The Permanent Occupation
By Ghali Hassan
09 July,
2008
Countercurrents.org
The U.S government is in the process of imposing a “security agreement” on Iraq to allow U.S. occupying forces to remain in the country indefinitely. The “agreement” is a euphemism for a permanent colonial occupation of Iraq in flagrant violation of the Iraqi people’s demand and right to freedom and national independence.
In 2003, the stated justification for the U.S.-Britain illegal act of aggression against the Iraqi people was Iraq’s (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction, “democracy” and the “liberation” of the Iraqi people. But these were simply pretexts to manipulate world public opinion and justify unprovoked aggression. The real motives had much to do with the destruction of Iraq as an independent nation and control over Iraq’s oil resources.
From the outset of the illegitimate Occupation, the U.S. began to prepare for a long-term Occupation of Iraq despite the U.S. Administration claims to the contrary. Early in 2003, the New York Times reported that the U.S. is “planning long-term military relationships with Iraq”. (Thom Shanker & Eric Schmitt, New York Times, April 20, 2003). Just few weeks after the illegal invasion, U.S. military bases, prisons and torture centres mushroomed throughout the country. At the same time, Iraqi schools, civil institutions and vital infrastructure are being destroyed gradually.
With the UN playing the role of an accomplice in U.S. crimes against the Iraqi people – in violation of its own Charter and independence –, the Bush Administration (the occupying power) did every thing to justify a permanent occupation. From the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and police to encourage violence and lawlessness to the deliberate bombings of civilians to incite civil strife to the fraudulent elections, the U.S. aim has always been to destroy the Iraqi society and justify a permanent colonial Occupation of Iraq. Iraqi professionals, including scientists, doctors, academic, teachers and prominent politicians were terrorised and thousands were murdered in cold blood by the occupying forces and their collaborators.
As the colonial Occupation continue – from Washington and the Occupation headquarter (the “Green Zone”) in Baghdad – behind a façade of expatriate Iraqi collaborators (dubbed by Western media as the “Iraqi government”), the U.S. is secretly coercing and bribing the stooges to sign an “agreement” to legitimise the Occupation before the UN fraudulent order of legitimacy expired by next December. The so-called “negotiations” were first leaked to the Iraqi media and later by the British Independent newspaper.
The Independent (June 06, 2008) reported that the U.S. “is holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an “agreement” to prolong the U.S. occupation indefinitely”. The freeze on financial Iraqi assets is part of the genocidal sanctions which is still partially in place. The U.S. is using Iraq’s tens of billions of dollars in seized Iraqi assets as a bullying tactic to push through its demands. The Bush administration is also refusing to support lift Iraq’s UN designation as a threat to international security. Western media report Iraqi officials will ask the UN Security Council today to expend its protection of Iraq against compensation claims.
According to a National Security Archive Briefing, if the “agreement” is signed, it will make Iraq not just an occupied country but an illegally annexed territory. The Briefing reveals that the U.S. military will have no less than fifty military bases throughout Iraq. Initially the U.S. demanded control of more than 200 military bases. In addition, U.S. forces would also be able to continue to murder and carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens, and conduct military raids without consultation with the puppet government. American soldiers and mercenaries will enjoy legal immunity.
Iraqi parliamentarians say the U.S. has demanded control of at least fifty-eight military bases, as well as Iraqi airspace up to 30,000 feet. U.S. officials also demanded the right to refuel the planes while in flight, stoking fears the U.S. would use Iraq as a staging ground for an attack on Iran. In what could be seen as a threat to Iran, the lawmakers also say the U.S. has demanded rights that would effectively allow it to decide if another country is committing aggression against Iraq territory. For example, the U.S. could decide that Iran or Syria have committed aggression against U.S. forces in Iraq and therefore justify attacking them. Of course, Israel and Turkey are exempted, and would have no problem receiving U.S. approval if either decides to invade tack Iraq.
If signed, the “agreement” will be in contempt of the Iraqi people who are overwhelmingly (98 per cent) against the Occupation, and want U.S. troops and mercenaries to leave their country and end the violence. This has been demonstrated time and time again in polls and also in the result when troops do withdraw from the region. Indeed, after the withdrawal of British troops from Basra in December 2007, there has been a significant decrease in violence there.
Western media reveal that Iraqi lawmakers (in the U.S.-imposed Iraqi parliament) have released a letter showing a majority would oppose any agreement with the U.S. if it lacked a commitment for a U.S. withdrawal: ‘The majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any military-security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the united states that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq’. Nadeem Al-Jaberi, a former political science professor and a co-founder of the al-Fadhila political party, asked: "What are the threats that require U.S. forces to be there?" "I would like to inform you, there are no threats to Iraq. We are capable of solving our own problems".
Furthermore, Khalaf al-Alyan, a member of parliament from the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), told Iraqi media (Voices of Iraq): “The Iraqi-U.S. agreement contains several items that impinge upon the sovereignty of Iraq, including the right of the U.S. forces in Iraq to attack any nation and raid any Iraqi house and arrest people without prior permission from the Iraqi government”. The Bush Administration is in a hurry to sign by the end of July “to avoid any legal vacuum that may arise”.
