From the Iraqi Freedom Congress, May 14:

During his visit to the United States to deliver workshops and seminars and meet with the leaders of the anti war movement, Samir Adil, president of the Iraqi Freedom Congress (IFC) met coincidently with Richard Perle (The former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee in the US, whose role [is] known as the war on Iraq engineer and the closest advisor to Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush) in a press conference in Washington.

One of the reporters asked Samir Adil: don’t you think the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq will cause a power vacuum and spread anarchy in the society?

Samir responded by saying: presently we live in chaos and power vacuum. Living in the Amazon jungles is much better than living in Iraq. How do you explain the ability of killing anyone by only paying $100 to hit man in the daylight and in front of the police forces? How do you explain killing 14 people in Baghdad because their names refer to a Sunni sect, on the other end people are getting killed because their names referred to Shiite sect? What do you call massacring 76 people in Basra without any justification? How do you explain the raid of the police forces on the Adamya district who were once classified by the ministry of interior as Sunni, the fight goes on for two days forcing the people to take their security into their own hands and defend themselves before the US troops eyes? We actually live in constant disarray and power vacuum and the US troops must leave immediately.

Another reporter asked "who caused these conditions?"

Samir answered: the US policy is the one who created this chaos and divided the society into ethnic and sectarian groups. In the eve of the war, precisely in London conference that was sponsored by the US administration and UK government to legitimize their war on Iraq, in that meeting several parties and groups based on ethnic and religious sects were brought together to form a government after ousting Saddam’s regime. This government was formed after the invasion and legitimized through a sectarian constitution. The occupation brought those groups and forced them upon the Iraqis and transferred Iraq into a terrorist battlefield. I want to tell you that the US project in Iraq has failed miserably, that’s after 3 years of occupation more than 5 million people in Iraq live under poverty line, we witness the youth sell their kidneys for $900- $1200 to feed their families, women resort to prostitution to make living, mountains of trash filling the cities, and finally the summer is around the corner and the temperature is expected to reach up to 55 C° nevertheless; the electricity is in its worse shape ever. The Iraqi people today crying out saying we do not want freedom, we do not want prosperity, we can live with piece of bread and water and let us live with peace and safety, we want to live. The sectarian violence is burning the country. The US troops must leave at once. We are able to build a democratic society, establish a non-ethnic, non-religious government, and give the society one identity that defines Iraqi as human being and only human being. The record of the US administration and the western governments shows that they have never supported any libertarian and secular movement not only in Iraq but in the entire Middle East. We in Iraq Freedom Congress represent this trend and we are able to end these tragic conditions.

Apparently those answers have displeased Richard Perle who asked Samir "where were you under Saddam’s regime?" and he meant that Samir was one of Saddam’s followers because of his opposition to the war.

Samir responded saying: in 1992 I was jailed, and tortured for 25 days. I know what Saddam’s regime is. No one can know him except those who spent some time in his prisons. I am still having difficulties hearing and still suffering from chronic pain in my left leg however I strongly oppose destructing the society entirely and killing civilians to overthrow Saddam. Yesterday we had one Saddam but today we have tens of him.

Then Richard Perle asked Samir: what was your position on the war?

Samir answered: our movement was against the war and occupation before it even started and actually expected those outcomes.

Richard Perle has shown signs of resentment however he did not reply or make any comments.

This meeting have motivated the leaders of the anti war movement who were organizing an event in front of the Congress building titled "Silence of the Dead, Voices of the Living" sponsored by American Friends Services Committee where Samir Adil deliver his speech.

See also WW4 REPORT #94

See our last post on Iraq and the civil resistance.