Raid Fahmi is a member of the Central Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). He represented the ICP at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Athens, Greece, June 19-20, 2003. The ICP is one of the 25 Iraqi representatives on the Iraqi Governing Council. The following is an abridged interview conducted with Fahmi on June 21 by John Bachtell for the People’s Weekly World and Political Affairs. To read or listen to the full interview go to www.cpusa.org



Q. Give us a sense of what’s happening in Iraq today.

A. It’s been two months since the regime fell. People are still facing basic problems. This is related to the war but also to the fall of the regime, which resulted in the fall of the Iraqi state. Iraqis face big problems with security and economic paralysis. Sixty percent of the people are unemployed; services have only been partially restored.

Politically, there is a very big disillusionment even among forces who worked closely with the Americans and who greeted the occupation. After two months there has been a delay in the political process. The UN resolution declared the U.S. and Britain as forces of occupation. This was really a big shock for many, even those who were allied with the Americans. Decisions have been made without any consultation with Iraqis.

The U.S. fundamentally changed its approach. [U.S. overseer L. Paul] Bremer decided to create an interim government. The Iraqis were expecting a provisional Iraqi government that would prepare for the transfer of power and a new constitution, etc. Now we have an interim power, which is run by the occupying force. They will designate an Iraqi council that will essentially only have an advisory role.

Another thing aggravated this problem. Bremer decided to dissolve the Iraqi army in a brutal way. They are taking 400,000 people and telling them to go back home and are giving them a few dollars for their services. This has created enormous discontent among a very wide section of the Iraqi army. They could have been given another means of subsistence. The same shock treatment has happened with the dissolution of several administrative departments and ministries. With all this and the sidelining of the Iraqis from the decision-making process, the level of discontent is rising.



Q. The American people were under the impression the U.S. troops were welcomed as liberators. Now two months later many soldiers are being killed. It looks like a quagmire. Tell us more about the attitude toward the occupying powers.

A. At first when the regime fell there was some relief among the Iraqi people. We were getting rid of this nightmare after 30 years. But as the problems remain and the occupying forces become more provocative, a lot of misgivings have been created.

This must be seen in the context of the existence of remnants of the Iraqi regime. The Baath Party had a million members. Of course many were forced to be members. Many who had important responsibilities, for example in the army, are still there.

Now they have started to foment discontent and defend their own interests. Operations are being carried out against the Americans. The response of the occupiers is creating discontent among people who don’t share the objectives of those who are carrying out the attacks. This is creating a climate of tension.

The forces that will benefit are the Islamic fundamentalist forces and remnants of the Hussein regime. This will have a bad effect for all the democratic forces that are working for an alternative – a broad national conference in which all political forces participate, and an authority that is legitimate in the eyes of the Iraqi people.

Q. How does the Party see ending the occupation? What role do you see for the UN? What form will the struggle take?

A. We are for a speedy end to the occupation and the creation of an Iraqi provisional government. It should arrange for the transfer of power from the occupying power and prepare the withdrawal of the troops. Of course if the Americans don’t respond, each party could resort to other forms of struggle.

At the moment, we think that political forms are the most appropriate. And I think that all the major political forces that don’t share the American view of things are for political forms of action to end the occupation.

We believe the UN should be involved, first to ensure a solution to the humanitarian problem but also politically. The UN could help facilitate the transition to a legitimate Iraqi democratic power. The UN could help ensure security and the economic reconstruction and all major decisions regarding the use of Iraqi national resources.

Who will decide if the Iraqi oil should be privatized or not? Or what contracts awarded to which corporations? In the absence of a true Iraqi authority, decisions about the economic structure of the country should not be taken without the UN.



Q. A major justification for war was the existence of weapons of mass destruction, which haven’t been found. So Bush is saying, “Well, at least we liberated the Iraqis.” The ICP opposed both the regime and the war as a means of liberation.

A. We were against the war. We said there were alternative means to pressure the Hussein regime, in accordance with international legalities. There was UN Resolution 688, the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission, etc. They could have imposed some very fundamental concessions on the regime without resorting to this war.

