Why is the IOC Punishing Iraq?

A few days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, I got a chilling insight into the brutality of his rule, in the most unexpected place — the compound of the Iraqi sports ministry. In one corner of a sprawling complex of offices and official residences, behind walls emblazoned with the universal symbol of the Olympic Games, was that most medieval of torture devices: an iron maiden.

It was nearly eight feet tall and looked like a cast-iron coffin. At first, I thought it was somebody's grotesque idea of a joke — a gag gift, perhaps, for Uday Hussein, Saddam's psychopath son and head of Iraqi's sports administration. But when I opened it, I realized its purpose was deadly serious.

There were dozens of sharp spikes, all pointing inward. They were designed to perforate skin and flesh of anybody locked inside, but not deep enough to puncture any vital organs. That way, the torturers could inflict maximum pain on their victim without actually killing him. The spikes still bore the distinctive reddish-brown flakes of dried blood.

The iron maiden confirmed some of the ghastly stories I'd heard about Uday's treatment of Iraqi sportsmen, especially the national soccer team. When they lost a game, they routinely received beatings and an imaginative range of punishments — like being made to kick concrete balls, or forced to run shoeless over shards of glass. Later, I would meet a coach who had spent two terrifying hours in the iron maiden — his torso was riddled with scars from the spikes.

Needless to say, torture didn't make the Iraqi soccer team play better. But once freed from Uday's depravity, the team flourished. At the Athens Olympics in 2004, they went all the way to the semi-finals, losing the bronze medal game by a single goal to the mighty Italians. They had been the Cinderella team of the Games, and like their proud countrymen, I celebrated the team's success. Three years later, as their country was being torn apart by a bloody sectarian war between Shi'ites and Sunnis, the team (comprising of players from both sects) won the Asia Cup, leading to incredible scenes of jubilation on Baghdad's streets. The ghost of Uday Hussein and memories of his torture devices seemed to have been well and truly exorcized.

But more recently, as the team's form has dipped, some painful memories have returned. Iraqi sports officials no longer torture players for poor results, but they seem to have inherited Uday's penchant for dishing out summary, collective punishment. Last month, when the team failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, the Iraqi Football Federation disbanded the entire squad — players, coaches, and support staff.

Now it turns out that even if the team had qualified, they may not have gone to Beijing anyway — because the International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from the Games. The reason: in May, the Iraqi government disbanded the country's Olympics Committee and replaced it with new appointees. The government said the old committee has failed to hold proper organizational elections, but many in Baghdad suspect a sectarian motive. They point out that the sports minister, is a a Shi'ite, whereas the country's sports administration had traditionally been in Sunni hands.

The IOC, deeming this as political interference in sporting matters, gave the Iraqi government a deadline in which to reinstate the old committee. Baghdad refused to back down, and now the seven Iraqis who had qualified for the Games — two rowers, an archer, a discus thrower, a sprinter, a weightlifter and a judoka — have been told to unpack their bags.

They're not the only ones suffering the consequences of political wrangling, though. The ban amounts to collective punishment for all Iraqis. The IOC's protestations that it had no choice but to impose its rules are plainly disingenuous. For one thing, Iraq is hardly the only country where politicians meddle with sport. The Games are, after all, being held in China! For another, if the IOC was perfectly happy to let Iraq participate in previous Games when Uday was running Iraq sports. Perhaps locking a football player in an iron maiden doesn't qualify under the IOC's definition of "political interference," but that's a distinction that will be lost on most Iraqis.

In Iraq, car bomb wounds local Sunni politician

Police say a car bomb attack wounded a member of a Sunni political party and his son and killed two of his bodyguards.

Police say unknown gunmen also opened fire on the house of Zaki Obaid Fayadh, head of the local branch of the Iraqi Islamic party, in Fallujah about 40 miles west of Baghdad. Sunday's explosion occurred in Fayadh's garage.

Police say it appears that the bomb was planted under a car.

The party is led by Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi

Obama's Iraq problem lies in believing his own myths

BARACK Obama concedes that America's troops have contributed to improvements on the ground in Iraq, but he still stands by his vote against the surge.

Why not just admit that he was wrong?

Come on, senator, this is a lot easier than changing churches. Say: "As a proud American, I'm delighted that the surge has worked so we can move forward with my timetable for withdrawal. Look, if I'd known how successful it was going to be, I would have voted for it. At the time it didn't seem like a good bet, but prognosticators go broke in wartime."

See, that wasn't so bad.

