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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 441-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism
Tuesday 4 May 2004 DR MAGNUS RANSTORP and MR M J GOHEL DR MUSTAFA ALANI and DR TOBY DODGE Evidence heard in Public Questions 152 - 204
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 4 May 2004 Members present Donald Anderson, in the Chair Mr Fabian Hamilton Mr Eric Illsley Mr Andrew Mackay Andrew Mackinlay Mr John Maples Mr Bill Olner Sir John Stanley Ms Gisela Stuart ________________ Memorandum submitted by Asia Pacific Foundation Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Dr Magnus Ranstorp, Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of Saint Andrews, and Mr M J Gohel, Head of the Asia Pacific Foundation, examined. Q152 Chairman: Gentlemen, may I welcome you to our Committee, the continuation of our hearings on the foreign policy aspects of the war against terrorism. It is my pleasure to welcome first Dr Magnus Ranstorp, Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, and Mr M J Gohel, head of the Asia Pacific Foundation. Gentlemen, an apology and explanation first of all. There is to be an important statement in the House at 3.30, so what I am proposing is that we adjourn at about 3.25 for half an hour until 4.55, and then we will continue for another half an hour or so after that. You are both in different ways experts on terrorism. What I would like to ask initially, to set the context, is if you would give your own impressions of the way that the terrorist threat has mutated over the recent past, the last six months to a year, and also to what extent Bin Laden himself is still a central figure. I recall before the capture of Saddam Houssain in Iraq it was said that if only Saddam Houssain were captured the position would be transformed, but alas, it has certainly not been transformed for the better. What would be the significance, in your view, if Bin Laden were to be captured or otherwise put out of action? Mr Gohel: First, it is a great honour to be here, and I appreciate your invitation very much. I think what we have noticed over the last few years is a change in perception. Basically, the situation has moved from the threat being from an organisation to the threat coming from an ideological movement, and there has been this recognition that we are dealing here with not one group, no single, central command and control structure, but a number of groups, autonomous, independent, but bonded together by an ideology. As far as Mr Bin Laden is concerned, I think there has been far too much focus on this gentleman from the very beginning. I think he has been raised into an international figure, an icon if you like. The reality is that Bin Laden, whether he is captured or killed, will die of old age at some point if nothing else. Will the problem of terrorism die with him? Of course not. However, his significance is that he is now very much a symbolic figure for the terror movement, and his capture would be very useful, but then there would be problems about what we do once we have captured him. I think we have to look beyond Bin Laden. He is important to the movement because he is a symbolic head, but he is not necessarily important to them for operational or logistical purposes. Q153 Chairman: What is the nature of the central headquarters, if there is such? Mr Gohel: There is not a central headquarters. There is a central ideology, and it is that ideology which motivates all these groups. Different groups, for instance Jami Islamiya (?), will act on its own in south-east Asia, as will Answal Islam (?) in Iraq, but they are all working towards the same aim, which is the destruction of the democratic secular world and the imposition of, Islamic halifats, Islamic superstates, and a fundamentalist lifestyle. Dr Ranstorp: I would agree with everything that has been said before in terms of Bin Laden's central significance. I think the real powerhouse, so to speak, in terms of masterminding complex terrorist operations is Ayman Zawahiri. I would like to make five points in particular. Very briefly, the first point is that Al Qaeda is as much of a movement, an ideology, as it is an organisation. There are two principal tiers of Al Qaeda. The first tier, the associates of Al Qaeda, the associates of Ayman Zawahiri, the individuals around Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, are planning and plotting to conduct spectacular terrorist attack against the United States. The second tier is what we are seeing in Madrid, in Turkey yesterday, in other areas around the world; in other words, an ad hoc constellation that shifts and changes according to circumstances. If Al Qaeda is as much of a movement, an idea, an ideology, then we have to look at this strategically rather than tactically. We in the West have a great propensity to think tactically, in four-year cycles, but Al Qaeda over time has the great capacity to potentially incubate and capture key states. This is what we are seeing in Saudi Arabia right now. It is also what we are seeing in terms of regime change efforts that are under way in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, against Karzai, against Musharraf. Secondly, creating the ignition conditions for fostering increased instability within states. Since 12 May 2003 Saudi Arabia has been locked into this conflict in an all-out war against the militants. The third point is that Al Qaeda-affiliated groups are calibrating worryingly, even in the second tier, towards strategic operations, so-called spectaculars. We saw that in Jordan recently, even though it is my personal belief that perhaps the chemical component of that was not as significant as we may have suspected. We also see that in the Israeli/Palestinian context: strategic operations by Hezbollah and Hamas cooperation. The fourth point is the globalisation of terrorism that we have seen, which is accelerating in areas where we do not normally focus and, more importantly, cross-fertilisation across different regions, the so-called crime-terror nexus. Then I would highlight two areas which I am particularly interested in: west Africa and Latin America, which do not figure prominently on that radar screen. Finally, Al Qaeda's current focus is to expand the battlefield to exhaust the enemy, to target the US interest everywhere, stretching the resources, increasing the fear element, internally within states, but more importantly, Al Qaeda have shown increased investment in propaganda to compensate for physical losses. Perception management is central to Al Qaeda's war against the West. Chairman: Thank you. I know colleagues will be ready to take up individual parts of that. Q154 Ms Stuart: I am assuming that you held this theory containing five points before the Madrid attack. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see whether the attacks in Madrid in March, which had some spectacular results, taught us anything new about terrorists, their capabilities, their methods, or their aims, or does it in your view simply fit in with the pattern which you outlined at the beginning? Dr Ranstorp: Of course, it did at the policy level, at the political level. We found it renewed certain partnerships in the European Union, and there was a renewed interest or awareness of terrorism in general. I think what it showed us, apart from the modalities, or the fact that they were Moroccans, Syrians, Tunisians, whether or not they had a connection to Al Qaeda central, was the worrying speed with which very sophisticated support mechanisms, logistical frameworks, managed to coalesce to put together an operation with extraordinarily devastating effect. Of course, the election issue created a contagent effect. I think in the United States they are worrying very much about not just the run-up to the election, the so-called October Surprise, but also the Democratic and Republican conventions that will be held, and there are great efforts being expended in trying to secure these. Q155 Ms Stuart: I wonder whether Mr Gohel agrees with that. Mr Gohel: Yes, I agree with what Dr Ranstorp has said. I would just add that what is interesting about Spain is the amount of planning that went into it way ahead of the time. As far back as December 2003 Islamic websites had produced a 50-page document entitled "Iraqi al Jihad, hopes and risks, analysis of the reality of visions for the future and actual steps on the path of blessed Jihad." That was the full title of a 50-page document. Eight pages were devoted to Spain, and in those eight page it laid out clearly why Spain needed to be attacked, why it was a weak link in the chain, why it would influence the election that was coming up following the atrocity of 11 March, and the intention was to influence Italy, Poland and, of course, Britain. It spelled out that it is a domino effect they are looking for, and Spain was the first tile in the domino. A lot of planning went into this atrocity. Q156 Sir John Stanley: You have both presented a fairly similar picture of Al Qaeda as a state of mind, an extremist state of mind, ideologically or religiously driven, a state of mind that admits of no compromise, no negotiation, wholly destructive in its intent. What do you believe should be the way in which our own Government - and that is what we are primarily focused on - along with the rest of the international community, should try and combat this organisation? Mr Gohel: The first thing that I would say is that on our side we have smart missiles and stealth bombers, which are of no use whatsoever in this war - and this is a war. It is a different kind of war, an unconventional war, but we have to recognise that this particular enemy is invisible. It does not wear a uniform. It does not identify itself. It is not located in any one country. There is no central command and control that you can eliminate and weaken the group. It is totally unlike the Basque separatists or the IRA or the Tamil Tigers. There is no quick and easy solution to this for a start. The only way we can fight this is on several different fronts. Firstly, it has to be intelligence-led operation. We need intelligence to penetrate into this movement, into the cell structure. To penetrate the IRA took many years, and there were not the same hurdles of language, race, religion or culture - though the Irish may say that there was a cultural problem; I do not know. In this instance, we do have all those hurdles, so intelligence is going to take time to build up. In the mean time, the security services have done a magnificent job. They have thwarted a great many plots. This is all we can do in the short term, to reduce the operational capability of the terrorists to try and make them think we now more than we actually do. In the long term, there has to be, as I think Dr Ranstorp was saying, propaganda, which is crucially important. On their side, the propaganda is working extremely well. On our side, we are not actually winning hearts and minds. We have to stop the recruitment of new generations of terrorists, because otherwise this is a problem which will never go away. The trouble is that this enemy has no finite number. It is not as if if we destroyed five per cent of the enemy, the rest would give in. For every single terrorist captured or killed, there is another one, if not five, coming along in the assembly lines. So we need to stop the recruitment, and to do that, we need the cooperation of all the countries in the world, in particular the Islamic countries, because a lot of the problems start from there. I do not want to go on too long here, but it is a question of democracy in these countries also. Some 2 billion Moslems are ruled in 60 countries, not a single one of which is truly democratic, except maybe Malaysia and Turkey. The trouble is the young men only have a