VZCZCXRO1028
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK
DE RUEHGB #3475/01 3070235
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
P 020235Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0176
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 003475 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/I AND NEA/IR 
NSC STAFF FOR OLLIVANT 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/01/2018 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER PINR IR IZ
SUBJECT: BASRAH RESIDENTS ANGRY, WORRIED ABOUT IRANIAN 
INFLUENCE 
 
Classified By: Senior Advisor Gordon Gray for reason 1.4 (d). 
 
¶1.  (C) Basrawis blame Iran for the Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) 
violence and intimidation that ended in April following 
Operation Charge of the Knights, community leaders and 
security officials told Senior Advisor Gray during a visit 
October 26-29.  With the exception of an Islamic Supreme 
Council of Iraq (ISCI) 
representative who encouraged Iranian economic engagement in 
Basra, the residents we met -- Shi,a and Sunni alike -- 
dismissed suggestions that Iran had any helpful role to play 
in the province.  They cited animosity dating to the 
Iran-Iraq war and even, in one case, ancient Persian 
aspirations of empire.  As Basrawis become accustomed to 
relatively safe streets, they fear the possibility that 
Iran could undermine the province's fragile stability.  They 
urged increased USG efforts to resist Iranian influence.  End 
summary. 
 
Shi,a suspicions 
---------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) Mohammed al-Faraji, representing the Office of the 
Martyr Sadr (OMS), channeled historical animosity dating to 
Cyrus the Great when he said that everything the Iranians do 
in Iraq is in the interests of the Persian empire.  Faraji 
sought USG support to bolster the role of Arab Shi,a 
religious authority Qassem al-Taie in an effort to offset the 
influence of Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other religious 
leaders he said were susceptible to foreign influence.  The 
Iranians do not want al-Taie to become more popular, he said. 
 He called Iran the biggest terrorist country in the world, a 
permanent evil on Iraq's borders compared to what he asserted 
was the only-temporary evil of the United States in Iraq.  He 
claimed that he had declined three recent invitations to 
visit Iran. 
 
¶3.  (S) Faraji visited the Regional Embassy Office in Basra 
with Majed as-Sari, a nationalist Shi,a political activist 
who shares his concern about malign influence from Iran as 
well as Syria and Saudi 
Arabia.  They said that the Iranian Consulate General in 
Basra had recently brought a truck full of soccer t-shirts to 
poor neighborhoods and handed them out to young men, seeking 
in return participation in upcoming anti-U.S. demonstrations. 
 According to the GOI intelligence liaison in Basra, the 
"footprints are obvious" regarding Iranian intelligence 
activities and other non-diplomatic activity by the Iranian 
Consulate General in Basra. 
 
Soft power? 
----------- 
 
¶4.  (C) Abdel Latheem, head of a local Sunni endowment, told 
an Embassy officer that 25 prominent Sunni Basrawis including 
religious figures, businessmen, and civic activists were 
planning to travel to Iran soon at the invitation of the 
Iranian government on a cultural exchange.  Latheem rejected 
the notion that the visit might be a benign effort to build 
neighborly relations, arguing that the Iranian government 
wants to use economic and cultural ties to export the Iranian 
revolution to Basra. 
 
¶5.  (C) Likewise the leadership of the Iraqi Army units that 
ended JAM militia rule in April see nothing positive in 
Iranian efforts to strengthen ties with Basra.  Major General 
Hussein Abd' Ali Abdallah, the deputy commander of the Basra 
Operations Center, claimed that Basrah security forces were 
succeeding in containing illegal Iranian-sponsored activity. 
But he also had nothing good to say about legal Iranian 
activity.  Iranian investments are all political, he said; 
the Iranians believe it is not in their interest for Iraq to 
be stable.  (Note:  According to this perspective, Iranian 
sales of electricity to Iraq are not a mutually beneficial 
economic transaction but a way for Iran to maintain leverage, 
forced on Iraq by its current dire needs.  End note.) 
Anxious to reinforce the point, Abdallah's chief of staff -- 
a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war -- drew poloff aside to 
emphasize that Iran must be confronted and crushed. 
 
¶6.  (C) Awad al-Abdan, representing the predominantly Sunni 
National Dialogue Front, was also concerned about Iranian 
influence, arguing that the SOFA should anticipate the 
possible necessity of U.S. military action against Iranian 
interests in Iraq as well as action against al-Qaida and 
former regime elements in Iraq. 
 
Smuggling and Voter Fraud 
------------------------- 
 
BAGHDAD 00003475  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
¶7.  (S) Basra Governor Mohammed Musbeh Wa'eli, whose Fadilah 
party broke with other Shi'a parties to stake out a vocal 
anti-Iranian position, warned of Iranian attempts to 
undermine the provincial elections scheduled for January.  He 
charged that ISCI is collaborating with Iranian intelligence 
agents to spread pro-ISCI propaganda and produce false 
identification cards using the names of Basrawis living in 
Iran.  The false identification cards would allow ISCI 
supporters to vote twice for ISCI as part of an Iranian-ISCI 
campaign to control Basra, he said. Wa'eli also accused 
Ministry of Interior border security official Ahmed 
al-Khafaji of facilitating Iranian smuggling in collaboration 
with Hadi 
al-Amiri, head of the Badr organization and a member of the 
Iraqi Council of Representatives. 
 
¶8.  (C) British Brigadier Richard Iron, liaison to the Basra 
Operations Center, said that JAM militants who had fled from 
Basrah to Iran after Charge of the Knights are quietly 
slipping back to the city.  Crossing by boat at the Shatt 
al-Arab takes 15 minutes, unhindered by border guards unable 
to patrol the area or the Iraqi Navy, which does not operate 
there.  Smugglers have constructed ten new concrete jetties 
on the Iraqi banks to speed off-loading of goods.  Further 
north, smuggling is the principle source of revenue for a 
community of 5,000 Marsh Arabs who smuggle by "canoe."   Iron 
said the community is not necessarily pro-Iranian and could 
in fact form Iraq's first line of defense against illegal 
Iranian activity, if the GOI could find them alternate 
legitimate sources of revenue. 
 
¶9.  (C) UNAMI representative Jonathan Robinson said that 
while some other Basrawis also benefit financially from 
Iranian activities, most are -- like our official contacts -- 
resentful and distrustful of Iran, blaming Iran for the JAM 
violence and intimidation.  They do not want to 
jeopardize the recent, if halting, moves toward normality in 
the city, he said.  While much of Basra still needs 
rebuilding, commercial districts are now open for business, 
sidewalks fill in the evening with shoppers, street crews are 
repairing some of the battle-damaged sidewalks, and local 
notables are building fine houses downtown. 
 
¶10.  (C) Our only invective-free discussion on Iran was with 
ISCI representative Abdul Hassan al-Rashid.  Rashid said that 
Iranian investment in Iraq could help the Iraqi economy, but 
he also noted the potential for outside interference from 
Iraq's neighbors including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶11.  (S) While Iranian-Iraqi commercial and cultural ties are 
long-standing,  Basrawis will not soon forgive Iran for its 
responsibility for  recent militia violence.  Thus, many will 
continue to distrust the activities of the Iranian Consulate 
General and other Iranians in Basra, with good reason.  This 
resentment toward Iran provides the USG an opportunity for 
increased security, economic, and political engagement to 
secure the goodwill of this strategic Iraqi city.  End 
comment. 
CROCKER