The Oil-for-Food Scam: What Did Kofi Annan Know, and When Did He Know It?

Apr 25, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

The New York Times reported yesterday on UNScam: Corruption Allegations at U.N. Put Annan on the Defensive. This Commentary article by Claudia Rosett provides a good overview of the scam: The Oil-for-Food Scam: What Did Kofi Annan Know, and When Did He Know It? (via Friends of Saddam, a UNScam-dedicated blog). Highlights:

In 2000, Saddam enjoyed a blockbuster year. By this time he was not only selling vastly more oil but had institutionalized a system for pocketing cash on the side. It worked like this. Saddam would sell at below-market prices to his hand-picked customers -- the Russians and the French were special favorites --and they could then sell the oil to third parties at a fat profit. Part of this profit they would keep, part they would kick back to Saddam as a "surcharge," paid into bank accounts outside the UN program, in violation of UN sanctions.

By means of this scam, Saddam's regime ultimately skimmed off for itself billions of dollars in proceeds that were supposed to have been spent on relief for the Iraqi people. [...]

Unimpeded responsibility for the "humanitarian" aspect of the program fell to [UN Secretary-General Kofi] Annan. The next month, "humanitarian" became a broad category indeed. On June 2, Annan approved a newly expanded shopping list by Saddam that the Secretariat dubbed "Oil-for-Food Plus." This added ten new sectors to be funded by the program, including "labor and social affairs," "information," "justice," and "sports." Either the Secretary-General had failed to notice or he did not care that none of these had anything to do with the equitable distribution of relief. By contrast, they had everything to do with the running of Saddam's totalitarian state. "Labor," "information," and "justice" were the realms of Baathist party patronage, propaganda, censorship, secret police, rape rooms, and mass graves. As for sports, that was the favorite arena of Saddam's sadistic son Uday, already infamous for torturing Iraqi athletes. [...]

It is true that Oil-for-Food managed to deliver to Iraqis some portion of what it promised. On sales totaling $65 billion, some $46 billion (by Annan's uncheckable reckoning) went for "humanitarian" spending. Of this amount, an official total of $15 billion worth of food and health supplies -- the original rationale for the program -- had been received by the time Saddam fell. The actual figure was no doubt considerably less if you factor in the kickbacks and spoiled goods; from the remainder came the equipment for Saddam's oil monopoly, the construction materials, the TV studio systems, the carpets and air conditioners for the ministries, and all the rest.

But at what cost? Are we supposed to conclude that, in order to deliver this amount of aid, the UN had to approve Saddam's more than $100 billion worth of largely crooked business, had to look the other way while he skimmed money, bought influence, built palaces, and stashed away billions on the side, at least some of which may now be funding terror in Iraq or beyond?

Military Draft Negates the Right to Life

Apr 24, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

As Senator Chuck Hagel and others call for the re-establishment of military conscription, it is worth remembering Ayn Rand's words:

"Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man's fundamental right--the right to life--and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man's life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.

If the state may force a man to risk death or hideous maiming and crippling, in a war declared at the state's discretion, for a cause he may neither approve of nor even understand, if his consent is not required to send him into unspeakable martyrdom--then, in principle, all rights are negated in that state, and its government is not man's protector any longer. What else is there left to protect?"

