Iraqi Minister, Accused of Murder, Flees to Green ZoneTo excavate the depths of tragedy in Iraq, try this on for size: the attempted arrest of a minister accused of murdering another parliamentarian’s sons is sparking the latest deterioration in sectarian relations. And the parliamentarian fears the Bush administration is helping the minister escape arrest in order to prevent the Maliki government from imploding.
Today the largest Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parliament, the Accordance Front, said that it was withdrawing its cabinet ministers — including Iraq’s defense minister — to protest the attempted arrest of the outgoing culture minister, Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, an Accordance Front member. On Monday, Iraqi security forces executed a warrant issued by an Iraqi judge for Hashimi, who is wanted for the 2005 murder of the adult sons of Mithal al-Alusi, one of Iraq’s most prominent secular, liberal politicians. Escaping a raid on his home, Hashimi fled to the al-Rashid hotel in the Green Zone, while his party blamed PM Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, of unfair treatment. (Maliki says he had nothing to do with the raid.)
Alusi, for his part, thinks the fix is in — not from Maliki, but from President Bush. From Alusi’s perspective, as long as Hashimi is in the Green Zone, he’s under tacit U.S. protection. The secular Alusi, himself a Sunni, told the New York Sun‘s Eli Lake that he’s petitioning the U.S. embassy to assist in the execution of the warrant. If the U.S. doesn’t get involved, Alusi thinks, there’s no way that Hashimi will ever face what passes for justice in the Iraqi legal system.
Mr. Alusi said he is worried that as time passes and Mr. Hashemi remains in al-Rashid Hotel he will find a way out of the Green Zone to flee the country. This scenario was floated by the head of Mr. Hashemi’s party, Adnan al-Dulaimi, on the American funded Radio Sawa on Wednesday. “If we move now, we will have him,” Mr. Alusi said. “But if we lose time, he could flee the country. I am more afraid he will leave the Green Zone. I believe his people would kill him to close the file. Everyone will say the Shia have done it, or Alusi will do it. He is dangerous to them because of what he knows.”
Ambassador Ryan Crocker has refused to get involved, nor is he the only one. Lake reported yesterday that the Pentagon overturned an order allowing U.S. troops to assist Iraqi forces in raiding Hashimi’s home.
It’s clear that Alusi’s concerns are minor ones to the U.S., the Accordance Front, and Maliki. The Maliki government has taken numerous hits lately: from Sunnis for being sectarian; from Moqtada al-Sadr for being an American stooge and an incompetent; and most recently from Crocker for being an inept Shiite chauvinist. A new explosion of Sunni fury is the last thing he needs, so it’s not out of the question for Maliki to preemptively pardon Hashimi or otherwise intercede on Hashimi’s behalf.
Alusi commands few votes in parliament, and has a much smaller constituency than the Accordance Front. All he has is the memory of his sons, Ayman and Jamal. And caught between Iraq’s sectarian politics and a U.S. struggling to keep the political process alive, he’s not likely to get anything more — like justice.
