Child malnutrition doubles in Iraq

I find the following incredible, if only because it comes after more than a decade of sanctions that have killed at least several 100,000s of Iraqi children because of malnutrition and other ailments:

BAGHDAD — Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq’s Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway’s Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from “wasting,” a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

“These figures clearly indicate the downward trend,” said Alexander Malyavin, a child health specialist with the UNICEF mission to Iraq.

The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across a country convulsed by instability and mismanagement. While attacks by insurgents have grown more violent and more frequent, deteriorating basic services take lives that many Iraqis said they had expected to improve under American stewardship.

Iraq’s child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.

A staggering statistic.

Al Hubris

A little excerpt from an interesting story on a meeting of Arab satellite TV broadcasters:

Mouafac Harb, director of news at the US government-funded al-Hurra TV, said it was a myth that pan-Arab TV channels were free and independent.

“Pan-Arab media are mouthpieces of Arab governments… they are all linked, money-wise, to one or other Arab state,” he argued.

But Abdallah Schleifer, director of the Adham Centre for TV Journalism in Cairo, countered that relying on state funding did not need to impinge on the independence of pan-Arab channels.

The real test of editorial independence lay in whether the stations could act as a force to watch over their own governments and criticise them when necessary, delegates suggested.

And Egyptian broadcaster Mohamed Gohar joked that in Egypt “we have a full democracy – in criticising Bush and Sharon.”

Mr Harb said that when it came to deciding whether to screen footage of captives filmed by kidnappers, Arabic satellite channels had to ask themselves: “Are we being used by terrorists?”

It is not only the Arabic stations that show such images
But leading satellite channels al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera both insisted that editorial value was their first consideration with footage of hostages and killings.

In tapes from Osama Bin Ladin, for instance, “we have to avoid the rhetoric and take what’s of news value”, said Salah Negm of UAE-based channel Al-Arabiya.

Al-Jazeera’s Ahmad Sheikh denied the Qatar-based channel was helping “to create the myth of Bin Ladin”.

“Any news of Osama Bin Ladin is always covered in a news context – and we are not unique in reporting Bin Ladin’s pronouncements,” Mr Sheikh argued.

I find it hilarious that Al Hurra, a TV station specifically and explicitly founded to be a propaganda tool for the US in the Arab world, is giving morality lessons to the likes of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, which for all their faults have done more for free speech in the Arab world in the past decade than anything or anyone else. They have certainly done more than a third-rate station run by Maronite nuts like Al Hurra.

Qaddumi sure Arafat was poisoned

Why is this idiot saying this:

BEIRUT (AFP) – Faruq Qaddumi, who succeeded Yasser Arafat as head of the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement, reaffirmed his belief that the Palestinian leader had been poisoned.

“He died due to poison. All the treatments and medical examinations have ruled out all the illnesses that you could think of, like leukaemia or the loss of immunity,” he said in the Lebanese capital.

“Why had all the blood platelets continued to disintegrate? There is no other reason,” he told reporters at a news conference with Lebanese foreign minister Mahmoud Hammoud.

Especially when we know what disease he had and that it reduces platelet counts. By the way, if there are any medical doctors out there who understand this stuff, it’d be nice to have an plain English translation of what “Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation” is why it’s “controversial.”

Arab troops in Iraq

Following Ursula’s recent post from the Sharm Al Sheikh conference — and her revelation that Iraq may publicly accuse neighboring countries of aiding the insurgents — I’d like to add a little informed speculation about another possible outcome.

I read Middle Eastern news pretty thoroughly on a daily basis, and there is an important item that’s been unreported in the mainstream press. In fact, I only found out about it last week from the British satirical magazine Private Eye, the best publication available in print in my opinion and the only one I subscribe to. While a lot of Private Eye is humor, they do an excellent watch of British politics and media and also have regular coverage on the murky connections between diplomacy, finance, arms trading and such. In this month’s issue they have a short article about an offer made to President Bush in July by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to offer Arab peacekeeping troops from several countries, but only on the condition that they be under the command of the UN rather than US. Bush refused.

Considering the developments since the summer, that it is becoming increasingly clear that another 40-50,000 troops are needed to control the uprising, that Poland could get out of Iraq soon (following Hungary) and that France and Germany still seem against the idea of sending troops, he may have to change his mind. The Saudi offer story has recently been confirmed by an Arab source, who said it might come back on the table.