• Afghanistan: Any and all men above the age of 18 for as long as needed.
• Albania: Any and all men above the age of 18 for one to three years depending on the branch of the armed forces.
• Algeria: Any and all men above the age of 19 for six months (or longer if needed).
• Angola: Any and all men from 18 to 50 (some reports put the youngest age at 16). Women of the same age ranges with "special qualifications of interest to the armed forces." Note: those over 30 serve only in the reserve force. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Bolivia: Any and all men between the ages of 19 and 21 for one year (or more in times of war).
• Cambodia: Any and all men above the age of 18 for three years, extendable by an additional six months if needed.
• Chile: Both men and women must register at the age of 18 and may be called up anytime between the ages of 19 and 30 for up to two years of service.
• China: Men aged 18 to 22 may be drafted into the army at any time; men aged 18 to 35 may be drafted into the militia, or into the army during wartime. Term of service varies from between two and four years.
• Colombia: Any and all males between the ages of 18 and 50 for one to two years.
• Cuba: Any and all men over the age of 16 and under 50 for three years.
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea: Any and all men over the age of 16 and under 50 from 30 to 36 months.
• Dominican Republic: Any and all men at or above the age of 18. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Ecuador: Any and all men at or above the age of 19 for one year.
• Egypt: Any and all men between 18 and 30 for three years.
• El Salvador: Unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 20 who are members of poorer socio-economic groups. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Equatorial Guinea: Any and all men at or above the age of 18. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Estonia: All men above the age of 18 are liable for compulsory military service, but at the age of 17 a man can start the compulsory military service as a volunteer. In the case of early voluntary service, the law gives a man the possibility of choosing the place where he wants to serve. From the ages of 18 to 27, every young man has to perform active service. Service terms from 9 to 12 months.
• Ethiopia: Men between the ages of 18 and 30, although there are reports of juveniles as young as 12 being conscripted. Obligation to perform reserve duties from the age of 30 to the age of 50. Service terms from 12 to 18 months.
• Greece: Any and all men between the ages of 18 and 40. Service terms as follows: 21 months in the army, 23 months in the air force and 25 months in the navy.
• Guatemala: Men between the ages of 18 and 30: heads of families and middle-class students are usually exempt. Service term is 30 months.
• Guinea-Bissau: Any and all men at or above the age of 18. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Honduras: Any and all men between the ages of 18 and 30 with voluntary service being permitted at 17. Service term is 2 years.
• Georgia: Unknown ages, service is for two years.
• Guinea: Any and all men between the ages of 18 and 30 for two years.
• Iran (Islamic Republic of): Any and all men at or over the age of 18 for a two year active service with lifetime reserve service.
• Iraq: Any and all men at or over the age of 19 with voluntary service allowed at 18. Term of service; two year active service with lifetime reserve service.
• Israel: Men and women over 18, with non-Druze Israeli Arabs and Druze women exempted. Service term: three years for men and two years for women, plus reserve duty of about one month in every year until the age of 54.
• Kazakstan: Unknown ages with unknown length of service.
• Lao People's Democratic: Any and all males over the age of 15 for an 18 month term.
• Republic of Lebanon: Any and all men at or over the age of 18. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Liberia: Unknown ages with unknown term of service.
• Libyan Arab Jamahirya: Men and women between the ages of 18 and 35 for a three to four year term.
• Madagascar: Unknown ages with unknown term of service.
• Mexico: Any and all men between the ages of 18 and 40 for one year.
• Mongolia: Any and all men at or over 18 for two years.
• Morocco: Any and all men at or over 18 for 18 months.
• Mozambique: Any and all men between 18 and 30 for two years.
• Paraguay: Any and all men over 18 years of age; women of the same ages as non-combatants during international (world) war for terms of 18 to 24 months.
• Peru: All men over 18 and with voluntary service permitted at 16 years of age for two year terms.
• Philippines: Any and all men at or over 18. No mandated minimum or maximum length of service.
• Republic of Korea: Any and all men at or over 18 from 30 to 36 months.
• Romania: Any and all men between 20 and 35. Service terms are as follows; 12 months infantry, 18 months in the navy, university graduates only have to serve for 6 months.
• Singapore: Unknown age requirements. Service is for two years' ordinary military service with an additional three years' officer training (if elected).
• Somalia: Any and all men aged between 18 and 40; women aged between 18 and 30 (although in practice women are not normally drafted). Service terms as follows: two years general service (only 18 months for graduates of higher educational institutions).
• Sudan: Unknown ages with unknown term of service.
• Thailand: Unknown ages with unknown term of service.
• Tunisia: Any and all men over the age of 20 and with voluntary service permitted at 18, unknown term of service.
• Turkey: Any an all men between 20 and 65 (in practice men over 46 years of age are no longer called up) for 18 months.
• Venezuela: Any and all men at or over 18 for two years.
• Vietnam: Any and all men at or over 18 for three years.
• Yemen: Unknown ages for terms of two to three years.

[Source: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2001).]

Young German men could soon be free of compulsory military service. But abolishing the draft may pose a serious problem for the social system, which depends on those men that opt for the alternative -- community service. German politicians have long been debating plans to abandon the draft in favor of a professional army. But getting rid of conscription would also entail an end to its alternative -- community service. The details are as yet unconfirmed, but the government this year looks set to shorten the length of compulsory community service from 10 to nine months -- the same that is required for military service.

...Around 90,000 young German men are registered yearly for community service, and approximately 80 percent end up working in hospitals or senior citizens' homes doing essential work such as driving ambulances, caring for the disabled and elderly, and delivering meals.

