FRFI 189 February / March 2006
The run-up to Christmas saw the usual ‘morale-boosting’ visits to Iraq from imperialist politicians, happy to pose alongside the machines of war that terrorise the Iraqi people and the soldiers they send to die. JIM CRAVEN reports.
Blair, Rumsfeld and Cheney all went and grinned and gave upbeat messages about troops coming home in 2006 and Iraqi elections defeating the insurgents. In the United States President Bush even managed to raise his popularity rating a couple of points from October’s all-time low with a series of flag-waving speeches. At the end of November, he told cadets at the US Naval Academy: ‘Our strategy in Iraq is clear…I will settle for nothing less than complete victory’. Bush claimed that 120 Iraqi army and police battalions were now ready to fight on their own and another 80 with US support. The Iraqi National Security Adviser, Muaffah Al Rubbaie, followed this up by claiming that Iraqi forces were ready to take control of 14 out of 18 provinces, that 30,000 occupation troops would be withdrawn in the first half of 2006 and the remainder by the end of 2007. This optimistic assessment, devised to re-assure the Iraqi electorate that an end to the occupation was in sight, was somewhat undermined when the Los Angeles Times revealed that the US forces had been paying the Iraqi press to pass off their propaganda as unbiased Iraqi accounts. A few days later Iraqi Vice-President Ghazi Al Yawer admitted that the training of Iraqi security forces was not gaining any momentum.
The cost of war grows
The reality on the ground in Iraq is very different from the US propaganda. According to the Brookings Institute, attacks by the Iraqi Resistance surged from 45 per day last March to 100 per day by October. In the same period the average number of US troops killed each week rose from 12 to 20. By the end of 2006 over 2,300 occupying troops had been killed, including 98 British soldiers, and over 16,000 troops had been wounded in action. Troops from Ukraine, Bulgaria and Norway all pulled out in December, leaving even more pressure on those from the United States and Britain, although those from Poland reversed their earlier decision to leave. The total cost of waging the war so far is around $250 billion, enough to ensure food, water, shelter, health and education for half the world’s poor. Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz has estimated that, even if occupation forces were to withdraw gradually over the next five years, the final budgetary cost of the war to the United States alone would be between $750 billion and $1,184 billion and the total economic cost as much as $1,854 billion.
The truth is the imperialists have no idea how they are going to extricate themselves from the quagmire. In a CBS/NY Times poll in December, 59% disapproved of how Bush was handling the occupation of Iraq and 70% believed he had no clear plan for withdrawal. A US government document published at the end of last year entitled ‘National Strategy for Victory in Iraq’ had no new ideas other than to stay the course. That they certainly will try to do no matter what the costs, for US and British imperialism cannot afford to admit defeat in Iraq. As US Vice-President Dick Cheney pointed out, failure in Iraq ‘would have major consequences for American security and interests in the region’ – not only in the region, for it would be a major blow to the US global strategy of military domination to secure economic and political supremacy.
Resistance grows in Middle East
Other challenges to US hegemony in the Middle East are adding to the imperialists’ worries. In Afghanistan the resistance to imperialist occupation has gathered momentum in the past few months. Resurgent Taliban fighters now control much of the country. Altogether more than 1,600 people were killed last year and the death rate is rising. In mid-January at least 28 people, including five Afghan soldiers, were killed in three separate incidents. Bombing raids by occupying forces killed at least another 26 people. An already overstretched British army is scheduled to commit a further 3,400 troops there this year. On 13 January, near the Afghan border, at least 18 Pakistani villagers, including women and children, were murdered by a US drone. It was supposedly targeting Ayman Al Zawahiri, Al Qaida’s second-in-command but he was not there. The incident provoked fresh tensions with the Pakistan government, an important new ally of the US in the region.
In Iran the government has defied threats from the imperialist countries and restarted its nuclear programme. The Labour government, as so often taking a lead in imperialist aggression, called a conference in London of the US and European imperialist nations to agree a joint plan to make Iran halt their programme or be condemned by the UN Security Council. If Iran does not comply the imperialists are threatening sanctions. Both the United States and Israel have implied military action may be taken against Iran but the Iranians remain defiant.
The imperialists, led by the United States and France, are also mounting pressure on Syria over the assassination of the Lebanese prime minister, allegedly at the hands of Syrian agents. A UN investigation into the killing is underway. The imperialists are looking for any lack of compliance by the Syrians as an excuse for further action against the country but the Syrians are not backing down.
