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08/19/03: (Spiked) 'Iraq's day of
insanity', said yesterday's UK Sun,
as Iraqi saboteurs allegedly blew up an oil export
pipeline in Kirkuk in northern Iraq, and forced Baghdad's
water supplies to be cut off after blowing a massive hole
in a water main (1). According to one report, the
apparently 'well-organised' saboteurs created '24 hours of
mayhem', and threaten to undermine the coalition's
reconstruction efforts in Iraq (2).
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Is Iraq really under siege from
sophisticated sabs, hell-bent on disrupting oil and water
flows? There are certainly opponents of the coalition in
postwar Iraq, who have certainly caused
disruption-by-sabotage in recent weeks. Yet for all the
reports about guerrilla groups holding Iraq to ransom,
there is still much confusion over who's doing the
disrupting, how centrally organised they are, and whether
their sporadic attacks are having much of an impact.
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Rather, many in the coalition appear to be
projecting their concerns about the continuing instability
in Iraq on to a bunch of saboteurs. As postwar Iraq
remains unstable and vacuous - following a war that chased
out a weak and failing regime, with little sense of what
might take its place - some officials and commentators see
their worst fears realised in the sabs' seemingly
senseless attacks. The focus on the saboteurs' apparent
threat to stability and prosperity reveals as much about
the West's own fear and uncertainty over postwar Iraq, as
it does about who's blowing holes in the infrastructure.
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According to Paul Bremer, America's chief
administrator in Iraq, the saboteurs are 'thwarting'
reconstruction. He claims that those blowing up oil
pipelines and water mains and attacking the electricity
grid - 'probably people left over from the old regime' -
are costing Iraq billions of dollars (3). 'The irony is
that Iraq is a rich country that is temporarily poor',
says Bremer. 'An event such as the explosion on the Kirkuk
oil pipeline costs the Iraqi people $7million a day and
hurts the process of reconstruction.' (4)
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So Iraq is 'temporarily' poor because of
the dastardly saboteurs - rather than as a result of the
UN sanctions that restricted Iraq's selling of oil over
the past 10 years, and the coalition's invasion and
occupation that disrupted those parts of the Iraqi economy
that managed to survive the sanctions? Bremer seems to
have changed his tune. In June, when the sabotage of oil
and water supplies first started, he dismissed it as the
work of irritated Iraqis rather than an all-out assault on
the coalition's occupation.
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On Friday 13 June, the day after the
US-led administration awarded a raft of contracts to
international oil companies to export crude oil from Iraq,
two explosions damaged a major pipeline in northern Iraq.
Bremer challenged the notion that such sabotage was the
work of a 'classical guerrilla-type campaign', instead
claiming that, 'What we are fighting here are a bunch of
bitter-enders from the old regime. We see no sign of any
central control over them at this point' (5).
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Back in June, a leading US energy
correspondent said the pipeline attacks must be 'put into
perspective'. 'The bombings of oil and natural gas
pipelines in Iraq won't do much to undermine the
rebuilding of Iraq's shattered economy, since they were
largely ineffective and a lot more than oil is involved in
such a mammoth undertaking', he claimed. The correspondent
described the rising pipeline attacks as 'relatively small
in scale and easy to repair' (6).
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Yet now, similar attacks are said to
'spell disaster' for Iraq, to 'threaten the economy', to
'thwart the coalition's reconstruction efforts'. A cynic
might think that coalition leaders are citing the sabotage
as a convenient cover for their own failure to
'reconstruct' Iraq.
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Three months after the war officially
ended, Iraq remains a mess: small armed groups are seeking
to fill the void left by the war; water and electricity
supplies have been severely disrupted; on 17 August, US
forces shot dead a cameraman after mistaking his camera
for a grenade launcher, capturing the confusion that
reigns in postwar Iraq. Yet now, some are attempting to
lay responsibility for this sorry state of affairs at the
feet of elusive saboteurs and 'wreckers'.
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Consider the widespread claims that the
recent electricity blackouts are largely the result of
sabotage. There have been big problems with Iraq's
electricity grid since the war ended in early May. In
July, the UK Telegraph
reported on Baghdad's 'erratic electricity', after the
'crucial Baghdad West transmission lines collapsed during
the war and have yet to be repaired'. 'More than $1billion
is needed to restore the electricity network', reported
the Telegraph.
'Only $185million has been allocated this year.' (7)
Before the saboteurs started hogging the headlines,
another report pointed out that it was the postwar
'weakness of [Iraq's] electrical grid' that was 'thwarting
efforts to put the system back together' (8).