Charitable organizations fear there will be "catastrophic" consequences for healthcare in Germany if this inexpensive and valuable workforce were to disappear. Joachim Kendelbacher from the Workers' Welfare organisation told Deutsche Welle that his organisation, which currently employs around 6,000 people doing their alternative community service, would suffer heavily if their jobs were to be cut.

"We'll have to consider if the services these young people are doing can be totally abolished," he said. "In some sectors this will certainly be the case. I'm thinking of services like going for walks with old people in the nursing homes, reading literature to old people or doing office work. If these services are cut this definitely means a loss in quality." [Germany Set to Abolish the Draft]

Such is the nature of altruism--the creed of self-sacrifice. Observe that "community service" is the stepping stone for folks dying in war--againt their will. So-called "community service" is in fact community slavery and is just as reprehensible as the military draft.

Switzerland is a politically neutral country, yet it has more soldiers per capita than any other Western democracy. Odd? The Swiss don't think so--or at least, most of them don't. According to Swiss military dogma, a powerful citizen army is the best way to preserve Switzerland's neutrality and keep neighboring countries from invading Swiss territory. They may be right; Switzerland hasn't been at war in 500 years.

In his 1984 book, La Place de la Concorde Suisse, acclaimed New Yorker author John McPhee quoted a Swiss officer as saying: "Switzerland doesn't have an army, Switzerland is an army." That statement may have been hyperbole, but the fact remains that nearly 400,000 of Switzerland's roughly 6 million inhabitants belong to the armed forces. [Europe for Visitors]

Australian PM John Howard Abolishes the Australian Aborigine Commission

Apr 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

...An Aboriginal woman [Moopor] clad in animal skins has put a traditional curse on Prime Minister John Howard, apparently in retaliation for government plans to abolish Australia's top indigenous elected body....Howard smiled and waved at Moopor before leaving...It was not clear what effect the curse was intended to have on the prime minister....With 17 commissioners elected by Aboriginal voters and a budget of more than $600 million, [the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission] administers government-funded projects aimed at improving their lives.

But Howard said on April 15 that his government plans to abolish the 14-year-old commission because it has failed to improve the lot of most Aborigines, who remain the poorest, sickest and least educated minority group among Australia's 20 million people. In place of ATSIC, the government wants to appoint a panel of Aboriginal experts to advise it on indigenous needs. [CNN, Hat Tip: B. Harburg-Thomson]

Israel’s Targeted Killing of Abdel Aziz Rantisi was Morally Justified

Apr 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Israel's targeted killing of Abdel Aziz Rantisi was as justified as would be America's targeted killing of Osama bin Laden. Rantisi was the leader of Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the murder and maiming of hundreds of innocents, and he got what he deserved. That heads of state from London to Paris criticized Israel's action instead of applauding it reveals, once again, their utter moral bankruptcy--and their seemingly endless willingness to appease evil. But as logic suggests and history demonstrates, appeasing evil only emboldens it, and those who fail to learn this lesson invariably become targets of evil themselves.

The Ever Disgusting, Rarely Honest Michael Moore: Bowling for Fallujah

Apr 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

The Full Context on Corporations That Paid No Taxes

Apr 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

[That report] will help pave the way for tax increases on corporations to expand the welfare state and perhaps put Democrats back in control of the White House and Congress. Unfortunately,the GAO report provided little context for its findings. It would have been helpful to know that 45% of all corporations had no net income and nearly 60% had assets of less than $100,000 in 2000, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

It is hardly surprising that a company pays no taxes when it has no income and virtually no assets. After all, about 40% of individual income tax returns report no tax liability, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Another point worth mentioning is that all of this alleged tax avoidance came during the Clinton administration.Yet, because the data have been released now, many casual readers are probably left thinking that the Bush administration is responsible. [NYSun]

Cuba: Land of Thugs

Apr 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Minutes after the United Nations human rights commission in Geneva narrowly passed a resolution criticizing Cuba yesterday, a member of the dictatorship's delegation violently attacked a prominent Cuban-American activist, knocking him briefly unconscious....

Mr. Calzon, 60, told The New York Sun people in the hallway began yelling at each other after the vote was announced, prompting him to seek the attention of a U.N. guard. At that point, a man raced down a nearby escalator, swung his arms over the side as he approached the bottom, and slammed Mr. Calzon with a twofisted blow. "All of a sudden, someone hit my head, and I passed out," Mr. Calzon said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Calzon said witnesses later told him Cuban government supporters surrounded him after he collapsed. "When I was awake, they were yelling things like 'traitor,' 'son-of-a-bitch,' 'lackey to the United States.'" A U.N. guard brandishing a canister of Mace broke up the crowd and helped Mr. Calzon. "That's what prevented them from kicking me," he said....

