This is no good:
Armed men entered Baghdad’s municipal building during a blinding dust storm on Monday, deposed the city’s mayor and installed a member of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite militia.
The deposed mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, who was not in his offices at the time, recounted the events in a telephone interview on Tuesday and called the move a municipal coup d’état. He added that he had gone into hiding for fear of his life.
“This is the new Iraq,” said Mr. Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation. “They use force to achieve their goal.”
The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control of Iraq’s capital city and that Mr. Tamimi was in no danger. The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.
The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in heavily Shiite areas in southern Iraq but also accused of abuses like forcing women to wear the veils demanded by conservative Shiite religious law.
“If we wanted to do something bad to him, we would have done that,” said Mazen A. Makkia, the elected city council chief who led the ouster on Monday and who had been in a lengthy and unresolved legal feud with Mr. Tamimi.
“We really want to establish the state of law for every citizen, and we did not threaten anyone,” Mr. Makkia said. “This is not a coup.”
Since the Iraqis are new to this whole ‘democracy’ thing, I will cut them a little slack and chalk this up to ‘growing pains.’ Let’s break it down:
Positve:
-They didn’t kill him
-They want law for every citizen
-They didn’t threaten him
-They are rapidly learning doublespeak, like every good Democracy
Negative:
-Sharia
-armed removal of elected officials
-armed militias are now strong enough to impose their will on the populace
-They are rapidly learning doublespeak
Lots to learn here. [/sarcasm]
Looks like some tricksy ‘facts’ have been left out of the story. Like the fact that the mayor who was ‘ousted’ resigned in June and the man who replaced him was appointed by the Baghdad governing council. More here.
Davebo
What I find most shocking, and most sad, is that this occurred in Bagdad. Not Fallujah or Basra, though it could certainly happen there as well.
But sadly this late in the game the road from Bagdad to the airport is still the most dangerous highway on earth, and elected officials in the capital city with the largest US presence are overthrown by armed thugs.
SomeCallMeTim
John, shouldn’t this be filed under, “John Cole Hates America”?
BinkyBoy
If it wasn’t so serious, it could be a humorous parody of a Clancy novel.
When will Clark come in and organize the prostitutes of Baghdad into a fighting force for good?
oh, and SomeCallMeTim, thats a pretty damn funny post, if thats what you intended.
neil
Surely I’m not the only one who is thinking of Henry Kissinger right now.
(By the way, while looking for links, I found this TIME article from Jan. 2001 which is beginning to look a tad bit ironic.)
Geek, Esq.
The new Iraqi constitution will eliminate such problems. The insurgency is desperate, in its last throes, and losing steam. Freedom is on the march. Purple fingers. Thousand points of light.
Tractarian
I’m not normally one to defend the media’s war coverage. There are a lot of positive things going on in Iraq that don’t get the attention they deserve.
But there is nothing positive to take out of this incident, period. The only reason these fanatics didn’t threaten or kill the mayor was because he wasn’t there!!! And taking solace in the fact that “at least Sharia law is law” is simply pitiful.
Maybe your “sarcasm” tag includes the bit about “positives”, I don’t know. But it reminded me a lot of the MSM’s “fair and balanced” style of reporting, so I can’t be blamed for taking it seriously. (You know the deal… if the President says the Earth is flat, the headline would be “Opinions Differ on Shape of Earth”….)
Jimmy Jazz
“Operation Cut and Run Before the ’06 Midterms” will withdraw troops from the “pacified” (Shi’ite controlled) areas and leave them in the Sunni areas. This will allow the Iranian trained and influenced militias to consolidate power while still leaving Americans to take out the only serious threat to Shi’ite power. Mayor McSCIRI will have a lot of company next year.
Oh, and if anyone thinks we can just airstrike Iranian nuclear facilities, you probably ought to ask SCIRI how their membership would feel about that. Or, you know, you could just watch footage of the ’79 Iranian revolution for a sneak preview.
gratefulcub
Not to overstate things, but I find this the most disturbing news out of iraq in a long time. Right outside the green zone, armed militiamen overthrow the mayor. Not just any militia, the armed wing of SCIRI, the guys that are in charge of the actual government (or something resembling a government). If the leaders of SCIRI aren’t coming out against this act, they must support it. The majority party in the new government just took a position by force.
This is the same SCIRI militia that now controls southern Iraq. The most chilling thing I have read about southern Iraq (Basra in particular) came from the conservative journalist that was executed last week. He implied that the SCIRI militia was in control, and sharia law was the new law of the land.
