Iraq Sunni Minority Seethes Under U.S. Occupation

by Ferry Biedermann

"I heard a loud explosion in the middle of the night and ran out of the bedroom to see what was happening," recalls Mi'ad Abbas Mohammed, Farhan's daughter-in-law. "When I went into the kitchen, a soldier shouted 'down, down'. Luckily I understand a bit of English so I was able to obey. Then he searched me on the floor."

Incidents such as this inflame anger among the Sunni Muslim community here. These are deeply conservative people, farmers and traders who live among fields of vegetables, tomatoes, eggplant and sunflowers 10 kilometers outside Baghdad. They are particularly incensed at the way they see women being treated by the soldiers.

Mi'ad and her brother-in-law Salman were kept in prison in an attempt to force Mi'ad's husband Ammar to give himself up. Ammar worked for the intelligence branch of the police under Saddam Hussein. But Mi'ad says she is separated from her husband, and she has not seen him for a while.

Mi'ad and Salman were finally released after 21 days. "They gave us a ride to the village," recalls Salman. "They apologized a couple of times and then said 'goodbye, say hi to your family.'"

Local people mutter darkly about "hostage-taking" practices of the U.S. forces, something they say even Saddam Hussein never did.

The Arab Sunni areas north and west of Baghdad are at the heart of resistance to the U.S. forces. Saddam Hussein is himself a Sunni. Although a minority in Iraq, Sunnis dominated both his Baath party and the government.

The situation was not that different, though, before he came to power. Historically, Iraq has always been dominated by Sunnis, whether under the Abbasid Caliphs, the Ottoman Turks or the Hashemite monarchs.

That Sunni dominance is under direct threat for the first time now under the Coalition Provisional Council (CPA) that rules Iraq in the name of the U.S. and British occupation.

The Governing Council of Iraqi politicians appointed by the CPA reflects the Shia Muslim numerical majority. There has never been a census dividing Iraq's population along sectarian lines, but most experts agree that Shias have a majority.

Of the 25 members on the new Council, only five can be described as Arab Sunni.

"It is asking for trouble," says Mudar Shawkat, a leader of the broad-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), whose chairman Ahmed Chalabi, nominally a Shia, is a member of the Governing Council. Shawkat, a Sunni, says it is unacceptable to suddenly change a balance that has existed for such a long time.

"Arab Sunnis have been involved in the Iraq establishment for hundreds of years," says Shawkat. "They will never accept that somebody puts them aside."

Political scientist Saad Jawad, a professor at Baghdad University, agrees with Shawkat. They both argue that it is folly to assign seats on the Governing Council along sectarian lines.

"This Council represents nobody," says Jawad. He says that Iraqis, even the Sunnis, do not mind having Shia ministers, "but not if they are chosen only because they are Shia."

Shawkat too says that a Shia majority on the Council could have been acceptable if it had not been picked strictly along sectarian lines. A regional approach would have yielded the same result, he argues, without emphasizing the Shia-Sunni split. It would have had the added advantage of bringing to the fore representatives more familiar to the people, he says.

But many think that Sunni discontent would have been difficult to avoid in any case. The Shia majority suffered more than most under the 35 years of Baathist rule, and Shia leaders have made clear that they now expect proper representation.

Several Sunni leaders blame Iran for stoking the fires of Shia ambition in Iraq. In almost every conversation with Sunnis in Baghdad, the theme of Iranian scheming to control Iraq comes up.

"It is Iranians, and Shias who work for them, who carry out the attacks in Sunni areas and then let the local people take the blame," says a Sunni member of a wealthy family in Baghdad. It is not clear that he believes what he says, but this is typical of talk among Sunnis.

At the al-Athawain mosque near Arab al-Jubouri, people gather in stiflingly hot shade to talk about U.S. army raids in the area. Just a couple of days ago two preachers form the mosque were arrested from the house of a friend where they were staying.

"Sheikh Khaled and Sheikh Walid opposed the former regime," says one man. "They wanted everybody to live in peace. They just happened to be at the wrong place and now we haven't heard from them for three days."

The commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen Ricardo Sanchez, has admitted that "human intelligence" before all raids has not been perfect.

"We conduct lots of raids that turn up nothing, but many others are effective," says Sanchez. He said soldiers who carry out the raids have to be "aggressive" because of the dangers they face.

But the military is under pressure, also from the Governing Council, to tone down the raids. Sanchez declares he is not out to "make more enemies."

Many of the raids do seem based on faulty intelligence. Few of them in the area around Arab al-Jubouri have turned up the arms being sought, or the resistance fighters the military is after.