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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bastn Ozeti
over the keys to the tomb of Imam Ali,
the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law.
A gilded cage surrounding the tomb
contains a box for pilgrims' donations, a
huge and vital source of income for religious
leaders.
As al-Khoei and a colleague visited
the shrine on the morning of April 10,
2003, an angry mob attacked them with
,grenades, guns and swords. "Long live
Moqtada al-Sadr!" the mob cried out.
Al-Khoei was stabbed repeatedly, then
tied up and dragged to the doorstep of
Sadr's headquarters in Najaf, where he
was still alive. A subsequent investigation
by an Iraqi judge
found that Sadr himself
gave the order to finish
him off: "Take him
away and kill him in
your own special way."
Yet it wasn't clear at
the time of the killing
what Sadr's personal
role was, and "we didn't
want one of our first
acts in country to be
taking out one of the
most popular leaders,"
says a U.S. military officer
familiar with Army
intelligence on Sadr.
The officer, who did
not want to be named
discussing intelligence
matters, says the Army
was worried about provoking
riots. When Sadr's father was
killed in 1999, Saddam violently crushed
protests by angry Shia mobs. "We
thought that tens of thousands would
take to the streets in Nasiriya, Karbala
and Baghdad. It always cornes back to
that-not enough guys on the ground."
One courageous Iraqijudge, RaidJuhi,
doggedly investigated the case. He exhumed
the bodies of al-Khoei and his colleague,
and wrote up a confidential arrest
warrant for Sadr in August 2003. "From
that moment through April 2004, the issue
was whether we were going to enforce the
arrest warrant," says Dan Senor, a senior
official in the Coalition Provisional Authority
at the time.
The CPA, the Pentagon and the military
on the ground were in disagreement.
The Marines in southern Iraq were
particularly wary of stirring up trouble.
As it was, the United States was preparing
to hand off the area around Najaf to a
multinational force with troops from
Spain and Central America. Still, the
Coalition had a secret arrest plan, and momentum
toward nabbing Sadr was building.
"The pivotal moment was Aug. 19,
2003:' says Senor. "We were down to figuring
out the mechanisms of ensuring that
the operation was seen as Iraqi, executed
on an Iraqi arrest warrant. 1 remember it
was late afternoon and we had just received
a snowflake from [US. Defense
Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld ... with nine
different questions, rehashing how we
were going to do this, to make sure it was
TO BREAK A STALEMATE
ln his search for allies, Chalabi (center)
helped persuade Sadr to join the political
system. Many argue that to do otherwise
would disenfranchise a key bloc of poor Shia.
not seen as an American operation." CA
"snowflake" was a Rumsfeld memo.)
Suddenly word came that insurgents
had detonated a massive truck bomb at
the United Nations headquarters in
Baghdad. Senor recalls rushing to the
scene with Hume Horan, a top US. diplomat
and Arabist. Horan leaned over to
Senor and said, "We should take down
Sadr now, when no one's looking." But
there was enough chaos to deal with already.
The UN. bombing was "a huge distraction;'
says Senor, "and the Sadr operation
was forgotten."
TAKING ON IRAQ'S
NEWTALIBAN
THE U.S. INVASION HAD DESTROYED AN
economy already crippled by years of international
sanctions. Countless young men
were unemployed, invigorated by the atmosphere
of violent change but also poor
and fearful. They wanted to be part of the
new order-whatever it would be. The country
was also awash in guns and other weapons,
induding those looted from Saddam's
vast and unsecured arms depots. The Sadrist
network was perfectly positioned to capitalize
on the situation. Sadr himself was
determined to lead a national
movement-using
a potent mixture of antioccupation
militancy and
rnillennial preaching
about the coming of the
mysterious 12th imam,
who Shiites believe will
save mankind. "Moqtada
is absolutely hooked on
the concept of the reappearance
of the Mahdi;'
says Amatzia Baram, the
director of the Ezri Center
at Haïfa University.
The first sighting of
black-dad militiamen
identitying themselves as
part of Mahdi Army
seems to have come in
September 2003 in the
southern town of Kufah.
"1 do not care what the Americans have to
say about this, and 1 never did;' said Sadr
when asked about the new militia by reporters
later that month. "Only the Iraqi
people can choose who they want to protect
their country:' The US. military, fighting an
ever-growing insurgency by the minority
Sunnis, who had lost power with Saddam's
downfall, didn't want to instigate a twofront
war. But that left the United States
without a strategy. If American forces
weren't going to fight Sadr, it made sense to
try to entice him into a political process: But
other Iraqi leaders, induding prominent
Shiites, may have opposed that idea.
ln the winter of 2004, a senior adviser to
Ambassador Paul Bremer, the American
proconsul in Iraq, was traveling in the
south, meeting with friendly derics and
community leaders. "1could see how frightened
they were of [Sadr] and his Mahdi
Army;' recalls the aide, Larry Diamond. "1
'1WANTED TO GO AFTER HlM WHEN HE HAD 200 FOLLOWERS,'
SAYS BREMER. 'THE MARINES RESISTED DOING ANYTHING.'
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