US platitudes on Iraq

The US government's statements on Iraq are far away
from the population's daily experience of violence and lack of security

Haifa Zangana
The Guardian
February 15, 2008 6:30 PM Printable version

The planned reduction in the number of US troops in Iraq is to be put on hold, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, indicated while visiting US troops in Iraq; following the statement of General David Petraeus that he wants to slow troop withdrawals, "to consolidate the past year's security gains".
There is no mention of Petraeus's "sustainable level of violence" of which the last six weeks have been a fine example. For Iraqis who are long forgotten by the US and British governments, since they are often seen as terrorists' facilitators, the security gains mean pre-dawn house raid, arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, killing by mercenaries called security employees and car bombs in crowded markets. Blasts have occurred in Baghdad, Salah ad Din, Anbar and Ninevah. The historic city of Mosul, north of Iraq, is under siege by occupation troops for the third week.
To minimise the US casualties, during the surge, Iraqis have been subjected to collective punishment, Israeli style. The list of our dead as a result of indiscriminate US air strikes is long. Here are but a few: on January 3 2006, several members of the same family, including women and children, were killed in a US air strike that destroyed their home in Beiji, north of Iraq. Ghadban Nahd Hassan, 56, told AFP that 14 members of his family had been in the house when it was it bombed. On Oct 23, 2007 a helicopter attack completely destroyed Ibrahim Jassim's house. The death toll was 16: Seven men, six women and three children.
On October 11, an air strike northwest of Baghdad killed nine children and six women. In Sadr City, US troops backed by attack helicopters claimed they had killed 49 gunmen. Police put the toll at 13 and said they were all civilians, including two toddlers. They were not members of al-Qaida.
A major US air strike was launched in January this year on a residential area in the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Planes dropped 40,000lb (18,100kg) of explosives during a 10-minute blitz on 40 targets, according to a military statement.
In 2007, The US military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq as it did in 2006. On the ground, killing and planting evidence continues, justified as getting rid of "suspected al-Qaida members". Furthermore, controlled burn operations (pdf), the systematic burning of trees and orchards in Diyala, Habaniya and around Baghdad, have been conducted to "make US bases less accessible to intruders" and "to remove vegetation insurgents use as hiding places for themselves and their weapons". Millions of pounds were invested in planting these trees by successive Iraqi governments.
The number of detainees held by the American-led military forces in Iraq has swelled by 50% under the surge, including 680 children, and the US military expanded the internment facilities at Camp Bucca, in southern Iraq, and Camp Cropper, near Baghdad, to accommodate the increasing numbers.
It is worth pausing here to clarify the much-trumpeted successes of the return of some of refugees and the establishment of al Sahwa - the US-funded tribal Sunni militia. The first is just another information operation at a time of military failure to obscure the fact that most of the refugees had fled the country during the "success of the surge", in addition to the 2 million displaced inside Iraq (to get a sense of proportion, this is equivalent to 10 million British or 50 million US citizens).
The return of some refugees is not related to the success of the surge, the establishment of security or a reduction in "sectarian violence", the euphemism for death squads that have infiltrated the security services and local militias. The savings of most refugees have run out, and they face real poverty since they cannot compete for the few jobs available in countries that have historically been poorer than Iraq. While I was in Amman in June, I met an Iraqi engineer who now works as a cleaner to provide for his family. Others, especially the elderly and children, are exhausted by visa restrictions; Most refugees, being of urban backgrounds, rented flats at steep prices, forcing families to share, sometimes with up to five adults and children in one room. Many refugees, previously from professional backgrounds, have had to rely on charity donations or support from relatives living in Europe.
Refugees in Syria or elsewhere rely on pensions, requiring them to go back to their workplaces in Iraq once every couple of months, leaving their families behind. Some go back also to collect monthly food rations to partially sell in the country. In the past, due to corruption in various government offices, some employees didn't attend work but collected half their salaries. Their bosses collected the rest in exchange for allowing them not to show up except for occasional days. All these arrangements came to an end after neighbouring countries implemented visa restrictions and it is almost impossible to get a visa to the UK or the US, despite their responsibility in creating the mayhem in Iraq. Now many refugees who have survived so far with such arrangements are desperate, and their only remaining hope is to share life with their extended families inside Iraq. In most cases they are "internally displaced", ie still refugees.
As for the celebrated US/allied tribal Sunni militia called al-Sahwa (the awakening), the last few weeks has proved that it is increasingly becoming the monster about to devour its creator. Sheik Ali Hathem al Duleimy, the head of al Sahwa, many of whose members are paid by the occupiers, went on Iraqi TV and said that his militia would no longer allow the US or Iraqi government to interfere with its work.
Similar US-paid groups in Diyala province continue to refuse to work with American or Iraqi government forces.
On the other hand, Iraqis suffering from the lack of basic services continue to call the Maliki government; "the government of the sectarian militias" with the highest record of corruption permeating in every aspect of its body. Democracy, transparency and human rights are terms often used as jokes.