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Mirage Of
Improvement In Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
12/19/07 "ICH"
-- - The November 19 New York Times announces, “Baghdad’s
Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves.”
The Washington Post on November 23 reports, “Returnees Find a
Capital Transformed.”
People in the US are willing to believe the establishment media
telling them that refugees are returning to their homes in
Baghdad in an environment of improved security and new hope.
It is true that there have been fewer American soldiers killed
in Baghdad and the number of Iraqis fleeing to Syria has
declined. However, this relatively quieter security situation
needs to be placed in its proper context, something the Western
media steadfastly refuses to do.
We are proudly informed that buying off Sunni militias and
resistance fighters at $300 per month is among the latest U.S.
military tactics, but we are conscientiously kept uninformed
about the implications of such a move. Nor is there any mention
of the growing antagonism it has generated in the US-backed
Iraqi Government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. By its
own admission, the U.S. military has paid over $17 million, so
far, to recruit 77,000 Sunni fighters, many of whom were
launching attacks against the Americans a few weeks ago
(International Herald Tribune).
Post purchase, the US military has rechristened them “Concerned
Local Citizens,” or “Awakening Forces.” The target is to procure
another 10,000.
The current recruitment has indeed contributed to a
de-escalation of violence in the capital city, and across much
of al-Anbar province, which comprises one third of the
geographic area of Iraq.
Reiterated Strategy
We are proudly informed that buying off Sunni militias and
resistance fighters at $300 per month is among the latest U.S.
military tactics, but kept uninformed about the implications of
such a move.
After it failed to take control of Fallujah during the April
2004 assault, the US employed a similar tactic. It was a
presidential election year in the US (as is 2008) and in order
to save face, the U.S. military “handed” over security
operations in Fallujah to the very people it had fought in
April. Money and weapons flooded the city and strengthened the
mujahedeen.
At the time a much larger battle was in the offing, the November
2004 U.S. siege of Fallujah, which left thousands dead, and
destroyed approximately 70 percent of the city. It is worth
noting that the attack was launched on November 8, 2004, just
days after it was determined that George W. Bush would remain in
office.
Under the “new and improved” conditions, consider the following:
* the fragility of the political balance in Iraq;
* the Middle Eastern regional instability;
*the ever intensifying U.S. threats of an attack against Iran;
* the likelihood of the “Concerned Local Citizens” staying loyal
to their new masters;
and then let us consider what calamity awaits the occupied
country.
Political Capital
Both the Maliki government and the Bush administration are using
the return of refugees as political capital. This projection
bears little relation to the ground reality.
To place an inconsequential fact on record, since the beginning
of the US “surge” earlier this year, the number of people
displaced from their homes in Iraq has quadrupled, and the
number of detentions carried out by both Iraqi and U.S. security
forces has escalated astronomically. On November 13, the
International Committee for the Red Cross estimated there are
around 60,000 people detained in U.S. and Iraqi prisons around
Iraq.
Refugees returning to Baghdad have been projected in the West as
evidence of the “surge” having brought security to Baghdad. Both
the Maliki government and the Bush administration are using them
as political capital. This projection bears little relation to
the ground reality which indicates a steep decline in the number
of returnees.
A recent UN survey, revealing the modest number of families
returning to Baghdad, shows that “46 percent were leaving
[Syria] because they could not afford to stay; 25 percent said
they fell victim to a stricter Syrian visa policy; and only 14
percent said they were returning because they had heard about
improved security” (The New York Times).
It crucial to consider, but evidently not by the western media,
that as of October 1st the Syrian government has imposed new
visa restrictions whereby Iraqis who can prove they need medical
treatment or intend to conduct business alone are permitted
entry into Syria.
Iraqis who are barred entrance have the option of staying in a
refugee camp on the border in the middle of the desert, or
returning home.
Not More is Not Less
“It is true that hundreds of fighters were killed or detained by
the so-called Awakening Forces, but there are thousands who will
never quit fighting until this occupation is ended.”