choice between a despotic regime or the clerics in the mosque. If they are not benefiting from the despotic regime, they go to the clerics, and the clerics say Jihad is the way to prosperity and paradise, and that brings me to the point about these places of worship which are being used for political purposes. Spain and France have both announced that they intend to put certain mosques under surveillance, they intend to have clerics registered, to stop indoctrination and recruitment of new generations Q157 Sir John Stanley: Do you favour the British Government doing that? Mr Gohel: I think in Britain what we have seen what is known as "watchful tolerance", which basically means watching and not doing very much. Take the example of Abu Hamza. Here is a man who came from outside, and has been preaching year after year after year. He was finally arrested, stripped of his nationality, and he does not turn up at court, nor does his lawyer. Now the case has been postponed until January of next year, so he can stay here till then, and continue getting on with business as usual. We do need new legislation, new laws, to meet this threat. We need a fast-track system. Q158 Sir John Stanley: Dr Ranstorp, what do you think the British Government should be doing? Dr Ranstorp: I would agree with everything my colleague has said about this issue. Particularly, of course, it stems back to the grand strategic issues of addressing the root causes of terrorism. They are very long-ranging. Particularly, of course, we have to deal with recruitment. I think we have an advantage here in the United Kingdom in terms of the structures that have been put in place by the intelligence service. We really are looking for the old generation, the individuals that have been associated with Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Afghanistan, Pakistan, but also we have to think about this issue strategically, about how we prevent the next generation from heeding this call that exists, physically in the case of certain extremist clerics, but I think we have addressed this issue quite forcefully in this country. More importantly, how do we also address the issue of the next generation of disaffected youths? There is no simple solution to this issue in terms of magic bullet in terms of just expelling extremist clerics, as has been the case in France and in other countries, but I think we need to think very hard and carefully how we can address Al Qaeda much more effectively within our countries, to foster dialogue amongst different ethnic and religious communities, but also between different countries. This is the great weakness we have in the war against terrorism, in addressing the strategic message that is being offered. Let me make that perhaps a bit more relevant to what we are seeing today. We are waiting for the pictures from Iraq, or for a statement from the MoD about this issue. Whether these pictures are genuine or not, we are losing the battle, not just over the pictures and their effect, but also in general, in crafting messages that are socially, politically and culturally relevant to a very young population which is disaffected with the West. Q159 Mr Hamilton: Can I move on to Iraq now. Mr Gohel, I think you wrote that any setback, even a minor, temporary one, for the US in Iraq or Afghanistan will only serve to encourage the global Jihad movement to become bolder and much more lethal. I wondered whether you thought that Iraq has acted as a focal point for international terrorism. Mr Gohel: This is an issue that has been raised quite a lot recently. Terrorism would have existed with or without Iraq. It is not as if Iraq has created a new situation, but Iraq is becoming a battle ground. As my colleague was saying earlier, the aim of Al Qaeda and its affiliates is to hit at US interests wherever they can, and of course, in Iraq they are out there, exposed, and an easy target. A lot of foreign Islamic fighters have moved into Iraq from all over the world, in particular, one individual, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is linked to the Ansar al Islam group as well as to Al Qaeda. He is now being regarded as a very dangerous individual, as dangerous as Bin Laden. He has been busy recruiting in Europe, has sent fighters into Iraq, and now, whether it was right to go into Iraq or not, or whether it could have been done differently is a matter for historians to discuss. The question is what do we do now? If there is any setback in Iraq, it will make the terror movement much stronger. It would be a tragedy if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq, because Iraq will then turn into another Taliban Afghanistan, it will turn into another cesspool, another breeding ground, which would be a tragedy for the Iraqis, for the region, and eventually for the international community, and Iraq will have to be revisited in the future. Because the situation has deteriorated in Iraq, it is also now beginning to deteriorate in Afghanistan. Spain's decision was understandable given what the opposition party had said during the election, but the haste with which it was announced sent out the worst possible message. This has made the terror movement bolder. It is vitally important to turn Iraq around into a successful, prosperous, democratic state, and it is rather sad that a number of leading European nations are sitting on the sidelines, rubbing their hands at the discomfiture of both Britain and the USA, not realising that this is going to hit them also eventually. I think their glee will be very short-lived unless they start to contribute, and I am rather surprised they do not understand the importance of Iraq. Q160 Mr Hamilton: May I ask either of you to answer the question what do you think the aim of the terrorists is in Iraq? Are they trying to do exactly what you have suggested, Mr Gohel, which is to create the cesspool as we saw in Afghanistan, or are they trying to use Iraq as a springboard for the globalisation of terror? Mr Gohel: Terrorists are individuals of opportunity. They saw an opportunity in Iraq, so they have taken full advantage of it, and yes, indeed, they do want to prevent the reconstruction of Iraq, they do not want any kind of stability there, because terrorism breeds best where there is a lack of law and order. Chairman: Gentlemen, I am afraid we have come to the time where we adjourn. Can I say that we have gallery tickets for our witnesses. The Committee suspended from 3.25 pm to 3.55 pm for a Statement in the House Q161 Mr Hamilton: Gentlemen, we were discussing the role of Iraq in the world of international terrorism, and I wanted to go on to ask you how important you thought what actually happens in Iraq is to global terrorism. Mr Gohel: I think I said a few words before we adjourned. Dr Ranstorp: I think Iraq has become the new battle zone, the new recruitment sergeant for the Jihadists. We should not over-estimate the numbers that are there. Certainly, from anecdotal evidence that I have had, speaking with individuals out there, there seems to be a concentration of individuals coming from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as from Syria, and that includes using Syria as a launch pad. On the operational level, they are certainly a factor, but we have the indigenous group, Ansar al Islam, that has also been crippled from the security point of view, despite what happened yesterday. It is very difficult to discern - and I know the Committee is having a meeting immediately after this about Iraq and terrorism - and perhaps experts looking at that issue will be able to discern the contours, but from my conversations with individuals who are serving out there, as well as other non-governmental organisations, it is a mosaic of different reasons, criminal reasons: individuals pay certain bomb makers to make devices, and they are doing it purely for commercial profit. The foreign Jihadists are there, putting together quite complex operations, particularly using secondary IEDs, improvised explosive devices. So it is a very tough security environment. I think they will try their hardest to use that politically against the United States, with the forthcoming election, not necessarily expel them but certainly to draw them into the US's own Vietnam war so to speak, but certainly it is one of the conflict zones that are very important, which have perhaps eclipsed the role that Chechnya had in mobilising different Jihadists. Q162 Mr Hamilton: I think you both made reference earlier to the impact of Spain's withdrawal, but I wonder whether either of you have anything further to say about the importance to the terrorists of Spain's withdrawal from Iraq. Do they see this as a major victory? Dr Ranstorp: They certainly see it as a major victory. This was my fifth point. This is all about perception management, psychological warfare: deception is everything, amplifying the violence on the ground, and they expend a vast amount of energy in perpetuating Al Qaeda as a movement, as an ideology, and countering at every single opportunity these kinds of incidences that we have seen. Whether they are connected or not it is not for me to say but we have to recognise that we are not very well equipped in being able very quickly to counteract these types of recruitment sergeants, these types of incidences, these types of conflicts. Mr Gohel: I would just add to that that, on a very simple level, Spain's hasty announcement indicated that Western nations can be intimidated, and this had a major psychological impact, and it is not entirely strange that Bin Laden, within one month of Spain's withdrawal announcement, sends out a videotape offering a truce to Europe. This was a direct reaction to Spain's decision. It is also interesting that Al-Sadr, the fiery cleric in Iraq, announces at the same time that the withdrawing Spanish troops will not be attacked. This is not to say that the Shi'ite cleric is working in conjunction with Bin Laden, because obviously he would not be: one is a Sunni, one is a Shi'ite. However, they are all working towards the same goal, as it were, to undermine the presence of the coalition forces in Iraq. Q163 Mr Hamilton: Can I just pick up one point? On 15 April, as you said, a message purportedly came from Osama Bin Laden, who offered a truce to European states on condition they withdraw their forces from "Moslem lands" within three months of the broadcast. On 15 April, the same day, the Foreign Secretary said one has to treat such proposals by Al Qaeda with the contempt they deserve. Do you think that offer was actually from Al Qaeda? What was its real significance and aim? Is it true to say that it would be impossible to negotiate with Al Qaeda? Mr Gohel: The offer does appear to be genuinely from Bin Laden; it appears that it is a Bin Laden tape. It is interesting that he still does not appear direct to camera. He has not done so since the operation Enduring Freedom began. I think he only appeared once after that. It means he has probably changed his appearance and he does not want people to know, because it would be humiliating for him. It is interesting that this man, who seems to love martyrdom, is still in hiding. The interesting thing about the tape is that he sent three tapes: one was in Arabic, one had English translation or subtitles, and the third one had German subtitles. Why German? Germany was totally against the war in Iraq for a start. Was there some kind of coded message for his followers in Germany and in Austria, or Switzerland perhaps? That is something that we do need to look at. He also mentioned Halliburton, the American company with links to the Bush administration. Within a few days after this tape employees of a Halliburton subsidiary were attacked in Iraq. This is not to say that was an Al Qaeda operation, but this is a way he can influence events around the world. Obviously, it