I received this via email. I can't vouch for the credibility of the correspondent, nor its contents. But it's an interesting take on al Muda, the Iraqi tabloid which published the list of people allegedly on Saddam's payroll that I discussed here (and follow the links).
"But how independent is Al Mada newspaper? To understand that, we have to understand who is behind it.
"The founder and Chief Editor of Al Mada is Fakhri Kareem... Kareem was a member of the Politburo of the Iraqi Communist Party and a deputy to 'Aziz Muhammad (then Party Secretary General). ...
"At the end of the 1970s Kareem was subjected to a Party tribunal after it was disclosed that he had a relationship with agencies of the Iraqi regime. His Party membership was suspended. But on the basis of an individual order from Aziz Muhammad, Kareem was elevated to membership in the Political Bureau and put in charge of the Party's finance, propaganda, and security apparatus. In the 1980s, the party transformed itself, under the leadership of Muhammad and Kareem, to a mouthpiece for the chauvinist tendency within the Kurdish movement. Fakhri Kareem is accused by his party comrades of taking possession of the Party's resources, bank accounts, and propaganda institutions all of which he registered as his own personal property. With that money he founded a political magazine in Syria called an-Nahj (the path) in 1983.
"In September 1991, Fakhri Kareem accompanied Jalal Talabani, Secretary General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to the US. ...The group was invited by the U.S. State Department to Washington, D.C. to commence a dialogue and establish a better understanding of the objectives of the Kurdish opposition to Sadam's regime in Iraq. At that time, Fakhri Kareem made a statement to the Voice of America radio in which he asked George Bush Sr. to intensify sanctions against the Iraqi people.
"Fakhri Kareem is also accused by his comrades of cooperating with the rulers of Kuwait and the Central Intelligence Agency in publishing a newspaper under the title "Sawt al-Kuwayt ad-Dawli" (The International Voice of Kuwait) which was one of the strongest advocates of the 30-nation aggression against Iraq in 1991. It was this newspaper that published the theatrical story of the young Kuwaiti girl Nayirah under the headline "The Iraqis steal incubators from the children of Kuwait." As the battles raged, this newspaper printed stories under huge headlines like "Coalition forces demolish Baghdad" and "Allied aircraft exterminate Iraqi military formation near Basra." Finally the Kuwaiti government got tired of this newspaper and considered the money allocated to it a waste of public funds and finally shut it down. Thus in 1993, Kareem expanded his activities in Syria and founded a publishing house Al-Mada Publishing House and, together with some of his editors from the Kuwaiti paper, established a new magazine in Syria called al-Mada. The activities were eventually moved into luxurious premises in the rich district of Hamra in Beirut, Lebanon.
....
"This background should serve to show the pattern of behavior. Al Mada is thus seen by Iraqi Communists opposing the occupation as a CIA financed newspaper, whose owner has been working for the CIA for over 20 years and is responsible for recruiting other communists for the agency."
So, there it is. Sounds like a certain amount of score settling by the writer, and it adds detail but doesn't change my assessment of al Muda as a typical Arab tabloid. Take it for what it's worth - I'd be curious to hear if any readers out there know more about Kareem or his newspaper.
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