War Isn't Over In Iraq

[Adam D]

The War Continues

by Maria Tomchick
June 17, 2003

The circus lions of the U.S. media faithfully refrained from reporting on the June 9th launch of the largest U.S. military offensive in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad, leaving Americans blissfully unaware that George W. Bush lied about more than the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's stage-managed victory celebration on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf was almost immediately contradicted by U.S. military officers in the field, who've repeatedly told the British press and wire service reporters that the war is far from over. In fact, BBC News (6/12/03) recently reported that, since May 1 when Bush declared the war largely won, there were 85 attacks on U.S. forces in May alone, triple the number of attacks in the previous month. The Guardian of London (6/13/03) reported that at least 10 U.S. troops have died and 25 been injured in the two weeks since the beginning of June, with more than a dozen strikes per day against U.S. troops in the past week alone. One horrible day last week was filled with 26 separate attacks against U.S. troops all over Iraq.

Military spokesmen in Qatar and Washington have told reporters that the new offensive was launched to flush out Saddam Hussein loyalists in a triangular area north and west of Baghdad, the reputed "Sunni triangle," which includes towns (like Fallujah) where U.S. troops have come under daily sniper fire since the beginning of the occupation. But many of the attacks have been made in areas outside of the "Sunni triangle," including Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, which U.S. military officers recently (prematurely) hailed as a model of security.

The charge that the offensive is aimed ostensibly at Baath Party members and other Saddam loyalists would hint that there is an organized resistance to be defeated. But both U.S. military spokesmen and reporters have pointed out that the resistance is scattered, "diverse," and not organized into any chain of command -- once again contradicting the Bush administration in Washington, which wants the American people to desperately believe that things are under control in Iraq. The official story goes like this: once the military cleans up the last vestiges of Saddam's militias (and hopefully finds Saddam himself), these attacks will go away.

Troops on the ground, however, have reason to doubt the official line. Few of their attackers have been revealed to be Baath Party loyalists.

Diverse Iraqi groups, from Shiites in the south to Kurdish groups in the north, organized militias long before the current spate of attacks against U.S. soldiers began to escalate in May. With the start of the war, as each successive city and town was abandoned by Saddam's troops, tribal groups and armed gangs quickly moved in and held sway. In larger cities, including Baghdad, neighborhoods organized their own militias. The first priority of newly formed political parties has been to hire men with guns to police their "turf." Even Iraqi exile groups returning to Baghdad -- most notoriously Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress -- immediately hired small personal armies. Widespread looting of police stations has made it all possible, allowing every household in Iraq to possess AK-47s or Kalishnikovs, while abandoned armed caches have provided grenade launchers and landmines to enterprising scavengers.

So far U.S. efforts to disarm the population have failed dismally, and no wonder. Crime and looting are still rampant in most cities and towns, where the streets remain deserted at night for safety reasons. Iraqi businesses close early to avoid robberies and Iraqi truck drivers carry automatic weapons to repel looters and hijackers. Iraqi women report a huge upsurge in rapes and child disappearances. Even the head of the Iraqi oil industry is deeply frustrated by the continued looting, even today, of newly-repaired Iraqi oil infrastructure.

A host of other ills plague Iraqis. With a lack of clean water, food, and medical supplies, Iraqis are suffering an upsurge in malnutrition and disease since the beginning of the war, according to U.N. aid agencies. The lack of security makes it nearly impossible to remedy these problems. Few Iraqi civil servants have returned to their jobs, because the U.S. Interim Authority hasn't issued any paychecks. Revenue that was supposed to be coming in from Iraq's oil fields has been stalled by continued looting -- and outright sabotage -- of the oil infrastructure, a nightmare scenario that may foreshadow the need for thousands of more U.S. troops just to guard Iraqi pipelines and pumping stations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Interim Authority remains sequestered behind high walls in one of Saddam's opulent palaces -- a symbol not wasted on embittered and embattled Iraqis. When Paul Bremer, the U.S.'s viceroy, travels outside of the compound, he rides in a bulletproof limousine surrounded by troops in armored vehicles. This prevents any assassination attempt, but also prevents any contact with ordinary Iraqi people and their concerns.

Even the failed search for weapons of mass destruction has frustrated Iraqis and turned them against the U.S. Interim Authority. Most Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein and now yearn for justice. Naturally, they want a war crimes tribunal. But such a trial requires evidence, and the U.S. military has fumbled the ball. By allowing major weapons sites and government buildings -- from major ministry buildings in Baghdad down to lowly police stations in outlying villages -- to be ransacked by looters who carried away file cabinets and computers, importance evidence has disappeared. U.S. search teams tasked with finding evidence for war crimes trials in Iraq are still languishing here in the U.S., waiting to be dispatched overseas.

Meanwhile, relatives of the people murdered by Saddam Hussein's brutal regime are being forced to dig up mass graves by themselves and attempt to identify the remains of their loved ones with no help from the U.S., Britain, or the U.N. International war crimes experts have warned that valuable information that could be used to convict Baath Party officials will be lost while Iraqis disturb mass graves and move remains. The U.S. Interim Authority has ignored this problem.

Even George Bush's and Tony Blair's outright lies about weapons of mass destruction have added to Iraqi hostility. While George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney attempt to soothe the U.S. press by saying that the search is continuing and that weapons of mass destruction will be found eventually, the seven U.S. military Site Survey Teams in Iraq are all sitting idle, having completely run out of places to look. And now the CIA has leaked information that shows the Bush administration knowingly presented false evidence to the U.N. and the American people. Iraqis understand the implications of this: the US attacked them for their oil, and not because Saddam Hussein was an international threat.

