Posted on 04/25/2003 7:46:53 PM PDT by Pokey78
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities."
The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging as a political force have among Iraqis.
The United States has warned Iran not to meddle in Iraqi affairs, suggesting this week that Iranian agents have crossed into Iraq to destabilize the Shiite population. The possibility of a virulent burst of Shiite religious militancy appears to be a chief threat to American plans for a democratic system in Iraq.
The edict says that Shiite leaders have to "seize as many positions as possible to impose a fait accompli for any coming government." Using the familiar language of Iranian clerics often apply to the United States, the fatwa urges the Shiite clergy to work against American influence among Shiites.
"People have to be taught not to collapse morally before the means used by the Great Satan if it stays in Iraq," the fatwa reads. "It will try to spread moral decay, incite lust by allowing easy access to stimulating satellite channels and spread debauchery to weaken people's faith."
The fatwa also instructs the cleric's followers to "raise people's awareness of the Great Satan's plans and of the means to abort them."
Following that order, Shiite mullahs in the holy city of Najaf have been dispensing money and appointing clerics to administer several key Iraqi cities, Shiite leaders said. Those clerics, in turn, are appointing officials to run everything from civil defense militias to post offices.
"We are in control of all of Iraq, especially central and southern Iraq, not only Baghdad," said Sadeq Abu Jafaar, an aide to Sheik Muhammad al-Fartusi, the cleric charged by Mr. Haeri with the administration of eastern Baghdad.
Mr. Haeri is the power behind one side of an apparent split in Iraq's Shiite clergy, which was neutralized by executions and imprisonment during Saddam Hussein's rule and is now struggling to capitalize on its new freedom. His followers have quickly installed a skeletal organization in several cities to try to take over management of basic services and establish their authority over the Shiite population.
It is unclear how much control the mullahs really have outside Baghdad and the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Even in Baghdad, their presence is thin and scattered, restricted predominantly to Shiite neighborhoods. Many of Iraq's Shiites say they are wary of the Islamic strictures the clerics would like to impose.
But the mullahs faithful to Mr. Haeri clearly have a broader administrative network on the ground than any other group in the country outside of the Kurdish held-areas in the country's north.
The Shiites are not the only ones vying for power in the wake of the American invasion, hoping to secure positions from which they will not be easily dislodged when the United States sets up a provisional government in Iraq.
In Washington today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States would not allow a pro-Iranian Islamic regime to take control in postwar Iraq.
"A vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran's image will not be permitted to do so," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We will not allow the Iraqi people's democratic transition to be hijacked for — by those who might wish to install another form of dictatorship."
The Shiites are by far the most significant group grabbing for power in central and southern Iraq both because of their dominant demographic position — more than 60 percent of Iraq's people are Shiite Muslims — and because their religion gives them an authoritative system to build upon.
Their activism presents a prickly challenge for the United States, which hopes to install an America-friendly government in Iraq but wants to minimize Islamic influence in that government's affairs.
Mr. Haeri's involvement makes that issue even more diplomatically fragile because it raises the possibility of direct Iranian influence over the quickly coalescing control of Iraq's Shiite population. Iran is also a predominantly Shiite country and has been ruled by its religious clergy since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led an Islamic revolution there in 1979.
"Of course we are closer to Iran since they have the same religion as us," said Mr. Fartusi, Mr. Haeri's representative in eastern Baghdad, sitting in a cramped office of the city's al Hekmah mosque, where he now has his headquarters in Baghdad's biggest Shiite district, dubbed Al Sadr city by the activist clerics.
Mr. Haeri, who was born in Iraq's holy city of Karbala, moved to Qum in 1973 as a protégé of Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr, a founder of the Iraqi Islamist Dawa Party who was executed in 1980. Mr. Haeri has long promoted the founding of an Iranian-style Islamic state in Iraq in which Shiite clerics would rule.
On April 7, the day American troops effectively toppled Mr. Hussein's government by seizing its main seats of power in Baghdad, Mr. Haeri sent a handwritten letter to the holy Iraqi city of Najaf, appointing Moktada al-Sadr as his deputy in Iraq.
In the signed letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Haeri wrote that, "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 the fatwa, Mr. Haeri urged his followers in Iraq to "kill all Saddamists who try to take charge" and "to cut short any chance of the return to power of second-line Baathists."
That clause in the fatwa may explain the killing two days later of a prominent pro-Western Shiite cleric brought to Najaf by American Special Forces in hopes of winning support from the Shiite clergy there.
The cleric, Sheik Abdel Majid al-Khoei, was stabbed and shot by a mob said by locals to include supporters of Mr. Sadr after Mr. Khoei brought a Baath Party member into the city's holiest mosque in an attempt to restore the man's position as the mosque's caretaker.
In Karbala this week, a rally staged by Mr. Sadr's supporters at the close of a religious festival there carried two distinct messages: that the religious clergy of Najaf, in whose name Mr. Sadr is operating, are Iraqi Shiites' only legitimate authority and that American and British forces are not welcome in Iraq.
"Death for America, Death for Zionists," chanted some people in the crowd.
Since Mr. Haeri's fatwa was issued, Mr. Sadr has been busy sending signed letters and bundles of cash by courier to clerics in several Iraqi cities, deputizing clerics and authorizing the seizure of various public institutions. His signature has become known to Shiites all across the country from the photocopies of his announcements and edicts posted on mosque walls.
It has only been this week that Mr. Sadr's deputies have begun displaying Mr. Haeri's photo and talking openly about his role, evidently to deflect criticism of Mr. Sadr, who is not senior enough to issue fatwas on his own. "We wanted to keep it hidden," said Sheik Kadhem al-Ebadi al-Nasseri, one of Mr. Sadr's deputies in Kerbala.
At Qadessia Hospital in Baghdad's largest Shiite district, Kalashnikov-toting men defer to a group of mullahs who say they are reluctant to talk without permission from Mr. Sadr's representative, Mr. Fartusi.
At Kendi Hospital across town, another mullah, Abbas al-Zubaidi, proudly displays a notice signed by Mr. Sadr, giving him control of the hospital. It is not clear what has become of the administrators who were in charge of these institutions but Mr. Zubaidi ticks off a list of other hospitals in the city now controlled by Mr. Sadr's men.
At Al Karekh Public Food Trading and Sales Center in yet another part of the city, a guard at a food warehouse open to reporters on two previous visits apologizes for not allowing them access a third time.
"The Howza came and took control of the warehouse today," he said, referring to the seminary in Najaf, the traditional seat of Iraq's Shiite clerical power and in whose name Mr. Sadr is operating on the strength of his late father's position.
One question that cannot yet be answered is whether the Shiites under Mr. Haeri's control will give up their gains if an American-run civil administration — or a provisional Iraqi government — tells them to.
In a possible sign of trouble ahead, Mr. Fartusi, was detained for two days by the American military this week after having been found with a handgun in his car.
"We are not concerned with what the Americans think of us," he said. "We do not deal with the Americans whatsoever."
It's time for our Special Forces guys to start taking out every fifth "Shiite Mullah" in Iraq, as in send them to get their 72 virgins. Make it look like an accident but if 60 or 70 of them slip on camel crap next week and break their neck, the rest will get the message.
If every fifth doesn't work take it down to every other Mullah.
So9
It's the truth, and everyone knows it.
"Wild clerics do not rule."
Col. Hunt said we need to whack a few of these guys, and they'll get the message.
In using the term "whack", I don't think he meant "lock up".;o)
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