We were told war is the only way, and that political pressure would be ineffective. Our reply was, let’s use it first, let’s use all these possibilities that exist. Let’s start by exercising pressure not only for the WMDs (and we always said this wasn’t such a big issue), but pressure for democracy and human rights. We could have mobilized the Iraqi people and used all the opportunities provided by the UN resolutions.

Unfortunately this was not done. Not because it was not effective. The war was indispensable for the U.S. for objectives that go far beyond our country. Iraq was the first step in reshaping the political and strategic situation in the entire Middle East. And this requires the military presence of the U.S.



Q. Do you think the state of chaos is welcomed by the Bush administration? Does it help in their objectives?

A. We remember what Rumsfeld said: “This is freedom, such things happen.” That was looking cruelly at what was happening.

If you relate the end result of this collapse – the chaos and destruction and the collapse of the Iraqi state – to the American objective that Iraq should be a “free economic country,” etc., then it seems this chaos plays a positive role from the American point of view. With the collapse of the Iraqi state it is easier to create the new state in accordance with this vision. Is all this absolutely arbitrary? It may not have been deliberate, but they probably said, ‘Why not?’ since it would facilitate the objectives for what is designed for Iraq in strategic terms.

We believe Iraq is undergoing a fundamental restructuring and the cost to the Iraqi people will be enormous.



Q. What other forces are you working with? What is the role of the Islamic movements, including the fundamentalists?

A. When we describe the Iraqi political scene, we describe it first in terms of political currents. There is an Arab nationalist current, and a Kurdish nationalist current.

The basic expression of the Kurdish nationalist current are the two Kurdish national parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, with of course the Communist Party of Kurdistan.

In talking about the Arab nationalist current, there was the official one represented by the dictatorship, which repressed the other forms of Iraqi nationalist currents. Other smaller political forces also represent the nationalist current.

We have the democratic current, in which the ICP is considered one of the major parties. In addition to that there are a large number of small parties who emerged after 1990, some of them organized around individual personalities and intellectuals.

And there is the Islamic current represented by a number of political parties. They also suffered repression and their leadership was exiled. The major parties are the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and the DAWA party, but there are others.

During this period there was another Islamic movement inside the country with contacts abroad. Because of the very ferocious repression of the regime they evolved distinctively from the movements abroad. They resorted to means that combined clandestine and legal forms and used all the mosques and the religious structures that existed to spread their influence, and to create a network of opposition to the regime.

After the collapse of the regime this movement was the first to hit the ground and organize demonstrations. Some of these movements have a fundamentalist approach, and they tried to impose politics not shared by the official Islamic movement abroad.

Over the past 20 years the people, under repression and with the absence of perspective and hope, turned toward Islamic faith. There was a general tendency of people toward religion. But that doesn’t automatically mean they are for fundamentalism.



Q. The ICP’s newspaper, Tareeq Al-Shaab, was the first to hit the streets. This got a lot of attention in the U.S. media. What’s been happening in the first few months with the Party?

A. The ICP has been in total opposition to the Hussein regime since the end of the ’70s. And over the ’80s we waged a struggle against the regime using multiple forms. We suffered in a very brutal way from the repression. We had many martyrs. Many people disappeared, and we don’t know what happened to them even now. After the regime fell we recovered from the regime’s security offices lists of hundreds of Communists who were executed. In the ’90s the Party reconstituted itself in Iraqi Kurdistan and after the Gulf War in 1991 the Party worked publicly there. We had our own headquarters, publications, several radio stations and a television station. Our newspaper is in Arabic and the Kurdistan CP, which is part of the Iraqi CP, participates in the local government there.

We had an underground structure that was working in Baghdad and southern Iraq. So when the regime collapsed, the Party was able to be on the ground very rapidly. Because we are already publishing our paper in Kurdistan, we could rapidly get it to Baghdad. We are now starting radio broadcasts from Baghdad.

Our party is now 70 years old. It is the oldest party in Iraq, with oldest tradition, with the oldest major political role. So all this makes us an important political force. Everyone, friends and enemies, recognize this.

In many areas former Communists and sympathizers have taken initiative to create party offices even before the Party got there. In Baghdad, where the first Party office opened, we had people coming from the rest of Iraq – peasants, workers, and all sections of Iraqi society. It is an extremely busy place. Some people who are not Communists come because they want to know who are the Communists. So there is a friendly attitude.

