The Capital Times
Rebuilding Iraq poses questions
By Osman Abdalla
Staff Reporter
oaalo6@psu.edu
Who is responsible for rebuild
ing Iraq? Sadam? Bush? Or poor
Iraqis? Before we get into more
details let us take a look at some
facts about Iraq: Population is
about 24 million. Oil reserve
about 112 billion barrels and
number two in the world. Gross
National Product is about 28.6
billion vs. 9.4 trillion in the U.S.
Rebuilding Iraq will bring
together buyers, manufacturers,
suppliers, and contractors, giving
them direct access to project
directors, government bodies
and a variety of decision-makers
involved in the economic rebirth
of Iraq, which will very possibly
involve earning billions of dollars.
The Bush administration is still
not meeting the goal it set this
summer to inject $3OO million to
$4OO million monthly into Iraq's
economy by Sept. 1.
The case of rebuilding Iraq
became a business opportunity
for American companies, such
as Zero Halliburton, once head
ed by U.S. Vice President Dick
Cheney. The contract to rebuild
Iraqi's basic infrastructure includ
ing hospitals, ports, airports and
schools has been awarded by
.• " I I .0 Y ro cen , .
By ROBERT H. REID
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Facing a
major assault in Fallujah, insur
gents struck back Saturday with
suicide car bombs, mortars and
rockets across a wide swath of
central Iraq, killing over 30 peo
ple and wounding more than 60
others, including two dozen
Americans.
The attacks could have been
aimed at relieving pressure on
Fallujah, where about 10,000
American troops are massing for
a major assault. U.S. jets pound
ed Fallujah early Saturday in the
heaviest airstrikes in six months
including five 500-pound bombs
dropped on insurgent targets.
The deadliest attacks Saturday
occurred in Samarra, a city 60
miles north of Baghdad that U.S.
and Iraqi commanders have tout-
Palestine leader falls ill
By Osman Abdalla
Staff Reporter
oaalo6@psu.edu
Last weekend's inauguration of
an emergency cabinet for the
Palestinian Authority has raised
a flurry of speculation over the
state of their 74-year-old
leader's health.
Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo
in 1929. It was there that he met
his future aides, Khalil al Wazir
(Abu Jihad) and Salah Khalaf
(Abu lyad), with whom he found
ed Fatah (an acronym formed
from the initial letters of the
Arabic words for national libera
tion movement) in Kuwait in
1958.
Palestinian officials on
Wednesday denied rumors that
Arafat had last week suffered a
mild heart attack and explained
that Arafat has been suffering
from a bad case of the flu or an
intestinal infection. But accord
ing to a source inside the com
pound, the most recent diagno
sis is that Arafat is suffering from
stomach cancer. Al-Jazeera TV
reported Wednesday that two
teams of doctors, one from
Jordan and the other from
Egypt, arrived in Ramallah
Wednesday to treat Arafat. Abu
Dhabi TV reported on Thursday
that following their examination
of the Palestinian leader, the
Egyptian doctors "expressed
the U.S. government's Agency
for International Development
(USAID) to The Kellogg Brown &
Root (KBR) unit of Halliburton.
On the other hand, Iraqi officials
are still talking about the Iraq
rebuild being done by qualified
Iraqi businessmen. As a matter
of fact, they are still advertising
for what is called the Hosted
Iraqi Buyers Program (HIBP).
Isn't that a joke?
The rebuilding Iraq dilemma
wasn't supposed to exist if the
destroyer of Iraq did his home
work. In other words, the Bush
administration's Iraq policy and
decisions has found that the
administration invaded Iraq with
out a comprehensive plan in
place to secure and rebuild the
country. Can you Imagine how
Irrational that is?
Since it is still unknown how
much damage has been or will
be done to Iraqi oil fields and
Iraqis basic infrastructure in the
war, it's difficult to estimate the
contract's eventual dollar value.
