Iraq-Israel: Shooting the would-be messenger

By Michael Kraft

by Michael Kraft

One of the numerous rationales offered by some backers of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein was the vision that Iraq would become a democracy, setting an example for other Muslim countries, and even normalize relations with Israel.

In another dose of hard Iraqi reality, however, gunmen last week tried to assassinate a prominent Iraqi politician who had the temerity to attend an international counter terrorism conference in Israel and to suggest that some Iraqis favor diplomatic relations with Israel. He escaped alive but the ambush of his sports utility vehicle in Baghdad killed his two sons.

The Iraqi is Mithal al-Alusi, a close associate of Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress and a former favorite of the White House and Pentagon officials who had postulated that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would promote democracy and Middle East peace. Prior to the attack on his life, Mr. al-Alusi was also indicted last October by a judge for the interim Iraqi government and expelled from the National Congress Party. Mr. al-Alusi, had received threats upon his life and family but later emerged from hiding and ran in the recent elections.

Mr. Al-Alusi aroused the ire of both the Iraqi leadership and the insurgents after he spoke at an international counterterrorism conference in Israel last September. The conference was sponsored by the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, an Israeli think tank. More than 650 persons from 35 countries, including France, China and Jordan attended.

He received a warm ovation for his appearance. However, his Iraqi countrymen were angered by his comments in the Israeli press relayed throughout the Middle East by wire services. AFP, the French news agency, quoted Mr. Al-Alusi as saying: �Many intellectuals in Iraq know that Israel must be taken into account as an existing fact,� and that �it is in Iraq�s interest to have diplomatic relations with everyone, and that is what we want.�

Sounds reasonable enough to western ears, but in liberated post-Saddam Iraq it was enough to get him kicked out of his party and indicted by the special criminal court on grounds of violating a 1969 law barring Iraqis from having contacts with enemy states. �The Zionist state� is an enemy, said an Iraqi court official.

One evening after a long conference session, Mr. al-Alusi wandered into a hotel lobby and joined me and two Canadian officials for late night snacks and drinks. We talked mainly about the internal Iraqi situation and Ambassador Paul �Jerry� Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Authority, my old boss in the State Department Counterterrorism Office. Mr. Al-Alusi, strongly defended Bremer�s decision to purge Baathist officials and disband the old Iraqi Army.

Amiable and chain smoking, he also briefly described his long and dangerous overland trip from Baghdad to the Turkish border and then to a regional airport for a flight to Istanbul and on to Tel Aviv.

It is hard to imagine that Mr. Al-Alusi would have made the arduous trip without informing Chalabi. Although Chalabi initially enjoyed strong Pentagon backing as the future leader of Iraq, he later was discredited following suspicions that he had relayed sensitive information to the Iranians and had fed misleading information to the U.S. There has been speculation that Mr. al-Alusi�s trip was intended to indirectly gain support for Chalabi�s group among pro-Israeli Americans. Chalabi is reported to be one of the leading contenders to become Prime Minister, following the January 30 elections.

The strong negative reaction in Iraq to Mr. Al-Alusi�s trip should not have come as a surprise. Iraqi rumor mills and press reports have repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that thousands of Iraqi-born Israelis were returning to Iraq. The Jewish population, which had lived in Iraq since Biblical times, had been expelled or fled after the violence that broke out in Bahgdad following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

A survey last August of 1000 persons in Baghdad by the Iraqi Center for Research indicated that the largest percentage of those surveyed -- one third-- considered Israel to be Iraq�s number one enemy. The United States trailed in second place, with 23 per cent. There is a long history to anti-Jewish sentiment in Iraq. Iraqi Jews were publicly hanged after the creation of Israel. Even earlier, in 1941, as described in the recent book �Banking on Baghdad� by Edwin Black, rampaging street mobs attacked and murdered Jews because some Jews took part in a procession greeting a British-installed regent who was unpopular among Iraq�s Moslem majority.

For the foreseeable future Iraq is far from ready to become a "light unto the Middle East" by recognizing Israel. Nevertheless, Mr. Al-Alusi struck a defiant note after the unsuccessful attempt on his life.

In a Radio Free Europe interview he said: �If (the attackers) thought that by killing Mithal al-Alusi the advocates of peace in Iraq will be stopped, then they have made a grave mistake. We will be calling for peace with all neighboring countries (of Iraq.) We will be calling for peace with all countries of the region. And we will be calling for fighting terrorism by any means (and) against all forms (of terror.).�

Despite the attack against him, the murder of his sons, and previous death threats, it is remarkable that this prominent Iraqi remains publicly defiant against the terrorists. This courageous anti-terrorism stance, together with the encouraging voter turnout on Jan. 30, provides a glimmer of hope for the future of Iraq, even if Mr. Al-Alusi is wrong about the likelihood of Iraq soon recognizing the state of Israel.

-- The writer is a consultant and a former senior advisor in the State Department Office of Counterterrorism.

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