The Iraqi Party is considered by people, even those who don’t share our program, as an important force for balance and diversity of the political scene and as a countervailing force against fundamentalism.

Immediately after 1990 and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, our party was among the first to study the experience and draw conclusions about what went wrong, and what remains valid in actual life. At our Fifth Conference in 1993 we started a process of democratization and renovation.

The main conclusion is that we consider democracy the fundamental element in all social and political transformation. We believe we cannot transform society if the basic beneficiary of this transformation is not involved.

We call for a national democratic program under our slogan, “Democracy for Iraq, a united federal Iraq.” And we believe federalism will solve the Kurdish question. The Kurdish people will be able to exercise their national rights and aspirations in a way that maintains Iraqi unity on a democratic basis.

We are very much at ease with all issues related to democratic and human rights, and enforcing them with legal structures. We consider ourselves consistent advocates of this perspective. We are ready to work with all other forces in this respect. The future Iraqi government should be independent and democratic, and draw its legitimacy from the Iraqi people through an electoral process.

John Bachtell, a member of the Communist Party’s national board and its Illinois district organizer, represented the CPUSA in Athens. He can be reached at jbachtell@rednet.org


Originally published by the People’s Weekly World
www.pww.org

Like anyone gives a rat's ass what an Iraqi Commie thinks. Talk about someone on the ashheap of history.

...read this from http://www.nicedoggie.net/archives/002642.html#002642:

TRAITORS

Grab yourself a cup of coffee, a beer, or whatever floats your boat. I, for one, am pining for a Jim Beam and some crushed ice, but unfortunately that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Take a quick restroom break. This is going to take a while. Be forewarned, it’s a long read, but it isn’t a Bill Whittle piece. Expect digressions, unfinished thoughts, and polysyllabic profanities aplenty. It’s a true challenge for me to begin writing without rambling, blundering around until I find a starting point; keeping myself from constantly digressing is a far tougher chore.

I’ll make the obvious play and tell you it’s hot. Extremely hot. Spelled S-U-R-F-A-C-E O-F T-H-E M-O-T-H-E-R-F-U-C-K-I-N-G S-U-N H-O-T. There was a recent Fox News headline about a deadly heat wave in Arizona, windshields cracking and falling out, dogs burning the pads of their feet, that sort of shit. At only 117 degrees. Average daily temp here is reported as 117, but that doesn’t take into account actually being in the sun. Hold a thermometer in your hand out in the open for two minutes and watch how quickly the mercury soars toward 130. We’ve spent forty years fighting wars in fetid jungles and searing deserts. Why can’t we invade a nice, cool, temperate country for once? France, anyone?

Live in a GP tent, minus the luxury of a consistently functional air conditioner, it pushes 140. Human shields should burst into flames at 140, (one can always hope). Come to think of it, that’s a worthy subject for an 8th-grade science project. Anyone care to let their kids give it a shot? I’m sure I can find and chloroform some patchouli-scented lab rats for them to play with. Unfortunately, those tin-pot camel-fucking dictator apologists mysteriously reappeared at home before the shooting started. Worse, I’ve heard that some of those clowns want to return to “watchdog” our troops, who, media smearing campaign aside, are doing a damned fine job in the face of constant supply shortages, literal snail mail, constantly changing homecoming schedules, and asinine second-guessing by armchair generals, smirking reporters, and Democratic presidential hopefuls seeking a coherent, viable ’04 campaign issue.



Fuck the human shields and the camels they ride in on; Their mates with the ISM as well; It takes a rare, blinkered specimen of humanity to camp out, burn flags, and sing along with Palestinian murderers in Gaza. “Kumbaya, My Lord, Rout the Imperialist Yankee Pigdogs….Loot Their Women and Rape Their Camels…” etc. I’m surprised the ISM hasn’t dedicated a shrine yet to their patron saint, Rachel Corrie, Our Lady of Splattered Roadkill and Pancaked Peaceniks.

We soldiers and Marines haven’t busted our asses for the last, gee, nearly two years to be second-guessed by some trust-funded, Birkenstock-shod, brain-bereft academic fuckheads who haven’t the foggiest idea of the definition of loyalty, much less hard work or personal hygiene. The Fascist-enablers are blissfully ignorant of who this country’s “best and brightest” really are, and scoff at the mere thought that the “baby-killers”, the “jackbooted thugs”, the “fascists” in torn, dirty desert utilities busting their asses to put Iraq back together, are the ones carrying the torch for our generation.