Instead, Obama says that even knowing what he now knows, he still would have voted against the surge. Really? Even knowing that without the surge, he couldn't have safely visited Iraq?

Obama insists that, hypothetically, his own plan might have worked better than the surge: "We don't know what would have happened if I, if the plan that I put forward in January 2007, to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation, to begin a phased withdrawal, what would have happened had we pursued that strategy."

But we do know. Or at least we can wager with some confidence that had we withdrawn within 14 months, as Obama was proposing at the time — before Sunni Arabs, once the insurgency's backbone, felt sufficiently secure to turn against the jihadists — Iraq today would be in bloody chaos, al-Qaida victorious and the U.S. further diminished in the Arab world.

Obama voted against the surge, he said then, because he was convinced that inserting 20,000 more troops into Iraq was likely to make things worse, not better. Now trying to justify that miscall, he says he couldn't have anticipated the Sunni Awakening.

Wait. Obama could anticipate that the war in Iraq would go badly. He could anticipate that the surge wouldn't work. But he couldn't anticipate that the Sunnis would turn on al-Qaida?

Actually, Obama had more information at his fingertips in assessing the probability of the surge's success than he did for any of his other predictions, including assurance from commanders on the ground that local tribal leaders were showing a willingness to take on al-Qaida.

Most Americans, including many in Congress who approved the Iraq invasion, say that if they'd known then what they know now, they wouldn't have supported the war. Why is it so hard for Obama, knowing what he knows now, to say that he should have supported the surge?

To review Obama's statements on the surge since it began is to understand why: pride.

Over and over again — even after Gen. David Petraeus reported in late 2007 that the surge was working — Obama said: It's not working. It won't work. It's a mistake. He essentially was betting his presidential hopes on the surge's failure.

But the surge did work — and the mistake is Obama's.

Most Americans would have little trouble forgiving Obama for not believing the surge would be effective. It was a gamble, as are all strategies in war. Even with reports on the ground that locals seemed increasingly willing to rise up, there was reason enough by 2007 to doubt the wisdom of America's commander in chief.

It is less easy to forgive the kind of wrongheaded stubbornness now on display. As recently as July 14, Obama wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true." He mentioned the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, money spent in Iraq and said that the surge had failed to produce "political accommodation."

Fine. But the larger, more important point is that the surge was necessary and successful. Those facts outweigh all other considerations past and present. Moreover, a recent U.S. Embassy report stated that 15 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress for Iraq are being met in a "satisfactory" fashion.

Obama has fallen to pride in part because he has bought his own myth. By staking his future on a past of supernatural vision, he has made it difficult to admit human fault. The magic isn't working anymore. And Obama, the visionary one, can't even see what everyone else sees: He was wrong.

Charges dropped against Marine sniper in Iraq shootings

The Marine Corps on Thursday dropped all charges against a Camp Pendleton sniper accused of wrongly shooting two men he thought were planting roadside bombs in Iraq.

Sgt. John Winnick II, 24, of San Diego, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty in connection with the June 17, 2007, incident near Lake Tharthar in western Iraq.

Prosecutors contended Winnick had violated the rules of engagement by shooting too hastily at a truck driver carrying a satchel and his three passengers. The four men got out at an intersection where roadside bombs previously had been planted.

Winnick and several other snipers had been staking out the crossroads.

All four men were wounded, two fatally, but no bomb-making materials were found.

Winnick said he believed he was protecting his fellow Marines from insurgent bombers.

Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, followed the advice of the pretrial hearing officer in dismissing the charges.

Olympic officials bar Iraq from Beijing Games

Four years after its athletes received a huge ovation at the first Olympics after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was told Thursday that its seven-member team would not be allowed to compete in Beijing because of a dispute with the International Olympic Committee.

Olympic officials informed Iraq that it was barring the team because the government had dismissed the country's Olympic committee and appointed a new body chaired by its youth and sports minister.

The IOC action two weeks before the Games' opening ceremony came after it had threatened in June to bar Iraq from participating.

Iraqi officials have charged that the IOC was misrepresenting their efforts to rebuild the country's executive Olympic body after a mass kidnapping two years ago. They said the new panel was appointed because after the kidnapping, the executive committee had been beset by corruption and a shortage of members.

"I am deeply saddened for the Iraqi athletes who did nothing wrong," said Anita DeFrantz, the senior American member of the IOC. "It is hard to understand how a government in today's world could purposely deny them their opportunity by fiat."

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies laid out hope that last-minute talks could save the day. "If there can be some movement and if a resolution can be found, that's still an open door," she told CNN. She estimated that Iraq had about a week to salvage the situation.

