[Peace-discuss] [Fwd: FW: Victory in Iraq]

[Alfred Kagan]

I am passing this on article on Nicky Dyal's request. She is doing fine.


>  > This is circulating via several NYTimes reporters. The author of it is a
>WSJournal reporter in Iraq. Truly scary - but not surprising.
>>  >
>>  >>
>>  >>Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these
>>  >>days is like being under virtual house arrest.
>>  >>Forget about the reasons that lured me to this
>>  >>job: a chance to see the world, explore the
>>  >>exotic, meet new people in far away lands,
>>  >>discover their ways and tell stories that could
>>  >>make a difference.
>>  >>
>>  >>Little by little, day-by-day, being based in
>>  >>Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house
>>  >>bound. I leave when I have a very good reason
>>  >>to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to
>>  >>people's homes and never walk in the streets. I
>>  >>can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat
>>  >>in restaurants, can't strike a conversation
>>  >>with strangers, can't look for stories, can't
>>  >>drive in any thing but a full armored car,
>>  >>can't go to scenes of breaking news stories,
>>  >>can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English
>>  >>outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm
>>  >>an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't
>>  >>be curious about what people are saying, doing,
>>  >>feeling.   And can't and can'tS.
>>  >>
>>  >>There has been one too many close calls,
>>  >>including a car bomb so near our house that it
>>  >>blew out all the windows. So now my most
>>  >>pressing concern every day is not to write a
>>  >>kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure
>>  >>our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am
>>  >>a security personnel first, a reporter second.
>>  >>
>>  >>It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point'
>>  >>exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah
>>  >>fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it
>>  >>when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the
>>  >>U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to
>>  >>ten percent of Iraq's population, became a
>>  >>nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was
>>  >>it when the insurgency began spreading from
>>  >>isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to
>>  >>include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's
>>  >>rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If
>>  >>under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under
>>  >>the Americans it has been transformed to
>>  >>'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy
>>  >>failure bound to haunt the United States for
>>  >>decades to come.
>>  >>
>>  >>Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.'
>>  >>When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the
>>  >>situation is very bad."
>>  >>
>>  >>What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi
>>  >>government doesn't control most Iraqi cities,
>>  >>there are several car bombs going off each day
>>  >>around the country killing and injuring scores
>>  >>of innocent people, the country's roads are
>>  >>becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of
>>  >>landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill
>>  >>American soldiers, there are assassinations,
>>  >>kidnappings and beheadings. The situation,
>>  >>basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.
>>  >>
>>  >>In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got
>>  >>injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so
>>  >>shocking that the ministry of health- which was
>>  >>attempting an exercise of public transparency
>>  >>by releasing the numbers-- has now stopped
>>  >>disclosing them.
>>  >>Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.
>>  >>
>>  >>A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr
>>  >>City yesterday. He said young men were openly
>>  >>placing improvised explosive devices into the
>>  >>ground. They melt a shallow hole into the
>>  >>asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt
>>  >>and put an old tire or plastic can over it to
>>  >>signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He
>>  >>said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were
>>  >>a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car
>>  >>snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them.
>>  >>Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to
>>  >>detonate them as soon as an American convoy
>  > >>gets near. This is in Shiite land, the
>>  >>population that was supposed to love America
>>  >>for liberating Iraq.
>>  >>
>>  >>For journalists the significant turning point
>>  >>came with the wave of abduction and
>>  >>kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe
>>  >>around Baghdad because foreigners were being
>>  >>abducted on the roads and highways between
>>  >>towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a
>>  >>journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me
>>  >>two Italian women had been abducted from their
>>  >>homes in broad daylight. Then the two
>>  >>Americans, who got beheaded this week and the
>>  >>Brit, were abducted from their homes in a
>>  >>residential neighborhood. They were supplying
>>  >>the entire block with round the clock
>>  >>electricity from their generator to win
>>  >>friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6
>>  >>a.m. when he came out to switch on the
>>  >>generator; his beheaded body was thrown back
>>  >>near the neighborhoods.
>>  >>
>>  >>The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no
>>  >>signs of calming down. If any thing, it is
>>  >>growing stronger, organized and more
>>  >>sophisticated every day. The various elements
>>  >>within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists
>>  >>and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.
>>  >>I went to an emergency meeting for foreign
>>  >>correspondents with the military and embassy to
>>  >>discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told
>>  >>our fate would largely depend on where we were
>>  >>in the kidnapping chain once it was determined
>>  >>we were missing.  Here is how it goes: criminal
>>  >>gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in
>>  >>Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al
>>  >>Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other
>>  >>way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the
>>  >>criminals. My friend Georges, the French
>>  >>journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has
>>  >>been missing for a month with no word on
>>  >>release or whether he is still alive.
>>  >>
>>  >>America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi
>>  >>police and National Guard units we are spending
>>  >>billions of dollars to train. The cops are
>>  >>being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700
>>  >>to date-- and the insurgents are infiltrating
>>  >>their ranks. The problem is so serious that the
>>  >>U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars
>>  >>to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get
>>  >>rid of them quietly.
>>  >>
>>  >>As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe
>>  >>for foreigners to operate that almost all
>>  >>projects have come to a halt. After two years,
>>  >>of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for
>>  >>Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so
>>  >>has been spent and a chuck has now been
>>  >>reallocated for improving security, a sign of
>>  >>just how bad things are going here.
>>  >>
>>  >>Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow
>>  >>routinely as a result of sabotage and oil
>>  >>prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel.
>>  >>
>>  >>Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth
>>  >>it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and
>>  >>Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?
>>  >>
>>  >>  Iraqis say that thanks to America they got
>>  >>freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what?
>>  >>They say they'd take security over freedom any
>>  >>day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.
>>  >>I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if
>>  >>Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for
>>  >>elections he would get the majority of the
>>  >>vote. This is truly sad.
>>  >>
>>  >>Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week
>>  >>to talk to him about elections here. He has
>>  >>been trying to educate the public on the
>>  >>importance of voting. He said, "President Bush
>>  >>wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would
>>  >>be an example for the Middle East. Forget about
>>  >>democracy, forget about being a model for the
>>  >>region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is
>>  >>lost."
>>  >>
>>  >>One could argue that Iraq is already lost
>>  >>beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground
>>  >>it's hard to imagine what if any thing could
>>  >>salvage it from its violent downward spiral.
>>  >>
>>  >>The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has
>>  >>been unleashed onto this country as a result of
>  > >>American mistakes and it can't be put back into
>>  >>a bottle.
>>  >>
>>  >>The Iraqi government is talking about having
>>  >>elections in three months while half of the
>>  >>country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands
>>  >>of the government and the Americans and out of
>>  >>reach of journalists. In the other half, the
>>  >>disenchanted population is too terrified to
>>  >>show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have
>>  >>already said they'd boycott elections, leaving
>>  >>the stage open for polarized government of
>>  >>Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as
>>  >>legitimate and will most certainly lead to
>>  >>civil war.
>>  >>
>>  >>I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his
>>  >>family would participate in the Iraqi elections
>>  >>since it was the first time Iraqis could to
>>  >>some degree elect a leadership. His response
>>  >>summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being
>>  >>blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents
>>  >>and murdered for cooperating with the
>>  >>Americans? For what? To practice democracy?
>>  >>Are you joking?"
>>
>>
>>


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

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fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu