Truth about Iraq?
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| Tue, 08-03-2004 - 8:19am |
http://globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=1030
'Can't Blair See that this Country is About to Explode? Can't Bush?'
The Independent (London) Sunday 01 August 2004
By Robert Fisk
The Prime Minister has accused some journalists of almost wanting a
disaster to
happen in Iraq. Robert Fisk, who has spent the past five weeks
reporting from
the deteriorating and devastated country, says the disaster has
already
happened, over and over again.
The war is a fraud. I'm not talking about the weapons of mass
destruction that
didn't exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'ida
which didn't
exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I'm talking
about the
new lies.
For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats
that did not
exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq
has fallen
outside the control of America's puppet government in Baghdad but we
are not
told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every month. But
unless
an American dies, we are not told. This month's death toll of Iraqis
in Baghdad
alone has now reached 700 - the worst month since the invasion ended.
But we
are not told.
The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident
at Saddam
Hussein's "trial". Not only did the US military censor the tapes of
the event.
Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11 other
defendants. But
the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe - until he reached the
courtroom -
that he was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he entered the
room he
believed that the judge was there to condemn him to death. This,
after all, was
the way Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he
initially looked
"disorientated" - CNN's helpful description - because, of course, he
was meant
to look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked
Judge
Juhi: "Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?" And swiftly, as he
realised
that this really was an initial court hearing - not a preliminary to
his own
hanging - he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence.
But don't think we're going to learn much more about Saddam's future
court
appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad
and the
man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi
press two weeks
ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings. And
I can see
why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he'll want to talk about the
real
intelligence and military connections of his regime - which were
primarily with
the United States.
Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous
experience.
I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq.
Westerners are
murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles and
American
trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few
hours
later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching Tony Blair,
grinning in the
House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating
competition; so much
for the Butler report.
Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days
is like
tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about to
implode?
Doesn't Bush realise this? The American-appointed "government"
controls only
parts of Baghdad - and even there its ministers and civil servants are
car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla,
Fallujah,
Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the "Prime
Minister", is little more than mayor of Baghdad. "Some journalists,"
Blair
announces, "almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq." He doesn't
get it. The
disaster exists now.
When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside
police
stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January? Even
the
National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections has
been twice
postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the past five
weeks, I
find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have
spoken to,
not a single mercenary - be he American, British or South African -
believes
that there will be elections in January. All said that Iraq is
deteriorating by
the day. And most asked why we journalists weren't saying so.
But in Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush telling his
Republican
supporters that Iraq is improving, that Iraqis support
the "coalition", that
they support their new US-manufactured government, that the "war on
terror" is
being won, that Americans are safer. Then I go to an internet site
and watch
two hooded men hacking off the head of an American in Riyadh, tearing
at the
vertebrae of an American in Iraq with a knife. Each day, the papers
here list
another construction company pulling out of the country. And I go
down to visit
the friendly, tragically sad staff of the Baghdad mortuary and there,
each day,
are dozens of those Iraqis we supposedly came to liberate, screaming
and weeping
and cursing as they carry their loved ones on their shoulders in
cheap coffins.
I keep re-reading Tony Blair's statement. "I remain convinced it was
right to
go to war. It was the most difficult decision of my life." And I
cannot
understand it. It may be a terrible decision to go to war. Even
Chamberlain
thought that; but he didn't find it a difficult decision - because,
after the
Nazi invasion of Poland, it was the right thing to do. And driving
the streets
of Baghdad now, watching the terrified American patrols, hearing yet
another
thunderous explosion shaking my windows and doors after dawn, I
realise what all
this means. Going to war in Iraq, invading Iraq last year, was the
most
difficult decision Blair had to take because he thought - correctly -
that it
might be the wrong decision. I will always remember his remark to
British
troops in Basra, that the sacrifice of British soldiers was not
Hollywood but
"real flesh and blood". Yes, it was real flesh and blood that was
shed - but
for weapons of mass destruction that weren't real at all.
"Deadly force is authorised," it says on checkpoints all over Baghdad.
Authorised by whom? There is no accountability. Repeatedly, on the
great
highways out of the city US soldiers shriek at motorists and open
fire at the
least suspicion. "We had some Navy Seals down at our checkpoint the
other day,"
a 1st Cavalry sergeant says to me. "They asked if we were having any
trouble.
I said, yes, they've been shooting at us from a house over there. One
of them
asked: 'That house?' We said yes. So they have these three SUVs and a
lot of
weapons made of titanium and they drive off towards the house. And
later they
come back and say 'We've taken care of that'. And we didn't get shot
at any
more."
What does this mean? The Americans are now bragging about their siege
of Najaf.
Lieutenant Colonel Garry Bishop of the 37th Armoured Division's 1st
Battalion
believes it was an "ideal" battle (even though he failed to kill or
capture
Muqtada Sadr whose "Mehdi army" were fighting the US forces). It
was "ideal",
Bishop explained, because the Americans avoided damaging the holy
shrines of the
Imams Ali and Hussein. What are Iraqis to make of this? What if a
Muslim army
occupied Kent and bombarded Canterbury and then bragged that they
hadn't damaged
Canterbury Cathedral? Would we be grateful?
What, indeed, are we to make of a war which is turned into a fantasy
by those
who started it? As foreign workers pour out of Iraq for fear of their
lives, US
Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a press conference that hostage-
taking is
having an "effect" on reconstruction. Effect! Oil pipeline explosions
are now
as regular as power cuts. In parts of Baghdad now, they have only
four hours of
electricity a day; the streets swarm with foreign mercenaries, guns
poking from
windows, shouting abusively at Iraqis who don't clear the way for
them. This is
the "safer" Iraq which Mr Blair was boasting of the other day. What
world does
the British Government exist in?
Take the Saddam trial. The entire Arab press - including the Baghdad
papers -
prints the judge's name. Indeed, the same judge has given interviews
about his
charges of murder against Muqtada Sadr. He has posed for newspaper
pictures.
But when I mention his name in The Independent, I was solemnly
censured by the
British Government's spokesman. Salem Chalabi threatened to prosecute
me. So
let me get this right. We illegally invade Iraq. We kill up to 11,000
Iraqis.
And Mr Chalabi, appointed by the Americans, says I'm guilty
of "incitement to
murder". That just about says it all.

Insightful article.
Blair & Bush are both delusional about the results in Iraq, IMO.
~Libraone~
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