U.S., U.N. May Face Many Enemies in Iraq

By MARK FRITZ
.c The Associated Press

A fired cop, an unpaid Iraqi soldier, a band of black marketeers whose dealings
were disrupted by pesky police patrols. A terrorist cabal or two - or maybe 20
- with differing goals but similar tactics. A drunk with a grudge and a
grenade.

The bombing of U.N. offices in Baghdad on Tuesday, which killed at least 23
people, appears on the surface to be a classic attack by what is often
characterized as a monolithic resistance campaign against the U.S.-led
occupation of Iraq.

But the array of assassins and their abundance of agendas go far beyond
Washington's short suspect list of Islamic warriors and Saddam sympathizers,
say aid workers, law-enforcement experts and ground-level military officials.

``Based on our experiences, we see a number of sources of violence,'' said Pat
Carey, senior vice president for programs at CARE, the humanitarian group.
``From the opportunistic criminals to, perhaps more recently, more organized
terrorism.''

In briefings by U.S. government officials, the usual suspects are Islamic
extremists both from Iraq and abroad, and loyalists of the ousted ruler Saddam
Hussein - two groups that have historically hated each other.

But people with experience throughout Iraq say attacks on troops, the use of
artillery and somewhat sophisticated time bombs and land mines are not
necessarily the work of some guerrilla movement acting in concert to keep Iraq
from attaining a level of order that would allow citizens to choose a
government and run a country.

``It's hard to generalize what's happening in the country because there are
geographical differences,'' said Lillian Messih, regional representative for
the Middle East and Africa for Catholic Relief Services.

Despite the claims of responsibility by previously unknown groups, the culprits
and the motive behind the U.N. bombing remain an open question. U.S. officials
were even investigating whether the bombers had inside help from Iraqis who
worked there.

``Speculating on it now, it could be nearly anything so I don't want to
speculate on it,'' Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the Iraq operation, said at
a news conference in Washington the day after the bombing.

``Nearly anything'' includes some of the following:

Saddam's Baath Party members, who have been officially banned from public
service. Their situation is akin to the Stasi secret police of East Germany and
the Werewolves guerrilla group of postwar Nazi Germany, who turned to crime and
terror.

Iraqis who managed to get good post-war jobs despite Baath Party ties. The
warden of the prison in Basra was deputy warden in the old regime. Newly
recruited police forces still contain past police elements, who practiced
torture and intimidation. A police sergeant in Samawah was arrested last month
in a drug sweep, and was found to be a leader in a violent, heavily armed ring
that regularly raided a cement factory.

Followers of the Sunni branch of Islam, who are outnumbered by the majority
Shiites and stand to lose power if Iraqis freely elect a leadership. Saddam was
a Sunni, though some Sunni sects despised him.

Followers of the Shiite branch of Islam, who follow a more fundamentalist
religion and harbor deeper hatred of Western values. There are also deep
fissures between them, with four major ayatollahs and a clutch of clerical
elites sharply at odds.

Organized crime, which traditionally gets its talons into an unstable society
before viable government can form. The Caucasus, the Balkans and Russia are
classic cases in which global crime rings sprang from collapsed regimes.

Foreign terrorists, motivated by the Arab nationalism of Saddam or the Islamic
fanaticism of Osama bin Laden. Though ideologically at odds, U.S. government
officials say elements of each could form marriages of convenience, though
American authorities have produced no evidence of that.

Iraqis angered by U.S. occupiers. Troops in some areas say attacks are carried
out by lone assailants venting for a variety of reasons, including alleged
abusive treatment by soldiers, a loss of paychecks, electricity and water and
disrespectful treatment of Iraqi women. Alcohol and drugs that now flow freely
in Iraq make the situation worse.

Iraqis who have tribal loyalties. The seemingly organized attacks on U.S.
troops around Saddam's hometown of Tikrit can be viewed not just as loyalty to
a leader, but as loyalty to a tribe carrying out vendettas on behalf of one of
its own. Even before attacks on U.S. soldiers increased in the past month,
military units in the south reported fierce artillery battles between tribes
settling old scores or claiming new turf.

Despite all this, Washington insists the mission is on track. In one of the
more optimistic assessments, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the rise
in terrorism in Iraq is ``an indication, to a certain extent, of some success
of some of our tactics against others.''

Rumsfeld ticked off two main terrorist threats - Baathists and foreign
terrorists - and added that criminals ``ought to be mentioned'' as a factor in
the violence, too.

Others give great weight to the impact of organized crime and the Rubik's Cube
of rivalries between religious and tribal groups.

``These were things that were suppressed by the (previous) regime for a long
time,'' said Carey, the official with CARE.

At stake is power, and the principal perk of power is money.

For example, Baghdad's gas stations can't handle demand, so entrepreneurs
peddle petrol at outrageous markups alongside roadsides. But the U.S. military
has banned bootlegged petrol, which hit 25-year-old Ayad Mohammed where it
hurt.

``They used to come and slash my cans,'' he said, ``but there have been several
attacks on military convoys in this area, so they don't come down here very
often any more.''



08/22/03 18:38 EDT