was a very cheap ploy to divide the coalition, to create divisions and to isolate the USA. He would then deal with Spain and the rest of Europe at a time of his own choosing. It is often forgotten that Spain is very important to Bin Laden because this is where there was an Islamic halifat in the 14th century, the dismantling of which he has referred to as the tragedy of Andalucia, and he has always wanted to recreate that halifat. So the Spanish must not think that by keeping their heads down they are going to be safe in the future. Q164 Mr Maples: It is interesting that Bin Laden's history seems to be after the Arab invasion of Spain, not before it. I wanted to ask you a bit about what is happening in Saudi Arabia - and other Arab countries may feature quite prominently as well - in terms of reform, progress towards rule of law, democracy, and maybe on the back of that some sort of success in developing their economies. One of the things that has worried us is that in almost all of these Arab countries, as you said yourself, nobody has a vote, there is no rule of law or democracy, and this is one of the things that has bred extremism, and yes, of course, if one said to the rulers of Saudi Arabia or Egypt that they should have elections, they would say that Islamic extremists would be elected tomorrow. I would like to ask two things really: one, what sort of things is it reasonable for us to ask by way of reform in the Arab world that are not going to lead to that kind of outcome? The suggestion of Jeffersonian democracy tomorrow is counterproductive, but there are things to be done, and I was interested in what you think can be done. Secondly, what actually is being done on the ground? Are the reformers winning the argument in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt or are they losing it? Dr Ranstorp: I think there are different centres of gravity in what Al Qaeda seeks to achieve. In Saudi Arabia particularly, it is quite of concern that Abdul Aziz, the new Al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, is still at large. He is issuing threats against the United States but particularly focusing in on inciting Al Qaeda elements within Saudi Arabia. I think that Saudi Arabia and its role vis-à-vis Al Qaeda has been nebulous over time. I think May 12 signalled a wake-up call within the kingdom and they are doing their best to try to stem this flow in terms of trying to crack down, but it is a very difficult path to tread, given its legitimacy, given the fact that they are finding quite significant pockets of militancy, not just from the extreme but also from a number of different sources within the kingdom. I think the Saudi response has been very positive internally, particularly towards the United States, in cracking down, particularly the financial action task force, which is much more positive about the role of terrorism financing, and, a point I have made in some of my writings, this is an existential threat to Saudi Arabia and therefore we have to assist it. We have to work with it and we have to see some positive changes. Q165 Mr Maples: Saudi Arabia is both a victim and in part responsible for this phenomenon. What you say is interesting, but I want to turn your attention for the moment to what kind of reforms is the Saudi Arabian government putting in place, or for that matter can or should it put in place which will lead to hopefully greater involvement of more of their citizens in government and less of a feel for the need to indulge in terrorist activities? Dr Ranstorp: I think the accumulation of what we are seeing in Saudi Arabia right now, a doubling of the population in a very short space of time, stagnant oil prices, new West presence - the Saudis have already before, particularly in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, involved in a series of reforms. One may debate how serious they were but certainly they have taken measures in trying to stem in particular the narrative Al Qaeda taking root, in not only cracking down but also in trying to have leading clerics denounce terrorist acts within the kingdom, and also externally. That is a positive development but whether that will help or not is a different question. Mr Gohel: I think Saudi Arabia has taken some action under US pressure, but it is really in my opinion too little and too late. It is not entirely wholehearted either. We have seen, for instance, in the recent attack just a few days ago in Yanbu that the carnage went on for one and a half hours before the security services arrived, so either the services were inept or incompetent, or they were complicit in some way, because it is peculiar that it should take that long. Last year in Riyadh a house containing something like 15 suspects was surrounded in an urban area of Riyadh, and as yet all of the suspects have managed to escape, even though the get-away car would not start. They were able to flag down another car and escape in that. Was this ineptness? I am not sure. They seem to be very efficient in tracking down foreigners and Filipino maids and locking them up for two years because they have a picture of Christ or the bible. Let us not also forget that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan, the three US allies, were responsible for creating the Taliban militia. They are the only three countries in the world to recognise the Taliban militia. Let us not forget that Saudi Arabia has funded a whole series of madrasas, religious schools, and mosques and extremist clerics right across the world. In Spain today there is a report that the Spanish government is very concerned about a Saudi mosque, referred to as M30, in Madrid, which is apparently a very radical place. It does not stop there. In Cambodia, which has only a tiny Moslem population - something like five per cent is Moslem - only had 20 mosques at one time. Today there are 150, all funded by Saudi money. Q166 Chairman: Is that continuing? Mr Gohel: It is continuing, but perhaps not in the same way, not so openly, because there is a lot of pressure from the US, and maybe some of the funding has been stopped. I think to a large extent it may have been stopped, because the unholy alliance that existed between the House of Saud and the extremists seems to have broken down. The chickens have come home to roost if you like. The Saudis created this problem and they are now facing the consequences of it. At the same time, I am not sure that they are clamping down as wholeheartedly as they should, for the reasons I have already stated. With this movement of Islamic fighters from Saudi Arabia, from Syria, from Yemen, into Iraq, I do not think those borders have been sealed as well as they should be. Q167 Mr Maples: Are we seeing within the Saudi government any process of reform, any willingness? Does the next generation of the ruling family realise or understand the need for change? Mr Gohel: There may be some elements that wish to see reform but overall, the House of Saud has remained as it has always been. The oil wealth has never percolated downwards to the rest of the population. It has remained very much within a small community. Something like 43 per cent of Saudis are below the age of 14, and unemployment is running at 14 per cent or more. There are parts of Saudi Arabia which are totally undeveloped and of course, there is seething discontent. The House of Saud today is under threat on the one hand from domestic elements, as also from the extremists that they once funded. What is fascinating, and what I have never been able to understand, is that Bin Laden has repeatedly threatened the House of Saud, has repeatedly said how much he hates them, but as yet, even though there are thousands of princes and princesses right across the world, out there in the open, not a single one has been attacked. I find that bizarre. Q168 Mr Maples: What about the internal process of political reform? Do you think there is an appetite for this in Saudi Arabia, Dr Ranstorp? Dr Ranstorp: I think it is very difficult. What I am concerned about is the strategic context of this. Certainly there is the duality of doing something about the terrorism and the legacy of 9/11 and stemming the flow of financing. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia fits within the camp of states that are beleaguered, beleaguered by militants from within. Pakistan is another example. Afghanistan - we are not doing enough to stem the record cultivation of poppies. There is a lot of work to be done about failing or failed states. Of course, Saudi Arabia does not fit within that sphere. It creates an axis of very vulnerable states, which includes Saudi Arabia. I am quite concerned, looking out five year's time. The fact that they are targeting the intelligence services is worrying enough. The fact that there is potentially, as has been the case in many other countries, a strategy to try to infiltrate the intelligence services within these countries is a cause of concern for the stability of Saudi Arabia, igniting the brush fires that may develop into a fully fledged fire, which may lead to a more Wahhabi-orientated, more extremist Saudi regime, which may, if they get lucky in Pakistan, lead to regime change. We have had several assassination attempts against Musharraf. Zawahiri is urging the Pakistani government to rise up against the Pakistani regime and of course, we have forgotten, in our endeavour to deal with Iraq, that we still have commitments to Afghanistan, in state building, in eradication, in finding individuals and it is a very long process. We have to understand that they do not necessarily think in strategic terms. Time is on their side. Patience. We have to start working within those contexts. Q169 Mr Mackay: I apologise for missing the first five minutes of the second session but I was on the floor asking a question of the Minister for the Armed Forces. Can I therefore backtrack a few moments to the Madrid experience, and ask you three brief questions. One, are fixed term elections more likely to be disrupted by terrorists because they need so much advance planning? Two, one or both of you said Madrid or Spain was the weak link. Does that mean that the link has been cracked? Is it a high priority to disrupt other elections? Three, as there seems to be a great element of surprise, first of all, with 9/11, then with disrupting the Spanish elections, is there a new element of surprise, and if so, would you like to speculate as to what it might be this time? Mr Gohel: What we have seen in the past, before 9/11, was that there were long gaps between the atrocities. There were sometimes almost as much as 12-18 months between the US embassies in Africa and 9/11. Since 9/11 we have seen the tempo increase and more attacks taking place more quickly, almost one after the other virtually, and in more countries in the world than ever before. In Turkey for instance, British interests were hit for the first time on the doorstep of Europe. In Spain terrorism arrived in the very heart of Europe. There is no doubt that the terrorists are thinking things through very cleverly and fixed-term elections do offer them an opportunity to influence events, therefore we may be in for some surprises between now and November, when the US presidential election takes place. They are certainly approaching this thing on a multi-dimensional level. What I see, unfortunately, is that it is not only the tempo that has increased, but it is the type of attacks which have been taking place. Initially we had vehicle bombings and so on, then suicide bombings, then suicide boat bombings, and missiles have been fired. We know that Al Qaeda and co are very interested in CBRNs. We know that they would like to get their hands on some kind of nuclear, chemical or biological weapon. This has to be the progression. At some point, as MI5 believes and as the