Let us not discount the fact that the “lower violence rate”
being reported by the Western media establishments imply that
violence in Iraq is now down to 2005 levels, which at the time
was considered catastrophic. A recent Pew Research Center poll
found that “nearly 90 percent of US journalists in Iraq say much
of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit.” Those surveyed have
admitted that the “coverage has painted too rosy a picture of
the conflict” (Reuters).
The not-so-rosy reality is that the resistance has merely
shifted location. As Ali Khamees, a former major of the Iraqi
army, recently told my Iraqi colleague in Ramadi, Ali al-Fadhily,
“it is true that hundreds of fighters were killed or detained by
the so-called Awakening Forces, but there are thousands who will
never quit fighting until this occupation is ended. I believe it
is a new strategy employed by the resistance to reduce the
suffering of people in al-Anbar and move somewhere else to
fight.”
Attacks against U.S. forces have increased notably in other
Iraqi provinces like Diyala, Saladin and Mosul.
On November 28, a female suicide bomber wounded seven US
soldiers in Baquba, the capital city of the volatile Diyala
province, northeast of Baghdad. The previous day in the same
city, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives filled
vest in front of the police headquarters, killing six people and
wounding seven, according to Iraqi police reports.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a 32 year old Ramadi
resident cautioned my Iraqi colleague, al-Fadhily, “those
Americans thought they would decrease the resistance attacks by
separating the people of Iraq into sects and tribes. They are
going deeper into the shifting sand. The collaborators are
fooling the Americans right now, and will in the end use this
strategy against them.”
Provinces like Saladin, Diyala and the Kurdish controlled north,
now under regular bombardment from the Turkish military which is
threatening invasion, have become more volatile than ever.
The Bush administration talks of withdrawing up to 5,000 troops
from Diyala province, but on November 24 US military officials
revealed that the overall number of American troops in Diyala
will actually increase since the replacement brigade for the one
being removed is larger and will mean more boots on the ground.
Crafting Political Chaos
“Those Americans . . . are going deeper into the shifting sand.
The collaborators are fooling the Americans right now, and will
in the end use this strategy against them”
The U.S. policy of propping up the Sunni militias whilst backing
the Shia government has heightened the volatility of an already
precarious political situation. Deep fissures are one fall out
of this classic divide and rule tactic.
On November 29, legislators blocked Prime Minister Maliki’s
attempts to get approval for nominees to fill the vacant
portfolios of justice and communications in the cabinet. This
was done by getting legislators from several parties to boycott
the session and ensure that parliament did not have the
requisite quorum to vote on the nominations.
The cabinet and parliament in Baghdad remain paralyzed thereby
effectively derailing US efforts to push legislation for
privatization of Iraq’s oil. Over a dozen ministers have quit
Maliki’s government this year. These include members of the
Accordance Front, the largest Sunni block in the parliament,
which withdrew its support in August. The cabinet is presently
composed primarily of Shia and Kurds which only underscores the
sectarian and ethnic battle lines that the U.S. policies have
drawn in Iraq.
Before swallowing the Bush administration rhetoric of things
getting better in Iraq today, we would do well to cast a glance
at the real picture of the calamitous occupation.
The Just Foreign Policy group in the US places over 1.1 million
Iraqis dead as a direct result of the US led invasion and
occupation. A conservative estimate of the wounded would be 3
million.
The UNHCR enlists an approximate 2.2 million Iraqis that have
fled the country altogether, and another 2.4 million that have
been internally displaced. An Oxfam International report
released in July found another 4 million Iraqis who were in need
of emergency assistance.
Iraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003
was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23
million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over
half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of
emergency aid, wounded, or dead.
While the US establishment media proffers us the assurance of
“Baghdad’s Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves,” for most
Iraqis safe and secure survival remains a distant dream. For
Americans it is perhaps time to act on the words of Carl Schurz
and “cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country —
when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”
Dahr Jamail is IPS’ specialist writer who has spent eight
months reporting from inside Iraq and has been covering the
Middle East for several years
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