SCIRI and the Shia control Southern Iraq. The Peshmerga owns the North and are in control of Kirkuk (the tinderbox of the larger tinderbox). The Sunni still operate relatively freely in the West. SCIRI just called dibs on Baghdad.
The Kurds demand federalism, the Sunni demand a strong central government.
The Shia demand sharia law, the Kurds demand that sharia law not be in the constitution. Yet they are going to find a compromise by Monday?
Where do we go from here? I guess I am just over reacting because the librul media isn’t giving me all the good news. But, how many new schoos and how much extra power does it take to balance out the battle lines being drawn for a protracted 3 piece civil war, and that is before we even discuss Iran, Syria, and Turkey. What will their reaction be?
Vlad
The first time I saw the headline, I misread it as “Baghdad Mayor Outed”.
Upon further review, I wish my initial take had been correct.
aaron
Jimmy, I’ve been wondering. With all of the talk about Iran smuggling bombs into Iraq…when do we attack? Some have said that we don’t need to send in a bunch of troops…we can just do bombing runs. How long will the Iraqis let us kill Iranians with warplanes launched from Iraqi soil? SCIRI won’t like it.
Slartibartfast
Bad, BAD paper of record! NO BISCUIT!
Jimmy Jazz
That’s exactly what I was implying with my post. Any attack on Iran, and you put radicals like Muqtada al Sadr back in charge of the Shi’ites. There is some daylight between Iranian and Iraqi Shi’ites, but the militias are absolutely not going to stand for any attack on Iran, launched from Iraq or not.
Jill
You have got to be kidding if you think it is positive that they want law for every citizen. Don’t you know that they are heading into Sharia Law and that means law for everyone but women. Iraq is going backwards. As awful as Saddam was, the new Sharia inspired constitution will look worse. Way to go, George! There were plenty of people before we invaded predicting everything that has happened in Iraq so far, including the Army War College which Bush and Co. decide to ignore. None of this is a surprise, none of it.
J. Michael Neal
The Times didn’t leave those facts out. Tamini had not resigned. As they correctly reported, Tamini had offered his resignation. The governor of Baghdad had not accepted it. Ergo, he had not resigned.
Further, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t matter that the city council had appointed the new guy. It sounds like it is a position that is supposed to be appointed by the governor, not the council. The former has not appojnted the individual that the council has installed as the interim mayor.
Now, it is perfectly possible to build a case, and likely a valid one, that the structure through which the mayor is appointed by the governor, who has never faced election himself, is one that points to a critical lack of democracy and legitimacy in the city of Baghdad. To my mind, this only makes things worse. The legal structure in place in Baghdad, seven months after the elections, still lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqis, so the people with guns work to break it down and install there own guy.
Let’s also be clear that the party that went about installing him is hardline Islamist and has close ties to Iran. This move would give them control over the largest city and capital of Iraq, in additional to the security services that they already run. SCIRI using its military muscle to install those loyal to it is a very bad sign.
Jim
This reminds of Hitchens’ piece from a couple days ago where he lamented that some anti-war libs wanted us to fail. Reminded me of it for two reasons. First, Hitchens talked glowingly of the mayor. Second, I think part of why anti-war libs come accross as wanting us to lose is they react to some war supporters who look at bad news and claim “see this means we are winning”. I will confess it will drive me nuts when the defense department or the WH claim that this is just what happens in democracies. They are going to say some variant of it.
J. Michael Neal
Sorry, I misremembered. The governor of Baghdad is also the newly appointed mayor. The mayor is, leaglly, appointed by the central government, which had neither accepted Tamimi’s resignation, nor authorized the installment of the governor as mayor. My basic points were correct, but I misspecified some of the players.
Slartibartfast
Ah. Well, I sit corrected.
DougJ
Freedom is messy. There will be bumps in the road — this being one of them — but make no mistake: freedom is on the march.
Pug
Yeah, and it is marching out of Iraq very quickly.
These SCIRI guys are the fighting arm of Sistani. They whole bunch are backed by Iran.
Maybe their will be a new film soon: “Birth of a (Islamic) Nation”.
croatoan
Alaa al-Tamimi, the outgoing mayor, was basically installed by the CPA. “The final approval of his selection will be made by L. Paul Bremer.” Last month the Baghdad provincial council decided to fire him because they felt he’s “incapable of dealing with his responsibilities.”
SCIRI won the provincial election in Baghdad, despite the US trying to fix the election. So now they’re putting their own guy in.
TallDave
Heh.
The update puts a slightly different face on things, doesn’t it?
Yeesh, what horrible reporting. We’d all be speaking German or Japanese if we’d had this media in WW II.