Cuban U.N. officials had a different version of events. "There was a provocation from Frank Calzon against one woman in the Cuban delegation, and he received the due response from our Cuban delegation," Cuban Ambassador Jorge Mora Godoy, who didn't see the incident, told The Associated Press. [NYSun]

Campaign Finance Regulations: Not For Me But Only For Thee

Apr 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Take a look at what the liberal groups said back before the law was passed. "Make McCain-Feingold the law of the land," MoveOn.org said. The Sierra Club supported the McCain-Feingold law, calling it "a strong first step toward real reform" and "getting big money out of politics by closing loopholes in current campaign-finance laws." The president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, Kate Michelman, told the Boston Globe, "We think some reform is needed.There is too much money being spent in campaigns." Reform Judaism hailed the law as "a historic step today toward healing a systemic sickness in our democracy" and said the law will "go a long way toward abating the pernicious influence of money in our electoral system."

Here's what they say now, in the FEC testimony. The MoveOn.org Voter Fund now says, "we are concerned about the potentially devastating impact of the FEC Proposal on all tax-exempt nonprofit organizations that engage in public policy advocacy and/or voter participation programs." The Sierra Club and Naral now say, "The proposed rules would seriously impair vigorous free speech and advocacy, as well as voter participation now and in the future. They would double, triple, or even quadruple the number of citizen organizations whose activities are subject to pervasive regulation by the Commission." Reform Judaism now says "we are especially concerned that this proposal would silence the prophetic voice of religion in American Society."

Chewing Noam Chomsky

Apr 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Noam Chomsky was the most conspicuous American intellectual to rationalize the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington...

...Today, when actors, rock stars, and protesting students mouth anti-American slogans for the cameras, they are very often expressing sentiments they have gleaned from Chomsky's voluminous output.

...Of all the major powers in the Sixties, according to Chomsky, America was the most reprehensible. Its principles of liberal democracy were a sham. Its democracy was a "four-year dictatorship" and its economic commitment to free markets was merely a disguise for corporate power. Its foreign policy was positively evil. "By any objective standard," he wrote at the time, "the United States has become the most aggressive power in the world, the greatest threat to peace, to national self-determination, and to international cooperation."

...The worst current example, he claims, is American support for Israel:

virtually everything that Israel is doing, meaning the United States and Israel are doing, is illegal, in fact, a war crime. And many of them they defined as "grave breaches," that is, serious war crimes. This means that the United States and Israeli leadership should be brought to trial.

Yet Chomsky's moral perspective is completely one-sided. No matter how great the crimes of the regimes he has favored, such as China, Vietnam, and Cambodia under the communists, Chomsky has never demanded their leaders be captured and tried for war crimes. Instead, he has defended these regimes for many years to the best of his ability through the use of evidence he must have realized was selective, deceptive, and in some cases invented...

The Impracticality of Being Conciliatory in War

Apr 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Eleven months ago I was in Fallujah. What a dump -- no disrespect to any Fallujans reading this. I had a late lunch in a seedy cafe full of Sunni men. Not a gal in the joint. And no Westerners except me. As in the movies, everyone stopped talking when I walked through the door, and every pair of eyes followed me as I made my way to a table....

Would they have liked to kill me? Well, I'll bet one or two would have enjoyed giving it a go. And, if they had, I'll bet three or four more would have beaten my corpse with their shoes. And five or six would have had no particular feelings about me one way or the other but would have been generally supportive of the decision to kill me after the fact. And the rest might have had a few qualms but they would have kept quiet.

That's the point to remember: The Iraqi people don't want to be on the American side, only on the winning side....

[I]n the Arab world, the indifferent are the biggest demographic. They sit things out, they see which strong horse has jostled his way to the head of the pack, and they go along with him. The Turks. The British. The British-installed king. The thug who murders the king. The thug who murders the thug who murders the king. [Sun Times]

Dare I Say “I Told You So?”

Apr 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

***

On February 5, it was an extra $7 billion, requiring the largest tax increase in state history. By March 2, it was $9.6 billion. On March 26, it was an extra $16.5 billion for New York City alone. And still they're not satisfied ["The Plaintiff in Schools Case Asks $10B More," William F. Hammond Jr., April 13, 2004]. Dare I say "I told you so?"