However, the contract's most
important and biggest value
could be that it puts Halliburton
in a prime position to handle the
complete renovation of Iraq's
long-neglected oil infrastructure,
which will be a very desirable
job.
ed as model for pacifying restive
Sunni Muslim areas of the coun
try.
Insurgents in Samarra stormed
a police station, triggered at least
two suicide car bombs and fired
mortars at government installa
tions.
Twenty-nine people, including
17 police and 12 Iraqi civilians,
were killed throughout the city,
the U.S. military said. Arabic lan
guage television stations said
more than 30 died as gangs of
insurgents roamed the city,
clashing with American and Iraqi
forces.
The dead included the local
Iraqi National Guard command
er, Abdel Razeq Shaker al-
Garmali, hospital officials said.
Another 40 people, including 17
policemen, were injured, the mil
itary said.
U.S. military vehicles roamed
through the besieged city using
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's recent unidentified illness has left
the fate of the country undecided.
concern" about the state of his
health. Neither report specified
his condition.
Arafat is president of the
Palestinian Authority and chair
man of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, which means that
he also represents Palestinians
beyond the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. There is no clear
Amid having to deal with the immediate need for cleanup, the Iraqi government must figure out how to
rebuild their country after the devastation it has experienced. While many American countries want the
job, the Iraqi leaders are also considering native Iraqi business for the reconstruction.
loudspeakers to announce an
indefinite curfew starting at 2
p.m. Saturday. American war
planes and helicopters roamed
the skies.
Elsewhere, 20 American sol
diers were wounded Saturday in
an attack against a convoy in
Ramadi, a major city in the
volatile Sunni Triangle, the U.S.
military said. The statement gave
no further details, citing security.
Three other Americans were
wounded when a car bomb
exploded near the entrance to
Baghdad International Airport.
One Iraqi was killed and another
injured, the U.S. military said.
Three Humvees were heavily
damaged, witnesses said.
Two Marines were injured by a
car bomb near a Fallujah check
point, and a U.S. soldier was
wounded when a roadside bomb
exploded south of Fallujah.
Photo courtesy of Google Images
successor to Mr. Arafat. kis
power is very much personal
and other Palestinian leaders
have tended to be in his shadow.
Under the Palestinian Authority's
constitution, the speaker of the
Palestinian Legislative Council,
Rawhi Fattuh, would succeed.
However, this constitution has
yet to be fully ratified.
International News
as US prepares for Fallujah attack
Samarra, an ancient city of gold
domed mosques that once
served as the capital of a Muslim
empire extending from Spain to
India, was recaptured from Sunni
Muslim insurgents in September
and was touted as a model for
restoring government control to
other areas formerly under guer
rilla domination.
U.S. and Iraqi forces hope to
use the same techniques if they
drive Sunni militants from
Fallujah. American commanders
have assembled a force of
Marines, Army soldiers and U.S.-
trained Iraqi fighters around
Fallujah, a major insurgent base
40 miles west of Baghdad.
They are awaiting orders from
interim Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi to launch an all-out
assault.
However, the violence in
Samarra underscored the diffi-
Afghan president-elect
Karzai pledges crackdown
By Stephen Graham
Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Hamid
Karzai pledged Thursday to use
his five-year term as
Afghanistan's first elected presi
dent to crack down on warlords
and the country's booming drug
economy.
Accepting his victory in the his
toric Oct. 9 ballot, Karzai also
appealed to his rivals hours after
they conceded defeat despite
lingering fraud allegations.
"The Afghan people have
placed their trust in us, for which
we are very grateful," Karzai
said at his Presidential Palace,
flanked by his two smiling run
ning-mates. "It will be hard to
live up to, but we will do our
best."
Karzai has said smashing
Afghanistan's opium and heroin
smugglers will be his top priority
and the key to reining in war
lords resisting the feeble author
ity of the central government.
He has also pledged to clear
his Cabinet of faction leaders
who helped the United States
oust the Taliban three years ago
but have proved to be dead
weights in office.
