Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
23 NOVEMBER 2004
MR KAMRAN
AL-KARADAGHI
AND MR
DAMIEN MCELROY
Q1 Chairman: Mr al-Karadaghi, may I welcome
you on behalf of the Committee. You currently work for the Institute
for War and Peace Reporting in Iraq and you have been a regular
visitor to Iraq, for a time running Radio Free Iraq.
As you know, this is in the context of the work of the Committee
on foreign policy aspects of the war against terrorism. We are
keen to have evidence from those who know Iraq and have been recently
to Iraq, so it is in that context that I invite you, first, to
give an overview to the Committee of how you see the broad security
situation as evolving. I just add this: as you know, we were hoping
that you would be joined by Mr Damien McElroy who writes for The
Sunday Telegraph. We hope that he is on the way and when he
comes I shall welcome him on behalf of the Committee but we are
confident you are more than able to hold the fort and to help
the Committee. Firstly, you have been a fairly regular visitor
to Iraq yourself, I understand.
Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, I have been
visiting Iraq regularly and, of course, I am originally an Iraqi.
I visited Iraq when I was running Radio Free Iraq and now
I have joined the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. I have
been in Baghdad in the north and in Kirkuk, so I have quite a
good idea of what is going on in Iraq. Then, of course, I keep
in touch; almost daily I speak to people in Baghdad and other
places.
Q2 Chairman: It is extremely important
for us to interpret the situation. Clearly, like all people in
this country, we see on our television screens the violence, the
hostage-taking and the atrocities against the forces of order
in Iraq. How general is that? Are there swathes of Iraq where
people are able to live a normal life?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Of course, the
general security situation in Iraq is not good, to say the least,
and it has worsened over the last few months. The main problems
are in Baghdad and the so-called Sunni Triangle, and then, further
to the north, in Mosul, and parts of Kirkuk, but not all. Mosul
is now the big problem. However, the situation in the south and
the so-called central Euphrates area has been relatively calm,
especially since the confrontation ended between the coalition
and Iraqi forces, on the one hand, and the fighters of the Al-Mahdi
Army led by the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. I think one should
also exclude from the Sunni Triangle the province of Tikrit which,
surprisingly, had been relatively calm. I think there are reasons
for that, and if you want me to explain why Tikrit has been calm
I can say that. The situation in the north is completely different.
Q3 Chairman: That is in the Kurdish areas?
Mr al-Karadaghi: That is the Kurdish
controlled areas. Arbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dahuk—three provinces—are
completely under the control of the Kurdish authorities and the
coalition forces in that area are really having a picnic-like
time (if you would like to call it that) because there are no
problems. The Kurds have managed to enforce law and order in the
region. But, of course, the big problem is Baghdad and the Sunni
Triangle.
Q4 Chairman: In relation to those areas,
particularly in the south, which you described as relatively calm,
does that mean that the public services are functioning—the
water, the electricity? Are ordinary people able to carry on their
lives in a normal way?
Mr al-Karadaghi: In a way, yes.
A lot has been done in that area but, of course, it has not been
easy because under the previous regime life in the south—that
is the Shia, of course—was really so miserable that people
sometimes had to travel from Karbala or Najaf to Baghdad to get
clean water for drinking. It was a very, very bad situation under
the previous regime.
Q5 Chairman: And now?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Now it is getting
better. The coalition forces and the local authorities are trying
to improve the situation, which is not always easy because when
I said it is relatively calm that also means that from time to
time there are troubles—as you all know, in Basra, for example,
especially when there was confrontation with the Al-Mahdi Army
of Muqtada al Sadr. These disturbances and trouble spread from
Najaf and Karbala further to Amarah and even Basra. Of course,
unfortunately, some of the British troops were victims of that
confrontation in Basra.
Q6 Chairman: There is no further trouble
from the Al-Mahdi Army following the agreement?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Apparently not.
Since the end of August, after interference by the Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr gave instructions and orders to
his followers for a ceasefire and then, later, to surrender their
weapons. Of course there is a problem here, because we know from
the people on the ground that many of al-Sadr's fighters who surrendered
their weapons and, also, some of the citizens in Shia areas like
Saddar City north of Baghdad, exchanged them for money. The coalition
forces and the Iraqi Government bought these weapons from them.
Now we hear that many of them bought new weapons.
Q7 Chairman: So there is a regular supply
of weapons?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes. That is
really a problem. The other problem is Muqtada al-Sadr's late
father, who was a Grand Ayatollah, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, co-operated
for many years with Saddam Hussein's regime but only in the last
two years of his life he rebelled against the Government, and
eventually Saddam gave orders to kill him, and many people in
Iraq, many expert people who know the situation, think that still
al-Sadr's organisation is infiltrated by some of Saddam's previous
security elements.
Q8 Chairman: These are Shia?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, Shia.