What makes this feeding frenzy possible is the premise that coercion is justified in the service of the needy, and that the taxpayers' lives and incomes belong first to society, which may help itself to as much as it sees fit.

But educators who have something of value to offer do not need to demand compensation at gunpoint. All the extra loot that the educrats grab will simply serve to make them more effective at miseducating children.

Parents choose to have children; for them to use the power of the government to force others to pay for their children's education is to evade the responsibility for the costs of their own decisions, and to try to foist those costs on unwilling victims.

If people can't afford to educate their own kids, they shouldn't have them. 

We’re The Only Ones The “International Community” Is Mad At

Apr 16, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Is the world angry at Russia, which spends nothing on AIDS and rebuffed Kyoto? Is the world angry at China, which got a pass on Kyoto and spends nothing on AIDS for other countries?

Is the world angry at North Korea for killings its people? Angry at Iran for smothering that vibrant nation with corrupt and thuggish mullocracy? Angry at Syria for occupying Lebanon? Angry at Saudi Arabia for its denial of women's rights? Angry at Russia for corrupt elections? Is the world angry at China for threatening Taiwan, or angry at France for joining the Chinese in joint military exercises that threatened the island on the eve of an election? Is the world angry at Zimbabwe for stealing land and starving people? Is the world angry at Pakistan for selling nuclear secrets? Is the world angry at Libya for having an NBC program?

Is the world angry at the thugs of Fallujah?

Is the world angry at anyone besides America and Israel?

But even if you admit that the world is angry at America - so angry that the poorest of them can't wait to come here and stake a claim ­- you have to stand in awe at the sheer political idiocy of Kerry's conclusion. Boiled down:

There are countless numbers of things that we could be do minimize the kind of anger and ... almost recruitment that has taken place in terrorist organizations as a result of the way the administration has behaved.

By toppling the fascists in Baghdad without French seal of approval, we have encouraged recruitment in terrorist organizations. It's not the invasion that ticked off the Man in the Arab Street, it's the lack of a 17th UN resolution on Iraq. Right now in a café in Beirut an educated man, a chemist by trade, schooled in the ways of the West, is reading an article about how the US will only spent $15 billion on AIDS and probably won't reduce its carbon emissions to 1817 levels, and he throws down the paper in disgust: bastards! I must join Al Qaeda, move to Iraq and kill the contractors who are upgrading their outmoded infrastructure!

If there is such a man, well, I'm angry at him. Do I get to be angry at him? No? Okay. I'll sit down now.

Racist Democrats Don’t Count

Apr 14, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment. Some were right for the time. Robert C. Byrd, in my view, would have been right at any time.... He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation.... I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true.

So, according to Dodd, Byrd was right even when he said this?

[T]here are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time, if you want to use that word. But we all--we all--we just need to work together to make our country a better country and I--I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much. [March 2001]

And this?

The New York Times reported in 1971 on a letter Mr. Byrd wrote in 1946, after leaving the Klan. Writing to the Klan's Imperial Wizard, Mr. Byrd identified himself as a former Kleagle and recommended a person to serve as state Klan coordinator. He wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. . . . It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan realm of W.Va?"

And this?

And in a 1947 letter, after Mr. Byrd had been elected to the state senate, he wrote that he would "never submit to fight beneath that banner (the American flag) with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

Spinning Blame: Smearing President Bush for 9/11

Apr 11, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Losing Their Freedom in Hong Kong

Apr 10, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

China claimed the right yesterday to veto any form of democratic development in Hong Kong in its toughest assertion of power over the territory since its handover from Britain seven years ago. China's parliament, the National People's Congress, ruled that only Beijing could reform the former British colony's electoral system....Hong Kong opposition figures said the ruling amounted to an illegal amendment of the basic law, which was agreed by Beijing and London before the 1997 handover. [UK Telegraph]

Dog Eat Dog

Apr 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

The state of California has declared that many grass-roots environmental conservation efforts are actually illegal. The controversy, which has already halted river restoration projects statewide, stems from the state's "prevailing wage" law. Like many states, California requires that workers on public works projects be paid the equivalent of union wages. A related provision bars the use of a combination of paid workers and volunteers on the same state-funded project.