One last thought: if Arab countries do send troops (and perhaps other Muslim countries like Pakistan), they will try to exact a high price for their collaboration. Specifically, they will expect at the very least less pressure on democratization.

Medical report vague about cause of Arafat’s death

Nasser Al Qidwa, Yassser Arafat’s nephew, is not being very clear about what he found out from the medical report:

After receiving the medical report on his uncle’s death, Qidwa said there was still no clear cause of death and the poisoning theory could not be ruled out definitively, even though there was no clear evidence of it.

“I have not had the time to study the report and obviously I am not competent because I am not a doctor,” he said Monday.

“But two central points remain. There is no clear diagnosis of the reason for the death, and second the toxicological tests were made and no known poison was found.”

Qidwa, who is also the Palestinian representative at the United Nations (news – web sites), was expected to deliver the 558-page report to a Palestinian ministerial committee which is looking into the causes of Arafat’s death on November 11.

“A question mark remains for us because of the lack of a diagnosis,” Qidwa said. Asked about poisoning, he went on: “I am not excluding this but not asserting it either. There is no proof.”

This is the mystery that simply won’t go away. I think the poison theory, which was always dubious, can be dismissed since the tests found nothing, but it’s really rather surprising that a 558-page report delivers no clear picture of what happened. More likely, he’s not telling. One more thing:

Last week doctors who treated Arafat at a French military hospital outside Paris were quoted in the authoritative daily Le Monde saying he died of a blood clotting disorder called disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).

If that’s what caused the death, then there is a cause. So why is Qidwa saying it’s inconclusive?

Locust fatwa

If you need another proof of why putting faith in fatwas is stupid:

Faced with an invasion of locusts, the highest Islamic religious institution in Egypt has reportedly issued an edict allowing people to eat locusts.

The independent al-Masri al-Yawm newspaper said al-Azhar Institute has decreed it is permitted by religion to eat the red desert locusts that have invaded the country during the past week.

It said al-Azhar has urged all Egyptians to “hunt the locusts and eat them to combat the crisis.”

The newspaper quoted Abdul Hamid al-Atrash, the head of the Fatwa Commission in al-Azhar, as saying eating the locusts would “contribute actively in wiping them out, instead of the fear that has consumed the hearts of millions of people.”

Al-Atrash said insects that feed off plants are deemed pure for human consumption.

Come to think of it, this might not be true. But it sounds just plausible enough considering the drivel that’s been spouted by Al Azhar sheikhs lately.

More on Safire

Salon’s Eric Boehlert has a good wrap-up of William Safire’s history of agit-prop, including a long section on Safire’s Likudist leanings:

Safire admitted to going easy and “pulling his punches” in a 1987 column about his old friend Bill Casey and the major role he played in Iran-Contra during the Reagan administration. (Safire ran Casey’s unsuccessful congressional campaign in New York in 1966.) Back in 1981, when Casey was director of the CIA, Safire allegedly called up Casey and urged him to allow Israel to have access to restricted satellite imagery. Casey caved, but was rebuffed by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Safire denied the charge he lobbied the CIA on Israel’s behalf, but he’s a fervent and unapologetic apologist for Israel, in particular for its right-wing Likud Party. “He’s been substantially to the right of the mainstream of the American Jewish community,” notes Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan. In a 1992 Playboy interview he revived a favorite dream of the Israeli right, the idea that Palestinians would somehow leave the West Bank and move to Jordan. “I consider myself pro-Palestinian,” Safire said. “I’d like to see them have a state. I think the state they should have is Jordan, which is mainly Palestinian.” Safire said that only King Hussein of Jordan stood in the way: “I think he’s an obstacle to peace.” Hussein was “an obstacle” because he had renounced all claim to the West Bank in 1988, leaving the so-called “Jordanian option” irredeemably dead — although not in Safire’s eyes or that of the Israeli right.

