Further Into
The Iraqi Quagmire
By James Cogan
21 August 2005
World
Socialist Web
To
use the term democracy in relation to the situation in Iraq
makes a mockery of the word. The reality of life for the Iraqi masses
is a social and economic catastrophe, alongside ever-more brutal colonial
rule at the hands of the American military and its local Iraqi security
forces. As tensions increase, the Bush administration and the Iraqi
government are presiding over a stepped-up campaign of repression against
the population.
On Thursday, hundreds
of people demonstrated against the US occupation through the streets
of the Baghdad suburb of Amiriya, carrying the coffins of three more
men gunned down in their house during an American raid and search.
Khalil Hussein,
a middle-aged man whose wounds in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s had
left him crippled and confined to a wheelchair, was shot dead in his
bathroom and left lying on the floor. His two brothers, Khalid and Jamal,
were also killed. His sister-in-law was wounded in the arm and foot.
A US military statement
labelled them a kidnapping cell and terrorists.
Their family and friends have accused American troops of indiscriminate
killings. Khalil Husseins crime may well have been
being unable to stand up when ordered to by American troops. A friend
of the brothers told Reuters: They call everybody terrorists
but they just commit terrorist acts whenever they want.
Every week in Iraq,
hundreds of people are killed, wounded, detained or intimidated during
searches or at roadblocks. The US military is enforcing a reign of terror,
particularly in Baghdad and the predominantly Sunni Arab regions where
support is greatest for the anti-occupation resistance organisations.
The suspicion and
hostility toward the occupation forces has reached such levels that
a common belief on Iraqi streets is that the indiscriminate bombings
of civiliansincluding suicide bombingsare being orchestrated
by the police and the US military to foster sectarian divisions among
the Iraqi people and create a climate of fear. Stories have circulated
of people discovering explosives in their cars after they were detained
by police for several hours and then ordered to drive through particular
suburbs.
Another wave of
bombings that deliberately targeted Shiite Muslim civilians was unleashed
in the capital on Wednesday, killing over 43 people and wounding at
least 88. The Iraqi government immediately blamed Sunni Islamic extremist
insurgent groups.
The daily death
toll in Iraq is escalating. The central Baghdad morgue alone received
1,100 corpses in July676 of whom had been shot. The morgue director,
Faed Bakr, told the Los Angeles Times: In the days of Saddam we
had maybe 16 shootings a month. Now we have more than that every day.
The fatalities include
people killed by US troops, private contractors or Iraqi security forces;
Iraqi police and government officials killed by insurgents; and numerous
casualties of the countrys unchecked criminal violence. They also
include the victims of extra-judicial killings by police commando units
of the Iraqi interior ministry. The horrifically tortured bodies of
dozens of people who were detained by the police have been found in
rubbish dumps, rivers and abandoned buildings.
The first judicial
murders since the US invasion are likely to take place over the next
week. The Iraqi government has authorised the hanging of three men convicted
of a number of rapes and killings. The mens nationally-televised
trial was a total travesty. According to the New York Times, at least
three witnesses identified the men as murderers because they saw some
of them confess to the crime before the trial on a widely condemned
television program operated by the police commandos. Terrified men who
have clearly been beaten and tortured have appeared on the show admitting
to horrific crimes.
State executions
are part of preparations to escalate the level of violence against the
Iraqi people. Far from there being a reduction in the number of US troops
in Iraq, as many as 20,000 extra troops are likely to be deployed by
the end of the year. The boost will facilitate a series of counter-insurgency
operations and provide additional security during the referendum on
a constitution, planned for October 15, and elections scheduled for
December 15.
In a telling indication
that the Pentagon is planning a major crackdown over the coming months,
the US military announced on Wednesday that it is sending 700 extra
troops to garrison its fourth prison in Iraq, which is expected to be
functioning by October. American forces are detaining at least 10,800
Iraqis, many of whom have never been charged. The new facility is intended
to allow prisoner numbers to increase to around 16,000.
Underlying the preparations
are the growing signs of a social and political upheaval against the
occupation and the US-backed government. US atrocities since the invasion
have produced deep-seated opposition while the conditions of life for
millions of people are unbearable.
Households are getting
just four to six hours of electricity per day. Almost half of Baghdads
population has lost access to running water. There are chronic shortages
of fuel. Unemployment is between 50 and 60 percent. One quarter of all
children are suffering malnutrition.
The August 9 editorial
in Azzaman, an Iraqi journal, articulated popular anger. The piece declared:
It seems it is not in the interest of our rulers to have things
under control. Prosperity, stability and security, once achieved, will
be a blow to their ends. Because if the bombs stop, food is made available,
electricity returns, crime is checked and the country is back on its
feet, all the Iraqi people will then turn their attention to the most
pressing issuehow to drive the occupation troops out of the country.
It does not take a genius to understand that both the government and
the occupation need each other and both thrive on our miseries.
The anger erupted
on August 7 in the southern city of Samawa, where Japanese and Australian
troops represent the occupation. Over 1,000 people marched on the governors
office, demanding his resignation, jobs, electricity and water. The
demonstration was led by supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,
whose movement, which is based among the urban poor of the major cities,
took up arms last year against US forces. The governor and most of the
local police are members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution
in Iraq (SCIRI)one of the main factions in the Iraqi government.
After police fired
on the crowd, killing two people, Sadrist militiamen fought a running
battle with the SCIRI police. The area is reportedly still extremely
volatile.
The Bush administration
and its puppet regime in Baghdad have only one answer to the growing
demands of the Iraqi people for their social and democratic rightsmore
repression. A factor in the urgency with which Washington is demanding
that the parliament in Baghdad agree on a new constitution and hold
fresh elections is to provide a façade of legitimacy. Mass killings
will be justified as defending a democratic government against
terrorists and extremists, just as they were
last year in Fallujah.
Barry Rubin, the
director of an Israeli-based strategic thinktank, spelt out the implications
of the deteriorating situation in Iraq in the Spring edition of the
Washington Quarterly. In blunt terms, he argued for the consolidation
of an Iraqi regime based on Shia factions such as SCIRI and, with US
backing, the use of their militias to carry out a bloodbath against
both the Sunni and Shiite opposition to the occupation.
Rubin wrote: Defeating
insurgent forces consisting of Saddam loyalists, Al Qaeda terrorists
and Shia extremists with mild methods is impossible... It is impossible,
however, for any US or US-led force effectively to employ the methods
necessary to defeat the Iraq insurgency. Every time a US marine kills
an Iraqi civilian or fires on a mosque, tens of millions of Arabs and
many Iraqis will take it as proof that the United States has an evil
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda... Nothing other than an Iraqi force
willing to use the necessary methods and have them accepted as pro-Muslim
and patriotic will successfully crush the insurgency.
What George Bush
and Dick Cheney have taken to calling the noble cause in
Iraq consists of unspeakable crimes against the Iraqi people, and preparations
for even greater ones.