The peaceniks are probably beside themselves, wetting their pants, absolutely pissed off that the soldiers and Marines they despise out here are succeeding and, Oh The Horror, enjoying the respect and admiration of a grateful nation. We are up against a culture that has been bred and raised (thank you, public schools) to loathe not only our country and its fighting men, but also the straightforward, clear-cut, unambiguous ideals they stand for. You know, the whole freedom and free enterprise bit that throws today’s modern, fashionable young socialists into bouts of nervous twitching and incoherent screeching on Indymedia.

It has been argued by some writers that there is an ever-widening gulf between the military and civilians. Those who posit this, and quote it as fact, must either a) live on another fucking planet, or b) live in a major coastal city (which amounts to the same anyway) where attitudes are largely set against us in the first place. In Flyover Country, I have hardly ever felt out of place or distant from the local populace. I happen to believe that the widening gulf that DOES exist is that between the teeming population centers and the rest of the country. Remember seeing the election map from 2000? The coasts out of touch with the heartland?

Vietnam is behind us; we have risen from the shallow grave the radical Left dumped us in thirty years ago to become the most professional, highly trained, and dedicated warriors ever to raise our banners on foreign soil. We have put up with ton upon metric ton of utter bullshit, and will tolerate more, until our job is done. No “Quagmire”-parroting reporter, no arrogant Berkeley-(in)bred activist, no Ba’athist holdout can stop us.

Much has been made of several 3rd ID soldiers on record complaining about the hardships here. Reporters have failed to grasp that men in uniform ALWAYS complain. Shitty food, no beer, families 7000 miles away, no air conditioners, that sort of thing. You want sour grapes, we have vats full of them. We bitch a lot, but we clench our jaws and do the damn job; it isn’t a warning sign that our morale is tanking and that the sky is falling over the “quagmire” we’ve “blundered” into. We don’t need, much less want, your feigned sympathy, you camera-toting, blow-dried, manicured pricks. Don’t you have car chases and Qwik-E-Mart holdups to cover?

Sympathy with our plight would be welcome if it didn’t reek of a political agenda. I’ve seen solicitude for our plight and us when, and only when, the media and the Donks think they have our Commander-in-Chief by the balls. We “bog down” to rest and refuel within sight of Baghdad; the howling Moonbats squeal in delight at a perceived golden opportunity to bend us over the barrel. A week later, Saddam’s most prominent statue is torn down and dragged through the streets, at which point they mumble to themselves and stare at their shoes. A vastly hyperbolized museum looting story helps them rodeo-clown attention away from our glory-fest.

Bush throws down a gauntlet by landing, at unbelievable peril, on the deck of one of his Navy’s carriers; they piss and moan and lament his recklessness. Now, every time a soldier is killed by a sniper’s bullet, an RPG from a rooftop, or a roadside bomb, the press giddily reports, “Today the **th soldier to be killed since President Bush declared an end to hostilities on May 1st (emphasis mine) died in a (shooting) (bombing) (ambush). Headlines are as canned as New York Times obituaries. Equally appalling, with that preface to casualty reports, the media are shamelessly grinding twisted political axes with the bones of our brothers. Reporters wonder why we stinky-palm them.

Now, men are dying to hold this country together, in small numbers yet each irreplaceable beyond all cost, and the dipshits with the cameras and the mikes roll out the “quagmire” playbook again. Hell, now that we’ve offed Uday and Qusay, all you hear is, “Why didn’t you arrest them?” How utterly pathetic. Particularly in the case of Charles Rangel (D-Bellevue). That excuse for a legislator has the gall to propose a reinstitution of the draft, based solely on racial motives tainted by false data, and then months later to call the demise of U. and Q. an “assassination”. Put him in the recall bin with Gov. Whatshisface, that squirrelly sonofabitch on the Left Coast with the financial management problems. You know a politician is worthless when Larry Flynt considers running for his soon-to-be vacated office.