In the meantime, the new U.S. military offensive is not achieving its stated goals: no huge weapons caches have been found, few Baath Party members have been captured, Saddam is still at large, and attacks against U.S. troops continue all over Iraq. On Thursday, June 12, after three days of fighting in the Sunni triangle, the U.S.'s main nightmare scenario in Iraq came true: the main oil pipeline between Iraq's northern oil fields and Turkey was sabotaged near Kirkuk. While U.S. sources claim the pipeline ignited on its own, the pipeline was not being used at the time, and nearby residents of the village of Makhoul told reporters, "some Iraqis came and blew it up" to "stop the Americans taking the oil out to Turkey."

Clearly, the U.S.'s new offensive has nothing to do with rooting out a few leftover Baath Party supporters. Instead, it's a desperate bid to regain control in Iraq, where a heavily armed population is quickly turning against the U.S. occupation.

[bfp]

"the war isnt over in iraq"

i think the american people are aware of this. your going to have pockets of resistance here and there from the rep guard and the fayedeen. the american military are sitting ducks in baghdad and around other parts of the country(what do you expect?). in my opinion they have the balls to be the police of this dangerous country until we train their "police" to do so. this is far from over, i expected it. obviously you didnt, and that makes you look like a coward.

[Adam D]

You're failure of logic is nothing but humorous.

[bfp]

You're failure of logic is nothing but humorous.

please do explain. i think my point was clear, dumbass.

[Adam D]

Bush was insistent that it would be much, much less than that. Hell, the bastard claimed victory already. I guess if "success" means making a leader disappear, turning a nation into free ground for looting, increasing the economic turmoil, preventing necessary humanitarian supplies from being distributed, and turning the nation into a guerilla warzone, then I guess so.

[Infrared]

Originally posted by E-brake


Now we just need to clean up the mess, what else is new we still have troops in Korea, Germany, Japan.....you act like this is some big shock that we would have troops there.

Yes, that's very true.....and how many years have we had troops int hat region...and WHY are they still there? (ok, Korea can possibly be understood, but what of the others?)

America needs to stop this nonsense of policing other countries, especially decades after the initial reasoning.

[Adam D]

Originally posted by E-brake
Well the nation ws freeground for looting,

Which is it? Either Hussein kept a tight leash on the people, in which case it didn't happen, or he wasn't as authoritarian as he was painted, in which case it was happening before. There isn't any proof of the latter, certainly not at the level it happened after US troops rolled through.

was up to its ass in economic turmoil,

I agree. Mostly due to UN sanctions in the 90's. Before the first gulf war, Iraq was the most modern, most rights oriented place in the Middle East.

and didnt have any humanitarian supplies before,

Again, thanks to UN sanctions and US/UK efforts to block shipments of aid, even up to the days right before the war. Can't waste food on people the troops need to kill.

the big diffrence is that before it was their leader doing the looting, and the government carrying out the guerilla warfare on its own people.

The official purpose of the war...REMOVE Sadam from his leadeership position. DONE WE DID IT

Sure, and replaced him with a US occupational force that is just as uncaring and seemingly bent on killing the population for speaking out against the government as Saddam was.

The unofficial but we all know it was a purpose of the war...STABALIZE the oil supply that you me, and every other american depends on every day DONE WE DID IT

That's great and all, but for some people human life is of more value than oil supply stability. The problem behind your claim is twofold. One, OPEC stated that they would ensure supply levels remained sufficient because they were trying to offset support for Alaskan drilling. Two, the US has not secured the oil infrastructure in Iraq, see the article above.

Now we just need to clean up the mess, what else is new we still have troops in Korea, Germany, Japan.....you act like this is some big shock that we would have troops there.

It's not a shock, nor is it just troops stationed there, the fighting is still going on. For more argumentation, see Infrared's post.

The fact is we live in a brain washed society that thinks that everything should be over in two hours just like a hollywood movie, well real life does not work that way it takes time. Just like it will take time prob ten years or more before the people of Iraq can learn to live in freedom, we took a bunch of people that have been living in the 1700's and gave them the opportunity to step into the modern age and its going to take time, a lot more time.

I know you like to think everybody outside of the US is uncivilized and backwards, but they aren't. The Iraqi people would have known freedom a long time ago were it not for US efforts to place Saddam in power and arm him with the weapons to kill his own population.

[Adam D]

Well, if that's justified, then obviously this nation's youth ought to engage in a similiar method of redistribution of wealth.

[Element4040]

Sure, and replaced him with a US occupational force that is just as uncaring and seemingly bent on killing the population for speaking out against the government as Saddam was.

While we can agree that the US occupational force may not be doing the most bang up of jobs over there. I must strongly disagree with your comparisons to the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein!

Alot of the demonstrations (not all) are being staged and supported by Iranian Shia clerics. Their are many hands at play and alot of the information coming out about the opposition to the Americans is being shown by the media because conflict makes better news than acceptance. I would be willing to guess that for as many Iraqi's that oppose the US occupation in the short term there are just as many that support it. Where is their voice? They don't have one, because no one wants to read about that. If you are reading BBC, and there are 2 articles. One is entitled Iraqi's show support of US government and the other is Iraqi's stage protest and throw rocks at US soldiers, which one are you going to read? I'm not the best at making arguments, but hopefully you guys can see what I'm getting at.