Don't Be Fooled
By The Spin On Iraq
By Jonathan Steele
13 April, 2005
The
Guardian
Saddam
Hussein's effigy was pulled down again in Baghdad's Firdos Square at
the weekend. But unlike the made-for-TV event when US troops first entered
the Iraqi capital, the toppling of Saddam on the occupation's second
anniversary was different.
Instead of being
done by US marines with a few dozen Iraqi bystanders, 300,000 Iraqis
were on hand. They threw down effigies of Bush and Blair as well as
the old dictator, at a rally that did not celebrate liberation but called
for the immediate departure of foreign troops.
For most Iraqis,
with the exception of the Kurds, Washington's "liberation"
never was. Wounded national pride was greater than relief at Saddam's
departure. Iraqis were soon angered by the failure to get power and
water supplies repaired, the brutality of US army tactics, and the disappearance
of their country's precious oil revenues into inadequately supervised
accounts, or handed to foreigners under contracts that produced no benefits
for Iraqis.
From last autumn's disastrous attack on Falluja to the huge increase
in detention without trial, the casualties go on rising. After an amnesty
last summer, the numbers of "security detainees" have gone
up again and reached a record 17,000.
The weekend's vast
protest shows that opposition is still growing, in spite of US and British
government claims to have Iraqis' best interests at heart. It was the
biggest demonstration since foreign troops invaded.
Equally significantly,
the marchers were mainly Shias, who poured in from the impoverished
eastern suburb known as Sadr City. The Bush-Blair spin likes to suggest
that protest is confined to Sunnis, with the nod and wink that these
people are disgruntled former Saddam supporters or fundamentalists linked
to al-Qaida, who therefore need not be treated as legitimate. The fact
that the march was largely Shia and against Saddam as much as Bush and
Blair gives the lie to that.
Some Sunnis attended
the march, urged to go there by the Association of Muslim Scholars,
which has contacts with the armed resistance. This too was an important
sign. Occupation officials consistently talk up the danger of civil
war, usually as an argument for keeping troops in Iraq. It is a risk
that radicals in both communities take seriously.
Moqtada al-Sadr,
the Shia cleric who organised the latest march, recently joined forces
with the National Foundation Congress, a group of Sunni and Shia nationalists,
to affirm "the legitimate right of the Iraqi resistance to defend
their country and its destiny" while "rejecting terrorism
aimed at innocent Iraqis, institutions, public buildings and places
of worship".
The key issue, now
as it has been since 2003, is for the occupation to end quickly. Only
this will reduce the resistance and give Iraqis a chance to live normally.
In a new line of spin - which some commentators have taken to mean that
the US is preparing for a pullout - US commanders claim the rate of
insurgent attacks is down.
The figures are
not independently monitored. Even if true, they may be temporary. Thirdly,
they fly in the face of evidence that suggests the US is failing. Most
of western Iraq is out of US control. The city of Mosul could explode
at any moment. Ramadi is practically a no-go area.
In any case, the
US is only talking of a possible reduction of a third of its troops
next year. This will still leave 100,000. The US argues that a complete
withdrawal has to be "conditions-related, not calendar-related"
or, as Blair puts it, there can be no "artificial timetable".
By that, they mean Iraq's security forces have to be strong enough to
replace the Americans and British, a totally elastic marker.
That is surely the
message that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, is giving this
week on his ninth trip to Baghdad since April 2003. Whenever there is
an alleged transfer of power to Iraqis, this time to a "government"
elected in a flawed poll, Rumsfeld comes with instructions.
His public warning
is for Iraq's leaders not to make any changes in the army and interior
ministries, or postpone the writing of a constitution. Behind the scenes,
he is probably telling them not to ask for a withdrawal timetable, and
sounding them out on the opposite. The US has indicated that it wants
permanent bases in Iraq, just as it does in Afghanistan - which is why
the joint Sadr-National Foundation Congress statement says the government
"will have no right to ratify any agreement or treaty that might
affect Iraq's sovereignty, the unity of its territory and the preservation
of its resources".
Poland has just
announced it is pulling out of Iraq at the end of the year, just as
Spain did last year. Italy is wavering on the verge of a similar decision.
If Blair wants to regain the trust he lost before the Iraq war, his
best approach would be to announce the same by May 5. He would help
Iraqis as well as himself.