On 1 May 2003 President Bush stood on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner proclaiming ‘Mission Accomplished’ and announced that ‘major combat operations are over’. Four years later to the day Bush vetoed a US Congressional bill calling for combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq next year and refused to set any date for the end of the occupation. Since the war began over 650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. 3,401 US and 148 British service personnel had been killed by early May 2007, 104 US and 12 British troops were killed in April. The so-called ‘surge’ of 20,000 extra US troops that began in mid-February is failing in its proclaimed objective to establish security by this summer. A further two US military brigades are to be deployed. JIM CRAVEN reports.
At the beginning of April the Iraqi government said civilian deaths had increased by 13% and the US military admitted that suicide and car bombs in the whole of Iraq had jumped 30% since the surge began. The year to the end of March was the bloodiest of the war so far, accounting for 50% of all Iraqi civilian deaths; 78% up on the previous year. Fatal suicide bombs, car bombs and roadside bombs had doubled and fatal mortar attacks had quadrupled. Even the heavily defended Green Zone in Baghdad, considered a sanctuary for imperialist and Iraqi puppet officials, was not safe. Resistance fighters attacked it on six occasions in the last week of March. Rocket attacks there killed a US soldier and a contractor. On 12 April a bomb attack by resistance fighters shook the Iraqi parliament building. On 24 April nine US soldiers were killed and at least 20 wounded in an attack on the US headquarters in Diyala.
April’s casualty toll was the greatest that British forces have suffered since the war began. General Sir Michael Rose, former commander of British forces in Bosnia, said it was time to pull out of Iraq to prevent more lives being lost. For the first time resistance fighters managed to penetrate the armour plating of a British Challenger tank, indicating that the new armoured vehicles ordered for both Iraq and Afghanistan to replace the Land Rover patrol vehicles will not offer sufficient protection. As Britain continued ostensibly to hand over control of operations in the south to Iraqi forces, a British government spokesman claimed ‘mission accomplished in Southern Iraq’. Reality is more reliably gauged from blogs posted by British soldiers serving there. Private Paul Barton wrote: ‘Basra is lost. It’s a full-scale riot and the government are just trying to save face. We were getting mortared every hour of the day. Every patrol we went on we were either shot at or blown up by roadside bombs. It was crazy. It’s a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits.’ The Ministry of Defence admitted that suicides in the armed forces rose by 49 last year.
Tours of duty for US troops have had to be extended from 12 to 15 months. Defence Secretary Robert Gates agreed that US forces were stretched. Mid-ranking officers are being offered $20,000 bonuses to stay in the armed forces. A poll indicated that over half the US population had no faith in the official military portrayal of the war. The Pentagon has banned all internet postings from personnel serving in war zones, supposedly for security reasons but more likely because of the increasing levels of criticism being voiced by US soldiers.
More imperialist atrocities
The imperialist forces and their stooges continue to extend their long list of war crimes. In March more than 20 Iraqis were killed and wounded by US troops in Sha’ourah Wajider village. Another 16 villagers were killed by US war planes in Sabaa west of Baghdad. Reports from Anbar province say US and Iraqi forces have been seizing people in home raids and executing them and killing others in random fire. Six women and children were injured when a US helicopter fired on a hostel in Diwaniyah during intense fighting with resistance fighters. A curfew imposed by the US and Iraqi forces meant wounded and dead bodies could not be removed from the streets and local people were running out of food and essential medical supplies. In the Sunni Al Wihda district of Tal Afar, Iraqi police were reported to be among a gang that went on the rampage killing up to 60 people. The Iraqi police are complicit in many of the sectarian killings and reprisals. The number of prisoners held without trial in Iraq has risen from 10,000 in 2003 to 18,000. An Amnesty International report criticised the Iraqi government for having executed more than 100 people and having another 270 under sentence of death. The report claims many prisoners only confessed under torture. At the beginning of April US Private Campbell pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and to murdering her family. He was given a 27-month prison sentence. In a Pentagon survey 10% of US troops admitted mistreating civilians and unnecessarily damaging property. One third of them said they believed torture should be allowed in order to save the life of a fellow soldier.