None of the seven Iraqi athletes, who were to compete in track and field, rowing, archery and weightlifting, were considered medal contenders. The track and field athletes, both sprinters, stand the best chance of still being able to compete because the deadline for entries in that sport comes after the Aug. 8 opening ceremony, according to the IOC.

While the IOC accused Iraq's government of meddling in sports, Baghdad accused the IOC of failing to meet with Iraqi officials and of being under the thrall of favorites dating back to 2004, when the first post-Hussein Olympic committee was set up under the sponsorship of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

"It was an unfair decision against the Iraqi Olympic movement and Iraqi sports," said Basil Adel Mehdi, an advisor to the minister of youth and sports. "It is a punishment against Iraqi athletes."

The dispute is in part a legacy of Iraq's civil conflict. More than 30 employees of the Iraqi Olympic organization were kidnapped by about 60 men dressed in Iraqi government security uniforms in July 2006. The chairman and three others on the 11-member national committee were never found. At the time, some sports observers suggested the abduction might have been linked to internal power struggles.

Star athletes in soccer, wrestling and martial arts also have been killed since 2006.

After the abductions, the committee dwindled from 11 members to three. In May 2007, the government made its first attempt to fill the empty slots, adding three more members, Mehdi said. A year later, the government disbanded that committee and appointed a new, temporary body.

Mehdi, who is the brother of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, said that the old executive committee had been beset by corruption and that former members of Hussein's Baath Party had continued to exert influence there. He accused former Baathists of playing a role in sabotaging Iraq's relations with the IOC.

Mehdi accused the IOC of ignoring Iraqi government explanations and being evasive about planning a meeting to settle the dispute. In turn, the IOC says the Iraqi government did not respond to invitations to meet with Olympic officials in Lausanne, Switzerland, after they were warned in June.

The predominance of Shiites in the Ministry of Youth and Sports had fanned concerns that sectarian issues were at play in the case. Mehdi denied that. He said that the original executive body was appointed in 2004 under the U.S. occupation, and that it had been meant to serve for just one year before new elections. But instead of holding elections, committee members decided to extend their terms to five years.

Iraq participated in its first Olympics in 1948. It has won one medal, in 1960, a weightlifting bronze by Abdul Wahid Aziz.

But perhaps Iraq's greatest Olympic moment was in 2004 in Athens, where the men's soccer team reached the semifinals before finishing fourth. The soccer team failed to qualify for this Olympics.

There had been some question about whether Iraq would be allowed to attend the Athens Games, as well. The Iraqi Olympic committee was suspended by the IOC on May 17, 2003, but it restructured at that time and was reinstated Feb. 27, 2004. The delegation of Iraqi athletes was well received in Athens, getting one of the largest ovations during the opening ceremony.

McCain's blind spot on Iraq, Vietnam

IS IT ANY wonder that John McCain was feeling a tad neglected? There was Barack Obama on a nine-day trip through eight countries with three network anchors, and all John got was a lousy T-shirt. Or to be more exact, all he got was a ride in George H.W. Bush's golf cart and a rejection slip from a New York Times op-ed editor.

Even McCain's inner circle began to get snarky. They keep referring to Obama as "The One" and complain that the maverick boytoy McCain has been replaced in the media's heart by a new trophy wife named Barack. The straight talker's website even posted a video of "The Media is in Love," a montage of fawning sound bites against a soundtrack of Frankie Valli singing "Can't Take My Eyes Off You."

Never mind that Frankie's "Eyes" was a No. 2 hit in 1967, a year when Obama was 6. For some reason, McCain's cultural references have a sell-by date of 1970. But it wasn't just Frankie Valli that makes me feel that the Republican is locked into a 40-year-old time frame. It's the debate about Iraq itself.

Gary Hart once said, "In a way, John is refighting the Vietnam War." For a long time, the former prisoner of war has believed that Vietnam should have, could have had a different ending. Americans lost the war because they lost their will. He's thought more about the sorry last chapter of that war than its foolish beginning.

So, too, his attention on Iraq has been less on the war's origin than on some undefined victorious conclusion. McCain jumped the shark when he accused Obama of wanting to win an election even if it meant losing a war. But even before that intemperate charge, he said something equally damning: "The fact is, if we had done what Senator Obama wanted to do, we would have lost."

McCain starts the historical clock running after the invasion and even after the surge. For all his complaints about the media, he's been able to focus the Iraq debate on the surge's success. He has said repeatedly, "I'm proud that I was right. That's what judgment is about. That's why I'm qualified to lead."