Safire’s passionate commitment to Israel has led to some serious reporting gaffes. As Alterman notes in “Sound and Fury,” when Israelis destroyed Iraq’s nuclear plant in 1981, Safire quoted “Baghdad’s official newspaper,” which allegedly insisted the targeted reactor was to be used against “the Zionist enemy.” In fact, the quote was manufactured by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. And in 1991 when a group of Israelis were murdered in Egypt, Safire wrote that the PLO “condoned last week’s slaughter,” when the Times itself had documented several instances that week of the PLO denouncing the attack.

More recently, Safire’s column has doubled as an open forum for Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As the Israeli paper Haaretz noted this year, “Safire has an open phone line to Sharon and tends to interview him by giving him an open platform with virtually no interference.”

“One of Safire’s major accomplishments was to rehabilitate Sharon in the American political discourse after he was sent into the political wilderness,” says Cole. Sharon was disgraced after Israel’s Lebanese Christian Phalange allies methodically massacred hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon — an invasion masterminded by Sharon. An Israeli commission of inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for the slaughter and he was removed as defense minister.

Safire’s devotion to Israel may be one reason he turned on the first President Bush, who earned the wrath of Safire, Israel and the powerful pro-Israel lobby by threatening to hold up $10 billion in loan guarantees if Israel did not stop building settlements in the occupied territories. During a 1991 press conference Bush the elder famously complained he was just “one little guy” battling the “powerful political forces” of the Jewish lobby in Washington, D.C.

Whatever his reasons, Safire all but declared war on Bush in 1992, hyping the now-forgotten “Iraqgate” — “the first global political scandal,” as he breathlessly proclaimed it. Safire, along with ABC News’ “Nightline” and other journalists, charged that the Bush administration had secretly and illegally plotted to arm Iraq and then orchestrated a coverup. Safire dubbed it “an election year Watergate,” insisting, “Never before in the history of the Republic, in my opinion, has the nation’s chief law enforcement officer been in such flagrant and sustained violation of the law.” In a column titled “Is the Fix In?” Safire charged that President Clinton and Al Gore — who had made much of the Iraqgate charges during the campaign but stopped raising them after assuming office — had been paid off to shut up. “George Bush privately assured Bill Clinton that he would not criticize the new President during the first year of his term. … Mr. Bush has kept his word,” Safire wrote. “In what may be an unspoken quid pro quo, the Clinton Administration has moved to quash any revelations about Bush’s Iraqgate scandal. … No wonder we hear not a peep of criticism about Clinton from Bush; the former President and his men are being well-protected by Clinton’s appointees in Justice.”

Iraqgate vanished when a Clinton administration investigation found no evidence that the elder Bush had armed Saddam Hussein. (Of course, if you believe Safire was right and the fix was in, this doesn’t prove anything.) Writing in the American Lawyer two years later, Stuart Taylor methodically outlined how Safire’s reckless charges were completely bogus: “False. All of it.” (The Pulitzer Prize committee saved itself a repeat of the Lance embarrassment by not awarding Safire a prize for Iraqgate, even though there was industry speculation in 1992 that he might win.)

Safire admitted to going easy and “pulling his punches” in a 1987 column about his old friend Bill Casey and the major role he played in Iran-Contra during the Reagan administration. (Safire ran Casey’s unsuccessful congressional campaign in New York in 1966.) Back in 1981, when Casey was director of the CIA, Safire allegedly called up Casey and urged him to allow Israel to have access to restricted satellite imagery. Casey caved, but was rebuffed by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Safire denied the charge he lobbied the CIA on Israel’s behalf, but he’s a fervent and unapologetic apologist for Israel, in particular for its right-wing Likud Party. “He’s been substantially to the right of the mainstream of the American Jewish community,” notes Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan. In a 1992 Playboy interview he revived a favorite dream of the Israeli right, the idea that Palestinians would somehow leave the West Bank and move to Jordan. “I consider myself pro-Palestinian,” Safire said. “I’d like to see them have a state. I think the state they should have is Jordan, which is mainly Palestinian.” Safire said that only King Hussein of Jordan stood in the way: “I think he’s an obstacle to peace.” Hussein was “an obstacle” because he had renounced all claim to the West Bank in 1988, leaving the so-called “Jordanian option” irredeemably dead — although not in Safire’s eyes or that of the Israeli right.

