Moqtada al-Sadr: "The only solution to the violence is for the US to withdraw"

[NV1962]

I think it's a very interesting interview with Moqtada al-Sadr, the one that appeared today in Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Fortunately for me, a translation into Spanish was published by El País; that's what I have translated into English, below. Feel free to replicate:

"The only solution to the violence is for the US to withdraw"

Renato Caprile (La Repubblica)
Baghdad, 1/20/2007

He feels harassed, and he's hiding. He never sleeps more than one night in the same bed. Some of his most trusted men have already turned their backs on him. He has even sent his family to a safe place. Moqtada al-Sadr feels that the end is near. Too many enemies; too many infiltrators among his people. But he's not angry, with neither Nori al-Maliki -- the Iraqi Prime Minister whom he considers little less than a puppet -- or Ayyad Alawi, the ex Prime Minister on whom the Americans always kept betting. He would be the true architect behind the operation to eliminate Sadr and his Mahdi army.

Question: How come Maliki in whose government you until recently had six ministers, suddenly arrived at the conclusion that it's the religious militia, above all your own, that are the real problem that must be resolved?

Answer: I never trusted him. We have only met on a few occasions. During the last one he told me: "You're the backbone of the country," and later he confessed to me that he was "forced" to fight us.

Q: The fact is that they're considering tough measures against your people.

A: They're already applying that. Last night <on Thursday> they arrested 400 of my people. They don't just want to destroy us, but also Islam. At the moment, we won't offer resistance.

Q: Do you mean to say that you're going to hand over your weapons?

A: During the Muharram <the holy month commemorating the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of Mohammad and the third Shiite Caliph> the Quran forbids us to kill. Let them kill us! For a true believer, there is no better moment to die: Paradise is guaranteed. But God is generous: we won't all die. We'll talk again about this after the Muharram.

Q: There are people who say that the army and the police are infiltrated by your men, and that the <US> Marines won't ever be able to disarm you alone.

A: Quite the contrary. Our milita is plagued with spies, and this isn't strange because it's not difficult to infiltrate in a popular <as in: "of the people"> army. These people act as our militia members, and what that does is to discredit the Mahdi army. There are at least four armies ready to strike against us. One existing in the shades, of which nobody ever speaks, which is being secretly trained in the Jordanian desert by the North Americans. Then there's the private army of Alawi, the infidel who will soon succeed Maliki, and which is being prepared in the old military airbase of al-Muthanna. Also, there's the Kurdish Peshmerga, and finally, the US armed forces' troops.

Q: If what you say is true, you don't have any hopes of resistance.

A: We also have many people. We represent the majority in this country. <A majority> which doesn't want Iraq to become, as Alawi dreamed, a secular country, a slave of the Western powers.

Q: Since a week, you're officially in the crosshairs. The government says that the religious militia would be weaker without their leaders.

A: I'm aware of that. For this reason I have sent my family to a safe place. I have even prepared my testament, and I continually move about trying to have few people know my exact whereabouts. At any rate, if I were to die, the Mahdi army would continue to exist. Men can be killed, but not the faith and the ideas.

Q: It's been said that you were present at Saddam's execution. Is it true?

A: It's nonsense. If I had been there they'd have killed me, too. As to Saddam, I can assure you that I haven't cried for a man who butchered my family and tens of thousands of my people. I would have executed him in a public place, for all the world to see.

Q: If you weren't there, do you deny that some of your people were present in that execution room?

A: They weren't my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make me look like the truly responsible person for that execution. The proof <for that> is that if you listen to the recording, when they recite my prayer, they omit essential passages. Something not even a child in Sadr City would have done. The objective was to turn Moqtada al-Sadr into the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they've achieved that. Some time ago, I was received in Saudi Arabia with all honors. But shortly after that farce at the scaffold, my spokesman, al-Zarqawi, who was on pilgrimage in Mecca, was detained. <That's> way too explicit a form to let me know that I wasn't on the list of friends anymore.

Q: At any rate, the war between Shiites and Sunnis goes on.

A: It's true that we're all Muslims and children of the same country, but the Sunnis must distance themselves from the followers of Saddam, <and> the radical groups, bin-Ladin's men, aside from repeating their opposition to the Americans.

Q: Is it possible to see only bloodshed on the future of Iraq?

A: If the future is a three-way partition of the country, I don't think there's an alternative. That's what Bush wants to better control us.Surely it's not what the Iraqis want. In my opinion, there's only one possibility to arrive at a solution: the immediate withdrawal of the US from Iraq.

[Say_What]

1. Interesting remarks...

This remark has been true in every revolution: Men can be killed, but not the faith and the ideas.

Q: It's been said that you were present at Saddam's execution. Is it true?

A: It's nonsense. If I had been there they'd have killed me, too. As to Saddam, I can assure you that I haven't cried for a man who butchered my family and tens of thousands of my people. I would have executed him in a public place, for all the world to see.

Q: If you weren't there, do you deny that some of your people were present in that execution room?

A: They weren't my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make me look like the truly responsible person for that execution. The proof <for that> is that if you listen to the recording, when they recite my prayer, they omit essential passages. Something not even a child in Sadr City would have done. The objective was to turn Moqtada al-Sadr into the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they've achieved that. Some time ago, I was received in Saudi Arabia with all honors. But shortly after that farce at the scaffold, my spokesman, al-Zarqawi, who was on pilgrimage in Mecca, was detained. <That's> way too explicit a form to let me know that I wasn't on the list of friends anymore.

Q: At any rate, the war between Shiites and Sunnis goes on.

A: It's true that we're all Muslims and children of the same country, but the Sunnis must distance themselves from the followers of Saddam, <and> the radical groups, bin-Ladin's men, aside from repeating their opposition to the Americans.

Q: Is it possible to see only bloodshed on the future of Iraq?

A: If the future is a three-way partition of the country, I don't think there's an alternative. That's what Bush wants to better control us. Surely it's not what the Iraqis want. In my opinion, there's only one possibility to arrive at a solution: the immediate withdrawal of the US from Iraq.