[Marxism] Baath Party rebuilding in Iraq

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Knight-Ridder reporter Hannah Allam continues to break more unique stories
from Iraq than any other reporter in country. This one offers interesting
insights into the nature of the resistance in Iraq. Is is the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I have no idea, but Allam has built
up a pretty good reputation in recent months in my book.

URL:
<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/9764684.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp>

Baath Party rebuilds hidden power in Iraq
FAR FROM DEAD, CELLS AIM TO KILL SOLDIERS, UNITE REBELS
By Hannah Allam  Knight Ridder

BAGHDAD, Iraq -By day, Iraqis loyal to Saddam's Hussein's much-feared Baath
Party recite their oath in clandestine meetings, solicit donations from
former members and talk politics over sugary tea at a Baghdad cafe known as
simply ``The Party.''

By night, cells of these same men stage attacks on American and Iraqi
forces, host soirees for Saddam's birthday and other former regime holidays,
and debrief informants still dressed in suits and ties from their jobs in
the new, U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Even with Saddam under lock and key, the Baath Party is back in business.

The pan-Arab socialist movement is going strong with sophisticated computer
technology, high-level infiltration of the new government and plenty of
recruits in thousands of disenchanted, impoverished Sunni Muslim Iraqis,
according to interviews with current and former members, Iraqi government
officials and groups trying to root out former Baathists.

The political party has morphed into a catchall resistance movement that
poses a serious challenge to interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a
Baathist-turned-opposition leader.

Talks with members

Allawi has acknowledged he's holding talks with members of the former
government in hopes of gaining a handle on the violence and political
disarray. But he's up against a force with deep pockets, allies in
neighboring countries and an excuse to fight as long as 135,000 American
soldiers remain on Iraqi soil.

``There are two governments in Iraq,'' said Mithal al-Alusi,
director-general of the Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification, a
group overseen by Iraqi politician and former Pentagon favorite Ahmed
Chalabi. Baathists ``are like thieves, stealing the power of the new
government. Their work is organized and strong.''

Ostensibly banned since Saddam's ouster, the Baath Party has rebuilt itself
by sending top members of the former regime to safe houses in Jordan and
Syria, Iraqi government officials said. The foot soldiers -- mainly from the
vast ranks of midlevel members -- remain in Iraq, where they have started
Web sites and formed independent cells and communicate outside the radar of
U.S. forces through a word-of-mouth network known in Baathist parlance as
``the thread.''

No one can say with certainty how big the latest Baathist incarnation is.
The secrecy of the organization is evident even on one of its main Web
sites, where a pop-up feature tells users how to erase the Web address from
the computer's memory.

In the Saddam stronghold north and west of the capital, a sprawling area
known as the ``Sunni triangle,'' Baathists freely distribute price lists to
unemployed young men. Burning a U.S. Humvee or detonating a homemade bomb
can earn them a few hundred dollars. Killing an American soldier brings at
least $1,000.

A political-science professor at Baghdad University who is a former Baathist
and has been involved in negotiations between the party and the U.S.-led
coalition said, ``The Americans came to Iraq with a foggy picture of what is
going on, including their ideas about the Baathists.''

The U.S. military and the U.S. State Department declined to comment on the
Baathist resurgence.

The 52-year-old professor, who did not want his name used, said his American
colleagues mistakenly believed that Saddam's capture in December was the end
of the Baathist movement in Iraq. Instead, he continued, that was just when
party members in Iraq started reconciling with powerful Baathists in
Damascus, Syria, and Amman, Jordan.

Exiles return

The result was the return to Iraq of a handful of prominent exiled Iraqi
members, who created a shadowy, neo-Baathist organization called
``Al-Islah,'' Arabic for ``The Reform.'' The group held a conference in
London in early spring, according to news accounts of the private meeting
and sources familiar with the participants.

``This conference . . . stressed one thing: that there is no difference
between the Baath Party and the resistance,'' the professor said. ``They are
equal.''

Within a year after the fall of the former regime, the Baath Party was
restructured as an umbrella organization for opposition groups that run the
gamut from anti-occupation nationalists to Islamist extremists, said Sabah
Kadhim of the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Kadhim said there is no doubt that Baathists remain active in Iraq,
numbering in ``the thousands.'' The Iraqi government is struggling to track
their activities, he said, because of the U.S.-led dismantling of the old
intelligence apparatus and the fact that former Baathists are much better
trained and organized than the Allawi government's fledgling agents.

Baathists ``have their weapons and they have their money and they are still
in Iraq,'' Kadhim said. ``Some of them are highly capable and they resent
the fact that they are no longer in charge.''

Brazen announcement

The most brazen announcement of the Baathist resurgence came April 7, the
57th anniversary of the party. A statement posted on the Internet lamented
that the holiday would be celebrated under occupation. It also made clear
members' plans to take back western Iraq's Anbar province, home of the flash
point Sunni towns of Al-Fallujah and Ar-Ramadi.

``The Baath Party and resistance are to implement a series of military
operations against the U.S. Marines newly situated in western Iraq,'' the
announcement read.

The same week, the hostility between Al-Fallujah fighters and U.S.-led
forces erupted into a full-scale uprising and a bloody, monthlong siege on
the city by the Marines. By the time it was over, the Marines had
effectively ceded control of Al-Fallujah to a loosely connected band of
Islamist extremists and former Baathists. The entire province is now a
``no-go'' zone for foreigners, particularly Americans.

Neo-Baathists describe the Al-Fallujah ending as a victory, and they are
using the model to recruit new members or woo former Baathists back into the
fold. Several former members who have now distanced themselves from the
party told Knight Ridder they had received late-night visits from their
former comrades, asking for donations or reminding them of the privileges
they enjoyed under Saddam.

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