Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
prompted speculation that Uday had committed
suicide. Mustafa, 14, was the last
to fall, firing from under a bed until he
was shot dead.
The U.S. is using intelligence picked.
up during the fire fight and in subs~quent
searches of the hideout to ratchet up the
pressure on Saddam loyalists. According to
a Pentagon official in Iraq, American forces
searching the house found a list of payments
made to family contacts throughout
the country after the regime fell. The value
of that information may overshadow the
strategic importance of eliminating Uday
and Qusay. What's more, during the sixhour
shoot-out, the brothers were constantly
on the phone, making panicked
calls to friends and supporters, providing a
windfall for the U.S., which had the house
under full electronic surveillance. The
military used the intercepted calls to track
down and arrest family associates with
knowledge of Saddam's movements, according
to a senior U.S. military official.
Some American officials interpret the fact
that the brothers were found together as a
sign of their desperation. The brothers'
original strategy, the military believes, was
to elude U.S. forces by hiding separately.
Saddam disappeared so effortlessly in
the days following the fall of Baghdad that
U.S. officials have come to believe he plotted
the escape months in advance, choosing
safe houses and dispensing supplies
and money to his most trusted henchmenand
offering rich bounties for dead Ameri-
,.
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A second threat to U.S.
forces carnes from volunteer
fighters crossing into Iraq from
Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
"For those terrorist groups that'
have clearly stated they are
going to conduct operations
againstthe U.S., this is the
place to come," said Lieut.'
General Ricardo Sanchez,
commander of coalition
ground forces in Iraq. Their
entry is hard to prevent.
"The borders are big and
porous," notes a senior U.S.
intelligence official. "Ifwe had
any ability to monitor the influx,
they wouldn't be in there." U.S.
. officials say they can't estimate
the strength of such fighters.
"We don't have the ability to
monitor that," says the senior
inteliigence official. "We do~'t
have regular numbers." But
foreigners certainly have been
amongthose killed.in military
raids. U.S. Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
testifying before Congress last
week, referred to a recent raid.
in western Iraq in which Egyptian,
Sudanese and Syrian passports
were found on the bodies of
dead fighters.
American commanders
also worry about the possible
dangers posed by a new "army"
being mobilized by renegade
religious leader Muqtada
al-Sadr, son ofthe late
Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who
.is revered by Iraq's Shi'ites for
his struggle against Saddam.
Two weeks ago at Friday
prayers, al-Sadr declared his
opposition to the Americanappointed
governing council
and the American occupation
and announced the formation
of a "peaëeful" army to defend
Iraqi dignity, cùlture and sovereignty.
He has since softened
his rhetoric, saying the force
will be armed only with "faith"
and that it will restrict itself to
public works.
AI-Sadr's grands~anding is
partly politics; he is trYing to .
. strengthen his position among
Shi'ite leaders. But few doubt
. his pulling power-hundreds of
thousands regularly attend his
sermons-or dismiss the
implied threat of an Iranian-'
style Islamic uprising.
As they struggle with myriad
threats, U.S~officials must tread
the impossibly fine line between
eliminating enemies and creating
new ones. In Tarmiyah,
a town north of Baghdad,
locals say American heavyhandedness
has provoked
them to take potshots at the
U.S. convoys that regularly
travel a nearby highway.
"Our people )()ved the
Americans as a"people, even
before the war, but now they
. do not, " says an elder who
declines to give his name. "The
resistance does exist, but it's
not to protect Saddam or
avenge Uday and Qusay. The
resistance 'belongs to the
community." A community
that's hard to fit on just one'
deck of cards. -Reported by
Hassan Fattah and Vivienne Walfl
Baghdad, Massimo Calabresil
Washington and Michael Warel
Tarmiyah
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