Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – April 9, 2003

To many people's surprise, the resistance of the Iraqis suddenly stopped last night and the American forces were deployed in the sensitive areas of Baghdad.  In some places, people protested against Saddam and looted government offices and stores.  The fate of Saddam and the top Iraqi officials is unclear.  A Russian intelligence official has said that there was a secret agreement between the US and Saddam to quell the resistance to allowing Saddam and his family to leave. 

[Mr. Masoud Al-Badzikian], the Minister of Health, Treatment [and Medical Education], came with the managers.  They gave a report of the works and raised the needs.  I also talked about the medical advances after the revolution and the need to strengthen all American and British forces and crimes in Iraq and gave a short interview. 

Mr. Javad Mansouri came.  There were many criticisms in terms of political and financial aspects, banditry and the influence of unscrupulous people.  Although he is an adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he proposed the establishment of the Vice President for American Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [in the Council of Interests] and plans to protect effective forces that are being made redundant.  Mr. Abbas Ali Akhtari, the former imam of Semnan, came.  He appreciated the authorship of Tafsir al-Mahla and the Qur'an culture and asked for a job for his son. 

In the evening, Mr. [Ali] Aghamohammadi, [the head of the Iraq Committee and deputy head of the Broadcasting Organization] came.  He gave an analysis about the future of Iraq and American policies and asked me to think about the partisanship and coordination of the committed forces. He said, now in some parts of Iraq, Islamic forces are working with the people and it is not clear what the Americans will do. 

In Basra, the British came across a warehouse with a large number of corpses in it.  It turned out that the [remains] of the bodies of Iranian martyrs were missing in the war and they were supposed to be transferred to Iran;  It is said that there are about 100 bodies. 

In Palestine, seven people were martyred by an Israeli missile attack.  The Israeli media wrote that the oil pipeline that takes Iraqi oil to [the port of] Haifa every year and was closed for years should be revived. 

In Afghanistan, the conflicts intensified and today the Americans killed 11 people by destroying a house.  Last night, a huge explosion rocked Kabul and they say that they discovered five hundred hidden rockets.

The attackers bombed centers in the city of Tikrit - the hometown of Saddam [Hussein] - today and with the help of the Kurdish military in Mosul, they captured one of the defensive positions of the Iraqis.  [Donald] Rumsfeld, [US Secretary of Defense] said, Saddam Hussein joined the historical fate of Stalin, Ceausescu and Hitler, and compared the sight of Saddam's statue being pulled down by American forces and a group of Iraqi people in the main square of Baghdad to the fall of the Berlin Wall.