues, from the future of the party to
"coordinating attacks" with militant groups in Iraq. "Here in Damascus we try
to hold meetings with various groups, including national resistance groups to
discuss our political and military goals," he added, conceding that the Iraqi
Ba'ath party was indeed involved in fomenting instability in Iraq.
Samarai also has his own ideas on the future of Iraq. "America is failing in
Afghanistan and so I think they will attempt to renew efforts in Iraq in order
to impress international public opinion."
The Iraqi Ba'ath party is essential, he said. "Half of the entire refugee
population living in Syria was members of the Ba'ath party before they left
Iraq, so we are looking forward with optimism."
With Maliki's popularity on the rocks, elections looming and the growing
strength of a coalition that includes militant cleric Muqtada, re-integrating
the Ba'ath party into Iraq's political scene may be something the United States
is forced to do.
Stephen Starr is a freelance journalist.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
Assad asked for evidence that the named men were indeed guilty of organizing
the attacks. Maliki presented none and left Damascus prematurely, apparently
fuming. The next day, one of the worst attacks Iraq has seen since the
occupation took place.
