Iraq On The
Brink Of Anarchy
By Robert Fisk
in Fallujah
07 April, 2004
"The Independent"
Not
content with surrounding the largest Sunni city west of Baghdad with
tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, US forces
used Apache helicopters to attack the Shia Muslim slums of Shoula yesterday,
sent dozens of their main battle tanks into the hovels of Sadr City
and then slapped an arrest warrant on the Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr -
who must dearly have wanted the United States to do just that.
Gun battles in Sadr
City overnight had cost the lives of up to 40 Iraqis and at least eight
Americans, but in the sewage-damp streets yesterday, they were handing
out letters, allegedly written by the Sunni townspeople of Fallujah,
newly surrounded by 1,200 marines. "We support you, our brothers,
in your struggle," the letters said. If they are authentic, it
should be enough to make the US proconsul, Paul Bremer, wonder if he
can ever extricate Washington from Iraq. The British took three years
to turn both the Sunnis and the Shias into their enemies in 1920. The
Americans are achieving it in just under a year.
Anarchy has been
a condition of our occupation from the very first days when we let the
looters and arsonists destroy Iraq's infrastructure and history. But
that lawlessness is now coming back to haunt us. Anarchy is what we
are now being plunged into in Iraq, among a people with whom we share
no common language, no common religion and no common culture.
Officially, Mr Bremer
and his president are standing tall, claiming they will not "tolerate"
violence and those who oppose democracy, but occupation officials -
in anticipation of a far more violent insurrection - have been privately
discussing the legalities of martial law. And although Mr Bremer and
President George Bush are publicly insisting that the notional "handover"
of Iraq's "sovereignty" will still take place on 30 June,
legal experts attached to the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council
have also been considering a delay of further months. Many Iraqis are
now asking if the Americans want disaster in Iraq. Surely not, but yesterday's
violence told its own story of blundering military operations and political
provocations that will undoubtedly add to the support for the charmless
and provocative Shia cleric whom Mr Bremer now wants to lock up - allegedly
for plotting the murder of a pro-Western Shia cleric, Abdul-Majid el-Khoi.
Sadr was surrounded by his militiamen yesterday, in a mosque in Kufa
from where he issues regular denunciations of the occupation.
Dan Senor, a spokesman
for the occupying power, would not tell anyone exactly what the evidence
against Sadr was - even though it has supposedly existed since an Iraqi
judge issued the warrant some months ago.
The US military
response to the atrocities committed against four American mercenaries
in Fallujah last week has been to surround the entire city and to announce
the cutting off of the neighbouring international highway link between
Baghdad, Amman and Damascus - thus bringing to a halt almost all economic
trade between Iraq and its two western neighbours.
What good this will
do "new" Iraq is anyone's guess. Vast concrete walls have
been lowered across the road and military vehicles have been used to
chase away civilians trying to bypass them. A prolonged series of Israeli-style
house raids are now apparently planned for the people of Fallujah to
seek out the gunmen who first attacked the four Americans. The corpses
were stripped, mutilated and hanged.
The helicopter attacks
in Shoula - by ghastly coincidence the very same Shoula suburb in which
civilians were slaughtered by an American aircraft during last year's
invasion - looked like a copy of every Israeli raid on the West Bank
and Gaza. Indeed, Iraqis are well aware that the US military asked for
- and received - Israel's "rules of engagement" from Ariel
Sharon's government.
America's losses
over the past 48 hours - at least 12 soldiers killed and many wounded
- come nowhere near the number of Iraqi victims over the same period.
US forces in Sadr
City believe they were fighting up to 500 militia men from Sadr's black-uniformed
Army of Mehdi early yesterday. Even so, using Apache helicopters in
a heavily populated district to hunt for gunmen raises new questions
about the rules to which occupation troops are supposed to adhere.
The British fared
less badly in Basra, Iraq's second city, where they avoided violence
with militiamen who had taken over the town hall and wounded no one
in a brief gun battle. Spanish troops were again involved in shooting
with militiamen in Najaf. The grim truth, however, is that the occupying
powers are now facing insurrection of various strengths in almost every
big city in Iraq.
Yet they are still
not confronting that truth. For the past nine nights, for example, the
main US base close to Baghdad airport - and the area around the terminals
- has come under mortar fire.
But the occupying
powers have kept this secret. "Things are getting very bad and
they're going to get worse," a special forces officer said close
to the airport yesterday. "But no one is saying that - either because
they don't know or because they don't want you to know."
As for Sadr, he
will, no doubt, try to surround himself with squads of gunmen and supporters
in the hope that the Americans will not dare to shoot their way in to
him.
Or he will go underground
and we'll have another "enemy of democracy" to bestialise
in the approach to the American elections. Or - much more serious perhaps
- his capture may unleash far more violence from his supporters.
And all this because
Mr Bremer decided to ban Sadr's trashy 10,000-circulation weekly newspaper
for "inciting violence."
Copyright The Independent.
UK.