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Category: Vladimir Lozinski | Main

President Bush Thrown "Farewell Kiss"

December 15, 2008 10:43 AM

By Vladimir Lozinski, ABC News Baghdad

People in the streets of Baghdad today are calling Muntather al-Zaidi, a correspondent for Al Baghdadia, an independent Iraqi television station, a hero. The buzz in Baghdad is all about last night’s “shoe incident,” when al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush during a press conference. He was dragged away by security as he yelled, “This is a farewell kiss you dog.”

Bush came to Iraq Sunday on his last international trip as president of the United States. He signed a largely symbolic agreement on the withdrawal of forces with Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki.

Most people in the Baghdad streets this morning stand strongly behind the journalist. Shop owner Ahmed Kadhum Radhi said, “This is a message to the incoming president to change America's policy in Iraq.”

Others, such as Samir Luay, a food merchant, said, "It is embarrassing to Iraqis, as no matter what he did. He is a guest of the Iraqi people.”

In Sadr City, demonstrators denounced Bush's visit and called for Zaidi’s immediate release. Protesters pumped the air with shoes in their hands and chanted, "Even if we run out of ammunition, we will attack them with our shoes," meaning the Americans.

This morning the TV channel Zaidi works for is playing patriotic songs and issuing the journalist from across the Arab world. In Iraq, tribes in Al Anbar province are calling him a hero, as are people from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian territories.

More than 100 lawyers from around the Arab world have offered to defend Zaidi free of charge.

Iraq’s Ulama and Intellectuals Group, an assemblage of Iraqi scholars and intellectuals, announced its readiness to establish a team of lawyers to defend Muntather al-Zaidi, and have called on the government to preserve his life, holding it responsible for his safety.

The Iraqi Cabinet's press relations office released a formal statement saying, “It smears the reputation of Iraqi media.” while the official press release about Bush’s visit with Maliki does not even mention the incident.

Al Mashri, a Sunni newspaper, was the only newspaper to comment on the incident, quoting Bush's statement ” These kinds of things happen when there is democracy.”

'Chemical Ali' Gets Second Death Sentence

December 02, 2008 12:29 PM

By Vladimir Lozinski, ABC News Baghdad

"Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majid al-Tikriti stood motionless as the judge sentenced him to death Tuesday for his role in crushing a Shiite revolt in southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

“Praise be to Allah” he responded quietly after the judge read the sentence outloud. A cousin of Saddam Hussein, he was considered one of the most powerful and brutal men in Saddam's inner circle. It is his second death sentence after he was condemned last year to be hanged on five separate charges for his role in a 1980s genocide campaign in the Kurdish northeast. "Chemical Ali" earned his nickname for his poisoned gas attacks on the village of Halabja and his crushing of the Kurdish autonomy campaign that killed up to 100,000 Kurds.

Another two Baath Party officials were condemned to death with him. The charges were over the brutal suppression of the majority Shiite by in the south, which was ordered by Saddam Hussein when he feared an uprising could topple his government. Four others received life sentences and six were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Three were acquitted.

Abdul-Ghani Abdul-Ghafur, a leader of the Baath Party who was also involved in the repression of the uprising, screamed "Down with the Persian-U.S. occupation" and "I will be a martyr of Iraq" as his death sentence was read out. The judge responded with “Shut up, you dirty Baathist."

It is the same Tribunal that sentenced and hanged Saddam Hussein in the killing of more than 140 Shiites after an assassination attempt against him in the early 1980s. The former Iraqi dictator was hanged in December 2006.

It is not known when the sentences will be carried out.

Iraqi Politics: Fine Line Between Debate & Sabotage

November 20, 2008 11:47 AM

By VLADIMIR LOZINSKI, Bureau Chief, ABC News Baghdad

This morning’s parliamentary session opened with shouting and catcalling as the speaker of the House attempted to read again the Troops Withdrawal Agreement bill. The proceedings were carried live on Iraqi television.

“We don’t need this chaos. The Iraqi people need to understand what we are trying to pass in this bill,” he said as legislators banged their desks and yelled at the speaker for a timeout.

Members of the Sadr bloc, opposed to the agreement, interrupted and constantly demanded to be heard. Speaker of the House Mahmoud al Mashadani pleaded, saying, “Give me a break. We are trying to work here.”

Wednesday’s Iraqi parliament session witnessed scuffles between the Iraqi foreign minister’s security personnel and Sadrist legislators. Anarchy took hold under the parliament dome as it began its second and final reading and Sadrist members pushed water glasses and flower vases off tables. The broadcast was pulled off the air less than an hour into the debate.

Today Iraqis watched their politicians continue the debate. Ahmed Al Masoudi of the Sadr Party and elements in the Shiite bloc, who wish to stall the vote, disrupted the reading of the bill, yelling their objections as well as demanding that the process be broadcast in full this time.

The Iraqi parliament is no stranger to controversy.

Earlier this year Mashadani told a female legislator, “You should not speak. You are a woman.” There are 73 female parliamentarians. Chaos ensued.

The delays in the reading of this bill are causing some concern here. The 275-seat parliament needs a simple majority of one to pass legislation but needs a quorum of 138 to vote. Iraqis are already leaving for hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and parliament is expected to go into recess in early December for the Muslim holiday of Eid. There is a fear that there may not be enough members left in Baghad to pass the vote.