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For all the claims about saboteurs
bringing Iraq to its knees, it was the coalition's war
that devastated Iraq. As the war was coming to an end in
late April, the International Committee of the Red Cross
claimed that: 'This country has collapsed. Nothing works -
no phones, no electricity, no schools, no proper medical
care, no transportation.' (9) Towards the end of the war,
32 out of Baghdad's 35 hospitals were forced to close,
while the war's impact on electricity meant that 'pumping
plants are often shut down, cutting off water for hours at
a time' (10). Yet according to yesterday's Glasgow Herald,
it is a 'wave of sabotage' that has 'pour[ed] misery on
Iraq' (11).
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Who are these elusive sabs, apparently
pouring misery on Iraq? Here, again, there is much
uncertainty. Some reports claim that they are 'bitter
Ba'athists', former members of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Others claim that a 'growing number of foreign fighters'
have entered Iraq, from around the Arab world. According
to some US officials, the Kurdish Islamic group Ansar
al-Islam is behind much of the sabotage in northern Iraq
and may be 'preparing further attacks against US targets'.
Is that the same Ansar al-Islam that US officials claim to
have pretty much destroyed during the war in April 2003?
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It was only a matter of time before
someone somewhere mentioned al-Qaeda, and the possibility
that it is behind the sabotage and disruption. 'In Iraq,
US sees influence of al-Qaeda', said a headline on 11
August, claiming that 'US forces may soon face a more
sophisticated and unpredictable enemy than they have
encountered so far' (12). What is the evidence to suggest
that Iraq's saboteurs are al-Qaeda types? According to
Mudhar Showkat, head of the American-funded Iraqi National
Congress, 'If they are committing terrorist acts, they
must be al-Qaeda or must be linked to al-Qaeda - but I
cannot tell you that with confidence….' (13).
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These clashing claims over who is
sabotaging Iraq's infrastructure point to a certain sense
of fear and loathing on the part of coalition forces. From
the old regime coming back to haunt postwar Iraq, to
foreign fighters pouring across Iraq's porous borders, to
the spectre of bin Laden and his wicked men moving in to
exact revenge…in the discussions about the postwar
sabotage, it can be difficult to separate fact from
fiction - and fact from fear.
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The sabotage against Iraq's
infrastructure, whoever is executing it, is a deadly
consequence of the coalition's war. America and Britain's
invasion of Iraq destabilised its internal structures,
creating the space for the rise of opportunistic armed
groups; and it internationalised Iraq's local tensions,
allowing the movement of outside forces, from different
parts of the Arab world, into Iraq. The destruction of the
old regime triggered scrappy battles for power and
influence, as armed groups moved into the vacuum left by
the war, while the transformation of Iraq into an
international issue heightened outside and external
influences.
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This double impact of the coalition's
intervention creates fertile ground for instability. As
today's apparent suicide bomb attack on the United Nations
headquarters in Baghdad indicates, postwar Iraq, like
Afghanistan before it and other parts of the Middle East,
has become dangerous territory, where Western intervention
has exacerbated tensions while removing the traditional
outlets for the expression of such tensions. Such
intervention increases violence on the fringes of society;
in the absence of traditional political frameworks, and
with nothing new to take their place, armed groups are
reduced to lashing out against the drift of events.
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Yet there is something more to the
saboteurs' rapid rise from apparently not posing a great
threat to dominating the front pages of the world media.
The widespread sense among politicians and commentators
that Iraq is overrun by sabs, who threaten the postwar
state's stability, economy and future, is a projection of
Western fears - not only about the postwar mess, but more
broadly about the action taken in Iraq and its potential
consequences. In the saboteurs' acts, coalition forces see
their own uncertainty writ large.
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Read on:
spiked-issue:
War on Iraq
(1) 'Iraq's day of insanity', Sun,
18 August 2003
(2) 'Iraq's day of insanity', Sun,
18 August 2003
(3) US
steps up protection of oil pipelines, Scotsman,
19 August 2003
(4) US
steps up protection of oil pipelines, Scotsman,
19 August 2003
(5) Acts
of sabotage declining, US administrator says, USA
Today, 17 July 2003
(6) Analysis:
Iraq oil sabotage in context, Washington
Times, 23 June 2003
(7) Iraq:
the first 100 days, Telegraph,
18 July 2003
(8) Q&A:
Daily life in postwar Baghdad, Christian
Science Monitor, 1 July 2003
(9) Stay
away from oil, US warned, Telegraph
(Calcutta), 19 April 2003
(10) Iraq:
the first 100 days, Telegraph,
18 July 2003
(11) 'Wave of sabotage pours misery on Iraq', Herald,
18 August 2003
(12) In
Iraq, US sees influence of al-Qaeda, Christian
Science Monitor, 11 August 2003
(13) In
Iraq, US sees influence of al-Qaeda, Christian
Science Monitor, 11 August 2003
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