head of Scotland Yard believes, it is a matter of time before we are hit here in Britain. It is impossible to tell which country will be next. I do find it interesting, as I mentioned earlier, that Bin Laden's last tape was in Arabic, with English and German translations. That intrigues me. Why in German? Q170 Chairman: you mentioned CBRN and of course, the great fear is the ability of terrorist groups to obtain and use such weapons. Do you feel that the search continues, and what are the prospects of their having the technical capability, at least to have a sufficient capability to disrupt and to have such weapons as a force of pure terror rather than destruction in itself? Where would be the main source for materials for such weaponry? Dr Ranstorp: I had the opportunity to see certain tapes that were retrieved from Afghanistan, in particular one very disturbing tape that was made by Abu Kebab, the nuclear scientist of Al Qaeda, who developed what was known s the super-bomb. They are intensely interested in radiological weapons. It has been analysed by David Albright, one of the foremost nuclear scientists. They were certainly thinking about these types of weapons. The evidence however is that they have advanced very far in being able to operationalise nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Q171 Chairman: But the search continues? Dr Ranstorp: The search continues, and I welcome the recent UN Security Council resolution to extend the counter-proliferation treaty, extending that not only to states but also to non-state actors. Certainly it is a great concern. It is not a threat that we may see in the next year or two, but it is certainly on the horizon. I think it will be a weapon of mass effect that they will continue to try to produce. Q172 Chairman: Where are the likely sources for terrorist networks? Dr Ranstorp: Most of them will come from eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union. There is a great degree of urgency in trying to stem the availability of radiological material. But it is not exclusively from there. We live in a globalised world. The material is quite readily available. We are dealing with a group that is extremely adaptable, and they prey on our worst fears, unfortunately. Q173 Sir John Stanley: Just extending this issue a bit further, as you know, on 5 March the Prime Minister made a significant speech in which he suggested that the present parameters of war on pre-emptive self-defence were inadequate to deal with the way in which the terrorists' global threat was emerging. Just leaving the legal issues aside, because I appreciate you are not lawyers, and we do have some expert lawyers who are going to come before the Committee at another session, but from an operational standpoint, do you believe that we are likely to be facing situations in a few years, possibly a shorter timescale than that, where we have intelligence that a particular WMD capability is in particular very dangerous hands, that the destination of such a weapon is unknown and that the only safe thing to do is to try to interdict that weapon wherever it may be located? Dr Ranstorp: My initial response would be that there would probably be a covert operation. It would not initially be dealt with on a state to state level to that extent. We have, fortunately, in this global war on terrorism 90 different allies around the world that are working very actively. The intelligence matrix is working. We know about the methodology. We know where to look. I would argue we are here in the UK probably better prepared than most other European countries in terms of trying to stem that connection between terrorism and globalisation and weapons of mass destruction. Q174 Sir John Stanley: The question I am putting to you is do you think that there is going to be a need for governments in their own self-defence to have a great readiness to engage in pre-emptive operations, whether covert or overt? Dr Ranstorp: I think it all depends on whether there are rogue states that are harbouring terrorist groups, that are facilitating that. In terms of thinking about the second front in the war on terrorism - and here we come back to Iraq - there are those forces that are working in trying to unseat the Bush administration, because they know that their number may be up next. They are not intimately connected to trying to pursue this avenue, but certainly this is an issue that is of great concern for those that are causing trouble, both within Iraq as well as those assisting the trouble in Iraq. It depends on the nature of the failing or failed states. I cannot see at the moment that there would be any need for that. Q175 Sir John Stanley: Mr Gohel, pre-emptive defence against probably not so much rogue states but against terrorist cells. Mr Gohel: I think if we are complacent on this issue it will be to our cost. There is no doubt in my mind that there is going to be a major CBRN attack at some point. Where, we do not know. Just to go back to the point that my colleague was making, the Abu Kebab character, this is where Ayman Zawahiri made a floppy disk detailing his plans for biological and chemical programme. He called it "al Zabadi" which means curdled milk. In addition to that, we know that they have experimented with chemicals on dogs. We have seen films of dogs in convulsions. Ahmed Ressam was an Algerian captured in the USA and he gave evidence in court about how they were experimenting to pump cyanide into an office building through the ventilation system. The closest we have come to state involvement with extremists has been with the revelation recently that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's nuclear scientist, had proliferated to North Korea, Libya and to Iraq. In addition to that, two other Pakistani nuclear scientists, Dr Bashir-ud Din Mehmood and Dr Abdul Majid, were found to have extremely close links with the Taliban and with Al Qaeda. In fact, Dr Mehmood's own son said that his father used to have dinner with Bin Laden. This is somewhat bizarre, that a nuclear scientist should be having dinner with Bin Laden. This is where there is a real danger, because this is how weapons can leak out. We do not really know. I think it is crucially important to have a pre-emptive capability, because this is a real threat. Q176 Mr Hamilton: Dr Ranstorp, you recently argued that the role of the international community in resolving key conflicts such as that between Israel and Palestine would provide an ideological platform for Al Qaeda sympathisers that cannot be under-estimated. My question is do you really think that a just solution of Israel and Palestine, with a fully fledged Palestinian state, would have any impact on global terrorism and on Al Qaeda's activities? Dr Ranstorp: I probably spend more time than most western academics on both sides of the equation, with the trouble makers within the Palestinian camp as well as within the Israelis who are fighting them. First of all, I do not believe that there is any desire on either side on the horizon to go in that direction. They are harbouring what I would call devious objectives, holding out on their strategic vision that their side will prevail. It is, of course, a major concern. It is, like Iraq, a great ideological recruitment ground. Let me say that one of the issues, and let me come back to this issue, is not just the countervailing public propaganda, the informational value of Al Jazira as a counternote to western media. The group that also harbours very long-term objectives, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, have a satellite TV station called Al Menar that has a global reach. Every time you see Moqtada al-Sadr interviewed around the world, Al Menar are present. It is the second most watched TV station within Gaza. There are systemic problems to that which I do not think are resolvable in the near future. I do not think that the problem will go away even should we get close to trying to resolve an equitable solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem. Q177 Mr Hamilton: I appreciate what you say, but let us say a magic wand were waved and Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon disappeared off the scene, and the people who came in as the leaders of either side were determined to negotiate a peace along the lines of, say, Geneva or even, dare I say, the Road Map, and that peace came about quickly. Would that stop the global terrorists? Dr Ranstorp: I had the opportunity of interviewing Sheikh Asim before he died, and on many occasions he told me - and this is something that has become very prevalent among all Hamas supporters, and they all believe this, whether in Nablus, whether in Gaza - that the beginnings of an Islamic state in Gaza or in Palestine will begin around the year 2022-2023. Q178 Mr Hamilton: That is very precise. Dr Ranstorp: Demography; if you look at Gaza - we often forget this when we talk about this conflict - 45 km by 50 km, 1.3 million people, 25 per cent of the population is under the age of four, 60 per cent is under the age of 18. Demography and time are on their side. There is life after Yasser Arafat. The Islamic revolution in Jordan and in Egypt, these are the strategic visions that sustain Hamas as a movement, as a social, political and military movement. I am sorry. I lost track of your question. If we were to wave a magic wand? Q179 End of turn 01Mr Hamilton: If there were to be a peace and an equitable solution, as you have said, and a true democratic State of Palestine were established, would that stop the global terrorist groups? Dr Ranstorp: You would not stop it. In the north we have Hezbollah, the sister organisation of Hamas. We have a global environment. They are feeding off the systemic causes of terrorism that are fuelling discontent among a very youthful population that are coalescing into infant constellations. Let me just mention one area, we seem to focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the systemic problems are in the Middle East, but it not just there, these groups have a global reach. I have just came back from South America. In terms of the financing we have focused on the informal linkages between groups and Middle Eastern sources. The area is not just that area, the area known as the tri-border region in Latin America between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina is the second largest trade zone in the world. $71 million exchanges hands every day of counterfeit goods, illicit goods and you have every single grouping there from the individuals that may have an association with al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists to the Russian Mafia and the Chinese Triads. So we should not just focus in on the well-known nodes or problems that may sustain radicalism politically, et cetera, but certainly in the financial sphere we are truly facing a global battle. Q180 Chairman: You have just been in the Chamber, gentlemen, you have heard the way in which those photographs published in the Daily Mirror have been seized on gleefully by those who oppose the West, particularly of course in the Arab world. What advice would you give to the British Government in terms of public diplomacy to counter the damage which has been done, whether by Palestine, whether by these photographs? Mr Gohel: If I could jump back to the previous question about Palestine and Israel, my view has always been that even if the Palestinian issue were resolved today it is not going to end global terrorism because the global terrorism agenda is far greater than that. The most interesting thing is that bin Laden's mentor, the man who taught him everything, is hardly ever mentioned. He was a Palestinian called Abdullah Azzam. Abdullah and bin Laden fell out with each other because Abdullah wanted to have Palestine included in the global Jihad that they were