Asked if any warlords or figures
believed to profit from drugs
would survive the purge, Karzai
said: "There will not be any pri
vate militia forces in
Afghanistan."
Photo courtesy of Google Images
culty of maintaining civilian
authority in Sunni areas even
after the worst of the fighting
ebbs.
"I cannot claim that entering
Fallujah will end the terrorist
attacks in Iraq," Iraq's national
security adviser, Qassem
Dawoud, told Al-Arabiya televi
sion. "But I can say that we will
deal with a very big pocket of ter
rorism in Iraq and we will uproot
it. This pocket forms the back
bone and the center for terrorists
in other areas in Iraq."
Elsewhere, gunmen killed a for
mer official of Saddam Hussein's
intelligence service in Baquouba,
35 miles northeast of Baghdad,
police said. The assailants
stopped a car carrying former Lt.
Col. Abdul Sattar al-Luheibi,
ordered him out of the car and
gunned him down in front of his
13-year-old son.
"There will definitely, definitely
not be any drug thing in
Afghanistan," he said. "We're
going to be dedicated, strong in
working against that."
Election officials declared
Karzai the winner Wednesday
after more than three weeks of
laborious counting and argu
ments about whether Karzai had
cheated his way to victory.
Yunus Qanooni, who finished
second with 16 percent com
pared to Karzai's 55 percent,
accepted the result just hours
before Karzai made his tele
vised acceptance speech.
"For me, Afghanistan's national
interests are the most impor
tant," said Qanooni, Karzai's for
mer education minister. "If we
didn't accept the result, the
country would go toward a cri
sis."
Ethnic Hazara chieftain
Mohammed Mohaqeq and eth
nic Uzbek strongman Abdul
Rashid Dostum followed suit.
A boycott could have under
mined Karzai's chances of
extending his authority across a
country still riven with factional
and ethnic tensions, and soured
the atmosphere for parliamen
tary elections slated for the
spring.
A panel of foreign experts that
examined the allegations said it
found a string of irregularities,
including ballot-stuffing, but said
they couldn't have changed the
result.
World
View
Osman Abdalla, staff reporter
By Osman Abdalla
Staff Reporter
oaal 06g psu.edu
Dear World View readers,
in the last issue I highlighted
global negative and positive
aspects of cultures around
the world. This time I would
like to take an opportunity to
examine religion abstractly
and globally.
Before I go any further,
here are three questions:
Have religions yet devel
oped a socially intact socie
ty anywhere in the world?
Have any religions given a
complete description of the
universe? How many wars
in human hist. ry erupted for
religious reason(s)?
The dictionary definition for
religion is a "Belief in and
reverence for a supernatu
ral power or powers regard
ed as creator and governor
of the universe." However,
people practice religions to
manipulate the supernatural
power to be on their side, to
make them more comfort
able.
Some supernatural powers
people in the world tend to
worship are nature, cows,
the sun, statues and more.
In traditional and western
cultures, religion seeks to
deal with ultimate questions
of human purpose and
meaning for existence, but
is it doing that? In today's
real world, scientific
research cannot rely on reli
gious explanations. Ask
your physics teacher about
that. In terms of political
organization, most devel
oped countries now adopt
the rule of separating the
state from the religion
(Church, Mosque, or
Temple), not only because
there are too many religions
and it would be unfair to
select national religions, but
also because reality is a bit
different than it was when
religion was formed.
It is very believable that
religions have done a good
job in forming people's
behavior, and it is also very
believable that most reli
gions are similar. But what
hasn't been taken in
account is the variety of per
ceptions people can have
for a single belief. All I am
asking is are we really think
ing critically about our
beliefs? There is a local
society and a global society,
and obviously they are inter
connected socially and nat
urally. So, do you think hav
ing a perfect local society
regardless of the global
society would be the ticket?
Do you think as an individ
ual considering only your
self regardless of local or
global society would be the
ticket?