MERIP Media Resource List, September 21, 2004

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topics:
- Increasing troubles in Iraq
- Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's visit to the US
- US-Syrian relations

CHRISTOPH WILCKE
Christoph Wilcke is a Middle East specialist who has conducted fieldwork in Iraq for humanitarian organizations and think tanks. Commenting today on the increasingly difficult situation in Iraq, Wilcke said: “Apparently the Bush Iraq policy is to encourage the development of a police state as the best way to hold free and secure elections. Prime Minister Allawi is eagerly setting up new 'anti-terrorist' forces under his direct control. US intelligence meanwhile warns that civil war is in the cards at worst, and fragile stability at best, but that an increase in violence over the coming months is highly likely. In the only stable trend in Iraq, kidnappings and car bombings increase as US planes continue to bomb Falluja. Allawi's government has failed where the CPA did before. It is past time to acknowledge that an inclusive political process, which the Bush administration continues to undermine, is the only way to bring some normalcy to Iraq.”

CHRIS TOENSING
Chris Toensing is editor of Middle East Report and director of the Middle East Research and Information Project. Commenting on Iyad Allawi's visit to the US this week, Toensing said today: “"In keeping with its habits of Panglossian spin, the White House will present Allawi as a harbinger of 'freedom on the march' in Iraq. To date the interim prime minister's record includes assaults by Iraqi police on peaceful Shiite protesters and journalists in Najaf and the indefinite banning of al-Jazeera from the country. Under Allawi, crucial freedoms are in fact retreating."

BASSAM HADDAD
Bassam Haddad is an assistant professor of political science at St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia. He is also editor of the Arab Studies Journal . His work focuses on political economy and reform in Syria and Iraq. Commenting on the state of the US-Syrian relationship, Haddad said today: “The current strain in US-Syria relations is not likely to subside as swiftly as former ‘strains.' Syria's strongmen have no reason to cave in to US pressure so long as the US is facing difficulties in Iraq, but the anti-Syria uproar in Lebanon could cause the regime to budge on the question of Syrian troop redeployment in Lebanon, as we may be seeing in today's Syrian troop pullback from Beirut.”

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