The Iraqi people were told the ‘surge’ would improve security, but they know it has done nothing for their safety. When four bombs killed more than 170 people in Baghdad in mid-April it was the US and Iraqi forces who were pelted with stones by local people for failing to protect them. The occupying forces are not concerned with civilian security. Their aim is to establish Iraq as a strategic base in the region. They are doing this by building at least four huge military bases in the country together with a massive fortified embassy in Baghdad. This military domination is essential to their primary objective of securing control of resources in the region. Recent reports suggest that oil reserves in Iraq may be twice as great as previously thought. To gain access to the oil, the imperialists, in collusion with the IMF, are imposing an oil law on the Iraqi people that would give western multinationals the opportunity to control over 80% of Iraqi oil with the prospect of huge profits. Only the problem of exploiting and getting the resources out of the country forces the imperialists to have any concern about problems of security and political stability.
Protracted war
Although the use of the term ‘surge’ was meant to suggest a short, sharp action before a phased withdrawal, the true plan is very different. The US has no intention of pulling out of Iraq in the foreseeable future. Anything that suggested a retreat would be a major blow to the US imperialist strategy of global domination through the use or threat of overwhelming military power. General David Petraeus, commander of the occupying forces in Iraq, has emphasised that the surge strategy will take time to achieve results. In a very revealing analogy he said, ‘Iraq is going to have to learn – as did Northern Ireland – to live with some degree of sensational attacks’. A former Pentagon official said ‘The timescale to succeed is years’.
The US plan is based on the counter-insurgency document FM3-24, drawn up by General Petraeus and Lt-General James Amos of the Marine Corps. This document proposes clearing resistance fighters from small areas of an occupied country one at a time and then ensuring the areas are held while efforts are made to build support for the occupation among residents in each zone. It warns that ‘Clear-hold-build objectives require lots of resources and time. US and host-nation commanders should prepare for a long-term effort’. It says the propaganda war – what it calls ‘control of the narrative’ and ‘shaping the information environment’ – are primary objectives. ‘Discredit insurgent propaganda and provide a more compelling alternative to the insurgent ideology and narrative’, the document suggests. One chapter is entitled ‘Lose moral legitimacy, lose the war’. Marines are described as ‘armed social workers’, while insurgents are labelled ‘amoral and often barbaric enemies’. The ultimate purpose of these operations is revealed at the end of a flow chart, where a big arrow points to ‘Establish a free market economy’.
Putting the plan into operation, the US forces are attempting to create ghettos in 30 out of the 89 districts of Baghdad. Each area is to be surrounded by walls or barriers of rubble and rubbish and continuously patrolled. Movement into and out of each area will be controlled by issuing ID cards, though movement outside the ghettos will also be restricted. In nine of the 30 areas joint US/Iraqi bases are being established. In the Adhamiya quarter of Baghdad work has started on a wall three miles long and 12 feet high to separate Sunni and Shia communities. It is a plan that will almost certainly fail. Quite apart from the impossibility of the imperialist and puppet forces gaining the moral high ground, FM3-24 proposes manning levels of 20-25 members of the security forces for every 1,000 residents, which would require the whole of the occupying forces stationed in Baghdad. The Iraqi police cannot be relied upon, for residents fear becoming their victims in sectarian arrests and killings. No amount of patrolling can keep out resistance fighters or prevent residents, angered by the restrictions within the zones, becoming new recruits to the struggle. Similar plans by imperialist occupiers in Algeria and Vietnam failed for these reasons. One Vietnam veteran said each zone in Baghdad would become a mini-Islamic republic.
