Violence Kills At least 1,300 in Iraq

Recent Days Bring Concern About Sectarian Strife

Washington Post staff writer Nelson Hernandez was online Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 3 p.m. ET to discuss the latest violence in Iraq and growing concerns over sectarian strife.

The transcript follows.

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New York, N.Y.: How is the Iraqi government addressing sectarian opposition?

Nelson Hernandez: That's a difficult question to answer, because the Iraqi government has been in a transitional period since the elections held in December. Each of the major political factions -- the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and secular Iraqis -- are now negotiating over who will hold the power in the new government. The Shiites won the most seats in the new parliament, but they are under a lot of pressure, especially from the U.S., to include the other factions in a government that unites everyone. The tension is whether the Shiites want to stay close to their principles and rule with a narrow majority, or compromise in order to bring the other factions into a broad-based government.

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New York, N.Y.: According to the Iraqi government and the head of Baghdad's morgue, your story this morning on the 1,300 deaths is a lie. The following is from a CNN story: "Before the latest casualties, an Iraqi government spokesman said Tuesday that 379 people have died and 458 others have been wounded since Wednesday's bombing of the gold-domed Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad. The head of Baghdad's morgue said 246 bodies have been brought to the facility, 53 people have been killed in nearby Baquba and dozens more have died in other Iraqi cities. He disputed newspaper reports that put the death total at a much higher figure during the same time."

Do you have any comment? Why should I trust your word over the word of the Iraqi government and the head of Baghdad's morgue?

Nelson Hernandez: Our numbers came from a visit to the morgue and comments by morgue workers and Baghdad police. We have spoken to a member of the Interior Ministry again today and he said again that over 1,000 people died in the fighting that followed the bombing in Samarra.

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Alexandria, Va.: Have there been reprisals on Sunni holy sites since the Askariya shrine bombing last week?

Nelson Hernandez: Yes. Almost immediately after the bombing, Shiite militiamen began attacking Sunni mosques. The attacks ranged from drive-by shootings, to incidents where the militia fighters set fire to the mosques or occupied them. There is some dispute as to how many they actually attacked -- I heard a figure of 22 from a U.S. general earlier this week, but the Iraqi media and Sunni leaders have said that the figure goes up to about 120 mosques.

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Washington, D.C.: Is the violence primarily in and around Baghdad, or is this a nationwide problem? What is going on in the Shiite south or the Sunni triangle? What is your sense of the geography of the problem?

Nelson Hernandez: The problem was largely contained to mixed Shiite-Sunni areas. I haven't heard a whole lot about violence in Anbar, which is predominantly Sunni, for example, even though this is one of the centers of the insurgency. The fighting happened mostly in Baghdad and the areas around it--Diyala, Babil and Salahuddin provinces.

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Washington, D.C.: Although it is hard to generalize, is this violence more spontaneous or are certain sectarian leaders encouraging it?

Nelson Hernandez: A certain amount was certainly spontaneous anger in reaction to the bombing, but Sunnis have accused Shiite leaders -- particularly the popular cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- of telling his followers to demonstrate peacefully in public, and letting his militia fighters loose in private. It's hard to know how true this is unless you're actually sitting in on Sadr's meetings, but his militia is quite disciplined and it seems unlikely they would have run riot without orders.

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Chicago, Ill.: Following the elections, how is the new government forming? Elections are often pointed to as being a means by which violence will be reduced. Do you think a coalition government taking effect could do that in Iraq now?

Nelson Hernandez: How the government ends up being formed is one of the key questions for the immediate future in Iraq. It's likely to take a few more months, even though the election was already almost three months ago. I do think a government that united Iraq's ethnic and sectarian groups would reduce violence, but the whether that government will be formed, especially after the Samarra crisis, is anyone's guess.

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New York, N.Y.: Did most of this violence occur before or after the curfew was imposed? Why do you think the scale of it was unknown until today? And even up until now, I have not seen it reported anywhere else.

Thanks

Nelson Hernandez: The violence was worst when the curfew was not in effect, which was the first day after the bombing. (There's a normal nighttime curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. in Baghdad, but this curfew extended that till 4 p.m.) As far as we could tell the curfew definitely did cut back on violence.

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Washington, D.C.: Dear Nelson,

Thank you for taking questions. My questions/comments go back to the events surrounding the attack on the mosque. One thing that I find missing in all the coverage of the event and its aftermath is what exactly were the security arrangements at the mosque? Were they under coalition control, Iraqi police control or under the control of contractors? Frankly speaking if 3 years after being there we cannot secure such a high-priority target, then I do not see what all our efforts and money have amounted to?

Also, I was curious about if there is an investigation into who planned and carried out the attack. It seems that all of us were quick to jump to the conclusion that it was al Qaeda, but they don't seem to have claimed responsibility (which is unlike them, but maybe not unthinkable). What is the probability that some other vested interests (& there are quite a few of them in that part of the world) were behind them? I can think of Iran as one such interest. What about former Baathists?

Nelson Hernandez: The Iraqi government is investigating who bombed the mosque right now -- this is one of the conditions of the agreement the Shiites and Sunnis reached in order to end the crisis. In talking to people on the street, I found that some ordinary Iraqis thought that America or Israel was behind the bombings. I also heard from a Sunni politician who thought the Shiites had bombed the mosque themselves, in order to motivate their followers. Most Americans I've talked to believe it is Zarqawi and his Al Qaeda in Iraq organization. Who really did it, and what the security arrangements were, can't really be said for sure at this point.

