Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 14, 2007
Pg. 8
By Scott Shane and Edward Wong
WASHINGTON, May 13 — As Congress and the White House continue to spar over war plans, Iraqis representing all sides in the conflict are turning up in the halls of power here to press their views.
For two weeks, in meetings with a score of members of Congress, Muhammad al-Daini, a Sunni Arab member of the Iraqi Parliament who says he has survived eight assassination attempts, has offered a well-practiced pitch that emphasizes the need for American troops to withdraw.
“The problem in Iraq is the American Army,” Mr. Daini told a group of attentive American legislators gathered last week in the office of Representative Jim McDermott, an antiwar Democrat from Seattle. “What brought terrorism, what brought Al Qaeda and what brought Iranian influence is the Americans.”
Mr. Daini, soft-spoken and generally unsmiling, has been ushered from meeting to meeting by a public relations firm paid by an American businessman who calls the Iraqi politician “a true humanitarian.” The businessman, Dal LaMagna, says he is devoting the fortune he made selling his high-end grooming tools business, Tweezerman, to seeking an end to the violence in Iraq, a goal he says Mr. Daini shares.
But a closer look at Mr. Daini’s record in Iraq suggests a more complicated picture. The real lesson of his tour may be the difficulty of sorting out from Washington who is who in a distant, bitter sectarian conflagration, where hyperbole is rife and solid facts are hard to come by.
Last year, after Mr. Daini helped expose a secret torture jail run by the Interior Ministry, his Shiite opponents accused him of having ties to Sunni insurgents. He has publicly praised the Sunni insurgency for taking on American troops, and a reporter for a Shiite newspaper has accused him of complicity in the killing of the reporter’s brother.
A central part of Mr. Daini’s pitch is the perfidy of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, and he has brought to Washington a stack of documents that he contends prove the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is tied to death squads and takes orders from Iran. One is a letter purporting to bear Mr. Maliki’s signature pledging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to destroy 13 opponents in Parliament “by any means,” including “physical elimination.”
Another supposedly shows Mr. Maliki advising the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr to hide his top militia commanders in Iran or send them to the south during the new Baghdad security push.
Mr. Maliki’s allies, however, say the documents are forgeries. The government now plans to ask Parliament to vote to lift Mr. Daini’s immunity from criminal prosecution, a privilege of all legislators, so that he can be charged with forgery.
“The documents that he has can be found on the terrorists’ Web sites,” Hassan al-Sineid, a senior Shiite legislator from Mr. Maliki’s party, said Saturday. “The Iraqi government knows all about what he’s doing in Washington.”
Mr. Daini’s visit last week coincided with those of Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, and Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister. Mr. Salih and Mr. Rubaie urged Congress to have patience, leaving American troops in place; Mr. Daini urged a timetable for a pullout.
Mr. Daini grew animated when asked about Mr. Rubaie, a conservative Shiite. “He always says the opposite of the truth,” Mr. Daini said. “I’d like to ask him, do you dare even step into the streets of Iraq?”
Later he asserted that Mr. Rubaie was, in fact, an Iranian merely posing as an Iraqi.
“There is an Iranian army inside the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry,” Mr. Daini told the Congressional group gathered by Mr. McDermott.
The American lawmakers were polite and inquisitive but some appeared nonplussed by hints of the polarization of Iraqi views. When Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, suggested that it might be valuable to get all Iraqi factions to meet for talks in the United States, Mr. Daini demurred.
The Shiites represented by Mr. Maliki, he said, “have had a chance to rule.”
“I don’t think they deserve another chance,” he said.
Mr. McDermott, trained as a psychiatrist, “believes in listening to the patient,” said his spokesman, Mike DeCesare. He does not necessarily accept Mr. Daini’s analysis, but he believes Congress should hear a range of Iraqi views, Mr. DeCesare said.
In the claims and counterclaims that saturate Iraqi politics, accusations of treason and murder are commonplace. But Mr. Daini’s basic claims — that the Maliki government has ties to Shiite militias and to Iran — are widely accepted and have caused serious concern to American officials.
Some Sunnis fear that a quick American pullout could endanger them. But Mr. Daini asserts that American support for the Maliki government merely prolongs the bloodshed and empowers Iran. Only an American withdrawal, combined with an international conference, can free Iraqi nationalists of all sects to unite the country, he said.
Mr. Daini, 35, is a member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab political group led by Saleh al-Mutlak, a former Baath Party official who insists that the Baath Party, the party of Saddam Hussein, was the best party ever to govern Iraq.
Mr. Daini is from Diyala Province, an area north and east of Baghdad that is one of the most violent places in Iraq, with Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and American forces all battling for control. He won a parliamentary seat in December 2005.
Last June, Mr. Daini drew national and international attention when he helped expose a prison in Diyala containing hundreds of mostly Sunni prisoners, many of whom bore marks of torture. Video of Mr. Daini speaking with prisoners was broadcast in Britain in November and on CNN in March.
