Reading list

Here is a chronological list, with links, of the some of the interviews with Kubaysi and Baath party people, from 2002 to date, referred to in recent posts and comments. All links fully guaranteed. Readers of the comments will note there are a number of apparent disagreements about things like the Baath role, and the history and meaning of the IPA-Baath relationship. For my part I'm more interested in what the spokespeople have to say about other aspects of the resistance, including the nationalist/Islamic relationship. Anyway here is the initial reading list.

(1) December 2002 interview with Jabbar al-Kubaysi, in which he talks about Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, which included an anti-Saddam wing of the Baath party and various left-nationalist groups. The group had a meeting in 2002 in Baghdad with senior Saddam people, to talk about not only the need for political opening, but also the need to prepare resistance on the assumption of an American invasion. The link is here.

(2) February 2004 interview with Kubaysi by a US group called the St Louis InsteadOfWar Coalition. Asked about the recent capture of Saddam, Kubaysi said this was having the effect of making the various Baath groups more flexible, and also of increasing the degree of cooperation by the Islamist groups. He describes the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance as the core of the resistance. The link is here.

(3) Interview posted in English by the Baath-related site al-Moharer.net with former Baath functionary and Saddam confidante Salah al-Mukhtar. He says by 2002 Baath party leadership had completed preparations for a long war of resistance including weapons-storage, training and so on. "After the occupation of Iraq thousands of people have joined the armed resistance: some of them joined Baath party organizations, some others formulated their own organizations. For the time being, we have many different groups fighting against American colonial occupation, and these organizations have different ideological characters, including progressive forces, religious groups, nationalists, but the main organization is the Baathist one. As for the connection among these organizations, I can say that there is a strong coordination and cooperation". The link is here.

(4) October 11 2004 interview in the Jordanian newspaper al-Majd with an unnamed Baath party leader (translated into English by al-Moharer and posted on a French website). He says the leadership and main components of the resistance are Baath, but also that this is complemented by a broad front of others people and groups "who entered the Resistance battlefield through the gateway of the Baath". Here is the link.

(5) October 31 2004 interview with the same paper by a Baath field commander called Abu Mu'atassim, translated by the same people and posted on the same site as the preceding item. He talks about a unified military command by Baath people, coordinating "all the Resistance factions and their Mujahideen in the area, be they Baathist, Islamist, or other honorable patriots...", and he claims there is political unification as well via the Baath party. The link.

(6) December 2005 interview of al-Mukhtar [not Kubaysi, as I originally wrote] by Robert Dreyfuss. Al-Mukhtar here repeats his] assertions about pre-invasion resistance planning by the Baath. It is clear that his main point is that the Americans need to talk, not to minor players, but "to negotiate with the Baath party and the resistance leadership, and not to any other party (this was just after the 2005 Iraqi-parliamentary elections, and there were reports of Khalilzad-Allawi attempts to talk to some resistance groups during this period). The link.

(7) July 2007 interview with Kubaysi published by InformationClearinghouse. Kubaysi says the original proliferation of resistance groups has now reorganized into eight main groups, with a high degree of operational coordination on a local basis, but he concedes that "what has so far not been achieved is a unified political command, which remains one of the main tasks ahead." He says: "The entire environment is Islamic. By Marxist or nationalist calls you will not attract young people..." (And this brings us chronologically up to the recent news about the creation of a Political Office for the resistance, and the aborted Damascus Conference). Here is the link.

ADDED NOTE: A commenter notes there is also a vast amount of material relating to Kubaysi and the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance on the website antiimperialista.org, major items appearing in German Italian and Spanish in addition to English, also extending from 2002 to date. You can access these by going to the website and typing Kubaysi in their search-box. For instance there is an interesting Dec 18 2003 interview with Kubaysi which includes comments on the ambiguous and uncertain position of Moqtada al-Sadr, indicating talks between him and the IPA were still going on, and including this exchange:

AC: What about the group of Muqtada al Sader? Did he capitulate?

JK: No, capitulation is too strong. The tremendous Iranian pressure makes him hesitate. I do not only speak about the political pressure exerted by Tehran but also about the direct presence of thousands and thousands Iranian agents mainly in the East and the South of the country. We had two meetings with Muqtada and he claimed that he will resist the occupation peacefully. That means that he opposes the military resistance. But nobody can believe that the US can be convinced without armed self-defense. What does legal means mean in a situation of illegal occupation? Our armed resistance is entirely legal according to international law and the UN charter, and also to Islamic law and our national values. We will never accept orders to disarm ourselves and to limit us to toothless peaceful action as Muqtada claims. However, we will go on trying to convince him.