But what if "we had done what Obama wanted to do" in 2002, when he was a lowly state senator and an opponent of invasion? We wouldn't have roared into this disaster.

I am well aware that we cannot rewind the past. We focus now on the least catastrophic exit plan. When the Iraqi prime minister and Obama agree on a timetable, I synchronize my watch. But it's still fair to measure a candidate by his view on our entrance to this war.

The current president has never admitted that we invaded Iraq on false premises or phony preemptives or fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Bush will breeze home to Texas without a modicum of guilt. Do we want another president like that?

Let's go back to a McCain op-ed that did run in The New York Times before the invasion: "Only an obdurate refusal to face unpleasant facts . . . could allow one to believe that we have rushed to war." Let's go back to an interview with Tim Russert when McCain was asked if he would still have gone to war even knowing there were no WMDs. "Yes," he answered without missing a beat. The only regret or anger expressed by McCain is that we didn't have enough troops earlier.

Finally, in the recent, rejected op-ed, McCain said that by advocating timetables for withdrawal, Obama was "emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the 'Mission Accomplished' banner prematurely." Dear John: Wasn't the "worst mistake of the Bush administration" launching the invasion at all?

This is not a summer of love. Frankie Valli is no longer a teen idol. Iraq is not Vietnam. But Americans are in a $10 billion-a-month war with more than 4,000 dead and 30,000 wounded. We've watched the current president deny and deny that he was wrong in invading Iraq. If there's a bottom-line, rock-solid qualification for being the next president, it's a candidate who acknowledges just how badly we were misled. So far, Obama's The (Only) One.

Iraq banned from Beijing Game: NOC chief

Iraq have been banned from next month's Beijing Games because of a government decision to disband the country's National Olympic Committee (NOC), a senior official said on Thursday.

"This morning we were informed of the final decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend the membership of the Iraqi Olympic Committee," NOC general secretary Hussein al-Amidi told Reuters.

"It is a blow to Iraq and its international reputation, its athletes and its youth."

The government of Iraq disbanded the NOC in May because of a dispute over how it had been assembled. The IOC gave Iraq a deadline to reinstate the committee but the government has refused to back down.

Iraq had planned to send a small team despite violence that has killed more than 100 athletes in the country since the 2003 United States-led invasion.

At least seven Iraqi athletes, two rowers, a weightlifter, a sprinter, a discus thrower, a judoka and an archer, had won places in Beijing.

"There's nothing I can do. The government of Iraq wanted this. I can't believe I'm not going to take part in the Beijing Olympics. The news is hard to take," archer Ali Adnan told Reuters from Egypt where he had been training.

IOC DISAPPOINTED

The IOC, which has long supported Iraqi athletes training abroad to prepare for the Games, said it was very disappointed.

"We sent a letter to the Iraqi government today saying that as the situation stands today it is unlikely to have Iraqi athletes at the Beijing Games," said IOC spokesperson Emmanuelle Moreau.

The chances of Iraq reinstating the NOC seem slim. The government has said the committee was illegitimate because it lacked a quorum and had failed to hold new elections.

"There is no review of the government's decision because it was taken in accordance with the law," Youth and Sports Minister Jasem Mohammed Jaafar told Reuters.

However, the IOC said the Olympic Charter forbids political interference in the Olympic Movement.

Rule 28(9) of the Charter provides for the suspension of an NOC in the event "any governmental body...causes the activity of the NOC...to be hampered."

The Iraqi government was invited to go to (the IOC's headquarters in) Lausanne to discuss possible remedies but did not positively respond to the invitation, the IOC said.

DETERMINED ATHLETES

Iraqi athletes had been determined to make their presence felt in Beijing despite the difficulties they faced.

Athletes's reputations and international links make them and their families targets for violence in Iraq and the country's sports infrastructure has decayed over decades.

Former basketball player and NOC boss Ahmed al-Hadjiya was kidnapped along with other sports officials by gunmen who stormed a conference in broad daylight in 2006. They are still missing.

Sport gave Iraqis arguably their greatest moment of unity since the fall of Saddam Hussein when the national soccer team, including members of all its main warring groups, defeated a heavily favored Saudi Arabia to win the Asian Cup last year.

Over the last five years the IOC and the wider Olympic family have provided funding and training opportunities to support Iraq's NOC and more than 50 Iraqi athletes and coaches.

"The Iraqi government's actions have destroyed this progress," an IOC official said.