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Washington, D.C.: Nelson,

Why weren't the extraordinarily high levels of violence that Iraq has experienced in the past few days accurately reported by the U.S. media?

Nelson Hernandez: Have you ever heard the phrase "fog of war"? It hangs heavily over Iraq. It was hard to tell what was happening, as it happened. The main problem was that it was difficult for us to travel the streets of Iraq to do reporting and see things for ourselves, especially under curfew conditions. This makes us reliant on the descriptions of the government and witnesses we call up, and we have to be very careful about writing things that aren't carefully attributed.

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Washington, D.C.: Two Questions;

Do you have a sense of how much effort/resources is being dedicated toward stemming the flow of militants into Iraq from sympathetic neighbor countries?

AND

Do you think that the flow of 'insurgents' from neighbor countries are really that big of an issue, or is there more than enough hostility toward democracy/American presence by Iraqi citizens to make this effort unbelievably difficult? Phrased another way, would we be successful by now if it weren't' for non-Iraqi insurgent flow into Iraq?

Keep up the good work.

Nelson Hernandez: The U.S. military puts a lot of effort into closing the borders to foreign fighters. U.S. military spokesmen have said that foreigners have been responsible for a lot of the suicide bombings that tend to be the most bloody attacks. Also, the most prominent insurgent leader--Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the chief of Al Qaeda in Iraq--is from Jordan. But it isn't clear that the Iraqi insurgency would die out if all the foreigners were kept out.

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Raleigh, N.C.: How can the Bush administration continue to convince their conservative following that they are getting out of Iraq with the violence between Iraqis that is getting worse?

Nelson Hernandez: You're going to have to ask Dana Milbank that question!

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Detroit, Mich: A new Zogby poll says that 72 % of our military wants to get out of Iraq. Is this reflected in your interactions with the army personnel? If the army is not willing to carry on the mission, is it not as good as lost already?

Nelson Hernandez: Most of the soldiers I've spoken to would definitely like to come home, but I've found that they remain pretty committed to their mission while they're over here. What I hear from officers is that they believe the key thing is the support of the American public.

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Albany, N.Y.: Does the U.S. have any true allies in Iraq. If not, what good does it do to stay there? And if so, what makes them a reliable ally worth supporting with American lives?

Nelson Hernandez: The Kurds, who live in northern Iraq, are staunch supporters of the United States. But the thing is that most Kurds would like their own independent country (and actually do run a largely autonomous region they call Kurdistan). For now, at least, the U.S. officials I've spoken to would like to see the country remain united.

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Juneau, Alaska: Hi Nelson-Can you give us a set of conditions that can be used to judge whether "civil war" has broken out? Is it a subjective call or is there some way to know that a threshold has been crossed? What to look for.....

Nelson Hernandez: We've been asking officials this question all week. The answer varies -- some people say a civil war is already being fought, others put some kind of casualty figure that represents a threshold, but the most satisfying answer to me is when the legitimate government, especially the army, splits apart and begins to turn on itself. That hasn't happened yet.

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Atlanta, Ga.: Let's say US troops leave Iraq tomorrow. If Arab Sunnis and Shia are then free to do as they please and fight a civil war (Kurds presumably going their own way), do the Sunnis have any chance of prevailing? Numbers suggest not. and if not why do they seem to be spoiling for the fight? Thanks for doing a tough job over there and keeping us here in the loop.

Nelson Hernandez: You're right that the numbers are definitely on the Shiite side, with about 60 percent of the population of Iraq versus the Sunnis' 20 percent. Plus, the Shiites would definitely get plenty of support from the Shiite government in Iran. (The Sunnis would probably receive support from Sunni countries elsewhere in the Gulf region, though.) I think they are so willing to fight because, first, they had a lot of power during the Hussein regime, and second, they fear the vengeance of a Shiite-dominated government and think they'll get a greater share of power if they show they are still a force to be reckoned with.

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Munich, Germany: Although it seems to be problematic to accomplish any major construction projects in Iraq at the moment, if the Al-Askariya Mosque could be quickly rebuilt, do you think that this could head off further sectarian violence?

Nelson Hernandez: I think that would certainly be a powerfully symbolic act to both Shiites and Sunnis.

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Chicago, Ill.: After the mosque attack, I saw on BBC World people demonstrating openly in the streets of Baghdad with guns in their hands. I thought that possessing guns was banned last year. I remember reading stories on how the U.S. Army went doorstep to doorstep trying to get the weapons. Are they still banned?

Nelson Hernandez: As a U.S. military spokesman told the press this week, "militias aren't supposed to exist, but they do exist." Disarming these groups of armed men loyal to political parties is going to be one of the thorniest issues Iraq faces in the coming years.

Just imagine if the Democrats and the Republicans each had a private army ready to cause chaos in the streets if they lost an election!

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Helena, Mont.: Some people say that Iraq is inevitably headed for civil war. Is that true? Also, some scholars say that the Sunnis simply do not accept -- as an observable fact of reality -- that they are in the minority! Apparently the thought that they are still in charge is what causes much strife. Is this true?

Nelson Hernandez: This is true, and I think it's part of the reason that some Sunnis thought they could win a civil war. But I think the outcome of the elections in December was a real shock to them, and some are accepting the reality that the Shiites are in the majority by changing their overall strategy.

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Nelson Hernandez: All right, I've got to get back to work. Thanks for the questions, everyone, and I'll see you in the United States soon -- I'm hopping on a plane back to the USA tomorrow!

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