As the opposition intensified, the Bush Administration has moved to call it “framework of operation” to avoid (Iraqi) parliamentary approval. The Bush Administration is also determined to avoid submitting the “agreement” to Congress for approval, because it is opposed by the majority of Democrats in the Senate. Unlike other agreements, the Iraq-U.S. “security agreement” designed to protect a subservient Iraqi government and would include fighting the Iraqi Resistance and holding Iraqi prisoners of wars. According to Professor Oona Hathaway of Yale Law School: ‘There is literally no question that this is unprecedented … The country has never entered into this kind of commitment without Congress being involved, period’. (Charlie Savage, Boston Globe January 25, 2008).
The only people who are happy to remain under U.S. army boots are the stooges in the puppet government because without U.S. tanks their day are numbered inside the “Green Zone”. In a recent visit to Iran, the U.S.-imposed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was in vain trying to explain to the Iranians – who are rightly concern about the increasing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and the Gulf – that a U.S.-occupied Iraq will not be used as a staging post for attacking Iran or interfering in Iranian affairs. But al-Maliki is deliberately ignoring history and distorting facts on the ground. The primary purpose of U.S. military presence in Iraq and the region is violence and the destabilisation. Further, the U.S. is already conducting ‘covert operations’ (a.k.a. U.S.-sponsored terrorism) against Iran (Seymour Hersh, New Yorker July 07, 2008). Unaware, al-Maliki is playing the same role and game played by his predecessor Nuri al-Said under the British colonial regime.
We all know that U.S. military bases around the world are often used as staging post to attack other countries in violation of international laws and UN Charter. Yugoslavia and Iraq are just recent examples. For more than a decade, the U.S. attacked Iraq from U.S. military bases in Turkey, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia and even from U.S. bases in Germany an Italy. “American and British war planes flew from 30 bases in about a dozen countries”, reported the New York Times. Only in 2003, the elected Turkish Government, bowed to domestic pressure and rejected US request to use its territory to invade Iraq. Turkey’s decision was condemned by the Zionist elements (Paul Wolfowitz) in the Bush Administration and the Administration’s propaganda mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal.
After five years of murderous Occupation, the illegal aggression proved to be about oil and colonial control of the region and its natural resources. Western “Big Oil” Corporations are back to exploit Iraq’s oil resources. The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is directly involved in deals between the puppet government and U.S. oil corporations to privatise Iraq’s oil. Major Western oil companies – Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, Chevron and BP – are in the final stage of negotiations on no-bid contracts that will see them take control of Iraq’s oil, 36 years after they were thrown-out to by the late president Saddam Hussein nationalisation of Iraq’s oil (Andrew Kramer, New York Times June 19, 2008). Iraqi media reveals that Oil Corporations are refusing to offer ‘consultancy’ based on fees – proposed by the Iraqi officials – and wanted ‘a share of Iraq’s oil’. Meanwhile, the Iraqi people are left wondering at history repeating itself.
After five years of murderous Occupation, the Bush regime has caused the deaths of more than 1.3 million of innocent Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, and maimed millions more. Iraqi civilians are being killed every day by U.S. forces and their collaborators. The Bush regime’s practice of torture, including rape is the most abhorrent of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses. Since the illegal invasion, U.S. forces carried out unlawful and wanton destruction to vital Iraqi civilian properties, including the destruction of entire cities and towns. Iraq’s civilian infrastructure and services, including health care services and the education system have been destroyed. At least 4.7 million Iraqis were displaced, according to UNHCR estimates. Of these, more than 2.6 million Iraqis are displaced internally displaced persons (IDPs), while more than 2 million have fled to neighbouring countries. As a result of the illegitimate Occupation, an entire generation of Iraqi children have been terrorised and destroyed. According to UNICEF, more than 800,000 Iraqi children are unable to go to school and only 40 per cent can access safe drinking water. Child malnutrition in Iraq has increased from 19 percent in 2003 to 28 percent in 2007.
Every Iraqi family has experienced the terrifying experience of a raid and terror, said journalist and author Laila al-Arian. In Nazis-like violence, U.S. troops often “storm into a house, they turn the entire house upside-down, making it look like a hurricane hit it. They usually separate the men from the women and children. Most of the time, the vast majority of the time, they actually arrest the men. They zip cuff them, and they take them to a detention facility or a prison, which leaves the family looking for them for days”, added al-Arian. Like Nazi war criminals, George Bush and his criminal gang should be charged with murder, terrorism and crimes against humanity.
Arab leaders should wake up to their impotent policies and start supporting the legitimate Iraqi National Resistance against the Occupation in the same way the U.S. and Europe supporting and funding Israel‘s terror and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. There is no noble cause better than supporting your fellow Muslims legitimate fight against foreign occupation and oppression. History has shown that the U.S. is anti-Arabs/anti-Muslims imperialist-Zionist power. Arabs should not let themselves be deceived by U.S. propaganda that Iraq would fall under Iranian domination if U.S. troops are withdrawn. The U.S. and Israel pose the greatest threat to Iraq and the region in general.
Finally, the real motives for the 2003 U.S.-Britain illegal act of aggression against the Iraqi people had more to do with the permanent colonisation of Iraq. Iraq’s security is embedded in its independence and nationhood. The ongoing murderous Occupation of Iraq is against the development and wellbeing of the Iraqi people. Only a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq will ensure Iraq’s security and national independence.
Ghali Hassan
is an independent writer living in Australia.
