Deeper into morass

AN IRAQI WOMAN with her child as U.S. "surge" soldiers patrol near Baghdad. In an opinion poll conducted in Iraq by three global news organisations, six out of 10 respondents said the situation had worsened since the surge began. - DAVID FURST/AFP

The Bush administration still believes that the military can secure civilian life; the United Kingdom has acknowledged its failure to do so.

AS predicted by many analysts and commentators in the United States, the much-touted report by General David H. Petraeus, top commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq, has only provided a pretext for the George W. Bush administration to stay on in the mess it has created in that country.

Petraeus claimed before the U.S. Congress that the military objectives of the troop surge ordered by President Bush are in large measure being met. Petraeus also recommended the reduction of U.S. troop levels by 30,000 by August 2008. This means that 1,35,000 U.S. troops will still remain in Iraq. Petraeus, nicknamed General Betraeus by the U.S. troops fighting on the ground in Iraq, also claimed that the security situation in Iraq had improved since the surge began.

The four-star General cited the situation in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province as an illustration of the success of the surge. The Bush administration had sent in 30,000 additional troops to Iraq earlier in 2007 after the military surge was ordered.

Petraeus has previous experience in coming to the rescue of the White House. Before the 2004 presidential election, Petraeus wrote in The Washington Post claiming that the war in Iraq was going well and that there was tangible progress on the ground. The year 2004 was one of the worst years for the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq, with sectarian strife and suicide bombings reaching record levels. This time, Petraeus sole aim seems to be to provide the Bush administration with a rationale to stay on in Iraq until 2008, leaving the tricky decision of withdrawal of troops to a new administration.

Bush, in a televised speech to the nation soon after the Petraeus report, was quick to highlight the return to success in Iraq. He called for an enduring relationship with Iraq that would go beyond his presidency. He said that the war in Iraq was key to the overall U.S. strategy in West Asia to defeat Al Qaeda and confront Iran. For the first time since the Iraq war began, the U.S. President outlined plans for troop reduction.

This was a long-standing demand of the Democrats in Congress. Bush, however, committed himself to withdrawing only a token number of troops by July 2008 and leaving the main force behind. The number of U.S. soldiers who will remain in Iraq when Bush demits office will be higher than the number deployed in 2004.

Petraeus continues to insist that success could still be achieved in Iraq. He, however, told Congress that success will neither be quick nor easy. Since Bushs foolhardy victory accomplished speech in 2004, the administration has shifted benchmarks on what actually constitutes victory in Iraq.

There is no more talk of completely pacifying Iraq and setting up a democratic government representing all Iraqis. The limited goal seems to be to subdue forces such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and keep Iranian influence at bay. Washington has not even been able to get the Iraqi Parliament to approve the oil bill, which would have allowed U.S. oil companies to get windfall profits.

Within days after Petraeus appearance before Congress and Bushs self-congratulatory soundbites to the media, the U.S. main ally in the volatile Anbar province, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a tribal leader, was killed in a bomb attack. Al Qaeda was quick to claim credit for the assassination but reports from Iraq suggest that the Sunni resistance was responsible for it. Sheikh Abdul Sattar, who styled himself as the leader of the Sunni awakening, posed for the cameras with Bush when the U.S. President made an unannounced visit to Iraq in early September. He was killed 10 days later.

The Americans had persuaded some of the local tribes to side with them in the fight against Al Qaeda and Shia militias. Saudi Arabia has also been pumping in weapons and money to Sunni insurgent groups with the support of the Bush administration. Sunni leaders had accused Sheikh Abdul Sattar and others supporting the U.S. of embezzling millions of dollars and betraying the resistance. In Baghdad too, the U.S-led occupation forces are now supporting the Sunnis. Bush in his State of the Union address this year had said that Shia extremists are just as hostile to the U.S. as Al Qaeda and are also determined to dominate the Middle East.

The Sunday Times has revealed that the Bush administration is paying Sunni insurgents hundreds of thousands of dollars to switch sides and turn their firepower against the resistance. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk told noted columnist Seymour Hersh that the White House is not just doubling the bet on Iraq it is doubling the bet across the region.

Hersh writes that this new redirection by the Bush administration is bringing the U.S. closer to an open confrontation with Iran, and in parts of the region, propelling it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Hersh adds that a byproduct of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to the U.S. and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda is said to be responsible for only around 15 per cent of the attacks on the U.S. forces in Iraq. U.S. counter-insurgency specialists have estimated that Al Qaeda at the most has around 800 fighters in the country. The Sunni resistance, on the other hand, can marshal upto 1,00,000 dedicated fighters. The Sunni resistance has only a tactical alliance with Al Qaeda in Iraq.