Lawmakers who support the pact said they were worried in particular about the Sadrist bloc and their allies delaying the reading and vote on the bill. The Sadrists reject any agreement in principle.The United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdish Alliance, the second largest party, generally supports the legislation.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Wednesday that the U.S. government’s focus was on "plan A," referring to the agreement. "All we need to do is to have them -- have the reading, let the parliament debate, as you would in a democratic society, and then have a vote," she said. There was no reference to a “plan B” although the United States can ask for an extension of the current U.N. mandate, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is distancing himself from the commotion and has asked the parliamentarians to vote in the interest of the Iraqi people. "You should be up to your historial responsibility in front of God and the Iraqi people," he said in a communique earlier this week. He insists that it should be a true Iraqi process without outside intervention. The process this morning is somewhat volatile... or lively... or truly Iraqi... depending on how you look at it.

Read more blogs by Vladimir Lozinski

November 20, 2008 in Vladimir Lozinski | Permalink | User Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Dogs of War: Baghdad Bureau Mascot Shot

November 16, 2008 11:15 AM

By Vladimir Lozinski, Bureau Chief, ABC News Baghdad

Midnight on a dark, moonless night. Two shots ring out. (Yes, it really happened that way.)

I was dozing while watching another of those crappy B-grade movies we have here in Baghdad.

The phone rang with that ominous Nokia ring tone. I picked it up, expecting the worst.

Faisal, our bureau manager, was distraught on the other end of the line.

“Someone just shot the Fox, the office dog.”

I raced downstairs to the garden.

There he was. Laying on his side, bleeding like a stuck … dog, with the ABC staff and our friends from CNN around him. We checked the wounds. Two. An entry and an exit wound just below his back. Looks like a 9mm or possibly a 7.62,” said Caddy, our head of security.

All of that expensive battlefield medical training suddenly kicked in. We cleaned the wound. Packed it with Betadine. Caddy handed me a compression bandage and we tied a knot that Florence Nightingale would have been proud of.

We all filed down to the blast walls to check out the situation with the Iraqi security team that protects our perimeter. “It came from around there” said Abu Abdullah , the chief guard, waving into the dark empty lot behind the office.

“We have to find out who did this” said Arwa Damon, our colleague and friend from CNN.

Once again my highly tuned Hostile Environments training snapped in. “You want me to wander around at 1 a.m. in the dark looking for a dog assassin with a gun? Let’s do it the morning.”

He is a complicated dog. After all, his surrogate parents, the correspondents and producers who have regularly rotated in and out of Baghdad over the past four years, are not exactly stable role models. “So who’s your daddy?”

Fox was born in the chaos of the Iraq war. An orphan, at the age 3 months he wandered into our office, immediately installed himself under the newsdesk and became the bureau mascot since then.

For awhile he took to racing up to strangers on our street and barking at them. We put that down to anger-release due to his deprived childhood. But what could we do? He was our Fox.

Last year the shopkeeper down the road complained that he was driving away customers and we should do something about him.

“I’ll do that the day we are charged the same price for ice cream and mineral water as the locals,” I answered.

This morning he was resting in the hallway as usual, depressed but sore as I gave him his penicillin shot.

Later in the day he managed to at least get up and play with his food and try to lick his wounds.

I think Fox will make it.

November 16, 2008 in Vladimir Lozinski | Permalink | User Comments (29) | TrackBack (0)

Where Carrying a Gun Is the Easiest Way to Make a Living

November 12, 2008 11:03 AM

By VLADIMIR LOZINSKI and AADEL RASHID, ABC News Baghdad

In a country with almost no employment, carrying a gun is still the easiest way to make a living.

Ali Qasim, a 23-year-old former shopkeeper, got in line Monday for his first paycheck as a member of Sons of Iraq, the government-sponsored militia viewed as a major force in bringing peace and stability to Iraq. Unemployment across Iraq runs between 50 percent and 75 percent, making carrying a gun one of the only job options left for an Iraqi to feed his family.

“The Americans paid us $300 per month, but since the Iraqi government took over, we earn $260 a month,” he said. “It is not worth it to sacrifice my soul for this amount of money."

Recalling a time when he owned a small grocery shop, Ali remembers when al Qaeda Iraq members came in and offered him $400 for each IED he planted and $700 if the operation was captured on tape. He was also offered $5,000 a month and a good fast car and weapon to join AQI full time. He closed his shop and left the neighbourhood immediately for more than two months.

The American military developed Awakening Councils in February 2007, to protect neighborhoods against AQI, Jaysh Mahdi and outlaws, and to draw rogue militas to the government’s side. They were originally made up mainly of Sunni insurgents, but the name was changed this year to Sons of Iraq to incorporate Shiite members. The initiative was a success and has now been handed over to the Iraqi government. “I don’t think that the Iraqi government neither the Multi National Forces could achieve such success and security without their Sons of Iraq participation,” Iraqi Government spokesman Ali Al Dhabbagh told ABC News.

The government said it will retain up to 50 percent of the Sons of Iraq and integrate them into the military and police force. Former members will continue to carry guns and have been offered training courses to help them learn new skills to support their families. Some of the members didn’t hide their anger and frustration over the new salary paid by the government. Half of the Ghazaliya Guardians Sons of Iraq brigade in western Baghdad have quit, according to former members.

The security situation has deteriorated this week, with five car bombs killing at least 38 people. The heightened violence comes as U.S. and Iraqi officials try to agree on a security deal that would keep U.S. troops in Iraq until the end of 2011.

The Political Council for Iraqi Resistance, a coalition of six Iraqi insurgent groups, came together to call for an increase in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, an Internet monitoring service.

Abu Al Qa’qa the Syrian National Imam was recruiting fighters and sending them to Iraq, but in late 2006, he shaved his beard and stopped calling his people to jihad. He was then assassinated in September 2007. Quitting AQI is not an option.

ABC's Baghdad bureau contributed to this blog.

November 12, 2008 in Vladimir Lozinski | Permalink | User Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)