Agresto Fisks Fisk

Below is a Fisking of British reporter Robert Fisk written exclusively for Democracy Project by John Agresto, who recently returned from Iraq where he served as the Coalition Provisional Authority's senior advisor for higher education and scientific research. He's also the former president of St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM.

I asked Prof. Agresto to comment on this article by Robert Fisk on the recent murders of Iraqi professors, because I found it tendentious (it refers to the "invasion" of Iraq) and peculiarly unwilling to speculate on the identity of the killers.

Fisk says: "Just who the modern Mongols [i.e. killers] are remains a painful mystery of our story. Disgruntled students they are not. Baathist-hunters some of them might be - all heads of academic departments were forced to join Saddam's party - but none of the murdered Baghdad university staff were believed to be anything more than card-carriers."

John Agresto's reply begins: "Most of the facts are correct as
stated -- it's only the rhetoric that's over-blown and the interpretation
that's questionable." That's Fisk's reportorial style.

Agresto continues: "A fairly large number (but not "countless," as Fisk states, unless he can't count too high) of professors have been killed. Most, though not all by any means, do seem to have been killed because of their former Ba'athist status. But remember that Mosul, under Gen Petreus, was not 'de-Ba'athified' and so many of the killings there (not only the female dean of the law college, but the head of political science a while back as well) are most likely
anti-Ba'ath reprisals. The aggrieved and the fanatical will go after the
Ba'athists whether the Coalition de-Ba'athified them or not.

"My guess is that these reprisals will continue. Worse, many are in danger
of death at the hands of the religious, mostly Shiite, fanatics. Student
Union elections had to be cancelled this year because of widespread threats
of small bands of fanatical students that anyone who ran against them would
be killed -- and women would be forcible prevented from voting. None of
this is directly attributable to the liberation except in so far as the
liberation freed the religious lunatics that Saddam had so long suppressed
and which the Coalition was, right up to the end, unable to handle properly.
I hope the new government acts with all the force necessary to put down what
are, by all accounts, still a small minority.

"In the end, Fisk seems unable or unwilling to explain what he recounts --
No, these are not Kuwaitis doing the killing; no, not Israelis. Nor are
they Americans, or Italians or Poles. Most are probably religious fanatics
and those with a grudge against Ba'ath Party. Knowing that might not tell
us how to stop the killings; but I did think a little clarity is better than
pointless fulminations."

I'll be posting additional commentaries by John Agresto soon.