planning and bin Laden said no, he was not going to do it, and Abdullah was assassinated in 1989 together with his two sons by bin Laden because they had a falling out. I think (?) was involved in that too. I do not think the Palestinian issue as such is relevant but it is relevant in terms of recruitment. There are people around the world who use it to recruit individuals. Dr Ranstorp: Coming back to your question I think the British Government is doing the right thing. It is important to act swiftly, it is important not to over-inflate this issue, it is important to get to the bottom of it and to exercise whatever punishment may be necessary or to determine whether it is a fake or whether it is genuine. Q181 Chairman: And more generally? Dr Ranstorp: I think more generally there are some positive developments in the Arab world that we have tried to foster, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the GCC states which are trying to move to win the hearts and minds in countering the al-Qaeda narrative. We have to spend more time in thinking strategically about how can we engage, not just us but together engage in delegitimising the message that al-Qaeda and bin Laden in particular are espousing. We have to do it innovatively. There are some innovations in the Gulf States using particular visual media and commercials coming from the Arabs themselves. We have to project our image in the way we portray ourselves on a much more effective level otherwise we will face an endless task. Q182 Mr Illsley: Just to comment on what you have just said. You may already have heard that the Spanish Government has announced today that they will take steps to edit or ban certain sermons in mosques in Spain and France has already taken steps to ban Islamic head gear in schools. Do you think these are the wrong steps to be taking at this time? Is that going to make the situation worse? It is not exactly going to reach out to the hearts and minds of the Muslims. Mr Gohel: In my opinion I think it is the right step to take, it has been too long. If I were to go outside and start preaching that we ought to kill Buddhists or whoever it is I would be arrested very quickly for incitement, yet we have people here in the UK and in France who are preaching that message of hatred on a daily basis quite openly and they are committing criminal offences of incitement. They are mixing religion with politics, their agenda is political, and the interesting thing that is happening in this country is that all the clerics who are cause for concern are from outside, not a single one of them has actually been born and brought up here yet they are preaching to those who are born and brought up here, and this is where I think we need to look into this. Places of worship should be genuine places of worship, whether they are churches or temples or synagogues, and they cannot be used for political reasons. I think the Spanish action is quite correct, it is about time this was done. Dr Ranstorp: The French have gone one step further and taken a decision to expel individuals who cross that Rubicon. It comes back to one very difficult issue and that is about extradition and extradition problems. Now we have the common arrest warrant they are being ironed out with some of those Member States. Personally I think we have to deal with this very swiftly. I think it is a political hot potato. Chairman: We all agree on that. Gentlemen, can I on behalf of the Committee thank you both for your help. May we move on now please to our next two witnesses. Memorandum submitted by Dr Toby Dodge Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Dr Mustafa Alani, Associate Fellow at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and Dr Toby Dodge, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick, examined. Chairman: May I welcome on behalf of the Committee Dr Mustafa Alani, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and Dr Toby Dodge from the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick. Gentlemen, we regret the delay, I hope you understand that. Let us go into the specific problems of Iraq and Sir John please to begin the questions. Q183 Sir John Stanley: I think there is an almost universally held view that certainly over the last four or six weeks there has been a serious deterioration in the security situation in Iraq. Could you both give us your view as to whether that is going to be the start of a downward spiral or whether you think the situation is capable of now being stabilised and hopefully perhaps improved? Dr Alani: I will speak as an Iraqi and as an Arab and as somebody who basically reads Iraqi newspapers and watches Iraqi television every day. I am not surprised that we have an increase in the level of violence. There are a number of reasons. Firstly, the Americans and British specifically are now seen as occupiers and not liberators. In the beginning few months there was an image of them as liberators. I think now we have reached a point where they are now considered as occupiers. Occupiers will be treated as occupiers and the resistance movement is now gaining more legitimacy, whether terrorism or political resistance. If we talk about Fallujah, for example, there is a lot of support for Fallujah people in every part of Iraq. People who do not really have any connection with Fallujah now they think that those people are doing a good job. I think the problem is the resistance or terrorism movement. We now have fewer number of operations. At one stage we had 42 a day, now we have about 60, but it is more organised and basically the casualties are greater and the support apparently is greater now. Q184 Sir John Stanley: What do you think produced the switch, as you say, from the perception of the Americans and British as liberators to occupiers? Do you believe it was related to the decision by Mr Bremer to close down Sadr's newspaper, to arrest his aide? Dr Alani: I do not think Mr Sadr enjoyed any support within Iraqi society I can tell you. Mr Sadr is seen as a thug or group of thugs who basically terrorised the Iraqi people before the Americans or the British arrived. The caution is we now have some sort of strategy where Mr Sadr is now emerging as a national leader who is demanding that the occupiers should leave the country and demanding unity between the Sunnis and the Shias and the Kurds. There are a number of reasons why this image has changed quickly. I think the American failure in stabilising the country is one. In Saddam's time as Iraqis we knew that we did not enjoy political security, we knew that, we knew who the gangsters were and to keep away, but we enjoyed personal security. You could sleep in your home without worrying, you could send your children to school without worrying, your wife could drive a car without worrying. Now certainly we have lost this and in political terms whilst we were dealing with one gangster called Saddam Hussein, now we have a number of religious gangsters, political gangsters and criminal gangsters. This is the whole development since June until now. I think this has really changed. The Americans felt it was very easy to dismantle the state, it just needed paper and ink to dismantle the state but then of course they are unable to re-build the state and the dismantlement of the Iraqi armed forces was the biggest mistake committed. Why the change? There is very limited service improvement. There is no political future. We are only seven weeks from the transfer of power and we do not know what sort of entity will come into power. There is no entity to handle the security because the Iraqi army is demoralised and very weak. I think this failure is generating the image of occupier as the image of the Americans. The Americans cannot be the devil in Palestine and the angel in Iraq; they really cannot. Q185 Sir John Stanley: Dr Dodge, is the security position retrievable? Dr Dodge: It is possible certainly, but I think the point is there has been a security vacuum since 9 April, since the liberation of Baghdad. There clearly are not enough troops, either British or American troops, and into that vacuum as Dr Alani has said, has stepped a series of groups, a lot them to begin with criminal - and let us not forget the trauma of the Iraqi population with those three weeks of looting that dominated Baghdad after liberation - but increasingly a lot of them political and again a myriad of groups which makes them in a certain way much more difficult to deal with because they are popping up all over the place. Sadr's revolt, I suspect if you look at it in detail, is a series of smaller groups using that umbrella to kick out at the occupation. So first and foremost we do not have enough troops. I think the Rand Report brought out just before the invasion of Iraq predicted on the basis of its study of nation-building elsewhere that there should be 400,000 or 500,000 troops on the ground to impose order. When you do not have that order imposed you very quickly lose the backing of a population that had welcomed you as a liberators and said, "We believe in Prime Minister Blair's and President Bush's promises of stability and order and then prosperity and democracy", and none of that has happened. Secondly, the rolling problem is not only the violence and security vacuum but the fact that we have lost the confidence or the faith of the population. What the Coalition Provisional Authority has been extremely bad at doing is communicating with wider Iraqi society. I guess you have been to Baghdad and seen the Coalition Provisional Authority isolated in its palace almost like a spaceship dumped in the middle of Baghdad. It has no communication with the rest of the population. Now that is understandable but in May and June straight after the liberation that was not understandable. Political violence was at a very low level and those links that should have been thrown out immediately were not. Is that political situation winnable? No, I do not think it is. There needs to be a series of radical steps. I think 30 June is a grotesque mistake. If you look at Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfofitz's Senate testimony, what he is basically saying is not much will change. The Ambassador-in-waiting to go to Baghdad has also admitted in his testimony that not much will change. When the Iraqi population which has been led to this date wake up on 1 July and realise not much has changed that is another crushing blow to their faith and to their understanding of what they are living through and, more importantly, why they are living through it. Q186 Chairman: You can criticise what we have failed to do in the past. We are where we are and we cannot, like the Irishman, start somewhere else. How do we retrieve it? Dr Alani: First, I think that there are a number of options. I think that we need to internationalise the Iraqi crisis. First, we have to admit that we are in deep crisis - security-wise and political-wise. There is a huge political vacuum in Iraq now. There is no leadership to whom we can transfer power and enjoy legitimacy. People look at the Governing Council as puppets, agents and collaborators so this formula which is presented by the United States to get out of the political process is not successful. Establishing the Iraqi army and Iraqi bodies has become a joke because those people are coming for $280 a month and when they are really needed they say that they are not going to fight. They are demoralised, under-armed and not really effective. So first we need local partners in terms of a credible political partner and in terms of general security. I do not see any possibility of saving the situation now in Iraq apart from recalling the Iraqi army. It is not establishing an army. Establishing an effective army with a state like Iraq with a long history of destabilisation will take possibly ten years and this