Q9 Chairman: The Shia would be loyal
to Saddam Hussein?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Well, under Saddam
Hussein the brutality which took place in the Shia areas against
the Shia population was also not only by his Sunni Army, or by
the security people, but among them were many Shia because they
were really either forced to do so or they were bribed to do so,
but the facts remain that in those areas many Shia operated with
the Government. Of course, nobody knows exactly because many people
think that some of Saddam's loyals who are still with Muqtada
al-Sadr might be Sunni but they pretend to be Shia.
Q10 Chairman: Help us on this: can you
give the Committee a profile of the insurgents? Who are the insurgents?
Mr al-Karadaghi: This is a very
good question, sir. The insurgents in Iraq mainly are two groups:
the old Ba'ath party Saddamists. That means hard-core Ba'athists,
Saddam security and intelligence, remnants of the Republican Guards,
of the Special Republican Guards and of the Fedayeen of Saddam
Hussein, which was led by his son Uday. So this is part of the
insurgency. The other part is the so-called Jihadists—that
is the Islamists.
Q11 Chairman: From outside?
Mr al-Karadaghi: From outside
and from inside. From inside, a lot of them are represented by
the associations for Islamic clerics, which is a Sunni organisation.
Also, Salafis are, of course, members of a sect in Islam which
is very strict and so these are the second group. Then, of course,
there are the outsiders. I remember, personally, when I first
went to Iraq from Jordan immediately after the fall of the regime
of Saddam Hussein, the borders were absolutely open and that situation
continued for several months, during which nobody can count, really,
how many people came to Iraq with an agenda, with a goal of organising
insurgency against the coalition forces. So these are the two
groups. Immediately, of course, after the fall of the regime the
Ba'ath party was in a big panic, so that was the time when you
could say that the insurgency was mainly led by the Islamists,
Jihadists, foreigners and locals but the Ba'ath party managed
very quickly to reorganise itself. If I follow, for example, the
website of the Iraqi Ba-ath party you can see the evolution; how
they managed to do so. Their first major statement was issued
in June 2003 and if you read that statement one would be surprised
how quickly they reorganised themselves and how they managed to
fulfil all the pledges they made in that first statement.
Q12 Chairman: Before I turn to Fallujah,
Mr al-Karadaghi, can you finally give some indication of how much
popular support there is for the insurgency, and, indeed, in what
way it is manifested?
Mr al-Karadaghi: It really depends
on what area you are talking about. For example, if we take Baghdad,
there were always areas purely Sunni or Ba-ath or Arab nationalist
areas, like the area which has been in the news lately which is
called al-Adhamiya, and this is a purely Sunni Arab area. It has
always been, I would say, since the 1950s or 1960s. It is a stronghold
of Arab nationalists and then of the Ba'athist party, and in fact
you can even say that this was the area where the Ba'athists started
to organise and fought against the regime of—
Q13 Chairman: That is outside Baghdad?
Mr al-Karadaghi: No, that is Baghdad.
Q14 Chairman: But outside Baghdad?
Mr al-Karadaghi: A suburb of Baghdad,
yes. It is part of Greater Baghdad.
Q15 Chairman: But the groups who support
the insurgents outside Baghdad, how significant is their support?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Of course, we
have Fallujah.
Chairman: Can I move on to Fallujah now?
Q16 Mr Olner: On Fallujah, do you think
the operation has been successful?
Mr al-Karadaghi: From a military
point of view, yes, they were successful but whether they were
successful in general and they will reduce the level of insurgency,
I really doubt.
Q17 Mr Olner: Do you think the insurgents
escaped Fallujah, have gone somewhere else and regrouped?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Most of them
maybe escaped; according to my information they went to Mosul.
Mosul now will be the next battleground. It might be a very nasty
battleground.
Q18 Mr Olner: Prime Minister Allawi was
very prominent in ensuring that it was an Iraqi-led military operation
in Fallujah. Is that a commonly held view within Iraq, or is it
seen as just a front for a US-led attack?
Mr al-Karadaghi: I think the Iraqi
people are now clever enough to know whether a certain decision
is taken by the Prime Minister or by the coalition. I think, in
general, the common understanding is that this was mainly decided
by the Americans; the Prime Minister, of course, was in consultation
but the real decision was taken by the Americans, and people realise
that the attack on Fallujah happened immediately after the US
presidential elections.
Q19 Mr Olner: Finally, the Committee
sometime ago conducted another report into international terrorism.
Do you think any of these insurgents in Fallujah and wider in
Iraq are, indeed, al Qaeda?
Mr al-Karadaghi: Yes, there are
al Qaeda people, but not only al Qaeda. It is still really doubtful
whether, for example, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is or was al Qaeda;
he works on his own although, of course, he issued a statement
which was attributed to him saying that he declared his loyalty
to Osama bin Laden. I really do feel that there are definitely
people who belong to al Qaeda among the insurgents.
| 
