Iraq's Premier Takes Hard Line Against Rebels

August 9, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALEX BERENSON

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 8 - Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, reinforcing his reputation as a man ready to deal harshly with his adversaries, flew into the embattled city of Najaf on Sunday and said that there would be "no negotiations or truce" that would spare rebel fighters from American and Iraqi forces who have been waging a violent contest for control of the city's heart.

In Baghdad, Dr. Allawi's aides later announced that the government had approved a decree restoring the death penalty for a range of crimes, including some so broadly phrased that they appeared to cover virtually every kind of insurgent attack. A suspension of the death penalty was one of the earliest moves taken by the American occupation authority last year.

The two actions on Sunday, coming amid some of the fiercest fighting of the 15-month insurgency, seemed to set a new benchmark for Dr. Allawi, whose political trademark since his youth in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party has been one of relentless toughness. The restoration of capital punishment had been expected since he took office in June, with a twin-edged vow to curb the insurgency by reaching out to disaffected groups that have joined or condoned it, and to prosecute the war fiercely against those who fought on.

After he returned to Baghdad Sunday night, Dr. Allawi presided over yet another move, perhaps his boldest yet, to curb challenges to his power. The country's top investigative judge confirmed that he had issued warrants for the arrest of one of Mr. Allawi's fiercest political rivals, Ahmad Chalabi, once the Pentagon's favorite to become Iraq's new leader after Saddam Hussein, and of Mr. Chalabi's nephew, Salem Chalabi, who is chief administrator of the Iraqi Special Tribunal that was set up by the Americans to try Mr. Hussein and top associates in the ousted government.

In Najaf, the scene of intense fighting in recent days, Dr. Allawi laid down a hard line against the militiamen of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

"All the Mahdi Army fighters should abandon their weapons and leave the city," he said, referring to Mr. Sadr's militiamen, after meeting with Marine commanders at an American base on the outskirts of the city. He promised that an end to the fighters' occupation of Najaf's old city and its golden mosque, one of Shiite Islam's most sacred shrines, would be followed by generous government financing for the city's reconstruction, but said that there would be no negotiating with the militiamen.

"This is the core of the matter, and we will not waver," he said. "There will be absolutely no negotiations and no truce."

On Saturday, his government had declared a 30-day amnesty for a range of relatively minor crimes involving support for the insurgency, but not for killing. That was followed, on Sunday, by the death penalty decree, which was wider in its scope than some Iraqis had expected when Dr. Allawi let it be known that he favored the move.

The move seemed certain to have a deep resonance for a people traumatized by the grim carousel of executions under Mr. Hussein, yet struggling now to cope with bombings, assassinations and other violence that have bludgeoned the country since Mr. Hussein's fall. At a news conference announcing the decree, Dr. Allawi's aides said the government was responding to Iraqis' demands for a "secure life," freed from the terrorist attacks that have killed and maimed thousands of civilians since the American-led invasion last year.

Officials at the news conference said the crimes eligible for execution would be a fraction of those that drew the gallows or firing squad under Mr. Hussein, involving more than 120 provisions in Iraq's criminal code, many of them essentially political crimes. The officials said that the reduced list of capital crimes had been scoured to eliminate any possibility of execution once again becoming a political tool, and said that they intended to make the restoration of capital punishment temporary, to be rescinded again when the insurgency has ended.

But the decree set out several wide categories of crime that could draw a death sentence for insurgents, including "endangering national security," "crimes affecting transportation" like ambushes and hijacking, and attacks on the country's infrastructure, as well as kidnapping and murder. Along with these, the decree provided the death penalty for drug trafficking, for rape, and, in a provision that appeared to be specially drawn to cover Mr. Hussein and his associates, for any activity relating to biological or chemical warfare.

Iraqi officials who outlined the new decree seemed uncertain when asked if it would be applied retroactively to acts committed in support of the insurgency in the 14 months since the death penalty was suspended by L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the American occupation authority. The officials said the penalty would be available to the courts with immediate effect, but added that it was a matter for legal experts, to determine whether that meant that it applied only to acts committed after the new decree was signed.

Privately, aides to Dr. Allawi said they believed that the penalty could now be applied to any insurgent act committed since the United States-led invasion. If this proves to be the case, the first executions could come quite quickly, an objective that Dr. Allawi seems likely to approve. Courts in Baghdad and other cities have been sitting for months to hear cases against people accused of involvement in bombings, ambushes and kidnappings, but have been limited to imposing lengthy jail terms.

In the case of Mr. Hussein and his associates, there appeared to be little doubt that capital punishment would apply. When he appeared with 11 aides for arraignment before a special tribunal in Baghdad on July 1, the investigating judge told each of them that the crimes of which they were accused carried the death penalty under Article 406 of the Iraqi criminal code - a provision that was part of the code under Mr. Hussein.

Officials at the news conference on Sunday said there was no doubt that Iraqis wanted the death penalty back as a punishment for those who were killing innocent civilians in the insurgency.

"Iraqis want to see those who are committing these crimes punished," said Adnan al-Janabi, a minister of state in the Allawi cabinet.

Dr. Allawi's trip to Najaf, 120 miles south of Baghdad, in an American Black Hawk helicopter, gave him a close-up look at conditions in the city, which passed through its fourth day of fighting on Sunday. An Iraqi reporter said mortar rounds exchanged between Mr. Sadr's loyalists and Iraqi security forces landed close to the building in the center of Najaf where Dr. Allawi, accompanied by his defense and interior ministers, was meeting with Adnan Zurfi, the governor of Najaf.

One Western reporter who found a way past American checkpoints sealing off the city said that several hundred rebels were roaming the streets of the old city on Saturday, close to the golden mosque, and that they were derisive when told of the Marine claims that large numbers of rebels had been killed in the cemetery that was the scene of the fiercest fighting. These fighters put their own losses at no more than 40 killed. Spokesmen for the United States command in Baghdad said on Sunday that three Americans had been killed and about 20 others wounded.

The fighting on Sunday, as on Saturday, was relatively light compared with the clashes on the previous two days, when Marine commanders said 300 rebels had been killed.

In the cemetery, an American Army battalion that was moved into the city to replace exhausted Marine units clashed with the Sadr fighters, then pulled back. Marine officers said many of the fighters who had made their base in the cemetery had been killed or moved out, shifting the focus of the battle into nearby streets and other areas of the city.

There was still no trace of Mr. Sadr, who has remained out of sight since the Najaf fighting started.

John F. Burns reported from Baghdad for this article and Alex Berenson from Najaf.

Copyright 2004 New York Times Company