The Armed Forces been tasked with a tall order, keeping this country from flying apart at the seams; we receive extremely short shrift for doing so. The press plasters its front pages with stories of tanking morale; discontent in the ranks; an untenable peace; a Vietcong-esque Guerrilla war in the making. Journalists circle about like buzzards, waiting gleefully in the wings to sign our toe tags, live and in color. They don’t know us, nor do they understand the situation, well enough to see the reality that lies beyond their lower colons. They have failed miserably to grasp that their irresponsible coverage is only encouraging further attacks, or to put it bluntly, (as I prefer):

THEY ARE PROVIDING AID AND COMFORT TO OUR ENEMIES. I need to hit the books and look it up, but I am pretty damned sure that that makes them TRAITORS. By unleashing a tidal wave of coverage on each and every attack, they encourage our enemies to hit again and again, confident in their own minds that the constant screeching and bleating in the press will unnerve and worry our families to no end, and little by little dent our national resolve to keep up the fight. At which point they hope internal pressures will cause us to pull our presence out and let a reconstituted Ba’ath flood back into the vacuum, much like the endgame in Vietnam.

Most of us, those blessed enough to live in Flyover Country, know this to be total bullshit. We finish what we start, and we’re glad to do it, politicians and protesters or no. Don’t even try to pass that thought in the Gore States. You’ll be bound, gagged, and institutionalized for saying that the quagmire isn’t before your eyes, as palpable as your morning coffee or the computer monitor you stare into now. For sheer believability, it’s up there with Barney, the Toothfairy, and Santa Claus. Of course, those blue patches on the map are where they hold the keys to all the doors behind which information is vetted, edited, embellished, fabricated, and reprocessed, much like an Oscar Meyer frank, into the short, meaningless sound bites that end up on the six o’clock news.

Speaking of gathering and processing information, I will say, up front, that I don’t believe embedded reporters were a bright idea. Geraldo Rivera’s acts of idiocy provided a shining example of irresponsible battlefield reporting, but thankfully instances like that weren’t common. It was awfully polite and patient of us to be open and up front with reporters, but it went too far and, besides, they didn’t have a fucking constitutional right to be there, de-constructing our every move and piss-break along the way. The arrangement only facilitated their round-the-clock coverage and mad dash for ratings. It led, from what I saw, to many, many stories that had to be retracted or seriously amended when the press took the first slivers of incomplete information and ran with them, only to stand, embarrassed, in front of the cameras hours later, as they tried to change their stories while the big picture became clearer. Some reporters (Arnett and Fisk come to mind with little effort) never bothered with accuracy or truth, and became the Iraqi Information Ministry’s propaganda whores. Those weren’t sweat stains on Arnett’s shirt in front of the cameras. It wasn’t milk, either.

Many times, so it seemed, the “Breaking News” and “News Alerts” lines that popped up with annoying frequency were little more than wild-assed rumors and incomplete information. If the news agencies had fielded fewer reporters, and made them stay in the Rear with the Gear, they could have had all the time in the world to check their facts and get their shit together before running stories that would have necessitated sheepish retractions hours later. Sorry, folks, that’s my cynical 2 cents, take it any way you like.

The newsies are doing such a wonderful job of making us responsible for problems we did not create, and somehow they expect us to fix all the damned boo-boos. Deficiencies in utility services, communications, unemployment, all that shit that you hear the whiners bleating about when they aren’t slamming the administration. Look, you socialist nanny state assholes, we aren’t social workers. Some of the locals are complaining, but you don’t see many of the whiners actually working to put their own country back in order.

There are many Iraqis who are doing their best to pick up the pieces and make their land a better place, and they are doing the best job they can with what little is left after more than two decades of Ba’ath Party squandering. They aren’t waiting for State handouts, they’re seizing the initiative and accomplishing far more than many people here have in well over 20 years. I’m talking about policemen, former soldiers, doctors, and shopkeepers; the very Bourgeoisie the radical left despises, the hardworking, enterprising men and women who have been the very foundation and lifeblood of prosperous democracies throughout history. They’re all over the place here, and they will ultimately be this land’s political and economic salvation.

Don’t give me any of that whiny bullshit about how we should clean up the mess, this place was a shambles when we got here. Much of this country’s infrastructure slipped through the cracks while Saddam and his late, unlamented offspring built lavish palaces and spent money earmarked for humanitarian aid on every luxury they could lay their blood-stained hands on.

