America's
Crumbling Authority
By
Robert Fisk
Independent,
UK
21 August, 2003
What
UN member would ever contemplate sending peace-keeping troops to Iraq
now? The men who are attacking America's occupation army are ruthless,
but they are not stupid. They know that President George Bush is getting
desperate, that he will do anything - that he may even go to the dreaded
Security Council for help - to reduce US military losses in Iraq. But
yesterday's attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad has slammed shut
the door to that escape route.
Within hours of
the explosion, we were being told that this was an attack on a "soft
target", a blow against the UN itself. True, it was a "soft"
target, although the machine-gun nest on the roof of the UN building
might have suggested that even the international body was militarising
itself. True, too, it was a shattering assault on the UN as an institution.
But in reality, yesterday's attack was against the United States.
For it proves that
no foreign organisation - no NGO, no humanitarian organisation, no investor,
no businessman - can expect to be safe under America's occupation rule.
Paul Bremer, the US pro-consul, was meant to be an "anti-terrorism"
expert. Yet since he arrived in Iraq, he has seen more "terrorism"
than he can have dreamt of in his worst nightmares - and has been able
to do nothing about it. Pipeline sabotage, electricity sabotage, water
sabotage, attacks on US troops and British troops and Iraqi policemen
and now the bombing of the UN. What comes next? The Americans can reconstruct
the dead faces of Saddam's two sons, but they can't reconstruct Iraq.
Of course, this
is not the first indication that the "internationals" are
in the sights of Iraq's fast-growing resistance movement. Last month,
a UN employee was shot dead south of Baghdad. Two International Red
Cross workers were murdered, the second of them a Sri Lankan employee
killed in his clearly marked Red Cross car on Highway 8 just north of
Hilla. When he was found, his blood was still pouring from the door
of his vehicle. The Red Cross chief delegate, who signed out the doomed
man on his mission to the south of Baghdad, is now leaving Iraq. Already,
the Red Cross itself is confined to its regional offices and cannot
travel across Iraq by road.
An American contractor
was killed in Tikrit a week ago. A British journalist was murdered in
Baghdad last month. Who is safe now? Who will now feel safe at a Baghdad
hotel when one of the most famous of them all - the old Canal Hotel,
which housed the UN arms inspectors before the invasion - has been blown
up? Will the next "spectacular" be against occupation troops?
Against the occupation leadership? Against the so-called Iraqi "Interim
Council"? Against journalists?
The reaction to
yesterday's tragedy could have been written in advance. The Americans
will tell us that this proves how "desperate" Saddam's "dead-enders"
have become - as if the attackers are more likely to give up as they
become more successful in destroying US rule in Iraq. The truth - however
many of Saddam's old regime hands are involved - is that the Iraqi resistance
organisation now involves hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunni Muslims,
many of them with no loyalty to the old regime. Increasingly, the Shias
are becoming involved in anti-American actions.
Future reaction
is equally predictable. Unable to blame their daily cup of bitterness
upon Saddam's former retinue, the Americans will have to conjure up
foreign intervention. Saudi "terrorists", al-Qa'ida "terrorists",
pro-Syrian "terrorists", pro-Iranian "terrorists"
- any mysterious "terrorists" will do if their supposed existence
covers up the painful reality: that our occupation has spawned a real
home-grown Iraqi guerrilla army capable of humbling the greatest power
on Earth.
With the Americans
still trying to bring other nations on board for their Iraqi adventure
- even the Indians have had the good sense to decline the invitation
- yesterday's bombing was therefore aimed at the jugular of any future
"peace-keeping" mission. The UN flag was supposed to guarantee
security. But in the past, a UN presence was always contingent upon
the acquiescence of the sovereign power. With no sovereign power in
existence in Iraq, the UN's legitimacy was bound to be locked on to
the occupation authority. Thus could it be seen - by America's detractors
- as no more than an extension of US power. President Bush was happy
to show his scorn for the UN when its inspectors failed to find any
weapons of mass destruction and when its Security Council would not
agree to the Anglo-American invasion. Now he cannot even protect UN
lives in Iraq. Does anyone want to invest in Iraq now? Does anyone want
to put their money on a future "democracy" in Iraq?