The plan was tried out in the Iraqi town of Tal Afar; the local mayor told the US commanding officer, ‘What you are doing is an experiment and it isn’t right to experiment on people.’ Although President Bush proclaimed the trial in Tal Afar as a shining example of what could be achieved, the town quickly reverted to a resistance stronghold when the US forces withdrew. On 23 April, 2,000 Sunnis marched in protest at the Adhamiya wall saying their district was being turned into a big prison. One resident said ‘We’ll be like the Palestinians and we will not accept that’. The protest prompted Iraqi puppet Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to ask the US to stop building the wall. A US spokesman said, ‘Construction of security barriers across Baghdad will continue without exception’, though the new US ambassador Ryan Crocker is reported to have said the US military would respect the wishes of the Iraqi government. In a bizarre attempt to make the concrete barriers more palatable the Iraqi government has had some of them painted with Alpine-like mountain and meadow scenes. The residents have responded by painting scenes of the daily horrors they suffer.
Other aspects of US plans include placing up to five mechanised brigades – about 40,000 men – south and east of Baghdad, with at least three between Baghdad and the Iranian border in case of a US or Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. At least four senior Israeli officers attended the US staff course at which the plan was drawn up.
Resistance grows
A poll carried out by the BBC and several US media organisations in April showed that opposition to the occupation of their country is growing among the Iraqi people. 78% of the population now oppose the presence of US forces and believe they are making the security situation worse. This total includes almost all Sunnis and more than 70% of Shias. Three out of every five Iraqis believe that the US manipulates the levers of power. For instance, the Iraq National Intelligence Service is almost entirely funded by the CIA, receiving $3 billion since 2004.
In early April local people in Al Fadhil joined resistance fighters in a street battle against US and Iraqi forces after they had raided the local mosque and killed two men at early morning prayers. At least 36 civilians, including women and children were killed in the fighting. On 9 April Iraqis demonstrated in Najaf calling on US forces to leave the country. Some reports claimed hundreds of thousands were on the march, filling seven kilometres of highway. In a show of unity belying the so-called sectarian divisions, Sunni and Shia clerics marched together. Six ministers who are supporters of Moqtada Al Sadr withdrew from the Iraqi government because of Al Maliki’s refusal to set a date for withdrawal of occupying forces. Moqtada’s followers in the Mehdi militia had been involved in heavy fighting against the imperialist forces during the first years of the occupation and had become the prime target for the US ‘surge’. Moqtada’s response was to withdraw the Mehdi from direct confrontation, though many continued to fight. But on 22 April 800 Sadrists, including one of their leaders, Sheikh Qais Khazadi, were arrested by US and Iraqi troops. Moqtada accused Al Maliki of reneging on an agreement not to pursue the Mehdi and called on his followers once again to take up arms but to concentrate their effort against US military personnel not fellow Iraqis.
Democratic Party – war party
The US Congressional bill vetoed by President Bush was to provide a further $124 billion for the war. What Bush opposed was that the Democrat majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate had added amendments setting a date for US troop withdrawal from Iraq next year. Bush has since vetoed another Democrat amendment calling on funding to be granted in stages according to progress made. The amendments are not what they seem. They do not represent any genuine opposition to the war. The Democrats did not try to cut off the war chest (indeed Bush got more than he originally asked for) and the withdrawal amendment allowed troops to remain for non-combat purposes. The Democrats knew there was no chance of receiving the two-thirds majority needed to force Bush to accept the amendments. With support for the war and Bush’s approval rating down around 30% the Democrats are electioneering ahead of next year’s Presidential race. It was their apparent opposition to the war that gave them their Congressional majorities in last autumn’s elections. However, the Democrats want to continue the war in Iraq and expand the war in Afghanistan. They are at one with the Bush administration in blaming the Iraqis and wanting to impose benchmarks on the Iraqi government, including opening up Iraqi oil to imperialist exploitation. They removed the stipulation from the bill that Bush needed congressional approval before attacking Iran.