is not going to be achieved overnight. So the first option is I would recall the Iraqi army. I do not mean the Republican Guard. We have three armies basically. We have the Republican Guard, what they call the Special Republican Guard, and this is a unit on its own independent from the other parts of the army. We have the Republican Guard under general command which was the fighting force with seven divisions when the regime collapsed. Then we have the Iraqi army which was established in 1921. It was part of the state institutions, it was not part of the regime institutions. Without recalling the Iraqi army we will not have a credible local partnership to transfer security responsibilities and fill the gap inside the country. Q187 Chairman: On top of that? Dr Alani: I think that we need to internationalise the crisis by more involvement of the UN and possibly NATO. NATO might act under UN authorisation with the Security Council authorising NATO, NATO being more acceptable, and if NATO is able to provide these sorts of services and there is agreement within NATO to provide these services more or less on the same example as Afghanistan, at least with NATO we will have regional co-operation. The Iranians or the Syrians will not feel embarrassed if they co-operate with NATO as much as with the Americans. We are facing a real crisis and unless we can find a local partner or regional partner I do not think we can get out of this crisis easily. Dr Dodge: Like Dr Alani, I would divide it into politics and the military. On the political front I think the Brahimi Plan is the best plan we have. As it takes shape it seems to be extremely sensible. What I understand Ambassador Brahimi to be doing is to say to the members of the Iraqi Governing Council, "You have national political aspirations, go out and fight national elections." In the run-up to those elections, tentatively scheduled for the turn of the year, we will hold the country together with a technocratic government and we will get rid of the Governing Council and send them out into the country, and I think that is very astute. A speedy movement to democracy whilst the country is held together with a technocratic government. If you remember when the Governing Council was formed there was a great deal of criticism within what goes for political circles in Baghdad saying, "Why are these people taking their role on the basis of sectarian politics or links to the invasion? Why do we not have people who are appointed for their skill in government?" Certainly Ambassador Brahimi has picked up on that. The second thing that greatly worries me though is to think that American forces in the palace are fighting a two-front war with Fallujah and the revolt in the North West and the Sadr revolt further south. What Ambassador Brahimi is saying to the Governing Council is, "Get out of your ruling positions, get out of your cabinet and ministerial positions and go and start getting elected." It is no secret that key members of the Governing Council have no political support in the country whatsoever and I suspect what they are doing now is saying to Paul Bremer and his advisers, "You want a third front in Baghdad? You want us to make trouble?" and I think the United States or the Coalition Provisional Authority at least has to have the courage of their convictions and give Brahimi the power and the influence that he needs, to have the courage of their convictions and let him impose a technocratic government on Iraq. I think that is one possible way forward. Q188 Chairman: A technocratic government, a caretaker government, a Loya Jirga; where does 30 June fit into that? Dr Dodge: Beyond the electoral cycle of the United States I have no understanding of where 30 June has come from. It has no logic within Iraq, it has no logic within state building or what we are meant to be doing on the ground. It seems to me absolutely crazy. There is no technocratic or Iraqi logic to it. Q189 Chairman: Dr Alani, your prescription for the reconstitution of the army, how would that play with the Shias who were largely excluded from the senior officer ranks? Dr Alani: I do not think the Shias were excluded from the army, they were excluded from the Republican Guard. Indeed, the Shias are not excluded from any part. If you look at the 55 most wanted list by the Americans more than 50 per cent are Shias. Saddam Hussein's was not a sectarian regime. He killed 55 members of his own family. So he was blind when it came to sectarianism. He was not a Baathist; he was a Saddamist. I disagree with the assumption in the West that the Shias have been excluded from power. As I said, if you look at the 55 most wanted list prepared by the Americans more than 50 per cent are Shias. Sadr's mob is Shia. The head of the Parliament is Shia. So I do not think the Shias have no power within the army or they are not represented; they might be under-represented. Q190 Chairman: How would Ayatollah Sistani respond to the Brahimi Plan? Dr Alani: Sistani certainly never took a decision in his life. He is a veto man but he never gives any ideas, apart from saying that power must be handed to the Iraqis and there must be a legitimate government. It is really very hard to believe that somebody who never left his house for six years, never watched television, never read a newspaper in his life, never had the Internet is going to decide my future. If we talk about Mr Sistani we are talking about a Shia/Shia conflict. It is not only a Shia/Sunni conflict. The point came up in Iraq we have Kurdish/Kurdish conflict as well between Talabani and Barzani, a war that lasted six years and 30,000 people died. Q191 Chairman: That has finished now. Dr Alani: Yes. Sistani's attitude is important. He wants legitimacy and he thinks that any election in Iraq is going to bring a Shia government to power. He thinks the government will fall into his hands anyway whether it is through the collapse of security and the Shias are the majority and will come into power or through elections and legitimacy. The question is what is influencing Mr Sistani's attitude is the Shia/Shia conflict between him and Mr al-Sadr. Moqtada al-Sadr is basically offering himself as an alternative majarin (?) to the Shias, a national leader. I believe this undermines Mr Sistani's position. I think the Brahimi suggestion is sensible but it is not going to be successful for a very simple reason; those people who have been given by the Americans a head start, Chalabi and others, will not allow anybody to push them out of the picture. They will try to rock the boat and undermine the position. We need Sistani's approval for the new government certainly. Q192 Mr Hamilton: How far do you think foreigners are involved in violence in Iraq at the moment? Dr Dodge: I think the danger is that the influence of al-Qaeda and foreign fighters has been greatly overstated for political reasons and is indicative of the very poor intelligence that the occupation is working under. If we look at the evolution of the spectaculars in Baghdad starting with the Jordanian embassy, running through to the Canal Street hotel bombing, they were organised very organised quickly and comparatively professionally. The idea that an al-Qaeda network acknowledged not to be in the country before liberation could then stand itself up and put safe houses and funding and everything else so quickly beggars analytical belief so what are we looking at? I think we are looking at a hybrid of the ancien regime with its supply of arms, its training and military intelligence reconstituted in a rough and ready but efficient way, a marrying first and foremost with indigenous Islamists using the language of Iraqi nationalism - the invaders, the occupation - and then finally the third side would be then some foreign influence. To suggest a hidden hand, either Saddam as it were manipulating or having lifted al-Qaeda from over the horizon is to greatly misunderstand what is happening in Iraq today. Dr Alani: I have one feeling about the involvement of al-Qaeda. In Iraq we have regime terrorism. Before Saddam ruled the regime terrorism was controlled by the state. It is well calculated terrorism. We do not have popular terrorism outside of state control. Islamists have no place in the Iraqi map, whether Shias or Sunnis. The first man killed by Saddam was a Sunni imam, he was not a Shia-ist, but certainly I believe al-Qaeda was more prepared than the Pentagon for the day after strategy. If you basically follow what the al-Qaeda strategy is in Iraq it is very simple, it is not to force the Americans to leave Iraq, on the contrary, it is to isolate the Americans in Iraq and let them sink deep in their problems in Iraq. This strategy they have achieved with a remarkable degree of success. The attacks on Americans have cost the Americans a lot in terms of public opinion inside the United States. The attacks on the allied forces, whether British, Spanish or Italian - and we have the Spanish scenario which is a successful one. We have the attacks on third parties such as the attack on the Spanish in Casablanca, the attack on the British in Istanbul, then the attack in Spain in Madrid. Then there are the attacks on international organisation - the UN and the Red Cross - and they are out of Iraq. We also have the attacks on the Irai institutions, whether it is the police, army, anyone they can call collaborators. Certainly these people have a strategy. They are not amateurs. If you look at the operation from the first day in Iraq we had six suicide attacks within 30 minutes. That needed a lot of organisation. Last month we had seven attacks, three by boat and four by suicide bombers within a day. Certainly there is an organisation. I do not believe that any Iraqi group within the seven months could have built this sort of experience. Q193 Mr Hamilton: So there is an element of disagreement between the two of you on this? Dr Alani: I believe if you watch the Islamic fundamentalist web site which I do in my work, the call for a Jihad in Iraq started in November long before the war. It is very clear that the Iraqi authorities had a great opportunity and Saddam at one stage encouraged what they call an Arab Mujahiddin before the war. Some of them left the country and I believe that some of them did leave country. During the war we had another wave of people entering and so certainly in the early days there was a highly organised operation in Iraq. We had 15 helicopters downed, we had 57 suicide attacks in the last six months, ten attacks on average a month. It is not an amateur job; it is more complicated than that. Q194 Mr Hamilton: Can I be clear about what you both think they are trying to achieve. You said, Dr Alani, they are not trying to expel the Americans but rather see them sink deeper into their own problems. What do you think, Dr Dodge? Dr Dodge: I do not any way disagree with Dr Alani that al-Qaeda are on their way to Iraq but I think to set up such an efficient organisation so quickly I cannot see where the analysis for that comes from. If we are looking at the command and control, the arms dumps, their intelligence and the structure of safe houses and funding that comes from remnants of the old regime that is the case. Again, if we look at the difference between Sadr and Fallujah, if you look at the rhetoric and the demands of those fighting in Fallujah, it is an Iraqi nationalism overlaid with Islamism. Fallujah has always been famous in Iraq history for being a conservative Sunni town famed for more mosques than any other town in Iraq. The power behind that insurgency is clearly Iraqi nationalism - get these foreigners out of our country. If we look at what Sadr is saying he is saying something very similar - get these foreigners out of this country. What Sadr is pushing towards is to create a space that he can dominate and his militia can dominate. I