Safire’s passionate commitment to Israel has led to some serious reporting gaffes. As Alterman notes in “Sound and Fury,” when Israelis destroyed Iraq’s nuclear plant in 1981, Safire quoted “Baghdad’s official newspaper,” which allegedly insisted the targeted reactor was to be used against “the Zionist enemy.” In fact, the quote was manufactured by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. And in 1991 when a group of Israelis were murdered in Egypt, Safire wrote that the PLO “condoned last week’s slaughter,” when the Times itself had documented several instances that week of the PLO denouncing the attack.

More recently, Safire’s column has doubled as an open forum for Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As the Israeli paper Haaretz noted this year, “Safire has an open phone line to Sharon and tends to interview him by giving
him an open platform with virtually no interference.”

“One of Safire’s major accomplishments was to rehabilitate Sharon in the American political discourse after he was sent into the political wilderness,” says Cole. Sharon was disgraced after Israel’s Lebanese Christian Phalange allies methodically massacred hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon — an invasion masterminded by Sharon. An Israeli commission of inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for the slaughter and he was removed as defense minister.

Safire’s devotion to Israel may be one reason he turned on the first President Bush, who earned the wrath of Safire, Israel and the powerful pro-Israel lobby by threatening to hold up $10 billion in loan guarantees if Israel did not stop building settlements in the occupied territories. During a 1991 press conference Bush the elder famously complained he was just “one little guy” battling the “powerful political forces” of the Jewish lobby in Washington, D.C.

Whatever his reasons, Safire all but declared war on Bush in 1992, hyping the now-forgotten “Iraqgate” — “the first global political scandal,” as he breathlessly proclaimed it. Safire, along with ABC News’ “Nightline” and other journalists, charged that the Bush administration had secretly and illegally plotted to arm Iraq and then orchestrated a coverup. Safire dubbed it “an election year Watergate,” insisting, “Never before in the history of the Republic, in my opinion, has the nation’s chief law enforcement officer been in such flagrant and sustained violation of the law.” In a column titled “Is the Fix In?” Safire charged that President Clinton and Al Gore — who had made much of the Iraqgate charges during the campaign but stopped raising them after assuming office — had been paid off to shut up. “George Bush privately assured Bill Clinton that he would not criticize the new President during the first year of his term. … Mr. Bush has kept his word,” Safire wrote. “In what may be an unspoken quid pro quo, the Clinton Administration has moved to quash any revelations about Bush’s Iraqgate scandal. … No wonder we hear not a peep of criticism about Clinton from Bush; the former President and his men are being well-protected by Clinton’s appointees in Justice.”

Iraqgate vanished when a Clinton administration investigation found no evidence that the elder Bush had armed Saddam Hussein. (Of course, if you believe Safire was right and the fix was in, this doesn’t prove anything.) Writing in the American Lawyer two years later, Stuart Taylor methodically outlined how Safire’s reckless charges were completely bogus: “False. All of it.” (The Pulitzer Prize committee saved itself a repeat of the Lance embarrassment by not awarding Safire a prize for Iraqgate, even though there was industry speculation in 1992 that he might win.)

Iraq Conference in Egypt

It’s 1 am so I’m not sure this post will be too coherent. I’m covering the conference on Iraq in the Red Coast town of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. The conference is being attended by all of Iraq’s neighbors (Syria, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey) as well as by the US, France, Germany, the UK, the Arab League, the UN, the EU and many more. The aim of the conference is a little vague (more on that later) but in general it’s a show of support for the upcoming elections, for the interim government, and for the future stability of the country.

Today there was the meeting between Iraq and neighboring countries. As of writing this, I know nothing about it from the participants themselves, as they gave no comment on entering or exiting, the talks were not televised, and there was no press conference. There was massive security and journalists were kept miles away. The Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs said that the discussion had focused on elections and security, and that was that. Typical Middle Eastern lack of transparency perhaps. But there may be a further reason that everyone was so tight-lipped. I talked to a high-ranking Iraqi official in Baghdad tonight, and he told me the Iraqi delegation was planning on presenting evidence at the meeting of the “interference” of other countries in its affairs–of how they (he wouldn’t name names, but we are talking Iran and Syria at least obviously) have directly funded and supported terrorist groups in Iraq and how they are home to a great number of rich and disgruntled Baathist elite with links to the insurgency. Oh to have have a fly on the wall at these talks..