Last October, the state Department of Industrial Relations ordered a Redding, Calif., environmental organization, the Sacramento Watershed Action Group, to pay a fine of more than $33,000 after it used both students and a subcontractor to help restore an overgrown and obstructed riverbed. The department acted after a complaint from a union-funded watchdog group that presses for strict enforcement of the state's contracting laws. [NYSun]

Mosquerade: US Troops Would Not Hesitate to Strike Insurgents In Mosques

Apr 7, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

After the insurgents holed up in the mosque struck a humvee vehicle with an RPG, lightly wounding five soldiers, the marines opted for their heavy weaponry. First a warplane fired off guns, then a Cobra helicopter shot off a Hellfire missile at the mosque and finally an aircraft dropped a laser-guided precision bomb, Byrne said.

The roar of jets shook the city, caught in the midst of a brutal urban battle pitting the marines against the insurgents who have bled the coalition forces for months and ambushed and mutilated four US contractors last week.

Byrne said the marines carried out the raid as precisely as they could because there are people living nearby. Marines also came under fire around a second mosque in the city that the marines had searched the previous day...

The head of the Marines First Division, General James Mattis, defended the attack, warning if rebels used places of worship in their war against US forces, his troops would not hesitate to strike them at sacred sites. "If they barricade themselves inside a mosque, we are not going to care about the mosque anymore than they do," Mattis said. [Emphasis added]

Iran’s Proxy War Against America

Apr 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

What the other news accounts left out was one significant, but well-established fact: Al-Sadr works for Iran. He is an Iranian agent. His authority comes from Iran. Last April, an Iranian cleric, Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, issued a religious edict and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq, calling on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities." The edict, or fatwa, issued April 8, 2003, showed that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran. The edict said that Shiite leaders have to "seize as many positions as possible to impose a fait accompli for any coming government." [...] On April 7, the day American troops effectively toppled Hussein's government by seizing its main seats of power in Baghdad, al-Haeri sent a handwritten letter to the city of Najaf, appointing Moktada al-Sadr as his deputy in Iraq. Haeri wrote: "We hereby inform you that Mr. Moktada al-Sadr is our deputy and representative in all fatwa affairs." It added: "His position is my position."

In reality these so-called [Arba-in] Pilgrims are Iranian Intelligence officers and Arab mercenaries trained, by the Islamic republic regime, with the task of creating more complication for America in its War Against Terror and to avoid the stabilization of Iraq.

The loyalty of many of [Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr] supporters has now passed to another son, Hojatoleslam Muqtada al-Sadr, a mid-level cleric about 30 years of age. Unlike his father, Muqtada has no formal religious standing to interpret the Koran, and relies for religious authority on an Iran-based Iraqi exiled cleric, Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri.

Several months ago Al-Sadr visited Iran where he was warmly received by the Ayatollah Khamenei and Hashemi Rafsanjani. According to Arab sources, Khamenei probably compared Al Sadr to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, when wishing him luck in kicking out American forces in Iraq "like the Hezbollah did to Israel in Lebanon".

Shiite Arabs in Iraq express relatively little support for attacks against coalition forces such as those that occurred Sunday. And while most do express confidence in religious leaders and call for them to play a role in Iraq today, most do not seek a theocracy, and very few see Iran as a model for Iraq. A nationwide poll of Iraqis conducted in February for ABCNEWS also found that very few Shiites express support for Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia mounted the deadly attacks against the U.S.-led occupation.

On the Iraqi front, Iran's mullahs have stepped up their campaign to increase their influence in that country. Tehran has two main objectives in Iraq: to create a client regime there and to rid itself from its Iraq-based main opposition, the Iranian Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK). Since coming to power in 1979, the mullahs have considered Iraq the ideal springboard to export "Islamic Revolution" throughout the region. They view a pro-Tehran Iraq as a counterweight to the advancement of democracy in the Middle East. Clearly, a secular democratic Iraq would be a strategic blow to Tehran. For now, US policy makers should expect Iran to address the threat it perceives from the US in Iraq with terrorist violence. The Tehran regime has mounted an increasingly sophisticated, multi-phased and multi-faceted campaign in Iraq.

In the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, al-Sadr's militia was in control of government, police and spiritual sites, a coalition source said. Al-Sadr also was busing followers into Najaf from Sadr City, a Baghdad neighborhood, according to the coalition source, who said that many members of his outlawed militia, Mehdi's Army, were from surrounding provinces. Al-Sadr -- who is wanted on murder charges in connection with the killing of a rival last year -- reportedly has taken refuge in the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines. A posting on al-Sadr's Web site said he has called for a general strike.