US embassy cable - 04AMMAN6881

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 006881 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, 
I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR GOLDRICH 
PARIS FOR O'FRIEL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON IRAQ 
 
                        Summary 
 
-- The lead story in all papers today, August 16, is 
the situation in the Iraqi city of Najaf, with reports 
highlighting "preparations" for the "storming" of the 
city by U.S. forces.   Reports also treat the ongoing 
Iraqi National Conference.  Another major story is a 
reported hunger strike by Palestinian detainees in 
Israeli jails and new Israeli "secret" measures to 
disrupt the hunger strikes.  The recently launched Al- 
Ghad Arabic daily published on its front page the 
results of a poll carried out on a sample of 1000 
people in Jordan about the Jordanian economy and the 
Iraqi situation.  The poll said that 65% of the 
respondents believed that Jordan's economy has not 
benefited from the change in Iraq and 48% believed it 
unjustified for Jordanian trucks to continue servicing 
Iraq. 
 
                 Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "Chalabi: a victim!" 
 
Columnist Salah Hzayyen writes on the op-ed page of 
independent Arabic daily Al-Ghad (08/16):  "It would 
of course be crazy to defend a person like Ahmad 
Chalabi, because he is up to his ears in financial and 
administrative corruption..  It is without malice that 
we say that U.S. President George Bush is probably the 
least smart of all American presidents, something that 
has become a central idea for many reporters, artists 
and cartoonists.  Yet, he has shown himself stupid 
enough to fall victim to the misleading efforts of a 
person like Ahmad Chalabi, who was the President's 
confidant and who was taken advantage in the worst 
manner, as being reported by the American media these 
days..  Whoever reads the American press these days 
would believe that the United States has fallen victim 
to malicious advice provided by Ahmad Chalabi.who 
misled the United States into the conflict with a 
dictator like Saddam Hussein who not only terrorized 
the Iraqi people and invaded his Kuwaiti neighbors, 
but also accumulated weapons of mass destruction with 
which he threatened America itself.  All this of 
course is ridiculous.  America's well-know desires in 
the region prompted it to invade Iraq and it is for 
this reason that the United States launched a campaign 
to prove that the former Iraqi regime was a threat to 
the United States..  People like Chalabi have never 
been more than pawns in the hands of the great and 
massive machine whose desires and aspirations are 
boundless.  For the sake of such desires, (the U.S.) 
is ready to victimize any person, even persons more 
important than Chalabi.  The point is that the 
American regime did not get rid of Chalabi because of 
his corruption..  In this sense, Chalabi is not more 
than a victim of a regime that holds no value for 
people, including those who provided great services up 
until that moment when it was time to get rid of them 
and throw them in the dustbin of history.  In this 
dustbin of history, people of the world will find many 
names and Chalabi is just the latest." 
 
-- "The war did not stop" 
 
Chief editor Taher Udwan writes on the back-page of 
independent, mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm 
(08/16):  "After seventeen months of occupation, 
American forces continue to fight in Iraq, despite the 
fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, the collapse of Al- 
Baath state and the return of all the Iraqi `American 
parties' to Baghdad.  So who is this enemy that the 
Americans have been fighting all this time?  In the 
beginning, this enemy was said to be the members of 
the old regime, then it was said to be Al-Qaeda, then 
the Wahabis, followed by Zarqawi and infiltrators from 
Syria, and now the enemy is said to be Iran and its 
followers.  The truth that the U.S. administration 
does not want its people to know during the elections 
campaign is that the enemy that America is fighting 
now in Iraq is the entire Iraqi people..  What 
democracy is this that the Iraqi National Conference 
is trying to launch in Baghdad in view of the renewed 
war against the Iraqis?  It is an empty democracy that 
does not include the opponents, or contrary opinion, 
or the representatives of the Shiite and Sunni trends, 
or the nationalist and Arab parties.  Under the 
current formula, the Conference is going to be just 
like the temporary government, useless and incapable 
to rule absent the presence of 130 thousand fully- 
equipped American soldiers." 
 
-- "The American aggression against Najaf" 
 
Daily columnist Fahd Fanek writes on the back-page of 
semi-official, influential Arabic daily Al-Rai 
(08/16):  "The temporary Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad 
Alawi had the chance of a lifetime to prove that he is 
an independent Iraqi president and a representative of 
Iraqi sovereignty.  He could have declared his 
opposition to the attack on Najaf and asked the 
American forces to withdraw from the holy city and 
leave him to deal with Muqtada Al-Sadr.  But he kept 
silent..  The [U.S.] President wants to tell his 
people that he did not fail in Iraq and that the 
American forces are capable of imposing order and 
controlling all the cities and the militias, thus 
presenting an image of a victor instead of his current 
loser and defeated image, and getting more votes in 
his campaign for a second term in office..  The 
current battle proved that the war goes on.  It has 
put a stop to the myth that the resistance movement is 
limited to the Sunni triangle, and proved that the 
resistance is on a much wider scale, thus confirming 
it as national in scope." 
HALE