10/10/05 "Iraq Dispatches" -- -- On Saturday morning, October 2nd, hours after the Pentagon officially launched ‘Operation Iron Fist’, the Associated Press reported, “About 1,000 U.S. troops, backed by attack helicopters, swarmed into a tiny Iraqi village near the Syrian border Saturday in an offensive aimed at rooting out fighters from al-Qaida in Iraq, the country’s most feared militant group, the military said.”

Being a Syrian border town, Sadah has been a target of U.S. assaults before. This weekend however, was major – 1,000 troops moved on this little village of 2,000 men, women and children.

The most sophisticated (which simply means most deadly) military in the world has sent 1,000 troops, backed by warplanes and helicopters, to enter and occupy the hamlet of Sadah, and is going door to door, raiding what homes were left standing, apparently in search of ‘insurgents’.

Although it is uncertain what they will find in Sadah, what they have brought is clear. Death and destruction on a massive scale have come to yet another town in the so-called ‘Sunni Triangle’.

Troops involved in the siege on this rural enclave, were backed by warplanes, such as the C-130 Specter, which hovers over its target, circling and hammering those on the ground with 105 mm rapid-fire cannons directed by it’s sophisticated computer tracking systems, and helicopters such as the Apache, which has turned humans into mincemeat with its 90 mm cannons and assortment of rockets.

“Sadah is a village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates River about eight miles from the Syrian border in Iraq’s western province of Anbar. The isolated community has one main road and about 200 houses scattered over a rural area,” the AP reports.

However, AP does not report why the U.S. was unable to take advantage of Sadah’s isolation to quarantine and search this village without razing it (A much more humane approach to this ‘humanitarian’ mission to bring democracy to Iraq and its people).

Other important facts about the siege also remain unreported. How long did this air assault last before U.S. troops entered the village? How many homes were destroyed? How many people were killed? How many arms and militants were found in this rural hamlet?

The AP further reports, “U.S. forces closed off Sadah. Ammar Al-Marsoomi, a doctor at a hospital in Al-Qa’im, 13 miles from the village, said initial reports indicated that two Iraqis were wounded in Saturday’s assault.”

Choosing a doctor in a different town (Al-Qa’im) to comment on casualties in what AP reports as the closed town of Sadah, is odd. Cities under US siege, such as Falluja last year, were closed to all traffic while under U.S. attack. Journalist, aid workers, civilians, and casualties inclusive, were barred from entrance or exit, making it near impossible to report accurately on casualties.

The doctor AP relies on to register comment with respect to civilian casualties is said to rely on ‘initial reports’. These reports are left unquestioned or explained by AP, with no mention of source, leaving the reader with more questions than answers. Was this a U.S. military initial report of civilian casualties, or perhaps this figure relates to hospital casualty reports in Al-Qa’im, 13 kilometers down the only road out of the closed city? In any case, without further explanation by AP, it becomes impossible for the reader to gauge the legitimacy of this claim, therefore making it unreliable at best, and possibly misleading.

So another village in Anbar province is occupied by American troops and their Iraqi counterparts, only weeks before a referendum on a constitution the U.S. is desperate to see succeed. It is a referendum that could fail in Anbar province and other Sunni dominated areas, as well as in the volatile South, which last week saw citizens attack British Troops who had stormed the Basra city jail freeing two British soldiers being held.

The soldiers, dressed in civilian Iraqi clothes, were arrested after a fire-fight erupted, as a group of Iraqi policemen approached their car. Two policemen were killed, and the two disguised soldiers were arrested and sent to the Basra prison for investigation and charge. British troops lay siege upon the Iraqi police, disrupting any further investigation into the actions of these two. A civilian riot broke out in Basra, in which U.K. tanks were stacked with tires and set alight. With the U.K. now accusing the police of corruption and calling for a complete overhaul of the forces, and populist Shia leader Muqtada Al Sadr stating his belief that U.K. troops are involved in terrorist activity, the south to is destabilizing rapidly, leaving in question the legitimacy of any vote held under these conditions.

In western Iraq, it would take only three of the four Sunni dominated provinces returning with a no vote to defeat this master document of the new Iraq. On October 4th, while attacks by U.S. troops were underway in these very provinces, a bold move to ensure passage of the proposed constitution by making a no return a near mathematical impossibility, was imposed by the National Assembly. The Assembly decided to redefine internationally accepted electoral standards, by making counts of votes dependent upon voter registration, rather than voter turnout, which simply means 100% voter turnout would be needed for a legitimate result (a fantasy in even the most peaceful of democracies).

The assembly, under extreme criticism from a U.N. unable to legitimize such an obviously flawed vote, and under threat of boycott from a frustrated Sunni leadership, reversed the measure, and the conventional interpretation of voter was restored.

Although this leaves the impression of a restored integrity, the referendum was already tipped heavily in favor of the draft becoming resolution. The government of Iraq, elected in the most undemocratic of fashions (candidates and party platforms were announced after the vote), had decided that a mere majority vote against this draft would not be enough for its defeat in any province. In fact, under the rules of this referendum, more than two of every three participating voters would have to vote against this draft to see a veto registered.

This system makes a veto in most provinces highly unlikely. Only those able to muster significant political solidarity have the ability to defeat this draft under this interpretive system of vote counting. What these voting rules have done is allow U.S. forces to direct the brunt of their actions against those provinces that could actually register a veto, which are those dominated by a Sunni majority, such as Anbar.

In Anbar province, currently under siege from the largest U.S. offensive of the year, where all indications have been predicting a negative vote, the probability that even 67% of voters will be able to make it to the poles is unlikely. In Sadah and other civilian centers under siege in Anbar, occupation will remain in the ruins of these campaigns, with heavily armed soldiers and National Guardsmen left to control security for a referendum they want to see passed.

The constitution, if implemented, paves the way for secession of territories, leading the way to an oil rich Kurdistan in the North, a southern Shia state also controlling great oil wealth, and a western area, war torn and without resources, left for Sunnis to rebuild after a brutal and heavily damaging occupation.

As the U.S. continues its campaign in Western Iraq, and as questions about U.K. involvement in terrorism in the South continue to grow, the impossibilities of democracy under occupation are highlighted. Next weekend's vote on the future of Iraq further illustrates the perversions to democracy that have recently been envisioned by a U.S. administration that itself gained power under this dark cloud that now looks to envelope and dissect Iraq. All that stands in its way is the resolve of a highly terrorized constituent, a constituent that is asked to register its opinion under the watchful eye of a security force that recently razed their communities. In Anbar, as in other provinces, it doesn’t take a great leap of reasoning to know that a vote against the referendum is a vote against the occupation, an occupation intent on pushing it through.

Andrew Stromotich is an independent journalist, documentary filmmaker, and founding member of dropframe communications. He can be reached at pumo@shaw.ca