think the Fallujah insurgency is a lot less organised than that. Q195 Mr Hamilton: You both have said that this 30 June deadline was pretty crazy. Surely, Dr Dodge, if what you are saying is right, there are going to be a lot of happy people once power is handed back to some sort of sovereign government even if it is not an elected government at this stage? Dr Dodge: That is a very good point and clearly there are strong nationalist elements within Iraq demanding that the Americans leave but, tell me, who are you going to give power to on 30 June and why would they be any more Iraqi than Paul Bremer? The leading members of the Governing Council came back behind American troops. In the case of Ahmed Chalabi I think he left before 1968. They have worked very hard with various strategies to try and build up popular support but if we look at the ABC/BBC poll, one of the largest polls that they carried out, support for Ahmed Chalabi amongst those is 0.2 per cent and support for the head of the Iraq Accord is also 0.2. If we flip over and look at the question who do you distrust the least, Ahmed Chalabi comes out first, to his credit with only ten per cent. So diplomats love sovereignty because they can talk to someone and they can fly them into grand buildings and discuss with them as representatives of the Iraqi people. If anything over the last ten years it has taught us that if you are talking about true sovereignty, that is the link between popular public opinion and their representatives, that is not going to happen on 30 June and it is crazy to think so. My great worry about 30 June is you set up a series of people whom diplomats can talk to and that further alienates the Iraqi population who think the people on the Governing Council are no more representative than Paul Bremer. Q196 Mr Illsley: So at the very least nothing is going to change on 30 June and the level of violence, the level of insurgency could continue until the next stage, which hopefully will be elections some time in January and at worst things are going to get worse because a lot of the Iraqi population are going to think nothing has happened since 30 June, this idea of a handover has not really occurred, there is no change, the military is still in place and this transitional government is of no interest to them. Dr Dodge: Violence springs from two sources, firstly from the fact the Coalition does not control the country, they have got far too few troops. Where law and order does exist - and it clearly does exist in some places - it is a very rough and ready if not murky set of deals done between indigenous armed forces on the ground constituted after April 3 and troops either British or United States. The second thing is this increasing alienation from the occupation. What happens after 30 June? The last three weeks have proved that the two divisions created of the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police force are less than useful and that when they have been thrown into serious combat they have either refused to fight for their own safety or for nationalist reasons or they have run away. At least then we have exposed the wishful thinking that security in any shape or form can be given to anyone but the occupying forces. Then the political problem is, yes, the rush to 30 June is going to exacerbate the feeling of alienation amongst Iraqis not decrease it. That is my great fear. Q197 Mr Illsley: I know we can have the debate over how much is outside elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq and how much is local insurgency. Is there any suggestion that this level of violence, this level the insurgency now is what we could have expected last year back in April from the troops and forces who were defending Iraq? Is it simply that after a year all of a sudden the fighting force that we were told to expect to resist the invasion last year has suddenly come good and got access to weapons and stockpiles and is now beginning to organise planned resistance to the Americans and British on a military scale? Dr Dodge: The answer to that is yes and no. Certainly in the run-up to the invasion I wrote at great length about why would this be a cake walk when you have a large standing army. They might not like Saddam Hussein but what are you going to do with all these hundreds of thousands of people who have military training and guns? If you go to an ordinary Iraqi house, Iraq is a highly armed society. Where I stay when I go to Baghdad has two or three automatic weapons in the house and most Iraqi men have either had military training or a lot of them because of the Iran/Iraq War and the Gulf War have seen military service. Saddam never disarmed his population. How he controlled that was by making bullets very, very expensive so there was an ammunitions famine in Iraqi society. The way the regime collapsed, and it did collapse, was soldiers melted back into society taking their guns and leaving a lot of ammunition on the streets, as we saw in the newsreels around April, so that ammunition famine disappeared. What we are seeing now is a reconstitution. Again when I was in Baghdad in May and June last year you had de-Baathification, the disbanding of the army and then a campaign by radical Shia groups of assassination of Baathists and you could see then individuals who had been associated with the mid to bottom rank of the ancien regime coming back together through face-to-face ties. "Oh my God, the Americans are not omnipotent, they can be attacked as we are being attacked so let's reorganise." I think the reorganisation is much more rough and ready but if you add alienation together with open arms dumps together with a highly armed society together with Iraqi nationalism and people who have had military training, it is not going to take long to get what we have got today which is a fairly rough and ready but deadly efficient insurgency. Dr Alani: As always there were a number of mistakes that basically led us to what we have today. Iraq has been a secular state all its life. In the 1921 constitution we are talking about a secular state. We have Mr Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is a Christian. You do not find that in other Arab countries apart from the Lebanon. It is divide and rule. It is a secular society and, as I said, Saddam Hussein's was never a sectarian regime because this man had no loyalty to anybody but himself and they have started to divide the country on a sectarian national level. I do not know where they got the percentage 13:5:5:1:1 to divide the society and divide political power accordingly. There is no statistic in Iraqi history to support these percentages. The image of the Americans now is that they came too deep in the division within the country between the Shias and the Arab Kurds. As Toby said, the dismantling of the army was a mistake. Military institutions in Iraq employed 400,000 people, the average family in Iraq is seven, so you can multiply 400,000 by seven and you will discover how many people directly have been hit by this decision. Those people are unemployable because their whole life has been the army and they do not know what to do in life and you cannot blame them. You cannot blame terrorists for taking advantage of the situation in Iraq when you dismantle the border guard. It is really self-inflicted. Q198 Mr Illsley: So there are two major decisions then which you would probably regard as complete mistakes taken by Americans immediately after the end of hostilities, firstly, in exacerbating the sectarian division by giving this statistical division of the country and working on that theory for the last 12 months which has probably worsened the divisions between groups which prior to that these divisions did not exist; secondly, by dismantling the army it has left the 400,000 multiplied by seven and this stack of guns and stuff. So these must have been fundamental mistakes at the beginning of the occupation. This is not rocket science. This is what Paul Bremer has been accused of times many, the fact he made those fundamental mistakes. Dr Dodge: I think he has acknowledged mistakes in rowing back on the pension rights for soldiers and in rowing back on the extreme extremities of de-Baathificaton and in various strategic links to the American press - the New York Times, Washington Post. I think the administration in denigrating the Governing Council has also acknowledged the mistake of forming the Governing Council, or has at least been disappointed in the fact that a lot of them do not seem to be working particularly efficiently. Again, there were very few academics, Mustafa and myself are amongst a very small number who managed to get into Iraq and research before regime change. If you travelled across Iraq what you found was a very tenacious, strong, almost lumpen Iraqi nationalism saying, "We have survived the harshest sanctions ever imposed. We have survived eight years of war with Iran. We have survived 1990." This is not to say it should ever be collapsed into support for the regime. Clearly the Iraqi population were liberated when Baghdad was taken but they are nationalists and they are suspicious, like many people across the Middle East, of the United States. That is why if we did internationalise, if control of Iraq was in New York and not Washington, if the UN was running it instead of the United States it would be a lot harder to launch neo-colonial arguments against the UN than it is against the US. Q199 Sir John Stanley: Can I ask you about the political process that we are committed to and its degree of realism. To me it looks a very Western-style political process. That does not mean to say it may not work wonderfully in Iraq but it is clearly a very Western-style process. It has shades of the American Revolution and shades of the French Revolution, it is forming a new government, a transitional government, it is forming a constituent assembly, producing a democratic conclusion, followed by (hopefully) peaceful, multi-party, democratic elections. I can see entirely why the Americans and ourselves have got into that particular process but can I just ask you does that make realistic sense in Iraq with its history, with its culture, with its people? Do you think there is a realistic chance of achieving that or is it just a chimera? Dr Alani: Iraq will not be in isolation from the region because there is democratisation of the region. The American dream of creating Iraq as a paradise for the free market and a democratic system was a dream and will remain an unachievable dream. Iraq has a long history of a strong man and has a long history of military institutions controlling the country. You have to remember that Saddam was the first civilian leader in the history of Iraq. He was somebody who basically put a star on his shoulder. Before Saddam the Iraqis did not have a democratic system but they had a certain degree of respect of human rights. People did not disappear before Saddam came to power. Yes, they were arrested, and you knew they were arrested and then there was some sort of influence and they would be released and they would give an undertaking. Now we have reached a point in Iraq if I have to choose between democracy and stability I will go for stability. I do not want to lose the state for the dream of the democratic process. In terms of priorities, I do not think without security we can have any meaningful political process or democratisation. People have lost faith in the democratic system, lost faith that the Americans are going to achieve a democratic system so now the focus is on a stable state and whether they are going to exist as one unity or what. This is the question in Iraq. This is one of the reasons I am telling you that military institutions have to be reintroduced. We have to remember that we have a very good example. Mr Pervez Musharraf came as