Days after the exposure of the prison, Mr. Daini said, 10 male relatives who were working as his bodyguards were stopped by Shiite militia members and shot to death.
Even as those events were unfolding, the reporter for the Shiite newspaper, Samir al-Awad, was pressing for a criminal investigation of Mr. Daini in connection with the killing of Mr. Awad’s brother, a Shiite truck driver who disappeared last summer. Mr. Awad’s campaign has drawn support from Ahmad Chalabi, the prominent Shiite politician.
The police pinpointed two suspects, both from the Daini tribe, Mr. Awad said, but could not find them.
Then, on Feb. 6, Mr. Awad said that he saw Muhammad al-Daini appear on Al Jazeera television holding up a photo of a corpse that Mr. Awad recognized as that of his brother, but that Mr. Daini claimed showed a Sunni Arab murdered by Shiite militiamen.
“I saw his face,” he said. “It was so clear it was my brother.”
In an interview, Mr. Daini denied that the picture showed Mr. Awad’s brother and said he had nothing to do with what he called the “terrible killing.” He said he was “fighting against Al Qaeda,” though he acknowledged that he had often praised Iraqi resistance to the American occupation.
“I’m Iraqi and I love my country, just like the Americans love their country,” he said, “and I want Iraq without any occupation.”
The accusations about insurgency and murder never arose last week as Mr. LaMagna, the American businessman, accompanied Mr. Daini on his visits. Mr. Daini briefly saw Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and met with Lee H. Hamilton, the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group.
He saw a long list of members of Congress. Most were antiwar Democrats, but one Republican, Representative Wayne T. Gilchrest of Maryland, explained his meeting in a press release, calling it “incredibly important” to hear “different perspectives on the complicated factions” in Iraq.
Mr. LaMagna, who plunged into antiwar advocacy after selling his company in 2004, has helped finance three films on the war and first heard of Mr. Daini last year on a visit to Jordan with Mr. McDermott. He said he had found Mr. Daini “consistent,” did not believe claims that he was involved in disinformation or violence and was enjoying playing host to Mr. Daini at his Washington house.
“I like to hang with someone to get to know him,” said Mr. LaMagna. “We brought in a cook. I jog with him in the morning. We have the same agenda: we want to stop the violence.”
Scott Shane reported from Washington, and Edward Wong from Baghdad. Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Baquba.
May 14, 2007
Pg. 8
By Scott Shane and Edward Wong
WASHINGTON, May 13 — As Congress and the White House continue to spar over war plans, Iraqis representing all sides in the conflict are turning up in the halls of power here to press their views.
For two weeks, in meetings with a score of members of Congress, Muhammad al-Daini, a Sunni Arab member of the Iraqi Parliament who says he has survived eight assassination attempts, has offered a well-practiced pitch that emphasizes the need for American troops to withdraw.
“The problem in Iraq is the American Army,” Mr. Daini told a group of attentive American legislators gathered last week in the office of Representative Jim McDermott, an antiwar Democrat from Seattle. “What brought terrorism, what brought Al Qaeda and what brought Iranian influence is the Americans.”
Mr. Daini, soft-spoken and generally unsmiling, has been ushered from meeting to meeting by a public relations firm paid by an American businessman who calls the Iraqi politician “a true humanitarian.” The businessman, Dal LaMagna, says he is devoting the fortune he made selling his high-end grooming tools business, Tweezerman, to seeking an end to the violence in Iraq, a goal he says Mr. Daini shares.
But a closer look at Mr. Daini’s record in Iraq suggests a more complicated picture. The real lesson of his tour may be the difficulty of sorting out from Washington who is who in a distant, bitter sectarian conflagration, where hyperbole is rife and solid facts are hard to come by.
Last year, after Mr. Daini helped expose a secret torture jail run by the Interior Ministry, his Shiite opponents accused him of having ties to Sunni insurgents. He has publicly praised the Sunni insurgency for taking on American troops, and a reporter for a Shiite newspaper has accused him of complicity in the killing of the reporter’s brother.
A central part of Mr. Daini’s pitch is the perfidy of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, and he has brought to Washington a stack of documents that he contends prove the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is tied to death squads and takes orders from Iran. One is a letter purporting to bear Mr. Maliki’s signature pledging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to destroy 13 opponents in Parliament “by any means,” including “physical elimination.”
Another supposedly shows Mr. Maliki advising the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr to hide his top militia commanders in Iran or send them to the south during the new Baghdad security push.
Mr. Maliki’s allies, however, say the documents are forgeries. The government now plans to ask Parliament to vote to lift Mr. Daini’s immunity from criminal prosecution, a privilege of all legislators, so that he can be charged with forgery.
