Claims about Rumsfeld’s memoirs, Sistani and $200 million

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld published his

memoirs under the title“ Known and Unknown,” in which he set off a bombshell

and revealed to Iraqis, and to the Shia among them in particular,

why their highest religious authority suspended jihad.

We paid two hundred million

dollars to Sistani so he would hand Iraq over to us and forbid fighting us.

That is what Rumsfeld said in his memoirs. Sistani sold Iraq for two hundred

million dollars. The details of the report say:

The highest Shia religious authority in Iraq, Ali al- Sistani,

received two hundred million dollars to help the Americans invade Iraq

and to issue fatwas forbidding fighting the Americans in Iraq. Political observers

considered this admission by the

most hard- line Secretary of Defense in the history of the U.S.

administration further proof of major involvement by Shia religious authorities,

foremost among them Sistani,

in helping and supporting the American occupation in the invasion of Iraq.

Rumsfeld spoke in one chapter of his

memoirs about what he called a strong relationship that tied him to al- Sistani

before, after, and during the war on Iraq. Rumsfeld wrote a chapter about his

relations with Ali al- Sistani,

in which he revealed the strength of the

relationship that bound him to the Shia religious authority before and during

and after the war on Iraq in the spring of two thousand three A.D.

Rumsfeld said, A relationship… a long- standing friendship arose between him and al-

Sistani going back to the year one

thousand nine hundred eighty- seven,

while al- Sistani was being prepared to assume the duties of the

marjaʿiyya after al- Khoei. The former U.S. secretary of defense added

that contact between them was carried out through his representative in Kuwait,

Jawad al- Mahri.

Jawad al- Mahri. He went on,

We offered a gift to our friends in Iraq, first and foremost al- Sistani,

worth two hundred million dollars. After al- Sistani accepted the gift,

our relations with him began to expand more and more.

After President Bush learned that al- Sistani had received the gift,

he decided to open an office in the Central Intelligence Agency and named it The

office for relations with Sistani, this was the office’s name, and it was headed by

General Simon Yolandi, a retired naval officer,

so that contact and exchange of information could take place through this office.

And indeed, the office was opened and it operated

with great seriousness and activity, this office.

And one of the fruits of this mutual work

was the issuing of a fatwa by Sistani obligating the Shia and his followers

not to attack the coalition forces that had reached the border with Kuwait.