Occupation creates more suffering for Iraqi people
In Iraq itself a poll found over 80% of the population are ‘strongly opposed’ to the occupation. Two-thirds of Iraqis said they feel less secure since the invasion than they did before. News footage broadcast in December showed some of the 20,000 mercenaries on whom the occupying forces rely driving through the streets, shooting at random at passing Iraqi civilians. Iraq Body Count estimates that between 27,000 and 30,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed due to the occupation alone. No one knows the total number of Iraqis killed since the war began but estimates from the Red Cross and others put it at between 80,000 and 100,000. Many of those Iraqis who could afford to do so have left the country. Some 400,000 now live in Jordan with thousands of others in Syria and the Gulf States. Poor Iraqis must stay and suffer. Around 40% are unemployed. 8% of Iraqi children suffer from acute malnutrition. Over two-thirds of Iraqi homes have no functioning sewage system. Electricity supplies operate at just 63% of demand. Rich nations who promised $13.6 billion for reconstruction have so far given less than 5%. The World Bank estimates the total cost of reconstruction to be $36 billion. Only around two thirds of the reconstruction projects planned by the United States have been started. More than 400 contractors have been killed. Corruption is rife. Robert Stein former comptroller of the Coalition Provisional Authority together with other officials has been charged with accepting bribes and kick-backs worth up to $200,000 a month.
Iraq has had to spend most of its investment budget importing oil because its refineries are in such a mess. Oil production barely reaches two million barrels per day compared with 2.5 million before the war. It sank to 1.2 million last November. The southern oilfields are being driven so hard that they risk being permanently damaged. The Iraqi oil industry desperately needs investment but even the biggest multinationals such as Exxon and BP are holding back until security improves, a legal framework is established and doubts about the unity of the country are settled. When they eventually move in they will expect very favourable terms. The oil industry monitoring organisation Platform estimates Iraq will lose $194 billion in such deals.
Government death squads assist occupation
Since the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), became the largest party in the interim government and took over Iraq’s interior ministry, the SCIRI-backed Badr militia has dominated the Iraqi police. The militia has carried out waves of murder, abductions and torture, particularly against the Sunni population. Izzat Al Shahbandar of the Shia Iraqi Accordance Movement accused the Iraqi government of exacerbating violence by colluding with the militias. The defence team in Saddam Hussein’s trial have repeatedly complained about their lack of personal safety but refused offers of security from the Iraq government saying: ‘It is the interior ministry that has offered to provide us with protection against these attacks, but it is the ministry itself that is planning the killings.’ Judge Rizzar Amin, who was leading the trial has resigned following threats to his life and accusations from Shia groups that he was being too lenient. Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said human rights abuse was as bad as under Saddam’s rule with ‘death squads’ linked to the government carrying out extra-judicial killings. Though no doubt correct, Allawi can carry little moral authority since it was he who assented to the massacres in Fallujah and Najaf by the occupying forces.
The imperialist forces have contradictory attitudes to this sectarian violence. On the one hand allowing the Shia death squads to terrorise anyone who dares to resist the occupation and encouraging sectarian violence; to keep the population divided is a well-tried counter-insurgency tactic as used by the British in Ireland and elsewhere. On the other hand they do not want sectarianism to result in the break-up of Iraq with an independent Kurdish state that would provoke a Turkish invasion, and a separate Shia state that would create a close ally for Iran.
Elections bring no relief for imperialists
Many of the Iraqi groups most prominent in the Resistance movement took part in the 15 December elections. Only the Association of Muslim scholars opposed the elections. The Islamic Army in Iraq called on the Resistance not to attack polling stations and voting went off without major incident. Moqtada Al Sadr, whose Mehdi army had fought many battles against the occupying forces, joined SCIRI in the United Iraqi Alliance for the elections. Voting broadly followed religious and ethnic lines with Shia, Sunni and Kurdish groups each achieving a majority where their populations were strongest. Iyad Allawi’s group, the National Dialogue Front, which was strongly favoured by the imperialist forces, did very badly.
The image of Iraq polarised into hostile and opposing groups and a country teetering on the brink of break-up helps the imperialists justify their occupation as a stabilising force. The reality is more complex than that. There are differences within the groups and common interests between them. Important developments that unite the Iraqi people against the occupation are seldom reported by the imperialist media.
Before the election Moqtada Al Sadr organised a conference to discuss a ‘Pact of Honour’. Organisations that attended included SCIRI, the Shia Al Daawa Party, the main Sunni electoral alliance the Iraqi Concord Front, trade unions, social organisations and even some government officials. Among the demands they agreed were:
• Withdrawal of the occupiers and elimination of all the consequences of their presence, including any bases for them in the country;
• Suppression of the legal immunity of occupation troops and the condemnation of their practices against civilians and their breaches of human rights;
• Categorical rejection of the establishment of any relations with Israel;
• Resistance is a legitimate right of all peoples but we condemn acts of violence, killing, abducting and expulsion aimed at innocent citizens for sectarian reasons;
• To postpone the implementation of the disputed principle of federalism and to respect the people’s opinion about it.
Any hopes the imperialists might have had that the elections would create a new attitude of compliance with the occupation and an improvement in the security situation were soon dashed. Fifty Iraqis were killed on 4 January and at least a further 130 were killed in two explosions the next day. On the same day five US soldiers were killed in Baghdad, two in Najaf and another four elsewhere. An oil pipeline was blown up and set on fire near Kirkuk.
The imperialist forces remain trapped. Peace will not return until they are dispatched.