“The documents that he has can be found on the terrorists’ Web sites,” Hassan al-Sineid, a senior Shiite legislator from Mr. Maliki’s party, said Saturday. “The Iraqi government knows all about what he’s doing in Washington.”
Mr. Daini’s visit last week coincided with those of Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, and Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister. Mr. Salih and Mr. Rubaie urged Congress to have patience, leaving American troops in place; Mr. Daini urged a timetable for a pullout.
Mr. Daini grew animated when asked about Mr. Rubaie, a conservative Shiite. “He always says the opposite of the truth,” Mr. Daini said. “I’d like to ask him, do you dare even step into the streets of Iraq?”
Later he asserted that Mr. Rubaie was, in fact, an Iranian merely posing as an Iraqi.
“There is an Iranian army inside the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry,” Mr. Daini told the Congressional group gathered by Mr. McDermott.
The American lawmakers were polite and inquisitive but some appeared nonplussed by hints of the polarization of Iraqi views. When Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, suggested that it might be valuable to get all Iraqi factions to meet for talks in the United States, Mr. Daini demurred.
The Shiites represented by Mr. Maliki, he said, “have had a chance to rule.”
“I don’t think they deserve another chance,” he said.
Mr. McDermott, trained as a psychiatrist, “believes in listening to the patient,” said his spokesman, Mike DeCesare. He does not necessarily accept Mr. Daini’s analysis, but he believes Congress should hear a range of Iraqi views, Mr. DeCesare said.
In the claims and counterclaims that saturate Iraqi politics, accusations of treason and murder are commonplace. But Mr. Daini’s basic claims — that the Maliki government has ties to Shiite militias and to Iran — are widely accepted and have caused serious concern to American officials.
Some Sunnis fear that a quick American pullout could endanger them. But Mr. Daini asserts that American support for the Maliki government merely prolongs the bloodshed and empowers Iran. Only an American withdrawal, combined with an international conference, can free Iraqi nationalists of all sects to unite the country, he said.
Mr. Daini, 35, is a member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab political group led by Saleh al-Mutlak, a former Baath Party official who insists that the Baath Party, the party of Saddam Hussein, was the best party ever to govern Iraq.
Mr. Daini is from Diyala Province, an area north and east of Baghdad that is one of the most violent places in Iraq, with Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and American forces all battling for control. He won a parliamentary seat in December 2005.
Last June, Mr. Daini drew national and international attention when he helped expose a prison in Diyala containing hundreds of mostly Sunni prisoners, many of whom bore marks of torture. Video of Mr. Daini speaking with prisoners was broadcast in Britain in November and on CNN in March.
Days after the exposure of the prison, Mr. Daini said, 10 male relatives who were working as his bodyguards were stopped by Shiite militia members and shot to death.
Even as those events were unfolding, the reporter for the Shiite newspaper, Samir al-Awad, was pressing for a criminal investigation of Mr. Daini in connection with the killing of Mr. Awad’s brother, a Shiite truck driver who disappeared last summer. Mr. Awad’s campaign has drawn support from Ahmad Chalabi, the prominent Shiite politician.
The police pinpointed two suspects, both from the Daini tribe, Mr. Awad said, but could not find them.
Then, on Feb. 6, Mr. Awad said that he saw Muhammad al-Daini appear on Al Jazeera television holding up a photo of a corpse that Mr. Awad recognized as that of his brother, but that Mr. Daini claimed showed a Sunni Arab murdered by Shiite militiamen.
“I saw his face,” he said. “It was so clear it was my brother.”
In an interview, Mr. Daini denied that the picture showed Mr. Awad’s brother and said he had nothing to do with what he called the “terrible killing.” He said he was “fighting against Al Qaeda,” though he acknowledged that he had often praised Iraqi resistance to the American occupation.
“I’m Iraqi and I love my country, just like the Americans love their country,” he said, “and I want Iraq without any occupation.”
The accusations about insurgency and murder never arose last week as Mr. LaMagna, the American businessman, accompanied Mr. Daini on his visits. Mr. Daini briefly saw Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and met with Lee H. Hamilton, the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group.
He saw a long list of members of Congress. Most were antiwar Democrats, but one Republican, Representative Wayne T. Gilchrest of Maryland, explained his meeting in a press release, calling it “incredibly important” to hear “different perspectives on the complicated factions” in Iraq.
Mr. LaMagna, who plunged into antiwar advocacy after selling his company in 2004, has helped finance three films on the war and first heard of Mr. Daini last year on a visit to Jordan with Mr. McDermott. He said he had found Mr. Daini “consistent,” did not believe claims that he was involved in disinformation or violence and was enjoying playing host to Mr. Daini at his Washington house.
“I like to hang with someone to get to know him,” said Mr. LaMagna. “We brought in a cook. I jog with him in the morning. We have the same agenda: we want to stop the violence.”
Scott Shane reported from Washington, and Edward Wong from Baghdad. Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Baquba.