Time ran an article about deplorable conditions at Baghdad’s international airport, stories of looting and general wanton destruction of the airport. Much of the equipment at Baghdad International Airport is so old and dilapidated I’d be surprised if any of it has actually worked anytime in the past decade. Yeah, we pot-holed the runways with bombs aplenty, and a bunch of soldiers picked the duty-free store clean, (which in my opinion the boys fucking well earned) but the field has been repaired and it’s now in better shape than it has been in many years.

Utilities? Go flying out here at night, you see mud hut villages that are as well-lit as any small town back home. I shit you not. If these dilapidated hamlets and villes have power, then the major cities can’t be in such poor shape.

Many items the media reports as potential trouble must be viewed in the context of Iraq’s middle eastern neighbors. There are protests against the American occupiers. Big Fucking Deal. Only in Iraq are people assembling and protesting without being summarily dispersed, beaten, arrested, and/or imprisoned (See Iran). Also seen only in Iraq are hundreds of independent newspapers being printed and circulated absent the watchful, censoring eye of the state. Pro- or anti-coalition, they come off the presses and onto the streets without a Ba’athist Bureaucrat vetting them and shooting the dissenters. Iraq now has a fledgling government of its own, supervised of course, for the moment, but lacking crooked, Wahabbi-bribing royals and power-wielding theocrats.

Sure, if you are in this country and physically attack soldiers and Marines, they will certainly detain you, and if you’re firing on them they will definitely cap you. That’s called self-defense, and it makes perfect sense if you reside anywhere outside the loony havens on our East and West Coasts. But of course, many of those assholes would rather see us die by the thousands than succeed at our efforts here. They can’t stand to watch the people they’ve been raised to loathe win an unprecedented victory and rightfully earn the support and respect of the nation. I love it. Soldiers and Marines are seen as positive role models and it makes the loony left shit bricks.

This country was raped and pillaged for 2 ½ decades by Saddam, his now-defunct sons, and the Ba’ath Party. The bastards built themselves magnificent palaces, bought the priciest cars, the very best in food and wine, and spent less than the bare minimum on sustaining their people, even as sanctions tightened the country’s belt. Where was the indignation at the Iraqis’ plight then? Wait a minute. The cameras were fixed on wall-to-wall “No Blood for OOIIIIILLLLLLL” bullshit and airhead, mealy-mouthed celebrities running their mouths on subjects well beyond their collective depth (i.e. a 7-Eleven parking lot puddle).

There was also the daily Kofi and Hans Happy Fun Hour at the UN, that theatre of the absurd where wrong magically becomes right and the most brutal dictatorships in the world are allowed to chair the Human Rights Commission. What a fucking sitcom.

The UN is also that wonderful, happy place where countries with proven inabilities to defend themselves are not only voting, veto-power members of the Security Council, they get to tie it up with all kinds of “Fuck America” backbiting. Hey Jacques, Dominique, don’t bite the hands that freed you. And don’t stand idle when your nutless citizens deface the graves of the American heroes who spilled their blood, who forfeited their families and futures, to make sure that Horst Wessel didn’t remain long as your piss-puddle country’s national anthem. I hope you also like that tricolore that flies on your masts when you’re not hoisting white flags in the faces of invaders. We put it back up for you. These days, with all your synagogue bombings and anti-Israel sentiments, you seem better suited to those swastikas we drove out of your country for you nearly sixty years ago.

Don’t bite the hands that keep you free either. We labor to make the world a safer place for our nation and its ideals, safer also for our friends abroad and for those who live under the boots of our enemies, yet the press tramples on us; they second- and third-guess our work; deem some to be heroes who do little while many who sacrifice all remain obscure and uncelebrated; lastly, they misquote, fabricate, deceive, and vilify us at will, while conveniently forgetting that we make possible their ability to shit on anyone and anything they see fit. Because of us, the press can live out their delusional fantasies of being a power unto themselves. Their “Le Etat, C’est Nous” megalomania is not amusing and I don’t believe I am alone in being utterly sick of it.

Rudyard Kipling hit it on the head:

Makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.

Thank you all for your patience, goodwill, and prayers for our safety and health.

R.A.H.

August 3, 2003