a dictator and we needed to change him into an elected President with an extended constitution of authority. We reach the point for any Iraqi now where democratisation is great, it is everything that is hoped for, but I do not think it is achievable under these circumstances. Now I think the average Iraqi will say, "My security and stability and the integrity of the state must be the priority and not democratisation when you possibly in the process are going to lose that state." Q200 Sir John Stanley: Dr Dodge, do you give any greater prospect of the present political course achieving anything because clearly Dr Alani gives it a pretty well zero chance, as I understand it? Dr Dodge: Let's do a for and against. Agreeing with Dr Alani, I think there was a great idea and a level of optimism driving forwards policy from Washington. We must very much realise that you do not lop the head of a dictatorship and democracy then springs unbidden as if in a miracle. I think Iraq has a couple of very bad problems. Firstly, Saddam Hussein atomised his population using intense amounts of violence and corruption to wipe out any intermediate institutions between the state and society so we cannot talk about Iraqi civil society before April 9, but - and I think this is the big but - look at Iraqi society, read Iraqi newspapers, see opinion polls, every Iraqi is calling out for democracy. Iraqis are not naturally against democracy, they clearly want democracy. The whole movement before Sadr's insurgency, the movement that Sistani brought on to the streets was for democracy. There is a great aspiration for democracy but running parallel to that - and Mustafa is exactly right about this - before that and before any logical step to build democratic institutions there is a demand, a call, a crying need for security. The two are not incompatible. Bring in more troops under a UN mandate, impose security on the country, but while you are doing that show the Iraqi population (which is deeply suspicious) that whilst doing this we are moving towards democracy. What national, regional and local elections would bring, I think because the population is mobilised, it is angry and it is suspicious, and what Brahimi is asking for is you force the politicians out of their Baghdad lairs into Iraqi society and force them to create national paths and structures and in doing that, in talking to their constituency, there is a moulding of that constituency that these politicians were forced to get elected on manifestos that both speak to the needs of the ordinary people but also are implementable. I think there is a crying need for elections that would then institutionalise and channel that mobilisation, anger and alienation into political as opposed to violent action, but that needs to be done in conjunction with the imposition of security so I do not think it is mutually incompatible. I think both need to be done to stop the alienation of the Iraqi population and also to stop the horrors of insecurity that they are living under at the moment. Q201 Chairman: Dr Alani, you mentioned that history of Iraq is one of having a "big man". You also said that security was the priority of the bulk of the population. Can that security be achieved without another big man? Dr Alani: In the history of Arab countries you always have a strong man theory, you always have the concept of the strong man. If you look at the history of Iraq, in 1958 we had the three leaders, one Sunni one Shia, imposed in 1958. It was not a success and then there emerged a strong man General Hassan to control the situation. In Iraq we feel we are in deep crisis - not the Americans not the British, we feel we are in deep crisis. We have had to lower our expectations. Yes, democratic systems are great, an elected government is great, human rights are great but now we have to lower our expectations, our hopes, and be more practical and the strong man theory is one. In the survey done by the BBC, 81 per cent of the population think that a strong man must emerge to save the country from the Americans and from the chaos inside the country and from the groups that threaten law and order. There is no way that this strong man can be a civilian. I can tell you it needs to be a military man who has the tools to control the situation. Q202 Chairman: Where do the Kurds fit into that? Dr Alani: Even in Saddam Hussein's time Balajas (?) was a Kurdsman. He was the second man to Saddam Hussein. Saddam really had no second man, he was a one-man band, but even in the internal constitution Balajas was the second man and he was a Kurd not an Arab. The problem with the Kurds, as an Arab I say this, is the support they have enjoyed in the last 12 to 15 years they have started to use for their advantage to take more than they deserve. The question of Kurkuk is a major issue here, to expand there area of control. Kurkuk is a mixed city, it is not a Kurd city, it is not a Turkoman city, and it is not an Arab city. The Kurds might object if the army or a strong man emerged because they think this is a threat to their aspirations. We are talking about a transitional period, we are not talking about military rule forever, and if the Kurds can be guaranteed that it is only for a transitional period and only for the purpose of stabilising country I do not think the Kurds will really object because the Kurds are threatened by the Shias and Moqtada al-Sadr and by Sistani. The problem was not between the Arabs, Sunnis and the Kurds; it was between the Shias and the Kurds, so I think the Kurds will have some sort of interest in supporting a strong regime in Iraq which is able to impose its authority on other communities. Q203 Chairman: Would they not demand a substantial degree of autonomy? Dr Alani: Certainly the aim of the Kurds is independence but the Kurdish problem is not an Iraqi problem, it is a regional problem. You have to remember the Turkish Redoik (?) which is very influential, was supported by the United States. The Kurds have now reached a point where independence is not possible and autonomy beyond what was enjoyed in 1970 is probably not possible either so the Kurds now have become more realistic that they have to accept far less than what they were aiming at. Q204 Chairman: Clearly there are a number of different models of the transition from autocracy to a form of pluralistic togetherness if not democracy - South Africa, post-1945 Germany - and one of the problems which the Coalition now faces is that of what to do with former Baathists and we understand that there is a major debate within the Council, the Shias being very opposed to incorporation of the Baathists while the Sunnis and Kurds are for this. What do you think about this debate? Dr Alani: De-Baathificaton was a mistake. If we had applied the same rule in the Soviet Union against the Communist Party we would not have Putin as head of state because he was the head of the KGB. It is de-Baathification in a country where for 40 years the party penetrated every part of the government and society. You could not be a student without being a Baathist. The fact that the Baaths have no right to participate in political life was wrong. I will put a different demand; anybody who has committed human rights crimes, this should be the category, not because he is a Baath. Baath is a party in Syria, in Lebanon, everywhere. I know there is a sensitivity against the Baaths from the Shias and the Kurds but the fact is that the majority of Baath members are Shias not Sunnis. The great majority of the people who are members of the party are Shias. So the answer is de-Baathificaton was a mistake because you cannot separate the state from the party. It is very hard to dismantle the party without dismantling the state. Now we have to apply a different requirement that anybody committing human rights crimes, yes, this man will not have a role but being a Baathist I think is wrong. I want to say one thing about the Mirror pictures. In Iraq perception is more important than reality and even if these pictures, which were published in every Iraqi newspaper and published in every Iraqi station, are proved not to be true, nobody will listen. The average Iraqi will say, "Yes, what do you expect?" The damage is done whether we prove this is wrong or right, whether it is authentic or not. I think this is very dangerous for the safety of the British forces because a lot of elements now in Iraq have the tools and have the reason to classify the British as an enemy. The image of the British compared to the Americans was more positive but now I think we have lost this. Dr Dodge: You talk about models and you mention South Africa and Germany and Mustafa has mentioned the strong man. Let's not mince our words, what we are talking about when we talk about a strong man is a dictator who uses violence and the institutions of the state to repress society or control society. The crucial thinking is there are no institutions of state. The Iraqi state does not exist at the moment. So if we are to fulfil our promises to the Iraqi people we have to build the Iraqi state upwards and Mustafa's call for the recall of the Iraqi army would be rebuilding one of those institutions. If we stand on top of the palace and say come back, hundreds of thousands of men might run up and say, "Yes, we want to re-enlist," and we will have to re-create the command and control, an official hierarchy, an officer class, training, et cetera. What we are now involved in, whether we like it or not, is building the Iraqi state from scratch from the ground up and the debate that we are having today is about how we go about that and what type of state we want. I would assume what type of state we would want is a pluralist state as close to democracy as possible. I am certain that is what the Iraqi population would want if they could get it and opinion polls show that. Certainly they want security as well but they want that. How do you go about doing that? Clearly the Baath Party is central to this. When Saddam Hussein consolidated his grip on power in 1979 he was threatened by different institutions within the state hierarchy, which is what strong men do, they undermine institutions of the state and threaten them. The Baath Party was one of them. Very cleverly what he did, the Baath Party used to be like the Bolshevik Party that you go through a series of levels before you become a member, he scrapped that and threw the doors of the party open and the party membership grew to 1.5 million. Basically Baath Party membership became your ticket to the middle classes. What our friend Paul Bremer did in de-Baathification was basically throw out the senior commanding heights of each ministry. The ministries are organised around director generals, the civil service heads of each ministry. If he had fully de-Baathised, nearly every single one of the director generals would have been thrown out. Unsurprisingly, that did not happen. If you interview Baathists on the ground they would say this is not natural justice. You are saying they are guilty until they are proven innocent. There had to be a nuance. The whole thing is mired in a series of shortcuts, and whether it is de-Baathification or calling for a strong man these shortcuts do not say that democracy will happen the day after the statue was pulled down in Fardus Square. The shortcuts negate the reality on the ground. The institutions of the Iraqi state for a strong man to take over or for a liberal democratic government to take over have to be rebuilt from the ground upwards. That is ten years, that is not 30 June. That is a long and very costly business run by the United States, Britain or the United Nations. Whoever runs it is going to be there for ten years to do that; there are no shortcuts. Chairman: That is a long way from the initial conception but, gentlemen, thank you both very much indeed. |