General David H.

There is no love lost between the two groups as recent events have illustrated. The radical pan-Islamist views of Al Qaeda do not have many takers in Iraq. Sections of the Sunni resistance are no doubt enriching themselves with the largesse provided by Petraeus and thinking that the arms and the money will come in handy when the U.S. leaves Iraq.

As many analysts have noted, most of the ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and other major cities had taken place when the U.S. military surge began. Hence the slight decline in the number of civilians killed in recent weeks. Baghdad today is a city divided by high concrete walls, concertina wires and checkpoints. The walls built by U.S. contractors have come up after the U.S. military surge began earlier in 2007.

Baghdad, which until the U.S.-led invasion was known for its cosmopolitan culture, has now been divided into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish enclaves. Yifat Susskind from the womens human rights organisation Madre, which works closely with Iraqis, said that the Petraeus report did not reflect the facts on the ground. One of the most cynical things General Petraeus did was to celebrate the fact that there is a decline in sectarian violence. But that drop reflects the success of ethnic cleansing rather than anything the U.S. military has done. The reality is that there are places where killing is down because theres nobody left to kill, she said.

Professor Juan Cole, an expert on Iraq at the University of Michigan, said that most independent counts do not agree with the Pentagons estimates about the drop in civilian deaths in Iraq. The Bush administration evidently sticks to its belief that the military can provide the security for civilian life to develop. The United Kingdom has acknowledged its failure to do this in southern Iraq and has withdrawn the remnant of its forces to secure military fortifications in isolated areas. The U.K. government, acknowledging defeat, has already announced that it is withdrawing all its troops from Iraq. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report that the residents of Basra viewed the U.K.s withdrawal as an ignominious defeat. One hundred and sixty-eight U.K. soldiers were killed by the resistance. According to reports, Basra today is totally under the grip of three main Shia militias.

The U.K. pullout announced in late August seems to have come as a shock to Bush. Bush had strongly urged U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at least to delay the date for the full withdrawal. Southern Iraq today is virtually out of the control of the U.S-led occupation forces. The handful of countries that still have a token number of troops in Iraq are also on the verge of withdrawing.

Two retired U.S. generals, Lieutenant-General Robert Gard and Brigadier-General John Johns, released a statement criticising the continuous deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying that it was destroying the U.S. military. They said that the military deployment in Iraq distracted the U.S. from its more urgent missions in Afghanistan and providing enhanced homeland security. Allan Greenspan, former chairperson of the U.S. Federal Reserve under four Presidents, including George W. Bush, has written in his recently released memoirs that the war in Iraq was largely about oil.

According to a recent opinion poll conducted jointly by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, six out of 10 Iraqis believe that the security situation in Iraq has actually worsened since the U.S. military surge began. More than two-thirds of Iraqis feel that the increased U.S. military presence has only worsened security, set back the dialogue process between the Iraqi groups and slowed down the pace of reconstruction and economic development.

Half the population of Anbar province, about which the Bush administration has been going into raptures, said that the security situation was its biggest worry. The poll reported that factional fighting in Anbar had actually gone up in recent months.

Fifty-seven per cent of Iraqis who responded said that the violence against the occupation forces was justified. In early 2004, this figure was only 17 per cent. Ninety-three per cent of Sunnis remain totally unreconciled to the U.S. presence, contradicting the assertions of Bush and Petraeus about rising Sunni support for the occupation. The survey also found that only 29 per cent of Iraqis hoped for a better future, down from 70 per cent when the U.S. military surge began in early 2007.

According to Refugees International, nearly five million Iraqis have been displaced since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion. More than 2.5 million have fled the country and another two million are internal refugees living in squalid conditions. Every month, 1,00,000 Iraqis are being displaced and turned into refugees. Most of them head for Syria, which is already overburdened.

The U.S. so far has allowed only a few thousand Iraqi refugees to enter. According to a U.K. polling agency, Opinion Research Business, more than 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed since the military occupation four years ago.

Under the U.S-led occupation, Iraq has descended into absolute chaos and anarchy. In the 1980s, Iraq was among the most prosperous countries in the region. After the U.S. intervened, most of the professional class have voted with their feet and left the country. The infrastructure of the country remains shattered. Cholera epidemics are a frequent occurrence and child mortality figures are worse than those during the 1990s when Iraq was under economic sanctions. No wonder there is renewed nostalgia for the immediate past. The people at least got their rations on time, had access to health care and, more importantly, there was law and order.