In general covering this sort of event is exhausting and really frustrating. A lot of the press spends a lot of its time staking out hotel lobbies (the delegations are spread out over many of the luxurious summer resort hotels here) and hounding passing officials into giving snippets of comment. There was a really funny scene today when the Syrian Foreign Minister became the center of a camera scrum but refused to talk. His handlers on all sides tried to hustle him along, but they took him the opposite way of where he needed to go, and he and his entourage ended up bounding around the courtyard of a hotel like a ping-pong for a while, journalists in hot pursuit. At one point he even accidentally ended up on a dead-end raised catwalk–we all thought he was going to make a statement, but he was just lost. Finally they piled into the obligatory go-cart and took off.

The Iraqi officials were really busy of course and hard to get ahold of but I have to say that they are the most engaging to talk to, in general. They actually say things. The Iraqi deputy foreign minister denied that any civilians had died in Fallujah. He also said the new January 30 election date is realistic, and that Iraqis will participate “because this will determine the future of the country.” And he claimed Kuwait had agree to forgive Iraq 80% of its debt (just like the Paris Club just did). That would be a lot of money, and would put pressure on Saudi Arabia to do so as well, but I was unable to get Kuwaiti officials to confirm this.

Other than the interesting confrontation between Iraq and its neighbors, there are of course the well-established tension between France and the US. France (and other countries) would like there to be a set withdrawal date for US troops. The US doesn’t want to make that commitment. More on this tomorrow after press conferences from Bernier and Powell.

In general, as I started out saying, it’s unclear what practical steps or actions are going to come out of this to aid Iraq. They”ll issue a nice statement at the end, but then what? The underlying problem–that European countries are unwilling to send forces to help with the aftermath of a war they opposed, and Arab countries are afraid a stable Iraq will be a base for further US military interventions in the region–haven’t gone away.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim wants to contest presidency

Saad Eddin Ibrahim

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the Egyptian-American activist who spent well over a year in jail between 2000 and 2003 before a case against him was dismissed by Egypt’s highest appellate court, is backing an unlikely amendment to the Egyptian constitution that would allow multiple candidates to be selected:

“If given the chance, I personally want to run (for president) to break the barrier of fear and intimidation,” Ibrahim told The Associated Press. “Not that I have real hopes of success, but I want to show my fellow Egyptians that nothing should be a political taboo.”

Under the current constitution, a presidential candidate is selected by the People’s Assembly, Egypt’s parliament, and then the public votes either “yes” or “no” in a referendum. In the current political climate where the ruling National Democratic Party controls over 80% of seats, this means that there can only be NDP candidates and that no one is likely to be selected to run against Hosni Mubarak, who’s been president for nearly 24 years.

As the story explains, it is unlikely that this amendment, which is backed by 650 activists who signed a petition requesting it, will pass. There have been rumors that the NDP was considering accepting it to run a lame duck NDP candidate against the president to make a show that it is democratic. But surely they thought better of it considering that a) it would look ridiculous, b) it might create an expectation of debates, or at least different platforms, between candidates and c) they are unlikely to encourage the idea that there could ever be anyone better than Mubarak to lead the country.

The truth is the current system — outside of the immediate political conjecture — should be replaced by direct elections of the president, as you find in most countries that at least pretend to be democracies. (Strangely, that doesn’t technically include the US, since the presidential elections there are indirect. In fact, technically the “electors” are meeting on 13 December to elect the next US president. But that’s another story.) After all if parliament retains control of what candidates can present themselves, there can never be a chance for underdogs to enter the political limelight (think Nader, Buchanan, Perot in the US.) Direct presidential elections would give the existing parties as well as movements like the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to campaign in a way they really never have before, and would crystallize symbolically the idea that there could be a president who is not from the ruling party, or indeed who is not from the ruling military junta.

Aside from this, the elections that are coming up in fall of 2005 are going to be very important. After 24 years of Mubarak it is time for him to resign, even if you’re of the opinion he’s done a good job. Otherwise we’re going to see the Bourguibasation of Egypt at a time when the country is in dire need of young blood, a new direction and effective leadership. At this point, no matter about how you feel about Mubarak, it should be clear that it’s time for a fresh start — even if it’s still not democratic or another army general. Time is running out.