SmallGovTimes.com

By: Alan Miladi | Published on 12/15/06    

In search of stability in Iraq, the Bush administration is searching high and low for any allies that could possibly alleviate the continuing disintegration in Iraq.

One strange partner the U.S. has been courting lately is a group called "Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq" (SCIRI), headed by a mullah named Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Hakim is claimed to be a Shiite leader who favors a political process in Iraq, and who, with his group, could counterbalance the threat posed by the Mehdi Army of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Nothing could be further from reality. SCIRI was formed in 1981 by Ayatollah Khomeini, who two years earlier has led the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran. Ali Khamenei, now Iran’s supreme leader, was given the task of drafting its constitution. The prime objective of the group was to establish an Islamic Republic in Iraq.

Khomeini originally appointed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, currently the chief of Iran's judiciary, as the first chairman of the SCIRI, and Baqer Hakim, the elder brother of Abdul Aziz (the fellow who met President Bush in the Oval Office the other day) as its spokesman. Mohammed Baqer died in a deadly bomb blast in August 2003 in the Iraqi city of Najaf and Abdul Aziz subsequently took control of the SCIRI. Hakim takes his orders directly from Khamenei and implements them.

SCIRI’s military, the Badr Corps, was formed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. In reality, it constituted the biggest section of the Qods Force, the branch of the IRGC responsible for the Iranian regime's meddling in other countries. Members of the Badr Corps are still on the IRGC payroll and are covered by the same administrative and employment regulations as the IRGC. According to reliable information, some of the salary comes directly from the Qods Force through Sepah Bank, which is run exclusively by the IRGC.

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, SCIRI members, who had been preparing for months, poured into Iraq from the north, south, and center, to seize towns and government buildings. This was despite assurances that the Iranian officials had provided to their American counterparts in their secret negotiations in the months before the war to keep the border closed and not intervene in Iraqi affairs.

Guided by senior commanders of the IRGC, who accompanied them into Iraq, the SCIRI members set up terror cells throughout the nation. As part of Tehran's strategy to establish a satellite Islamic Republic in Iraq, they infiltrated Iraqi intelligence and security apparatus, in particular at the Interior Ministry. As such, the SCIRI not only kept its militia intact, but also disguised it under the cloak of the new Iraqi government. During the past three years, SCIRI commanders have traveled frequently to Iranian cities to meet with top IRGC commanders to coordinate their activities in fomenting unrest among Iraq's ethnically-divided population.

According to U.S. military intelligence, the IRGC runs a broad-based heavily funded insurgency, with the sole purpose of killing U.S.-led forces. General George W. Casey, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said recently, "A lot of their guys (Badr) are going into the police and military."

In November 2005, U.S. forces raided a secret detention center, run by the Interior Ministry in the Jadriya neighborhood of Baghdad, where at least 200 predominantly Sunni prisoners were being tortured. Police sources told the Times of London that the Jadriya facility was being run by the Badr Corps as its own personal militia jail. Since then, dozens of similar torture centers have been discovered.

The Interior Ministry, controlled by Shiite militia forces of the Badr Corps, has been accused repeatedly of using its security forces to detain, torture, and kill hundreds of its opponents. The Badr militia also is believed to be behind many of the kidnappings and execution-style killings of ordinary Iraqis and political figures opposed to the establishment of a government based on Iran's theocratic model.

On the political end, Hakim, who personally supervises the Badr activities, has been pushing for an autonomous Shiite region comprising Iraq's nine oil-rich southern provinces, a trick to give the Iranian regime de facto control over the south of Iraq.

While in Washington, Hakim urged stronger attacks by the U.S. forces against his rivals, which would simply set the stage for his militia to take full control of Iraq.

If one is serious about establishing order in Iraq, there can be no escaping the mandate to dissolve the Badr Corps. By doing so, the U.S. will accomplish a twofold purpose: It will eliminate a major militia force that is one of the main sources of violence in Iraq, and it will deliver a significant blow to Iranian meddling in Iraq .

Let's face it: the Iraq crisis is deepening every day. The U.S. needs real allies more than ever—and SCIRI and Hakim are anything but. If Washington is interested in offering Iraq on a silver platter to extremist, blood-drenched Iranian mullahs, it should keep dealing with Hakim.

If it wants any chance to achieve even a part of its goal in Iraq, it must disassociate itself from Hakim and his types—and do so quickly.

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