The Democrats’ concern is that present tactics in Iraq are damaging the wider interests of US imperialism. They want to defuse opposition at home and find better ways of stamping out anti-US resistance and Islamic fundamentalism. 70% of the US population opposed the sending of more troops to Iraq; the Democrats are misleading them. In the US, as in Britain, the only way to help stop the war is by independent mass political action.
Diplomatic manoeuvres
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Moualem in early May during a conference of representatives from Iraq, its neighbouring countries, the US and other members of the group of eight industrialised countries in Egypt. Rice encouraged Iranian representatives to attend. Such talks were rejected by Bush when first suggested by the Iraq Study Group last year. But the US administration is being forced to respond to the concerns of sections of the US ruling class and is now adopting a diplomatic approach alongside its raw demonstration of military power. It aims to create greater co-operation among all those with a vested interest in preventing radical changes in the region whilst using this unity to bring pressure on ‘rogue states’ such as Iran and Syria to fall in line. US imperialism’s chief ally in the region, Israel, is playing an important role in this strategy.
The Kurdish region of Iraq is due to hold a referendum on autonomy this year. Although this is the only region that supports the occupation, the US does not want to see the Kurds gaining control of the oil reserves there. Israeli intelligence officials have been working with Kurdish leaders to use the region as a base for Israeli operations in Iraq and to try and get a permanent US military base established there. The Turkish government also does not want to see an oil rich autonomous Kurdish state for fear that it will inspire the Kurdish liberation movement within Turkey’s borders. Turkey has massed troops on the Iraq border. Israeli war planes and commandos train in Turkey and the two countries co-operate on defence industries and intelligence. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert recently visited Turkey to discuss co-operation against Iran’s nuclear programme and ways of avoiding Turkish intervention in Kurdish Iraq. The US then announced it would attack PKK (Kurdish guerrilla) bases in Iraq.
Britain follows the line of equating anti-western interests with radical Islam. Gordon Brown recently told a meeting of Labour Friends of Israel that he wanted a new ‘cultural Cold War’ against Islamic fundamentalism, ‘not too dissimilar to that of the cultural cold war against communism in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s – backing what we do in security, military and intelligence’.
Rich profit from Iraqi suffering
A UN Population Department survey found a third of Iraqis were living in poverty with one in five totally destitute. Half a million people in Baghdad have no water for most of the day and electricity is available for three hours. A report by Save the Children said infant mortality in Iraq had increased by 37% since the invasion. In 2005, one in eight Iraqi children, a total of 122,000, died before their fifth birthday and more than half of these deaths were of new born infants. 900,000 Iraqi children have been orphaned since the invasion. Over one in five children’s growth is stunted due to malnutrition. Four million Iraqis, one in eight of the population, have been displaced from their homes since 2003. Half of them have fled the country. Now Jordan and Egypt are closing their doors to refugees and Syria is refusing to accept Palestinians who had been living in Iraq. Half of Iraq’s 15 central and southern governates are also turning away Iraqis displaced from other parts of the country unless they can prove they were born there.
While the horrors of life deepen for the poor in Iraq, sections of the imperialist ruling class and the Iraqi elite are enjoying huge benefits from the so-called ‘war on terror’. Since 9/11 pay for the Chief Executives of the top 34 US defence contractors has doubled. The boss of United Technologies ‘earned’ $200 million in that period. US Vice President Cheney received $24 million for ensuring Halliburton would be the main military contractor. Scores of contractors have pocketed millions of dollars out of Iraq.
British arms manufacturer BAE Systems is set to make a fortune from taking over the US firm that makes Humvee armoured vehicles. A new generation of machines is due for the imperialist wars. The British Government Accountability Office estimates there are 48,000 private military contractors working in Iraq. These mercenaries have the same immunity from prosecution as the regular occupying forces. Some have been filmed driving through Baghdad shooting randomly at people in the street. Yet Britain has spent £165 million on these security firms, a quarter of the so-called Iraqi aid budget. The Armor Group gained half its £129 million revenue last year from Iraq and is headed by Conservative MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
FRFI 197 June / July 2007
